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.
David Preiser | 10.12.07 – 9:51 pm
while I’m not very young, I am paid very, very low wages.
Blimey, I’d better steer the kids off the investment banking route then. 🙂
….actually David …and I’m (half) serious….why don’t you come over and play your cello with one of the BBC orchestras? That way you’d get a better feel for the institution. Might make a few bob too.
“why don’t you come over and play your cello with one of the BBC orchestras? That way you’d get a better feel for the institution.”
Sums up the BBC nicely,totally insulated against reality.
“Might make a few bob too.”
Whether or not anybody wants your music.
John Reith | 11.12.07 – 2:50 pm |
Actually I would have a more realistic shot as a composer getting one of my works done by a group in the UK. Which isn’t out of the realm of possibility, at some point.
However, as I have mentioned in the past, as part of a previous job, I have done business with a couple departments of the BBC. You can pretty much guess which areas I dealt with (not radio, though).
It has been a few years, of course, and I’m no longer in contact with any of the BBC people I dealt with at the time. But I am not as completely ignorant of BBC culture as you might think.
John Reith – says
“I see you’ve now dropped the fake Stanislaw routine and emerged as speaker of near-perfect idiomatic English. Shameless.”
Really — I was born and raised in Tito’s Yugoslavia — go out of your aquarium and find someone who speaks Serbo-Croatian and ask him to translate this: “Jebo ti pas mater kretenu glupavi!”
You’ll find out exactly what I think of you – you pompous insular snobbish prick.
Matthew (BBC)
You said: “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.”
Matthew, I found around 200. Perhaps I’ll email them to you. What’s your email address?
The Beeb has an orchestra? Who’da thunk it? Don’t they know that string music is haram?
Alan,
Serbo-Croatian apart, your last five words in English sum JR up nicely.
I kind of thought that the remarks about Alan’s ethnic background from our beloved Reith skirted the line of racism.
But maybe that’s just me.
Pilgrims’ progress upsets Israel
Yes, those wicked, unreasonable Israelis again, expressing their antagonism towards other faiths.
There is a world of bias in this headline alone. When I last looked, the Pilgrim’s Progress classic was a Christian tale. To marry it to Islam in this context is to imply a non-existent unity between Christianity and Islam under the boot of the Jews. This is a particularly vile twisting of reality, given the steady persecution of Christians by Muslims in Gaza and elsewhere in the Palestinian territories and the fact that there is complete freedom of religion in Israel.
John Reith can trumpet the fact that the article contains this sentence:
The Israelis say they are concerned that militants may leave Gaza and go for training in Iran.
However, I note the distancing of the writer from the Israelis by means of reported speech. When taken with the implication in the headline that Israeli concerns here are petty, the bias is extraordinary, especially in the light of the Iranian terror machine’s sponsoring, training and arming of terror groups like Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. No doubt the BBC has forgotten about that ship, the Karine A, bristling with arms from Iran bound for Gaza but thankfully intercepted by Israel. Any journalist worth his/her salt would treat Israel’s justifiable concerns about Iran with due respect.
I also note that whoever the BBC hack was who wrote this article, he/she chose to name and quote Hamas leader Ismail Haniya in full:
“Egypt opened its heart and arms and allowed the opportunity to prove that the ties of nationalism, Arabism and Islam prevail, and allowed our pilgrims to pass through Egypt,” he said.
And the quote comes right after a partial quote of Israel’s displeasure by an unnamed foreign ministry spokesman. Is this an intentional contrast between Hamas’ allegedly open-hearted Muslim brothers and the allegedly oppressive Jews? Knowing the BBC, of course it is.
And this grudging acknowledgement of Israel’s humanitarian policies can be read a couple of ways:
Israel has only allowed small numbers of residents to pass through its territory and into Egypt for humanitarian reasons.
But we know which way the BBC intends it to be read.
Isn’t it amazing how Islam comes out smelling of roses when contrasted with the Israelis by the BBC. As a carefully crafted, pro-Islamist propaganda piece, this article is quite impressive. No doubt the anonymous author can look forward to a rosy future at the BBC.
Perhaps John Reith, knowlegdgeable as he is about what is news or current affairs, or not news or almost news can explain to us why the World Service chose to trumpet the Israeli “racism” story by a suspect far-left organisation on every “newscast” on the hour and half-hour for ten hours or more on the World Service on Sunday:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/6264797821054647247/?a=31588#377386
In what way, shape or form was this continual mantra justified? Slow news day? Weekend?
I feel soooo privileged to be able to pay the high wages of people like John Reith so they can patronise me and tell me what to think. (Thinking about it, do you realise Reith and Gregory are the only people who are paid to participate on this blog – and with OUR cash!! Grrrr.
Of course John doesn’t particularly like Jews – he is the Beeboid personified. In fact John reveals his true nature quite often. I was always very amused by his pisspoor, coarse (not “course” as John once spelled it) defence of the disgracefully censored Balen Report – “There was no smoking gun”, spaketh the Beeboid. Hmmm. Leaving aside the implication that there was indeed considerable circumstantial evidence (as this thread marvellously shows) what would a “smoking gun” have consisted of, I wonder? Perhaps Jewemy Bowen offering this payoff line “Well the hateful, stinking joos have to be extermiated from Palestine because only then will the world have peace. Jewemy Bowen, BBC, Al Quds.
Is that your idea of a “smoking gun” John? No? Too coarse (or “course” for you)? Well then do tell us what a “smoking gun” would have looked and sounded like. I am intrigued.
Bryan,
Your excellent take-apart analysis of how the Pilgrims Progress piece was slanted to make Israel look the way the BBC wants will no doubt just get a smarty-pants answer because I think BBC bias against Israel is so entrenched that I doubt they will ever be able to admit it. Especially to themselves.
On this website BBC spokespersons handle specific complaints in a pedantic, nitpicking manner while stubbornly refusing to acknowledge their underlying bias. They seem obsessively concerned with point scoring as though it’s a winnable game like arm-wrestling where one side will eventually have to give in.
There is a staggering amount of ignorance on that subject in this country and I think everyone at the Beeb shares it, and are probably responsible for it, and therefor will continue to perpetuate it.
I have written one or two letters to my regional newspaper defending Israel, you should see the responses they get from Mr angry and Mrs Incandescent. But after the press they are subjected to. it’s no wonder these people feel outrage at the plight of the poor Palestinians, and blame Israel for everything under the sun.
One way to turn the tanker round would be to organise a counterbalancing T.V. documentary or two. There is a long list of things it should address.
“(Thinking about it, do you realise Reith and Gregory are the only people who are paid to participate on this blog – and with OUR cash!! Grrrr.”
Dr R | 12.12.07 – 10:58 am | #
I think only yesterday Gregory stated that he posts on his break. Would you prefer it if this blog was just ignored? Of course that’d give you a chance to criticise the BBC for ‘breathtaking arrogance’ from the people that pay their wages!
Be thankful that these people use their own spare time (at least in Gregory’s certainly) to address the issues raised here and maintain a courteous tone even in the face of outright abuse. The idea that people are specifically paid to counter accusations here is pretty absurd.
Taking this line is a cheap shot but unfortunately predictable.
Thanks for that, SJ. We’ll just have to keep soldiering on. The more they pump out their bias, the more we’ll expose it. How they must hate the internet. They are exposed, and it’s around the world in seconds.
What I find the most enlightening is JR’s underlying ‘holier that thou-I know best’ attitude.
He implied that all this perceived bias is nothing more than an illusion, and that it is WE who are biased, and that he’ll persuade us otherwise.
His attitude is EXACTLY the one we are talking about.
He just doesn’t realise that the more he says, the more we realise we are right; the pro palestinian/anti Israel and even, as someone has noticed, his near the line racism.
Keep it up JR. You just constantly confirm our view and you don’t even realise it.
Alan | 12.12.07 – 3:06 am
I was born and raised in Tito’s Yugoslavia
I shall lend your latest claim the same credibility I did your earlier assertion – that Mark Regev (the official spokesman of Israel’s Foreign Ministry) is an Arab.
I’ll raise my hand for a second in acknowledgment of the Beeboids who do post here, either as themselves or anony/pseudony-mously. I’ve never gotten even an auto-response to any complaints I’ve made through official channels (even BBC America or editors’ blogs).
I, for one, doubt any of them are actually paid by the BBC to respond here. Maybe, as Mrs. Slocum says, I am unanimous in that. However, there certainly is at least one person who needs to keep an eye on things like this site as part of their actual BBC job. And I’m equally sure that a couple of Beeboids who have commented here have done so because someone here has criticized something they were involved with.
We’ll get them straightened out one of these days.
Susan,
“I kind of thought that the remarks about Alan’s ethnic background from our beloved Reith skirted the line of racism.”
JR condescending attitude oozes from everything BBC does in general.
See, they have a monopoly not only on ethics and morality, but also on use of idiomatic English.
Someone born outside of their snobbish circle cannot possibly reach their level of sophistication.
The problem is I saw this attitude before — and it lead to Srebrenica.
Their self-righteous “activism” reminds me of self-righteous Serb and Croat journalist activism against the other side.
Ben
This is priceless!
“Be thankful that these people use their own spare time (at least in Gregory’s certainly) to address the issues raised here and maintain a courteous tone even in the face of outright abuse. The idea that people are specifically paid to counter accusations here is pretty absurd.”
Hah!!!! The idiocy and arrogance of the Beeboid mind…
Ben, I’ll be grateful and polite when I am no longer FORCED to subsidise the disgusting BBC.
Exactly who is extorting who Ben?
Oi! Reith!
Any comment on my “smoking gun” enquiry? Why not?
JR,
“I shall lend your latest claim the same credibility I did your earlier assertion – that Mark Regev (the official spokesman of Israel’s Foreign Ministry) is an Arab.”
I never claimed Mark Regev is an Arab, my claim is that the overall tone of the article was set by a far-left communist Sami Michael and an Arab MK Mohamed Barakeh — who in your view have a monopoly on truth.
To prove to you that I was born in Yugoslavia under the uber-thug Tito, I’ll translate the above sentence to Serbo-Croatian:
Nisam tvrdio da je Mark Regev Arapskog prorekla, nego da opsti ton clanka proizilazi is reci daleko-levicarskog komuniste Sami Mihaela i Arapskog Clana Kneseta Mohameda Barakeha – koji u tvojim ocima imaju monopol nad istinom.
Alan,
Have you seen the Goran Markovic film “Tito i ja”? If so, do you see any parallels between Zoran’s visions of Tito and certain Beeboid visions of Auntie Beeb?
Ben:
As you know nothing about Reith, it’s a little presumptious of you to suggest that he posts here in his own spare time.
His posting frequency would suggest that he has a LOT of spare time in his jam packed day at the BBC. The sort of money he earns from the telly tax I would expect him never to have a moment free, and I would also hope he has a broom up his arse so he can sweep Al Beeb’s floors at the same time.
Free time for a Beeboid executive should be home time. And you say very little of Reith come those golden hours.
“The idea that people are specifically paid to counter accusations here is pretty absurd.”
Maybe,but it doesn’t do any harm for a disciple of the BBC to show fervour,at the same time indulge in a little raising of their personal profiles.
“There are few more impressive sights in the world than a liberal on the make.”
Alan
I never claimed Mark Regev is an Arab
Yes you did. You claimed that all but one of the sources quoted in the article were Arabs. In fact, only one was an Arab. Mark Regev was one of the non-Arabs you called an Arab. You did it here:
…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
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/6264797821054647247/#377302
Here is an Israeli report on a similar poll. Unlike the BBC it doesn’t quote any government spokesmen or ministers for rebuttal. But then, it doesn’t have to be impartial.
Apparently, this poll sample was selected by something called the Geocartograhy Institute. Scientific?
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3231048,00.html
JR,
Your liberal-arts only educational background, instead of a solid scientific one precludes you from understanding simple logical statements:
There is a difference between a “SOURCE” of a story and “COMMENTS”.
The source is usually and event of some kind.
The SOURCE of this story is a pro-Arab (including many Arab groups) far left pseudo-scientific poll.
The main comment/spin is given by an anti-Israel Arab MK.
A neutral comment by Mark Regev and a dismissing comment by minister are presented after the “breaking news”, and in a non-meaningful manner.
The second article you quote on ynet proves my point not yours — it states that 36% of Israelis think Arab culture is inferior instead of twice as much in the biased article that was the basis of latest BBC incitement against Israelis.
In fact these numbers (36%) are really small for a country that is at war with 300 million Arabs.
Try running an anonymous poll like that in the US or England — you’ll maybe see worse numbers.
One other basic error in the logic of the article is presenting the statement of MK Barakeh, that a sudden increase is the result of long term policies, is deeply flawed.
If anything the jump would suggest that something happened in 2006, like for instance 4000 Hezbollah and 2000 Hamas missiles on Israel.
A true investigative journalist would catch a logical error like that.
But, logic, truth are all meaningless for BBC’s campaign of digging dirt on Israel, whether true or totally fabricated.
David,
I haven’t seen “Tito i Ja”, so I cannot comment on that.
But the parallels between communist style journalism and BBC are striking.
Many people think that in communist countries leaders ruled by fear.
They did not — they ruled by building a cult of personality, and were generally loved (literally, women had Milosevic’s pictures in their purses).
The journalists in such societies were picked and editors set to encourage samethink — the same think happened to BBC, not from the above, but from within.
Israel in BBC’s world is doubleplus ungood.
Israel in BBC’s world is doubleplus ungood.
Alan | 13.12.07 – 5:53 am
Exactly. We see John Reith’s usual tactic here. Like a bulldog jealously guarding a bone, he sticks grimly to the one or two minor inconsistencies he has pounced on in this thread. Anyone accessing this site from Mars might think Reith has a case. He doesn’t. The two BBC articles on Israel under discussion here are carefully-constructed, neat little propaganda pieces designed to cast Israel in the worst possible light and her Arab adversaries, including terrorists, in the best possible light.
That bone has been chewed long enough, Reith. Time to let it go and actually look at the bias.
John Reith… still waiting for some explanation of what a “smoking gun” might look and sound like.
How about this?
Scene … Newsnight studio. Mark Regev (who is NOT an Arab and therefore has no right to be living in Israel, or anywhere for that matter…) on the link.
Regev: Yes Kirsty, but what do you expect us to do when rockets are rained down randomly on our cities every day?
Kirsty (in the trademark, hysterical style): Well you fucking stinking little joos shouldn’t be there should you???!!! In fact you’re the reason for all the trouble in the world!!??? YOu make those Muslims kill people, dontcha, well DONTCHA??!!!
Is that too course (sic)? Probably. Go on. Enlighten me. Tell me what a “smoking gun” might look and feel like when delivered by nice, gently ironic Oxbridge educated types like yourself?
Play with me John. I’m not Jewish. TYou can talk to me.
What do arabs think of Israel and the Jews – any poll results?
Alan | 13.12.07 – 5:53 am |
But the parallels between communist style journalism and BBC are striking.
Many people think that in communist countries leaders ruled by fear.
They did not — they ruled by building a cult of personality, and were generally loved (literally, women had Milosevic’s pictures in their purses).
The very entertaining movie I’m talking about portrays a world exactly as you describe. It’s a comedy, and shows life under Tito form the perspective of a little kid, who is definitely influenced by the cult of personality.
Alan
The source is usually and event of some kind.
Wrong. A source in journalistic parlance is usually a person of some kind • normally one who supplies information or a quotation to a journalist.
Here are some online glossaries to confirm:
Source – An individual who provides information for a story.
http://www.journalism.co.uk/36/54/
Source: a person who talks to a reporter on the record, for attribution in a news story
http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/journal20/gloss.html
Source: A person who gives information to a reporter or editor.
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/EDTEC670/Cardboard/board/p/pulitzer/pulitzer5.html
The SOURCE of this story is a pro-Arab (including many Arab groups) far left pseudo-scientific poll.
Wrong again. That’s the SUBJECT of the story.
A neutral comment by Mark Regev and a dismissing comment by minister are presented after the “breaking news”, and in a non-meaningful manner.
This is called ‘reaction’. It’s an ingredient of balance.
The second article you quote on ynet proves my point not yours
Neither I nor the BBC have a dog in this fight. We just report what the actual participants say.
One other basic error in the logic of the article is presenting the statement of MK Barakeh, that a sudden increase is the result of long term policies, is deeply flawed.
You may disagree with the Knesset Member. So might I. But the BBC doesn’t endorse the opinions of the people that it quotes. It just quotes them.
You are not alone on this blog in failing to understand that.
JR
“the BBC doesn’t endorse the opinions of the people that it quotes”
“You are not alone on this blog in failing to understand that.”
But the BBC chooses the people that it quotes and, further, selects what it chooses from those quotes. That is where the bias comes in. That is not a failure in understanding by the contributors to this blog: we understand the BBC’s methods only too well.
“the BBC doesn’t endorse the opinions of the people that it quotes”
“You are not alone on this blog in failing to understand that.”
If a supposed intelligent BBC employee can see no association between opinion reported in the media and it’s potential effect on the public’s viewpoint, then he should forfeit all right to have his views taken seriously from that point on.
I know any old academia will suffice for qualification at the Beeb, but even the most rudimentary Media Studies course should have imparted this basic fact to even the most thick skulled of Broadcasters. Reith included.
As an interesting aside on BBC pro-Muslim bias, there is a revealing comment on the Sudanese protest report below, where Adam Mynott attempted to deceive viewers into believing the mob was smiling and good-natured.
Listen carefully and you can hear the mob chanting (in Arabic) for the Jews to face the same fate as those slaughtered and subjugated in Khaybar by Muhammed.
Strange that Mynott and the BBC failed to explain this for viewers – it is a frequent Islamofascist slogan, used, for example, by our own Islamic thugs during their 2006 London cartoon rampage. Reith: why is Arab anti-semitism hushed up by the BBC?
Matthew (BBC):
‘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.
Matthew (BBC) | 10.12.07 – 4:42 pm | #
Dear Matthew,
Coming to this rather late, yesterday I made a complaint to the BBC about precisely such a story. The article can be found at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7138506.stm, and is entitled ‘Israel keeps up pressure on Iran’.
The article notes that Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, ‘similar to the White House’ is ‘not buying’ the NIE report on Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. Further down it claims that ‘like US neo-conservatives, some on the Israeli right argue that the NIE was trying to make policy…’. Although the article does mention the left-wing paper Haaretz’s stance on this issue, it puts it down only to the ‘widespread fear’ in Israel about Iran’s intentions.
The article, in short, implies that only the Bush administration (the White House), US neo-conservatives and the Israelis (primarily right-wing Israelis) are expressing any concerns about the report.
However, if you go to http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000911.html, you will find that many more bodies and individuals around the world have expressed similar concerns (including the President of France, the Chancellor of Germany, the IAEA and British Intelligence). These concerns have been reported on by the Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Telegraph, the New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as in the Israeli press and in public statements.
I cannot find any reference to any of these articles or statements on the BBC News website, and even if they were previously reported there, there is no link from the ‘Israel pressure’ story to them. Instead, one of the links leads to a story on ‘Iranian views on US report’, and another, ‘Bush urges Tehran to come clean’, mentions only that ‘Russia and China – whose acquiescence would be required for any new UN sanctions – have said the NIE report raises questions about the need for new measures’ and that ‘the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said Iran had been “somewhat vindicated” (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7129307.stm).
I believe this to be an excellent example of bias by omission. My complaint has been received, and I hope that this will be thoroughly investigated.
Dr. R. E. Miller
Rachel,
Try this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7131703.stm
Rachel Miller | 14.12.07 – 9:54 am
I don’t think you do your cause any service by crying wolf in this way.
The article you complain about is not claiming to be a synoptic survey of world reaction to the new intelligence estimate. It is a piece by the Jerusalem Correspondent on Israeli reaction to it. It does that job very well and without any partiality.
You complain thet the BBC has not reported the statement by Sarkozy and Merkel. You are wrong. It’s here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7131703.stm
You also complain that the BBC hasn’t reported a tit-bit of intelligence gossip that appeared in the Sunday Times.
I really can’t see how it’s supposed to. Secret intelligence tends to be kept secret in Britain. I very much doubt that MI6 have been telling the Sunday Times what they think, but even if they have, the BBC is not in a position to stand it up.
The BBC News Website has carried a lot of pieces on this intelligence estimate, including reaction from IAEA.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7126429.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7128963.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7129307.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4031603.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7126117.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7127404.stm
Pounce – many thanks for the link. I could not find this by searching the BBC site; possibly I was not searching the right sections to find this, and certainly there is no link to this story on the page I originally cited.
Mr. Reith, thank you for your response. It is true that the website has featured one article each noting the concerns of President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel and the concerns raised by the IAEA – thank you for the links. However, the other links you provide lead only to articles describing in more or less detail that the NIE’s report has been published and what it said, as well as brief notes of reactions from within Iran (including one article to which I had previously linked).
I really don’t see that this spread of articles reflects the wide range of opinions from people and bodies from around the world on this extremely important topic. Please do visit the link to Mr. Gross’s site for more details.
In addition, I think you are being somewhat disingenuous when you claim that the article I mentioned discusses only Israeli reactions to the report. If the article is designed *only* to inform the readers about views held in Israel, then why the references to the ‘White House’ and to ‘US neo-conservatives’? If these references are only there to provide background for the reader, why is the full background not mentioned (reservations expressed by European heads of state, the IAEA and prominent scientists). The article as it stands leads to the conclusion that only ‘right-wing’ Americans, President Bush’s administration and the Israelis have any doubts about Iran’s intentions.
Finally, you chastise me for bringing up ‘gossip’ from the ‘Sunday Times’ (sic) and imply that I am somehow misguided in expecting the BBC to note such ‘gossip’ in its own reports. To this I can make only two responses: first, that the article concerning the intelligence appeared in the Sunday Telegraph, not the Times, and second, that I was responding in my post to your colleague Matthew’s challenge:
‘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.’
I submit that this article, containing as it does the BBC’s failure to report viewpoints that bear out the scepticism felt in Israel about the NIE’s report – viewpoints that have been reported by other reputable sources – meets the criteria Matthew set, and, as before, I await an official response to my official complaint.
Postscript: The most recent article on the report can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7139526.stm, entitled ‘Olmert says Iran still dangerous’. As in the article I discussed above, there is no mention of any concerns expressed by any nation other than Israel and the USA (specifically by President Bush). Only one other organisation is named as expressing doubts about the report – the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and the article specifically notes that this group is the political wing of an organisation that has been labelled as ‘terrorist’ by the US and European Union. I find it interesting that the BBC is not worried about reporting on ‘intelligence gossip’ coming from a group affiliated to ‘terrorism’.
The BBC is a sick organisation, funded by a soap orientated public who have as much brain as a mouse in a drain. I try to watch the news, but usually the bias is so obvious I just have to switch it off. If it doesn’t suit the BBC’s political agenda, it don’t get published. And this is supposed to be the freedom loving English. Little do the World realise just how political motivation, infiltration, inept management and observation can dissemble truth from us all. That is the BBC.
Rachel Miller | 14.12.07 – 4:24 pm
I was responding in my post to your colleague Matthew’s challenge
I think you have misunderstood Matthew’s challenge.
The point is not simply to find a fact that the BBC has not reported which appears in ONE of the other media cited.
It is to find a fact that has appeared in ALL the other media cited, but that was uniquely excluded by the BBC.
And then to find two further examples of the same phenomenon. If you can.
Talk about bias, Jeremy al-Bowen was at it again this morning at 7.20. He was reporting on the Paris meeting and nations giving yet more cash to the corrupt “PALESLIMIANS.” He never mentioned the billions already handed over to them during the last 60 years! through a unique organisation created especially for them, UNWRA. He never mentioned violence that these creeps carry out every day. Just read this from DEBKA:
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=4860
In addition to the female commmandos, our military sources report Hamas has formed hundreds of suicide killers into a large unit for obstructing a major Israeli offensive against its missile-mortar offensive from Gaza. Its planners figure that if only one out of ten is successful, the Israeli advance will be seriously slowed. Another special unit created by Hamas is composed of fighters clad in IDF uniforms and armed with Israel weapons and gear to confuse Israeli Air Force surveillance craft and drones and slow their counteraction. Hamas has stockpiled thousands of Qassam missiles, enough to rain down 100 a day on Israeli civilian and military targets.
Is anyone, such as the BBC, really interested in the plight of CHRISTIANS in Bethlehem area (who, like Jews) inhabited the area several centuries before Muslims arrived on the scene?
Suggest see:
‘The Christmas libel’ (Melanie Phillips)
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/409306/the-christmas-libel.thtml
A small follow-up:
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2007/12/egypt-not-allowing-hamas-members-to.html
Ma’an is confirming that some Hamas members left Gaza through Rafah.
“By Egypt allowing Rafah to be opened, they are breaking existing agreements with Israel”
How about the 1967 U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 which denies Israel the territory it currently occupies?
How about the removal from power of the democratically elected Hamas movement?
How about the blockade around an unarmed collection of indigenous people by an illegal and internationally supported nuclear power?
Don’t talk about bias in reporting.
*242 requires Israel’s withdrawal from territories not the territories. The terminology was deliberately chosen because the status of the territories is subject to negotiation.
*Fatah, not Israel, removed Hamas from power. Hamas can be as democratically elected as it likes, but if it doesn’t stop terror, it has no legitimacy.
*Israel is not illegal. It is a legitimate country, like any other member of the UN.
*There is no blockade. Israel allows humanitarian aid and supplies into Gaza. The country has no obligation to open borders to allow terrorists into Israel. Non-terrorists from Gaza, once thoroughly checked, are allowed to travel through Israel to other destinations.
*If you’re interested in bias, look in the mirror.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/country_profiles/803257.stm
I was browsing BBC’s online presence the other day and stumbled across a series of ‘country profiles’ which included one entitled ‘Israel and Palestinian territories’. Quite why these two parts of the world have (uniquely) been lumped together was never really explained although one gleaned a few clues from the introduction:
“The division of the former British mandate of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel in the years after the end of World War II have been at the heart of Middle Eastern conflicts for the past half century.
The creation of Israel was the culmination of the Zionist movement, whose aim was a homeland for Jews scattered all over the world following the Diaspora. After the Nazi Holocaust, pressure grew for the international recognition of a Jewish state, and in 1948 Israel came into being….”
I won’t dwell upon the obvious inaccuracy of the throwaway line ‘[Israel has] been at the heart of Middle Eastern conflicts for the past half century…’ which ignores events like the Iran/Iraq war, the Iraq/Kuwait war, both Gulf wars, The Jordanian/Syrian war, the Lebanese civil war, The Kurdish insurgencies, the many ethno-religious conflicts like the Suni/Shia wars in Iraq or the numerous jihads taking place in every part of the Middle East and the Maghreb, but instead address the more insidious premise that is being proposed in the paragraph beginning ‘The creation of Israel…’. Here the BBC appear to have overlooked the fact that for over a thousand years Israel existed as an entity in and frequently beyond the boundaries of the former British mandate of Palestine, so it wasn’t actually created in 1948, so much as partially reinstated. In addition, the aims of the Zionist movement as originally conceived were not simply the production of a homeland for Jews somewhere but a return of Jews to what Zionists saw as their historic home which not only includes present day Israel and both banks of the Jordan River but depending on the strand of Zionism, various or all the lands known as ‘Greater Israel’ described in Genesis and ruled by King David et al. So the revival of part of historic Israel was not really ‘the culmination of the Zionist movement’ at all but rather the realisation of a part of what Zionists were aiming for. This is an important distinction for without it, the compromise which the Zionists believed themselves to be making in 1948 would not appear to have been a compromise at all and thus the subsequent debate loses much of its integrity.
The ‘Overview’ is similarly misleading;
“Much of the history of the region since that time has been one of conflict between Israel on one side and Palestinians, represented by the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and Israel’s Arab neighbours, on the other.”
The get-out here is the word ‘Much’ for it gives the BBC licence to pick and choose its areas of focus. The PLO was of course only founded in 1964 and can hardly be said to have been representing ‘Palestinians’ before its actual existence and as a matter of fact the PLO battled as much with Jordan, Lebanon and Syria as it did with Israel. Arafat’s harshest criticism was levelled at his fellow Egyptians firstly for encouraging the evacuation of Palestinians Arabs from the mandate of Palestine and then for recognising Israel. It was not until the early nineties that hostilities between the PLO and ‘Israel’s Arab neighbours’ came to an end by which time Egypt and Jordan had already signed peace treaties with Israel and a de facto truce between Israel and Syria had been well established. The history of the region is not therefore characterised by bipartisan conflict but multi-faceted dissonance of which the Israel/Arab relations are but a part. The deep of ethno-religious segregation and age-old intertribal conflicts are even now barely buried beneath the desert sands and it is facile to suggest, as this webpage does, that the were Israel not to exist, peace would suddenly break out; post-colonial trauma has been a feature of post-colonial periods in every part of the world and throughout history and today’s Middle East is no exception.
The ‘Overview’ goes on…
“Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced, and several wars were fought involving Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.”
The passivity implied by the phrase ‘Palestinians were displaced…’ is greatly disputed, as is the extent of the migration and tellingly no mention is made of the expulsion of over a million Jews from other parts of the Middle East during same period. The ‘Forgotten Refugees’ as they are known have not even appeared on the radar of the armies of concerned peacemakers and journalists who crowd into Gaza at every opportunity • partially because they are rather inconsistent with the ‘bullying Israeli’ narrative and partially because when they fled, in the main to Israel, they were greeted with open arms and integrated into its fledgling society and ‘disappeared’. The ‘displaced Palestinians’ by contrast did not disappear but were herded opportunistically by their Arab brethren into the hastily erected and by now infamous refugee camps. There, at the tender mercies of the Egyptians, Jordanians, the UN and latterly the Palestinian Authority, they remained in poverty and ignorance till today when their usefulness seems to be limited to providing photo-op material for crusading BBC journalists and youthful couriers for jihadding Islamists.
The ‘Overview’ which is beginning to sound more like it was written from under a blanket continues enthusiastically:
“Palestinians in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, have lived under Israeli occupation since 1967. The settlements that Israel has built in the West Bank are home to around 400,000 people and are deemed to be illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.”
The debate over the legal status of the settlements and the territories is complicated and opinion between different countries, groups and legal experts is split. The BBC would have been more objective if they had put in this way rather than imply that Israel was isolated in the matter. But the glaring omission here is that there is absolutely no indication as to why the settlements appeared in the first place and why the territories are disputed. Without any knowledge of the circumstances and events which gave impetus to the settlement programme or a ‘broad-stroke’ acquaintance with the various allegations of illegality made by all sides one cannot hope to achieve any balance in one’s conclusions.
Finally the ‘overview’ ends with this bloomer;
The main stumbling blocks include the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees and Jewish settlements.”
These certainly are stumbling blocks but what about the difficulties the BBC didn’t choose to ‘include’? The current belligerence of the Hamas dominated Palestinian Authority; their continuing refusal to forsake violence as a means of obtaining a political end, their insistence that all the land belongs to the Arabs and their denial of the legitimacy of previous agreements. Might these not also be at least potholes in the way of a lasting agreement? How for example can you do business with someone who uses violence to influence negotiations, enters talks insisting that you don’t exist and that anything that you do agree may be undone by the next envoy? I’d love to see the BBC negotiate its licence fee under similar conditions. Add to that the continuing attacks on Israel by the Lebanese Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, the frequent attacks on Israeli targets throughout the world by state sponsored groups and the total disregard of the claims of Jewish refugees hounded out of other Middle Eastern countries over the last six decades. The road to peace, if there is one, is strewn with obstructions so why did the BBC choose to highlight the only two that lie within Israel’s sway and not mention any of the others?
The webpage ends up with a short series of ‘facts’ (a few of which were simply wrong) some brief and oddly selective bios and finally a surprising large chunk about the various other media groups operating in the area. I finished reading this webpage feeling strangely dissatisfied because I had expected more – more detail, more depth, more facts and much more balance. The BBC will be privatized at some point and I realise that it is even now positioning itself for its key demographics but in attempting to be an all round global news provider it is failing. Its website, though large and well organised is all too often an embarrassment and one feels that the folks at BeebCentral have not really grasped the implications of the internet. Why bother reading the BBC’s superficial, ill-informed Mac-News pages, when there are so many other sources of information available now online? I’m not saying the BBC has to be impartial here or that being impartial is an easy thing to be, but by being so blatantly partisan in an age where state media no longer controls the news, it loses its one remaining asset • its freedom from commercial pressures and it would be doing itself and its future a favour by presenting both sides of the story.