{"id":305307,"date":"2026-02-23T02:49:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T02:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/305307\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T02:49:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T02:49:13","slug":"the-bbc-and-the-one-sided-land-dispute-camera-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/305307\/","title":{"rendered":"The BBC and the One-Sided Land Dispute < CAMERA UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the last two weeks the BBC has produced a large amount of coverage on new Israeli legislation on land registration in Judea and Samaria. The legislation<\/a>, which rolls back a Jordanian ban on sale of land to Jews, opens previously confidential land registers, allows the Israeli government to register ownership of land in Area C and expands Israeli responsibility for the maintenance and development of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, was announced at the same time as Mahmoud Abbas allowed publication<\/a> of the draft constitution<\/a> of a future Palestinian State, which claims Jerusalem as its capital, erases Jewish connection to both the land and holy sites, enshrines the right of return of millions of Palestinians into sovereign Israeli territory, and declares Sharia as the basis of Palestinian law. Two declarations which seem to perfectly encapsulate the deep disputes that still remain between the two sides of this conflict. The BBC however, only reported one of them.<\/p>\n

The BBC reporting of the changes to land registration can be summed up in this question by Anna Foster<\/a> to Middle East Correspondent Yolande Knell<\/a> about the agenda of Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s visit to the US:<\/p>\n

Foster: \u201cwe\u2019ve seen this\u00a0week new steps by the Israeli Government towards\u00a0the\u00a0de\u00a0facto\u00a0annexation\u00a0of the occupied West Bank.\u00a0How much are they likely to be discussed?\u201d<\/p>\n

De facto annexation became the frame by which this was reported, not an allegation or an opinion, but a settled fact sometimes attributed to UN officials, sometimes Palestinian or Arab leaders, sometimes Israeli ministers and sometimes without any attribution at all.<\/p>\n

On BBC News 24 on February 16th:<\/p>\n

\u201cArab countries\u00a0are accusing Israel of violating\u00a0international law after it announced\u00a0plans to advance the registration of\u00a0parts of the occupied West Bank as\u00a0Israeli state land. Palestinians say\u00a0it will lead to a\u00a0de\u00a0facto\u00a0annexation\u00a0of the territory, which\u00a0they want as part of an independent\u00a0state of their own.\u201d<\/p>\n

On The Newsroom<\/a> programme of February 19th:<\/p>\n

Charlotte Gallagher: \u201cThe future of the Gaza Strip hangs in limbo, and now a senior United Nations official has warned that Israel\u2019s plan to tighten its control of parts of the occupied West Bank is a serious concern. Rosemary DiCarlo was speaking at a UN Security Council session in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosemary DiCarlo: \u201cWe are witnessing the gradual de facto annexation of the West Bank as unilateral Israeli steps steadily transform the landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, the accusation of de facto annexation was repeated at least 71 times across BBC broadcast and radio in the two weeks beginning February 8th, while there was not one mention of the new Palestinian constitution in the same period.<\/p>\n

The BBC mantra<\/a> that Israeli actions in Judea and Samaria are \u201cillegal under international law\u201d fails to inform audiences that the opposing legal opinion, held by many legal scholars rather than just the Israeli state, holds that rather than representing a belligerent occupation under the Geneva Convention<\/a>, Judea and Samaria, or the West Bank, is actually disputed territory. The developments and discourse on both sides of that dispute in the last two weeks encapsulate that position. Israeli Ministers such as Bezalel Smotrich have indeed made statements<\/a> about de facto sovereignty and moves designed to \u201ckill the idea of a Palestinian state\u201d while the maximalist demands of the Palestinian constitution<\/a> involve the occupation of the holiest sites in Judaism while explicitly excluding the rights of Jews:<\/p>\n

\u201cArticle 3 \u2013 Jerusalem, religious nature, historical identity<\/p>\n

Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Palestine, and its political, spiritual, cultural, and educational center, as well as its national symbol.<\/p>\n

The state is committed to preserving its religious character and protecting its Islamic and Christian sanctities, as well as its legal, political, and historical status.<\/p>\n

Any measures to change its character or historical identity are considered null and void according to international law.<\/p>\n

Article 4 \u2013 Islam, Sharia and Christianity<\/p>\n

Islam is the official religion in the State of Palestine.<\/p>\n

The principles of Islamic Sharia are a primary source for legislation.<\/p>\n

Christianity has its status in Palestine, and its followers\u2019 rights are respected.\u201d<\/p>\n

And demands the forcible immigration of potentially millions of Palestinians into the state of Israel under the \u201cright of return\u201d a move seen by many as intended to destroy the Jewish state by forcing a shift in demographic majority:<\/p>\n

\u201cArticle 12 \u2013 Unity of land, diaspora<\/p>\n

The State of Palestine works toward the unity of the land and the people in the homeland and the diaspora, and is committed to achieving independence and ending the occupation and ensuring the right of return for refugees according to international legitimacy resolutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The BBC\u2019s decision to only report on one of these simultaneous developments follows the well-worn path of removing Palestinian agency and responsibility, and framing only Israeli actions as worthy of scrutiny. In BBC coverage Palestinians are only ever acted upon by nefarious Israeli policy, never political actors making decisions of their own. This framing positions Israel as a uniquely and arbitrarily unfair and oppressive nation, rather than as one party to a decades long land dispute, and erases Palestinian wishes and intentions entirely.<\/p>\n

In order to meet its obligations to provide audiences with balanced and fair reporting the BBC would have to consider the Palestinian people as equally capable of being political actors in their own right. Something which unfortunately happens all to rarely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the last two weeks the BBC has produced a large amount of coverage on new Israeli legislation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[153657,1705,117944,153658,42,112,43,5243,40,38,41,39,153659],"class_list":{"0":"post-305307","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-anna-foster","9":"tag-bbc","10":"tag-bbc-radio-4","11":"tag-bbc-world-service","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-judea-and-samaria","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-palestinian-authority","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-yolande-knell"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}