The BBC accepts the words of a pressure group and its local Palestinian friends concerning a vague report of Israelis using ‘human shields’ against terrorists (who obviously would be mightily put off by such tactics). The pressure group has the declared aim of changing Israeli policy towards the Palestinians. Meanwhile the BBC lavishes no articles and wastes no keyboard work over the fundamental importance of human shields to Hezbullah and other terror groups.
That’s disproportionality.
http://wizbangblog.com/2006/07/25/inside-hezbollahs-media-spin-machine.php
CNN reporting the other side and this time they are reporting how Hezbollah manipulates the media…..
I remember when the Serbs were fighting US funded terrorists in Kosovo. There was a deafening silence from all the Zionists despite the slanted BBC coverage of the war in Kosovo at that time.
In fact many of the Zionists supported the US attacks and swallowed the propaganda of KLA terrorists hook, line and sinker. I’m just glad to see the shoe on the other foot now. I, for one, am enjoying the coverage 🙂
Lies from Al Beeb and the palestinians? Is that possible?
As Israel’s ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman put it on the O’Reilly factor last night. This is not a direct quote – just what I remember he said:
“Israel didn’t expel palestinians after its creation in 1948. The took up less land than planned by the UN. All “palestinians” that left Israel expected to return as victors after Israel got attacked by its neighbours.”
Didn’t quite work out like that though.
Sadly there’s no video of the interview on the Fox News website as it made very interesting viewing.
Perhaps the ability to recognise proportionate military responses to aggression is granted only to those who are politically correct.
“I remember when the Serbs were fighting US funded terrorists in Kosovo. There was a deafening silence from all the Zionists despite the slanted BBC coverage of the war in Kosovo at that time.”
Huh?
huh indeed.
Clinton didnt want to get involved. it was blair who pushed him into it.
yeah – blair. he’s a “zionist”.
Eustoned,
It will make sense if you surround your head with tin-foil to block GWB’s mind rays.
Great. A full article, pictures, a prominent place on the news front-page for these allegations, made by a human rights group.
Yet they bury the UN commissioner’s comments (“cowardly”) about Hezbollah’s cynical use of civilians in an innocuous piece about UN aid.
‘UN launches Lebanese aid appeal’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5211958.stm
Balance?
Do you think the BBC will get the message from this HYS?
Media and the Middle East: your views
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&threadID=2771&edition=1&ttl=20060725220413&#paginator
“It will make sense if you surround your head with tin-foil to block GWB’s mind rays.”
Yes, you’re right. I have my head wrapped in tin-foil and it’s all clear now.
It’s a conspiracy involving Bush, the Zionist cabal, the Bilderberg Group, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, the oil lobby and Jim Davidson.
Both Barker John and I mentioned this report earlier….
mick in the uk:
Barker John:
BBC goes nuts about human shields! Don’t see much about the other sides human shields on Al Beeb.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world…ast/ 5212870.stm
————-
He shows me where the soldiers positioned them: outside the entrance to his flat on the third floor, in the stairwell, facing down the steps.
——–
A stairwell would be the safest place to be if a building was hit by an RPG.
If the complainant was kept in a room as he suggested, he would have been in greater danger.
maybe he’s upset, because when the Israelis entered his house they didn’t kill all his family, they (the Israelis) are, after all, evil Zionist murderers who have completley destroyed Lebanon, for no good reason.
mick in the uk | 25.07.06 – 5:22 pm | #
“proportionality” against the Nazis and the Japanese fascists:
dresden, hamburg, hiroshima, nagasaki, berlin, tokyo, caen… plus, lets arm Stalin as well.
german dead: about 10 million
british dead: around 300,000 or so.
So, deliberate mass murder of civillians is OK then? Yeah, Serbs: white nationalist nation in Europe; poor ethnic minority. Hello! Ring any bells with anyone. Anyway, it did with the US zionists. You guys pick and choose your biased media coverage very carefully.
the serbs followed an ex-communist megalomaniac, who suddenly turned himself into a genocidal fascist.
after they allowed themselves to be taken in by that, i have zero sympathy.
**Sips from BBC Kool Aid**
Hey! Wait a sec…it’s clear to me now — It is Israel’s fault! Everything bad in the world is Israel’s fault!
Andrew Marr was exactly right to bring on four Israel haters in his Sunday morning politics show, without any counter-balancing pov. Exactly right! Andrew…my man!
Ha ha ha! You reactionary fools! How could you not see this?
“According to the Israeli human rights group, B’tselem, six civilians including two minors were subjected to the illegal tactic during an incursion into the town of Beit Hanoun last week”.
So what is this organisation?
NGO Monitor writes:
However, Betselem’s agenda is also blatantly political (although not party affiliated) and to its credit, unlike many other non-governmental organizations, makes no attempt to hide this;
B’Tselem acts primarily to change Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories and ensure that its government, which rules the Occupied Territories, protects the human rights of residents there and complies with its obligations under international law.
read more on a political organisation the BBC describes as a Human Rights organisation (just like the UK plumbers on peace mission/peace activitists/aid workers going to Israel).
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/editions/v2n02/v2n02-1.htm
“He shows me where the soldiers positioned them: outside the entrance to his flat on the third floor, in the stairwell, facing down the steps.”
The Israeli soldiers then bashed down the walls of the chap’s flat and “exchanged fire with Palestinian militants”, in which case it was presumably slightly safer to be outside the room. Why didn’t Hazem and his two brothers move away? The report implies that they were unguarded, albeit that they were blindfolded and bound at the wrists.
I don’t want to sound sexist. But did Lucy Williamson, reporting from Gaza, ask hard questions of all concerned? Lucy doesn’t sound like the name of a hard-nosed, seen-it-all war correspondent. Not like Lowell Thomas or Margaret Bourke-White. But then again I associate those names with substance because they were famous before I was born; if Lucy Williamson had been Margaret Bourke-White and vice-versa, I would probably scoff at Margaret Bourke-White and praise Lucy Williamson. But Lucy is objectively a twee name. Like Polly. It annoys me and angers me the more I think about it.
Do the Israeli soldiers believe that Palestinian freedom fighters care about human shields? I doubt it. In irregular wars the death of civilians is a win-win situation for the terrorist, just like during the insurgencies in Rhodesia and South Africa. Civilian deaths can either be attributed directly to massacres carried out by government, or (as here) indirectly as a collateral consequence of government action. When civilians are killed the terrorists jump for joy, because it means good press, even if the civilians were put in the line of fire by the terrorists, or even killed by them.
Just how much of Beirut has been levelled?
According to the Beeb, its widespread.
Take a look at this map to see the affected areas, look carefully…bottom left.
http://www.vitalperspective.com/
Truly fascinating ‘World Have Your Say’ on perceptions of media bias in coverage of Israel-Lebanon. Especially the extraordinary justifications of BBC coverage from Fran Unsworth, head of news gathering.
How far back does one go to see where the conflict started? she asks. From the kidnapping in Gaza or the shell falling on the family on the beach?
This woman is in a seriously senior position. And her ‘news gathering’ has led her to exactly the same understanding as your average indoctrinated Palestinian youth?
It’s beyond belief. And so are a lot of other things she has to say:
http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?scope=all&edition=d&q=world+have+your+say&go.x=43&go.y=10
The UNIFIL have lost four men today due to an Israeli aircraft apparently bombing their shelter. Watch the BBC and the UN grasp and spin this sad incident for their own purposes. Meanwhile the UN itself said today in a press release:
“This morning, Hezbollah opened small arms fire at a UNIFIL convoy
consisting of two armored personnel carriers (APC) on the road between
Kunin and Bint Jubayl. There was some damage to the APCs, but no
casualties, and the convoy was obliged to return to Kunin.”
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/unifilpress.htm
(Click 25 July)
Another:
“One unarmed UN military observer, a member of the Observer Group
Lebanon (OGL), was seriously wounded by small arms fire in the patrol base
in the Marun Al Ras area yesterday afternoon. According to preliminary
reports, the fire originated from the Hezbollah side during an exchange with
the IDF. He was evacuated by the UN to the Israeli side, from where he was
taken by an IDF ambulance helicopter to a hospital in Haifa. He was operated on, and his condition is now reported as stable.”
Nice of the Israelis to help the UN out – will this be reported? and:
“Hezbollah firing was also reported from the immediate vicinity of the UN positions in Naqoura and Maroun Al Ras areas at the time of the incidents.”
Nothing about Hezbolah attacking the UN on a far more regular basis than the Israelis so far on the news and doing their usual trick of hiding behind or near UN posts….is this what happened today? If so how does Annan manage to claim that the UN were deliberately targeted if there were Hezbollah nearby who were the actual target. More to the point how come the UN does not drive them off with their weapons or vacate any areas where Hezbollah are endangering their troops?
Strange that the Beeb don’t pick up this video…
http://www.current.tv/video/?id=9878177
Jaron Gilinsky travels to Northern Israel to investigate a Katyusha rocket attack on Haifa’s train depot only to find himself at the center of more attacks.
Just for a bit of balance try this:
http://www.juancole.com/
Might do some of you good to get a different perspective – I don’t expect it to change your views but it will give you an insight.
The exact reason why I read B-BBC is because I don’t agree with the general political line but I do learn something about how and why people with different views have them as some people don’t post bigoted, nonsense ramblings (see Pete_London in another set of comments about homosexuality).
Did Bowen do the same little tour of Beruit?
CNN Reporter Admits Being Hizballah Tool
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=21763_CNN_Reporter_Admits_Being_Hizballah_Tool&only
Oh and just one last thing before I go to bed. You may wish to call Hizbollah terrorists – and I proabably wouldn’t argue with you on that, but let’s remember Irgun was a was a militant (or is that terrorist) Zionist group that operated in Palestine from 1931 for about 15 years.
This group were responsible for bombing the British administrative and military headquarters in Jerusalem, killing 91 people, including British officers and troops. They alos carreid out military operations such as the break in to Acre Prison, and the hanging of two British sergeants.
It might be considered reasonable to use the label terrorist to describe them. For much of their period of terror they were lead by no other than Menachim Begin. Ariel Sharon was also a member during this time.
If many of the B-BBC posters had been alive then – would they have condemned these attacks on British troops as terrorist attacks?
The situation in the middle east is far more complex than the one dimensional view the pro Zionist or pro Palestinian groups would have you believe – and the history is complex too.
If we can go back to 1931 for Israel, can we go back to 1922 for Ireland?
There comes a time when you just need to get with the present. If the UK and Ireland can, then why can’t the middle east and Israel?
On the other hand, if we can go back as far as we want then it’s all Italy’s fault!
“the serbs followed an ex-communist megalomaniac, who suddenly turned himself into a genocidal fascist. after they allowed themselves to be taken in by that, i have zero sympathy.”
Nobody’s asking for sympathy. The point is the media in the west lied left, right and centre about supposed ethnic slaughter in Kosovo, and the Zionists were happy with it because it was a white-nationlist European country.
What goes around comes around. I hope the BBC and others do a sterling job of painting Hezbollah and their chronies as the victims 😉
Ho ho, A Lurker’s now the Voice of Reason. What caused that I wonder? When he writes of Margaret Thatcher the hatred is evident. As soon as he thinks of proven liar and anti-semite Juan Cole, he comes over all sweetness and light.
A Lurker –
The exact reason why I read B-BBC is because I don’t agree with the general political line but I do learn something about how and why people with different views have them as some people don’t post bigoted, nonsense ramblings (see Pete_London in another set of comments about homosexuality).
Well for a start, I don’t like liars, anti-semites and glorifiers of terrorists:
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/correction_2/
http://www.slate.com/id/2140947/?nav/navoa/
What explains your beliefs?
Since you mentioned it, my problem is clearly not with homosexuality. If you knew more about my views you’d know that I’d defend an individual adult’s right to do as they please in their own bedroom. My problem is with children being sexualised. But hey, I think I made that clear and I know you know it.
And yes, Irgun and the Stern Gang were terrorists. If justice was ever done then Menachim Begin would have been hanged instead of being rewarded for murder with high office.
Sweet dreams.
As I stated on the Pollard thread, the IDF offensive was not a response to Hezbollah provocation but almost certainly a carefully laid CIA/Mossad plan with multiple objectives. So, for the moment at least, let us not get bogged down in the ‘moral’ fog of wartime propaganda.
Some things about the campaign are beginning to crystalise while others remain as fuzzy as ever. What I find appalling about the BBC’s coverage is its complete lack of curiosity about certain key questions. Here are a few of them:
1) The passivity of the Arab League throughout the whole affair is most intriguing. Not only have they been fully briefed in advance one must suspect their silence has been bought – what were they offered?
2)Leading on from 1) did any of the Arab League states offer logistical support for the IDF incursion?
3) Hezbollah have expressed ‘surprise’ at the ferocity of the Israeli response. Their heavily fortified forward positions suggest they may have only expected a direct ground offensive supported by the Israeli Air Force.
Hezbollah may not have expected the intensive air and sea barrage throughout South Lebanon. Yet they continue to fire their rockets while the country is being levelled and the entire Shia population dispersed (most of whom may probably never return).
This begs many questions about Hezbollah’s command and control. It is hard (but admittedly not impossible) to imagine that an indigenous militia would completely ignore the fact that its entire supportive apparatus was being systematically destroyed. Yet there have been no calls for a truce let alone a ceasefire from ‘The Party of God.’
One must ask how much autonomy does Hezbollah enjoy and whether Nasrallah is just a cipher.
4) If we accept that Hezbollah C&C is located externally do military orders come from Tehran or Damascus? Recent Hezbollah statements about the withdrawal of Israel from all Arab lands are the worst kind of Syrian rhetoric. Has Damascus hijacked this operation?
5) The US and Israel do not wish to talk to Syria. Elements within the Lebanese government echo this sentiment (Jumblatt spoke darkly about Assad being bad for Lebanon and VERY BAD FOR IRAQ). The situation with Iran though hardly favourable is not as clear cut. Is this the first sign of the US & Israel trying to drive a wedge between the two?
Again, I challenge BBC hacks to start asking these questions. Or are you going to spend all your time parading as dockside ghouls?
“carefully-laid CIA/Mossad plan ” ?
What rubbish. Almost as bent as the bile of Juan Cole.
We already know that Juan Cole is a feed for the BBC – John Simpson told us so, many months ago.
That is why we claim there is bias. And in Cole’s case – anti-semitic bias.
I’m wearing my tin hat as I read about yet another cunning plan from the moonbats….
A Lurker,
The situation in the middle east is far more complex than the one dimensional view the pro Zionist or pro Palestinian groups would have you believe – and the history is complex too.
You popping in here, armed with the ‘thoughts’ of Juan Cole, to nudge us towards a ‘balanced’ view of the complexities of the Middle East is priceless.
And re the attack on the King David Hotel by Jewish ‘terrorists’, I look forward to the day when Hizbullah/Hamas/Islamic Jihad and the rest of the murderous crew give due warning of their next crazed attack on Jewish civilians.
Then I’ll start taking your one-dimensional comparisons seriously.
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/004340.html
which shows a picture of UN and HZ flags flying side by side…..also pointing out that allegedly the UN and HZ outpost shown shared water and telephones!
dave t,
Not only shared water and telephones, how about our friends at the UN carrying out road repairs so their HZ pals can move their hardware around? I’m not kidding! Go here: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=21771_UN_Repairing_Roads_for_Hizballah&only
Why don’t the al-beeb clowns tell us that there already is an international force called UNIFIL in Lebanon. It consists of 2000 soldiers and costs $99.3 per year. Read it here:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=N2UxZjI3MTRhNGM5YTc1MDkyM2NkZmVhZjdiYzUzODU=
http://www.danegerus.com/weblog/Comments.asp?svComment=15054
A very good roundup of all the things that UNIFIL have got up to…..and Annan has the gall to blame Israel straight away when they are the cause of death for 4 UN soldiers out of 289 killed over the years?
The BBC is loving Kofi Annan’s absurd condemnation of Israel before there has been any investigation.
Don’t the realise that by now most people regard Kofi as a fool.
Just look at the guy, bumbling, pompous, dim.
Not to say corrupt.
dave t
That link really gives the goods on Inifil. What were your vierws of them ?
Kofi and the UN are “part of the problem, not the solution”.
So is the BBC, for that matter.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0607250113jul25,0,1381784.story?coll=chi-newsopinioncommentary-hed
Al Beeb and its use of Human shields;
“Ghada Mitri answers readers’ questions
Ghada Mitri was on a visit to Lebanon from the UK to look after her elderly parents when the country came under attack.
Despite being able to return back home to safety, she decided to stay and try to help Lebanese people caught up in a desperate situation.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5211976.stm
Visit Al Beeb? I think you will find she lives there AL Beeb?
Here is what this young lady wrote in Nov 2005;
Ghada Salim Mitri – Salamaat, I was born in London, Lived in Sierra Leone, got my BS in AUB Beirut worked in London for 5 years and now I am going back home to Lebanon. Wish me luck.
Environmental Development Officer (soon), Ministry of Environment
Beirut, Lebanon
http://www.leb.org/v3/display/32110/lebanon/ghada-mitri/
Look at how she signed off.
Me thinks somebody is telling porkies about her visiting. It may also explain why she is staying.
http://www.leb.org/v3/display/32110/lebanon/ghada-mitri/
Oh before anybody wishes to say that could be anybody else here is what she wrote for the BBC the other day;
“I moved from London to Lebanon in January of this year to support my elderly parents. They don’t have the luxury of being able to leave and I could never leave them behind. I am continuing to travel to work in Beirut, where I am an environmental officer for the government,”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/5196746.stm
What the BBC refuses to see is that Hezbollah is not simply an existential threat to Israel, it is part of an existential threat from Islamic fundamentalism against the whole of democratic civilisation :
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/07/just_another_coincidence.html
Amazing – the one BBC article that is sympathetic is Israel and Haifa is not about the Jews, but about the animals in a zoo. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5213602.stm
pounce –
As I said in another thread, put the name of anyone mentioned in a BBC article into google, you know, the name of that random civilian they just happened to bump into on the street, and the chances are you’ll find duplicity, lies and omissions.
Foof –
Maybe it’s that Jews, being the offspring of pigs and monkeys (the muzzies tell us so), are lower than the animals in the zoo.
It’s Wednesday morning and so it must be time for yet another biased BBC interview.
Actually it started quite promisingly. On the anniversary of Suez, a Liberal Eqyptian MP was to be interviewed. Interesting. I don’t think we do not get to hear enough about the non Islamist politics in the Arab and Moslem worlds so points for trying.
The interview dealt with how democracy would be served in elections in which Islamists came to power and the speaker said he did not fear that. Fascination and interest maintained thus far – an example of good worthy journalism.
Then it went pear shaped. The MP was asked about the current situation and would, you believe it – what he thought of Israel’s – I’ll repreat that for the still incredulous – Israel’s actions. What on earth did they think he was going to say? That he was off to buy a Yamulka and would be praying at the Western Wall tomorrow in anticipation of full conversion to Judaism?
Well – predictably he didn’t.
Surely by any standard of intellectual inquiry, journalistic investgation or newsworthiness the appropriate interesting and challenging question to ask any liberal in an Arab country today was what he thought of the role of Hezbollah and its Iranian backers in the crisis.
This is truly poor journalism. It is failing to take up rare opportunities to inform in order to pursue instead a rotten agenda and it stinks.
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2006/07/26/what_happens_in_war.php
Harry’s Place is having a good discussion on this as well, helped along by me and Tim….
UNIFIL has always been a waste of space. Most UN ops even in places like Bosnia are simply a means whereby nations can send their poor soldiers somewhere and have the UN pay their wages thus allowing the original defence budget to be spent on non defence things. An example is Fiji who at one stage had a battalion in UNIFIL, one in MFO Sinai (still there) and two at home. The lads would literally rotate for years and years twixt UNIFIL – MFO – Fiji – other UN posting. Now that 3500 have joined the British Army, Fiji does not have the bodies to man UNIFIL FIJIBATT hence one reason why they cut down their presence in UNIFIL.
Another reason was that certain how shall we say politically unreliable Fijians (officers) would be sent to UNIFIL/MFO etc to keep them out of Fiji where they were causing trouble or building up for another coup. Poorer nations like Bangladesh couldn’t even pay their soldiers’ wages at home without the excessive per deim for each soldier on the ground that they get from the UN (ie the US who pay 25% of UN peacekeeping bills!) The other problem as we have seen in Congo etc is that countries such as Bulgaria have sent criminals as UN troops rather than lock them up. These ‘soldiers’ are untrained and active in criminal activities and don’t even get the full whack of UN per diem – their government keeps the bulk of it (as does the UK when our lads are on UN ops!)
Other problems also arise with sexual advances towards local goats (Jordan) or little children (several African nations). You will note China is also in Lebanon and Haiti amongst other places as part of the UN yet refuses to join any forces to protect Dafur….interesting…
Time to sack the UN!
gaza human shield still on the front page:
http://news.bbc.co.uk
and then theres the usual propagandising for the terrorists
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5215608.stm
“nine killed in israeli gaza raid”
the bbc – making sure that you get the impression that the israelis do all the killing.
of the “nine killed” – who are they?
“Several members of the governing Hamas organisation were also amongst those killed, said a Hamas spokesman.”
aaah . so they were terrorists?
“including a three-year old girl, according to medical sources.”
what sources? pali or israeli or Hamas mouthpiece?
“Palestinian witnesses said one person was killed and 10 wounded after a tank shell exploded near a group of people.”
or more likely, a bunch of terrorists tried to fire an RPG at a tank, but the tank hit them first.
in all honesty, this has gone beyond biased reporting -its just utterly dumb, stupid, CRAP reporting.
Where’s the BBC coverage of the UN soldiers killed yesterday? The website seems bizarrely quiet. I’d have thought the Chinese especially would be spitting blood.
hezbollah & CNN
http://newsbusters.org/node/6552
worth reading.
“Where’s the BBC coverage of the UN soldiers killed yesterday?”
you’re right. it IS quiet.
how strange.
a different take on the tank shelling incident in gaza, that i mentioned above
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1153291998039&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull