I just saw this story and like most others, I am shocked at this wicked act of murder that has taken place at a Jewish seminary in west Jerusalem. However from this poorly written (or is it?) BBC story you would struggle to even see this as an act of premeditated murder. Consider the language – the culprits were “gunmen” apparently. No they weren’t – they were dedicated Palestinian terrorists who used guns to kill the young Jewish students. You have to read down quite a bit to you get to the “Hamas praise” heading. Indeed Hamas do praise those who have brought death to these religious seminary, but the BBC helpfully adds that those who study here identify with the leadership of the Jewish settlement movement – who believe the West Bank should be in Jewish and not Palestinian hands. Mmm, and the BBC also remind us that Israeli forces launched a raid into northern Gaza in which more than 120 Palestinians – including many civilians – were killed. No insight provided into where this 120 deaths figure comes from, or how many were Hamas terrorists. I’m sorry to have to keep banging on this Middle East theme (will change tomorrow!) but I think this report is almost written from the viewpoint that the Jews were just asking for this kind of act of reprisal. I also notice that at the very bottom of the page this act of mass murder is described as an “incident”. Pure bloody bias.
THE JERUSALEM “INCIDENT”.
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… how does Nick Miles being a liar make Alan Johnston’s and Jeremy Bowen’s reporting biased?
And how does Nick Miles being a liar justify his continuing employment at the BBC, or indeed in any news organization worthy of our trust?
Bryan and Simon.
Why do you keep picking him up?
Leave him in the pram.
Sue | 12.03.08 – 10:52 am
It seems that the young one is the typical product of a leftie university “education” and has emerged from the institution big on bravado, self-importance and with a degree in nitpicking, but short on facts, logical consistency and the ability to concede that he’s made a mistake.
Alex evidently has something between his ears – if not his “lecturers” would have had nothing to manipulate – but “debate” with the young one is a waste of time, unless and until he realises how and why he has been abused.
And how does Nick Miles being a liar justify his continuing employment at the BBC, or indeed in any news organization worthy of our trust?
Galil | 13.03.08 – 1:40 am
Be interesting to see whether the BBC apologises here. The propagandists will probably have an initial sweep-it-under-the-carpet reaction but even they might realise how seriously this impacts on what’s left of their credibility.
If they do come up with an apology, here’s how they’ll probably frame it:
*Unfortunate mistake
*Error of judgement
*Editorial error
Here’s how they should frame it:
*Extraordinary breach of the trust our audience places in the BBC
*Those responsible have been suspended immediately pending a full inquiry
I’ll dream on.
While Alex hums and hahs, dissects semantics, employs straw men and any manner of distraction, the BBC’s lie is out there with no sign of a correction or retraction.
Just like the Al-Dura affair the damage has been done. Legions of Arabs and terrorist sympathizers just like Alex will use the act that never happened to justify more violence against Israel.
Even as Alex initially conceded there was no justifying it he then goes on to justify it and rest importance from it. The lie is taken as truth because the gullible and the evil ones want it to be so.
The BBC may even believe that the lie was a result of one the three reasons Bryan gives above but the truth is it fits so well with their prejudice against Israel that they took it on face value without a second thought.
The BBC, by showing and commenting on a faked house demolition, are guilty of incitement to violence against Israelis and against all Jews around the world.
They’ve added another blood libel to the battery of antisemitic myths like the dipping of matzot in childrens’ blood and the fantasies described in The Protocols of The Elders of Zion.
The BBC, and whoever defends it in this instance, should be thouroughly ashamed of themselves.
Galil:
the damage has been done. Legions of Arabs and terrorist sympathizers just like Alex will use the act that never happened to justify more violence against Israel.
Like you, I’m baffled as to why the BBC should say Abu Dhein’s home was demolished when it wasn’t. I await their views on this with interest.
Several points, though:
1. A number of Israeli media including ynet-news and the decidedly conservative Arutz Sheva site also reported an immediate demolition as news:
The Jerusalem family’s home was immediately reduced to rubble by IDF bulldozers that razed it to the ground following the massacre.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125498
2. Someone got their house demolished following the yeshiva killings. This from the reliable Jerusalem Post:
The Shin Bet said Shehada had maintained direct contacts with Islamic Jihad headquarters in Syria and regularly received instructions from Damascus regarding attacks. His home was demolished by the IDF following last Thursday’s terrorist attack at the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1205261315401&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
3. Is it possible therefore that the BBC got the right story but the wrong name? An error, certainly, but not exactly a blood libel?
4. Why is the reporting of a demolition – whether true or false; whether they got the wrong name or not – an incitement to violence against Israelis and against all Jews around the world.?
It’s not as if Israel does not want to demolish Abu Dhein’s family home. The JP again:
The aide told The Jerusalem Post by phone that (Public Security Minister) Avi Dichter had instructed the police to obtain a demolition order from the High Court, though he could not say when the order would be granted.
“The home could be demolished today, tomorrow or further down the line if the High Court delays the process,” the aide said, adding that “police will secure the site while the home is being destroyed.”
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1205261313789&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
5. One home has been demolished, and if the Public Safety Minister completes the legal process, so will Abu Dhein’s. In reporting the Shehada demolition, and/or the eventual Abu Dhein demolition, will the world’s media still be guilty of an incitement to violence against Israelis and against all Jews around the world.?
6. Why is the BBC’s potentially erroneous reporting of one demolition a blood libel, but the JP’s reporting of one actual demolition and another potential demolition not a blood libel?
Like you, I’m baffled as to why the BBC should say Abu Dhein’s home was demolished when it wasn’t. I await their views on this with interest.
I’m not holding my breath…
4. Why is the reporting of a demolition – whether true or false; whether they got the wrong name or not – an incitement to violence against Israelis and against all Jews around the world.?
Can you really not see?
If the story is false, which it certainly seems to be, it is most certainly incitement, or at the very least justification for violence – just as the murder of eight young boys was justified on the grounds that Israel had previously killed even more children.
If a house is demolished there will be protests and oaths sworn to revenge the act, fair enough. But if a house was not demolished but people think it was any act of revenge will be wholly attributable to the false report, not to an actual demolition.
It’s not as if Israel does not want to demolish Abu Dhein’s family home.
That statement proves what I said above:
The BBC may even believe that the lie was a result of one the three reasons Bryan gives above but the truth is it fits so well with their prejudice against Israel that they took it on face value without a second thought.
You are effectively saying that it doesn’t matter if the BBC falsifies a report about house demolition because Israel demolishes houses anyway.
Carry that one step further and why not fabricate reports about Israel lining up a school full of kids and executing them against a wall – we all know that Israel kills kids anyway?
Why worry if the Al-Dura report by French TV was true or not – Israel has shot innocent people and kids before and after?
A bit like the famous Dan Rather “Memogate” affair which CBS defended as being “fake but true” or the ambulance hit by an Israeli missile?
Why not fabricate a report that Israel has taken truckloads of “Palestinians” into the desert and after shooting them all in the back of the head has buried them in mass graves – we all know that Israel is committing “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing”?
5. One home has been demolished, and if the Public Safety Minister completes the legal process, so will Abu Dhein’s. In reporting the Shehada demolition, and/or the eventual Abu Dhein demolition, will the world’s media still be guilty of an incitement to violence against Israelis and against all Jews around the world.?
That will depend on exactly how the eventual demolition is reported.
The fact remains that the BBC reported something that hasn’t happened yet, and may even not happen.
You don’t get it because you simply don’t want to. The fact that you’re even prepared to defend the BBC in this case, and with the terms you’ve used, says it all really.
Hillhunt: fake but true.
Hillhunt:
1. A number of Israeli media including ynet-news and the decidedly conservative Arutz Sheva site also reported an immediate demolition as news:
The Jerusalem family’s home was immediately reduced to rubble by IDF bulldozers that razed it to the ground following the massacre.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125498
Look again, no mention of it, except this enigmatic phrase:
“We saw on TV that the family in Jerusalem was holding a public event. We didn’t see the Israeli police prevent people from arriving at the family house there.” No mention was made of the fact that the family house in Jerusalem had been demolished by the IDF.
Perhaps no mention was made (by another Jordanian relative) because it didn’t happen?
2. Someone got their house demolished following the yeshiva killings. This from the reliable Jerusalem Post:
The Shin Bet said Shehada had maintained direct contacts with Islamic Jihad headquarters in Syria and regularly received instructions from Damascus regarding attacks. His home was demolished by the IDF following last Thursday’s terrorist attack at the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1205261315401&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Yes, someone, in Bethlehem and not Jerusalem, and although chronologically following the Jerusalem massacre, but not neccesarily as a result of it, do be careful about selectively quoting:
The Shin Bet said Shehada had maintained direct contacts with Islamic Jihad headquarters in Syria and regularly received instructions from Damascus regarding attacks. His home was demolished by the IDF following last Thursday’s terrorist attack at the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem – in which eight students were killed – leading to speculation, dismissed by the Shin Bet on Wednesday, that he was involved in planning the attack.
So how did the BBC confuse that demolition of a terrorist’s house in Bethlehem with the fictitious demolition of another terrorist’s family’s house in East Jerusalem?
Galil:
I get it that they shouldn’t say a named person’s home has been demolished when it hasn’t been. I do think they should explain that point (as should ynet and Arutz Sheva).
But it’s a leap of staggering proportions to suggest that one story about the demolition of a house becomes an incitement and/or blood libel per se when many other such stories are reported.
Israel acknowledges that it knocks down people’s homes in such circumstances. If it was the Shehada house they showed, and the reporter simply got the name wrong, what then?
If they’d used the right name to report a real demolition, would that still be an incitement or a blood libel?
Factual errors are serious on major stories and the BBC needs to explain the circumstances honestly. But to suggest that Palestinians are more likely to get wound up by this than by the many factually accurate reports of real demolitions is to talk nonsense.
And to conjure up the atavistic horros of blood libel is to reduce legitimate criticism of the BBC to a nasty slur.
I suspect you will dismiss the following, but some of your less paranoid colleagues might find something of interest. A senior editorial figure from Ha’aretz is quoted at length on the “nascent McCarthyism” of British pro-Israelis believing that they serve the national cause by picking on the Guardian and the BBC while ignoring the bigger picture.
As a bribe to make you read it, you also get an apology from the Guardian’s editor.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/mar/12/theguardian.pressandpublishing
It’s possible that the video used by the BBC is in fact footage of this unrelated event in Bethlehem, also referred to in the JPost article linked by Hillhunt above:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/963700.html
In Wednesday’s action, the security forces entered Bethlehem under cover to arrest Shahade. There they found the four in a car, armed with an M-16, pistols and grenades. They were killed after they left a restaurant near the government center in Bethlehem.
Karkur was hiding in a house when the security forces surrounded it. They called on him to leave the house, and after he did not respond to demands to turn himself in, the army used heavy engineering equipment to force him out.
Shots were then fired at the soldiers from inside the house, and explosive devices were also hurled at the forces. Karkur was killed during the exchange of fire. No soldiers were injured.
The IDF said Wednesday that Karkur was found with an Kalashnikov assault rifle, ammunition and explosive devices.
According to village resident Abdel Karim Hammad, whose family lives in the house where Karkur was hiding, Karkur refused to come out, a gunfight erupted, and Karkur was shot and killed. The Israelis then demolished half of the house and arrested Hammad’s father for harboring a wanted gunman, he said.
So, not only did the BBC use footage from an unrelated incident to infer that Israel had demolished the house of an innocent family, they also failed to faithfully report the actual attempted arrest and eventual killing of a wanted mass murderer.
The BBC: Fake but True
Galil:
So, not only did the BBC use footage from an unrelated incident to infer that Israel had demolished the house of an innocent family,
Would this be the same family whose home the Public Security Minister Avi Dichter has announced his intention to, um, demolish?
they also failed to faithfully report the actual attempted arrest and eventual killing of a wanted mass murderer.
On your account they also failed to report the demolition of his father’s home. Which is the very thing you believe is most likely to wind up Palestinian fury…
If Israel has a publicly acknowledged policy of knocking down people’s houses in this way, why are you sensitive about the minutiae of reporting it?
If Nick Miles got the name wrong, the BBC should acknowledge it and say how they intend to put this right. If he made the whole thing up and used a bit of random archive to pretend something had happened then the BBC needs to take it very seriously.
But step back from the nonsense about blood libels. You know it ain’t so.
.
I suspect you will dismiss the following, but some of your less paranoid colleagues might find something of interest. A senior editorial figure from Ha’aretz is quoted at length on the “nascent McCarthyism” of British pro-Israelis believing that they serve the national cause by picking on the Guardian and the BBC while ignoring the bigger picture.
This is the same David Landau who advocates the US “raping” Israel, “for the sake of world peace”.
http://backspin.typepad.com/backspin/2007/12/uproar-over-haa.html
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0108/glick010408.php3
Would this be the same family whose home the Public Security Minister Avi Dichter has announced his intention to, um, demolish?
Yes, and the request is going through the process of being authorized or denied by Israel’s High Court. IT HASN’t BEEN DEMOLISHED YET.
If Israel has a publicly acknowledged policy of knocking down people’s houses in this way, why are you sensitive about the minutiae of reporting it?
Minutiae?
Hillhunt: The Truth is a mere detail, minutiae.
Galil:
Hillhunt: The Truth is a mere detail, minutiae
I don’t think you are reading as carefully as you could.
I freely acknowledge several times above that the truthfulness of the BBC report is a serious matter which the BBC needs to explain and, if necessary, act upon.
My challenge to you is this: Can you separate out error (if that’s what it is) from motive?
And if lots of people report home-demolition events, why are they not inciting terrorism? Or committing blood libel?
.
My challenge to you is this: Can you separate out error (if that’s what it is) from motive?
I can point to a predisposition to believe untruths, or errors if you wish to call them so, when reporting on Israel. I explained this in an earlier post.
And if lots of people report home-demolition events, why are they not inciting terrorism? Or committing blood libel?
Reporting a real event is of course legitimate and providing it is reported in a neutral way, and with appropriate background and context would not be described as incitement. I’m not surprised you can’t or won’t see the difference.
A libel is by definition an un-truth, a calumny.
“Blood libel” is a term applied to the lies told about the Jews throughout history, from blaming them for the plague to accusing them of using gentiles’ blood to make Passover bread. The accusation of destruction of an Arab home when in actual fact it didn’t happen i consider to be a “blood libel” because it contains all the elements of the historic blood libel and it’s possible will also result in the kind of persecution of Jews also seen throughout history.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/jud_blib2.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel_against_Jews
“Even as Alex initially conceded there was no justifying it he then goes on to justify it and rest importance from it. The lie is taken as truth because the gullible and the evil ones want it to be so.”
Did I bollocks. I did initially concede that if it was deliberately faked, then it is unjustifiable. Since then I have not attempted to justify it. I do not retract my initial concession. There is no justification for faking news stories.
All I have done is ask how this incident of potential bias (which, as Hillhunt pointed out, is not bias when an Israeli newspaper makes the same mistake) is not evidence of bias in the other cases.
Incidentally, Gilel, is it
“מאלף טוב אריות” or “מאלף אריות טוב”?
Galil:
The accusation of destruction of an Arab home when in actual fact it didn’t happen i consider to be a “blood libel” because it contains all the elements of the historic blood libel and it’s possible will also result in the kind of persecution of Jews also seen throughout history.
For a blood libel to exist, it must both not just be untrue but, more importantly, so vile that it will stir up rage in people against the victim.
Here’s the Wikipedia definition: Blood libels are sensationalized allegations that a person or group engages in human sacrifice, often accompanied by the claim that the blood of victims is used in various rituals and/or acts of cannibalism.
The Jewish Encyclopedia sticks to a similar definition: A term now usually understood to denote the accusation that the Jews—if not all of them, at all events certain Jewish sects—require and employ Christian blood for purposes which stand in close relation to the ritual, and that, in order to obtain such blood, they commit assault and even murder.
Sacrificing Gentiles to use their blood in ritual sacrifice is a grave racial insult because the very idea is so appalling.
To label the BBC report a blood libel, the actual idea embedded in it must be so extreme that the libel will cause revulsion in the listener.
But you can’t paint the BBC Report in that light. The demolition of people’s homes in this way is state policy, not some dark satanic rite. The details in Nick Miles’s report may be untrue, but so are many things that you wouldn’t dream of calling a blood libel.
Let the BBC answer on the accuracy of this report. But leave the atavistic epithets out of it.
.
Interesting but annoying.
” ……….British pro-Israelis believing that they serve the national cause by picking on the Guardian and the BBC while ignoring the bigger picture. ”
I’d love to know what the hell I could do about the bigger picture.
Not a lot, I fear.
So for now, unless anyone has a better suggestion I’ll stick to picking on the BBC.
Angr Young Alex:
All I have done is ask how this incident of potential bias (which, as Hillhunt pointed out, is not bias when an Israeli newspaper makes the same mistake) is not evidence of bias in the other cases.
The Israeli news source which Hillhunt pointed at does not say what he says it does. I fail to see the relevance of “the other cases”, whatever they may be. try dealing with one issue at a time, it may help to alleviate some of the confusion you seem to be suffering from.
It’s Galil not “Gilel” for starters.
Hillhunt:
I think you’ll find that modern day blood libels don’t need to center on accusations of actual bloodletting. The al-Dura affair, the Gaza beach “shelling” which was most likely a mine left by the Arabs, are just a few examples.
Wikipedia also mentions Contemporary blood libels which fo not necessarily involve blood letting:
* In early January 2005, some 20 members of the Russian State Duma publicly made a blood libel against the Jewish people. They approached the Prosecutor General’s Office, and demanded that Russia “ban all Jewish organizations”. They accused all Jewish groups of being extremists, and of being “anti-Christian and inhumane, which practices extend even to ritual murders”.
Alluding to previous anti-Semitic Russian court decrees which accused the Jews of ritual murder, they wrote that “Many facts of such religious extremism were proven in courts.” The accusation included traditional anti-Semitic canards, such as “the whole democratic world today is under the financial and political control of international Jewry. And we do not want our Russia to be among such unfree countries”.
This demand was published as an open letter to the prosecutor general, in Rus Pravoslavnaya (Russian: Русь православная, “Orthodox Russia”), a right-wing conservative newspaper. This group consisted of members of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democrats, the Communist faction, and the nationalist Motherland party, with some 500 supporters. Тhe mentioned document is known as “The Letter of Five Hundred” (“Письмо пятисот”).[26][27] Their supporters included editors of nationalist newspapers as well as journalists. By the end of the month this group had received stiff criticism, and retracted its demand.
I believe it’s safe to categorize any false accusation of brutality by Jews which would cause Jews to be seen as inhuman to be a blood libel.
A correction has been issued, note not an apology, or an explanation:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/4960005004232655666/#389515
Sue:
Here’s what Mr Landau says:
“Here’s our problem: You are people that support us. Help us think instead of parsing the Sunday papers’ headlines. It doesn’t get us out of the deep hole that we’re in.”
He appears to be arguing that too much intellectual effort is wasted among British supporters of Israel nitpicking the UK media; effort which might fruitfully be spent contributing to debate in Israel about the future.
I see that the BBC has now owned up that the footage of the house demolition was wrongly used.
I’m pleased that they are owning up, and hope they’re straight about the reasons for its appearance.
But the tone of the debate on these threads reminds me of Landau’s points.
There was something troubling about the footage, and it was right to ask the BBC forthrightly what was going on.
But conjuring up the horrors of blood libel and perversely arguing that one report of a house demolition will incite terrorism when a hundred others don’t drags the Israeli cause away from the moral high ground.
.
Galil:
I believe it’s safe to categorize any false accusation of brutality by Jews which would cause Jews to be seen as inhuman to be a blood libel.
Let’s not argue about that, although I note the examples you quote above still centre on hideous behaviour like blood sacrifice or on wingnut theories like world domination.
But you still can’t argue that home demolition, which is standard practice and which the state fully intends to carry out in the Abu Dhein case is such an act. Neither blood sacrifice nor secret control of the world economy is Israeli state policy. Knocking down people’s homes is.
You might just stretch a point were the state to say it couldn’t demolish the Abu Dhein home for some humanitarian reason. But the Government is keen to get on with it. It’s not a question of How Dare They?… but one of When Will They?
Someone at the BBC effectively jumped the gun on the reality, and got it wrong. The Protocols of the Elders it ain’t.
But conjuring up the horrors of blood libel and perversely arguing that one report of a house demolition will incite terrorism when a hundred others don’t drags the Israeli cause away from the moral high ground.
That “one report” was FALSE for heaven’s sake!
What’s wrong with you?
Where is the BBC’s “moral high ground” now?
We still don’t know “what was going on”.
As for Landau, you may as well quote Naom Chomsky.
Galil:
It was false and they’ve said so. That’s not the point.
Try to read more slowly. I’m saying Israel has the high ground on this issue. And I’m saying that your conflating it with the vicious racial slurs which Jews have suffered down the centuries damages that moral high ground.
Someone at the BBC effectively jumped the gun on the reality,
Exactly!
It’s called “projection”.
Like I said in an earlier comment why wait, let’s report on all sorts of hideous atrocities carried out by the Israelis, if they haven’t really done it no problem, they will eventually.
That exposes the BBC mindset to a “T”.
Jumping the gun on reality: because we all know what Jews are like… don’t we?
Galil:
Calm down. It was wrong. We agree on that. Now, so does the BBC.
You continue to impute motives:
1. Incitement to terror.
2. Blood libel.
3. Projection.
You don’t know and I don’t. My bet is on a hasty edit with badly-sourced material and a slipshod reading of agency copy. Ynet and Arutz Sheva, which presumably don’t have any of those motives, made a similar mistake.
As the house had not at that point been demolished, it was an astonishingly naive piece of fraud. If that was his motive and he thought he would get away with it, he’d be an idiot. It feels rather more like incompetence.
It won’t be the first time that incompetence has been blamed. I just find it curious that these errors invariably cast the same side in a bad light. The BBC never once to my knowledge has committed a similar error resulting in the Arabs apearing to be the bad guys.
I don’t accept that it’s unimportant because Israel has on other occasions demolished homes, and I still maintain that if a “hasty edit with badly-sourced material and a slipshod reading of agency copy” occurred it’s because it’s what those involved expected to see, based on their prejudices rather than on Israel’s past form.
Anyhow, let’s leave it at that. I must say it’s been almost a pleasure debating with you without your customary sarcasm. But don’t let that go to your head.
It won’t be the first time that incompetence has been blamed. I just find it curious that these errors invariably cast the same side in a bad light. The BBC never once to my knowledge has committed a similar error resulting in the Arabs apearing to be the bad guys.
100% correct. I would be interested to see if anyone can come up with a “mistake” or “incompetence” by the BBC that reflected negatively on the Arab side in this conflict. I have never seen it.
מצטער גליל
The original ‘blood libel’ has become symbolic of the enormous libel that has been perpetrated by the media against Israel, against its legitimacy, against the way it has acted to preserve its existence and ensure its survival.
The press has turned action and reaction upside down, misinterpreted intent and motivation, and been suspicious of Israel and the entire Jewish people, both overtly and by innuendo. It turns to the United Nations as a moral yardstick without acknowledging that the countries it consists of are predominantly pro Arab. Separate injustices combine, and added together with the sentimentalisation of the Palestinians, the whole amounts to an enormous libel.
Those who defend the BBC and media are far more guilty of ‘parsing headlines’ than the people who who try to get them to recognise bias. It generally leads nowhere because they refuse to look at the whole picture.
Whether or not you call it a blood libel or just a libel, presenting the demolished house as that of Abu Dheim made it appear a spiteful act motivated by revenge. It probably did stir up rage in western audiences who already misunderstand the issue of bulldozing buildings, and it would have helped nip in the bud any sympathy there might have been for the dead Israeli students.
If it was a mistake or deliberate it needed to be admitted and apologised for.
Incidentally, there are many complex issues surrounding the bulldozing of houses, but people who hate Israel choose to take the simple view that it is an unjustifiable outrage.
If this man’s house is eventually demolished I expect Hamas will compensate the family for their martyred son’s heroic action.
Which would you rather do, search a booby trapped house on foot, or evacuate it and flatten it with a bulldozer. Hm, difficult.
If I could help undemonise Israel’s media image in any way, I wouldn’t see it as just a matter of parsing headlines. Tides can sometimes turn slowly, from small beginnings.
Israelis seem to have a blind spot over these matters. If they didn’t they would have learned from what the Arabs who have excelled at it for years, presenting their case for the western audience.
Glamourised victimhood, sometimes fabricated as in Pallywood and Hezbollywood. A baby, a child, a strategically placed teddy, cameras invited into hospitals, Mohammed Al Dura. Somehow Israelis have antagonised journalists and have not appreciated what a valuable asset they could be in the propaganda war.
Mr Landau’s comment is fairly typical of a surprisingly naive attitude that Israelis seem to have over ‘image,’ and by disregarding the value of a positive image and underestimating the harm of a negative one, they do not help their case. If the western world understood them and supported them it might be a more of a help to them than he realises.
Sue:
Mr Landau’s comment is fairly typical of a surprisingly naive attitude that Israelis seem to have over ‘image,’ and by disregarding the value of a positive image and underestimating the harm of a negative one, they do not help their case.
I’d have thought that if anyone understood the trade-off between image and reputation it was a long-standing editor and newspaper executive. Must be me.
.
One final point on the BBC’s correction; it doesn’t actually correct anything:
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=4&x_outlet=12&x_article=1464#update2
Now, we would like to clarify a report we heard at this hour last Friday about the attack by a Palestinian gunman on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem. In the report, the day after the attack, BBC World said that the gunman’s home in east Jerusalem had been demolished by the Israeli authorities. That was not correct, and the images broadcast were of another demolition.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that nowhere does the BBC actually clarify the fact that there was no demolition carried out of the house in east Jerusalem, as the original report alleged.
The casual viewer is still left with the impression that the Israels did demolish the house in Jerusalem but the BBC showed the wrong footage.
“… the images broadcast were of another demolition” is simply not enough. It should also be made plain that the report that “the gunman’s home in east Jerusalem had been demolished by the Israeli authorities” was also a false statement and the house is still standing.
Galil:
I do worry about your reading.
This is what you say:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that nowhere does the BBC actually clarify the fact that there was no demolition carried out of the house in east Jerusalem, as the original report alleged.
This is what the BBC said:
In the report, the day after the attack, BBC World said that the gunman’s home in east Jerusalem had been demolished by the Israeli authorities. That was not correct…
This means:
1. We said the gunman’s home in EJ had been demolished by the Israeli authorities.
2. That was not correct.
They then add that images which they used were of some other house being knocked down.
None of these things are good for the BBC, believe me.
.
“I’d have thought that if anyone understood the trade-off between image and reputation it was a long-standing editor and newspaper executive. Must be me.
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Hillhunt | 14.03.08 – 1:45 am | #”
Then you will know what I’m on about. But it was late last night, and you probably only read the last bit. Had you been standing too long?
You asked once,
“Ah, but what about James Miller.”
A while ago the papers had a field day with the Miller family’s battle with the Israeli government and army, to get them to prosecute and punish the soldier who shot James. They were uncooperative, and that made Israel seem brutal and callous, even economical with the truth.
What was probably a matter of a nervous, rather than trigger-happy soldier who made a split second error that had tragic consequences, was treated as if it was a cold blooded war crime. One reason this turned into another anti- Israel campaign, was because, not unlike Madeline McCann’s parents, the Millers were a middle class respectable English family apparently with no axe to grind. They only wanted justice.
But surely this is not at all as reasonable as it seems.
The Millers may believe that as someone clearly called out that they were filming, that proves James must have been deliberately murdered. Surely that is a huge leap to make. Many factors complicate that conclusion. There is the language issue and the fact that fighters against Israel don’t play by the rules, for a start. One cannot go into a volatile situation with shots being fired and expect that by shouting pax, you will be immune from danger.
When Frank Gardner was shot, despite his last minute conversion to Islam, his assassins knew he was a reporter. Did he demand justice from anyone or make a fuss?
The Palestinians have a habit of exploiting western solidarity campaigners by putting them in harms way. It is a tactic that provides them will invaluable propaganda.
These unfortunate incidents tend to become mythologised and end up a million miles away from the truth once they have been digested by the press.
The Rachel Corrie incident, some still regard her as a heroic figure. She has been mythologised. But her death at the hands of the notorious cat bulldozer was not a brave act of defiance while protecting a Palestinian home. She was a naive Peace Activist who had been exploited and put in harm’s way many times until the inevitable happened. She was standing in the entrance of a weapons-smuggling tunnel. The Palestinian house she was ‘protecting’ was ‘photoshopped in’ at a later date. Her death was made good use of. Even her parents were taken in by the people who used their daughter’s idealism and death as a propaganda tool.
Footage to back up this expose was available. It demonstrates that
the hole she was standing in made her invisible to the driver. She was too low for the bulldozer driver to have seen her.
But the video that I saw of a film made by something called Cruz T.V., was the most inept bit of footage I have ever seen. It took the form of two unsightly individuals competing over the privilege of telling the tale, throughout.
The interviewer, a sort of bag lady, keeps looking at her watch as Cruz TV has no clock. The setting is a garden, with a backdrop made of a blanket slung between some trees.
They had the evidence. They blew it.
“home demolition, which is standard practice” hillhunt
Which as I understand hasn’t taken place since 2005.
Your dictionary’s definition of ‘standard practice’ is truly unacceptable.
Sue:
Standing too long?
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Anon:
Which as I understand hasn’t taken place since 2005.
That’s odd. It’s common ground that another man’s house was demolished the very day of the yeshiva shooting. Man named Shehada.
The Shin Bet said Shehada had maintained direct contacts with Islamic Jihad headquarters in Syria and regularly received instructions from Damascus regarding attacks. His home was demolished by the IDF following last Thursday’s terrorist attack at the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1205261315401&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
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I do worry about your reading.
And I worry about the BBC’s writing.
The BBC wrote (my emphasis):
In the report, the day after the attack, BBC World said that the gunman’s home in east Jerusalem had been demolished by the Israeli authorities. That was not correct, and the images broadcast were of another demolition.
I had to read it three times to understand that indeed they could have been saying that the home wasn’t demolished. Maybe my reading skills are deficient but the first impression I had was that they were only admitting that the video did not fit the report.
Why couldn’t they have written this?
In the report, the day after the attack, BBC World said that the gunman’s home in east Jerusalem had been demolished by the Israeli authorities. The home was not in fact demolished, and the images broadcast were of another demolition.
In the BBC’s version it is only the one word “and” that prevents one from reading “BBC World said that the gunman’s home in east Jerusalem had been demolished by the Israeli authorities. That was not correct, the images broadcast were of another demolition.
Words are important, politicians spend days haggling over the wording of agreements and resolutions, as in the famous UN resolution that calls for Israel to “withdraw from territories…” and specifically does not call for Israel to “withdraw from all territories…”
One little three letter word can make all the difference.
Hillhunt and his penchant for selective quoting:
That’s odd. It’s common ground that another man’s house was demolished the very day of the yeshiva shooting. Man named Shehada.
“The Shin Bet said Shehada had maintained direct contacts with Islamic Jihad headquarters in Syria and regularly received instructions from Damascus regarding attacks. His home was demolished by the IDF following last Thursday’s terrorist attack at the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem”
From Hillhunt’s own link:
The IDF demolished half of the house.
In another link that the same Hillhunt provided yesterday it is explained that another family lives in the other half of the house, whcih is why the whole house wasn’t demolished. The reports also state that the dead terrorist had explosives in his half of the house so it’s probable that his half of the building was demolished as a safety measure, as Sue hinted at yesterday, and not as a form of “collective punishment”.
By the way, another reason Israel used home demolitions of terrorists’ families previously was because while Saddam was still in power in Iraq he was paying upwards of $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers by way of a prize. Israel’s actions were designed to counteract that and make those families pay, rather than profit, from their actions. Home demolitions were never intended to be retribution or revenge. In fact returning to the article Hillhunt just linked to, tis from the father of one of the mass murderer’s victims:
“They finally did what they should have done a long time ago.” Levy said last night. “He killed a lot of people, not just my daughter. It bothered me to know that a murderer was still walking the streets and murdering people.
It’s not a matter of revenge. It’s a matter of restoring Israel’s deterrence and sending a message that if people kill Jews, they will pay a price.“
While I’m here, take a look at this and think again next time you see Palestinians wailing and accusing Israel of murdering innocent women and children:
http://backspin.typepad.com/backspin/2008/03/the-hamas-death.html
I have read in various serious non-arab articles that the so-called students are in fact gun totin’ young men who are being trained as rabbis and being taught that the West Bank and other land stolen by Israel, is in fact “Jewish land”. These youngsters are being trained to expand the illegal settlements in the West Bank and ethnically cleanse the land in preparation for a full Israeli takeover.
Your “serious” articles sound like typical anti-Semitic propaganda to me. Ask yourself one question:
If these students are armed rambos how come it took someone from a nearby building to go in and kill the terrorist, having heard the gunshots?
And on the question of whose land it is and whose land was “stolen”, study some history.
I think Robbo’s been listening to Abd al-Bari Atwan
Hopefully he’s a hit-and-run poster since it doesn’t look like he’s worth wasting time on.
“I have read in various serious non-arab articles”
Iranian doesn’t count as Arab does it?
“that the so-called students are in fact gun totin’ young men”
True, at least one of them was totin’ a gun.
“who are being trained as rabbis and being taught that the West Bank and other land stolen by Israel, is in fact “Jewish land”.”
Probably are. I would imagine most right-wing Israeli religious schools embrace that view.
“These youngsters are being trained to expand the illegal settlements in the West Bank and ethnically cleanse the land in preparation for a full Israeli takeover.”
Not sure of this one. You could argue that that’s what the whole settlement movement is about anyway, but really that doesn’t make the school a terrorist training camp.
Nice name change Galil, I like it.
However, this ” because we all know what Jews are like… don’t we?”
I am more bothered about, because, you are trying to move the debate from ‘not how I would report things’ to thinly velied accusations of corporation-wide anti-Semitism.
And I know that at least one of the journalists involved in this knows the answer to your question very well.
It’s a cheap shot and a pity to see it.
Sarah Jane,
The debate was never about ‘not how I would report things’. It was about the BBC reporting an event that didn’t happen, and still hasn’t happened, accompanied by a video of something completely different.
The event that didn’t happen was touted as Israel taking revenge on the family of a mass murderer. The video was of part of a house being demolished because the (different) mass murderer inside refused to surrender to the IDF and instead opened fire and hurled explosive devices at them.
Perhaps I’m splitting hairs, but while I’m hesitant to accuse the BBC of “corporation-wide anti-Semitism” as a corporation I do believe that a large number, perhaps the majority, do hold anti- Israel and/or antisemitic views, and I do believe that as such they are predisposed to believe the worst of Israel while reluctant to blame the Arabs for any evil act they may commit, at least without including a reference to what they see as mitigating circumstances.
Perhaps you’d like to ask the journalist you know to explain exactly how this case of false reporting came about and how it got past the various editors?
“These youngsters are being trained to expand the illegal settlements in the West Bank and ethnically cleanse the land in preparation for a full Israeli takeover.”
Not sure of this one. You could argue that that’s what the whole settlement movement is about anyway…
You could argue that that’s what the whole settlement movement is about, but you’d be wrong.
I have read in various serious non-arab articles that the so-called students are in fact gun totin’ young men who are being trained as rabbis and being taught that the West Bank and other land stolen by Israel, is in fact “Jewish land”. These youngsters are being trained to expand the illegal settlements in the West Bank and ethnically cleanse the land in preparation for a full Israeli takeover.
Robbo | 15.03.08 – 8:04 pm
I, on the other hand, have read this:
http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/2008/03/doron-story-of.html
By the way, how does this fit with the accusation that Israel is a racist “apartheid” state?
I reckon Robbo is a hit-and-run poster and Sarah Jane is doing his/her usual thing of getting sensitive over well-founded accusations of BBC anti-Semitism and then ducking out of the debate.
Meanwhile there was a fascinating debate on Hardtalk between Sarah Montague and Eli Moyal, Mayor of Sderot. Here the abrupt, ill-mannered Moyal was presenting hard, honest truths while the cultured Montague was finding it quite difficult to keep her British stiff upper lip.
Now it’s difficult to know whether she really does see Hamas through the dope-tinted spectacles of something akin to the 60s counter-culture and therefore regards them as principled revolutionaries who only need to be listened to for all problems to dissolve into harmonious bliss.
That seemed to be her attitude, rather than the line she was taking for the purpose of the interview.
Well worth a watch, if only to see a fine example of the BBC totally divorced from reality regarding the Israeli-Arab conflict.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/7294162.stm
Needs Real Player
“You could argue that that’s what the whole settlement movement is about, but you’d be wrong.”
Calm down Galil. If you must argue with me, at least wait until I disagree with you.
David Landau, as recommended by Hillhunt, has won a Silver Shmendrik Award
😆
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