On the BBC’s Thought for the Day, the egregious John Bell joined the propaganda jihad and repeated tendentious and unsupportable charges froma dubious source. Note also that Bell doesn’t apologize for the key point — alleging that Israel jails soldiers for refusing to shoot children — but for minor details of his farrago. The BBC seems to pick up the slack, but is itself vague. From the BBC:
In the programme, on 10 February, the Reverend John Bell of the Iona Community spoke of meeting an Arab man conscripted into the Israeli Army.
Dr Bell told listeners the 19-year-old corporal had been jailed for refusing to shoot Palestinian schoolchildren.
However, the remarks angered many members of Britain’s Jewish community, who said the account could not be true.
‘Factual errors’
Several people told the BBC that Israeli Arabs are exempt from conscription into the army. Moreover, it would be impossible for a 19-year-old to rise to the rank of corporal.
Dr Bell has since admitted, in a letter to the BBC, that his account contained “two factual errors”.
“One was that the soldier was 21 and not 19, thus he would have been of the age to be a corporal.
“The second is that he did not say he was conscripted. My presumption regarding conscription is wrong as regards Arab Israelis….
The BBC added their own apology, on the Thought For The Day website, acknowledging that the facts should have been checked prior to broadcast.
“We have talked to the Israeli authorities and we are unable to find any evidence to support the story told to Dr Bell and recounted by him on Thought for the Day.