Turning Down the News.(Israel boycotts the BBC.)

The BBC promo made Gideon Meir leap from his chair. The media point man for the Israeli Foreign Ministry was at his office late last month when it flashed on the screen--a series of rhetorical questions pointing to Israel as the one country in the Middle East with undeclared nuclear weapons. Though for Meir the ad for the BBC documentary, "Israel's Secret Weapon," was more proof that the British news outfit is deeply biased against the Jewish state. He didn't wait for the program to air. Says Meir: "I immediately called the prime minister's office and said we have to do something about this."

The decision came down quickly, instructing Israeli officials to begin boycotting one of the biggest news organizations in the world. For weeks now, press aides have refused the BBC's requests for interviews, its press credentials are being delayed and its reporters are off the invite list for official background briefings. Wrangling between the government and the foreign press is hardly new. The Israelis complain constantly that the international media are tougher on Israel than on the Palestinians. But the BBC sanctions are the harshest yet. "We've had disputes with the government loads of times," says Andrew Steele, the BBC's Middle East bureau chief. "But they've never taken this kind of action."

For journalists who've covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, hairsplitting criticism is familiar terrain. Dispatches from the region are carefully scrutinized by media watchdogs on both sides, and at least one group has actually counted the words devoted to Israelis and Palestinians as a ...