Fresh from her ‘could do better report’ concerning bias in coverage of Israel and the Palestians (naturally the report found bias both ways, as you’d expect from a bunch of panjandrums), the Beeb has found it convenient again to slant against Israel. It must be so tempting for Aunty, when EU and Arab opinion knows exactly what it wants to hear, while elsewhere ambivalence reigns so that people just might not notice.
Fortunate then that ambivalence isn’t everywhere.
Melanie Phillips comments on this Jeremy Bowen report, which seems crafted to avoid blaming the Palestinians for their own actions:
‘Israeli military actions in these areas have been necessitated solely by the terrorism inflicted upon Israelis by their inhabitants and Israel’s need to defend its citizens against mass murder. (The other Israeli activity has been routinely treating Palestinians from Gaza in Israeli hospitals, about which the BBC is silent).’
Er, not quite. Bowen says ‘I was shown a cancer patient who can no longer be treated in Israel, who lay in the hospital surrounded by his family waiting to die.’
An unduly negative way of looking at the broader situation, perhaps.
Meanwhile Stephen Pollard catches a new girl on the block crafting similar barriers to understanding. Our old favourite Caroline Hawley is on the beat again, in Jerusalem:
‘BBC correspondent Caroline Hawley in Jerusalem says it is not clear why the army moved against Hamad.’ (nb: perhaps a stealth edit was made which added ‘now’ following this sentence, because it seems unlikely that Stephen Pollard just left the word off, and it’s certainly there now. Even so, the sentence implies that the Israelis could have captured the terror leader at will, anytime. What fiendishly clever fellows they must be!)
Such bias may play well in the EU and Arabia, and pass under the radar of most elsewhere, but it certainly hinders an objective view ot the situation. Business as usual it seems.
Hat tip to USS Neverdock for this on Caroline (“Call me Orla!) Hawley:
http://www.honestreporting.co.uk/articles/critiques/BBC_Questions_Terror_Arrest.asp
Actually I think that I noted the Hawley remark in the comments section yesterday or the day before. Maybe I was first, I don’t know. I have complained to the BBC, so will let you know what they say in response.
Is there any way of finding out whether the “now” was added subsequently? I can’t remember it in the original, but that might just be wishful thinking on my part (not that I’m biased, of course!).
I don’t recall the word “now” being in the original.
We all expect the BBC to be biased against Israel, and they do live down to our expectations, but when The Daily Telegraph publishes shockingly one-sided ‘reports’, then things are worse than imagined. The articles in the DT to which I refer are written by one Tim Butcher – some background, anyone?
If there’s one voice that makes the Beeb’s reporting on the Israeli/Palestinian situation appear unbiased in comparison it’s the blessed Melanie’s. She could spot anti Israeli bias in the West Stand Upper at White Hart Lane on a Saturday afternoon.
Why not just dissect the abysmal BBC ‘story’ without linking to these clowns?
I don’t think that Cockney troubled himself with reading Bowen’s ‘report’.
I did. To the extent that it deals with the overlap between the internal Gaza strife to Israeli actions it’s biased crap. Just don’t see the point of linking to Mel Phillips, whose commentary on the Israeli/Palestinian situation is also biased crap. Criticism is much more effective coming from the middle ground, wouldn’t you agree?
I am biased: I am pro-Israeli. That is to say that I acknowledge Israel as a nation which is institutionally democratic and respectful of the principle(s) of law, and is the only such nation in that geographical region which is so.
The BBC is anti-Israeli, and the result of that extrapolation is self-evident.
“The articles in the DT to which I refer are written by one Tim Butcher – some background, anyone?”
Here’s some useful comment from Adloyada on the well named Tim Butcher.
http://adloyada.typepad.com/adloyada/2006/04/tim_butcher_wie.html#more
“…the blessed Melanie’s. She could spot anti Israeli bias in the West Stand Upper at White Hart Lane on a Saturday afternoon.”
LOL. Like it.
Fair point.
FYI, The original article didn’t include the word “now”
I have the ‘Tuesday, 23 May 2006, 10:35 GMT 11:35 UK’ version saved. and could e-mail the screen cap if needed.
There are so many puzzled beeboids these days – so WHY did the Israelis want to capture Hamad? And earlier this week they wondering WHY Palesitnians were involved in training Bedouin for terror attacks in Egyptian
Oops – that posted due to a slip of my finger. Anyway I hope you get my drift. I think we should have an Orla Guerin award for BBC bias against Israel.
Hi Max, send me the screencap and I’ll post it up next to the current version.
I don’t think Melanie Phillips has ever claimed that she’s a disinterested observer where Israeli-Palestinian affairs are concerned but I’ve never read an article of hers which takes a deliberately distorted view in the same way that Bowen does. Of course, I could be wrong. Perhaps cockney can tell us of a particularly egregious example of MP’s “biased crap”.
Andrew, should I send it to the e-mail on the sidebar (that begins with Natalie..) or to your e-mail (which I don’t know)?
Cockney
When you grow up and obtain a set of morals not borrowed from someone else, remember this. Some questions in life should not be viewed from the centre as the centre can very often be as, if not more, of an IMMORAL place to be as anywhere else.
For example; a Palestinian may have a personal reason or excuse for his own bias and ignorence, but what is yours and the BBCs?
Andrew,
to make a long story short i’ve uploaded it to yousendit and it’s at this adress:
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=C90CDD0B10F1240A
you might need to crop it, it’s very long.
Umbongo
HERE HERE!!
Cockney,
A valid point made by a biased person is still a valid point isn’t it?
Butcher has quite a lot of form when at the BBC.
http://adloyada.typepad.com/adloyada/2005/09/bbc_warm_hearte.html
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/001214.html
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/001203.html
He has also had trouble finding the T word in his lexicon since he has been at the Telegraph.
Slightly off-topic/on-topic
Excellent post on the (D)HYS:
“Should the Israelis resume direct talks with the Palestinians?”
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&edition=2&ttl=20060524221730&messageID=853270󐔖
Added: Wednesday, 24 May, 2006, 07:44 GMT 08:44 UK
Here we go again!
The usual parade of hardcore anti-Semites, such us “mohamed ali, london” and “steven, Glasgow” • the darlings of the BBC! And please note that their posts are never censored out.
I am convinced that if “Mohamed Ali” would publicly speak the same way about IRA he would quickly find himself behind bars, but speaking out for Hammas and terror and against Israel makes him a welcomed quest of any anti-Israel, anti-Jews and anti-USA forum.
As usual, BBC at its best!
[isargr]
____________
Yet again, the debate seems to be going against the BBC’s agenda. How long before technical difficulties?
On the issue of the mysterious ‘now’, I can report that the World Service was spinning the issue like crazy, though I can’t recall which particular programme was the one making me dizzy. They were pushing the angle that the Israelis had nabbed Hamed ‘now’ because of PM Olmert’s US visit.
An IDF spokesman patiently explained to the idiot beeboid that these kind of operations are always ongoing and that they’d been trying to nab Hamed for eight years and that it was purely coincidental that Olmert was on his way to the US at the time.
So I guess that the ‘now’ was included in the original article.
I wonder if it’s blind bias or just simple ignorance that made the beeboid think that the IDF can sort of pluck terrorists…er, sorry, militants… out of a hat, at will, for political gain whenever the timing seems right.
Yep, the pro-Israel BBC.
How long before technical difficulties?
We’ll see. Sometimes HYS floors me by playing fair, or at least appearing to do so.
“We’ll see. Sometimes HYS floors me by playing fair, or at least appearing to do so.”
probably all depends on what influx of temporary illegal immigrants that they are recruiting in a particular week.
Bryan,
The ‘now’ was not featured on the pre-stealth article as you can see from the screen-cap linked above in my previous comment (I also noticed this preposterous paragraph and saved it; I somehow suspected that it’s going to change). Backspin also quotes it without the ‘now’.
I do think that that is what Hawhawley had in mind (why now?) when she wrote this insightful report but being so busy trying to discredit/doubt Israeli claims, to question their hidden motives, while at the same time doing her best to push the non existing ‘cease fire’ angle and the desperate calls for peace by Hamas terrorist, er, sorry, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya that there was no time left to add the ‘now’.
Either way it’s poor journalism. She’s going to fit in Orla’s shoes just fine.
max
I don’t know which is worse.
Hawley in Baghdad or Hawley in Jerusalem ?
Sad thing is, she and the BBC will be proud of her work.
Ms. Hawley was featured in the compilation of reporters doing their “aren’t we unspeakably important?” self-advertisments that the Beeb used to run between programmes. I think she was the one crowing about “watching history literally unfolding.”
Archduke –
probably all depends on what influx of temporary illegal immigrants that they are recruiting in a particular week.
LOL, as they say in the classics.
By the way, great Fisking of Jeremy Bowen on another thread. I have the same reaction to him. He’s not a journalist, he’s a propaganda pusher with a clear agenda. Middle East editor indeed. I wonder what the BBC pays him to foster hatred against Israel.
Max –
Thanks for that info. I see that the suggestion from the pre-stealth article was that Israel should not be targeting Hamas at all since Islamic Jihad and al-Aksa ‘Martyrs’ Brigade have curently been carrying out the attacks on Israelis.
That would be BBC-think: no repercussions for the top dog terrorists, since they are apparently observing a truce while encouraging the underdog terrorists to carry on business as usual.
It’s despicable the way the BBC is eagerly sanitising and legitimising Hamas.
And the caption to the photo in the article is also typical of BBC hacks:
Israeli troops frequently raid Palestinian towns in the West Bank
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5007242.stm
What they mean, of course, is that a bunch of Zionist hooligans, armed to the teeth and bent on establishing a Greater Israel from Cairo to Damascus and the Mediterranean to Iraq, are continually attacking innocent Palestinians.
They just don’t have the balls to come right out and use the language implicit in their careful placing of a word here, a phrase there.
I think I’d rather get the news from al-Jazeera.
Report on the Today news bulletin this morning on escalating violence in Gaza. “The two factions” (Hamas and Fatah)”are hopelessly divided on how to confront the big issue of the Israeli occupation”
That would be the Israeli occupation in Gaza causing violence would it? – all those Jewish settlements that don’t exist any more. That huge Israeli military presence that isn’t there?
More accurate would be to say the “big issue” is how the BBC can keep spinning the presence of a non-existent occupation in Gaza to make excuses for a vicious power struggle between Palestinian militias armed to the teeth, that is flourishing BECAUSE the Israelis have withdrawn.
Er… I should have written “currently.”
Oscar
When will the stupid Bereboids realise that even if Israel pulls out of the whole West Bank as well as Gaza, the Palestinians and the Arab world in general will still regard pre-1967 Israel as an “occupation”.
Good points, Oscar.
I’ve made this point before, but I think it needs to be reiterated: as far as much of its output goes, there is now little to distinguish the BBC from typical state-run media in Arab/Muslim dictatorships.
It has no right to extort funds from people who still largely believe in their Western/Judeo-Christian heritage.
Having thought about it, I’m sure the BBC added “now” to the comment by Hawley later i.e. a stealth edit. What would be interesting is to know the mechanism and timeline for these sort of changes. Was it driven by the “Honest Reporting” article for instance, or to a Beeboid actually realising off their own miserable backs that Hawley’s comment was stupid?
Interesting point about the stealth edit. Al Beeb must monitor Honest Reporting(as they monitor this site). But I don’t understand why they think the ‘now’ makes things so much better. The Israelis have been trying to track down Hamad for years and he’s been very successful at evading detection – finally they nabbed him. It’s rather like announcing the capture of Osama Bin Laden and adding ‘why now?’ The beeboids are damned with or without the ‘now’.
As for the comparison with Arab output I agree there is virtually nothing to differentiate the BBC line from the Arab line. In fact scanning recent output from Al Jazeera I would say that Al Jazeera is actually fairer.
dumbcisco Butcher has quite a lot of form when at the BBC.
He has also had trouble finding the T word in his lexicon since he has been at the Telegraph.
The leader writer at the Daily Cameron also seems not a cig paper away from the BBC re Hamas
The (Israeli)prime minister realises the futility of talking to Mr Abbas, and so probably does Mr Bush. But his administration is tying itself in knots over how to deal with Hamas.
Unwilling to talk to a terrorist organisation, it is planning to channel funds to Mr Abbas to pay the security services and fund public works.
In an attempt to starve a democratically elected government, it is favouring the co-founder of a movement that has became a byword for corruption. Nothing is better calculated to boost support for Hamas in the Occupied Territories. The Islamist challenge is real, but does not justify policies that are just plain stupid.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/05/25/dl2502.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2006/05/25/ixoplead.html
I think the days when the Telegraph could be seen as a counter to the BBC are now gone.
dumbcisco,
“I don’t know which is worse. Hawley in Baghdad or Hawley in Jerusalem ?
Hawley in the news. Anywhere.
“watching history literally unfolding.”
Charlie | 25.05.06 – 7:48 am | #
this may be pedantic, but i do hope that is a misquote…
shouldn’t that be “literally watching history unfold(ing)”?
it’s not like one of those plants that auto-opens at daybreak, you know
People should only be allowed to use the word “literally” if they can pass a written exam showing they know what it means.
As a certified pedant, the misuse of “literally” gets right up my nose (but not literally).
I think these journalists if anything tend to be very biased towards the Israel. They are constantly covering the Israeli deaths by suicide atrocities
but rarely give the vsame time or tone towards the Palestinian civilians murdered by the IDF .Do you know the ratio of Israel to Palestinian deaths in the Last 10 years? Try looking it up.
To listen to the BBC and read this website you would think that the Palestinians are people just looking for a fight for no reason.When actually they have been terribly treated particularly in Gaza where Sharon was the commader that set the tone in brutality.
Recent treatment of this appallingly
traumatised people has only made matters worse. If you could turn of your blinkers for two minutes you might see the reality of the Palestinians life.
The reality of the palestininas is all over the web and all over many other media. A poll a few months back showed that 71% of them approved a recent attack on a restaurant killing many people.
In their views and in their votes, they endorse terrorism. That is up to them.
They don’t have any right to expect us to pay for it.
dumbcisco
On the whole we do not hear many of the Palestinians views my point is that given that we do pay perhaps we should hear Palestinian views as well.
I wonder what drives 70% of a people to endorse terror acts perhaps its a reaction to the terror inflicted on them
This could be explained to us in more depth and with less anti palestinian bias.
Spike
You obviously know nothing about the hatred taught every day in the formal education system in Palestine.
You obviously don’t follow the World Service or radio 4 very closely – oddles of time is given to Palestinians.
You obviously don’t know much history – you prefer slogans.
If you were shown the Euston Manifesto written by honourable people of the left – you’d probably run a mile.
Are you a member of Respect ? You sound like one.