http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=86965
BBC staff are told not to call Israeli killings 'assassination'
By Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent
04 August 2001
In a major surrender to Israeli diplomatic pressure, BBC officials in
London have banned their staff in Britain and the Middle East from
referring to Israel's policy of murdering its guerrilla opponents as
"assassination". BBC reporters have been told that in future they are to
use Israel's own euphemism for the murders, calling them "targeted
killings".
BBC journalists were astonished that the assignments editor,
Malcolm Downing, should have sent out the memorandum to staff, stating
that the word "assassinations" "should only be used for high-profile
political assassinations". There were, Mr Downing said, "lots of other
words for death".
Up to 60 Palestinian activists – and numerous
civilians, including two children killed last week – have been gunned
down by Israeli death squads or missile-firing Israeli helicopter pilots.
The White House has gently chided Israel about these attacks, but already
this week the BBC has been using the phrase "targeted attacks" for the
policy of murder. The Palestinian killing of Israelis, however, is
regularly referred to – accurately – as "murder" or "assassination".
Mr Downing's memorandum suggests that the murder of a leading Israeli
– the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, killed by an Israeli extremist
– is worthy of the word "assassination" while the killing of
Palestinians is not.
The memo apparently says that "assassination" can
only be used "sparingly" and with "attribution". The ban resulted from a
discussion between Mr Downing and Vin Ray, deputy head of newsgathering
at BBC World TV. Israeli diplomats have been lunching with BBC officials
and complaining that the corporation's coverage was anti-Israeli and
pro-Palestinian.
The Israeli murder campaign is, in fact, far from
"targeted". In the first such killings, two middle-aged Palestinian women
were killed. After the initial reporting of the incident, the BBC dropped
all reference to the female victims.
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