Please could someone tell Jim Muir. He doesn’t seem to have a clue. He’s unapologetic about it though.
Look, we’ve had the tears for Arafat episode. How many times does the BBC need to hear that they are notto take sides?
Where to start, where Muir gives us the film-set intro or where he describes the origins of Hamas’ success as being among ‘men of undoubted and bearded piety’?
Right there, I’m angry. Does Muir not know what happened to men who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) grow beard in Afghanistan, another land of men of ‘undoubted and bearded piety’?
According to the BBC’s beloved, Amnesty, ‘Men whose beard or hair length was found not to conform with Taleban regulations were beaten, often with metal cables.’
That’s the piety of radical Islam. It’s only a bad novelist who would pretend otherwise.
But hang on a moment, is Muir implying that the movement was essentially launched through Israeli injustice in the 90’s (a vague backdrop never clearly explained)? He doesn’t bother to mention that the ‘spiritual’ leader Yassin registered it in 1978! Romance, combined with anti-factualism.
Also, against this heroic backdrop, what does it mean to talk about the ‘relatively benign’ Muslim Brotherhood. Relative to what?
And what does it mean, in what time frame, to say ‘as the situation worsened’? There is no reference point for this vaguely described trend. He surely can’t he mean as Bill Clinton bent over backwards to give the Palestinians what they wanted (excepting the destruction of Israel) through the Oslo process?
And, for Muir’s information, sending homicide bombers to kill civilians doesmake them a terrorist organisation, and not just to the eye.
The numerical argument to justify the Palestinians endorsement of this (which, btw, Muir does not acknowledge) is scandalous. Does Muir not realise that there is a crucial difference at work in the calculations- there is no definition of a Palestinian soldier from which to identify civilian deaths? Even Palestinian women and children have been suicide bombers (and I’d be interested to know, by the way, whether the bombers themselves get counted as Palestinian casualties). One theory I hold to is that the Israelis are just far more competent soldiers, so fewer get killed. Furthermore, when Palestinian suicide bombers attack, they go for cafes, buses, the kind of place only civilians are: Israeli military casualties indicate failure due to interception (at least regarding the dominant means of murdering, suicide bombing). The opposite is the case for Israelis offensives against Palestinians, where civilian casualties are a major propaganda defeat. Muir is so uninformative it is quite literally unreal.
There was no justification for a vote for the murderers. That is the only defence the Palestinians have: that of lack of choice. Which makes a mockery of Muir’s last sentence, ‘And many Arab regimes, on which Yasser Arafat modelled his Palestinian set-up, must also be shuddering at the thought of what might happen if real democracy is let loose on them.’
I could go on. A dozen or so brazen lies demand hundreds of points of refutation; that’s the nature of a real lie. But hopefully people in the comments will continue the work. Fisks away! (there’s so much more to say! And thank you, too, because I’m not sure I’d have found this Muir fabrication without comments- especially DFH, whose excellent blog also makes its point).
How does Today back up the idea that industrial emissions (did you know that the USA is the world’s biggest polluter blah blah blah) are causing the ice caps to melt? It gets on an “impartial” scientist (Dr Myles Allen) who says that human activity is causing it.
But is this the case? I am not so sure. What caused ice to form/melt in ages past when there were no evil American corporations spewing CO2 into the air to kill us all?
It seems that Dr Allen may have a vested interests, since I find on another website and not announced by Naughtie that:-
“Dr Myles Allen is a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Research Fellow. NERC leads in providing independent research and training in the environmental sciences”. Hmmm.
He also writes for Open Democracy:-
http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflicts/index.jsp;jsessionid=30188914AD7A076505DC21DDCB6D581D
Hmmm.
“No axe to grind then”, as Naughtie confidently informed us.
Contrast this a little later with the interview with Mike Gapes, Labour MP, about the rise of Hamas. In this interview Naughtie tries to undermine Gapes by announcing in a sneering voice that Gapes is “Deputy-Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Friends of Israel”. Honestly, Naughtie is a nasty piece of work, particularly since he “omitted” to mention that Gapes is also a member of:-
Parliamentary Friends of Islam Group
Labour Middle East Council
Labour Friends of Iraq
Vice Chair of the United Nations Parliamentary Group
And as Gapes told Naughtie in no uncertain terms, he is committed to the 2 state solution.
So, Today hides from us the affiliations of lefty scientists who back up the BBC view that we are all doomed unless we stop Bush and the USA from producing anything, and on the other they fall over themselves to let us know that someone is a Friend of Israel.
Of course, there is no BBC bias.
http://www.tellingtrails.co.uk/pages/individuals/updalepage.html
http://db.bbc.co.uk/radio4/presenters/naughtie_biog.shtml
Allan@Aberdeen
“…the source of their failure/unwillingness to tackle crime?”
Think you’ve hit a live one there. The career path is fairly well known (see Sarge), but the academic underpinnings are a mite sketchy, shall we say. Easy just to conclude that shit floats — but it would be good to know what courses they took as they rose upwards. The inside of Blair’s head clearly isn’t pretty.
The price is the loss of public support for the police, and the terrible toll on the morale of good cops who still believe in law enforcement. The best often opt for the pension and early retirement –they can’t do much without public support.
The BBC, as usual, leads down the wrong path.
OT
Usual BBC puffing of their twittering favourites on Start the Week with (who else) Andrew Marr.
James Lovelock saying that Gaia will have her revenge on us evil humans within 30 – 100 years. Some woman talking about her book on “conflict resolution”. She has, apparently, been working with Hamas (who else) for the past several months. She thinks we should all be listening very very hard to those poor persecuted terrorists, because, poor dears, they are very very angry.
Then it was Boris Johnson plugging his BBC series on Rome – “How did the Romans run a united Europe and why does the European Union seem to find the same task so difficult?”
The answer’s simple, Boris. The Romans CONQUERED their territories and put down rebellion ruthlessly. As the Jews discovered in AD66-70. Most people nowadays don’t think the EU should be taking over Europe by force.
An interesting point arises from this gallimaufrey of mutual intellectual, er, stimulation. Boris, although a Conservative, is welcome on the BBC because he opposed the war on Saddam. However, his admiration for imperialism (roundly condemned by the BEEB when other contries, say, the US or Israel, are accused of it) is given airtime because it sustains the myth of the EU as a New Roman Empire ruling the world.
Ironic eh?
bbc get it wrong , yet again:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4660796.stm
“Islam bans any depiction of Muhammad or Allah.”
no it doesnt – an INTERPRETATION of islam bans it.
how else do you explain all those Ottoman Empire portrayals of Mohammed?
and secondly, nowhere in that report does it mention the death threats against the danish newspaper , that have resulted in the editors having to hire 24×7 bodyguards.
“religion of peace” my ass.
>don’t know if you share any of that feeling, but your comment suggests you are out of sympathy with it. However, if I didn’t feel it I would just be writing some more self-entertaining stuff at some other place.< No, my critique was borne of the fact that I couldn’t get a reasonable handle easily on what the article was about, indeed it reminded me specifically of my dear mother who will, mid way through an internal train of thought; suddenly engage her mouth, and I find I am juggling for context and references, left floundering whilst I try to get ‘on the same page’. I experienced exactly this frustration on reading this piece. So my critique is not related to the virtues of your case, but to the manner in which it was conveyed. I am familiar with the subject matter; though claim no particular expertise. I certainly agree that the BBC is highly biased; indeed I find it difficult to take seriously those who assert that it is not. To be more specific; that BBC systemic bias manifest as being a distinct left leaning perspective, anti capitalist, anti Israeli, hugely pro Palestinian, pro EU, Anti American and in so far as America goes massively anti-Republican, soft pedalling on Koranic literalist Islamo-fascists, wilfully ignorance of history and in military matters. I could go on. Assuming reasonable prior knowledge on current affairs is perfectly reasonable, I think I have this which is partly why I made my point. I’ve been reading B-BBC for Months, I think the authors should be more mindful how an article will read to an open minded, potentially sympathetic new reader of the blog. My point is not to be too pompous about writing style, but there is a lot to be said for the old adage: ‘tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them it, then tell them what you’ve told them’. Especially the first bit of context setting ‘Tell them what you’re going to tell them’. The start of the article should, in most cases, seek to give the reader a contextual perspective, prepare him or her for what’s to come. Otherwise the reader starts hitting your substantive points which instead of resonating, have a drastically reduced impact, because the reader is chanting the sub vocal mantra ‘yes but what the …….is this article about’. To expand my critique from this post to the wider bloggosphere. I find this all too common in Bloggs. I scan the headlines and first few lines in my RSS aggregator (FeedDemon in my case) and all too often it’s impossible to glean any inkling whatsoever as to what the article is about without following links. Another related critique of Biased BBC; as far as I’m aware Biased BBC has no RSS feed, it’s one of the only Bloggs I take the trouble to actually visit directly to see if there’s been a post. Others I can just check my FeedDeamon aggregator, read the blog headings and make the call as to if I want to drill into the detail.
Nick (South Africa),
BBBCs best bits are the comment feedback.
With RSS you cannot see the trees for the wood.
Why haven’t the British Press reproduced the cartoons?
How about a little solidarity with our Scandinavian friends?
yet more bbc bias – no mention of “islam”, or “islamist” or “muslim” in this hamas report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4661066.stm
but it’s ok to refer to israel as a “jewish state”
its maddening – if you dont refer to “Islamist” when talking about Hamas, its like not mentioning “fascism” when talking about the Nazi Party.
this is seriously misleading stuff from the BBC that borders on the irresponsible.
I would dearly like the BBC to publish these cartoons on its site. They are not obscene or pornographic; some of them don’t even appear to have a discernible message – or if they do it is in Danish; some of them aren’t even very good.
I shall rephrase that: the BBC has a duty to reproduce these cartoons. If it does not because it fears the consequences, then it is a cowardly corporation and should be ashamed of itself.
If it baulks at the idea on the grounds of taste, one can simply say “Jerry Springer.”
archduke,
More like not mentioning socialism when talking about the National Socialist Party (which is why the left love the term Nazi).
Rob,
There’s an argument to be had as to whether the Nazi’s were ‘right wing’ in any sense relevant to how ‘right wing’ is interpreted today, but Hitler certainly ‘disposed’ of the genuinely socialist elements well before he took power.
See also German Democratic Republic etc etc.
which is why the term “fascism” is the most appropriate. the Nazi’s got their appeal by both appealing to the working classes (via Ernst Rohm) while at the same time reassuring the upper classes (via anti-Bolshevism).
thats why i like the term “islamofascism”, as bin Laden’s philosophy appeals to certain Muslims irrespective of their background or nationality.
just listened to the “world at one” on radio 4. talked about Hamas, EU funding – again, no mention of the “I” word or the “T” word or the “M” word.
More on the Danish Cartoons:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4661572.stm
‘Below the fold” on the BBC News frontpage is a link to this article. the link is ‘Gaza EU offices raided’.
If you bother to read the article, you’ll find that 30 armed terrorists stormed the EU office in Gaza and demanded an ‘apology’ for the Danish cartoons.
I can see the BBC tying themselves in knots over this one. Their favourite victim group (Palestinians), that are also part of their other favourite victim group (Muslims) are fighting against freedom of speech, by threatening the BBC’s favourite political institution (EU).
Who will the BBC find to blame? It’s either going to be Israel, Amerikkka or Denmark.
What part of “National Socialist German Workers Party” is difficult to understand?
National Socialism or Nazism, doctrines and policies of the National Socialist German Workers’ party, which ruled Germany under Adolf Hitler from 1933 to 1945. In German the party name was Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP); members were first called Nazis as a derisive abbreviation.
in that article:
“One of the gunmen said citizens of both countries should not enter Gaza until the apology is made.”
well, thats it – bye bye EU funding.
Indeed, Grimer. The BBC set the bar high with its broadcast of Jerry Springer: The Opera. Its refusal to bow to pressure from protestors was admirable, imho.
Now it is in the horns of a dilemma. Well, it’s not because there is little or no chance of the BBC posting these cartoons on its website or displaying them on TV.
The BBC does not mind causing offence to certain groups in the name of ‘artistic freedom’ if these groups do not fall in the category of ‘victims’ – ‘victims’, as seen by the BBC, that is.
Moreover, the BBC can handle a concerted campaign by a group of well-behaved middle-class British Christians but it would be scared s***less by a backlash from the Muslim world.
The BBC is more a government-controlled broadcaster than it appears – rarely are the men at the top out of tune with government – at least not for long.
The BBC expresses its frustrations like an adolescent attacking parents – anything which looks like structure, authority, and reveres Past and Future antagonises the Hedonist “Live for Today” BBC deviants who are narcissistic
Further to SiN @ 1.50 pm
In their 1933 manifesto the National Socialists said that they are socialists and mortal enemies of the capitalist system.
Couldn’t be clearer.
It always puzzles me that the left are keen to disown the Nazis but pretty silent about Soviet and Chinese communism.
Looking at just one criterion, the nazis murdered 6 million, the soviets murdered 56 million and the chinese 93 million (estimated) just to retain power.
gordon-bennett : the nazi’s were against the “capitalist” system, for in their eyes it was ruled by a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.
they want national capitalism for the Volk.
hence , the likes of Krupps, Mercedes , BMW as such like were still allowed to operate under the Nazi state.
secondly, their main opponents were the socialists and communists , whom they rounded up after gaining power.
they were extreme right wing. calling them “left wing” is laughable , and shows a complete lack of understanding of the Nazi party or Nazi philosophy and its major differences to left wing ideology.
“It always puzzles me that the left are keen to disown the Nazis ”
errr. because the Nazis executed thousands of leftists in the concentration camps?
Cockney
“but Hitler certainly ‘disposed’ of the genuinely socialist elements well before he took power”
Not exactly. The 1934 “Night of the Long Knives” (ie after Hitler came to power) was Hitler’s destruction (more or less) of the SA and the murder of its leader Rohm which formed the bulwark of the “socialist” element in the National Socialist party. However, insofar as words meant much to National Socialists, the socialist rhetoric continued unabated to the end.
TAoL
This is very true. Whilst the cartoons don’t seem to have much in the way of artistic merit on their own unless I’m missing something in the Danish (arguably unlike Jerry Springer which was pretty funny really), what with this and the Van Gogh film it’s surely time for an investigation into extremist Islamic responses to artistic criticism/p*ss taking complete with uncensored airing of the stuff itself. This is the sort of thing the BBC owes it to its license fee payers to investigate in a grown up way to let us make our own minds up.
“the socialist rhetoric continued unabated to the end” – yeah, but you have to say that the deutshland-uber-alles style socialism was a bit different to the “workers of the world unite” type of socialism.
anyways , this right-left thing is confusing – where would libertarianism fit? extreme right? but that would lump it in with the BNP.
“This is the sort of thing the BBC owes it to its license fee payers to investigate in a grown up way to let us make our own minds up.”
unrealistic , considering the dhimmitude of most Beeboids.
> “Krupps, Mercedes , BMW as such like were still allowed to operate under the Nazi state.”
And employ who they liked and set prices and wages? I think not.
“And employ who they liked and set prices and wages? I think not.”
true – not exactly free, but they were allowed to operate. then again, it was a wartime economy. you cant say that British companies were exactly “free” to operate either.
just saying that the nazi state didnt exactly do a communist thing an nationalise everything in sight – it’s an important difference to the Marxist utopia of the communists.
Other Topic
When I watch BBC News 24 I find it patronising how there trivalise it and have a woman presenter that reads an outocue as if she talk down to the audience. I would only watch Sky News, CNBC or Bloomberg for fairier coverage of Business News and as Jeff Randall said “It’s not a conspiracy. It’s visceral. They think they are on the middle ground”.
the likes of Krupps,
It was Krupp
Look – German Industry was given a Four Year Plan after 1936 – either you fitted in and kept your business doing as you were told or it would be run by The State.
The NSDAP was a fringe Socialist Party in 1918 infiltrated by a police agent called Adolf Hitler who instead took over the party making it more nationalist.
The Night of The Long Knives was to kill off people like Roehm who thought it really was a Socialist Party but it was Nationalist for nationalists and Socialist for socialists and once in power it had no more elections.
What is the difference between Stalin’s “Socialism in One Country” and Hitler’s “National Socialism” ?
Where would you rather have lived ?
The terms left and right (in politics) arose after the French revolution) when deputies sat to the left or right according to their views on the restoration of the monarchy; not hugely relevant to the benefits or otherwise of the capitalist system and totally irrelevant to liberty (both the monarchy and the revolution were about absolute power).
Two dimensions are not enough; Nazism, Facism (not quite the same thing) and communism are all evil because they are totalitarian. Whether they are left or right is angels on a pinhead, what matters is the intention to control the totality of citizens’ lives.
For the record, I’ll admit to right of centre, libertarian, capitalist.
Noone has mentioned yet in News that the operators of the exhibition centre in Katowice are British
http://www.expomediagroup.com/client/index.aspx?page=1
Expomedia Group Plc in London
..they were extreme right wing. calling them “left wing” is laughable , and shows a complete lack of understanding of the Nazi party or Nazi philosophy and its major differences to left wing ideology.
Read this if you havn’t already. hitler was right wing compared to the Communists but overall he shared a lot with the left of the time. The arguments in the essay are very compelling.
This counter argument is IMO not very convincing.
Decide for yourself. Laughable it is certainly not.
OT – Justin Webb reports from the US.
Viewpoint: In search of a clear view of Bush
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4652648.stm
I’m not sure from what to make of Justin. Has he been persuaded by reasoned argument that his previous reports (well documented here) have suffered from stereotyping, racism, Christian-bashing and straightforward basic factual innacuracies (although Matt Frei holds the Crown on that one by a long chalk). Or is this just a fad he is going through and he will shortly return to the shrill of anti-Americanism and bias his bosses at the BBC expect?
An interesting one to watch…..
Ritter,
They even picked an non-un-flattering picture of Bush.
Here is another addition to the case:
http://www.tfp.org/what_we_think/fascism.html
I prefer the terms socialist and capitalist to left and right but the BBC (whose bias we are judging) likes to tag the BNP (for example) as not only neo-nazi but also right wing. I say that that is a contradiction in terms.
Use ot right wing in these cases is part of a deliberate policy to tar the Conservative Party with the nazi brush. The BBC are more likely to call Hamas terrorists than to stop abusing and undermining the Conservative Party in this and many other ways.
Nick of SA wrote:
“I certainly agree that the BBC is highly biased; indeed I find it difficult to take seriously those who assert that it is not.”
That is exactly my experience. When someone says to me that the BBC isn’t biased, I place his/her intelligence on the same plane as someone who would argue that the Earth were flat.
Reporting from Israel at no cost to you at all. A little cold other than that everyone is very nice and helpfull. I have been watching Little Britain on the BBC not a good advert for the country you live in ,but what do you expect from the BBC?
Just heard Clare Short interviewed on BBC Radio 4 saying why Hamas needs EU subsidy and barely concealing her contempt for Israel speaking of “their state” and excusing Hamas refusal to recognise Israel’s right to exist by saying Israel doesn’t recognise a Palestinian State right to exist.
Now this woman is intellectually limited, but her statement is also mendacious and she seems to forget that Israel does recognise the two-state solution as does the PLO – it is Hamas which opposes.
Clare Short is a beneficiary of the expansion of Higher Education in the 1960s when Kingsley Amis noted “More means Worse”
Ritter, re Webb,
…far more likely that he feels out on a limb and hopes to crawl back to re-establish credibility. That won’t happen: too little, too late.
He’s branded a lying bastard, and earned every bit of his reputation.
Rick – Clare Short??!! FFS!
BBC finds a T word to replace the T word…
Abbas vows to honour peace deals
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4662796.stm
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has vowed to honour peace agreements with Israel, while urging foreign donors to continue giving aid to the territories.
‘territories’ has to be up there with ‘plumbers’ as a euphamism for the ‘T’ word we dare not speak…..
OT: woo boy.. Clinton has really put his foot in it this time. I’ll bet the Israelis wont be too happy with this:
http://www.breitbart.com/news/na/060130151546.v8vrasnt.html
on the Hamas front, i’m utterly confused with this story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4663742.stm
so are the EU going to fund them or not? its just baffling the way the story is worded versus the headline.
“I’m not sure from what to make of Justin. Has he been persuaded by reasoned argument that his previous reports….. ”
Could it be due to the BBC rolling out a new USA Broadcast Service??? I mean their anti-US stance has got them in hot water in the UK….but in the States, it’s going to get them the shot at in the street….I bet they’ve toned waaaay down, which only goes to proove that they were waaaaay Biased in the first place……
It’s all part of the BBCs plan to help get Hillary Clinton elected…….mark my words.
The Danish cartoons illustrate one thing tasteless or not – that Islam is really “Mohammedanism” – the worship of Mohammed rather than of God.
The Bible refers to graven image
http://www.commandmentsofyhwh.org/Law/gravenimage.htm
but this is to prevent worship of idols – since Mohammed is a man and not the Son of God why is he treated as if he is a god himself – with or without a graven image it seems Mohammed is worshipped as a surrogate for God.
It seems as if the Man component is more vital than the supernatural God
OT
Good article by Justin Webb
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4652648.stm
Note title…..
Viewpoint: In search of a clear view of Bush
The link from the ‘Americas’ page is…..
Viewpoint: Seeking an unbiased view of Bush’s world agenda
interesting….
Off-topic
Interesting wording from BBC News in titling of a story on Palestine aid: EU ‘to keep funding Palestinians’.
It is also noteworthy that only the EU’s funding has been referred to in the story title when the US, which alone gives an aid worth two thirds of the EU’s, has put forward the same conditions.
>BBBCs best bits are the comment feedback.< Possibly so, indeed if this is so B-BBC should migrate away from a Blog format to a Bulletin board format (VBulletin is imnso the best). Perhaps a tangential discussion to my initial points. Back to these. The lack of RSS feed is an issue, for me, and perhaps increasingly so I suggest for other gits of a less gobby inclination. Sure, when time and inclination co-incide I will dip into comments, and indeed, there is good shit there. I don’t always have the time or the inclination to do this, hell not even usually. In fact if there is something seismic it should be picked up by one of the site’s authors and elevated to a pucker blog post; and this does happen, but perhaps less than it should. Given the amateur nature of this forum (not intended as a pejorative) and the imperatives on folks time, this is entirely understandable, again this rather re enforces my point. Make it easy - Make it a habit or 'house style' to encapsulate the essence posting in the first line, have an RSS feed. Is this so unreasonable? Hell I'm sympathetic to B-BBC's premise, I'm trying to be positive to maximise the site’s effective ‘punching weight’ as it’s to my mind a worthy cause.
Grumpy Troll -> i pointed that out at 06:56 – indeed, very confusing headline,because the EU still has laid down the same conditions as the Americans.
nick ->my guess is that a bulletin board wouldnt work, because the current haloscan commenting is completely anonymous. b-bbc do have a forum, but i find the colors and layout to be a bit garish.
(right hand side – discussion board)
Nick (South Africa). Thanks for your response and constructive criticism- I am sure I should try to take on board as much of it as I am able to.
Re: your mother.
My father (as it happens) often can’t follow modern film plots; I am a tad impatient with that, but when it comes to trying to find a place that I’ve only been to a couple of times before, I’m the one who can feel slow whereas his instinct is unerring.
I shall give it some consideration.