Pro-Israel watchdogs just love to wale on the Beeb.

"BBC's coverage of the Middle East has an underlying text: Israel is at the root of all the region's conflicts," wrote Ricki Hollander of the Committee for Accuracy in Media Reporting in America last month. "This biased perspective, exhibited in much of BBC's reporting, is institutional."

It came as something of a jag to the eyes, therefore, when an independent inquiry commissioned by the British Broadcasting Corporation's board of governors criticized the BBC for turning a blind eye to the hardships of Palestinians under occupation.

The panel, chaired by the president of the British Board of Film Classification, Sir Quentin Thomas, concluded that BBC coverage was marked by "failure to convey adequately the disparity in the Israeli and Palestinian experience, reflecting the fact that one side is in control and the other lives under occupation."

According to the report, which came to light last year, BBC reporting had failed to consistently "constitute a full and fair account of the conflict but rather, in important respects, presents an incomplete and in that sense misleading picture."

Certainly, few media outlets are assaulted from so many sides - even from the inside - as the magnificent, omnipresent, but certainly fallible BBC.

The conclusions of the independent review panel were mild relative to fierce criticism from some strongly pro-Palestinian and Islamist quarters.

"The portrayal of the BBC as independent and impartial public broadcaster is sadly misleading," wrote online commentator Ghali Hassan. "The BBC is a global instrument of Zionist propaganda.

"In addition to defending Israel's terrorism and the illegal occupation of Palestinian land, the BBC is an active complicit in Zionism war crimes throughout the Middle East."

It may be argued that criticism from both sides is the best evidence of objectivity. If this is the case, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and a host of other media outlets constantly caught in the watchdog crossfire may be said to be certifiably fair and balanced in their coverage of Israel and the Palestinians.

And there is, in fact, more than a small dose of peculiarity in the conclusions of the BBC review. Writing in the Times of London, Martin Walker, Editor of United Press International, titled an incisive analysis on the debate, "The BBC pro-Israeli? Is the Pope Jewish?"

Walker cites some of the more unfortunate examples of Beeb reporters sidling over from impartiality to Lawrence of Arabia Syndrome.

All in all, though, the BBC review panel was on the right track. For the sake of peace, for the sake of an eventual solution, the world needs to know more, not less, about the genuine suffering of the Palestinians.

For the sake of Israel's future, Israelis need to know more, not less, about the genuine suffering of the Palestinians.

For journalists reporting the story, it is all too easy, instead, to quote some sociopathic publicity addict like Sheikh Raed Salah of the northern branch of the Israeli Arab Islamic Movement, with his singular ability to size up any situation and render it immediately worse.

It was Salah who was extensively quoted at the weekend as having declared in the shadow of the Temple Mount, that the Jews "want to build their temple while our blood is on their clothing, on their doorposts, in their food and in their water."

In the end, whether it is Reuters or AP, Fox News or Al Jazeera, CNN or Sky, the Times or The Times, the news you receive at home generally comes down to one reporter and one editor. The great majority of them are nothing short of excellent at what they do. They do not pursue personal political crusades, whether subliminal or open. The great majority of them are committed to reporting the story as truthfully, intelligently, and objectively as is humanly possible.

But they are also human. They slip up. We slip up. I slip up. When we do, we have a responsibility to set it right.

As for the Beeb, I cannot but agree with Martin Walker, who believes that "it's amazing that the coverage is as decent as it is, and that most of us in the business concede privately that, for all its flaws, the BBC still does a better job that any other news organisation on Earth."

NEXT TIME: The BBC and Who Is A Terrorist