Perfidious BBC

In the past, I’ve criticized the BBC for its coverage of Palestinian terrorism and those who support it. Today, Natalie Solent, posting at Biased BBC, was pleased to see the BBC using the phrase “Palestinan violence”, along with its acknowledgement that “Israel sees the barriers as vital to stop suicide bombers flooding into its cities to terrorise the civilian population."

I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies, but I don’t think this marks a sea change in the BBC's attitude towards terrorist violence in the Middle East. The BBC’s Alan Little explained the Corporation’s stance on terrorism in an analysis piece for BBC News back in December 2001.

The BBC’s terror creed has three key tenets.

1. Terrorists are motivated by legitimate grievances.
2. Fighting terrorism directly is futile, “ the harder you hit it, the stronger it seems to grow”.
3. The War on Terror is US hypocrisy; America is as guilty of state terrorism as Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Iran and Libya.

I imagine it’s this sort of thing that prompts Natalie Solent to call the BBC “traitors to the civilisation they claim to represent”. The charge is not preposterous.

These days, British licence payers are a small minority of the BBC’s customers, it caters largely to an international audience. If that involves working against Britain’s interests then, as Greg Dyke made clear in April, the BBC will put its audience before its country every time.