BBC journalist on an expenses-paid propaganda trip to Israel

August 27th, 2013

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

With the the worst brand reputation on the planet and a well-oiled international public relations campaign that is increasingly failing to pull the wool over people’s eyes, Israel has been able to call on an old friend: the BBC.

According to Electronic Intifada,

Dozens of young journalists, including at least one working for the BBC [Zahra Ullah of BBC Wales] are in Israel this week for a government-backed junket designed to give them “a more positive attitude” toward Israel’s policies.

The journalists are attending the Media in Conflicts Seminar (MICS) at the Interdisciplinary Center at Herzliya (IDC Herzliya)…

The Media in Conflicts Seminar is “hasbara for foreign media personnel, diplomats and youth from all over the world”, according to the website of Israel’s Ministry for Public Diplomacy (which was recently absorbed into the Prime Minister’s Office)…

The seminar’s purpose, according to a fundraising appeal issued by the organizers, “is to find young journalists who will work in the world of media, as well as those who aspire to be ‘opinion makers’ in their countries, and to put them through workshops about media coverage of conflict zones”.

The MICS’s official website says that the seminar includes “A 5-day fully subsidized stay in Israel (Not including airfare)” and a “strategic tour of Jerusalem and the conflict areas”. As well as seminars on “terrorism”, and military and political topics, the participants will meet Israeli political leaders, academics and senior Israeli journalists. The lucky students of Israeli propaganda will “develop skills to face the challenges of conflict reporting, create a priceless professional network and experience the world’s most covered conflict zone”.

According to Electronic Intifada,

The Media in Conflicts Seminar bears the hallmarks of Israel’s strategy to fight “delegitimization”, laid out in 2010 by the Reut Institute, a think tank with military-intelligence ties.

In an influential report, Reut recommended that Israel “maintain thousands of personal relationships with political, cultural, media and security-related elites and influentials” around the world.

A 2009 press release says the project is “Approved by the Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora”…

The Media in Conflicts Seminar was conceived by the StandWithUs Israel Fellowship recipients in 2009.

StandWithUs is the multi-million dollar US-based anti-Palestinian advocacy group that works closely with the Israeli government.

The BBC is a publicly-funded broadcaster which is obsessed with neutrality – neutrality towards injustice, it seems. It owes the financially squeezed British public who fund it an explanation of why Zahra Ullah and goodness knows who else is attending this mega-Goebbels event.