A reader writes:
In fairness to the BBC, that's their usual headline style - I think it indicates that the part of the headline in quotation marks is a direct quote from some other source. Currently I see ...
Iran 'to compete at London 2012'
Gunman interest in 'extreme porn'
UK 'gave torture tacit approval'
Carstairs for 'Mafia plot' killer
Another writes:
The BBC puts those infuriating quotation marks around everything it quotes, as you'll see by Googling "BBC headline quotation marks" (here's a helpful discussion on the matter). The fuss around these particular quotation marks, ignoring the BBC's long history of bad quotation marks, says more about the hair-trigger sensitivities of pro-Israeli bloggers than about the BBC. (You didn't draw inferences about the BBC, I know, but blogger you linked to did.)
Another:
There is no doubt this is a disgusting crime, but the quotes are appropriate at this point. So far, there is no evidence that has been reported that a Palestinian is behind this act. They very well may be, but as of now it is an accusation.
One Palestinian group, which is notorious for taking responsibility for acts they didn’t commit, was reported to have taken responsibility for it. Today, it was reported that they denied responsibility for it. Also, reports today indicate that Thai immigrant workers in the settlement were being questioned by Israeli authorities. Israeli soldiers have put an entire Palestinian village in the area under lockdown and have detained dozens of not hundreds of the villagers in the hope of extracting information from them.
It’s quite disturbing that the media would accept that a Palestinian is behind this as a matter of fact before there is any evidence of it. Again, I’m not saying a Palestinian didn’t or couldn’t do this; I am just saying that responsible journalists should treat it as an accusation until it is more than that.