Last night’s BBC Ten O’Clock News featured Barbara ‘I wept for Arafat‘ Plett

reporting from Beirut on yesterday’s record demonstration opposing the presence of Syrian forces in Lebanon. Her report was also shown on BBC News 24.

BBC News Online also covered the protest. In ‘Record’ protest held in Beirut, they reported:

Nearly one million people gathered for an opposition rally in Beirut, officials say – a month after the death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

The demonstration surpassed recent pro-Syrian rallies and is thought to be the biggest in Lebanese history.

The BBC’s Kim Ghattas in Beirut says the crowds turned the city centre into a sea of red, white and green – the colours of Lebanon’s national flag.

Now, here’s where it gets confusing – towards the end of Plett’s report she says:

With Syria on the move, the demonstrations have shifted focus – to forming the opposition into an organised political force and it’s challenging not only Syria, but a major player in Lebanon, the Islamic resistance movement, Hezbollah. Last week it [Hezbollah] demonstrated in support of Syria with similar numbers and a similar political purpose.

Did you spot the confusing bit? By all (other) accounts (e.g. The Times: “Beirut witnessed its biggest anti-Syrian rally in a month of street protests yesterday“), yesterday’s demonstration in Beirut was far and away the largest in the country’s history, and yet Plett baldly states that “Last week [Hezbollah] demonstrated in support of Syria with similar numbers”. Having played down the size of yesterday’s demonstration (without even touching on the apparently dubious composition of much of last week’s pro-Syria crowd), Plett then said “What’s important here is numbers…” – but not, it seems, if you’re a BBC reporter on a mission – or maybe it was just Babs’ vision being obscured by those tears again.