Orla Guerin came under fire for her report on the Palestinian Boy

LONDON, April 1 (IslamOnline.net) – Israel launched ready-made accusations of anti-semitism against the BBC for a report on a 16-year-old Palestinian boy who allegedly was to blow himself up at a checkpoint last week.

Israel's Minister for Diaspora Affairs Natan Sharansky complained that the corporation’s correspondent Orla Guerin had portrayed the army's handling of the detention of Hussam Abdu as “cynical manipulation of a Palestinian youngster for propaganda purposes”.

The fresh anti Semitic episode accused the correspondent, in a letter complaint written to the British corporation on Tuesday, March 31, of “total identification with the goals and methods of the Palestinian 'terror' groups,” The Guardian said.

This revealed “a deep-seated bias against Israel,” Sharansky claimed.

The complaint is the second by the Israeli government in less than a year, when it boycotted the corporation imposed on June 2003 for the broadcast of a documentary on Israel’s secret programs for weapons of mass destruction.

It also comes as several foreign news organizations complain of increasing government pressure to report stories in a way to identify the Palestinian Intifadah against occupation with global terrorism, the British newspaper said.

Earlier on March, when Israel caught a Palestinian boy at an army check point, “Israeli embassies called news editors to insist they cover the story and warn that failure to do so would be viewed as bias against Israel.”

For their failure in reporting the story, the Guardian said, Israeli officials prevented some editors from receiving dossiers on individual reporters as they singled out organizations such as Sky News for allegedly having an anti-Israel agenda.

The story, however, was emailed by the Israeli government around the world and reproduced it on official websites.

PR Advantage

Consequently, the reporting of the story of Abdu came from a Tel Aviv press point of view who called for the expulsion of correspondents from Sky, the Times and several French papers, the paper said.

The entire event was under “Israeli army control,” which meant that “we were not allowed to get his [the child's] version of events,” Guerin said in her report on Abdu last week.

She noted also Israel's desire to gain a public relations advantage from the detention.

The army “paraded the child in front of the international media”, and observed that journalists had been prevented from asking him questions and therefore were left only with the army's account of the arrest, Guerin said.

Orla Guerin joined the BBC as a news correspondent in 1995 and became the BBC's Middle East correspondent in January 2001.

She was nominated for a Bafta award for her documentary on the group for BBC's Correspondent program.

Pressures

For the Guardian, it was much more bravely clear on the issue.

“There is little doubt that the Israeli government viewed the boy's arrest as of considerable propaganda value. Israeli embassies urged newspapers across the globe to run the story as part of a campaign by the government to highlight the use of children as potential suicide bombers,” the paper said.

Last month, the Israeli foreign minister Silvan Shalom pulled out of an interview on Sky's Sunday with Adam Boulton after the show refused to cancel an appearance by the Palestinian representative in London.

CNN sources say the network has bowed to considerable pressure on its editors. Israeli officials boast that they now have only to call a number at the network's headquarters in Atlanta to pull any story they do not like, according to the Guardian.

Better Image

Observers said that for Israel to link children to bombing attacks is an attempt to improve its world image, tarnished by targeting innocent civilians including women and children.

A seven-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead while playing in front of his house during an Israeli raid in a West Bank city Saturday, March 27. His family said the child was killed in cold blood.

On Sunday, March 7, another 7-year-old boy was killed in cold blood by an Israeli bullet in the neck during a raid in Gaza Strip.

What Is Anti-Semitism?

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, anti-Semitism is hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious or racial group.

It was coined in 1879 by German agitator Wilhelm Marr to designate the anti-Jewish campaigns underway in central Europe at that time.

However, Richard Levy, a professor of History in Chicago, had told IslamOnline.net the term is often misused when Jews and others “refuse to see any difference between criticism of Israeli policies and anti-Semitism”.

“Anti-Semitic charges are sometimes employed to stifle objections to anything the Israelis want to do or have done”.

A French play and a Norwegian painting became the latest victims of the heavily-used charges resulting in the cancellation of the play and removing the Norwegian painting from the gallery.

Mel Gibson’s new movie “Passion for the Christ” also came under fire accusing it of fueling anti-Semitism.

Last month, a diplomatic row erupted in neighboring Sweden when the Israeli ambassador was kicked out of the National Gallery of Antiquities after vandalizing a work of art in January, saying it was a terrible insult to the Israeli people.