BBC2 TV is beginning a three-part series entitled ‘Israel and the Arabs: Elusive Peace’. UK media monitors (including at least three HR subscribers) saw the following description of Part 1 on the BBC website:
The story of how Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Barak persuaded President Clinton to devote his last 18 months in office to helping make peace with Yasser Arafat. But Barak got cold feet twice. Then Ariel Sharon took a walk around Jerusalem’s holiest mosques, and peace making was over.
The activists wrote to the BBC, explaining that blaming Barak and Sharon for Oslo’s demise is inaccurate and tendentious (at best). BBC apparently agreed, changing the wording to:
The story of how Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Barak persuaded President Clinton to devote his last 18 months in office to helping make peace with Yasser Arafat. But after tense negotiations the deal was never made.
Nearly all parties agree that the ‘deal was never made’ due to Arafat’s intransigence. Will BBC acknowledge that? This show airs tonight — if you get BBC2 (we don’t), please leave a comment here regarding the show’s fairness and accuracy, or write to [email protected].
