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.
Further to the Cuban elections, see here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7198094.stm
Where Castro is called ‘Head of State’, ‘most famous candidate’,’the world’s longest serving communist leader’, ‘undisputed head’ (funny that. I wonder what happens to anyone else who wants to dispute Castro’s position as ‘Head’ of Cuba?)
The only person who’s called a dictator is the previous (right wing) leader, Batista.
This fawning account of the Cuban process of rubber stamping the Cuban dictatorship contains precisely one and a half lines reporting the obvious truth about Cuba’s political system.
‘Critics call it a travesty of democracy that should be replaced by multi-party elections. ‘
But that is dismissed. ‘Cuba says its system, set up in 1976, is the most democratic in the world because money cannot buy votes and delegates are chosen at a neighbourhood level. ‘
Eagle eyed readers might spot, however, that ‘Half of the candidates are chosen by municipal authorities, the other half by organisations linked to the state, such as trade unions and the women’s movement.’ All movement which the BBC has assiduously supported of course.
My point is that the BBC consistently criticises countries whose genuine attempts and desire for democracy are in their infancy at the moment, whilst it blurs the travesty of the Cuban elections.
Why should we have to pay for this sort of blatant communist propaganda on their hugely expensive website?
In Justin Webb’s America blog on the BBC website he makes the comment about the US presidential vote in Michigan that “A Huckabee win would have allowed the former New York mayor to present himself as the alternative to the God-bothering tendency in the Republican party.”
You don’t have to be a supporter of Huckabee or the US religious right to see the pejorative nature of “God bothering” – I wonder when a BBC correspondent will use the phrase in relation to a Muslim politician?
Ah, thank you, Fran. I just remembered something about Cuba.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7198094.stm
“Critics call it a travesty of democracy that should be replaced by multi-party elections.”
Yes, BBC. Those “critics” include many of your brother journalists:
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=25099
On the Marx programme this AM, Clegg, showing the usual lefty intolerance for opposing views, described the Conservative policies on immigration & “Europe” as “swivel-eyed” (perhaps he believes the News at Ten person’s description of the immigration policy as being “extermination”). Marx let it pass without question.
Simon | 20.01.08 – 8:09 am
The Ron Paul forum appears to be having bandwidth problems, so I don’t know the nature of the article there.
But I think it is extremely dishonest of you to pretend in your post that I was peddling some kind of ‘revisionist interpretation’ of the Balfour Declaration back in December or giving unwarranted circulation to some anti-semitic meme.
What I quoted then • and linked to at the time • was the testimony of James Malcolm, who played a large part in bringing the Balfour Declaration into being and was one of its original moving spirits.
In a memorandum marked in his own handwriting “Private & Confidential” to Lord Peel and other members of the Royal Commission on Palestine in 1936, James Malcolm wrote: I have always been convinced that until the Jewish question was more or less satisfactorily settled there could be no real or permanent peace in the world, and that the solution lay in Palestine. This was one of the two main considerations which impelled me, in the autumn of 1916, to initiate the negotiations which led eventually to the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate for Palestine. The other, of course, was to bring America into the War. ….I had a part in initiating the negotiations in the early autumn of 1916 between the British and French Governments and the Zionist leaders, which led to the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate for Palestine. The first object, of course, was to enlist the very considerable and necessary influence of the Jews, and especially of the Zionist or Nationalist Jews, to help us bring America into the War at the most critical period of the hostilities. This was publicly acknowledged by Mr. Lloyd George during a recent debate in the House of Commons.
David Lloyd George also wrote, in his Memoirs of the Peace Conference:
I should like once more to remind the British public, who may be hesitating about the burdens of our Zionist Declaration to-day, of the actual war position at the time of that Declaration. We are now looking at the War through the dazzling glow of a triumphant end, but in 1917 the issue of the War was still very much in doubt. We were convinced – but not all of us – that we would pull through victoriously, but the Germans were equally persuaded that victory would rest on their banners, and they had much reason for coming to that conclusion. They had smashed the Roumanians. The Russian Army was completely demoralised by its numerous defeats. The French Army was exhausted and temporarily unequal to striking a great blow. The Italians had sustained a shattering defeat at Caporetto. The unlimited submarine campaign had sunk millions of tons of our shipping. There were no American divisions at the front, and when I say at the front, I mean available in the trenches. For the Allies there were two paramount problems at that time. The first was that the Central Powers should be broken by the blockade before our supplies of food and essential raw material were cut off by sinkings of our own ships. The other was that the war preparations in the United States should be speeded up to such an extent as to enable the Allies to be adequately reinforced in the critical campaign of 1918 by American troops. In the solution of these two problems, public opinion in Russia and America played a great part, and we had every reason at that time to believe that in both countries the friendliness or hostility of the Jewish race might make a considerable difference.
“Martin:
More BBC bollocks. Idiot reporting from Heathrow just now managed to get Margaret Thatcher into his report!!!! How I hear you say.
Well the BBC prat just said that there lay the wreck of the BA plane with those “controversial tail markings so hated by Margaret Thatcher”. The thick droid reporter then said that some planes still have the controversial tail markings including the crashed one.”
You’ve reminded me of how such apropos-of-nothing stuff can turn up on the Beeb – I had forgotten to note here the content of an interesting R4 docu on the life of the Sci-Fi comic 2000AD broadcast last Autumn, presented by the unpleasant Phil Jupitus. Attempting to contextualise the comic’s political sub-texts (this was after all the early days of the Thatcher govt and the writers interviewed made their distaste quite clear) the half-formed idea was put forward that the oppositional urge embodied in 2000AD was an expression of the disenfranchisement still experienced by the Scots! (like the Blues expresses for Black Americans)
I was on the way back from the pub when I heard The World Tonight’s report on the continuing violence in Gaza, so I assumed it was the beer making it sound so shocking. So I had another listen again on the Radio 4 website, and I realise that it wasn’t the beer; the BBC really does believe that Hamas’ rocket-firing exploits are completely trivial and mischevious because they only injure people!
Horrid eeeeevil Irael, which has grown up clinical weaponry, tends to take out the target permanently.
Listen to the piece again if you can. Can someone do a transcript?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/worldtonight/
Sproggett
Extraordinary link about imprisoned Cuban journalists. I’m going to link to it again.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3? …d_article=25099
It should be compulsory reading for that craven excuse of a journalist who wrote the BBC report. For all BBC journalists, in fact.
Your link shows what happens to herioc journalists, the ones who dare to tell the truth about Castro’s Cuba.
Chuffer
What the BBC consistently fails to report is the intention of the Hamas terrorists who have rained scores of rockets on Israel so far this year – which is to kill, injure and maim as many civilians as possible. On the other hand, when the Israelis carry out operations in the Gaza strip it’s the rocket operatives they are after, not women and children. However because of the craven nature of Hamas, they embed their operatives, launchers and weapons amongst women and children, hence the all too frequent deaths of, for example, children who have been allowed, encouraged even, to play around rocket launchers as the IDF attempts to destroy the weapons used to terrorise the Israeli population.
But do the BBC report this obvious fact? Of course not. Instead they routinely portray Israel as the aggressor and Hamas as the victim.
http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/One_Year_Analysis_The_BBC_in_2007.asp
Hamas and the BBC. Craven peddlers in lies.
I’ve listened to the report. Perhaps you can explain what you felt was biased about it?
Joel,
You’ll pulling my leg, surely!!
John Reith,
Your quotes only prove that David Lloyd George, like most members of the elites at the time, was not entirely above the antisemitic stereotypes, just like you are not today.
If you investigate the status of the Jews in America at that time, you will find out that they had limited or no access to most places in academia and politics, including Ivy League colleges (a ticket to politics). At the time in America, a very common sign was “No Jews and N******” above the doors in many places.
For a history of Jews throughout this period in America, take a look at a new PBS documentary on Jewish Americans (PBS can hardly be accussed of being pro-Israel).
JR, and the others, it would do you good to learn what antisemitism really is about. You might learn on why the saying that they first come for the Jews and then for the rest is literally true.
You could see it from our conversation about BBC’s cover up of Al-Sudais and other antisemitic sermons in British Mosques and subsequent events starting with 7/7. Or from the events of WW2 if you need some historical distance.
You will learn that antisemitism, although it targets the Jews, is not really about the Jews. I’ll give you a spoiler here – It is about the loss of power of the elites.
“It is about the loss of power of the elites.”
Well if that’s true we can certainly say that the French branch of the EU has certainly dealt with it’s Jewish problem. hr hr hr.
Fran | 20.01.08 – 4:05 pm
when the Israelis carry out operations in the Gaza strip it’s the rocket operatives they are after, not women and children.
Then they must be very poor shots. The total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces in Gaza in 2006 and 2007 is 816. Of these, 152 were minors, including 48 under the age of 14. In addition, say B’tselem, many men and women were killed in Gaza who took no part in the hostilities.
Sumayah Samir ‘Ata ‘Okal
14 year-old resident of Jabalya, North Gaza district, injured on 26.07.2006 in Jabalya, North Gaza district, by gunfire, from a tank, and died on 01.08.2006. Did not participate in hostilities when killed. Additional information: Killed with her mother and sister while sitting in their yard.
Maria Samir ‘Ata ‘Okal
5 year-old resident of Jabalya, North Gaza district, killed on 26.07.2006 in Jabalya, North Gaza district, by gunfire, from a tank. Did not participate in hostilities when killed. Additional information: Killed with her mother and sister while sitting in their yard.
Shahd Samir ‘Ata ‘Okal
Under 1 year-old resident of Jabalya, North Gaza district, killed on 26.07.2006 in Jabalya, North Gaza district, by gunfire, from a tank. Did not participate in hostilities when killed. Additional information: Killed with her mother and sister while sitting in their yard.
Asmaa ‘Ali ‘Abd a-Rasul ‘Okal
34 year-old resident of Jabalya, North Gaza district, killed on 26.07.2006 in Jabalya, North Gaza district, by gunfire, from a tank. Did not participate in hostilities when killed. Additional information: Killed while sitting in her yard with her children. Two of her daughters were killed and two were injured.
Samia Mahmoud Ziad a-Sharif
5 year-old resident of Gaza city, killed on 20.06.2006 in Gaza city, by gunfire, from a helicopter, during the course of a targeted killing. Additional information: Killed while was on her way to the grocery store beside her house.
Ihab ‘Abd al-Karim Ahmad Shatat
9 year-old resident of Jabalya Refugee Camp, North Gaza district, killed on 03.07.2004 in Jabalya Refugee Camp, North Gaza district, by gunfire, from a tank. Did not participate in hostilities when killed. Additional information: Killed while on his way to the grocery store.
Nahed Muhammad Fawzi a-Shanbari
15 year-old resident of Beit Hanun, North Gaza district, killed on 31.07.2006 in Beit Hanun, North Gaza district, by gunfire, from a tank. Did not participate in hostilities when killed. Additional information: Killed during an IDF incursion into the northern Gaza Strip, when an tank shell fell 7 meters from where he was.
Muhammad Jamal ‘Abed Rouqah
4 year-old resident of Gaza city, killed on 20.06.2006 in Gaza city, by gunfire, from a helicopter, during the course of a targeted killing. Additional information: Killed while was on his way to the grocery store beside his house.
And it’s not just kids.
Khaldeyeh Ahmad Hamdan a-Talbani
39 year-old resident of al-Maghazi Refugee Camp, Deir al-Balah district, killed on 30.12.2007 in Erez (Industrial Zone), North Gaza district, by gunfire. Did not participate in hostilities when killed. Additional information: Killed when soldiers opened fire at pilgrims from Mecca waiting at the checkpoint.
Bahjat Muhammad Barakeh Abu Daqa
30 year-old resident of Khan Yunis, killed on 07.12.2007 in Khan Yunis, by gunfire. Did not participate in hostilities when killed. Additional information: Killed when on his property with his relatives.
Majed ‘Awad Matar Matar
29 year-old resident of Beit Lahiya, North Gaza district, killed on 06.12.2007 in Jabalya, North Gaza district, by gunfire. Did not participate in hostilities when killed. Additional information: Killed while hunting birds with his brother and others about one kilometer from the Israeli border.
Hamdan Muhammad Hamdan Barhum
20 year-old resident of Khan Yunis, injured on 13.12.2006 in Rafah, by gunfire, and died on 21.12.2006. Did not participate in hostilities when killed. Additional information: Killed when he and two fishermen were in a boat on their way back to shore. The other two fishermen were wounded by the gunfire.
Meanwhile, over in the West Bank, not even the cops are safe:
Muhammad Khalil Muhammad Salah
35 year-old resident of Dar Salah, Bethlehem district, killed on 05.12.2007 in Bethlehem, by gunfire. Did not participate in hostilities when killed. Additional information: A policeman, he was shot and killed by Israeli undercover forces riding in a commercial vehicle when he ordered them to stop for inspection.
And going back a few years….how can you possibly excuse this?
Shadi Fa’iz Khalil al-Maghari
26 year-old resident of Rafah, killed on 19.05.2004 in Rafah Refugee Camp, by gunfire, from a tank. Did not participate in hostilities when killed. Additional information: Killed during an IDF incursion into Block O and into the Yabnah refugee camp, in Rafah. After demanding that all the males gather in the school yard, soldiers opened fire at them, killing three persons.
…contd/
On another thread there’s been a few comments about two IDF soldiers who were shot while out hiking. The story was covered by the BBC and DisHonestReporting made a big fuss (echoed and re-echoed here) because they felt the civilain nature of the pastime of hiking was underplayed.
Shooting hikers is wrong, eh? Well it seems to me you’re operating double standards.
Firas Mussa Mahmoud Qasqas
28 year-old resident of Battir, Bethlehem district, killed on 02.12.2007 in a-Tira, Ramallah and al-Bira district, by gunfire. Did not participate in hostilities when killed. Additional information: Killed when hiking with relatives on hills near the a-Tira neighborhood of Ramallah; without warning, soldiers opened fire at them from about 500 meters away.
http://www.btselem.org/English/
Fran – I’m not sure you want to encourage them to do more editorialising. They should just report the news. But what is actually newsworthy about this story – according to the BBC one of the top stories in the world today ?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7198989.stm
Cubans vote for new parliament
It’s not like we’re chewing our nails about the result. It’s not like the “election” is a surprise. It’s not like it matters. This is genuinely one of those non stories of so little importance that it deserves to be eased off the front pages for news about a Big Brother contestant’s hamster’s love life.
Bizarrely they add a link to the Cuban government’s tourism website. Que ?
Lee Moore | 20.01.08 – 5:49 pm
It’s not like it matters. This is genuinely one of those non stories of so little importance that it deserves to be eased off the front pages for news about a Big Brother contestant’s hamster’s love life.
No, it does matter. The beginning of the end-game for F Castro.
acting leader Raul Castro, said the new chamber would meet on 24 February, when it is expected to decide whether Fidel will remain president.
I’ll expand on my previous post.
As opposed to most other forms of racisms and xenophobias, antisemitism is presnt where there are virtually no Jews (e.g. Saudi Arabia).
In fact antisemitism of the last 2 centuries, sociologically goes together with conspiracies about Free Masons and Rotary clubs (as you will learn from reading Hamas’ charter). It is not in the same category in terms of its causes as for e
ample continental Europe’s visceral hatred for the Roma.
The results were the same – genocides on both Roma and Jews in WW2. But, sociolgically, the hatred for the Jews and Roma has somewhat different origins.
“Modern” antisemitism started more than a century before the “Protocols”.
Before 19th century, Jews were confined to ghettos in Christian World, and malahs in the Muslim world.
In Christendom, antisemitism was religiously motivated with addition to xenophobia – Jews were accused of Deicide. Plus, they were a recognizable minority and one of the most useful scapegoats when plague hits or something else goes wrong.
At that time, in the Muslim world Jews like Christians were dhimmis, with violent outbreaks and pogroms from time to time. It is off topic in this post, but it is a myth of the Left that there was no persecution of Jews in the Muslim world.
In the West, things began to change in the 18th and 19th century. Enlightenment swept the Western World. French and American revolutions brought separation of state and church.
Most Jews, throughout the period that followed could leave the ghettos, and they did, in droves. They started to be more and more integrated and they reached full equality in law by the end of 19th and beginning of 20th century.
Before 19th century, conspiracy theories about Jews (still confined to ghettos) trying to take over the world, would sound as ridiculous as to claim today that Roma are trying to take over the world.
However, throughout the Enlightenment, and to this day, religious authorities (i.e. the Church) in the West were losing power.
To explain this loss of power and fight it, some elements of the Church started circulating stories about Free Masons (a personification of insidious enlightened middle class) and Jews (among the subgroups that gained the most from the Enlightenment).
This is why you will hear these two often going together.
The conspiracy theories about Free Masons and Jews started with a less well known Jesuit priest soon after the French Revolution – L’Abbe Augustin Barruel, and it went throughout the 19th century.
Here is an example from last year, after Catholic church was accused of child abuse: http://www.ejpress.org/article/19131
The Czarist Russian secret service “Protocols” are just the culmination of these conspiracy theories, also not long before the Czarist regime lost its power.
Enlightenment in the Muslim world started mid-20th century. Their religious authorities are also trying to find someone to blame. They have accepted the Nazi antisemitic rhetoric transmitted to the founder of Muslim Brotherhood by Hitler (a good friend of Haj Amin Al-Hussaini – one of the founders o fMuslim). Later a lot of Nazis found refuge in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world, and furthered this rhetoric.
Islam didn’t have a religious concept of deicide, since Christ was not a considered a god but a prophet, but Muhammad was not very pleased to see that Jews wouldn’t accept him being a prophet.
The two rhetorics merged as can be seen from sermons by al-Sudais, et. al.
Shi’a world is not much different, literally, whenever a train derails in Iran, Zionists are to blame. How else are the Mullah’s going to explain Iran’s dreary internal situation to their population?
From article 17 of Hamas’ Charter:
The Moslem woman has a role no less important than that of the moslem man in the battle of liberation. She is the maker of men. Her role in guiding and educating the new generations is great. The enemies have realised the importance of her role. They consider that if they are able to direct and bring her up they way they wish, far from Islam, they would have won the battle. That is why you find them giving these attempts constant attention through information campaigns, films, and the school curriculum, using for that purpose their lackeys who are infiltrated through Zionist organizations under various names and shapes, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, espionage groups and others, which are all nothing more than cells of subversion and saboteurs. These organizations have ample resources that enable them to play their role in societies for the purpose of achieving the Zionist targets and to deepen the concepts that would serve the enemy. These organizations operate in the absence of Islam and its estrangement among its people. The Islamic peoples should perform their role in confronting the conspiracies of these saboteurs. The day Islam is in control of guiding the affairs of life, these organizations, hostile to humanity and Islam, will be obliterated.
From article 32 of Hamas’ Charter:
The Islamic Resistance Movement calls on Arab and Islamic nations to take up the line of serious and persevering action to prevent the success of this horrendous plan, to warn the people of the danger eminating from leaving the circle of struggle against Zionism. Today it is Palestine, tomorrow it will be one country or another. The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.
But even worse that Mulahs’ fall into conspiracy theories, today’s Left, after the fall of Communism and the demise of Left’s radical ideas about changing the world order, is trying to find someone to blame. Just look at the antiwar connection to the Troofer movement with conspiracies about 9/11.
Unsurprisingly, they blame America and most notably Republicans, which brought down the Soviet Union. But, for the Left an embodiment of America’s middle class power and supremacy over the Communism are the Conservatives/Zionists/Neocons. Neocons were the most anti-Soviet element in the Reagan administration and while America was losing to the “Left’s winds of communist change” in Vietnam, Israel kicked Soviet backed Arab’s collective asses (and started receiving millitary aaid from the US from that point on).
Now, antisemitism survives by converting previous stereotypes into new ones:
Religiously motivated xenophobia from the middle ages, into conspiracy theories about Free Masons and Jewish middle class that brought the demise of the Church.
And now into conspiracy theories about insidious Zionist Jewish Power as seen by Islamists and elements of the Left.
However, good news is, that the mere clinging to these theories proves that they are losing power, not gaining it.
That is the reason BBC will probably drop further into the nether world of its own making.
JR,
Your list of civilian victims of IDF fire was brought to us by an Israeli organization.
I think it is very clear to you, that Israel has mechanisms in place to try to minimize civilian casualties as much as possible.
IDF did not ambush those civilians they were killed in a defense operation. IDF doesn’t blow a bus full of schoolchildren like Hamas does.
I think you know very well that if rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza stopped, there would be no civilian casualties on both sides.
IDF’s 20%-30% collateral damage in urban area is much lower than what NATO had in Yugoslavia. Have you been there after the bombing in 2001? I have. Milosevic was bombed out of power, and justly so, but don’t think it didn’t come at a very heavy civilian price.
If you think all Israeli towns should slowly, as Hamas range expands, be evacuated to Alaska instead of responding, just say so openly.
John Reith,
Please take another gander at that Ron Paul forum article and then get back to me. It seems to be working now ( http://www.ronpaulforum.com/showthread.php?t=302154 ) (Try copying and pasting it into your browser). If you do a web search on the “reasons America entered World War 1” you will be hard-pressed to find mainstream historical accounts that swing the way both the Ron Paul forum article does as well as the “interpretation doing the rounds” does from your post. But more importantly, while not accusing you of anything more than presenting an independent point of view uncritically, I think you will see, when you read the article, the sort of terrifying, unvarnished anti-Semitism of the most egregious sort that makes comfortable bedfellows with the general “interpretation” to which you are referring. It’s basically “grooming” for genocide–the same tenor of argument that riled up the masses and easily allowed Hitler to gain support for the extermination of the Jews, and I’m not being in the least bit hyperbolic. Again, read the article and tell me if it doesn’t chill you to the bone.
I cxan’t work out who John Reith works for Hamas,Hezbollah or the BBC.
Alan | 20.01.08 – 5:31 pm
Your quotes only prove that David Lloyd George, like most members of the elites at the time, was not entirely above the antisemitic stereotypes, just like you are not today.
Alan, apart from being unnecessarily rude, you are a complete ignoramus.
Lloyd George was not anti-Semitic, in fact, he was a particular friend of the Jewish community. In 1903, the Zionist movement retained his services as their lawyer.
Given that he was the Prime Minister at the time of the Balfour Declaration was issued, I’d say he knew more about his motives for issuing it than you do.
If you investigate the status of the Jews in America at that time, you will find out that they had limited or no access to most places in academia and politics
Justice Louis Brandeis was a member of the Supreme Court at the time. He was a close friend and trusted adviser of President Woodrow Wilson. He was also the leader of the American Zionist movement.
The UK government was involved in lobbying Brandeis and seeking support from Jacob Schiff, the senior partner of Kuhn Loeb & Co and his business partners Paul and Felix Warburg. (Schiff had a history of supporting Germany in the war • perhaps because of Russian anti-Semitism). Balfour went to Washington and had lunch with Brandeis at the White House.
Henry Morgenthau Sr, by the by, – also Jewish – was the financial chairman of the US Democratic Party and chief fundraiser for the Wilson campaign. He was rewarded by being made US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. He too was active in zionist projects.
To explain this loss of power and fight it, some elements of the Church started circulating stories about Free Masons…
Oh good heavens. Do you know nothing about the anticlericalism of continental freemasonry in this period?
Your analysis of anti-Semitism is glib and in large part wrong. Back to your books. You can do better. Gamma treble minus.
JR,
You constantly bring B’Tselem quotes as if they are a 100% reliable source?
Just because they are Israeli doesn’t think they do not have an agenda of their own. Their purpose is to monitor and improve IDF’s, not Palestinian behavior. If we had the equivalent on the Arab side the situation would be much better.
Israel should be held responsible whenever it does something unethical, but B’Tselem only interviews Palestinians, and doesn’t conduct an independent investigation.
Also, it is not about excusing anyone. It is about providing an unbiased picture of the conflict and of both sides.
If Israel does something wrong it should be reported, and if Palestinians do something wrong it should be reported.
Saying that “Israel kills” while “Israelis were killed” instead of “Hamas kills” is not unbiased reporting!
Imagine if BBC constantly said “A group of black man killed a white girl”, but when the opposite happened, “A black man was found hanging from the tree”.
That is the equivalent of what BBC is doing. It would be accused of racism and incitement!
You are constantly missing what people are trying to tell you.
You are taking a side in the conflict and you do so openly, because you think you have a moral case.
If you were unbiased, your posting of the lists of Palestinian civilians killed should be followed by a list of Israeli civilians killed in the same period (including their involvement or non-involvement in combat operations).
People would then be left to reach their own conclusions.
People don’t like being patronized and constantly told what to think.
You are constantly trying to make a moral case against Israel to excuse BBC’s obvious bias.
If you seriously think that is what journalism is about, you must understand that most people do not agree with you.
They don’t agree with you, because you are not the prosecutor, judge and the jury on world affairs – from American Republicans, through Global Warming to Israel and lately the Czech republic.
In fact, BBC’s Leftist ideological line, combined with its usurpation of a public broadcasting service is exactly what gets people so pissed off. Read some of the talkbacks to the Times’ article about BBC launching a service to “educate” children. People are saying they will let there kids nowhere near the BBC “education”.
If, as you say the numbers from Arab-Israeli conflict speak for themselves, then verify them, post them and let the people reach their own conclusions.
But I think you know deep down that it just wouldn’t do the trick. People will see that it is complex problem that demands a complex solution.
John Reith
Your post is a classic example of BBC doublethinkspeak on the Middle East as you carry on the BBC smears and lies which imply that Israel is the aggressor, and not those who openly call for her destruction. I laugh in the face of your duplicity.
Palestinian terrorists deliberately place themselves and their civilian population in danger by carrying out attacks upon Israelis from hevily populated areas. Children are permitted – encouraged even – to play in areas from which rockets are fired. Terrorists use school yards as launch pads and homes to house explosives, weapons and missiles. As you very well know.
As of yesterday, over 200 rockets have been fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip. More rockets have been fired into northern Israel from Lebanon. The fact that they have not succeeded in their aim – which is to maim, murder and injure Jews – is not through lack of trying.
http://thisongoingwar.blogspot.com/
If the Palestinian terrorists had their way, there would be a list of Jewish dead as long as the records at Yad Vashem, and you know it. In view of the constant provocation meted out by various Arab thugs in the Middle East, the Israelis continue to act in a very restrained manner towards those who would carry out their very own final solution given half a chance.
John Reith | 20.01.08 – 6:44 pm |
Aw. I’m sorry JR, my analysis of anti-semitism is not mine.
And people reaching these conclusions hold professorships in many places in the world, unlike you!
Here’s Friday night’s World Tonight report. It’s tempting to fisk it, but it speaks for itself. I’ve done it word for word, so it reads a bit clumsily at times.
BBC: “In a moment, the latest from Gaza, where an Israeli air stike has left one dead ands forty injured.”
BBC: “This week has seen an escalation in violence between Israel and Hamas militants operating in Gaza. A series of rocket attacks on Israeli towns resulted in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza city which left one woman dead and more than 40 people injured. The target was the Interior Ministy building of Gaza’s Hamas-run government. A wedding was taking place nearby, and many of those hurt were women and children. The BBC’s Hameda Abu Kamar [apol. if wrong] was in central Gaza today, and he went to the hospital where the injured were taken.
HAK: According to medical sources, one woman – one old woman – has killed in this attack, and more than forty injured. I was talking to the injured people who were there. They told me they were dancing at the wedding and “‘suddenly we heared an explosion, and everything in front of us was dark.’ I also talked to the mother of the groom. She was completely shocked and she told me: ‘From wedding day, it will be like a funeral day.’
BBC: “Israel has said that it was targeting Hamas fighters in this attack. From what you saw, was there any evidence that they were there?”
HAK: “According to what I have seen in the hospital, there was no militants there. Most of them, they were children, women, old men and young people who were dancing in the street. They belonged to one family, and according to witnesses also in the place, the building has been attacked before. It was empty; it has been attacked by Israeli aircraft before.”
BBC: “And what sort of area is it?”
HAK: “It’s actually in the heart of the Gaza Strip.It’s a residential area where you find high buildings, 40 to 50m appartments, but exactly in front of the building, the wedding was there.”
BBC: “THe BB’c HAK. Well, late last night, Israel closed the border with Gaza. The UN Agency providing relief said today it had been unable to do so, and this would only worsen an already dire situation. Earlier, I spoke to Israeli government spokesman, Ari Mekel.[I think] I started by asking him what the reason for today’s attack was.”
AM: “This is a reaction to the ongoing barrage of rockets by Hamas which is going on every day now, particularly against the city of Sredot [?] in southern Israel.”
BBC “Would you say that your attacks are proportionate to the provocation?”
AM “Of course! You know, Hamas has decided that they will continue to target civilians. Today, in fact, one of the rockets hit a nursery school, and again, one of those miracles – if you will – prevented a terrible disaster; and we have to react.”
BBC “But the death toll is very unequal. Over 30 Palestinians have died in the last few days. Israelis have been injured, but there haven’t been deaths.”
AM: “It’s not about that. Those Palestinians that have been killed are terrorists, and they are paying the price.”
BBC: ” But, Mr. Mekel, there are innocent people who are being killed and injured as well!”
AM: “Unfortunately, in a war, this happens, and, when they shoot, they attack civilians. I mean, there is nobody else in Sredot but civilians. So when they decide to attack our civilians, what should we do? The ball is really in the Hamas court.If they stop it, it will be quiet. That’s it.”
BBC: “Israeli Govt. spokesman, Ari Mekel. Well, Khazi Hamad [?, again] is a Hamas spokesman. Does he feel that the ball is in Hamas’ court?”
KH: “I don’t think that Israel is interested to stop the military action against our people. They say that the rockets are the reason but if you look along one year then maybe one or two people were killed in the Israeli side. But in the Palestinian side there were more than 600 people were killed. What’s happened in Gaza in the last week is very shocking all the Palestinians. People are still telling us: women, children, old men, innocent people, they are killed daily. And all the time Hamas has stopped launching their missiles against Israel. But, maybe, in the last two days, they started to fire missiles as a reaction for the Israeli crimes in Gaza. And we have not tanks, we have no aircraft, no missiles like Israel – people make primitive missiles, injure people, not kill them. Because of this, I don’t think there’s some kind of balance between the military tools of the Palestinian people and the, what is found in the Israel side. There is no comparision.”
BBC: “Hamas spokesman KH”
Truly amazing.
John Reith | 20.01.08 – 6:44 pm |
So let me see. British government at the time had to go though the “Zionists” to get to the US president, and not through their ambassador and millions of British expats living in the US?
What are you reading there? Just how do you think world affairs work? Is there is always a Jewish intermediary somewhere in the process?
In WW1 Jews were cannon fodder like everyone else on both sides. Unbelievable.
JR,
Since you must bring it I’ll tell you something philo-semitism is in many cases the flip side of the same prejudice of Jewish power.
Do you know for example that in the late 1990′ almost every city in Serbia
had its own “Organization of Serb-Jewish Friendship”, even though there were only about 2000 Jews left there, concentrated in Belgrade.
Milosevic, too thought that Jews control the world and that they could help him.
If you can read Serbian cyrilic, I’ll send you an article from a state owned paper from the time.
If you say that David LLoyd George had this issue among others in his negotiations with the Americans, that’s another thing. But to spawn yet another conspiracy theory about why America got into WW1 is insidious, and you should be ashamed.
Also, contrary to the popular belief encouraged by the BBC, for most part US was not particularly sympathetic to Israel before 1967. When Israel seemed to be the only one successfully stopping Communist expansion in the world.
John Reith | 20.01.08 – 6:44 pm |
I also see that you have a full list of Jews in power in the US throughout ages available to you.
Where is this coming from?
Alan | 20.01.08 – 6:59 pm
Alan, if (like you) I were quoting the words of some unnamed academics then you could well scoff.
But I am quoting the words of the Prime Minister who actually issued the Balfour Declaration and of the senior diplomat whose idea it originally was.
I am not (like you) peddling views or interpretations but the accounts of the protagonists themselves. They should know why they came up with the Declaration.
If it still isn’t clear, here’s more from Lloyd George’s Memoirs:
The support of the Zionists for the cause of the Entente would mean a great deal as a war measure. Quite naturally Jewish sympathies were to a great extent anti-Russian, and therefore in favour of the Central Powers. No ally of Russia, in fact, could escape sharing that immediate and inevitable penalty for the long and savage Russian persecution of the Jewish race. In addition to this, the German General Staff, with their wide outlook on possibilities, urged, early in 1916, the advantages of promising Jewish restoration to Palestine under an arrangement to be made between Zionists and Turkey, backed by a German guarantee. The practical difficulties were considerable; the subject was perhaps dangerous to German relations with Turkey; and the German Government acted cautiously. But the scheme was by no means rejected or even shelved, and at any moment the Allies might have been forestalled in offering this supreme bid. In fact in September, 1917, the German Government were making very serious efforts to capture the Zionist Movement………
..It was believed, also, that such a declaration would have a potent influence upon world Jewry outside Russia, and secure for the Entente the aid of Jewish financial interests. In America, their aid in this respect would have a special value when the Allies had almost exhausted the gold and marketable securities available for American purchases. Such were the chief considerations which, in 1917, impelled the British Government towards making a contract with Jewry.
Nevada – shock – Hilary DID NOT ACTUALLY WIN the delgates who vote for the candidate!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7199181.stm
The BBC View which includes a wee dig and an attempt to undermine Obama…
“The Associated Press reported that Mr Obama had won 13 delegates to Mrs Clinton’s 12, partly because Mr Obama performed strongly in rural areas where a small lead is more likely to yield an extra delegate.”
Funny how they’ve been saying for days that it was the union in Las Vegas that would win it for Obama not the rurals which is why Clinton tried to nobble the Catering Union cacuses…BBC changing their story again?
Alternative view:
“After Hillary Clinton won a six-point victory over Barack Obama yesterday, the Obama campaign unexpectedly announced that they had actually won more delegates. The complicated formula for distributing delegates turned out to give Obama a one-point advantage. The Clinton campaign immediately denied this, but as NBC reports, the loss of the popular vote has not kept Obama from winning the election:
The Nevada Democratic Party just issued this clarification (emphasis is ours): “No national convention delegates were awarded. That said, if the delegate preferences remain unchanged between now and April 2008, the calculations of national convention delegates being circulated by the Associated Press are correct. We look forward to our county and state conventions where we will choose the delegates for the nominee that Nevadans support.”
What does this mean? It looks like the Obama camp’s math (as well as the AP’s and NBC’s) is correct. ”
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/016691.php
So why does the BBC continue to say Hilary won without qualification and minimise the fact that she actually did not win the majority of delegates who (in theory but see below) will be the ones to decide whether she or Obama goes against McCain/Rudi or whoever in November?
But don’t forget that Hilary has apparently got most of the superdelegates (nominated by the states/committees and DNC and NOT voted for) who were mostly appointed by hubby Bill. Funny how we are STILL not seeing this undemocratic aspect of the election being explained by the BBC. So even if Obama wins the majority of the normal delegates which he has done so far, he might still lose the nomination thanks to Bill and Hilary’s corrupt practices. And the Dems and BBC whinged about Bush!
Come on BBC – give the WHOLE story not just the Hilary approved version!
John Reith,
Over the last month or so your posts have become patronising, overtly anti-Israeli and do the BBC a disservice.
I suggest that you either change your moniker or just go away.
You claim to represent the BBC, yet you seem to spend your time attacking the Israelis, as a BBC employee I do not wish to have you by default defending me or my employer.
As you know very well the BBC is the same as any other organisation, we have our strengths and our weaknesses, your weakness seems to be your clear left wing bias.
As for some of the other posters here, I can only say grow up, the BBC does many things very well, and yet I find no comments of support.
John Reith,
Read the Ron Paul blog and then tell me whether you don’t think peddling this business is dangerous.
Seriously.
London:
“As for some of the other posters here, I can only say grow up, the BBC does many things very well, and yet I find no comments of support”
You are not looking hard enough then. Time and again we have pointed out when the BBC HAS got it right and we’ve linked to articles where we feel that it has been balanced and good reporting – Paul Reynolds has been mentioned many a time. We celebrate these occasions as times when we feel that BBC people are listening.
PS:
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/taxonomy.html
For those who want to see the various types of thing that JR and his fellows use to try and deny some reasoned arguments that point out bias or lack of balance herewith a complete guide to fallacies and how to twist things. (Original copyright the Labour Party 1997 onwards)
Alan
IDF’s 20%-30% collateral damage in urban area is much lower than what NATO had in Yugoslavia. Have you been there after the bombing in 2001? I have. Milosevic was bombed out of power, and justly so, but don’t think it didn’t come at a very heavy civilian price.
I believe 27 people were killed by the NATO bombing of Belgrade.
“As for some of the other posters here, I can only say grow up, the BBC does many things very well, and yet I find no comments of support.”
Perhaps because it is called “Biased BBC”,a bit of a give away really.
You are right about John “So Called” Reith,he sounds more like a Palestinian public relations officer.
London’s right. We don’t, I feel, spend enough time highlighting the BBC’s good points. Fawlty Towers was awesome. And one shouldn’t overlook the skill of putting out something – Last of the Summer Wine – wherein each episode has the exact same plot for thirty-odd years and still having it be interesting in a ‘Eh, it’s sunday and I’m bored stupid, but it’s too early to go to bed yet’ sort of way.
Oh, and Dad’s Army – that was good too.
So, it’s not all terrible.
London | 20.01.08 – 7:39 pm
You claim to represent the BBC
Wrong. I have consistently denied doing that. I represent myself.
you seem to spend your time attacking the Israelis
No I don’t. I attack wrong-headed criticisms of the BBC, often posted by Israelis who consider the BBC’s reporting of the Middle East is somehow at fault because it is not as stridently and unreasoningly partisan i favour of everything Israel does as the critics themselves.
your weakness seems to be your clear left wing bias.
You can’t have been reading long.
Censorship
Radio 4 PM on Saturday evening, a female interviewer called Jenny interviewing Conservative MP Phil Hammond about Northern Rock. He explains that the Goldman Sachs idea to issue govt. backed bonds would expose taxpayers to Northern Rock risk for many years; he added that the creditors i.e. taxpayers interests must be protected, and she replied “what about the shareholders ?”
I “listened again” on iPlayer, but her remark has now been deleted! – I wonder why?
John Reith
A bit like someone called Keir Hardy commenting on the Labour Party.
“taxpayers interests must be protected, and she replied “what about the shareholders ?”
Why was it deleted? The BBC realised that any reference to “shareholders” was a bit dodgy.
JR,
What you are doing is digging for quotes.
Lloyd George probably expressed in his memoirs that this was one of the venues he used. I have to yet to read his memoirs, but I would be very surprised if what you are posting here was not in a context of a myriad of sometime contradictory political considerations he had to deal, like any politician in a real world.
More than that, if you posted the entire chapter, I believe it would be obvious that this was a small part of his considerations.
John Reith
No I don’t. I attack wrong-headed criticisms of the BBC, often posted by Israelis who consider the BBC’s reporting of the Middle East is somehow at fault because it is not as stridently and unreasoningly partisan i favour of everything Israel does as the critics themselves.
You have resorted to that old standby ‘You say everything Israel does is right’
How many times have I heard that? The signal of desperation.
I haven’t heard anyone, ever, say ‘everything Israel does is right,’ including Israelis, who, in fact are insanely self critical. All everyone here is asking for from the BBC is balance, fair representation of Israelis, realistic understanding of Jews and Arabs untainted by suspicion of one and sentamentalisation of the other.
As the BBC’s influence is worldwide, comments from any nationality should be equally valid. Furthermore, who else are in a better position than posters from Israel to set you right on the subject.
JR,
“I believe 27 people were killed by the NATO bombing of Belgrade.”
Really!?
They killed more than 27 in a single raid on RTS (Radio-Television of Serbia). Entire buildings we brought to dust. NATO also used graphite bombs to cut the power to most of Serbia!
From the wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War#Civilians_killed_by_NATO_airstrikes
Yugoslavia claimed that NATO attacks caused between 1,200 and 5,700 civilian casualties. NATO acknowledged killing at most 1,500 civilians. Human Rights Watch counted a minimum of 488 civilian deaths (90 to 150 of them killed from cluster bomb use) in 90 separate incidents. Attacks in Kosovo overall were more deadly – a third of the incidents account for more than half of the deaths.
But – It stopped the wars in the Balkans! And was probably the right thing to do! Even for the Serbs that could finally get rid of Milosevic!
But your 27 civilian casualties figure, only proves how delusional you are in singling out of Israel and only shows your true colors!
London:
“As for some of the other posters here, I can only say grow up, the BBC does many things very well, and yet I find no comments of support”
I am really sorry for that. In fact I think some of what BBC does is fantastic. I watched the Planet Earth in HD. The only word is fantastic.
However, when it comes to news reporting, I think that the entity know as John Reith on this board accurately represents the majority opinion.
And you are not right to try to silence him because he/she/they is/are embarrassingly obvious in his/her/their bias.
Certainly by looking at the articles on bbcnews site or by watching BBC World or by hearing anecdotes about Bush as Hitler picture in that news room, he represents the true BBC.
London,
I almost forgot: B-BBC is here to point to flaws in BBC’s worldview.
Just like HRW or Amnesty are there to point flaws and abuses of various countries.
HRW doesn’t often publishes a report on how the US judicial system is in fact doing a fabulous job in 95% of the cases. They publish 5% that are bad.
I think that BBC’s bias, at least in their news reporting, is still very far away from being ok in 95% of the time. And even then the task of a media watchdog would be to point to cases of bias.
Controls on biased media organizations are a relatively new animal, but they are going to become more and more common.
As I posted previously, in democracies there are controls on government’s political powers, these days there are more and more controls on good governance of corporation boards and executives.
For, media organizations this is only emerging.
Alan | 20.01.08 – 8:41 pm
But your 27 civilian casualties figure, only proves how delusional you are
Since you quote Human Rights Watch, you’ll no doubt have read their report, which names the 27 people killed in Belgrade and New Belgrade during the NATO bombing.
They killed more than 27 in a single raid on RTS
16 were killed in the raid on RTS on April 23 1999. Wikipedia lists their names. They are the same 16 names recorded by HRW as being killed on that date and are among the 27 total.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_the_Radio_Television_of_Serbia_headquarters
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/nato/Natbm200-03.htm
Concerning John Reith…
I often wonder if the BBC would find it acceptable that one of their ’employees’ (or several) are posting here under the name of John Reith.
I wonder if the relatives or estate of the real John Reith would be impressed by such a snooty, pompous jew hating bully hijacking his name and doing so under a BBC IP address from a BBC office.
Incidentally, I apply the term ’employee’ loosly to JR as he spends his entire working day here flexing his ego, and cannot therefore be contributing anything to BBC output.
John Reith:
“I attack wrong-headed criticisms of the BBC, often posted by Israelis who consider the BBC’s reporting of the Middle East is somehow at fault because it is not as stridently and unreasoningly partisan i favour of everything Israel does as the critics themselves.”
Oh god, I’m doubled over from laughter!
Hands up who here is an Israeli?
Lefty twat.
The People’s Front of Judea | 20.01.08 – 9:04 pm
Well whatever he’s doing he certainly isn’t doing it on the BBC’s time or ‘under a BBC IP address from a BBC office’ – well, only very rarely.
Hands up who here is an Israeli?
Bryan, anat, deegee, plus a couple of others.