REALITY REPORTED

Arab Media Watch's Sharif Nashashibi looks at an analysis of coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

The BBC and al-Jazeera both unequivocally portrayed Israeli violence as a direct response to Palestinian violence, in the use of words such as "responded", "responds", "fired back", "in response", "in retaliation" and "deterrent against". On no occasion did either portray Palestinian violence as a direct response to Israeli violence.

Furthermore, both broadcasters implicitly portrayed Israeli violence as a response to Palestinian violence by overwhelmingly reporting the former as following the latter: 10 times and seven times, respectively. "Only once did the BBC report Palestinian violence as following Israeli violence. This was one occasion more than al-Jazeera," the study said. "The effect of this is to legitimise and justify Israeli violence, while portraying Palestinians as the instigators of violence that has no explanation or cause."

Rather than draw the obvious conclusion it's assumed both news organisations are effectively anti-Palestinian.