He may have been the BBC's Sydney correspondent for over a year now, but the BBC's former Gaza correspondent continues to make his biased views of the Israel-Palestinian situation very clear on Twitter. He has been highly active over the past few weeks, tweeting almost entirely from a pro-Palestinian perspective.
A selection of his tweets follows, but you would be better reading them as a whole to get the full biased effect.
Note how the killing of the three Israeli teens doesn't seem to touch him much. He even re-tweets a dismissive comment from a Human Rights Watch spokesman about the story:
Not all kidnappings created equal.ISIS abducted 153 Kurdish kids on May 29 on way back from exams.Still holds 133 No trending hashtags #Syra
— Nadim Houry (@nadimhoury) July 1, 2014
The killings merely seem to rouse his fears of an attack on Hamas - which, he announces early on, would achieve nothing, except to boost Hamas:
Many wars in #Gaza have failed to eradicate #Hamas. Another one would also fail. Only builds their support & that of Islamic Jihad. #Israel
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) June 30, 2014
...as well as to provoke his interest in conspiracy theories from anti-Israel sites:
How the #Israeli public were manipulated into believing their 3 teenagers kidnapped may still have been alive. http://t.co/l4zONhHoqV
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 2, 2014
It's only when the Palestinian boy was murdered that he gets emotional and starts tweeting and re-tweeting in earnest.
Early on comes this far-from-impartial tweet:
If #Israel catches whoever kidnapped & murdered a #Palestinian teenager last night, will the killers have their houses blown up & destroyed.
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 2, 2014
You won't find a single tweet about Hamas' use of its civilian population as human shields or concern for Israeli citizens living in constant fear of rockets from Gaza or about Israel's warnings in an advance of many attacks to avoid civilian casualties.
Similar to US ops in Pakistan, Yemen, etc, #Israel makes calculation that killing target more important than avoiding civilian death. #gaza
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 10, 2014
9 Palestinians reportedly killed in Israeli bombing of cafe as they watched World Cup. Hoping my football loving colleagues in #Gaza all ok.
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 10, 2014
Just spoke to colleague in #Gaza . Says much higher % of civilian casualties this than in 2012. Says no serious efforts to get ceasefire.
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 10, 2014
Neither side ready to stop. @BowenBBC on #hamas and #israel. Such a pointless loss of lives. http://t.co/XsD3Ww99hx
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 13, 2014
And then it's back to
Haaretz: killers of Pal teen burnt him alive. Also tried to abduct 9 year old. Have Idf blown up suspects houses yet? http://t.co/2E4xnGGttJ
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 14, 2014
And, even on yesterday's abortive ceasefire, it's only one side of the argument that gets re-tweeted by Jon Donnison:
@hahellyer Actually Hamas says it was not presented with the ceasefire proposal nor did anyone enter into negotiations w/it @sommervillebbc
— arabist (@arabist) July 15, 2014
Still, at least in his own mind this is doubtless a BBC reporter 'being impartial', displaying that genetic disposition BBC reporters were once said to have against bias. Hence, one of his most recent tweets:
http://t.co/GGCdX7DSMR says BBC is pro Palestinian. http://t.co/aGufkybRmG says BBC is pro #Israel. #dumb&dumber or #dumber&dumb? #gaza
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 15, 2014
Still, at least pro-Israeli readers can be consoled by the fact that Jon Donnison's 'impartiality' also extends to matters of climate change - and he isn't afraid to sling insults in the process of 'being impartial' here either:
Love the climate change denying trolls on twitter. Almost as nutty as some of the Middle East lot.
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 13, 2014
All of which seems to go to show that you can take the biased reporter out of Gaza but you can't take the bias out of the BBC reporter.
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