THE BBC’S coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict implicitly favours the Israeli side, a study for the BBC Governors has concluded.

Deaths of Israelis received greater coverage than Palestinian fatalities, while Israelis received more airtime on news and current affairs programmes. The references to “identifiable shortcomings” surprised BBC News executives, who are more used to accusations that their coverage is routinely anti-Israel.

Only “a small percentage of Palestinian fatalities were reported by BBC News”, the analysis, published yesterday, noted, while “the killing of more than one Israeli by Palestinians either by gun or bomb was reported on national broadcast programmes”.

At the same time, there was “little reporting of the difficulties faced by the Palestinians in their daily lives” and a “failure to convey adequately the disparity in the Israeli and Palestinian experience, reflecting the fact that one side is in control and the other side lives under occupation”.

Led by Sir Quentin Thomas, the president of the British Board of Film Classification, the Governors’ study group analysed a period between August 2005 and January this year in which 98 Palestinians were killed and there were up to 23 Israeli fatalities.

The findings were seized upon by pro-Palestinian groups. Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, said: “When research consistently shows that fatalities from one side of a conflict — the party that has by far the least number — are more frequently covered, then this must raise alarm bells.”

However, the Thomas inquiry also argued that the BBC should be less cautious over its use of the the word “terrorism” because “that is the most accurate expression for actions which involve violence against randomly selected civilians”.

The panel relied on research by Loughborough University for its conclusions about the coverage of deaths in the conflict, as well as the calculation that more “talk time” was given to non-party political Israelis, thereby tipping the balance away from Palestinians.

The report focuses on news and current affairs output during the period when Orla Guerin was the BBC’s Middle East Correspondent and concluded that there was “little to suggest deliberate or systematic bias” in the coverage of the conflict. “On the contrary, there was evidence of a commitment to be fair, accurate and impartial,” it said.

Instead, to rectify the problems, journalists were advised not to always highlight events accompanied by dramatic pictures, but concentrate on in-depth items that would reflect “shifts in Palestinian society and politics”.

The Thomas panel also suggested that a senior editor be appointed to oversee coverage of the conflict as a whole.

Michael Grade, the Chairman of the Governors, said that he would ask news bosses to come back with their response to the report next month.

Sir Quentin said: “What the BBC does now is good for the most part; some of it very good. But it could and should do better to meet the gold standard which it sets itself.”

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