Op-Ed video: How BBC coverage is enabling Israeli violence
The BBC’s coverage of Israel’s Al-Aqsa raids was not neutral, or even accurate. It was meant to lull audiences into accepting Israeli violence as always justified, and Palestinian resistance as always abhorrent, argues journalist and author Jonathan Cook.
Israeli forces attacked dozens of Palestinian worshippers inside Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, and forcibly removed them from the site where they were peacefully observing the holy month of Ramadan.
"As it so often does, the BBC stripped out vital context," said Cook.
"It quoted uncritically from an Israeli police statement that referred to the Muslims at Al-Aqsa as 'agitators'. It [the BBC] didn't act as a neutral, objective reporting organisation.
"A central unstated premise at the heart of the BBC's reporting was made explicit in its headline. It referred to Al-Aqsa as a 'contested holy-site'. But Al-Aqsa is only contested in the imagination of the most extreme Israeli government ministers and a craven BBC," he added.
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