jeremy bowen and the gaza conflict

www.bbcwatch.co.uk 1

JEREMY BOWEN

AND

THE GAZA CONFLICT

DECEMBER 2009

TREVOR ASSERSON

ARIELLA KALMS

ROBIN STAMLER


TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction and Executive Summary……………………………………………..1

II. Methodology………………………………………………………………………2

i) Selection of Material………………………………………………….2

ii) Analysis of Material…………………………………………………..2

III. Overall Lack of Balance of Bowen Reporting……………………………….…..2

IV. Human Interest Interviews.....…………………………………………………….4

V. The Bowen Diary………………………………………….……………………….5

VI. Gaza Out of the Ruins – Panorama – 9 February 2009…………………………..8

VII. Conclusion re Gaza out of the ruins…………………………………………….13

Biographies

Trevor Asserson is a UK solicitor and the principal of Asserson Law Offices. He was

previously for many years the head of litigation of one of the UK’s leading firms.

Ariella Kalms is a lawyer recently called to the bar, presently studying for her masters

in Public Law.

Robin Stamler is a research scientist and doctor. He is involved in biotechnology

projects in the field of renewable energy.


JEREMY BOWEN – AND THE GAZA WAR

I Introduction and Executive Summary

On 15 April 2009 the BBC Editorial Standards Committee found that remarks made

by its head of Middle East reporting, Jeremy Bowen, contained an anti-Israel bias.

Remarkably he has retained his position despite this finding, which took two and a

half years from the original complaint.

We have analysed a selection of Mr Bowen’s contributions to the BBC reporting on

the Israeli operation ‘Cast Lead’ which took place in December 2008 – January 2009 -

‘The Gaza conflict.’ We have found:

1. Of 58 reports1 by Mr Bowen, 38 were unbalanced. Of those, a staggering 98%

portrayed Israel in a negative light;

2. Of the civilian human interest interviews selected by Mr Bowen, 82%

portrayed Palestinians in a positive light – a remarkable feat when, for most of

the conflict, Mr Bowen complained that he was not allowed into Gaza and so

principally only had access to Israelis;

3. Of Mr Bowen’s 22 diary entries, all posted on the BBC website under the title

of “The Bowen Diary,” 20 were unbalanced. All of them portrayed Israel in a

negative light;

4. The Bowen Diary frequently included personal opinion of Mr Bowen in clear

breach of BBC guidelines;

5. Mr Bowen’s Panorama programme “Gaza out of the ruins” dated 9 February

2009, was an unbalanced attack against Israel, in which Mr Bowen presents

himself more as an expert than reporter, and makes his personal opinions

central to the programme.

This report is now the subject of an official complaint to the BBC about Mr Bowen’s

bias. It is hoped that the BBC’s response time will be less than the two and a half

years required for the previous complaint.

We question:

1) Why does the BBC allow its head of Middle East Reporting to post his

own personal and highly biased diary on the BBC website in breach of

BBC Guidelines;

2) Why does the BBC allow its reporters to refer its audience to The Bowen

Diary as though it constitutes an official record;

1 Reports here includes radio, TV, website articles and diary entries


3) Why does the BBC allow its head of Middle East Reporting to present so

many unbalanced reports, particularly when the balance is almost

exclusively in one direction; and

4) Why does the BBC continue Mr Bowen in his present post when it has

already found him to be biased and when a simple analysis of his work –

such as we have carried out – which could and should be conducted by the

BBC as a matter of course - reveals that Mr Bowen’s personal views on

the conflict are barely concealed and appear in many if not most cases to

be reflected in his reporting.

It is difficult to understand how the BBC considers Mr Bowen suitable to

head up a department of such importance within the BBC when he appear,

in our view, unable or unwilling to provide reporting which is balanced

and impartial, in accordance with BBC legal obligations.

II Methodology

i) Selection of material

bbcwatch commenced monitoring the BBC output on the Gaza conflict from 28

December 2008, one day after it commenced and continued until 30 January 2009, 3

days after the cease fire.

We monitored what we considered to be a reasonable selection of principal news

items, being careful to monitor these items consistently at the same hour each day,

and to download articles from the website at the same hour each day. Whilst the

material monitored was not complete, the selection process was consistently applied.

ii) The BBC Guidelines

The BBC has an obligation to provide reporting which is fair and impartial2.

The BBC sets out its obligation to provide impartial reporting as follows:

"It requires us to be fair and open minded when examining the evidence and

weighing all the material facts, as well as being objective and even handed in

our approach to a subject." 3

The BBC states that in practice impartiality means:

"we must ensure we avoid bias or an imbalance of views on controversial

subjects."4

We accept, as the BBC itself asserts, that:

2 BBC Editorial Guidelines, section 4 - “Impartiality and Diversity of Opinion.” 3 ibid page 27 4 ibid page 26


“…it does not require the representation of every argument or facet of every

argument on every occasion for an equal division of time for each view.” 5

However the BBC does have an obligation to achieve impartiality over a given period

of time. Thus we do not complain that a particular item is not even handed or

balanced. We do however complain if the number of unbalanced programmes is a

significant proportion of the whole. We also complain if the unbalanced programmes

are themselves all or substantially all unbalanced in favour of only one of a selection

of competing narratives.

Further, the BBC Editorial Guidelines provide:

"our journalists and presenters, including those in news and current affairs

may provide professional judgments but may not express personal opinions on

matters of public policy or political or industrial controversy. Our audiences

should not be able to tell from BBC programmes or other BBC output the

personal views of our journalists and presenters on such matters."6

“It is not normally appropriate for BBC staff or for regular BBC presenters or

reporters associated with news or public policy related programmes to

present personal view programmes on controversial subjects.”7

iii) Analysis of material

We analysed each article/programme/diary entry as a single complete item. We then

sought to place the item in one of three categories:

i) Balanced

ii) Unbalanced and pro Israeli

iii) Unbalanced and pro Palestinian

In our assessment of what would be considered pro Israeli or pro Palestinian we

imagined a neutral observer equidistant between two opposing simplistic opinions:

1) Israelis are good and Palestinians are evil; and

2) Palestinians are good and Israelis are evil.

We then assessed whether a particular news item taken as a whole would be more

likely to have the effect of moving our neutral observer towards either one of these

two opposing views.

5 ibid page 27 6 Ibid page 27 7 Ibid page 30


If the news item was more likely to move our neutral observer towards view (1) then

the news item was categorised as Pro Israeli. If the news item was more likely to

move our neutral observer to view (2) then the news item was categorised as Pro

Palestinian.

Whilst we accept that our assessment of a particular item must be open to challenge,

we were surprised at how easy we found it to categorise most items. We have

transcribed all the broadcasts which we analysed and they can be made available to

anyone interested in reading the underlying material.

In addition to our analysis in relation to whether a particular news item was balanced

or unbalanced we also analysed the news item in relation to whether it conveyed a

journalist's personal opinion and/or made clear what the journalist's personal opinions

are.

III Overall Lack of Balance of Bowen Reporting

As head of Middle East Reporting Mr Bowen played an important role in the BBC’s

coverage of the conflict. Mr Bowen appeared on television and radio as a reporter, he

authored articles which were posted on the BBC website and he kept a daily diary for

much of the Gaza conflict and was himself interviewed by other BBC reporters as an

expert. On 9 February 2009 he was the principal reporter in a 30 minute Panorama

documentary (“Gaza out of the ruins”).

We monitored a total of 58 items produced entirely or substantially by Mr Bowen.8

We assessed that 19 of the items were balanced. This amounts to 33% which we

consider to be an unacceptably low percentage for a story which is principally a news

item.

This lack of balance constitutes a breach of the BBC's obligation to provide news with

due impartiality, fairness and even handedness. The Editorial Guidelines specifically

state that:

“News, in whatever form, must be presented with due impartiality.”9

Of the unbalanced items, we found that all but one were “Pro Palestinian” as defined

above. That is to say that some 97% of the unbalanced items were all unbalanced in

favour of only one of a selection of competing narratives.

The following is a selection of some of the less balanced statements made by Mr

Bowen which guided us when seeking to categorise items produced by him:

“The message from Israel is that it is interested in a cease-fire, but not yet.

That means no respite for Gazan civilians. Israel says it tries not to hurt them.

It says this is all the fault of Hamas. Try telling that to the people in Gaza’s

8 A Schedule of the breakdown of items monitored appears at Schedule A 9 BBC Editorial Guidelines, section 4, page 27.


overwhelmed hospitals, this is what happens when a modern army uses heavy

weapons in a place packed with young families.”10

“…of course it is in no sense equal, the suffering is basically all on one side at

the moment. I think where it is going at the moment, first of all Israel, the

Israel narrative11 is as follows ok, its self defence any country would do it, and

they are also questioning the casualty figures coming out of Gaza.”12

“On the 15th of January Israeli shells hit the hospital. Mobile phone video

from a hospital worker shows fragments of a white phosphorous shell burning

in the street outside. Some uses of white phosphorous contravene the laws of

war. Israel says the way it was used in Gaza was not illegal.”13

“This man in Gaza is saying goodbye to his dead son. His wife and two other

children were also killed. We don’t know if he supports Hamas, but he has

paid the heaviest price imaginable and he wont be the last.”14

“Many countries say that Hamas is a terrorist group but in Gaza it has built

support by helping the poor as well as attacking Israel. One of the great

strengths of Hamas is its charitable work, people, poor people especially have

come to depend on it, especially now today in East Jabaliya, look at this

place.”15

IV Human Interest Interviews

Many of the interviews conducted by Mr Bowen were of elected or appointed

officials of one kind or another. Such officials can be expected to toe the party line

and will not normally excite emotion. Mr Bowen interviews 18 pro Israeli officials

and only 15 pro Palestinian officials – a broadly balanced selection.

However, when interviewing civilians the balance is distorted. He interviews 31

Palestinian civilians and only 7 Israeli civilians i.e. 82% of civilian interviews were of

Palestinians.

10 Television – January 5 2009, BBC News at 10.

11 Note the word “narrative” is used to describe a statement of policy by Israeli officials. The effect is

to indicate a doubt as to whether such “narrative” is to be believed. No such adjective is used to

describe Palestinian policy statements. This point, and many others germane to this report, are also

made during the report by Just Journalism – “Gaza Conflict December 2008-January 2009 A Media

Analysis” 12 BBC Today Radio 4 - 29/12/2008 (07.09am block) 13 Panorama: “Gaza out of the ruins” 9 February 2009

14 ibid

15 Panorama: “Gaza out of the ruins” 9 February 2009. Note that amongst the countries which “say that

Hamas is a terrorist group” are the UK under whose law the BBC operates; the USA; the United

Nations; the EU; and most western democracies. A glance at the Hamas Charter makes it clear beyond

doubt that Hamas encourages and supports terror. The Gaza conflict was caused because Hamas had

fired some 8,000 rockets, some with lethal effect, at Israeli civilians. Hamas used other terror tactics to

launch suicide attacks against Israeli civilians and in its murder of several hundred of its political

opponents in Gaza. These attributes of Hamas are almost entirely ignored by Mr. Bowen.


When assessing the impact of broadcast items, the civilian interviews tend to excite

far more emotion and sympathy than those of officials and indeed the interviews of

civilians seem intended to create ‘human interest’ and to encourage viewers to

empathise with the plight of those being interviewed. Accordingly, the marked lack of

balance when interviewing principally Palestinian civilians as opposed to Israeli

civilians is significant.

Examples of quotations from such civilian interviews include the following:

“The walls of [our] room caved in. The youngest girl who died was four. The

eldest was 17” [Mr Bowen summarising/translating words of an Arab

woman]16

“This is murder”[Dr Mads Gilbert]17

“Goodbye to you my son. They’re liars, they’re liars. They’re not just after

Hamas, they are killing everybody” [Arab woman] 18

“We were stuck for three days without food or water” she is saying. “the

children were crying. On the fourth day they were shooting at us. My husband

died and another relative died.” [Mr Bowen summarising/translating words of

an Arab woman]19

“We are in real danger, I am living each moment and I don’t know if I will

live the second moment or not.” [Dr. Izzeldeen Abuelaish]20

“We are at the home of our neighbours, I saw my brothers wife when she was

dead. Here is my mother when she was hit and cut in half by the missile and

here I am sitting and crying over her in the blood. Here is my bother Helmi, he

was holing his small son, his brains were spilling out. I may have a future but

not half of a future I cant yet comprehend that my mother and father died.”

[Mona a young arab child explaining her drawing].21

Given the highly emotive nature of the content of such civilian interviews it is

unfortunate, and a breach of the BBC Guidelines,22 that 82% of Mr Bowen's

interviews of civilians during the conflict were unbalanced and pro-Palestinian.

V The Bowen Diary

16 Television – 28 December 2008 – 10 O’clock News

17 Television – 2 January 2009 – 10 O’clock News. Note that Dr Gilbert's extreme political views,

including his reported support of the 9/11 terror attacks were not alluded to. 18 Television – 8 January 2009 – 10 O’clock News

19 Television – 8 January 2009 – 10 O’clock News

20 Panorama: “Gaza out of the ruins” 9 February 2009

21 Panorama: “Gaza out of the ruins” 9 February 2009

22 BBC Editorial Guidelines, section 4 - “Impartiality and Diversity of Opinion.”


From 5 January 2009 until 30 January 2009 Mr Bowen kept a personal diary. This is

a fascinating document, since it is written in a personal, casual and chatty style. We

are told what Mr Bowen feels and thinks and where he is; we are told quasi-intimate

details of his everyday existence , for example, how he gets on with other journalists;

what he is wearing and so on. The diary appears to be a ‘window’ into the personal

thoughts and attitudes of Mr Bowen and as such reveals to us the ‘real Mr Bowen’

when his guard is down.

As set out above the BBC Editorial Guidelines provide that BBC journalists may not

express personal opinions on matters of political controversy. In particular audiences

of the BBC should not be able to tell from the BBC output the personal views of a

BBC journalist.

We consider that The Bowen Diary does contain personal opinion on matters of

political controversy, as we show below. Were the diary to have remained a private

document, or were it to have been clearly labeled as a personal opinion, then its

existence might not constitute a breach of the BBC Guidelines. However, The Bowen

Diary was in fact given a prominent position on the BBC Website and was on

occasion referred to in BBC news reports as an authoritative piece, of BBC

journalistic reporting and apparently as the basis of news stories.23

“You will also find lots of comprehensive coverage of course on our website of

that conflict in Gaza. A detailed map, you can see it there, its really important

to see exactly where Israeli forces are conducting their offensive and how the

geography all works out and where the rockets have actually been landing and

Jeremy Bowen, our Middle East editor, has a daily diary which has been very

popular on the website so do log on and take a look” 24

The margin between personal opinion and news reporting is being hopelessly

blurred .25

Under the circumstances we consider that the way The Bowen Diary was used

constituted a clear breach of BBC Editorial Guidelines.

There is another point which arises from The Bowen Diary. The document, which

appears to reveal Mr Bowen’s personal views, reveals a man who has deeply

antithetical views to what he refers to as the ‘Israeli narrative.” This is demonstrated

in a number of ways:

i) The headline given to the daily entries was frequently emotive and anti

Israeli. For example, headings such as Stranded with dead; Powerless amid

pain ; A father’s loss – all contribute to setting a tone which, when read

alongside the articles, is deeply antithetical to Israel's account of the

conflict.

23 08/01/2009 Television – 10 am news and 14/01/2009 Television – 10 am news.

24 08/01/2009 Television – 10 am news

25 See also Just Journalism – Op cit at page 5 ff – where this point is thoroughly analysed.


ii) The Bowen Diary refers almost exclusively to meetings with and the plight

of Palestinian civilians, particularly children (85%), with only slight

mention of the plight of Israeli civilians (15%).

iii) Out of 22 daily entries, only 2 entries are balanced. The remainder, some

91% of the whole, are unbalanced and all of the unbalanced are pro-

Palestinian.

iv) It contains a number of anti Israeli statements and statements designed to

throw doubt on the integrity of stated Israeli policy:

“At a check point near here were some Israeli soldiers in combat gear.

They were in their first few months in uniform and being young men, were

itching to be part of the action.” [7 January 2009]

“In this war, the main problems journalists face stem from Israel’s desire

to control the news agenda.”[12 January 2009]

“Whatever happens… it is still going to be very very hard, and frightening,

to be a civilian in Gaza” [12 January 2009]

“I am struck by the constant Israeli message that “any other country in the

world would do the same.” Would they?26” [13 January 2009]

“The people of Gaza have been suffering terrible pain. When this is over,

there is bound to be a proper investigation of some of the actions that

Israel has carried out… It would be wrong to suggest that the experience

of Israeli civilians in the areas that can be hit by rockets has been the

same.” [16 January 2009]

“Israel doesn’t want to bestow any legitimacy on Hamas by making an

agreement with it. But to me that smacks of spin control” [17 January

2009]

“Official Israeli statements, made repeatedly, that they are not interested

in one inch of Gazan land, mean nothing here. Palestinians see a pattern

in Israel’s behaviour over six decades”27 [22 January 2009]

“At least 29 of them were killed by the Israeli army in circumstances so

brutal that the international committee of the Red Cross broke its usual

silence during the war to call for an enquiry into breaches of the laws of

war.”[22 January 2009]

“…a very one-sided war…” [30 January 2009]

26 Given the way the Americans and British have acted in Afghanistan, the answer is almost certainly

yes, bearing in mind the fact that rockets are not being fired from Afghanistan into the USA or the UK. 27 This statement fails to mention the fact that Gaza was occupied by Egypt until 1967.


“Why did it take a long time for Israelis to become aware of the fact that

many hundreds of Palestinian civilians were being killed in Gaza by their

troops” [30 January 2009]

If Mr Bowen is really as opposed to Israel as his diary makes out, then this must affect

his professional judgements which must be exercised on a constant basis in his

capacity as Middle East Editor for the BBC.

The decisions as to which stories to accept, which to reject, which to cover and which

to ignore and how much prominence a story will receive are bound to be affected by

the bias of the person making those decisions. Mr Bowen doubtless believes that he

has right thinking opinions and that it is proper to allow those opinions to influence

his decisions. Whether or not Mr Bowen’s views are fair or reasonable is not however

the issue. We believe that his views are fundamentally unbalanced and accordingly

that his editorship of BBC Middle East reporting will be, and in fact is, similarly

unbalanced.

The BBC has already found Mr Bowen to have been biased in his reporting on the

Middle East. The Bowen Diary plainly confirms the BBC’s assessment. The BBC

must now consider whether Mr Bowen is capable of delivering the fair and impartial

coverage which the BBC is obliged to provide. It must also decide whether the public

can have any confidence in Mr Bowen’s ability to perform his job properly. We think

it cannot.

VI Gaza out of the ruins - Panorama – 9 February 2009

Throughout his coverage of the Gaza conflict Mr Bowen frequently complained that

Israel was not allowing journalists to enter the areas being targeted by Israeli

ordinance. On 21 January 2009 Mr Bowen was able to enter Gaza. On 9 February

2009, the BBC aired Mr Bowen’s “Gaza out of the ruins”, a thirty minute Panorama

documentary.

Gaza out of the ruins contains many of the faults noted in Mr Bowen’s work. In

particular:

1. Of the emotive civilian interviews 75% were devoted to Palestinians –

principally to children. Only 25% were devoted to Israelis – both of them

adults.

2. Throughout, the documentary is full of statements which are negative towards

Israel, and which fail either to put the Gaza conflict in a proper context or to

provide a balanced report.

Examples include:

a) The programme opens with a statement by an Israeli minister, indicating a

heartless refusal to accept any blame for Palestinian suffering during the

conflict, setting an anti Israeli tone:


Bowen: “So if they died it was their fault is that what you’re saying?”

Meir Shitreet (Israeli Security Cabinet): “If they die is the fault of the

Hamas.”

Bowen: “It is not the fault of the Israelis who shot the weapons?”

Meir Shitreet: “No it is the fault of the Hamas.”

b) The next shot is an appalling montage of dead and injured children with Mr

Bowen giving a melodramatic voice over:

“Death kept Gaza company over the new year and into January. Israel

killed around 1,300 Palestinians, armed men, civilians and hundreds

of children.”

This accepts Palestinian claims of casualty figures at face value, and

fails to mention the Israeli figures that maintain that far more casualties

were military and that Hamas fighters had, according to most reports,

been told to go home and take off their uniforms.

c) Mr Bowen offers personal, unsubstantiated and probably inaccurate opinion,

suggesting that Israelis are insensitive to Palestinian suffering:

“For the first time [Israelis] properly noticed the suffering of civilians

in Gaza.”

d) Mr Bowen then concentrates considerable time on the tragic story of Dr

Izzeldeen Abuelaish, who lost three daughters and a niece in an Israeli rocket

attack. Mr Bowen concentrates on the fact that Dr Abuelaish is a civilian,

worked in Israel, treats Israeli patients and supports the coexistence of Jews

and Arabs. The unspoken message is that Israel has killed innocent and peace

loving civilians. Mr Bowen describes the deaths of the four women in almost

gruesome and heart rending detail. The war crimes theme gets picked up again

later.

e) Mr Bowen moves on to consider the psychological damage caused to

surviving Palestinian children, but gives no comparable analysis of the

psychological damage caused to Israeli children schooled for years under the

threat of 8,000 Israeli rockets. This is a theme which is repeated towards the

end of the programme.

f) Mr Bowen then goes on to consider the general plight of Palestinians in Gaza,

and places that plight firmly in a context of Israeli instigated tragedy and

flight:

“Dispossession and loss run through the hearts, minds, streets and

ruins. Around 80% of Gazans are Palestinian refugees whose families

fled or were forced out of their homes in what became Israel in 1948.

This woman, Selma Abu Rashad, 85 years old lost her home then and

now has lost it again. For Palestinians Gaza 2009 looks like 1948,

only this time Hamas says that the Palestinians have won.”


Mr Bowen offers a tendentious account of the 1948 war, and indeed the BBC

has already found bias in his analysis of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

g) Next Mr Bowen finds a Palestinian civilian to enquire as to his views of

Israelis and whether the Gaza conflict was justifiable, eliciting an emotional if

predictable response:

“What do you think of the Israelis? Why do you think they did it?”

Helmi: “There was no justification for this, there weren’t any

resistance fighters among us or anyone with weapons, or even any

enemy, all of us are just poor people, this was an injustice.”

The message here is that Israel perpetrated an unjustifiable attack on unarmed

civilians amounting to a war crime. This repeats the same message transmitted

earlier in the programme.

h) Mr Bowen is happy to report allegations that are tantamount to accusing Israel

of war crimes:

“All the Palestinians I have met believe that Israel’s attacks were

murderous.”

Later a similar theme is raised by a Palestinian doctor:

“I don’t know why they attacked the hospitals. Hospitals are according

to the laws of Geneva international laws it is forbidden; it is the most

protected place in an area”28

i) This same message of Israel committing war crimes is again repeated when

Mr Bowen moves on to interview two members of the International

Committee of the Red Cross.

"Emad Abu Hasira (International Committee of the Red Cross): “It

was so traumatic to me to see bleeding kids living in the same room

with dead bodies that died several days before.”

...Bowen: “So it looks as if Israelis hadn’t helped them at all.”

Emad Abu Hasira: “Not at all.”

Bowen: “You are a protection delegate here for the International

Committee of the Red Cross, could you tell me what you would expect

under International Law that soldiers should do in this kind of

situation when there are civilians in and around their positions.”

Michael Greub: “In an occupied area, the occupying force is

responsible for taking care of the wounded persons in this area or at

least to properly co-ordinate that these people can be evacuated out of

28 The Israelis did not target hospitals. It was reported, though, that the Hamas leadership was based in

one.


the area, but if an occupying force is in place they have to take care

also of the wounded.”

Bowen: “Was there any sign that any of the wounded had received

first aid?”

(Michael Greub shakes head)

Bowen: “Do you have anything to compare it with?”

Emad Abu Hasira: “Not at all. Never.”

Here we see Mr Bowen asking leading questions; persuading the ICRC

delegates to pronounce on matters of international law (we are not told that

they have any relevant qualifications to do so); to appear to reach findings of

fact; and to pronounce a verdict of guilt and finally to end with a hyperbolic

suggestion that Israel’s crime was worse than any within the knowledge of the

ICRC. Mr Bowen thus appoints the ICRC judge and jury of the Israeli state,

and engineers a finding of guilt. He does not challenge the conclusions.

j) Towards the end of the programme a short period is devoted to allowing some

Israeli civilians to give an alternative view – two Israelis who were selected

for interview because they lived on the land from which the unfortunate Dr

Izzeldeen had been expelled in 1948. They do however articulate – for only

the second time in the programme – the fear of rocket attack from Hamas

which drove Israel into commencing operation cast lead.

k) Mr Bowen moves on to an interview with a Hamas soldier who indicates –

contradicting the Hamas charter – that Hamas would be content with Gaza and

the West Bank. The statement was challenged by a very brief interview with

an Israeli minister.29

l) Finally the programme ends with a heart rending interview with a young girl

scarred by the loss of her family:

“Bowen: “Back in Zeitoun on Samouni Street Mona drew some more

pictures about the death or her family and the end of her childhood.”

Mona: “We have the right to live in freedom.”

- Why did you write it in red?

Mona: “It expresses my feelings.”

Bowen: “and do you think that you will be able to live without

sadness?”

Mona: “I tell this to myself, but then I can’t, if you don’t have tears in

the eyes you cry in the heart.”

[no counter argument]

VII Conclusion re Gaza out of the ruins

Whilst the Israeli arguments for commencing and pursuing operation Cast

Lead do get mentioned, the vast majority of ‘Gaza out of the ruins’ is devoted

29 A Hamas takeover of the West Bank would be unacceptable to Fatah and would make life difficult

for Christians, women and anyone who does not want to see an Islamic state.


to an analysis of Palestinian suffering, and the programme is suffused with a

largely unspoken message that Israel is guilty of war crimes. The programme

lacks any semblance of balance.

We do not complain that the BBC airs an unbalanced programme, provided

that it also airs, at around the same time, a counterweight programme putting

the alternative views in an equally convincing and forceful way. We are not

aware that this was done.

More importantly, the fact that Mr Bowen can make and be the principal

presenter in a programme such as 'Gaza out of the ruins' raises a further

serious question as to whether he is capable of producing fair, balanced and

impartial reports about the Palestinian Israeli conflict at all. We think he is not.

TREVOR ASSERSON

ARIELLA KALMS

ROBIN STAMLER

December 2009


JEREMY BOWEN

AND

THE GAZA CONFLICT

SCHEDULE A

Unbalanced

Anti-Israeli

Balanced Unbalanced

Anti-

Palestinian

Total

reports

TV 7 11 1 19

Radio 6 4 - 10

Articles 5 1 - 6

Diary 20 2 - 22

Panorama 1 - - 1

Total 39 18 1 58

OFFICIALS

QUOTED

Palestinian Israeli

TV 5 7

Radio - 1

Articles 1 1

Diary 8 7

Panorama 1 2

Total 15 18

CIVILIANS

QUOTED

Palestinian Israeli

TV 7 2

Radio 1 -

Articles - -

Diary 17 3

Panorama 6 2

Total 31 7

jeremy bowen and the gaza conflict

Documents

emad abu hasira

middle east editor

psychological damage caused

human interest interviews

middle east reporting

mr bowen moves

express personal opinions

bbc editorial guidelines