The BBC has been forced to apologise after an outrageous exchange between a BBC presenter and the former leader of Israel took place live on air this week where Israel was accused of being “happy to kill children”.
In the Tuesday night interview, BBC presenter Anjana Gadgil asked former Israeli leader Naftali Bennett: “The Israeli military are calling this a ‘military operation,’ but we now know that young people are being killed, four of them under eighteen.
“Is that really what the military set out to do? To kill people between the ages of 16 and 18?”
Responding, Bennett said: “Quite to the contrary. Actually, all 11 people dead there are militants. The fact that there are young terrorists who decide to hold arms is their responsibility.”
Bennet then explained how the the Jenin camp is headquarters for terror groups that have carried out attacks that have killed dozens of Israelis over the past year that either came from the Jenin camp or were trained there. (Additionally, Jenin was a refuge for terrorists fleeing attacks committed against Israeli civilians).
He added: “Jenin has become an epicentre of terror. All the Palestinians that were killed were terrorists in this case.”
Gadgil then interjected: “Terrorists, but children. The Israeli forces are happy to kill children.”
An angry Bennett then said: “It’s quite remarkable that you would say that because they [the terrorists] are killing us.”
After the ex-Israeli PM asked how she would define an armed 17-year-old shooting at her family, she doubled down and with a slight smirk on her face cited the UN which has wrongly “defined [the militants] as children.”
Gadgil then emphasises that this is a “targeted attack” and tries to again smear Israel as targeting children. Which is a lie.
Bennett explained that a 17-year-old with a gun can still kill someone before he said, “there is a fundamental difference between what they’re doing, which is explicitly and deliberately targeting civilians and what we’re doing which is targeting terrorists. That’s exactly the opposite. We’re doing the right thing, they’re kill civilians, and the fact that you’re creating this moral equivalent, or even worse, I think is unacceptable.”
There was rightly a strong backlash to the interviewers questions. The backlash was so intense on social media that Anjana Gadgil chose to delete her Twitter account rather than face questions online.
המראיינת מה-BBC העזה לטעון בפניי ש״חיילי צה״ל שמחים להרוג ילדים״ (!).
ממש במילים אלה.
צפו בתשובה שלי.
(מתוך ראיון שלי הערב ל-BBC). pic.twitter.com/RUTZfdmAfo— Naftali Bennett בנט (@naftalibennett) July 4, 2023
Palestinian Media Watch have helped to highlight some of the child soldiers used by Palestinian terror groups.
The BBC's "children" were actually fully armed terrorists. The teen terrorists' deaths are tragic, but the Palestinian terror organizations are solely responsible for pushing teens into terror. Make sure @UN & @BBC see this and demand an apology for this disgraceful libel! pic.twitter.com/zrjrrvQdjx
— Pal Media Watch (@palwatch) July 5, 2023
Clearly this is a blood libel against Israel. The narrative is that “Israel kills children”, when the reality is that Palestinian terrorists are recruiting children and sending them into battle. The one breaking international and human rights laws is the terror groups, not Israel.
David Collier, an investigative journalist and a stalwart defender of Israel tweeted his thoughts on the issue saying that the media is choosing to blame Israel instead of the terrorists and in doing so “hold the Jewish state to a different standard” than the rest of the world. In other words, they’re being antisemitic.
The Palestinians terror groups turn children into killers.
They take children – train them, arm them, and teach them to see Jewish civilians as the target.
BBC, CNN and SKY don't want you to know about this – and instead criticise Israel for defending itself. 1/2
— David Collier (@mishtal) July 7, 2023
A BBC spokesperson told the Jewish Chronicle: “BBC News has received comments and complaints concerning an interview with Naftali Bennett broadcast on the BBC News channel about recent events in the West Bank and Israel.
“The complaints raised relate to specific interview questions about the deaths of young people in the Jenin refugee camp.
“The United Nations raised the issue of the impact of the operation in Jenin on children and young people.
“While this was a legitimate subject to examine in the interview, we apologise that the language used in this line of questioning was not phrased well and was inappropriate.”
However, the corporation stressed the BBC covered the wider events in Jenin in an “impartial and robust way.”
We are not entirely convinced and think there have been a number of issues concerning the BBC’s reporting, including the possible justification for attacks against Israeli civilians.
Additionally, the Jewish Chronicle revealed this week that BBC Arabic has had to issue more than 130 corrections over complaints of anti-Israel bias.
The above blood libel from the BBC is presenter, it seems, is not an isolated issue.
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