Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may be moderated.
Alan: “Maybe you would have known about abuses of gays in Iran, but none of the BBC viewers would.”
From the BBC website: “But gay and human rights groups say Iran’s record is particularly shocking, having executed possibly thousands of gay men since the Islamic revolution.”
Clearly the BBC are “supporting” gay “rights” in the Middle East. And obviously so does this website. I’m sorry you think this is sarcasm, I think B-BBC is way beyond that.
As for your last comment. Let me reveal something about me as a person. Something I will never do again. So here it is. In the 90’s I was a student at a well know University and I went home one day with the pictures from my summer term to show my family. I was going through them with my mum and she said… “oh is Natasha jewish?”
I was genuinely amazed someone could look at a picture of anyone and say something like that. But yes she was and I told my mum she was right. Natasha was jewish. Infact she was the daughter of a jewish MP and her mother had left her father and was having an affair with the Israeli Ambassador. It took that level of gossip for me to even notice the religion of my friends.
Alan, you really haven’t achieved that sort of level so no, I had no idea about your religion.
But you clearly think I’m gay. Are you a homophobe?
David Gregory,
Nice to get personal – good at least you are talking, no smug replies at last.
“Alan, you really haven’t achieved that sort of level so no, I had no idea about your religion.”
No dear Gregory, I am from a mixed marriage, I have achieved that level by simply being born.
I am simply astounded by the level of hate the BBC has for Israel.
I have been there and the picture BBC paints of that country has no resemblance to reality.
In fact it is the BBC and some other pseudo-lefty sources that forced me to think about these issues at all.
It never mattered until I was faced with a wall of hatred based on my partial ethnicity.
“But you clearly think I’m gay. Are you a homophobe?”
I don’t know if you are gay, nor do I care. But I assume you are pro-gay rights, just like me!
“But gay and human rights groups say Iran’s record is particularly shocking, having executed possibly thousands of gay men since the Islamic revolution.”
Again a tree to hide the woods.
It is a matter of statistics.
How many times is this issue raised by the BBC (and for how many countries (i.e. UAE, Saudi-Arabia, …)
vs. how many times were the abuses by Israel being given prime time.
Just look at the Middle-East coverage pages on the bbcnews site.
David Gregory,
“Alan, you really haven’t achieved that sort of level so no, I had no idea about your religion.”
To sum it up, I was at that level, before being hit by the ugly reality.
Just because you never faced discrimination (being British in Britain), doesn’t mean the others haven’t.
The real question is “Did you ever ask Natasha if she could always afford to divulge her ethnicity, or did she have to hide it sometimes”
I have heard very ugly stories of late from Jews attending British universities.
In some places, wearing openly a star of david would be an invitation to get beaten.
Personally, I don’t see a reason why anyone would ware a star of david or a cross, but people are entitled to do so. Aren’t they?
Alan: “A better fit for your ilk”
My ilk? What do you mean by that? For once I must push further. Is “my ilk” a gay man? Is that a problem for you? Is it? Why would you accuse me of anti-semitism unless it was to obscure your own bigotry and homophobia? Please don’t hide behind words.
Face to face, I hope you would no more be a homophobe than I would be an anti-semite.
Oh dear, I appear to be hiding behind words myself.
There is a larger question here, about how the BBC reports the Middle East. I respect and am interested in what you have to say about that, though I have (very) limited input into how things are reported in that area. And to be honest I have a very limited understanding of the history and more of that region.
But please don’t make those casual assumptions about me again.
Ever.
David,
People accuse the BBC of antisemitism because they cannot comprehend the bias?
I believe I’ve stated in one of my other comments that unlike some of the Left today, BBC’s bias does not come from antisemitism, but from other reasons.
Alan: “Just because you never faced discrimination…” Oh where to start with that?
David Gregory,
I am sorry for the misunderstanding,
by your ilk I meant “belonging to the BBC sub-culture”. Nothing more, nothing less.
The sub-culture that has IMHO as many problems as the groups that it constantly attacks.
Your ilk has a racist approach towards Islam, it does not treat it with equal disdain as it treats other major religions. If it must treat religions with disdain, why not do so universally?
Your ilk has a bigoted approach towards universal human rights.
It does not hold non-Western countries to the same high standards.
Your ilk sacrifices entire nations (e.g. Israel) on the pedestal of its own ideology.
There are many more of these ideological delusions of your BBC ilk, that have been discussed elsewhere as well as on this board.
DG,
“Just because you never faced discrimination…” Oh where to start with that?
At the beginning…
Alan: “At the beginning…”
Ok. First You appear to be a homophobe. Second: Did you see Cranford?
DG,
I have slept with men and am not ashamed to openly say so.
Am I a homophobe? I don’t think so.
But if you don’t like personal attacks, don’ toss them around.
BBC ilk also seems to think that everyone outside of their cocoon
that doesn’t agree with the ideology is a conservative brain dead, racist homophobe.
Well DG, sorry to burst your bubble.
I am none of the that.
DG,
Did you read Nick Cohen’s “What’s Left?”
DG,
“First You appear to be a homophobe.”
Really. How so?
David Gregory,
I have gone back to the only post that has any reference to “gay” and “you” in the same sentence. I found this:
“If you are gay and/or pretend to be pro gay-rights, then, mister you are a fake.”
In the context, what it clearly says is that for a gay person or someone not necessarily gay, but pro-gay rights not to expose prosecution of gays in Islamic countries is hypocritical. Don’t you agree?
The only thing you saw is “If you are gay or pro-gay rights”. In my book that is not an insult. But it seems
to have triggered violent response in you.
So, David Gregory, are you a homophobe?
David Gregory,
No, I have not seen “Cranford”.
The reason is probably that since last year I don’t want to subsidize BBC’s bigotry described above any more, so I canceled all BBC channels in my cable package last year.
Remember – I live in a free country – Canada. Although, by law, I am also her majesty’s loyal subject, I am not obligated to pay BBC’s Jizya imposed other poor British subjects across the pond.
The real question is – will we ever see an article like this from BBC:
“Assassinated because she was a woman”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22995050-7583,00.html
Since we have gone OT and Andrew is stll on vacation (presumably), here is a Jewish joke that sums up the problem of the unaware antisemite:
A: It’s all the fault of cyclists and Jews.
B: Why cyclists?
David Gregory,
Although the Left has brainwashed almost everyone about it, I have just noticed it in your sentence:
“… I had no idea about your religion.”
So I am taking this opportunity to educate BBC masses (well JRs at least) that might read this talkback.
Jews are an ethnic group, like Germans, Greeks or Japanese.
Judaism is a religion practiced by some Jews.
Customs intersect between the religion and ethnicity, just like they do for every other nation on earth.
For example German vs. Protestant. Most Germans celebrate Christmas, yet many are not religious.
Being Jewish doesn’t make someone religious. Most German Jews were agnostics, yet they were all murdered just the same. So even the Nazis made this distinction. And so does the Israel’s law of return.
70% of Israelis would be considered secular/agnostic by most Western definitions.
But Left constantly brings up that Israelis are bad because they want to maintain a “Jewish Character” of the state. Since that is cast in a religious light, it is evil and fanatical.
Germans want to maintain a German language and character of their country don’t they?
Germany (like many other nations) has even their own law of return (on ethic and not citizenship) basis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return
Now how come that in the BBC’s most covered conflict this distinction is never made?
Maybe it is just another facet of the constant attempt to create an equivalence between Islam and Israel.
Alan,
You are spot on. Of course being Jewish is an ethnicity. Both antisemites and Jews agree on this.
For instance, antisemites always tell you that Karl Marx was Jewish, while in fact he was brought up as a Lutheran. What makes him Jewish in their eyes are his Jewish ancestors.
In Jewish traditional law you are born Jewish, and even if you adopt another religion you still remain Jewish: “Israel, gam im hata israel hu” (Israel, even if sinned is still Israel). Jews refer to themselves as “am Israel”, literally “nation of Israel”.
The idea of divorcing religion from ethnicity was the reaction of some Jews to the rise of European national identities during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many saw themselves as Germans or French of the Mosaic denomination. Unfortunately for them, most Europeans failed to grasp the nuance. The rest is history.
Anat,
I have poked fun at David Gregory’s line “Some of my best friends are Canadian”, and replied by saying that the way BBC sees the world a better fit would be the old anti-semitic defense line “Some of my best friends are Jewish”.
This seems to have provoked a justified fury from him – he though my accusation is of personal bigotry.
What I was trying to say is that the extreme anti-Israel bias of the BBC is going to provoke questions of possible antisemitic motives.
Antisemitic motives, nowadays, are by far more present on the left than on the right.
Still, although there are undoubtedly some BBC employees crossing the line, IMHO, BBC’s anti-Israel bias is product of other ideological factors.
Israel is just an easy target. Most people know what Britain or US is all about, but have no clue about Israel.
There is a limit on how far they can go in accusing US or British society and army of all sorts of double-plus-ungood stuff. The likes of Robert Fisk try, but BBC can never pull that sort of crap off.
But about the Arab-Israeli conflict BBC is creating a total ideologically motivated virtual reality in their viewers’ minds.
Alan,
Well put.
I can’t tell you how I often I’ve read BBC articles which chalk up the “Jewish” claim to Israel as the result of “many Jews’ belief that it is theirs because God promised it to them in the Bible”, thus instantly discrediting the claim in the eyes of most Western readers, without giving the context of that being a minority orthodox opinion, nor giving any reference to the historical, cultural, ethnic, emotional, moral and legal claims.
I was referencing your post on Jews as an ethnicity in my post above.
Skip,
Thanks for the example:
“many Jews’ belief that it is theirs because God promised it to them in the Bible”
Many Jews would be a subset of less than 5% that are religious Zionists.
Not even all religious Jews believe in this literally.
This is a classical example of beebo-speak:
Many Jews – in most people eyes sound like “most Jews”, but “many Jews” reference can always be defended to really mean 5%. So they create an impression that most Israelis are religious fanatics, but when accused of it can easily defend it.
Now, initial Zionists (Hertzl) were anti-theists, and were seeking a solution to persecution in Europe and some Arab lands (most notably Syria and Iraq).
Hertzl, the father of Zionism, even refused to circumcise his son, because for him Jews were an ethnicity and all customs stemming from religion should be forgotten.
Why Israel/Palestine – because most Jews (from Ethiopia to Alaska) have ethnic (folklore, etc) and probably genetic ties to ancient Israel.
Note that at the time there were less than 200,000 people in Palestine.
Most Jews in Israel today come from three groups, roughly:
1. 40% – Their neighbors closed the doors for the few that survived the Holocaust (e.g. Polish post ww2 pogroms) So, Israel was really a dumping ground for surviving European Jews.
2. 40% Their Arab neighbors expelled them on 1 days notice (Egypt)
3. 20% mostly in recent times, a combination of socio-economic reasons.
(Some fleeing discrimination (soviet Jewish quotas on education, etc) and some fleeing poverty)
Very, very few, if any, initially came to Israel for religious reasons alone.
Alan: Well I’ve slept on it, but I have to say I’m still (to put it mildly) hugely offended that you would accuse me of being anti-semetic. I really don’t pretend to understand the issues of the Middle East, I would rarely, if ever, post on the subject on this blog. I had hoped that just once by introducing a short personal story about me I could show that these sort of accusations bear no relation to the sort of person I am.
I’m sure you aren’t a homophobe, I really don’t think I am either. And I really would hope that people on here never think I’m anti-semitic. Whatever your personal opinion about BBC news coverage of the Middle East.
Finally of course being insulted by Licence Fee payers is one thing (just!) but really… 😉
Alan:
“Very, very few, if any, initially came to Israel for religious reasons alone.”
Quite.
My maternal-maternal great grandparents were among the founders of Tel Aviv, 1909. I don’t know if they were secular or religious, nor for how long they had been in the country. I do know that during WW1 they were expelled by the Turks from Tel Aviv and later came back.
My maternal grandfather came from a Russian-Jewish very religious family who emigrated to the US following the pogroms of 1905. Around 1917 he turned secular, tried and abandoned Cummunism, turned Zionist, came to Palestine where he met my Tel-Avivian grandmother and stayed.
My paternal great grandparents were Russian Jewish intellectuals, strictly secular and Zionists since the nineteenth century. For some reason they stayed in Russia until 1917, though my grandfather was home-schooled in Hebrew (among other languages). They passed through Berlin for the purpose of attending university, and settled in Palestine in 1925. They came with the entire extended family, which is why none perished in the Holocaust.
Both my parents were Palestinian born and bred. At that time, only Jews were called “Palestinian”. Both grew up as strictly secular.
I went to school in Tel Aviv in the 1950s, a decade after the Holocaust. I was a among the very few in my class with a full set of four grandparents, thanks to early twentieth-century secular zionism.
Dear Bryan,
My Heartfelt thanks for your support!
Dear Chris,
Many appologies for the tetchy nature of my reply and yes I do understand irony(a bit)!
Having reviewed your post and links I too feel that irony would be the only way of dealing with such obvious trash science.
Once again please accept my appologies for any offence caused.
Dear Roland Thompson Gunner,
You seem to take great pleasure in highlighting my shortcomings and lack of a technical English education? You make yourself appear to many here as nothing more than a petty elitist snob!
But heres the funny thing, you yourself make basic errors in your posts and most people are laughing at you, so how do you feel about that?
I have never(ever)met a person of the right who has looked down on another person because of a lack of tecnical English abilities whereas I have met many leftist/socialists(university educated) who seem to take a perverse pleasure in nitpicking and making fun of people with lesser abilities. Take what you will from that, I think it may be a kind of ‘small dog syndrome’.
There is a class of person on the rise who believe that they are superior to and should rule over the masses. Its a kind of socialist/leftist version of eugenics isnt it?
Why do I despise socialism Roland? Because its very best effort at running a country resulted in East Germany! and that is the kind of state that the ‘new left’ is trying so hard to recreate.
A word of well meant advice to you, nobody gives a 2nd hand s**t about you ‘superior’ education or your self proclaimed mastery of the English language, what we do care about are the facts and what is in a persons heart.
Anat (Israel) | 02.01.08 – 4:38 am,
On the subject of Jewish jokes, the incomparable Jackie Mason, putting himself in the shoes of the anti-Semite, came up with this dark humour:
“I don’t hate Jews, only those who are still living.”
Many a true word is said in jest.
We could adapt that to BBC attitudes:
“We don’t hate Israel, only an Israel that insists on being mainly Jewish and with defensible boundaries.”
Roland Thompson-Gunner:
“Let’s not get too bogged down in the details. We are not here to improve our English.”
No, BUT let’s keep in mind that the use of language is central to discussion here in away that it would be in few other forums.
😆
Cassandra | 02.01.08 – 8:27 am,
No problem. You evidently touched a nerve there with Gunner. And anonymous above picked up the same error I did.
Maybe you and Gunner should take the same English exam. I’m not convinced that he would get better marks.
Alan 5:28am…
“Maybe it is just another facet of the constant attempt to create an equivalence between Islam and Israel.”
This is something that I started to notice around the last quarter of 2007, I was going to blog about it, but never got around to it as it was just a background noise. Several times I heard something along the lines of – Islam declares that women are inferior to me, but so does Judaism OR Islam discrminates against homosexuals but so does Judaism. These remarks were heard being made by “experts” and callers on phone-in shows, so probably mostly Radio London.
FFS, this thread is getting out of hand !
Can we drop the fixation with Israel / Palestine , which is only a peripheral issue in the context of beeboid bias.
The primary problem that has to be dealt with, is the bbc’s institutionalised nulab bias – all the other issues spring from that !
As long as the bbc is allowed to continue pretending that we have an effective, functional government , and refrains from pointing out their failings, all other issues become irrelevant !
Dear Bryan,
As always your posts are intelligent, witty and informative. My dyslexia means that I have to work quite hard to decode and reasemble the jumble of words that all pieces of writing present themselves to me but over the years I have devised a system to overcome this, its not perfect and sometimes I get the wrong end of the stick! but I get by.
In my mind I know what I want to say, its just the bit in between that goes wrong from time to time!
If Roland Thompson Gunners silly critisisms are meant to shame me into giving up posting, then he has failed miserably and you have helped with your kind and supportive words(as has Alans).
I am even more determined to make my voice heard against the tide of biased leftist propaganda that spews forth from the BBC and its allies.
Dear Backwoodsman,
I have an instinctive sympathy with you as I grew up in the countryside and weep when I see the destruction and and scorn that the NuLab regime has wrought on your areas but I do feel that the BBC hatred of Israel and its gross bias and lies must be challenged and if that means that our domestic issues take a back seat then so be it.
Brave Israel is fighting for her very existence and her failure to triumph would be a disaster for us all. She is ‘the point of the sword of freedom’ and if she should fall then so shall we.
Given that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has sadly become a symbol for many many wider conflicts I think the Beeb’s refusal to cover it with any degree of intelligent analysis is very worthy of comment.
Reducing such a vastly complex conflict to some sort of third round FA cup tie where the plucky non league minnows are cheered patronisingly on against the overpaid, pampered Premiership giants (with multibillionaire foreign backing) is spectacularly lazy. I can personally do without equally lazy accusations of anti-semitism and wildly biased ‘history lessons’ from B-BBC commentators but at the very least a suggestion from the Beeb that the Palestinians have some sort of responsibility for their own situation wouldn’t go amiss.
My personal new years wish is that the Beeb might acknowledge that amidst a nation of mediocrity the City of London generates huge UK growth and effectively subsidises the public services splurges that they’re so keen on so it would be nice if they could acknowledge our efforts occasionally rather than banging on endlessly about evil pay differentials. Cheers.
Cockney,
Your “plucky non league minnows” are in fact the biggest reciepients of donation funds in the world history, not to mention that their case is championed by the richest petro-giants on earth. How all this support is spent is a question rarely asked though it should.
Your “biased history lessons from B-BBC commentators” happen to be the truth.
That you are not aware of these facts is entirely thanks to the likes of the BBC.
Backwoodsman,
If the bias is bias then it being a constant subject is far from being wrong it is in fact in the correct forum (whatever that subject is and that includes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict).
It is whether that is a bias and if so how to correct that bias that we have this blog.
What would be totally unacceptable is if this blog simply became a party political tool for supposed bias and that only.
I am no suporter of Nulab but if this blog became a BBC = Nulab blog rather than about all types of BBC bias I for one would have nothing further to do with it and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Cockney,
Whilst I generally sympathise with your post I must take issue with your comments about ‘wildly bias history lessons’, I don’t think you are being fair to those posters (apart from the intentionally malicious that is).
I did not make such posts but I understand the reasoning of putting forth evidence to back up points.
If that evidence is false, tarnished or wildly bias itself then point it out and clear it up, but the desire to back up opinion with evidence far from being admonished is to be applauded, long may that tradition continue.
Anat, I was taking the p*ss re: the FA cup tie analogy.
BJ, just giving my opinion. Anyone sensible who has widely absorbed opinion from sources sympathetic to each side (and both, and none) on the conflict would conclude that there’s a lot of subjectivity and not many indisputable facts flying around. I can obviously see that an Israeli or someone with Israeli links would push that line aggressively but I think that people using the whole thing as a bandwagon for their wider political beliefs are pretty childish (ergo ‘I am left wing/BBC employee therefore the Palestinians are blameless innocents’ / ‘I am right wing therefore Israel is always right’). You can always ‘prove’ anything from web links.
“I am no suporter of Nulab but if this blog became a BBC = Nulab blog rather than about all types of BBC bias I for one would have nothing further to do with it and I’m sure I’m not the only one.”
Since this is Biased BBC,surely the BBC bias against the British is a valid subject for discussion – taking into consideration we are the main source of finance for the Corporation.
Perhaps the way the BBC are the cheerleaders for the selling of the British people down the river to the EU could get more of a mention?
Peter,
I have no problem with any subjects of bias at all being covered including if people believe that there is party political bias or anti British bias or pro EU bias or whatever.
What is unacceptable is if this blog bans off certain areas or subjects of becomes purely party political.
I do not believe it will, but I do interpret some posts here or on previous threads that suggest this might actually be a good idea.
Cockney,
The subjectivity is valid to a degree though it is also surprising how often simple facts about the conflict are unknown or chosen to be distorted/omitted.
I suppose the best example of this would be how the Palestinians are seen as refugees yet the Jews that were expelled from Arab countries are not.
Yes its repeated here a lot (perhaps overly so) but its amazing how few people in the street seem to know this and the BBC seems to further rather than help in this state of ignorance.
Its true my natural inclination is towards the Israeli side, though certainly not always so, yet anyone that knows me is aware that I am not right wing, I always vote as I see its my civic duty, I am 43 and yet to ever vote for a right wing party.
This is not to give my biography but to emphasise that this is about BBC bias and not of one political party or ideology.
David Gregory,
“I have to say I’m still (to put it mildly) hugely offended that you would accuse me of being anti-semetic”
I apologize – I have no reason to believe you are antisemitic in any way and neither are most Britons.
I made a mistake delivered my grudge about the BBC too personally by commenting on that “Some of my best friends are …”
Now, imagine how Israelis feel upon being accused of rampant racism ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7136068.stm)
The original “study” was by an an anti-Israel far-left organization (Semi Michael is a real, declared communist). The spin was given by an anti-Israel Arab MK.
If you ever hit the streets of Tel-Aviv, you’ll see that it has nothing to do with reality.
I’ve met many a leftwinger who is anti-Israel by default because they see it as handing over a country to a religion.
The left do see Jewishness as only a reflection of religion and not ethnicity. Indeed, most make the point that Jews and Arabs are Semitic peoples.
Shug Niqqurath: “The left do see Jewishness as only a reflection of religion and not ethnicity. Indeed, most make the point that Jews and Arabs are Semitic peoples.”
He he, this is really priceless. For of the two concepts, the one with religious overtones is the second: “semitic” comes from a pseudo-scientific race theory using, among other sources, Biblical geneologies.