Is the BBC underreporting major peace deals in the Middle East and the Balkans simply out of their hatred for Donald Trump?

 

On an earlier thread rockylives posted a comment which well and truly hit the target: 

The downplaying of the peace developments in the Middle East by the BBC is unconscionable. 

Obviously we know why. They have created an ill-informed groupthink that sees everything as "Israel bad, Palestinians good." 

Add to that the role played by Donald Trump (another who can do nothing right in the eyes of the BBC) and you can see why the Corporation wants to play it down. 

But they should be deeply ashamed of themselves.  These are some of the most significant developments in international relations since the fall of Saddam and the collapse of Iraq, which huge implications for the wider world. 

How dare they say with straight faces that their journalism is impartial? 

My sentiments exactly.

In recent weeks we've had:

• The historic Israel-Bahrain peace deal
• The historic Israel-UAE peace deal
• The historic Serbia-Kosovo agreement
• Muslim-majority Kosovo's recognition of Israel

These are the most historic developments in terms of peace in the Middle East and the Balkans for many, many years, and - fingers crossed - could be truly transformative in terms of peace. Yet the BBC has barely reported any of them. 

Why? 

Well, you could obviously put it down partly to the BBC's ingrained disinclination to report anything positive about Israel, though that doesn't explain the underreporting of the Serbia-Kosovo agreement. 

And you could also put it down to the BBC's increasingly narrow, insular focus as far as its world news output for a UK audience goes (obviously excepting internal US matters, about which it remains obsessed.)

But surely the vital connection between all of the above is that Donald Trump's presidency has played a key part in brokering them, and there's a strong case to be made that Donald Trump has been the most successful US peacemaker president in decades.

How many BBC reporters can you imagine wanted to report that?

Here's the charge then: 

Especially with the US presidential election being just two months away, the BBC simply can't bring themselves to give any credit whatsoever to Donald Trump for being a successful peacemaker. Therefore, they're underreporting these historic developments out of their antipathy for Donald Trump. 

If true, how petty and partisan would that be! 

(Answer: Very.)

*******

P.S. If you're wondering where the BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen is in all this, well, he has had nothing to say about the Israel-Bahrain peace deal, even on Twitter. 

He's been busy 'liking' stuff about cooking today though and was retweeting an attack on the UK government for being mean to the EU over Brexit yesterday, so he's around and about and active on other fronts. So why so quiet on this?