As part of its services to the chattering classes, the BBC has been preaching teaching how to say “Qana”. Important stuff, I am sure, for making up anti-war chants and for feeling comfortable in that after-dinner conversation mode.
The Beeb have also been quick to help define what we’re to associate with “Qana”- an Israeli ‘war crime’.
Once more this brings into question why the BBC gives such prominence to the views of pressure groups. Why pressure groups and not blogs like this or this? Blogs after all have their international associations and expertise, just like pressure groups.
Unlike the BBC and HRW these blogs have emerged because they give credit to details. It’s detail that reveals the truth of things. It used to be known as “journalism”, but since that word has been misappropriated into meaning ‘making a difference’, maybe we’ll have to think of a new word that means reporting what happens. Suggestions welcome in comments.
(all links from other people: Ritter, Archduke, Melanie Phillips. Hat tips to all)
Melanie Reid in today’s “Glasgow Herald” has a good old go at Feargal Keene and all his emoting to camera. First such piece I can recall seeing in MSM. Are people catching on at last? Surely not?
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/66928.html
good catch Rueful. we can only hope.
Are there any Mr Keane equivalents in Al Jazeera reporting on Israeli casualties in a Fearge “cry me a river” keane way?
Do Hezbollah have a reporter in Israel, reporting on the aftermath of Hezbollah attacks?
Do Hamas broadcast the aftermath of their suicide attacks in a “cry me a river” way?
Of course not. The Islamists dont do any of that – they glorify death and destruction and wallow in it.
“the green helmet man mystery continues”…
new post on EU Ref
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/08/green-helmet-mystery-continues.html
Here is the article by Melanie Reid.
What follows should be read in a soft southern Irish accent. “They came in the night, the rockets of destruction, streaking through the sky from deep within Israeli territory. Their force was unstoppable. Little Saba, aged just six, was sleeping when they landed, obliterating her universe. And so, in the chaos of dawn, the rescuers found her twisted little corpse, her face hauntingly calm, her eyelashes caked with dust, for all the world like angel dust, as if dreaming of the peace she will never know.”
OK, so I’ve underplayed it. Fergal Keane would have written it much better. The cliches would have been more polished, the drama more acute, the sensitivity more sensitive. And the voice: oh, the voice would have been laced with that ineffable despair and weariness.
And, of course, he would not have left it at that. In his role as BBC TV’s McGonagall of grief, Keane would then have tracked down and interviewed Saba’s surviving relatives, and filmed them sobbing and wailing. The whole episode would have been given a five-minute-but- feels-like-five-hours slot on the News at Ten, after which he’d declare: “This is Fergal Keane, BBC pain and suffering correspondent, south Lebanon.” And then we’d return to the studio and a reverential anchorman.
Now none of this is to impugn Keane’s personal sincerity. He is a man who obviously cares, and cares deeply, about the plight of humanity. It’s just that I wish he didn’t do it so publicly; or, rather, I wish that his employers had not taken the decision to give his kind of over-wrought journalism such a high-profile role in their Middle East war coverage.
It’s not Keane’s fault, in a sense, that modern war, as framed by the television lens, has become first and foremost a human drama, and he a celebrity member of the cast. Of course war is always a human drama as well as a political one, but more than ever the issue is one of coolness and objectivity in the reporting of it. Get the emphasis wrong, and one either sanitises war or one tips over into a simplistic • and exploitative • form of victim journalism.
Sadly, the latter is happening to the BBC. Without doubt it has succumbed to the pressures to emotionalise events in Lebanon: dumbing down almost, it seems to me, to the level of EastEnders.
There was one particularly ghastly example of Keane as emoter-in-chief last week, when he followed the plight of a Lebanese family wrenched apart while fleeing their country by sea. In the turmoil of embarking, the family were separated: the mother got on a ship for Cyprus; her children did not. We were subject to offensive, lingering camera work of the two crying little boys, as close as I have seen the BBC go to the pornography of grief. Moreover, the report failed to make clear that the boys were all the time in the company of their father. It reminded me, strikingly, of one of those manipulative, tear-jerking clips shown on Red Nose Day: the ones designed to make people reach for their credit cards.
The next day we saw Keane and his film crew in their cars being shelled by the Israelis. Having driven into the danger zone (in order, naturally, to emote with stranded Lebanese), they then starred in their own drama as one individual was slightly wounded by shrapnel and they had to bundle him into the car and drive off at high speed. Was it brave? More like totally irresponsible. It told us nothing, except that the Israeli forces hit their target zone; and that Keane likes getting involved with the story. Both of which facts we might have gleaned already.
Little wonder the BBC is being accused of bias by both Lebanese and Israelis; and even by neutral observers. This is what happens. When television forsakes classic objective journalism, and starts Keaning over victims • even if it devotes equal time to both Lebanese and Israelis • inevitably it leaves itself vulnerable to a charge of partiality.
The sadness is that television cameras can make a hugely positive impact; they can effect real change. But so much journalism today does not foster this. Instead, it infantilises. In presenting life as a sorrowful mush, it evades harsh realities and raises expectations that someone with a magic wand will come along and make things better.
The Middle East, sadly, is a lot more complicated than a famine in Africa (though, indeed, famines are much more complicated than telethons ever allow for). Here is something that cannot be solved by tears or credit cards, and it is insulting for Fergal Keane and his like to pretend that it can.
“The pornography of grief” – I like it.
The Beeb should also be looking at the Ouet blog, run by Lebanese forces members.
I’ve received more than 4 videos so far concerning Hezbollah launching sites behind and inside civilian houses, not to mention that reports in Qana explain that there were major explosions in Qana that caused the huge damage referring to weapons and rockets hidden.
These are Lebanese people condemning Hezbollah…get them on the BBC.
Oops I forgot the link.
I wouldn’t want the Beeb reporters to have to search for it.
http://www.ouwet.com/
more analyis of qana
http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/188571.php
(not safe for work – graphic images)
From Melanie Reid
it infantilises
An important word in respect of Western attitudes. As Reid says it is fostered by the media, but not only in respect of being unable to face military challenges or identify the Islamist threat.
The BBC always leads the way in suggesting that any of life’s problems can be solved by the government, regulation & more public spending. Nothing requires us to take personal responsibility.
Lebanese perspective…a little different to the Al-Beeb version.
For more than six years, this Shiite Islamic group has been preparing for such a confrontation with Israel.
It was greatly helped by Iran in terms of weapons, missiles of all ranges and ammunition whereas Syria, which controlled the country for five of the six years, helped logistically and by turning a blind eye as to weapons movements.
Since the guerilla fighters hide between civilians, and operate from within inhabited or industrial areas, they greatly benefit from the coverage and lure IAF planes into bombarding civilians and factories which allows the Hezb to use the media coverage to its benefit.
http://www.ouwet.com/othello/other/hezbollah-fighting-techniques-and-tactics/#comments
Those Ouet links – interesting.
On the “World Tonight” on R4 last night, we had a recording of Ehud Olmert, a fairly neutral commentator from an Isreali news agency and then in the studio some woman from a Lebanese newspaper, clearly very sympatheic to Hezbollah, actually saying that she did not believe that Hezb were firing missiles from among civilian homes! Needless to say, she was unchallenged by the Al-Beeb presenter.
The awful truth is that Hizbollah placed already dead bodies in the basement of that building and staged the whole thing. Evidence that points to the whole thing being an evil sham is beginning to mount:
1 The bodies do not show injuries consistent with a full building collpase;
2 the IDF missile hit the building hours before it collapsed, which raises the question as to why the people were not evacuated in this time;
3 the IDF cannot account for the collapse of the building – it was in fact detonated with Hiz ordinance;
4 the IDF were firing missiles at the town through the night, which would make it impossible to sleep;
5 there is a very suspicious person holding up babies for the cameras who has been in photos doing the same thing in the last few years;
6 The dead baby was paraded by this person for hours in front of the media – bizarre and not consistent with someone there as a ‘health’ worker;
7 there was a massive poster lamenting the Qana tragedy and slamming Israel, which can only have been prepared before the building collapsed;
8 the IDF have been warning the locals for weeks to get out – granted that somehad no means to leave, but it is definitely very strange that the children were not evacuated immediately and it is VERY odd that they were in a basement in the middle of a war zone with no men with them…
Hizbollah are an evil, terrorist group. They are scum, the lowest of the low. Their depravity is proven and they are proven liars – witness the recent fake bombing of civilians on a beach. The BBC have not once investigated this side of Hizbollah and the possibility that they would use and plant dead bodies for propaganda effect. Not once have the BBC interviewed terrorist experts on this possibility, nor have the BBC interviewed military experts on Israeli military tactics and the success they are having on the ground.
To believe the BBC is to believe in a fantasy world. The reality ? Hizbollah is being smashed, the international community is rock solid behind Israel getting rid of them, the military action is a real defeat for both Syria and Iran, Nasrallah is in hiding somewhere in a cellphone. You’ll hear none of this from the BBC, an organisation that is no longer in the news game and is now in the world of opinion, spin, fantasy and propaganda.
One other thing that convinces me Qana stinks to high heaven: where are the parents identifying the bodies? Indeed, where are the parents at all? Nowhere to be seen.
Starting inconsistencies, no witnesses, unexplained events – all ignored by the self-proclaimed ‘quality’ news provider that we all have to pay for.
Pathetic.
TD Hizbollah placed already dead bodies
Where do you get a supply of dead children at short order?
I think care need to be taken not to veer to far into conspiracy theories (like 9/11 & moon landing loons). We do have proof that the international media is prepared to allow the parading & display of dead children to maximise their propaganda value.
Under any other circumstances the treatment of bodies with anything other than the upmost respect would have the media howling.
i agree with “will”.
lets deal with the reported “facts”, as we know them, rather than idle speculation.
and then, lets pick apart the “facts”.
The problem here is to avoid the creation of a wealth of conspiracy theories around Qana. However, it would be even better if the BBC did a bit of journalism rather than providing a conveyor belt for any old pressure group that comes along.
The easy bit – a la Fergal “Cry me a River” Keane – is to undertake an emotion-larded report demonising the Israelis. The journalistic question is to ask why the Israelis would have deliberately targeted non-combatant women and children. Such a policy defeats any rational analysis since it is neither good PR nor effective warfare. The only effect of these tactics is to frighten non-combatants out of Qana. Surely, they’re frightened enough as it is. Occam’s Razor would suggest that the Israelis were targeting something else (like, for instance, missile launchers). Now it might be that there were no missiles launched from Qana and that the Israelis got it tragically wrong. OTOH the Israelis might have got it right but with tragic consequences. An organisation dedicated to journalism would seek to tell us or, at least, say they failed to find any convincing evidence one way or the other. But don’t expect any disinterested analysis from the BBC when atrocity porn is so easily available.
Our security services finally clamping down? The Sun headlines
Plumbers flee Britain
Sorry no –
THOUSANDS of plumbers and other skilled workers are escaping Britain for Australia, new research has revealed.
So typical of the BBC not to tell the truth about what Samir Kuntar, the Lebanese priponer that Hezboallah wants released did and why Israel is loath to release him.
———
On April 22, 1979, Samir Kuntar led a group of four who entered Israel from Lebanon by boat. They belonged to the organization PLF under the leadership of Abu Abbas. Around midnight they arrived at the coastal town of Nahariya about six miles south of the Lebanese border. The four killed a policeman who ran across them and were able to break into the apartment of the Haran family before police reinforcements had arrived. The unit took 28-year-old Danny Haran hostage along with his four-year-old daughter Einat. The mother, Smadar Haran, was able to hide in a crawl space above the bedroom with her two-year-old daughter Yael. Kuntar’s group understood that there were more people in the house and went around looking for them, shooting rounds and throwing hand grenades.
After holding to the hostages, a shootout with Israeli policemen and soldiers erupted. Samir Kuntar shot and killed the father at close range in front of his daughter, and in order to ease his escape killed the four-year-old girl by hitting her head with the butt of his rifle against a rock, crushing her skull. Tragically, the two-year-old girl was accidentally suffocated to death, when her mother desperately tried to keep her quiet. A policeman and two of Samir Kuntar’s unit were also killed. Kuntar and the fourth participant in the shootout were captured. The latter, Ahmed Abarrass, was freed by Israel in the 1986 Ahmed Jibril prisoner deal in return for three Israeli soldiers.
Support for Samir Kuntar
Kuntar was tried and convicted for the murders of Danny and Einat Haran. He has also admitted his complicity many times and expressed pride about the killings. Still, he has many supporters in Lebanon who maintain that he is innocent. These supporters also, alternately, claim that the Harans were legitimate targets and considers Kuntar to be a political prisoner.
I’m with TD. The whole thing looks staged.
There are some questions about the Qana incident and its photos – especially the photos of “green-helmet-man” covered in eureferendum and confed-yankee:
1) Do the “rescuers” look like they have been digging in rubble and dust ?
2) Do the bodies look like they have been in collapsed buildings ? The “blue-dummy-baby” does, but none of the others.
3) Where are the survivors ?
4) Were only children killed ?
5) Where are the children’s parents ?
6) Why is green-helmet-man parading the dead baby round for a period of time ?
7) Why such a small number of rescuers ? We see green-helmet-man again and again.
It does start to look a bit stage-managed.
Q: “Where do you get a supply of dead children at short order?”
A: Any hospital.
Hezbollywood = fantasy.
BBC = believes it all!
Odd that whilst the press news reporting is as emotional as the BBC, the editorial line taken by Times, Telegraph & even Observer is more even handed. Even after Qana the Times leader today points out –
The criticism that Israeli attacks aimed at Hezbollah are disproportionate is lazy and facile in several ways, especially in implying a moral relativism between the two sides that does not exist. This is not the contest between misguided equals that many in the West seem to see. One is the region’s lone democracy, which for much of its existence has faced a very real existential threat and would like, if possible, to live in peace with its neighbours. The other is a terrorist organisation, bent on preventing such a future.
Hezbollah is not an emancipation movement. It represents a virulent stream of extremist Islam, characterised by misogyny, homophobia, utter intolerance of difference even within its own religion and a belief system rooted many several centuries past
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,171-2293701,00.html
I have highlighted the words which directly challenge the stance taken by the BBC in their reporting of this conflict.
I would be careful about pushing the “staged by Hezbollah” too far without solid evidence.
Meanwhile, The World at One tells us that members of the Parliamentary Labour party are unhappy about the lack of UK pressure for a ceasefire.
Interview one of the following:
Meacher
Dobson
Short
Today it was moonbat Meacher’s turn to tell us, basically, that it’s all Israel’s fault. Absolute revelation.
Possible answer to “where did the bodies come from?” to add to the conspiracy theories…
“A full day before an air strike in Qana currently making headlines around the world, the Mayor of Tyre prepared a mass grave for 32 bodies killed in the area during the course of the recent conflict. Early Red Cross reports from the scene in Qana indicated only 27 bodies. Ironically enough, if you add 32 and 27 you arrive at the number of Qana dead reported by the press today. Current reports seem to fluctuate between 56 – 60.
It’s been reported that the media coverage and the recovery effort didn’t begin until the next morning. During that gap, the very same refrigerated trucks that held the dead from Tyre made their way to Qana. The question is, were they empty given some analysis which questions the times of death. See Confederate Yankee.
Additionally, there appear to be discrepancies in the reporting from Qana. We’re told the building didn’t collapse until morning. Yet, one observer claims to have been blown out of the building from the third floor during the night, only to rush right back in and witness the massacre.
Rush made an interesting point on his show today. The only things the Hezbo terrorists think are more valuable to their cause than dead Israeli children are dead Muslim children since they help advance their public relations war against Israel.
Michelle Malkin has much more.
Update: Israel’s UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman hit the nail on the head when he made these remarks about the tragedy in Qana on Bill O’Reilly tonight (sorry, I don’t have a link. I transcribed his words as he said them):
These people [Syria, Iran, Hezbollah] couldn’t have been happier about what happened [in Qana]. I know that sounds terrible, but I, in my heart, I believe that is true. We grieve for every Lebanese child. The problem is for us, every dead Lebanese child is a mistake and a tragedy; for them, every dead Israeli child is a victory and a cause for celebration.
Shows the difference twixt the two sides, no?
http://wizbangblog.com/
I am not a conspiracy theorist at all, will. Look at the totality of the questions, not just one and you have to agree that the whole thing looks stage managed.
In respect of the dead bodies, how many have actually been seen? I have counted 5 or 6 in the photos I have seen, certainly not 50-60. Go to any hospital or morgue – you clearly haven’t – and there are many, many bodies there. Children and adults die all the time. Easy to find 10 corpses, as awful as that sounds.
If they weren’t dead already, I have no doubt that Hizbollah would deliberately murder them. The same group murdered Palestinians recently on a beach, then blamed Israeli shelling. A scenario where a terrorist group kills a group of innocent civilians by deliberately detonating a building is not far-fetched, especially amongst islamic fundamentalists.
Anyway…I’ve seen lots of stuff that MAY or MAY NOT give people the impression that Qana was staged. The problem is though – IF it WAS staged and the truth comes out a year from now will we see it deliberated at length on Al Beeb and in the Independent etc?
Based on past form – no. The moral bankruptcy of some people will see to that. After all these are the people who queue up to meet Arafat, Chavez and Dingbat from Iran yet seem unable to explain why when they constantly criticise and push our society into providing rights for gays and minorities etc they never seem to do the same to their bosom pals….
feargal keane’s sole contribution to the sum total of general geostrategic knowledge about this current conflict is
“people die in wars”
here’s my contribution:
“if they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”
Hassan Nasrallah, 2002.
the death toll has gone down. the Red Cross are saying 27 now.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3284627,00.html
ynetnews has picked up on the blogs and “milking” the qana photos
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3284546,00.html
sky news just showed a really uplifting report from the frontlines in afghanistan – showing our lads helping the villagers.
images of a para literally writing out a shopping list for them – medicines, a well, books, clothes etc etc etc….
paras were shown giving out wind-up radios (logic being – if they have radio, they’ll hear Radio Kabul – these are mostly illiterate people)
another shot showed a para commander saying to the kids – “you can go back to school now” – the taliban have a somewhat harsh attitude towards education.
no moralising or agenda setting crap -just reporting on what our boys are up to and how its helping people out there.
I’m a simple old fool, but are we seeing the distinction between ‘translator’ and ‘interpreter’ being marginalised in journalism by ‘reporter’ and ‘correspondent’ all becoming ‘commentators’?
more qana photos posted here
http://www.ghaliboun.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=22&page=1
(via a commenter on EU ref)
white shirt man and maybe green helmet man , posing with two (girls) bodies (which were in previous ones)
http://www.ghaliboun.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10003/normal_qana3007%20%2817%29.JPG
warning : not safe for work. and very sick too. they are literally holding the two bodies up for show.
Of course, those killed in the Qana tragedy should be sent for post-mortem to determine time and cause of death. While there seems little doubt that these corpses have been used for propaganda purposes, the suspicion is that the children died as an indirect or direct result of the IDF’s actions.
It is essential, therefore, that the Hezbollah authorities should be pressurised into handing over the bodies to independent forensics experts prior to burial.
There should also be an independent investigation into the events before, during and after this incident.
This information will be crucial in ascertaining whether or not Israel committed a war-crime – or Hezbollah was negligent by, for instance, housing women and children in the same building as munitions.
In the meantime, the international media should be wary of reporting the ‘facts’ from Qana.
Will any of this happen? Will it fu..
TAoL Reincarnated
Don’t you get it yet? You can do all the forensics you like; it won’t do one bit of good in the media.
If they all died in the IAF strike on the building, this confirms that the Israelis are the genocidal sons of pigs and monkeys.
If they didn’t die in the IAF strike, this confirms that the forensics were carried out by zionist lovers in the pay of the sons of pigs and monkeys. It will also ensure the story drops suddenly and without further comment from the BBC headlines.
“Hezbollah is unbowed in Baalbek
By Martin Asser
BBC News, Baalbek
Though Israel says it is temporarily suspending air strikes against Lebanon to investigate the latest Qana tragedy, its drones scarcely stopped buzzing like sinister insects high over Baalbek throughout Monday.
Baalbek – home to perhaps the most impressive ancient Roman ruins outside Italy – is now very much Hezbollah country.
The historic streets of Baalbek are mainly empty of traffic
As a result, the area has been heavily bombed by Israel in the last three weeks, though it lies more than 100km (60 miles) from Israel’s northern border and poses no threat as a rocket launching area. ”
How much opinion as opposed to fact is allowed by the BBC? “Sinister insects”, “home to perhaps the most impressive ancient Roman ruins” – what about those in Libya?, “poses no threat as a rocket launching area”
germany has come out against the whiney, hand wringing EU “ceasefire” proposal.
thats Merkel for you – she knows what totalitarianism is and that it should be confronted.
she grew up in the GDR.
meanwhile on beeb radio ,i’ve just heard the non-entity Michael Meecher waffling on about a “ceasefire”.
so Mr Meecher. you think its ok for Hezbollah to build up their arsenal again, so that in 5 years time, we’ll have a Hezbollah armed with nuclear tipped missiles? is *that* what you want? cos , if we have your “ceasefire” now , thats what we’re going to have.
idiot.
“sinister insects”
reminds me of cartoons like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sov-mold-aug-27-1971.jpg
Newsnight last night dedicated ‘the whole programme’ to the crisis. The only film they showed was some 15 minutes of Lebanese views – there was no 15 minutes of Israeli views. Maybe they did that on a previous programme, I may have missed it?
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1153292051609&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
czechs, germany and britain have rejected an EU ceasefire proposal.
The corpses in the Qana ‘massacre’: can the time of death of each of them be ascertained independently? That will settle some questions, but others may remain. The article in this link (in French) is by a qualified nurse who is querying the body geometry of the the dead children. She points out that the in-breeding of muslims creates higher numbers of hereditarily abnormal (and unwanted) children. She asks whether Hizbollah would have had these children disposed of in a ‘double coup’.
http://www.france-echos.com/actualite.php?cle=9800
The questions put merit investigation – John Ware perhaps?
Some of these sicker suggestions are starting to resemble the ‘9/11 as Isreali plot’ conspiracy theories. It was an accident – it’s collateral damage. if one accepts that Israel has the right to make these sort of strikes one accepts the occasional unpleasant consequences without the need for desperate ‘wasn’t me’ theories – deal with it.
btw you might be interested in the mirror image of some of the more hardline b-bbc contributors. Those who see the BBC as zionist co-conspirators do exist y’know.
http://www.leninology.blogspot.com
rb – i am not a zionist conspiracy theorist at all. just providing facts that seem to be missing from the BBC coverage. This was not an accident and the deaths of the kids wither had already occurred, or were the direct result of Hizbollah actions.
well we have conspiracy theories & Meacher mentioned in this thread.
for those who have not yet read it, here is the loon Meacher’s theory on 9/11
Or could US air security operations have been deliberately stood down on September 11?
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,1036687,00.html
D Burbage:
Newsnight last night dedicated ‘the whole programme’ to the crisis. The only film they showed was some 15 minutes of Lebanese views…
I think you’lll find that they were Hezb views.
TD, there’s no doubt that Hezbollah have ruthlessly exploited the propaganda value of this in an extremely distasteful way, however if you’re suggesting that a number of Lebanese civilians were not killed by Israeli action then that’s bollocks until I see it reported by an impartial source rather than the usual Israeli propaganda sheets.
TD:
You ARE putting forward a conspiracy theory.
“3 the IDF cannot account for the collapse of the building – it was in fact detonated with Hiz ordinance;”
———
This has not been proven…yet.
agreed. at the moment, the only thing we have is that it was an airstrike by the IAF. (but we dont have that specific IAF footage yet)
this leaves the IAF in a tricky situation – if they really dont have the video, then they’ll be accused of covering up.
and if they do release a video showing the airstrike on the building, then their damned as well.
the only thing that might resolve it would be footage showing what was happening around the building (or on top of it) prior to the airstike.
until then, we could do well to avoid turning into tinfoil hat moonbats.
rb
Most people in here are questioning events in Qana following the IAF attack of a building in Qana. You then jump in and suggest that most people are in fact doing more than that. Well no, you’re doing a Tony Blair – debunking a claim which hasn’t been made. Using the ‘9/11 as a Zionist plot’ analogy is just plain bollocks.