Britain’s national broadcaster lambasted for describing the intifada as an “unarmed and popular uprising” while ignoring the more than 1,000 people murdered by Palestinians during the conflict.
By World Israel News Staff
The BBC sparked controversy yet again regarding its coverage of the Middle East, this time after it published an article that claimed the First Intifada against Israel was a “largely unarmed and popular uprising,” ignoring the widespread violence and large number of casualties during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
On Wednesday, Britain’s national broadcaster published an article on Britain’s crackdown on the use of controversial slogans, including “Globalize the Intifada,” which have been accused of promoting antisemitic violence.
The decision by British authorities to arrest demonstrators chanting the slogan came in the wake of the deadly mass shooting at a Chanukah celebration in Sydney, Australia.
In its article on the policy change, the BBC explained the origins of the term “intifada,” referencing the First Intifada, which began in December 1987 and is widely considered to have ended with the signing of the Oslo Accords in September 1993.
The First Intifada was characterized by widespread stone-throwing and firebomb attacks against both soldiers and civilians across Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and later in parts of pre-1967 Israel with large Arab populations.
The violence later escalated to abductions, murders, bombings and shootings.
Two hundred Israelis, most of them security personnel, were murdered during the First Intifada, with thousands of Israeli soldiers, officers, and civilians injured.
Estimates place the number of Palestinian Arabs murdered by terrorists on suspicion of having collaborated with Israel at close to or over 900.
Despite this, however, the BBC article wrote that the First Intifada was “a largely unarmed and popular uprising that continued until the early 1990s.”
The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) criticized the BBC‘s description of the terrorist wave known as the First Intifada, and noted the expansion of violence during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.
“In reality, 16 civilians were murdered during the First Intifada, and some 1,400 were injured,” the CAA said.
“Over 1,500 soldiers were injured or killed. There were more than 3,600 Molotov cocktail attacks, 100 hand grenade attacks and 600 assaults with guns or explosives. Hamas was born during this period.”
“That was the First Intifada. In the Second Intifada, over 1,000 Israelis were murdered, with suicide bombings rampant in Israeli cafes and nightclubs and on buses.”
“Do these sound ‘unarmed’ to you?” the group continued.
The BBC later amended the article, writing: “An earlier version of this article sought to explain the wider background to the Met and GMP announcement by referring to the first Palestinian intifada.”
“However, the language used in this brief summary did not give a clear enough or complete picture of the history, and so this section has been amended to instead explain the context around the ongoing use of the term.”
BBC under fire for whitewashing the term ‘intifada’ appeared first on World Israel News.