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Straght talking from Fox news:
Warplanes pummel Gaza; Hamas thugs reportedly offer conditional release of kidnapped soldier
http://www.foxnews.com/
(From LGF):
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=21293_Fox_News-_Hamas_Thugs!#comments
It’s so refreshing to see the media telling it like it is.
AL-BEEB has a very long history of appeasing nasty people. Take a look at this gem from 1935:
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2006/06/bbc-dhimmified-since-1935.html
Typo alert:
Should be straight
Big Mouth,
Interesting. What makes me think it would be an unproductive search to try to find BBC sensitivity during those years towards Jewish religious feeling?
I don’t have the link right now, but I recall reading that, in one of the crackdowns against Jews, British police hauled a rabbi out of his house on the sabbath, put him in a car against his objections, and drove him away.
I wonder how the BBC reported that act of desecration of a religious holiday. Probably blandly, if at all. The BBC does bland very well.
A rendition of “Allah’s Holiday” by the BBC Dance Orchestra in a Mecca Bingo hall, would go down a dream.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5131812.stm
“Bush refuses to abandon military tribunals.” Sounds like the President is thumbing his nose at the Surpreme Court. Not. Refused whom? Who asked that he abandon them? Nobody. Some reporter asked if would rule them out, and he said no.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5131662.stm
“The Supreme Court has pulled the rug out from under President George W Bush in dramatic fashion with its verdict that he has no authority to try terror suspects in military tribunals.”
False. So false that Hamdan concedes that a court-martial would have the authority to try him!
Click to access 05-184.pdf
It wasn’t even about that. It was about whether the Detainee Treatment Act (or any other legislation) had given the president the authority to set up this particular commission. (Congress assigns jursdiction and had taken it away from the civilian courts — or thought it had — with the Detainee Treatment Act.)
The decision in no way thows all these detainess into the civilian justice system.
See also:
http://www.c-span.org/special/scourt.asp
So says the Beeb…
“Charismatic river dwellers return – after US invaders’ removal”
…when flagging this story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hereford/worcs/5130908.stm
Now, why would American Mink be at large along the River Dore?
Did some animal rights moonbat release them? I think we should be told BBC!
Under the heading in the new section
Charismatic river dwellers return – after US invaders’ removal
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hereford/worcs/5130908.stm
Good article from Hugh Fitzgerald at JihadWatch on BBC coverage of what they call the ‘killing’ of a settler. No sneer quotes round the word settler, they just query wehther or not he was ‘killed’, suggesting what? That shot himself in the back of the head?.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/012027.php
Kathy
Some of the BBC people were frothing at the mouth at the idea that Bush had suffered a setback on Gitmo. Much of their reporting of the Supreme Court decision has been way over the top, legally false and politically ignorant.
Picking up on Biodegradable’s comment on Question time
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/tvseq/od/bbc1/nb/rm/video/question_od_nb.ram
on the last open thread:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/115149720855118858/#291431
There’s a fascinating 15-minute debate on Israel starting at about 32 minutes in. Melanie Phillips answers a typically PC question on the Gaza situation posed at 37 minutes in.
The ignorance displayed by members of the panel and the audience was extraordinary:
*The supposed division between the supposed ‘military’ and ‘political’ wings of Hamas is now accepted as fact.
*Talk of Gaza civilians being killed in the Israeli assault goes unchallenged.
*Talk of current “carpet bombing” of Gaza by Israel goes unchallenged.
*The death of the Gaza family on the beach is now accepted as having been caused by an Israeli shell.
Melanie did well to debunk the first myth, but it’s a great pity she didn’t do anything about the last – especially since she’s followed the debate over the Gaza beach deaths closely.
But it’s understandable. She was a lone voice of sanity in that biased panel and the weight of audience opinion was clearly against Israel.
The BBC has done its work very, very well.
Re: “Allah’s Holiday” Didn’t henry Hall do “Teddy Bear’s Picnic” cf The Singing Detective
Love it – I’d like to see the BBC call them Mohammedans now!!!!
Dagenham Dave
Henry Hall was a huge star on the BBC. He had a stutter – introducing his show as “This is H..H..H…Henry Hall speaking, and tonight is my Guest Night”
The Teddy Bear’s Picnic is listed on Vol 1 of this 2-CD set :
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000025MFP/203-4201104-7231917
The audio clip on this page gives a snippet of the Teddy Bears’ Picnic plus HH himself speaking :
http://www.radioacademy.org/halloffame/hall_h/index.shtml
The GREAT days of the BBC.
at 7.18am on the Today prog James Naughtie introduced an American lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, to comment on the Supreme Court decision on Gitmo.
Naughtie AS USUAL failed to say that the lawyer is rabidly Democrat, and a man who seeks out the media spotlight – a real nasty piece of work as well, it seems. Just another anti-Bush name in the BBC’s Rolodex :
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2005/09/dershowitz-calls-rehnquist-thug.html
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110007210
And in the interview he even suggested that the republicans have a lot of control over the supreme Court – utter tosh, but accepted by Naughtie of course.
Here’s Dershowitz writing for the huffington Post – probably the only US blog that Naughtie and the Today folks would read :
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/the-wrong-questions-and_b_14045.html
“Talk of Gaza civilians being killed in the Israeli assault goes unchallenged.”
current death toll is 4 killed – 3 in “work accidents” i.e. Hamas explosives going off accidentally, and 1 terrorist killed by the air force.
0 civillian casualties so far.
its not just the UK that has a problem with released prisoners commiting more crimes.
its happening in Belgium.
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1139
This false history of the Middle East is so distorted that a rubuke to a sensible post on HYS rewrote the whole scenario & claimed this as solid fact!
To martin1983
A lesson in history is badly needed. The palestinians were terrorized out of THEIR country in 1948 and has been looking ever since for a just and lawful solution. That some of them have turned into terrorism is not to ‘be questioned but for all the suicide bombings they have NEVER EVER come close to the wide-scale destruction, dehumanization and outright state terror heaped on them daily by the Israeli government.
Roa Harb, Chicago, United States
Recommended by 7 people
Agreed,’Question Time’ did it’s work.
dumbcisco:
at 7.18am on the Today prog James Naughtie introduced an American lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, to comment on the Supreme Court decision on Gitmo.
Naughtie AS USUAL failed to say that the lawyer is rabidly Democrat, and a man who seeks out the media spotlight – a real nasty piece of work as well, it seems.
I’d disagree about Dershowitz being “a real nasty piece of work”. He was on O.J. Simpson’s defence team but he’s a strong supporter of Israel for all the right reasons, and as a Democrat possibly does a great deal of good in educating the American left on the issues.
Making the Case for Israel
Alan Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University Law School. He is an internationally respected attorney and human rights activist. At one time he was actively involved as an attorney in the Soviet Jewry Movement and helped to free Natan Sharansky from the USSR. He is recognized as a member of the liberal establishment yet a strong supporter of Israel. He has also become aware of the continual anti-Israel bias that is growing on college campuses in the United States.
Below is an edited transcript of his speech at UC Berkeley, one of the most anti-Israel campuses in the United States. Dershowitz addressed an audience of 1,200 people on April 29, 2004, about the growing problem of anti-Semitism on U.S. campuses.
The Case For Israel
I remember so well the early days in the 1970’s when I sat down in UC Berkeley. I was there for a year. I was probably defending some of the parents of the kids who are outside protesting tonight.
I defended Angela Davis and many of the people involved in the free speech movement at UC Berkeley. But I was also deeply involved with the Soviet Jewry Movement. Recently I was on a radio talk show and somebody asked me what my biggest fee I ever earned was. Was it Michael Milken or Leona Helmsley? I said it was Natan Sharansky.
“Sharansky?” they said, “We didn’t know he had any money.”
And I said no. He didn’t have any money. I had to defend him at my own expense. But when he walked over the Glienicke Bridge and he threw his arms around me, and he whispered in my ear in Hebrew “Blessed are those who help free the imprisoned.” Tears came to my eyes, to his eyes — I’ll never earn a bigger fee in my life than that.
Read the rest and see this:
The Case Against Yasser Arafat
Has anyone else noticed the effortful “lightening of the tone” on the Today program recently – all that matey laughing between the presenters? Are they a) having a good time or b) been shown the latest audience feedback, and told to try to stop p*ssing people off first thing in the morning?
archduke, you’d better answer some questions 🙂
MT -> i noticed this morning , between 8 and 9pm they didnt discuss GAZA..
“wow – something going on here”, i thought to myself.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/
the tone has been altered as well:
0820: Elvis and the Japanese PM
0850: German national anthem
0855: the hippy trail
also notice that Gitmo is pushed back to 0718, and gaza at 0734, freeing up the prime 8-9 slot.
max ->ha ha! honest to god – i just like his blog, so thought he might like a bit of traffic.
which reminds me, i need to change it to something else, as he’s had some linklove for a while now.
Michael Taylor
Yes I have (noticed the laughing). It’s cringworthy to hear though (esp. the Monaquinn girls), sounds very forced and I can’t think of when I have laughed along too….
This has been quite funny:
The Editors
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/
All the Editors exposing their unbiased approaches to their programmes…..not! Today the Exec Editor of QT announces his surprise that some school kids are Conservatives! Why would that be surprising? Only if you live in a moonbat bubble looking at the world through your bbc supplied, tv taxpayer paid for, very red spectacles.
Michael Taylor
I think the term for all the jollity on Today is false bonhomie. It really grates.
Bio
Whatever Deshowitz says about Israel – he should NOT be brought on to the Today prog as if he is some sort of independent legal commentator when he is rabidly anti-Bush. He was one of the team trying to overturn the Florida result in 2000.
Anyone else catch the Daily Politics? All seemed thoroughly right-wing, and Muslim rep getting a very hard time.
And Jenny Scott….mmmmmm yummy.
Archduke and Barker John,
I just hope the BBC was stacking the deck as usual for that ‘Question Time’ and that the panel and audience are not representative of broader UK society.
If they are, there ain’t much hope.
Actually, when I pointed out that the BBC has done its work very well, I meant over the years. They share much of the blame for the attitudes we see today.
On Dershowitz, he’s a little too liberal for my liking, but he’s a bright guy and he demolishes the anti-Israel chump Noam Chomsky in this Harvard debate:
ISRAEL & PALESTINE AFTER DISENGAGEMENT: Where Do We Go From Here?
Video here:
http://ksgaccman.harvard.edu/iop/events_forum_listview.asp?Type=PS
Last night’s ‘World Have Your Say’ featured another fiery debate – between Israel’s past UN ambassador Dore Gold and a Palestinian terror apologist:
http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?scope=all&edition=d&q=World+Have+Your+Say&go.x=37&go.y=9
(Audio clip on top right.)
In a priceless moment from the programme, the presenter asks the Palestinian to “let the ambassador finish his point before you interrupt him.”
I’m “listening again” to the Today section on Gaza. The correspondent says that Hamas is seen as a terrorist organization “by Israel, the United States, and some in Europe”.
Excuse me!
Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/06/going_to_the_dogs.html
Today is “going to the dogs”?
well , we could have told you that months ago.
oh wait – no – he really is on about dogs. the canine variety.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5132514.stm
GAZA CRISIS TIMELINE
Sun 25 June: Cpl Shalit Gilad captured in cross-border attack
Mon 26 June: Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees demand prisoner releases in exchange for Gilad
Tues 27 June: Israel launches air strikes on Gaza, military enters southern strip
Thurs 29 June: Israel detains dozens of Hamas officials
No kidnapping of 18 year old kid. No mention of his ‘killing’?
“No kidnapping of 18 year old kid”
because they didnt have enough space within that box…
oh wait. no. they’ve got enough room to spell out the Pali PRC
“by Israel, the United States, and some in Europe”.
why no mention of the UK in that list?
Harry’s Place is having a discussion on BBC and the T-word
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2006/06/29/the_bbc_and_the_tword_the_saga_continues.php
archduke :
why no mention of the UK in that list?
Listen here, about 2 minutes in. Its some correspondent in damascus interviewing a Hamas Big Cheese:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today3_gaza_20060630.ram
The correspondent says that Hamas is seen as a terrorist organization “by Israel, the United States, and some in Europe”.
Right, the entire European Union represents ‘some in Europe.’
He forgot to mention Australia and Japan. And I’m sure there are others.
Since so many BBC staff (not all, it should be pointed out) are so keen to portray Hamas in a good light, I wonder how they see Hamas? As freedom fighters, courageously taking on the Israeli state terror machine, no doubt.
Silly me, I forgot.
Anyone else notice this closing paragraph in this story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5132514.stm
The Israelis have denied that there are any of its troops in northern Gaza, but in reality they would be unlikely to confirm the presence of an undercover unit, says the BBC’s Alan Johnston in Gaza.
Fair comment, perhaps, but read it again.
Mr Johnston is telling us the reality of the situation. What is this implying?
Read the whole article and see how many times the Palestinian version of events is brought back in line with perceived ‘reality’.
What a load of cobblers.
Nice points Biodegradable and Bryan.
Get an eyefull of this. It should be required reading for everyone in the employ of our crappy little state broadcaster!
http://www.nysun.com/article/35365
Okay – Israel withdrew from Gaza and let the Palestinians prove how they would run a state.
Having proved a point it might be necessary to re-occupy the place.
The Palestinians are incompetent. Now i hear the BBC getting worked up about blowing out a power station – is it only in Belgrade that bridges, roads, embassies, TV studios, and power stations are “legitimate” targets. I recall Jamie Shea at NATO and Clare Short, Joschka Fischer, and the assorted braying mob approving of this action.
It was only recently that those bridges over the Danube were repaired – the staff at the Tv studio have still not recovered from being dead
dumbcisco
Your attempt to portray Alan Dershowitz as some kind of stock moonbat is so way off….
In November 2001 Dershowitz floated the idea of ‘torture warrants’ allowing torture to be used in controlled circumstances in the interrogation of terrorist suspects.
His book the ‘Case for Israel’ takes a line on Palestinian terrorism that I would have thought you’d approve.
As others have noted above Alan D has had run-ins with Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein. He also hit back against Mearsheimer and Walt.
He is one of the three most senior and experienced academic law professors in the US and an expert on the Supreme Court.
As for:
“And in the interview he even suggested that the republicans have a lot of control over the supreme Court – utter tosh, but accepted by Naughtie of course.”
dumbcisco | 30.06.06 – 11:04 am | #
Maybe you didn’t know that 8 out of the 10 current Supreme Court Justices were nominated by Republican Presidents or that some (Scalia, Clarence Thomas) are icons of the conservative movement or that Chief Justice Roberts worked in the Reagan White House or any of the many other facts that suggest quite a bit of Republican influence in the Supreme Court.
Once again we see a slur against the BBC is based on ignorance.
Click to access biographiescurrent.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Dershowitz
“Maybe you didn’t know that 8 out of the 10 current Supreme Court Justices were nominated by Republican President”
Which is irrelevant – Einsenhower appointed Earl Warren, expecting him to be a conservative, when he turned out to be a liberal.
John Reith,
If you are happy to conclude that somebody appointed by a politician can’t be trusted to be impartial, could you please explain how we can expect the BBC to be impartial, when the government sets the budget?
How about the House of Lords? Do you think that Tony needs to be prevented from filling it with his friends? Should the BBC publicise this issue? Should Auntie cast doubts upon the ‘independence’ of peers?
I look forward to the day when the Today team, start claiming that Tony and the Labour Party has a lot of influence over the House of Lords (in tones that suggest they shouldn’t).
Reith:
Have you anything to say about Andrew’s thread:
“in the tropical island of Cuba lies the detention camp that is seen by many around the world as America’s gulag”
Was Matt Frei lying or exaggerating when he said this on the news?
Who do you think comprises “many around the world”?
Big Mouth,
That article isn’t accessible to non-subscribers.
Looks promising, though.
Grimer
“If you are happy to conclude that somebody appointed by a politician can’t be trusted to be impartial”
I’m not. I can think of many people appointed by politicians who are successfully impartial……most of our judges for starters.
“how we can expect the BBC to be impartial, when the government sets the budget”
The government doesn’t set the BBC’s budget. Parliament sets a licence fee. Important differences, both. (In any case I don’t suppose you think the BBC spent 18 years being biased in favour of the Conservative Party between 1979 and 1997 – which is where your own logic would take you.)
As for the Lords – it’s a political institution. Labour Peers. Conservative Peers. Liberal Democrat Peers. All with whips. Apart from the crossbenchers, whoever expected them to be impartial? I can’t think why you cite this example.
Gordon-Bennett
I don’t know precisely whom Matt Frei had in mind but if I were looking for someone who’d be likely to hold that view of Gitmo, I’d probably start my search among the world’s 1.4 billion adherents of Islam; then maybe try the various anti-war movements or parties (SWP/Respect spring to mind); then maybe Left/Liberal types reading the guardian, Mother Jones (if it still exists), the Nation, the New York Times etc. I’d expect to find a fair few in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands too – not to mention Sweden – too.
Hell, I don’t need to tell you – it’s not hard to find a moonbat if you really need one (or….’many’come to that). So, no he wasn’t lying or exaggerating.
John Reith | 30.06.06 – 3:45 pm
Gulag is a highly charged word, to be used with care and precision.
So, do you think that frei also believes that Gitmo=gulag?
Whether he believes it or not is he trying to give the impression that Gitmo is really a gulag, as under socialist rule in the ussr?
In what ways do you think frei can possibly believe that Gitmo is morally equivalent to a gulag?
What do you think of when you hear the word “gulag” and does that bear any relation to Gitmo?
Reith
Even you should know that Stevens and Kennedy have typically taken liberal stances in Supreme Court judgments. Making the balance of judgements anti-Republican, whoever appointed those judges originally.
And that from Roe v Wade onwards there have been claims that the Supreme Court is encraching on the legislative powers of the other two elements of the US.That is what a lot of the current focus is on – whether Bush can get through Congress nominees for the Supreme Court who can be counted to uphold rather than re-write the Constitution.
I did not comment on Dershowitz’s vierws on Israel. I saying that he is a rabid democrat and should have been introduced as such.
You cannot deny that he is strongly Democrat, and should have been introduced as such by Naughtie. And there are other experts on the Supreme Court – how come the Today prog just happens to turn up an anti-Bush crusader ?
Whoever is briefing yoiu within the BBC needs to get theiur facts straight before they set you up with more lies.
Roberts recused himself from yesterday’s judgment as he had heard the matter at an earlier stage oin appeal, before he became Chief Justice.
Dershowitz was a lowlife to slur the previous Chief Justice just hours after he had died. He is rabid – senior or not senior, he is typical of the “US commentators” the BBC chooses to interview so often.
The BBC practices didinformation about US politics.
And Frei’s use of the word gulag in relation to Gitmo is base, sick. But no more than we have come to expect from some of the BBC clowns.
Gordon – Bennett
“do you think that frei also believes that Gitmo=gulag?”
I don’t know for sure, but I doubt it. He’s a smart guy.
“is he trying to give the impression that Gitmo is really a gulag, as under socialist rule in the ussr?”
No. It seems to me he’s merely attributing this foolish view to (many) others.
“In what ways do you think frei can possibly believe that Gitmo is morally equivalent to a gulag?”
I don’t believe he does.
“What do you think of when you hear the word “gulag” and does that bear any relation to Gitmo?”
Time was when I would have thought of Ivan Denisovich Shukhov.
These days I think of Anne Applebaum.
And no, she bears no resemblance to Gitmo.
But not everyone thinks the way I do. Mike Whitney wrote a CounterPunch pamphlet entitled: The Guantanamo Gulag. You can buy it here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney01032005.html
Amnesty Secretary General ‘Slams Guantanomo Gulag’
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/5/25/91015.shtml
Marjorie Cohn reports “Bush Plays Politics with Guantanomo ‘Gulag'”
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/061605B.shtml
Patrick Martin says ‘Three Prisoners commit suicide in Guantanomo Gulag’
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jun2006/guan-j12.shtml
David Cole in the Nation (see, I was right…) calls it Guantanomo Gulag:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030609/cole
Two useful things to remember:
1. You don’t have to agree with what someone is reporting to acknowledge their impartiality.
2. The BBC is REQUIRED BY CHARTER not only to air the views of sensible people, but also those of moonbats and wingnuts too.
reith
your defence of Frei’s stupid remarks is pathetic.
Someone like Alastair Cooke would not have reported like that.