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Anonymous, please see my links above to the actual PLO charter, read it and tell me if there is any difference between the original 1968 version and the actual version on the PA’s website now.
BOTH Hamas and Fatah aim at the total destruction of the State of Israel. Its there in writing, I wish it wasn’t so, but it is.
dumbcisco, you’re wrong on this one mate. the only difference, as I’ve said, is that Fatah, like Arafat, says one thing in English to the likes of the BBC and another thing in Arabic, while Hamas spells it out for all to see.
reith
The 6pm news on Radio 4 has just failed to mention that Hamas has the aim of desstroying Israel.
But it also failed to mention that Hamas “does not recognise Israel” – which you say is a more appropriate factor since the Quartet made it a sticking point at the end of January. So that figleaf seems to have been blown away.
John Reith, perhaps this is the key, at the very bottom of the official PLO charter:
http://www.pna.gov.ps/Government/gov/plo_Charter.asp
Amendments
In a letter to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat stated that those articles which denied Israel’s right to exist or are inconsistent with the PLO’s new commitments to Israel following their mutual reognition, were no longer valid (see Oslo peace process).
The PNC met in a special session on 26 April 1996 to consider the issue of amending the Charter and adopted the following decision:
A. The Palestinian National Charter is hereby amended by canceling the articles that are contrary to the letters exchanged the P.L.O. and the Government of Israel 9-10 September 1993.
B. Assigns its legal committee with the task of redrafting the Palestinian National Charter in order to present it to the first session of the Palestinian Central Council.
The decision was adopted by a vote of: 504 in favor, 54 against, and 14 abstentions.
On January 1998, Yasser Arafat sent a letter to US President, Bill Clinton, outlining the implications of this decision in terms of the specific articles of the Charter that were nullified or amended as a result of that decision. In December 1998, both the PLO Executive Committee and the PLO Central Council reaffirmed this decision
But let’s be clear, those articles are still there in the charter.
The articles are still there, and Arafat is still dead.
“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa. While as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem.”
– Zahir Muhsein, PLO executive committee member, 1977
Here is another piece of evidence about how far Arafat and Fatah’s terrorism date – howe they were up to their neck in an incident involving the killing of some diplomats in 1973 :
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014409.php#014409
I doubt if this new news of Arafat and Fatah involvement in these murders will surface at the BBC.
I doubt Kofi Annan will be asking for an inquiry about this incident either, or that there will be outrage at this deliberate attempt to murder children:
Three wounded in shooting near Ofra
MDA reported that a school bus carrying a group of 16-year old girls was making its way Monday afternoon to the Ofra settlement near Jerusalem when shots were fired at the bus from the direction of the neighboring Arab village of Kafr Sinjil.
An MDA paramedic at the scene told The Jerusalem Post that three girls were being treated for light wounds to the back and to their hands.
Two of the girls were being treated for shock.
Six bullet holes were discovered in the side of the bus.
Three of the girls were evacuated to Hadassah Ein Kerem University Hospital, and two to Hadassah Mount Scopus University Hospital in Jerusalem.
Last week, two teenage girls escaped a kidnapping attempt at a hitchhiking post at the Rehalim Junction not far from the West Bank city of Nablus. The girls sustained light injuries and the three Palestinian kidnappers, from Jenin, were apprehended by security forces.
In May, two Israelis were wounded in a shooting attack near the main Tapuah Junction just south of Nablus.
Just another day in paradise…
dumbcisco
” earlier on this thread you stated categortically (sic)that I had said that Fatah still had this aim.”
No I didn’t.
“Thank you in advance for your apology.”
None coming. None due.
“please tell us if you are being fed info from the Middle East staff on this issue ? ”
I ahave already told you that I’m not.
“No-one is advising me on Middle East history. But I suggest you get someone to advise you.”
John Reith | 19.06.06 – 4:34 pm |
Re: April or not. I can’t recall. But as Bryan has already established, the BBC has continued to report the Hamas charter through Feb March Apr May and into June. So you’ll be wasting your time if you try to shift the goalposts yet again.
The simple fact that cuts through all your twisting is that you claimed – whether in March or April doesn’t matter – that the BBC had not reported the provisions of the Hamas charter. The second part of your allegation was that the BBC had suppressed this information out of anti-Israel bias.
We have all seen that the BBC HAS reported these provisions many, many times on different platforms. Indeed, you have failed to find any other British or global news provider that has reported the pledge as frequently as the BBC has over the past six months.
In trying to prop up your ludicrous theory you have revealed such ignorance of the politics and history of the Middle east that nothing further you have to say on the subject would be taken seriously by any sensible person.
Time to stop digging.
Did anyone hear the BBC new report on Hawaii this morning? Some of the anti-American comments could only be described as vitriolic.
No effort whatsoever to represent the ‘other side’. Not that I am putting myself forward as a defender of American interests but this report was just not fair or even remotely balanced.
The commentators first name was Matt and I am sorry I cannot remember his surname, believe it was McGrath, and yes he was an Irishman.
9pm news on Radio 4
First item is that 3 US soldiers have been accused of murder in Iraq.
How can the BBC possibly regard this as the most important item of news this evening ?
The report says “…this is the third time this month that US troops have been accused…”
The first time will have been Hidatha, presumably. Where enquiries are still continuing – no US Marines have been CHARGED.
The second time was presumably John Simpson’s solo report accusing the US troops in Ishawi. A FALSE accusation, from all appearances. Yet the BBC conflates this in with anything else it can lay its hands on – unsubstantiated allegations or whatever – to continue to undermine the cause of the Coalition, to give comfort to our opponents – to play their propaganda game.
The BBC are just Jealous of Americans….
The BBC and their luvvies would love to think that they rule the world…..
When in fact most of the world just ignores them……..
The world now knows that the BBC is a Cheerleader for Islam, and they practicly rejoice whenever an Amercian or British trooper is killed……
The BBC is just sad old 1980s Thatcher kids who still have a chip on their shoulders about how she utterly transformed the UK for the Better……
BBC = Bitter Lefties…
And I do look forward to the Day when a Muslim runs the BBC, and they clash with the Gay and Lesbian lobby, for surely, the BBC has not checked to see who it’s bedmates are…they just jump into bed with ANYONE who is against Bush or the West…….
Saddly for the BBC, this puts them on the losing side…..lololol…..
The BBC will be dead and broken up in less than 10 years…they will die as New Labour dies…they are one and the same……..infected.
well said anon!
The Conservatives are looking for a new logo. In America they use animals: an elephant for Republicans, donkeys for the Democrats. So which animal best represents the Tories?
SEE SOME OF YOUR SUGGESTIONS MADE UP INTO MOCK LOGOS
Here are some of the many suggestions we’ve had so far:
A wily old Fox gently holding a Chameleon in its jaws, blending the old with the new , and the possible excitement of future changes.
Paul Rose, London
How about Kaa (the snake in the film Jungle Book) Those big hypnotic eyes and the seductive song ‘Trust in me, only me’ seem appropriate, but I doubt if the Tories will think so.
Sue Vaughan, Cumbria
There is only one animal suitable for the Tory emblem – the weasel, deceitful and sly completely appropriate.
Lindsey Dedden, Vernon
The cat that got the cream. A sleek blue, purring Burmese.
Janice Small, Sevenoaks
The correct animal for the tories must surely be Dr Dolittle’s Push-Me-Pull-You, the two-headed llama whose two halves were so connected that they had to work together to go anywhere.
Victor Salvest
David Cameron’s ‘New’ Tory party should surely be represented by a wolf in a blue-rinse fleece.
Tim Grant, Leicester
More “fun” from Socialism Central http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/reports/misc/torypartylogo_20060614.shtml
Why has the BBC been allowed to set its face against 50% of the population?
SiN.. Because, at the moment, they can’t be stopped. They should be very afraid because the internet is allowing a large number of people to get wise to their antics!
reith
My concern is the reporting of Middle East politics by the BBC.
Time and time again we show that the BBC :
1 overexaggerates the problems in Iraq eg Abu Ghraib, mis-reports the death toll by use of the lancet figures , under-reports the positive news by staying stuck in Baghdad rather than embedding reporters with the coalition forces
2 gives legs to false stories – just this past month on John Simpson’s report on Ishawi, and the Gaza beach deaths. Both still being spun by the BBC in the past couple of days.
3 harps on and on about the related issue of Guantanamo – just today there was a World Service headline about a Saudi man claiming his son’s suicide had been caused by US troops there. Once again, a totally unsubstantiated allegation, no reply given from the Gitmo authorities – just the BBC trying to stir the Gitmo pot yet again
4 consistently fails to describe as terrorism acts of clear terrorism
5 fails to describe terrorist organisations such as Hamas as terrorist
6 perpetually plays the “Palestinians are victims” card – when they are largely the cause of their own misfortunes.
One does not have to be an historian of Middle East affiars to see all these instances of misreporting or bias at the BBC. Bias by commission, bias by omission.
Going back to the reporting on
on Hamas, the BBC’s 12-minute main story on the election day beamed round the World Service failed to mention the commitment to destroy Israel. Its only World Service interview with a Hamas leader failed to raise the matter. It did not consistently mention the elephant in the room either before or after the Hamas election – there are just as many reports omitting the essential reference as including it.
And you now say the reference to “refuses to recognise Israel” is good enough – rubbish, it is not good enough.
The BBC is frequently – I would say about half the time – gliding over the essentially destructive nature of Hamas – a core aim to achieve the destruction of israel by violence.
You have not commented on the various reports I have cited from the radio and also from the website over the past couple of days, 18/19 June – the BBC still failing to mention the elephant in the room. Gliding over the destructive nature and objectives of Hamas this very weekend.
I have tracked back through the B-BBC March archives and found the first time I raised the BBC’s mis-reporting of Hamas. It occurs at 6.17pm on 2 April in the top thread of the March archive by ed thomas and headed “On the B-BBC case…” – dated 30 March. Here is what I said :
“I keep seeing BBC reporters sidestepping the fact that Hamas is committed to the total destruction of Israel. They witter on about “maybe there will be some discussions, some area of compromise”. Wishy-washy reporting at best – if not a bias to accepting hamas as some sort of decent entity.
“This is an acid test of the3 BBC’s honesty. To dissemble on this issue is to tell absolute lies to the BBC’s public, here and abroad.
“Why hasn’t the BBC reported the new Palestinian Prime Minister has just stated – in terms – “There is no place for the state of Israel on this land.”
“If that is not a stark definition – what is ? Will the BBC report it ? They know about it. Their monitoring service will have seen the statement and should have flagged it to the BBC news staff. Why isn’t it headlined on the BBC’s Middle Est page on their website ? There is not even a mention of it there.
“Is this yet another FACT that we amateurs can find but which the BBC will conceal ?”
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-04/02/content_4373348.htm
Looking back on it – I think every word of what I said on 2 April was true. That was the tone of the broadcast reports from the BBC at the time, and after his ten-week search reith has failed to show otherwise.
This “analysis”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5086994.stm
is supposed to be a little homily to the Gates legacy. However, the author can’t help but kick the global Microsoft success. The fact that businesses across the globe now use Microsoft products to exchange documents and spreadsheets, the fact that the vast majority of people use the Internet Explorer browser, the fact that the vast majority of people use a standardised interface that is Windows is ignored. No, the author prefers to emphasise Microsoft’s “fierce protection” of its own intellectual property. Maybe the author should compare notes with his friends at the BBC programme library – wouldn’t it be far better to simply copy all the stuff the BBC has ever produced and just give it away? Surely the writers, actors and musicians would understand…..
All serious technology companies have the same approach. Apple Corp won’t allow anyone to copy their software. IBM have innumerable patents. Until recently Sun, Apple etc made incompatible hardware and software to lock people in to their own strictly private model. But the author attempts to portray Microsoft as atypical in this regard, for some unknown reason. Just a ‘big American company’ kicking, presumably.
In fact Microsoft, whilst retaining ultimate control allowed people to write software and effectively standardised hardware interfaces with the IBM PC model. This is far more ‘open’ than the ever-changing ‘open source’ that the author says is an ‘irony’ –
“It is one of the ironies of hi-tech history that just as Bill Gates broadly succeeded in his aim of putting Windows on every desktop it no longer mattered. ”
Actually, the battle for PC eyeball space has never been more fierce; and Microsoft through Windows is the de facto landlord. I wonder where the ‘no longer mattered’ conclusion came from….
Bizzarrely the author also concludes that ‘net based software services’ are winning over Microsoft etc. “businesses many of which are starting to use net-based software services rather than buy, install, customise and maintain programs themselves. ”
Wikipedia states :
“During the mid to late 1990s, some commentators and industry players such as Larry Ellison of Oracle Corporation, predicted that the network computer would soon take over from desktop PCs, and that many users would use applications loaded via a network instead of having to own a local copy.
So far, this has not happened, and it seems that the network computer “buzz” was either a fad or not ready to happen. “
Mmm. I wonder if the guy at the BBC has been left behind in the 90s? Whilst it is true that the big internet companies are fiercely competing across each others’ markets, and more stuff is available online than ever before, where are Lotus and WordPerfect now? That should be the comparator when looking at Gates’ legacy. Google and Yahoo are laregly dependent on advertising other people’s products, yet Microsoft have their own vast range.
The author attempts to wrap up his journey into wonderland with a conclusion that the new technical boss Ray Ozzie has some tough decisions. It is a shame with £3bn/yr guaranteed income that the BBC cannot manage to muster the kind of “ANALYSIS” available to other news corporations like CNN ….
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/05/01/8375454/
Afghanistan treads religious tightrope
By Sanjoy Majumder
BBC News, Kabul
“We have our laws and an independent judiciary and a constitution based on Sharia law,” says Ishaq Gailani, an influential member of parliament, who belongs to one of Afghanistan’s most respected religious families.
Would that be respected Muslim families?
There has been some publicly displayed anger over the case in the past few days, in particular a protest in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif attended by hundreds of people.
Would that be Muslim people?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4853904.stm
Apologies if this has already been covered, I’m having trouble trawling through the Dumb/Reith bickering posts.
John Reith,
It’s not cricket to lift and use the half of my post that suits your argument. Yes, I did point out that, as far as I can tell, the BBC has mentioned Hamas’ intention to destroy Israel more times in the five months since the election than in the eight years preceding it. But, as I indicated, I am speechless at the paucity of the reference during those eight years, specifically during the four or five years of the second intifada – when the Hamas charter would have been especially relevant as Hamas terrorists were murdering Israelis civilians on buses and in restaurants in a sustained and remorseless terrorist campaign.
“Why the silence,” was the question I posed – though there were a few exceptions, which can be gleaned from the links in my post, the most notable being Tim Sebastian interviewing a Hamas leader and John Ware telling the truth about terror in a Panorama programme:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/115029229206563809/#288457
This is the Pandora’s box I was talking about. The sudden flurry of mentions of the Hamas charter around and after the time of the election has thrown into sharp relief the abysmal, near-total failure to deal with the issue at a time when it would have been at least as relevant to do so.
I think I’ll have to leave Jeremy Bowen for another time. But I have no doubt that he is firmly in the Palestinian camp.
And Biodegradable is 100% correct. No Palestinian leader has ever renounced the intention to destroy Israel, though Arafat pretended to.
Poor Old Dumbcisco. Still getting it wrong.
“Why hasn’t the BBC reported the new Palestinian Prime Minister has just stated”
Well, he isn’t prime minister. Mahmoud Al Zahhar is foreign minister.
What he said to the Chinese news agency wasn’t exactly new. The general drift is what he’s been saying for some time. First after the election and then in early April when he wrote to the UN. All reported by the BBC at the time. Check out 2 April – the very day of your long lamentation.
Talking of April, I’ve noticed that you have been taking an unusual amount of interest in it lately. I suspect you’ve discovered some tailing off of BBC mentions of the Hamas charter in April and are going to spring it on us as clear evidence of BBC bias or somesuch nonsense.
So I thought I’d check out – in a pre-emptive sort of way – what the rest of the MSM had been up to.
So, here’s the results of key word search for press articles in main daily papers (plus Guardian online and FT.com) ‘Hamas + destruction of Israel’ in January 2006 and April 2006:
Guardian
Jan: 17
Apr: 0
Telegraph
Jan: 4
Apr: 1
Times
Jan: 11
Apr: 1
FT
Jan: 9
Apr: 0
Independent
Jan: 4
Apr: 0
Daily Mail
Jan: 1
Apr: 0
Funny how things are sometimes newsworthy and sometimes not. But you’ve never quite grasped that, have you?
Human Rights Watch are backing down over the beach bombing allegations.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=21131_Human_Rights_Watch_Backs_Down&only
Bet you guys didn’t know there’s a BBBC in the U.S., did you?
Anonymous writes:
” Human Rights Watch are backing down over the beach bombing allegations.”
If Reith can tear himself away from his search engines and his attempt to swamp the substance of this Blog’s complaints in a snowstorm of detail, perhaps he would care to exlain to us why we have to read about this on an American blog?
He might also care to address the broader issue of why the BBC has reported this story, since its inception, as if it were cut and dried that ‘them Israelis done it’.
Human Rights Watch are backing down over the beach bombing allegations.
Expect to see that as “Breaking News!” or an item in the Latest: ticker any time now…
wait for it…
any time now…
We have ‘Palestinian’ “workers” love dead US presidents
still waiting for Human Rights Watch ‘back down’ over the beach bombing ‘allegations’.
won’t be long now…
.
Receptionist 43, infects men with HIV in act of revenge.
What the TV does not say is that she caught HIV from a black man and decided to infect other black men; she is white.
Bryan
You ask ‘why the silence’? More accurately that would be ‘the comparative silence?’
During the period you mention, Hamas was in the news -when it was in the news – largely because it was, as you say, murdering Israeli civilians with bombs on buses. Quite rightly, the media focus was on the carnage and the victims.
When a terrorist organisation is engaged in terror, the details of its political charter are not of prime importance. But when it starts trying to hold talks with democratic governments or turns itself into a political party running for office, or even becomes an elected government – then much more attention tends to be paid to its founding charter.
Tell me honestly, have you ever bothered to look into the charter of Islamic Jihad or the Al Aqsa brigade?
When the INLA were bombing Airey Neave no one spilled much ink on the political programme of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (its political wing) and few could even name the leaders of Sinn Fein before Adams/McGuinness. But once terrorists start standing for election, their political objectives come under closer scrutiny.
Has JR seen the latest Pallywood production, Death on the Beach, and if so, would he comment on the effort made by the BBC’s editing team to render it more authentic as compared with the lesser cut version on CNN?
NB. This is the third time that I have put this question.
Allan
I said the other day I’d await developments regarding Gaza Beach with an open mind and I recommend you do too.
JR,
“I’d await developments regarding Gaza Beach with an open mind and I recommend you do too.”
that is a bit weird nd refreshing from a BBC person. In Israel’s case it is usually blame first and keep mind open later. However, the damage is done as Kofi Anan, who first condemned, nad then retracted, discloses:
And according to YNet News, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (BTW, Kofi in Hebrew means monkey, and monkes do tend to imitate others) retracted previous comments, saying he was duped by press coverage:
Following a meeting Thursday with Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Gillerman, he told reporters that he had responded to “media speculations.”
http://backspin.typepad.com/
The pattern repeats with depressing familiarity:
Palestinians meet violent death.
Israel immediately blamed by press, featuring heartrending footage of screaming orphaned child next to dead family (or similar). Interplay footage with Israeli heavy armour firing shells apparently indiscriminately into Gaza Strip. No mention in MSM of rockets fired into Israel from Gaza. Comments from Palestinian spokesmen condemning Israel.
Headline news.
Israel denies wrongdoing, but Palestinian narrative given added weight by NGO pronouncements (e.g. HRW, Amnesty, UN), all critical of Israel. Continued headline news.
Israel continues to deny wrongdoing, citing forensic and camera evidence. Israeli evidence immediately discounted by mainstream media (e.g. Chris McGreal in the Guardian).
First worrying (for beeboids anyway) hints that parts of the Palestinian narrative of the atrocity just don’t add up. To non-beeboids, Israeli evidence begins to look more convincing than Palestinian evidence.
MSM reduce story from outright blame of Israel to the “competing stories” angle. Story begins to drop down front page.
Articles begin to appear (no doubt in Zionist-controlled press courtesy of Mossad) seriously questioning Palestinian narrative. NGO’s forced to change their initial conclusion.
MSM such as the BBC relegate story to inside pages. Arab press (and Chris Mcreal) continue to pretend for next 50 years that Israeli shell fired at beach on purpose.
Conclusion. Hard evidence indicates that Israel not to blame for firing shell onto beach. But since when did facts ever get in the way of the beeboid view?
Rachel,
In Isreal’s case it’s usually blame first and keep mind open later.
Thanks for the laugh, Rachel. That’s so funny. And so true.
Oops typo alert: Israel
John Reith,
This is the kind of silence I’m talking about, from a December 1998 article:
Speaking to about ten thousand supporters at a rally in a Gaza City refugee camp, Sheikh Yassin urged them to continue what he called their fight against Israel.
The rally was to mark the eleventh anniversary of the founding of Hamas, which opposes the Palestinian autonomy accords with Israel.
From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/242510.stm
Wasn’t that a perfect opportunity to add one sentence on Hamas’ murderous intentions? And wouldn’t that have put Hamas’ opposition to Clinton in far better perspective?
I take your point regarding the newsworthiness of terrorists who get elected and thus suddenly are magically transformed into politicians. I think an editorial decision was taken to shine a spotlight on the charter. You’ll notice that the Jeremy Bowen article to which you’ve responded, and in which he wrote that the charter commits Hamas to the destruction of the Jewish state is dated 26/01/06, when it had become apparent that Hamas had won the elections:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4652510.stm
It seems that Bowen, as Middle East editor, set the tone of the reporting and, of course, others were obliged to follow.
However, I don’t agree with your comparative silence point. I see it as an abysmal failure on the part of the BBC to inform the public on the true nature of the threat Israel faces. A handful of mentions on the site in the course of eight years? I don’t buy it. But why the sudden reversal? The fact of elections alone doesn’t explain it. I think at least part of the explanation can be found in the BBC’s falling into line with negative opinion on the charter which had become so pervasive in the West that it could not be ignored. That, along with the obvious point that the refusal of Hamas to countenance the existence of Israel is frustrating the West’s obsession to bring this conflict to an end.
There’s a wealth of Fisking material in Bowen’s article, for example, The attacks Hamas has carried out in Israel also attracted votes.
A BBC supporter would see him as being carefully neutral here. But of course it’s typical BBC misinformation through pandering to terror. Someone with little knowledge of the conflict would see in that statement a legitimate military campaign against military targets. The BBC does the public a huge disservice by refusing to name terror.
Before I get to your assessment of Bowen,
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/115051226812035649/#288683
I accept your apology but you should take most things people say on this site seriously. It’s a serious site.
I think you are right that Bowen assessed Hamas correctly. He knew the leopard would not change its spots. That’s why he said the charter will stay. I was taken aback by it because it seemed to reflect a comfortable proximity with the inner workings of a terrorist organisation.
But what clinched it for me was when he wrote, Dropping it is not conceivable under current conditions. I don’t agree with your assessment here. I think you are clutching at straws. Bowen is not talking about an imaginary internal Hamas conflict here but external conditions – I.e. Israel. The implication, as I see it, is that unless Israel waxes even more suicidal and gives up even more territory, Hamas will continue its attacks.
Have a look at other articles by Bowen. He’s firmly in the Arab camp. And there is little chance of the BBC being impartial in this conflict as long as he is Middle East editor.
The BBC ran the Pallywood video pretty unquestioned. Curious that an organisation which should have some expertise in video technology, and know the difference between dubbed sounds and genuine sounds, and how anyone can use software for editing – should be so easily taken in.
Unless there was a pre-disposition to believe the message and a willingness to redistribute that message to millions of people without anyone checking properly.
I was struck by this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5094948.stm
It’s a report about a Maoist insurgent called Prachanda. The headline asks whether he is a hero or a villain, and I get the strong impression that the writer considers him a villain. The only positive thing the reporter can find to say about him is that he forsook a middle-class life of ease in order to seek power with violent means, which is a bit like saying that we should admire Fred West for being a dynamic, uninhibited upsetter of stuffy old convention.
It’s not so much an example of bias as it is an example of the kind of shoddy writing and reporting I associated with the BBC’s news website. It is an editorial piece (the writer uses the first person) but it is couched in vague, passive terms. It reads like a Wikipedia entry. It is full of “many would continue to question” and “to an extent, this is true” and “few agree” and “many agree” although it stops short of “some would argue”, which is an old chestnut. It’s passive, in that “concerns are raised”. “Many of (Prachandra’s) demands related to political and social reforms which most Nepalis would find acceptable” says one sentence, although it does not explain Mr Prachandra’s demands or “most”.
I knew nothing about Mr Prachandra or his ideology or his demands before I read the report. I know very little about him now other than that he looks like a football couch. The report doesn’t even really explain how he is a Maoist.
reith
I posted last evening what I had originally posted on 2 April. THAT is when I was criticising BBC broadcasts for failing to state that Hamas is committed to destroying Israel. THAT is when you challenged what I had said.
You have failed to show that they were consistently broadcasting what Hamas’ true aim is.
Hamas had veiled this commitment – had kept it out of their election manifesto. Their new PM had repeated their aim in China – THAT should have been reported by the BBC. As far as I know it FAILED to report this.
I would not have posted on 2 April that the BBC was failing to mention the charter aim unless the broadcasts I was hearing at that time (mostly Radio 4 and World Service) were failing to mention the elephant in the room. My post of 2 April is a measure of contemporary evidence of the failure – as was the absence of any report of the PM’s speech.
You have produced nil contemporary evidence that the BBC was broadcasting the elephant fact at that time.
Anonymous at 9.42 am was me talking about the goalposts being around 2 April.
But the BBC is still failing to mention the elephant in the room in its current broadcasts dealing with Hamas. All it takes is a few words – “..Hamas, which aims to destroy Israel…”. Not any of the other circumlocutions the BBC uses. Call a spade a spade.
asylum seekers held in connection with murder
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=U3R3KZXHLIETBQFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2006/06/20/nchapman20.xml
but no mention of this small fact from the BBC, strange that.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/5094254.stm
John Reith – Do you not see the disingenuousness of saying, a propos the Gaza beach tragedy, that it is too early to judge and no one is in possession of all the facts – only after the Israelis have produced strong evidence to prove themselves innocent.
Yes, it WAS too early to judge when the BBC, among others, was broadcasting inflammatory anti- Israel propaganda – in the form of reports on the suffering and grief of the Gaza beach family with blame on Israel very firmly attached.
In your judgement, is it not possible that now might be the time for a whole lot of back-tracking and even a bit of BBC self-flagellation and self-analysis?(we’re institutionally biased how did it happen?)
I am not Jewish, I am not American but the BBC’s bland mendacity outrages me.
Ashley Pomeroy
The article on the Napal Maoist leader contains a classic few words :
“The rich and ruling elite, whom the Maoists regard as feudal…”
Just the Maoists ? Nepal stinks of corruption. Years and years of funding by the UN, the US, Britain etc – and the infant mortality in the provinces remained among the worst in the world. The easiest country in the world to install hydroelectic power, including mini-hydro schemes, and there is precious little to show for all the aid. The ruling Newari elite in the Kathmandu area WERE feudal by any measure. Not allegedly feudal, feudal in the Maoists’ eyes.
And yes, the Maoists have been brutal over the past 10 years. But so have the Nepali military. People in the mountain areas are terrified of them. We saw the brutality of the
state authorities just a few weeks ago in Kathmandu. If that is what they do in the capital city, in the eyes of the world, just imagine what they do up-country.
A very unbalanced article.
la marquise,
Precisely. It’s past time for the BBC to be doing a little self-examimation here. But they haven’t got what it takes.
la marquise
Backtracking by the BBC ?
Can a leopard change its spots ?