Gaza protest and the BBC

There is a protest over Israel's attack on Gaza outside the Israeli embassy tomorrow afternoon, Saturday 16 November 2012 from 1400-1600 at 2 Palace Green, London W8 4QB but given that you can't get anywhere near the embassy itself, protests against the BBC might be more appropriate.

See this post to Electronic Intifada:

In a new low for the BBC’s objectively pro-Israel coverage, the British state broadcaster seems to be doing its best to downplay the murder by Israel of family members of one of its own cameramen.

The 11-month-old son of BBC Arabic’s picture editor Jihad Misharawi was killed in Israeli tank shelling last night, along with his sister-in-law, according to BBC journalists on Twitter, and one report online (which didn’t even name him).

EI notes that there was a mention of the killing on Radio 4 by Jon Donnison but this may have been the result of EI's Asa Winstanley questioning him on Twitter:

@jondonnison Jon, on News at 10, why did you not mention your colleague's baby son killed by Israel last night? WP put on front page
— Asa Winstanley (@AsaWinstanley) November 15, 2012

Asa reports:

Donnison did not reply (he is currently reporting from the highly dangerous situation in Gaza), but (to his credit) he did mention Misharawi’s loss during a live dispatch to today’s BBC News at One, speaking of civilian casualties “on both sides.”

We, of course, have been here before with the BBC in the case of Jeremy Bowen's driver who was killed by Israel in Lebanon when it looks like the Israelis were actually trying to kill Jeremy Bowen. This is from an old Independent:

The pivotal moment in his career - "in my life", he corrects - was the Israeli tank attack on the Mercedes car in which he and two colleagues were travelling through southern Lebanon in 2000. At the moment of the attack, Bowen and his cameramen Malek Kanaan were a short distance away doing a piece to camera. Their fixer and driver Abed Takkoush had remained in the vehicle to make a phone call to his son.

With the car in flames, the tank's machine gun prevented Bowen from going to his friend's aid. "I felt like a coward," he writes. "I decided I could not save him and that I had to save myself. The ending was not happy. Life is not a film."

Try searching for Malek Kanaan on the BBC news website. Just one report. Plus ça change. Change? What change?