Stan Brin copied us the text of his complaint regarding a story about Jewish nostalgia for Iraq. He wrote:
The story “Israelis from Iraq remember Babylon” posted at:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6611667.stm [Israelis from Iraq remember Babylon] is essentially a hoax. It falsely disguises a mass expulsion and terror campaign as a “mass migration” as if they just chose to move, or perhaps there was a crop failure. In fact, there were mass riots and mass murder.
Perhaps your “journalist” found someone who remembers the Shiah Muharam holiday fondly but I never met anyone who wanted to return to Iraq. I am an expert in middle east history, and lived with Jews from Arab countries, and they were unanimous that they would never go back, even if they miss the food.
It should be noted that well over 99 percent of the Jews of Arab countries fled since 1948. Most Jewish communities (except in Morocco) are essentially extinct. Some of the Jews were forcibly deported (Egypt and Libya), others escaped by fleeing across borders (Iraq, Syria, Yemen). All lost everything they had, their propert stolen, their citizenship revoked. Many died as they fled.
Iraq, the subject of the story, was especially brutal. Of a quarter million Jews in 1940, perhaps a dozen remain today.
My Iraq-born roommate fled across mountains, avoiding Iraqi border police who would have had him tortured to death. He tells of an Iraqi border guard who kept a box filled with the finger nails of Jews whom he and his colleagues captures.
He has no nostalgia for Iraq.
What next from BBC? Auschwitz was a fun place to visit? Jews enjoy oppression?
I guess that all begs the questions, if the Jews enjoyed having their finger nails pulled out, would they want to go back to Iraq so the Palestinians could move in?
Stan Brin
Some of the phrases used in the BBC article by Lipika Pelham are certainly masterpieces of euphemism.
“For the Jews of Middle Eastern origins, like their European co-religionists, coming to Israel was the culmination of a religious journey – it was the fulfilment of the centuries-old dream to live in the so-called Promised Land.”
Sounds like something from a success book. Follow your dream! Oh, sorry, should read “follow your so-called dream.” The impression is given that the mass movement of Iraqi Jews to Israel was primarily motivated by religious enthusiasm. I have no doubt that they did rejoice that next year would indeed be in Jerusalem. They also rejoiced to have escaped alive, if destitute. Ethnic cleansing is not usually described so pleasantly by the BBC.
“But many who came over to Israel as part of the mass migration that followed the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, look back with nostalgia and fondness for the life that they had left behind.”
Followed the creation of the Jewish state? “Followed by” is a phrase often used by BBC when it wishes to imply causality without having to assert it. It is certainly literally true that Operation Ezra and Nehemiah followed the creation of the Jewish state. However since it took place in 1950-52 the “following” was distant enough for other events to slip in between them, some of which might be worthy of mention. By omitting the violent persecution of Iraq’s Jews that took place in the meantime, the BBC implicitly shifts blame from the persecutors onto the Jewish state.
“…the descendants of the Iraqi and Kurdish Jewish immigrants.”
I assume that in the interests of consistency all references to “Palestinian refugee camps” such as this one will shortly be changed to “Palestinian immigrant camps.”
“Yakov recalls, with vivid, powerful details, the life that he had once led, a life that was changed overnight by the political realities of the time.”
At the idea of including in the same sentence praise for “vivid, powerful details” and the detail-free phrase “changed by the political realities of the time”, Sir Humphrey himself would blush for shame.
“Anti-Jewish sentiment flared up after the creation of Israel and the subsequent Arab-Israeli war in 1948-49.”
Any news on what form expression of that sentiment took? Any news on the riots and pogroms? Any news of the dismissal of Jews from government service? Any news of how Shafiq Ades was hanged on a trumped up charge, presumably by those malicious political realities? Not from the BBC.
“This led to the departure of most of Iraq’s ancient Jewish community. By 1952, 120,000 Jews had left Iraq for Israel.”
“Led to”. See comments on “Followed by” above.
UPDATE: According to News Sniffer the two sentences I quoted just above, referring anti-Jewish sentiment flaring up and how this “led to” the departure of most Iraqi Jews – two sentences that I thought inadequate and vague enough to criticise specifically – are actually an improvement. The original version of the article did not include them.
Media Backspin commented on this with some good links:
http://backspin.typepad.com/backspin/2007/05/by_the_waters_o.html
HonestReporting covered Iraqi Jewish history almost four years ago so the BBC had plenty of sources to consult, if it had really wanted to:
http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/critiques/Disregarding_Iraqi_Jewish_History.asp
Reprehensible as this inept piece of journalism is, it actually merely reflects what I think is a BBC reflex action. I can’t quite define it, but I can give you another example, which might illuminate the thing.
A year or two ago there was series of short (15 min) programmes on the World service looking at (I think) different aspects of modern history and politics, and so on – kind of “potted guides to”.
One week they featured Uganda, and we, the listeners, were solemnly informed that the Ugandan Asians were “asked to leave” by the new regime of Idi Amin: just that – no more, and no less. (New readers may like to know that they were, in fact, forcibly expelled by that lunatic.)
As it happens, my letter of complaint about the prog was featured on the following week’s “Write On” (a kind of Feedback for foreigners), and the producer hauled on to explain and somehow apologise; she managed to do neither very effectively. I still wonder what was going through her mind as she edited the original script, and then the tape.
Cheers.
The BBC, it’s hatred of Israel and half a story.
Israeli dies in Gaza rocket raid
(Note how the title refers to an non-entity yet if the victim had been (say) a pregnant Palestinian woman then the BBC would have ensured that the reader would have been informed of the gender of the victim)
“An Israeli woman has died of her wounds shortly after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit her car in the border town of Sderot, medics say. The woman was the first Israeli killed in a rocket attack since November”
(While the BBC expands the story into just who died, they make sure the reader is informed of just when the last Jew died due to a home made rocket attack)
“The attack came after Israel carried out an air strike on a refugee camp in northern Gaza. The Islamic Jihad militant group said four members died. Israeli air strikes have killed more than 30 people in the past week, several of them civilians.”
(The BBC informs the reader that this woman would be still alive if the IDF weren’t busy bombing the crap out of Gaza. What the BBC don’t tell you is the vast majority are terrorists and that terrorists in Gaza always travel with a child in their midst.)
“The medics said the Israeli woman – whose name has not been released – died on her way to hospital of wounds sustained during the Qassam rocket attack on Sderot.”
(The BBC paints the pictures that it wasn’t the rocket which killed her, it was the slow response of the medical service)
“At least 13 rockets were reportedly fired into Israel on Monday.”
(The BBC tries to paint the picture that 30 innocent Terrorists have died simply for setting off 13 rockets)
“Earlier on Monday, the Israeli army said it had carried out the air strike on the Jabaliya refugee camp that killed the militants.”
(Just in case you didn’t swallow the first bit of BBC propaganda)
“On Sunday, at least eight people died in an Israeli air strike said to be on the home of Khalil al-Hayya, a lawmaker from the Palestinian militant group Hamas. He was not there at the time.”
(Just in case you didn’t swallow the second bit of BBC propaganda)
“The Israeli military confirmed there had been an air strike in northern Gaza on Sunday evening, but said it was aimed at a group of armed militants gathered outside a house.”
(See the jews admit to committing war crimes according to the BBC)
“However, reports from Gaza City suggested the attack did strike Mr Hayya’s home and that several members of his family were among those killed.”
(And the BBCs friends say so as well)
In the above story there is nothing at all that balances the story. That the only reason the jews are hitting back is simply because the BBCs friends have a penchant for blood. (Nothing about the in-house fighting, the large number of in-fighting deaths or why some are launching terror attacks into Israel) Be it Muslim victims or Jewish victims these idiots have to kill every day and the BBC defends their actions.
The BBC, it’s hatred of Israel and half a story.
pounce:
Once again you blow a hole in the BBC’s facade.
Your calm sanity and cool-headed reading of “Israeli dies in Gaza rocket raid” is a model to us all.
The more cowardly among us would have looked for a direct allegation (or even an indirect one) that the BBC held the local medics responsible for this poor Israeli woman’s death. But, bless you, you steel yourself and accuse them anyway.
You bravely ignore the fact that the Israeli authorities had not released details about the poor lady, and have a good whinge anyway that the BBC headline doesn’t tell us enough about her. (They’re the BBC after all – they might as well have made it up!)
Nice twist, too, to diminish the civilian deaths in Gaza. Well done.
I’m a bit confused about the BBC specifying the number of rockets. My eyes went blurry this morning trying to follow an endless row about this on these very pages. Thankfully you have now made this clear – we only want a rocket-count when the missiles outnumber the Gaza dead. I hope that’s clear.
Been a while since I read the Geneva Convention, too, but I hadn’t realised that an Israeli statement that they had fired on militants constituted a war crime. Thanks for pointing that out to us, too. And I hope the BBC feel very ashamed.
Pounce, your clear-headed thinking remains a beacon to us all.
To the BBC disinformation Unit posing as the Village idiot.
Contrast the two different deaths as posted by the BBC;
Israeli dies in Gaza rocket raid
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6678295.stm
Shot West Bank woman ‘loses baby’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6644079.stm
Not only does the BBC go overboard in informing the world that those nasty jews slotted a Jew. They also point out (Not alledge) she was shot by the jews. (How did they know so soon after the incident.She was inside her house and a round entered her house and hit her. Do Jewish rounds only target Muslims?)
So tell me just where in the BBC have they set up your office. Am I now communicating with the the Night Shift and do they give you time off to pray to Allah?)
Tell you what Richard Edward. You try being smarter and I will try and be a little nicer.
Pounce:
Top-drawer analysis. Calm, rational and entirely objective as ever.
It’s the Tinkywinky Doll of Truth for you. Many congratulations.
Here, you sick c*nt, seeing how you like to joke about dead Jews see what those “crudely made” rockets really do.
http://backspin.typepad.com/backspin/2007/05/qassam_hit_kill.html
I would really like to know what the site owners see in you that prevents them from banning you.
I guess a more rigid registration process would do the comments section a lot of good. When you ban someone on HaloScan they simply come back with another screenname. I don’t read what the person you’re referring to hacks into his computer, Biodegradable. Ignore the individuum.
“Crudely made”
It suggest that they are oversized bottle rockets made by some impotent ragheads.. No really, you can always pity and apologise for someone you feel superior to.
Biodegradable. Ignore the individuum.
disillusioned_german | 22.05.07 – 12:56 am
I’ve been doing my best but I refuse to submit to his control of this blog.
The site owners could ban his IP address, but perhaps his is dynamic (constantly changing) and coming from a popular ISP which would also affect other commenters.
I agree, registration would be good.
“Crudely made”
It suggest that they are oversized bottle rockets made by some impotent ragheads.. No really, you can always pity and apologise for someone you feel superior to.
Ultraviolets | 22.05.07 – 1:20 am
The BBC has always used that term to imply that they really don’t do any harm:
http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/-Homemade-_Rockets$.asp
See my comment here with links to my complaint:
http://backspin.typepad.com/backspin/2006/04/homemade_rocket.html
See also:
http://backspin.typepad.com/backspin/2006/11/straight_from_w.html
Erm, that should have read individual. Even I manage to mix in some German words when using Latin terms. Oh, well…
We all know who the good guys on here are, Bio… If I happened to meet Mr. HH in person I’d give him a good old ICF-style “hello”.
Jihadwatch and others use the typekey comments script which is safer but I’m not sure how easy it would be to implement here.
Even I manage to mix in some German words when using Latin terms. Oh, well…
No problem, I understood ferpectly 😉
Even the mighty BBC cannot equal the reporting by a Pro-Islamic/Anti-Israeli Human rights Org. Which while opening refering to the IDF as ‘Israeli Occupation Forces’ still manages to inform the reader just who the jews are targeting;
Attacks by IOF in a chronological order:
At approximately 13:00 on Wednesday, 16 May 2007, IOF warplanes attacked a site of the Executive Force of the Palestinian Ministry of Interior. Three members of the Executive Force were killed: Najeh Khalil Abu Fakher, 32; Lutfi Lutfi al-Barahma, 28; and Hammad Hasan Mebrad, 23. In addition, 37 persons, including two journalists and a bystander, were wounded.
On Wednesday evening, IOF warplanes shelled a deserted house in Jabalya town in the northern Gaza Strip, killing two members of the ‘Izziddin al-Qassam (the armed wing of Hamas): Rami Subhi Zaqzouq, 30; and Mohammed Fawzan Abu Jasser, 25.
On Thursday morning, 17 May 2007, IOF moved into various areas in the northern Gaza Strip. They raided a number of houses in Beit Lahia town and transformed them into military sites, from which they fired at whatever moved. IOF later expanded their incursion to include parts of Beit Hanoun and Jabalya towns. IOF seized control over several areas in the northern Gaza Strip and opened fire indiscriminately.
At approximately 14:10 also on Thursday, IOF warplanes shelled a site of the Executive Force near Palestine Stadium in the densely populated center of Gaza City. A member of the Executive Force, 21-year-old Mohammed ‘Abdullah al-Ghefari, was killed, and 21 persons, including 11 civilians, were wounded.
At approximately 16:00 also on Thursday, an IOF warplane fired a missile at a civilian car, which was traveling on al-Jalaa’ Street in the north of Gaza City. A member of the ‘Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades, who was traveling in the targeted car, was seriously wounded. Four civilian bystanders, including two children, were also wounded.
At approximately 16:30 also on Thursday, an IOF warplane shelled a room used by the guards of the house of Khaled Abu Hilal, the spokesman of the Palestinian Ministry of Interior, in the center of Gaza City. One of the guards, 30-year-old Tal’at ‘Abed Haniya, was killed, and four others were wounded.
At approximately 19:00 also on Thursday, an IOF warplane fired two missiles at members of the al-Loulahi family who were near a garbage treatment plant near Sofa crossing, northeast of Rafah. Two members of the family were killed: Mohammed Suleiman Selmi al-Loulahi, 13; and his brother Yousef, 18. Additional their brother and sister were wounded: Samah, 20; and Ahmed, 12. The father attempted to offer them help and evacuate them in his car. He was not able to call for medical crews, so he traveled in his car to bring help. When he arrived at Sofa intersection, nearly 200 meters away from the place of the attack, an IOF warplane fired a missile at his car. He was wounded. A car that passed in the area evacuated him to a hospital. Medical crews then moved towards the area of the main attack and evacuated the victims to the hospital.
At approximately 02:30 on Friday, 18 May 2007, IOF warplanes fired three missiles at a site of the ‘Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades in al-Zaytoun neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. As a result, four members of the brigades and a civilian bystander, who attempted to offer help to the victims, were killed:
1) Hatem ‘Omar al-‘Amarin, 25, a civilian bystander;
2) Saleh Mohammed ‘Ata Juha, 30;
3) Ahmed Rushdi Siam, 28;
4) Ahmed Saleh Siam, 30; and
5) Waleed Hashem al-Hajin, 29.
In addition, four members of the brigades and two civilian bystanders were wounded.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6919.shtml
Has the mighty al-beeb ever questioned why 750,000 Palestinian-Arab refugees were shoved into camps and for nearly 50 years forgotten by their fellow Arabs? Have they ever wondered how it was that at least an equal number of Jews kicked out of Iraq and other Arab countries were absorbed into Israeli society?
And if you want to see what wonderful people some Arabs are go here:
http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/1616.htm
The BBC, it’s hatred of Israel and half a story.
Israeli dies in Gaza rocket raid
(Note how the title refers to an non-entity yet if the victim had been (say) a pregnant Palestinian woman then the BBC would have ensured that the reader would have been informed of the gender of the victim)
pounce | 21.05.07 – 10:39 pm,
That’s precisely the point. Anyone with any moral fibre knows that the correct headline here would be Woman killed in Kassam raid. There’s no need to mention “Israeli” because the word “Kassam” makes it clear who was under attack. The murder of a woman is always particularly reprehensible to anyone who has any sense of honour. But the BBC has little or no sense of honour, particularly when it comes to this conflict. And when you think about it, would the BBC ever have a headline that described an Israeli murdered by terrorists as a civilian? Not bloody likely. This is because the BBC is so blinded by its Islamic terrorist masters that it has great difficulty in seeing any Israeli as a civilian.
This reminds me of the way the BBC headlined the terrorist drive-by shooting a while back in which three young Israelis from the settlements were murdered, two young women and a boy of fourteen or fifteen. They alternated between the use of “Settlers” and “Israelis”, where the correct term would have been “Youths”. I complained and the headline was changed to something like “Young Israelis” and then very swiftly reversed back to the original.
The BBC is close to the stage of complete absence of moral fibre in its reporting on this conflict.
New York Times,
Iraqi Council Weighs Return of Jews, Rejecting It So Far
Late last year (deegee adds: 2004), the council approved proposed legislation that would have allowed thousands of Iraqis who fled or were expelled from the country to reclaim their Iraqi citizenship — unless they were Jewish, council members said. The proposal did not specifically mention Jews, they said, but it contained language that would have kept in place the revocation of citizenship of tens of thousands of Jews by the Iraqi government in 1950.
How ever much the Jews might remember Iraq, the Iraqis won’t let them back!
… and then we have this collection of apologists for “palestinian” terrorists!
http://www.enoughoccupation.org/?lid=13692
Even I realise that Gaza is not occupied.
There are no Israeli military forces present there whatsoever.
The rest…
Good post, Natalie.
Apparently when Palestinian refugees are concerned, BBC story “improvements” go the other way around.
Nuance.
http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/44097/diff/14/15
“Lebanon is home to more than 350,000 Palestinian refugees, many of whom fled or left their homes when Israel was created in 1948.”
“Lebanon is home to more than 350,000 Palestinian refugees, many of whom fled or were forced to leave their homes when Israel was created in 1948.”
.
Whoopee – using al-beeb logic and historical analysis a solution for the middle east problem is finally in sight. We now have a clear handle on the mechanisms and thinking driving the Palestinian behaviour.
To Paraphrase –
“But many erstwhile Palestinians who (came over to) LEFT Israel as part of the mass migration that followed the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, look back with nostalgia and fondness for the life that they had left behind.”
Obviously its all just an outpouring of ‘nostalgia’ by the Palestinian’s and what they need is regular nostalgia fixes — silly me and there’s me thinking it was simple genocidal hatred. I feel such a fool – thank you al-beeb for finally putting me straight.
One final question though. If one group of ‘Mass’ migratee’s can build a new life/country and get on with things; what prevents another similarly sized & challenged group from doing the same.
Just asking, you understand.
.
The answer is simple. The Palestinians’ Arab ‘brothers’ don’t want them and won’t accept them.
I would have thought forcible expulsion would make Iraqi Jews more likely to have wished they hadn’t left than less. Maybe Jews weren’t nostalgic for Auschwitz, but I’ll bet a lot of the ones loitering in displaced persons camps for years after the war were nostalgic for the old country, you know, pre-1933/38/39. In the same way I bet plenty of Iraqi Jews missed pre-1948 Iraq, before anti-Semitism flared up and they were forced out of their homeland.
You just don’t use LOGIC here.
And you know nothing about the history of the place. You really think Arab oppression and killing of Jews in Iraq wasn’t taking place before 1948?
Pejsek:
My father (who left Nazi Germany days before it was impossible) tells this story.
After the War a Holocaust suvivor managed to purchase a steamer ticket to Argentina. The clerk who stamped his travel paper commented, “Argentina. That’s far away”!
The suvivor asked him, “From where”?
Do you have an answer?
BTW the last massacres of Jews in Poland were in Kielce 14 mths after the end of WWII. A good antidote for nostalgia.
Nostalgia isn’t really a rational emotion. I’m imagining first of all, that most Israelis of Iraqi origin left as children, or when very young. I’m also assuming the ones that were victims of serious anti-Semitic persecution aren’t the ones getting all nostalgic. And I also imagine that, being Jewish and living in the Arab world in the 1940s, most people’s primary thought wouldn’t be “Oh it’s hard being Jewish in the Arab world” but “Thank G-d I’m not Jewish in Europe”.
Personally, I think it’s a very good subject to tackle. You can forgive the euphemisms – an organisation at least pretending to be impartial needs to avoid emotive language wherever possible, and especially when it’s a backdrop to the main story. And it’s nice to see Israel being looked at for what it is: not the Land of Oppressive Jewish Tools of Western Power, as some left-wingers see it, or the First Jewish Bastion of Civilisation against the Marauding Arab Hordes as the right often sees it, but a bizarrely multicultural nation of immigrants, who all left something behind.
But change the roles a bit. If the BBC ran a story “Israeli Jews fleeing Poland in WWII now pine for Poland and sort of wish they’d been able to stay”, nobody would bat an eyelid. After all, if they’d left entirely of their own volition why would they come over all nostalgic.
Re. Pounce: “The medics said the Israeli woman – whose name has not been released – died on her way to hospital of wounds sustained during the Qassam rocket attack on Sderot.”
(The BBC paints the pictures that it wasn’t the rocket which killed her, it was the slow response of the medical service)
Youre fucked up!
As to the original report: There is a sense of nostalgia amoung Romanians for the days of Ceauşescu, doesnt mean they want to go back to it. There is a sense of nostalgia amoung some east Germans for the days of communism, doesnt mean they want to go back to it. Get it?
BS Det:
Should you be doing something useful…..
Like reporting news?
If Arab hatred started after the foundation of the state of Israel one must ask why scores of Jews were murdered and thousands wounded in 1941 in Baghdad in what was an open pogrom before Israel even existed? Obviously, the BBC is unable to research a story with any integrity.
… one must ask why scores of Jews were murdered and thousands wounded in 1941 in Baghdad in what was an open pogrom before Israel even existed?
Or in Hebron in 1929, Jaffa 1936?
http://www.israelsmessiah.com/israel_today/victims_list_1.htm
Biodegradable,
I’m reading the Hidden Roots website. good site, and very moving.
Bryan,
Particularly touching for me was the Jerusalem Post obituary here:
http://hiddenroots.org/3/miscellaneous1.htm
David died within a few weeks of his brother, my uncle, who’s funeral I attended in the UK.
Also interesting is the story of Reb Baruch Eppel, buried now on the Mount of Olives, arrived with his wife in Jerusalem in 1881 to rebuild the famous “Hurva” synagogue.
1881, a date to remind those who talk about 1948 or 1967.
Biodegradable,
Will be interested to read more when I have more time.
Bryan,
“Enjoy”, if that’s the right word.