Israellycool doesn’t so much rip apart a recent BBC report on Israel’s actions over the Gazan border with Egypt as drive a truckload of explosive and unreported facts into it.
Complete with folksy BBC title “Pilgrims’ progress upsets Israel”, the report is a masterclass in omission, as Israellycool demonstrates ably, and with links for support.
I’ll paste the points he makes (edit: or rather, his co-blogger Elder of Ziyon makes) for your information here:
* Israel is not only “concerned” that terrorists are crossing the border; they identified up to two dozen of them.
* While Egypt might not have allowed Gazans to leave before today, they did allow some 85 terrorists to re-enter Gaza in late September and 30 more in October. This is pretty relevant to the story rather than just saying that Israel is “concerned.”
* By Egypt allowing Rafah to be opened, they are breaking existing agreements with Israel.
* Israel and the PA had created a mechanism for pilgrims to go to Hajj through Israel; the BBC implies that the Hajj pilgrims had no choice but to go through Rafah for their religious duties.
* Egypt’s opening of Rafah legitimizes Hamas as the leader of Gaza Palestinians; they ignored the wishes of Abbas and the PA, let alone Israel.
* Rafah is only supposed to be opened by the PA in the presence of EU observers who have all but abdicated their responsibilities – and the EU Rafah observers include some from Britain.
That the BBC is the only network credibly to offer the illusion of comprehensive coverage is among its most dangerous qualities. That it fails to cover comprehensively owing to its hubris and politicisation is painfully obvious.
Meanwhile:
“Christians flee Bethlehem”
http://www.archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/
I wonder how this leaves my old unit, the Multi National Force and Observers (MFO) who patrol the Sinai as a result of the Camp David agreement. Egypt for example was not allowed armour within the Sinai, recently they moved more tanks in by El Arish just along the coast from Rafah. The MFO infantry battalions, coastal patrol boats and helicopters are supposed to patrol the border and keep an eye on Rafah and the other border crossings including Eliat down South. Why is Egypt allowing Hamas to act as proxy for them? Is Murabak in more trouble than the BBC makes out and looking for a scrapegoat (Israel) a la Chavez and his USA? Things are hotting up on the border. Pity the BBC can’t or won’t tell us what is really going on!
The BBC – biased but with an (ill deserved) reputation for ‘honesty’. In combination an extremely dangerous organisation.
Just to clarify…this post was courtesy of contributing blogger Elder of Ziyon and not yours truly. So he deserves the credit.
The identification piece shown by the female ‘pilgrim’ on the BBC’s report had the entire land of Israel in the form of a pally flag. Isn’t there supposed to be recognition of Israel’s existence by the ‘pallies’? At least the BBC shows their intent, though not intentionally.
Isn’t there supposed to be recognition of Israel’s existence by the ‘pallies’?
Not by Hamas, and not by Hezbollah, if my memory serves me.
The BBC is one of the main fronts for Hamas, and it is possible that Alan Johnson’s kidnapping was due to his closeness to the Hamas leadership:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/ukcorrespondents/holysmoke/august2007/alanjohnston.htm . Until the BBC releases the Balen report, we can assume that it has no interest in impartial reporting of the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict.
Hostility towards Israel is just the most disturbing and obvious aspect of the BBC’s pro-Arab bias. Hell, the BBC don’t even recognise that Jerusalem is the spiritual capital of the Jews!
http://volokh.com/posts/1182348932.shtml
Classic example of BBC bias technique of omission rather than commission. Was it really that much trouble to leave out crucial facts such as the one that Israel had actually identified 2 dozen terrorists? I am so thoroughly disillusioned with them.
Dave T writes;
“Things are hotting up on the border. Pity the BBC can’t or won’t tell us what is really going on!”
When you have the likes of Abu Bowen the propagandist general for the region rewriting history the last thing you should accept to come from the BBC is the truth.
Even if the Jews were to pack their bags tomorrow and leave Abu would still find something in which to blame the Jew. Add the likes of the Pali love struck bitch and you have something Goebbels would have been proud of.
P.S
If anybody wishes to task me on why I saw Abu rewrites history read his book “The 6 day war” Even better give it to a bunch of scouts who are going camping at least then they don’t need to take any bog paper.
Excellent post, excellent job by all concerned.
I have complained about exactly this kind of what Andy rightly calls the BBC’s technique of omission. Every report about Gaza is happy to point out how Israel has the poor, poor Palestinians under siege, and blames all their troubles on the illusory Israeli boot on their necks. Nobody ever calls Egypt to task, no Beeboid ever wonders if maybe Egypt might control part of the border, and night bear partial responsibility. No, it’s always the nasty Israelis controlling everything.
Here is the second last sentence of the Telegraph article linked above by Matthew (UK):
“I certainly wouldn’t go so far as to call Johnston a friend of Hamas; but it is possible that he was a victim of this dynamic [i.e. BBC line of coverage of Arab-Israeli conflict].”
And here for comparison an HYS comment of mine, rejected (of course) and never published:
DEBATE:Alan Johnston: Your messages
SENT:16-Apr-2007 10:42
COMMENT:I’m sad and angry. Sad that someone with good intentions came to harm. Angry at those who misled him and in particular the BBC. Alan was only a teenager when, almost three decades ago the BBC began a consistent campaign of misreporting the Middle East, inverting the truth on aggressors and defenders, whitewashing Jihad and blaming its victims. He consequently walked blind into a trap.
COMMENT STATUS:Rejected
Never mind the beeboid obsession with Israel, of greater concern closer to home .
“A major report, commissioned by the Government, overseen by Labour supporters and to be handed to Local Government Minister Hazel Blears on Monday, is to recommend massive payments to councillors. Council tax bills will be hiked to help the cash-strapped Labour Party and unemployed Labour cronies.
Needless to say, this is not how the beeboids interpreted it !!!
Anat 10.12.07 4:17 am,
They also rejected a few polite comments of mine on Johnston, because they didn’t quite follow the hero-worshipping line. After initially allowing some quite powerful negative comments from people, the BBC closed ranks.* Johnston became holy ground and every single adoring, supportive comment was published, at times over and over by the same people. I was following the “debate” fairly closely and began to see familiar names. It truly became Have Our Say:
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=1&forumID=2739&edition=1&ttl=20071210094705&#paginator
I sent a formal complaint re this and other aspects of the BBC’s coverage of Johnston – like the publishing of articles on the website that took sly swipes at Israel under the guise of bemoaning Johnston’s fate – but never received a reply.
This is the kind of insulting rubbish the “editors” of the website allowed through:
If you continue targeting foreigners such as Alan Johnston I fear you are doing the same that Israel did when its troops killed Tom Hurndall, Rachel Corrie and others.
That bit of prejudiced trash was written by Kate Burton, a human rights activist kidnapped in Gaza in 2005 along with her parents:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6571233.stm
As if terrorist kidnapers were in danger of sinking to the level of Israel. The Israeli soldier who shot Hurndall is serving an eight-year prison sentence and of course Rachel Corrie was not killed by Israeli troops. She was accidently run over by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to block the demolition of the home of a terrorist.
But the BBC never lets facts get in the way of a good bit of propaganda.
* It’s fascinating to have a look at a few pages of the Readers Recommended page of the Johnston debate:
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&forumID=2739&edition=1&ttl=20071210094705&#paginator
Those early critical comments that were allowed through were among the most recommended. There’s no doubt they were recommended partly at least by those who were using the only option open to them to express their opinion. There were 2464 Rejected comments.
“That the BBC is the only network credibly to offer the illusion of comprehensive coverage is among its most dangerous qualities. That it fails to cover comprehensively owing to its hubris and politicisation is painfully obvious.”
It’s possible that my brain’s being a bit slow on a Monday morning, but any chance of a plain English version?
Chuffer
Poor chap, I guess you’re a victim of Beeb dumbing down.
What he’s saying is that the BBC purports to cover issues comprehensively but fails miserably in this objective because it prefers to offer news selectively and in a biased way (as the thread shows).
Hope that helps.
Thanks, Dr. R..
I couldn’t decide whether Jane Austin had taken over the blog, or whether it was Pretentious Reorganisation of Sentence Order Words In The Month.
My journalistic mentor used to say:
“If there’s a simpler way to say it, say it that way!”
Just to have a clue on how incredible the deception coming from the BBC is:
“Israelis Embark on Journey to Mecca”
http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=19820
Ed Thomas
Yes, this post is a mini-classic.
A mini-classic example of the sort of trumped-up charge of bias that simply isn’t justified by the facts.
In a nutshell, the allegations made by you and Elder of Zyon are: First, that the BBC employed the euphemism ‘concerned’ to describe the Israeli government’s position; second, that it failed to report extant facts about a two-dozen strong terrorist presence among the pilgrims crossing at Rafah; third, that its report was cursory and left out other important context and detail.
The first point is easily dealt with. The word ‘concerned’ was not a BBC coinage. It was used by the official spokesman of the Israeli Government to describe his country’s position on the matter. It is used twice in the BBC report, once in reported speech and once in direct speech. If that’s the word Israel uses about itself, who are you to mock the BBC for using it about Israel?
Second, the supposed IDF intelligence estimate of up to two dozen terrorists. Link please. You only link to an unsubstantiated report in the Jerusalem Post. There is no mention of this in the IDF’s weekly briefing on terrorist activity linked below. There is no mention of it in the wire-service reports of the official statement. Nothing on the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs site. There is no mention of it in Haaretz, or in any other Israeli news media in English that I have found • other than the Jerusalem Post. Nor is there any sign of it in the reports of any other news organization in the US or round the world that come up via Google News.
So, if ‘failing to report’ this ‘fact’ makes the BBC biased against Israel, then the BBC is in good company • the rest of the world’s media, all the wire services, the IDF itself, the Israeli government spokesman and Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs! What a ludicrous charge of bias this is.
Third, the report is not definitive. Fair enough. There’s much more that could have been put in. Hat tip to Haaretz for spotting the real significance of the opening of the crossing: that it was part of the continuing spat between Fatah and Hamas. Fatah had negotiated a deal with Israel to allow Gazans to go on the haj via the Allenby Gate, hoping to boost their standing among Gazans. Hamas, not wanting to be outdone, negotiated a separate deal with Egypt and the Saudis.
But contrary to the notion in one of the comments above that the BBC claims to be comprehensive when reporting the Middle East • it does not. I’d expect Israeli media to go into much more detail. As it happens, this story • about Israel’s protest • appears to have been almost universally ignored by Western media. The only pick-up I have seen is Dow Jones International, who took the AFP version verbatim. Nothing at all on Fox, CNN, CBS, or in the Washington Post, NYT or in the UK media. So, instead of nit-picking about so-called ‘omissions’ in a brief BBC News website item, how about turning your attention to the rest of the UK/US media who seemingly didn’t report the story at all?
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA
http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/about%20the%20ministry/mfa%20spokesman/2007/
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Terrorism+and+Islamic+Fundamentalism-/Weekly+summary+of+IDF+anti-terror+activity+6-Dec-2007.htm
http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidANA407340142536/SecCountries/pagEgypt
Yes…. I second John Reith’s point about your methodology.
If you really want to prove the BBC does go in for frequent bias by omission, surely you have to compare some BBC stories which leave out some significant points with stories from a representative range of comparable international media which DO include those points.
If you can show me three stories where the BBC has left out facts favouring Israel’s narrative that FoxNews/SKY, CNN, the Washington Post, the (London)Times and the Telegraph have put in • then there’s a case to investigate. But you never do. Why not?
Matthew
“If you can show me three stories where the BBC has left out facts favouring Israel’s narrative that FoxNews/SKY, CNN, the Washington Post, the (London)Times and the Telegraph have put in • then there’s a case to investigate. But you never do. Why not?”
Matthew, bollocks to what CNN are/are not doing.
No matter how many times its repeated it never seems to penetrate Beeboid skulls. (Unlike the BBC) people are not obliged to pay for Sky / CNN etc.
To John Reith and Matthew:
“Second, the supposed IDF intelligence estimate of up to two dozen terrorists. Link please. You only link to an unsubstantiated report in the Jerusalem Post”
I see so you expect Hamas to put a notice on their site that they are sending terrorists together with “pilgrims”.
This of course, my BBC friends (and I do know several of you in person) is called Moynihan bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moynihan's_Law
Even though your Fiskian attitude towards Israel oozes from every report about Israel your bias uses the usual tactics I’ve seen while growing up in a communist country.
Most notably you selection bias,
in the types of stories you follow, the facts you pick to depict and in the “analysts” you care to inverview.
For example you are running a story:
“Israeli anti-Arab racism ‘rises'”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7136068.stm
The report is totally unscientific, but you don’t mind that. At least a sample size should be mentioned, don’t you think? Or a discussion of what lead to a jump in 2006 (maybe 4000 Hezbollah and 2000 Hamas missiles have to do something with it, not only “government attitudes” as ). But no, you chose to quote only the “reliable” sources, all Arab of course.
To fight the claims of bias, only at the end you include an Israeli minister quote that this study was unscientific.
How many stories do you run about other countries like this — quoting an unscientific study from a group with a clear agenda?
Do you ever quote Western and Israeli sources about rampant racism in Arab educational systems?
BTW, I have notices more and more articles that only get published on the BBC site after they are published on Haaretz English Edition, even though they are published by other Israeli sources days before.
Do you read only Haaretz in search of negative things to report about Israel?
I understand that you are taking an activist line against Israel.
The problem with this approach is that the only weapon a journalist has is information.
To get the world to do something you have to demonize Israel to such extent that the picture you are painting loses any connection to reality.
Because, lets be honest here — nothing Israel did amounted to genocide like in Darfur or even to leveling of Grozny by Russia.
If I were watching only BBC, I would think that racist Israelis are going to club me the minute I land there.
Of course professional ethics in your minds gets overridden by your sense of activism in support of Palestinians.
There is nothing anyone can do against your anti-Israel attitude — you obviously think you are in the right.
But, at least try to be less biased against Fatah in their struggle with Hamas — or do you think that Fatah is not extreme enough to match your revolutionary sentiments against the West?
But you’re supposed to be demonstrating the bias through ommission in the article.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to cite the coverage by other news organisations, unless you really believe they’re all guilty of bias against Israel. Remember, this is about bias, not your gripes against the license fee (coverage by other news organisations is all too readily used by posters as evidence against the BBC, but it can’t in support?).
The correct link to Moynihan’s Law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moynihan%27s_Law
John Reith,
There are a few things you have wrong in your summing up for the defense.
First, let’s be honest about the headline. “Pilgrims’ progress upsets Israel” is intended to implant the thought into the reader’s mind that Israel is against (Muslim, obviously) religious pilgrims. It doesn’t matter that the article itself discusses the real “concern”: militants moving along with the pilgrims. I’ve seen you use that defense of a crap headline before, and it doesn’t work. No doubt the twenty-something who wrote it is very pleased with himself for the literary reference as well, as that will serve only to drive home his point. An honest headline would be much more in line with the real subject of the article, possibly even including the word “militant”.
Now let’s move on to your contention that there is no evidence of terrorist movement about which the BBC should have reported. Your objection is that ed thomas links only to the Jerusalem Post article. Besides the fact that the Elder of Zyon does link to the real stuff, including Reuters and the Ma’an News Agency. The Jerusalem Post article which you say is merely an unsubstantiated report in reality includes a statement that last week’s IDF Intelligence estimates indicate that terrorists were allowed through. You’re right when you say there is no mention of this in the latest IDF summary, but you obviously don’t realize what you are reading.
I know you’re referring to this, which is in fact a summary of the IDF’s anti-terrorist activity, which means things they actually did. The report covers actual engagements with terrorist, including killing them, arresting them, and finding tunnels and weapons caches. This summary does not include intelligence reports on militant movement or other data that does not involve the physical actions of the IDF. It’s a summary of the activity, not the press release to which the JPost refers, and isn’t intended to contain anything like statements on investigations or other knowledge the IDF has acquired which the rep might have made to the JPost or the media in general. If the IDF didn’t engage with these terrorists in any way physically, then it won’t be in this summary. As I’m not a military man, perhaps you can seek out more professional help on this from pounce.
I can’t find the actual release itself, but that’s probably because my Hebrew search skills are suboptimal. Aside from that, the Elder of Zyon does give links to actual incidents in which Egypt did allow terrorists to go through in September and October. I don’t know about you, but that ought to be enough for anyone to be suspicious about the latest flow of Palestinians, even without a report of a couple dozen of them last week. Israel has every right to be concerned regardless.
I guess it’s just lazy, sloppy reporting by the very, very young BBC employee who is paid very, very low wages, not to mention this previous evidence of actual terrorist movement. This would give some weight to Israel’s “concern”, so I can’t imagine why else it wouldn’t be included. Surely it wouldn’t be the intention to discuss Israel’s “concern” without the proper context.
Third, I put it to you that the rest of the world’s media did the usual lazy job of copying and pasting the AP report, but decided against using it as an opportunity to cast aspersions against Israel. It seems like everyone else just didn’t see an announcement that Egypt is finally opening its borders and religious pilgrims are finally allowed to do their thing as an opportunity to remind everyone else how nasty Israel is. Funny how even the AP decided to just report the story without mentioning Israel’s “concerns”. It does seem a little odd that the BBC felt it was more important to mention the Israeli angle.
Why did the BBC feel this story was important, when the rest of the world didn’t? Why make the headline about Israel’s bad attitude and not the fact that Egypt was allowing Palestinian movement (er, officially) through its border for the first time since Hamas took over? Or would that contradict the narrative that Israel still occupies Gaza and controls the whole thing and is solely responsible for all borders and the Palestinians’ plight?
I think either the BBC should have just let well enough alone and parroted the AP like everyone else who bothered, or perhaps – dare I suggest? – make the focus on why it took Egypt so long to open their own border. They just do Israel’s bidding, right? So obviously there has not been a need to scrutinize Egypt’s part in keeping the poor, poor Palestinians under siege. And I don’t mean occasionally mentioning that Egypt has a border with Gaza.
David Preiser | 10.12.07 – 6:11 pm
I can’t find the actual release itself, but that’s probably because my Hebrew search skills are suboptimal.
You’re being too self-deprecatory. Perhaps it just doesn’t exist in e-published form? Or in any written form? Maybe just something someone told the JP?
Whichever, you can hardly make it the basis for a charge of bias against the BBC.
Third, I put it to you that the rest of the world’s media did the usual lazy job of copying and pasting the AP report, but decided against using it as an opportunity to cast aspersions against Israel.
Errr..no. As I said, most of the world’s media didn’t run the story of Israel’s complaint at all.
“Pilgrims’ progress upsets Israel” is intended to implant the thought into the reader’s mind that Israel is against (Muslim, obviously) religious pilgrims.
No it isn’t.
For heaven’s sake, there are enough people out there bad-mouthing Israel for real without you having to dredge up completely imagined insults.
This would give some weight to Israel’s “concern”, so I can’t imagine why else it wouldn’t be included.
Like many others here you seem not to be able to make the distinction between news and current affairs, or even the distinction between ‘news in brief’ and news briefing and analysis.
Had a half-hour documentary, or even a ten minute film on Newsnight, failed to mention these points about a history of terrorist crossings at Rafah, then you might have a point. A brief news item on the website doesn’t need to. News tends to stick to the main points of the day’s events and the hitherto unknowns.
(Actually, the Rafah crossing has been used by smugglers more often than terrs, but no mention was made of them either.)
David, you’ve got that one right: “Or would that contradict the narrative that Israel still occupies Gaza and controls the whole thing and is solely responsible for all borders and the Palestinians’ plight?”
The fact that Egyptians were the first to wall-off Gaza from their homeland back in 48′, when it was theirs, does not fit the BBC party line.
Mr. Bowen posts the party line in his
periodical emails to BBC staff, and every story thereon is adjusted to fit that narrative.
Again in stats-speak what BBC is doing is called “selection bias”.
Selection in:
1. Stories to cover
2. People involved
The second less important weapon is in the use of idioms, titles, etc and also insertion of unsubstantiated claims.
Note the following two articles from an article ran during the war with Lebanon/Hezbollah:
As well as highlighting the issue of cluster bombs, Amnesty found that Hezbollah hid Katyusha rockets among civilians and often fired them into Israel from the cover of civilian villages.
But researchers found no evidence that Hezbollah actually used civilians as human shields during the fighting.
What researchers? AI is not known for their pro-Israel line, so BBC felt a need to blunt the blow to Hezbollah issued by AI.
Original Article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6167458.stm
David Preiser | 10.12.07 – 6:11 pm |
If you go by just the headline then, especially at this time of year, the pilgrim’s could also be Christians heading off to Bethlehem, could they not?
Either way one gets the distinct impression that Isreal doesn’t want any pesky pilgrims, progressive or not.
Alan | 10.12.07 – 6:44 pm
What researchers?
Either you need your eyes tested or the BBC have changed this story in the past 3 minutes.
But Amnesty International researchers found no evidence that Hezbollah actually used civilians as human shields during the fighting.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6167458.stm
….okay 11 mins
Alan | 10.12.07 – 5:33 pm
….you chose to quote only the “reliable” sources, all Arab of course.
To fight the claims of bias, only at the end you include an Israeli…
Well you sure prove my point in spades.
The one about trumped-up charges that are not justified by the facts.
The report you cite quotes four named individuals: Sami Michael (Jewish Israeli), Mark Regev (Jewish Israeli), Zeev Boim (Jewish-Israeli)….and only one Arab-Israeli •Mohamed Barakeh.
2 support the report. 2 reject it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7136068.stm
John Reith | 10.12.07 – 6:38 pm |
“Like many others here you seem not to be able to make the distinction between news and current affairs, or even the distinction between ‘news in brief’ and news briefing and analysis.
Had a half-hour documentary, or even a ten minute film on Newsnight, failed to mention these points about a history of terrorist crossings at Rafah, then you might have a point. A brief news item on the website doesn’t need to. News tends to stick to the main points of the day’s events and the hitherto unknowns.”
I do make the distinction. But it’s not entirely fair to mention the “concern” without any reason for it.
(Actually, the Rafah crossing has been used by smugglers more often than terrs, but no mention was made of them either.)
And the smugglers are smuggling, what, exactly, and for whom? That kind of thing actually is mentioned in the IDF anti-terror activity summaries, when they catch them or find the tunnels. Don’t be silly.
Look, let’s just boil this down to one basic complaint of bias, as in the entire tenor of the article, especially the headline. Why isn’t this article about the real story: Egypt opening the border for the first time since Hamas took over? If it’s an unbiased news brief, why not just say what’s going on, even let us know Abbas said that “Egypt opend its heart.”?
Why is the story instead about Israel scowling at innocent religious pilgrims? Why bother mentioning Israel’s concern at all?
The article says it’s the first time since June that Palestinians have been allowed to cross into Egypt, but what happened in June? How about using 19 words on that, rather than telling us that “Israel has only allowed small numbers…“. That doesn’t add anything to the report except another little dig at Israel.
I’m not imagining anything when the headline is a false one. A less biased editor would at least put “Pilgrims'” in scare quotes. My 9th grade Journalism teacher would have given be a bad grade if I had turned in such an article with a headline like that.
It’s more likely that an IDF spokesman did make a public statement, in the presence of a JPost reporter and a BBC stringer. That’s where the JPost got its info on the “concern”. That’s obviously also where the BBC stringer got the story about Israel’s “concern” which was passed on to whoever wrote this news brief. Equally obvious is that they didn’t bother adding why Israel was concerned about terrorists moving through with pilgrims.
Without mentioning any reason for concern, it just makes Israel appear in the worst possible light.
Just once sentence, JR. Just one. They could have added one sentence about why Israel was concerned, left out praise for Egypt, and you’d still have a news brief. Nothing in depth, no extended background history. Just one sentence.
To John Reith — got you!
You are right that the BBC changed that AI story from the original, not now but a month after it was first published, and it was sneaky — without a retraction.
However, it was widely reported on blogs when it was first published including the Biased BBC blog:
http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2006/11/gospel-truth-aka-amnesty-and-hrw-it.html
But the damage was already done when they (not-so-)subtly changed that article — people that read the original might have concluded that there is doubt that Hezbollah actually used civilian centers.
John Reith seems to be floudering on his false claims and BBC duplicity, as seen in the changing of the report. The problem stems from the the lack of balance in the BBC’s reporting of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Even one qualifying sentence explaining the Egyptian border restrictions would have been better than nothing. Selection bias is absolutely rampant here. Amnesty International is certainly not a politically neutral organisation in the conflict, and ought not to be quoted in this context without offering an opposing point of view, such as the NGO monitor.
Just a chance to distinguish myself from my supine namesake at the BBC.
So to fight bias charges you do simple accounting and do not notice the overall impression the article leaves, that Israel (never mind Fatah) for no reason what-so-ever prevents pilgrims
and has a rise in anti-Arab racist attitudes.
(Couldn’t an alternative explanation for the increase in anti-Arab sentiment be that thousands of missiles were fired on Israel in 2006 — by Hezbollah and Hamas.
But the Article picks only Mohamed Barakeh’s explanation.
You go further, the fact that 3 of the people mentioned are Jewish Israeli doesn’t mean anything, because you focus on the study and on its interpretation by a very biased MK — in fact it exposes your bizarre understanding of bias.
If a newspaper in an undemocratic society (say Iran) wanted to demonize Britain, all it had to do is to pick from Guardian online the worse of the worse accusations against the British society (by White Anglo Saxons) and published only that, all the while
ignoring all the other aspects of British life.
Most people would think that press in Iranian is a joke – don’t you think?
The defense of the overall press like that would be that it is biased, even though every single article came from a British Anglo-Saxon.
Also you did exactly the accounting on 2 pro, 2 against to fight the charges of bias, but upon scrutiny it doesn’t hold water:
Mark Regev probably didn’t read the study (+ he cannot really say anything except what he stated) – so his statement is neutral, Sami Michael wants to fight (and justly so) racism,
MK Barakeh goal was never Israeli-Arab integration into society and is calling for Israeli-Arabs to fight against calls for them to serve in the Army.
And finaly you put the only one really casting doubt in a single sentence at the end – Zeev Boim – his claim, when put with the overall argument of the article seem weak..
So again your accounting is bogus.
Also, does anyone seriously believe that BBC would carry and article describing to what lengths does Israel go to enable the Hajj to Meca:
http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=19820
Selection bias…
David Preiser | 10.12.07 – 7:54 pm
it’s not entirely fair to mention the “concern” without any reason for it…… Just once sentence, JR. Just one. They could have added one sentence about why Israel was concerned….
David • the story opens thus:
Israel has protested to Egypt over the opening of a border crossing to allow Muslim pilgrims from Gaza to make their way through Egypt to Saudi Arabia.
The Israelis say they are concerned that militants may leave Gaza and go for training in Iran.
It’s there in the second sentence! And a very strong, compelling and perfectly understandable reason it is too.
why not just say what’s going on, even let us know Abbas said that “Egypt opend its heart.
Because it wasn’t Abbas, it was Haniya. And once again it is there…3 paras up from the bottom.
Why is it that commenters here cannot see stuff that’s in plain view on the page but somehow can ‘see’ all kinds of malign and sinister intentions that are wholly imaginary?
Alan | 10.12.07 – 9:15 pm
Waffle all you want. It doesn’t change the fact that you claimed that all the people quoted were Arabs except for one Israeli.
The truth is that they were ALL Israelis…3 Jewish Israelis and an Arab-Israeli.
Your statement was false.
John,
The only one giving an explanation as to why there was a jump in anti-Arab sentiment was an Arab-Israeli who like PQ in Quebec is in the parliament to work on dissolving of the state of Israel – not integration.
In those terms, even George Galloway has more credibility in Britain.
And you are right, I have a daily job, and unlike you on taxpayers money, I don’t have the time to do the accounting of who was quoted, no matter how insignificant the quote was for the overall impression of the article.
Alan | 10.12.07 – 9:37 pm
….and the link you posted telling us that it would lead to ‘researchers ……’ when, in fact, the correction had been made ages ago?
No time to check that either, I suppose.
As for this fake Stanislaw routine….
John,
The correction was made ages ago, but not before it caused the damage.
Like the “Jenin Massacre” that never happened or the Al-Durah montage, that caused hundreds of people to die on both sides.
From your attitude, I guess the best way to describe BBC culture is:
“I see biased people, they are everywhere and they don’t even know they are biased.”
Byebye, bubble boy.
John Reith,
I mean they should add one sentence as to why the Israelis are concerned that terrorists will move through with the pilgrims. You know, because they’ve caught them doing moving through there recently. I figured you understood that.
Anybody would expect the Israelis to be concerned that terrorists go through the border with the pilgrims, whatever bias pro or con one might have. It’s not even worth reporting, unless there is some valid reason to write a news brief about a bit of Israeli glowering, full stop.
A fair catch about the Egypt quote. I thought I removed my erroneous use of Abbas before I hit “publish”. I had looked again at the quote and saw the correct name, and thought I fixed it. My sloppiness. But then again, while I’m not very young, I am paid very, very low wages. Still, if they have room for that, they have room to say that the IDF caught have recently caught terrorists going through.
In any event, the article needs to say why the Israelis are concerned that terrorists might be amongst the pilgrims. The additional sentence I keep asking about would say something like “as they did in October and September”. A fair article would have done so.
The headline is still problematic. Israel is not concerned about the pilgrims. The headline as is stands is dishonest. I’d like to know the thought process behind it. “It’s a bit of whimsy, don’t be po-faced” is not a valid defense. At the very least, this is careless, and you can’t deny that making it about pilgrims rather than terrorists places Israel’s legitimate concerns in an unfair context.
But hey, at least there’s still a little love at the BBC for good Christian classics.
BBC,the public isn’t satisfied
I live in Haifa. I come across anti-Jewish talk by Arabs and anti-Arab talk by Jews. Most of the Arab anti-Jewish talk has to do with repeating lies and libels propagated by the Arab and Western media including the BBC, such as the Jenin massacre-that-wasn’t. Most of the Jewish anti-Arab talk is anger at those lies. Conclusion: the BBC can congratulate themselves for contributing to hate talk in Israel.
Anat —
Beeboids don’t do any investigative journalism on their own these days — they just copied an article about racism from Haaretz pages (only English edition — the article was never published in Hebrew Haaretz).
Abu Bowen writes fiskian editorials masking as news. The rest of information on BBC about Israel comes from Israeli news outlets.
Alan,
I was not talking about the source of the article but about the sources of hate speech in Israel, at least in what concerns my first hand experience (which is likely far from comprehensive). Western media including the BBC (and also Haaretz) are major among these sources, as I noted above.
The BBC uses Israeli sources selectively. Al-Ardh (Haaretz) being one of them.
For the Palestinian Authority and its angle on Israel, no point in repeating what kind of sources they use. It has been shown here many times.
John Reith —
The real John Reith, the founder of BBC would turn in his grave if he saw what you Beeboids did to his brainchild.
But, more to the point, something was bothering me since I first saw “John Reith’s” answer:
The report you cite quotes four named individuals: Sami Michael (Jewish Israeli), Mark Regev (Jewish Israeli), Zeev Boim (Jewish-Israeli)….and only one Arab-Israeli •Mohamed Barakeh.
The racist Beeboid thinks that all Jewish Israelis speak in one voice.
To lump together (Jewish Israelis as he calls them) as diverse as
Sami Michael, a communist (this is not a slur, he really is/was a proud member of the Communist party)
and Zeev Boim, would be like lumping together the Anglo-Saxons: George Galloway, Nick Griffin and Tony Blair.
The simpleton thinking behind the above argument by the proud defender of the BBC is really beyond repair.
Here is how the Pilgrims’ article
looks like when done by a real journalist:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/world/middleeast/11mideast.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
Anat:
Not only the Jenin massacre that wasn’t, but the Al Durrah shooting that wasn’t, as seen in the BBC’s ‘Don’t Panic’ Islamic propaganda video.
When it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Western media really does have blood on its hands. On each occasion the BBC fail to check their sources and fail to qualify their reporting, we see a perfect example of power without responsibility.
Re the debate on the “report” on Jewish Israeli racism by the Association for civil rights in Israel, I note that the BBC “News” website was very slow in publishing the article. The Haaretz article has as its “last update” 16:05 on Sunday December 9th:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/932384.html
The BBC website first published the story on Monday morning:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7136068.stm
Yes, it says, “Last updated,” but I know that the website did not feature the story on Sunday because I scanned it late on Sunday night, convinced that it would be prominently displayed, but finding nothing. I thought I’d see it because the World Service was all over it like bees on honey on Sunday. It was on World Briefing and every newscast on the hour and half-hour from at least 13:00 GMT, when I first started monitoring it. Like children playing with a new toy, they just would not let go of it. I last heard it on the 22:30 newscast.
So they ran with it for close to ten hours at least, and possibly quite a bit longer. Someone like John Reith will no doubt be concerned about this gross display of bias and will have a word with the editor who made the decision to give such extreme over-exposure to a couple of suspect polls published by a suspect lefty organisation portraying Israel as a racist state. (I jest.) The World Service was apparently trying to ensure that every BBC listener throughout the world got to hear about this whatever time zone they are in and whenever they turned on their radios. As if it was a major disaster that had killed tens of thousands. The BBC was not even trying to hide its bias here.
Now the Palestinians produced their own polls a few years back indicating that a third of Palestinians supported suicide bombing in Israel proper and two-thirds supported it in the territories. So no doubt some diligent BBC “editor” ensured at the time that that info got plugged on the World Service with similar unswerving zeal. Or if not, I’m sure we can look forward to the World Service finding a current Palestinian poll and giving it the same treatment as the Israeli one.
After all, the BBC is impartial, is it not?
Matthew (UK)
quite. Only the other day an Arab student in Haifa university told me that Sharon was a mass murderer. His examples: the Jenin massacre-that-wasn’t and the Sabra and Shatilla massacre by Lebanese Christian falangists.
One of my distinct memories of the Sabra And Shatilla saga is a BBC World TV report of the murder of Eli Hubeika a few years back. Eli Hubeika was the Lebanese falangist commander who had actually perpetrated the Sabra and Shatilla massacre. He was murdered by persons unknown in Beirut. In the event, this was roughly when a lawsuit was brought against Sharon in the Hague concerning purported collabration in the Sabra and Shatila massacre.
BBC World TV reported Hubeika’s demise thus: a key witness in Sharon’s trial was murdered in Beirut. Techically correct, but the implication is a lie. For sharon was accused of collaboration in a murder, but the BBC failed to mention that the “key witness” was the actual murderer with whom he was accused of collaborating. Lying by ommission.
I can’t give a ref, for it was a TV broadcast. But I remember it distinctly.
Back to that student, he is evidently brainwashed by such reports. If he ever takes action as a result and kills anybody, shouldn’t the reporters be held responsible as well?
Judging from the history of unchecked incitement by Al-Jazeera, et. al.
I don’t think irresponsible journalists will ever be held accountable.
The public simply don’t see them as a player in a political game.
Politicians, corporate and military leaders are all held accountable.
Journalist have a free reign.
They can dis it but they cannot take it.
But, all that left alone, an average Brit has no clue of what is going on in Israel, or in general in the middle east.
They will be very surprised to discover that even after a peace agreement is reached between Israel and Palestinians, the terror will continue.
Alan | 11.12.07 – 7:21 am
The racist Beeboid thinks that all Jewish Israelis speak in one voice.
Liar.
It was I, in fact, who pointed out that 2 disagreed with the other one;
2 support the report. 2 reject it.
This simply compounds your first lie:
….you chose to quote only the “reliable” sources, all Arab of course.
I see you’ve now dropped the fake Stanislaw routine and emerged as speaker of near-perfect idiomatic English. Shameless.