UPDATE: it took the BBC until 2pm on Thursday 5 December to report on Amnesty’s findings. You can read its article here.
Amnesty International released a “landmark new report” on Thursday 5 December. It concluded that Israel “has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip”. But by 12pm, BBC News was still nowhere to be found. The UK’s state broadcaster apparently had nothing to say about “the world’s best known human rights organisation” judging a close British ally to be guilty of genocide – until 14 hours later, when it finally published an article at around 2pm GMT.
In Amnesty’s press release, the group said:
Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now.
And it added:
Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades of impunity for Israel’s violations of international law. States need to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismay and take strong and sustained international action, however uncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some of Israel’s allies.
https://twitter.com/amnesty/status/1864550636877976045
Where the hell is the BBC on the Amnesty report?
Nine hours after the release of the report (more than enough time for an outlet with the immense resources of the BBC to publish at least a simple recognition of its existence), online searches revealed no English-language news on the matter.
However, the BBC Hausa team was putting their English-language counterparts to shame by actually doing their job:
So it’s not that BBC News was incapable of reporting the story. Someone just decided it was not something they wanted to be a key story on this morning’s BBC News in English.
Nothing on the BBC, 7 am news either about Amnesty report on Gaza.
In what universe is the fact that a key British ally has been judged guilty of genocide by the world's best known human rights organisation not news?@bbcnickrobinson – are you not embarrassed by this?
— Richard Sanders (@PulaRJS) December 5, 2024
To be fair, there was apparently a mention on BBC Radio 4. But even then, the focus was on Israel’s attempts to smear Amnesty rather than on the report itself.
Elsewhere, ‘newspaper of record‘ the Times was also eerily silent on the matter. Fellow newspaper of record the Telegraph, however, surprisingly had enough respect for their profession to cover the report.
Amnesty: “we could find only one reasonable conclusion”
The Amnesty International press release confirmed what the world has been witnessing for the last fourteen months, stating that:
Israel has unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity.
Secretary general Agnès Callamard added that:
for months, Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm it was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so in defiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to take immediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza
And she insisted that:
Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these acts have been committed, we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza
She clarified that, even if Israel argues it has other aims in Gaza, “genocidal intent can co-exist alongside military goals”. And she stressed that any atrocities that happened on 7 October 2023 “can never justify Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza”.
She also slammed the West indirectly, highlighting that:
The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by first delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remain a stain on our collective conscience
Unfortunately, it seems that BBC News isn’t yet ready to do its part to correct that “seismic, shameful failure” or erase that stain.
The world has witnessed the government of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in occupied Gaza. Month after month, the government of Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its specific intent to… pic.twitter.com/BVKXdlnnpu
— Amnesty International USA (@amnestyusa) December 5, 2024
Featured image via the Canary
