Bias in the British Media

This is a letter which I came across when I was in the UK recently. The author is a Mrs L Ordmann. The material may be of some use to people in general to understand the Palestinian media machinery.
Elaine

Further to your story "BBC bias favours Israel" (Jewish News 25th June) and the letters this provoked (Jewish News 2nd July), I can give several reasons as to why the British media (the BBC very much included) is definitely biased against Israel.

First the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) according to the Independent, has 12,000 Palestinians working for it. UNRWA has a professional media department that assists the PA and the Palestine broadcasting corporation (PBC} in providing visiting press with information and services.

Second, foreign news agencies are provided with top-notch professional services from the Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre (JMCC). This Palestinian organisation provides camera crews, translators and transportation to carefully selected interviewees. The JMCC is run by a close associate of Yasser Arafat and is heavily subsidised by the Ford foundation. Israeli TV crews cannot compete and therefore, Palesinians strongly influence the narrative and images that appear in the western media.

Thirdly, the Palestinian press service (PPS), founded by Yasser Arafat's mother in law provides assistance to visiting journalists and conducts training seminars in media relations. It joined forces with the Palestinian Human Rights Information Centre (PHRIC), and is also funded by the Ford foundation. Amnesty International acknowledges that their organisation "views the PHRIC as an objective information source". PHRIC seminars instruct "students" to steer every media interview to the same themes. They must recite the standard litany of complaints about Palestinian "oppression", the "occupation", "human rights abuses", "racism" etc. By framing the conflict as a human rights issue, the Palestinians have succeeded in convincing many journalists on some level at least, that every act of terrorism against Israeli civilians is not a crime, but a legitimate response to human right abuses. A fourth reason for bias is the way these Palestinian media professionals deceive and pressurise the media for political advantage. In their attempt to convince the world that the IDF massacred hundreds of civilians in the Jenin refugee camp, they used animal carcasses to fill the air with the stench of rotting flesh in places where reporters and UN officials were likely to visit.

Foreign reporters are intimidated if they embarrass the PA with, for example, reporting incidents of Palestinian incitement. They subsequently lose access to Palestinian areas and officials, making it impossible to fulfill the huge demand for news of the conflict. The Italian journalists that distributed pictures of the murder and mutilation of the two IDF sodiers in the Ramallah Police station were forced to apologise and promise never to repeat such action. Finally, since 1993 the PA has received US$4bn from the European Union alone. The unfortunate Palestinian people have seen little of this. However, Arafat and his media machinery have made sure that it has been well used in the propaganda war against Israel. Meanwhile, Israel relies on amateurs to promote its case.

(Mrs) L Ordmann