First, we need to see the way Mr Sacerdoti addresses many of the talking points being used to discredit and stigmatise the Israeli response.
But also, there is a problem of unprofessional media conduct by BBC at work in the very footage being used as background.
For, it should be observed how the rather precise strike is falsely portrayed as injuring innocent bystanders and rescue personnel, by the use of what has come to be called "Pallywood" propagandistic street theatre.
For instance, an "injured" man laying on the ground in a khaki jacket is picked up, but later in the video we see the same man walking around obviously uninjured in the same context. Honest Reporting helpfully clips:
Similarly, in the full video segment, we can see a rescue worker being carried off in a fireman carry, but he is looking around alertly, and later we see him standing up equally obviously uninjured.
What is being covered up here is what Melanie Phillips highlights in a recent blog post.
First, key background:
Next, Phillips exposes the street theatre:Pallywood, and the stench of an ancient score being settled
Hamas and its acolytes are committing crimes against humanity twice over. They are deliberately targeting Israeli civilians with their rockets and missiles, trying to kill as many of them as possible including women and children. They are also using their own people as human shields, having deliberately hidden their rocket launchers among Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, thus deliberately exposing ordinary Gazans to the severe risk of being killed. In addition, the Hamas are committed not just to the destruction of Israel but also, by their own religious authority, to the genocide of the Jews, and indoctrinate their children accordingly into deranged, Nazi-style Jew-hatred.
Yet despite these Palestinian crimes against humanity and genocidal incitement British journalists have been outdoing themselves to blame Israel for what has happened.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians appear to be up to their old tricks in staging patently absurd theatrics to dupe credulous and lazy broadcasters into thinking they are transmitting pictures of Palestinians injured or killed by the wicked Israelis. They did it years ago with the infamous hoax over Mohammed al Dura -- the iconic Palestinian boy whose televised supposed killing in a barrage of Israeli gunfire incited terrorist atrocities across the world, but who not only miraculously showed no sign of injury whatever but after he was pronounced dead was filmed peeping through his fingers.In some ways, the most astonishing thing is what a BBC spokesman, says AFTER the deceit (which is in a longstanding context that has been a part of the incitement to hatred that has been a part of events since 2000 with the infamous Dura clip) is exposed for all to see as having been broadcast on BBC:
Now the BBC have fallen for a similar example of ‘Pallywood’. Honest Reporting captures here the relevant footage. At 2:11 minutes in, a Palestinian in a beige jacket and black T-shirt, presumably injured in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike, is picked up and taken away. Yet at 2:44 minutes, the same Palestinian has staged a remarkable recovery and walks insouciantly away.
‘To the best of our knowledge the pictures do not show any kind of ‘staged’ event – and were run in good faith. The footage shown by BBC News was edited from a longer sequence provided by the Reuters news agency in which the man in question is shown being lifted from the ground. He is then given attention at the roadside, before appearing later having recovered. We ran a shorter edit of those pictures, and would point out that some re-uses of our output by others online have compressed the sequence further. Steps have been taken to ensure any re-broadcast reflects the full sequence so that it is absolutely clear to our audiences.’My basic problem is not just that his is patently misleading, given the context, but let us observe that there is a SECOND bit of street theatre in the clip. Namely, an apparently injured rescue worker dressed in black and with a fluorescent orange vest, being carried off on the shoulders of another worker -- but who is seen later standing on his feet, quite uninjured.
Let us therefore now pause and watch this video clip on such Pallywood tactics, pondering how these sorts of media manipulative tactics have shaped our perception of the events in the Middle East, given the import of such footage for how we tend to interpret the overall Middle East conflicts:
Something is seriously wrong here, and BBC (among other major media houses) -- sadly -- is plainly insistently failing in its duties of care to accuracy and fairness. END
