, can I draw your attention to a fiery post from Dash Riprock:
…after ignoring the incitement story for, oh, ever, the Beeb dutifully reports on the “Jews are HIV, Jews are Cancer” sermon broadcast on the official Palestinian Authority television station. Unable to resist, they then gratuitously add this:
The state broadcaster is only watched by an estimated one percent of Palestinians, who prefer Arab satellite channels.
Well then, no harm, no foul! I mean, it’s almost like the BBC thinks that a national station can broadcast murderous propaganda, as long as it’s limited to Jews and Israel, and there are other channels to watch…hey, wait a minute!
I don’t think the BBC deliberately broadcasts murderous propaganda. I do think it has a blatant double standard regarding other people’s murderous propaganda. Watched by few it may be, but this sermon came from the official Palestinian Authority station. And you might be forgiven for getting the impression from the BBC that the “Arab satellite channels” that the Palestinians prefer to the PA channel are preferred because they are less extreme. Since one of the most popular is Al-Manar, which is run by Hezbollah and recently featured a series called Al-Shatat (The Diaspora), a drama that portrayed Jews seeking out Christian children for ritual slaughter, I don’t think so. MEMRI churns out translations by the bushel of similar incitement to racial hatred from government and mainstream sources all over the Arab World. It is all considered scarcely worthy of comment by the BBC.
Natalie Solent again entirely misses the boat. In this morning’s BBuardianC.
‘A planned 48-hour strike by thousands of BBC staff scheduled for next Tuesday has been called off after the director general, Mark Thompson, agreed to a yearlong moratorium on compulsory redundancies.’
Is anyone else angry about this?
Here’s the link
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1494449,00.html
Maybe no-ones that bothered about a bunch of state-funded lefties going on strike?
Anon, Nope not angry… just watching and waiting for the inevitable 🙂
People in Britain who are in public positions seem to see themselves as overlords with a mandate to ride roughshod over the populace. It is a most peculiar trait and one I’ve never noticed elsewhere.
Natalie, sadly I have come to the conclusion that despite the fact that most of the BBC are just useless fools there are some people inside it who do intentionally broadcast murderous propaganda 🙁
The BBC should be made accountable for their actions.
The state broadcaster is only watched by an estimated one percent of Palestinians, who prefer Arab satellite channels.
How do they know this? Did the Beeb conduct a viewer’s poll themselves?
Somehow I highly doubt that the Beeb would take the trouble to conduct a viewer’s poll and find out how many people actually watch the PA channel.
They are either making this “fact” up, or accepting PA propaganda at face value without checking.
If the latter is true, and only one percent do actually watch the PA channel, then why is the PA channel not being shut down? Aren’t all Palestinians poverty stricken wretches forced to live in extreme deprivation by swimming-pool-owning Israeli meanies? Surely such deprived people cannot afford to keep a broadcasting outfit open that is only watched by 1 percent of their audience! (I mean, who do they think they are — the wealth-laden BBC?)
What a load of crap. This isn’t journalism, it’s “key messaging.” And it’s scarily blatant.
In answer to Anon’s question about whether anybody else is angry about BBC’s decision to call a moratorium on getting rid of surplus staff, speaking for myself, it’s what I’ve come to expect from this sanctimonious self-serving behamoth. I don’t understand why he thinks this issue should have such a priority on this site, which is the title implies, has more to do with bias. Perhaps he/she can start a website titled Rotten Stinking BBC and all the reasons we hate their fat guts and we can post their every transgression there. Natalie I think you’re doing a fantastic job.
An interesting aside, for readers like Hilary, a Guardian reader who profess to be purely seeking truth and balance. If you look at The Guardian’s webpage “Israel and the Middle East – Key Events”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,626719,00.html
for the year 1994 the only event shown is
“1994 – Baruch Goldstein, a demented Jewish zealot in the flashpoint West Bank town of Hebron, goes beserk in the town’s most historic mosque, killing 29 Arabs with his assault rifle.”
Amazingly ignored as key events are:
1. May 1994 – The Gaza/Jericho agreement in Cairo between Israel and
the PA giving autonomy to the Palestinian Authority in those areas – Surely a Key Event
2. July 1994 – The Israel/Jordan peace treaty – Surely a Key Event
3. 40 Israelis murdered by demented terrorists in numerous beserk attacks throughout that year – most following the granting of autonomy to the PA?
Now how many letters will you write to the Guardian questioning their attempt at misleading their readers, or do you prefer their ‘history’ as is? Why do you think they have omitted the other key events for that year?
I have to say that I think the tone and direction Natalie’s post misses the target somewhat (perhaps due to being led by Dash Riprock).
The main bias I can see (and I’m not saying it isn’t a biggie, cos it is) is the BBC waiting to tell this story until they could present it in a good light for the Palestinian Authority (and Palestinian Arabs in general). The frothing Jew hatred broadcast via (not necessarily ‘from’) the Palestinian Authority TV station (subsidised by the EU, apparently) should have been reported by the BBC immediately after it happened; not just when the P.A. stepped in to supposedly rectify matters.
But I just don’t interpret the last paragraph of the BBC report as an attempt to limit the damage of behalf of the Palestinian Arabs. I don’t detest the BBC any less this evening than I normally do, so it isn’t bank holiday weekend charity. I see it as a simple statement of ‘fact’.
Except, of course (and this is the second biggie), for the rather stunning factual ‘mistake’ of describing the TV station as a “state” broadcaster. The BBC may believe in, or wish for, a Palestinian State but, as yet, there isn’t one. Despite the BBC’s implication, the Simon Wiesenthal Center does not mention a Palestinian ‘state’ broadcaster in its condemnation:
http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nl/content.asp?c=fwLYKnN8LzH&b=312458&content_id={A32EF945-F96F-4AD9-9523-C63516A6CE57}¬oc=1
I’m not sure about Natalie, but Dash Riprock appears to have fallen for it. But then, that illustrates the success of drip-drip BBC bias…
.
PJF,
Your’e absolutly right on both points.
About a week ago in London an anti-Israel rally took place in which speakers called explicitly for the destruction of Israel. It also featured ‘heroic’ George Gallowy who said “It’s about time that the British government made some reparations for the Balfour declaration,” which is a nuanced version of the same thing. “We urge our government to cease all trade with Israel,” said Jeremy Corbyn, a backbench Labor MP”. “My dear friends, if this process continues, there will be possibly some sort of a world war,” said [former Labor MP] Benn...and so on. British MP’s, academics, Christians, Muslims and Jews (Holding signs which read: “Palestine from the Jordan River to the Sea.”..” “They [the Israelis] have no right to exist. Israel will fail. Before Israel, Jews were living well in Arab countries,”) – All took part in this hate fest.
My point is that none of this was reported on the BBC website, or almost any other British media. Instead, British people interested to know about such events that take place in Englnd’s capital city, concerning MP’s, a bishop and other public figures expressing bigotry and hatred, must go to the ‘Jerusalem Post’ or LGF to be informed.
Is it not in the British public interest to know about such things? Calling for the destruction of a sovereign state in the presence of law makers and educators? Apparently not when that state is Israel and when the public broadcaster is the BBC.
Natalie,
“I don’t think the BBC deliberately broadcasts murderous propaganda.
Do you think that reporters and editors don’t make conscious decisions when they omit this or distort that? everybody is naive, or so blinded by the cause (whatever that would be) as to nearly always get it upside down by chance?
And even if not deliberately, the BBC’s anti-Israel bias that borders with propaganda slowly sets the cosy atmosphere of events such as above, boycotts, discrimination and so on. Israel is already demonised. Bad, evil Israel is by now the default politically correct view. BBC is a very big contributer to this, deliberately or not.
I doubt the BBC has an intentional desire to produce that which is murderous propaganda, I do believe that they are totally ammoral as to the damage their reportage does. So long as it fits in to the propaganda that the ‘majority’ wants to hear, they will spin it that way. In case any reader should think that by ‘the majority’ I mean British folks, don’t be silly, we are just the dupes who give them the status of a ‘democratic state broadcasting company’ to increase the swaying power of their ‘news’ . No, here the majority is the 80 nations around the world containing over 1.5 billion Muslims, and the BBC want to maintain their TV and Radio contracts with them so they can sit on top of the media slag heap.
But isn’t the Beeb an Arab satellite channel?
Max wrote:
“… everybody is naive, or so blinded by the cause (whatever that would be) as to nearly always get it upside down by chance?”.
I’m with you Max. Even the sublime Melanie Phillips sometimes writes of BBC bias as if it’s unintentional. It’s what Gramscian Marxist (and Marxist inspired) people do; they subvert democratic institutions to serve their totalitarian ends. As far as the extremely emotive ‘Do people at the BBC deliberately promote murderous hatred’, well, if a news organisation was equally biased in favour of a racist white group against black people there’s no doubt what view the post-Marxist BBC would take of that.
Israel (with America) is now the world’s favourite scapegoat, and if it continues to its inexorable end, as it shows every sign of doing, we are going to learn the hard way that evil did not end at Auschwitz. It’s as simple as that.
>Natalie Solent again entirely misses the boat.
What a silly thing to say. A blogger who blogs in her very limited spare time, for free, and you get angry at her because she isn’t providing a 24-hour news and opinion service that caters to your exact views?
By these standards you should be picketing the BBC 365 days a year.
Cap’n Crunch, gotta lend a ‘hear, hear’ to your censuring the intemperate comments on Natalie’s Blogs. These people sound as ignorante and irascible as John Humphreys!
But isn’t the Beeb an Arab satellite channel?
Dave | 29.05.05 – 8:57 pm |
No it serves all Muslims – especially the more militant or extremist kind. Whatever they are not able to twist their Koran to mean, they find a source in the ‘Holy Beeble’.