. I see that the BBC are reporting on the latest instance of Palestinian savagery – this time a Palestinian has driven a bulldozer into a bus and several cars in Jerusalem, killing four people before being shot dead, Israeli police say. Dozens of people were hurt, at least seven critically, in the incident on Jaffa Road, in the city centre. The BBC leaves it to the Jerusalem police to describe this as – and I quote- “a terrorist incident.” Naturally Al Been cannot bring itself to utter such a judgemental term when referring to the actions of a member of the world’s most oppressed people. The BBC also is quick to report that Hamas was not to blame. Indeed the BBC helpfully adds that “Attacks by Palestinian militants in Jerusalem have been a rare occurrence, with none of their trademark suicide bombings since September 2004. “ Mmm – militants, interesting choice of word for scum who strap on an explosives pack and enter a wedding feast or a disco or a pizzeria. I guess this must have been the act of just one poor Palestinian, deranged by Israeli brutality perhaps, eh? I express my sympathies to those people murdered by this evil Palestinian and my contempt for the BBC for failing to use the t is for terrorist word once again.
BULLDOZING REALITY
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That smug woman with the glasses and the pudgy face – the one who does the 1PM news – referred to the terrorist as a “Palestinian man”. A ‘man’! Harsh terms in use at the BBC today.
The first I knew of this was the item in The World At One’s closing news, to the bland effect that a man who’d driven a bulldozer into a crowd in Jerusalem killing four people had been shot dead by police – no other details at all. Of course I immediately assumed that it must have been one of those ultra-orthodox types who occasionally go meshuga. Just the same, I’m extremely relieved to hear that this wasn’t a terrorist incident, no, not all, no terrorism here, nothing to see, move along now…
I just heard this reported on the World Service as I woke up – the “reaction” they courted consisted of two Palestinians, and then they spent the rest of the report trying to stress that it wasn’t a terrorist attack.
I wasn’t paying attention to who was reporting, but when they interviewed an Israeli police spokesman they spent the whole time trying to prompt him to admit that this was not a “terrorist” attack and stressing that the terrorist was an Israeli-Arab citizen (and therefore of course not a terrorist).
I don’t recall who the Palestinian was who commented but he “condemned” the attack (yeah, right) and added “IF it was an attack, and not an accident“…
i disagree re: terrorist/militant etc etc for all the usual libtarded reasons blah blah
but the original BBC website this morning had a headline of something like “bulldozer rampage hits jerusalem” which conveys less a murderous attack on civilians and more a kind of wacky races cartoon with a driverless vehicle careering off down the road whilst the bloke who’s left the handbreak off gives comedy pursuit. not really appropriate.
Cockney,
Yes, that was my initial response as well to that headline.
Interesting that the BBC feels the need to stress the relative rarity of attacks in Jerusalem since 2004 while refraining from pointing out that the construction of the wall (against which they lose no chance of inveighing) may have something to do with that.
This leaves the hapless reader free to draw the inference that Hamas are really nice, and have not meant to do any real harm in Jerusalem since 2004…
“Attacks by Palestinian militants in Jerusalem have been a rare occurrence, with none of their trademark suicide bombings since September 2004. “
NO….
SUCCESSFUL attacks have been rare. For the reason correctly identified by pedant.
The Arabs have never stopped plotting and trying to kill Jews in large numbers. They’ve just been thwarted by the Israelis.
Strange that, isnt it Pedant? A bit like admitting terrorism is down in Baghdad without putting it down to the surge – which (coincidently, no doubt) the BBC was also very sceptical about, if not downright contra
Jason | 02.07.08 – 2:39 pm |
I just heard this reported on the World Service as I woke up – the “reaction” they courted consisted of two Palestinians, and then they spent the rest of the report trying to stress that it wasn’t a terrorist attack.
I wasn’t paying attention to who was reporting, but when they interviewed an Israeli police spokesman they spent the whole time trying to prompt him to admit that this was not a “terrorist” attack and stressing that the terrorist was an Israeli-Arab citizen (and therefore of course not a terrorist).
That’s more or less the same thing we got on the TV version (BBC America, 7am). What’s more, the presenter in the studio brought up the statement from Hamas about the incident, where they said this was “the result of Israeli aggression,” and that they didn’t know who was behind it.
He summed up by saying that now “we know why it happened.”
My earlier comment on this from the Open Thread:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/6465773959438935735/#407232
I don’t mind the BBC taking care to point out that this was not connected to Hamas or any terrorist organization. Obviously that’s what they’re supposed to do. I don’t even object too strongly to their decision not to label this a terrorist attack.
However, they seem to have edited this article since suketh linked to it on the Open Thread @12:34
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/6465773959438935735/#407243
At the time, the article quoted an Israeli police spokesman, who used the “T” word twice. In the current version, all mention of that police spokesman has been removed, and replaced with a mention of a statement from Olmert’s office, which described the incident as a terrorist attack and condemned it as “an act of senseless murderous violence”.
In other words, the BBC decided not to let the audience hear (read) the Prime Minister’s own words. Instead, they chose to de-emphasize the idea that this is a terrorist attack by saying that the PM’s statement merely “described” it. Big difference.
The “trademark suicide bombings” line is still there. We’ll see how long that lasts. As I said on the other thread, the BBC man in Jerusalem corrected himself when he said “suicide bomb” and changed it to the neutral term “bombing attacks”. (it was Paul something at the time, not Tim Franks – unless Paul was in the studio and I got it mixed up, maybe?).
Joe Flotow (sp?) was just on the phone from Jerusalem, and the World Service woman in the studio made every effort to make sure this could not be called a terrorist attack. It seems that unless the bulldozing murderer was associated with an organization that has already been labeled as terrorist, this can’t be a terrorist attack.
Once again the BBC redefines the word to suit their needs.
Interesting how no one is complaining about this perpetrator being called ‘Palestinian’.
When a Palestinian asks for civil rights, he’s told there’s no such thing as a Palestinian.
But when someone holding a blue Teudat Zehut (Israeli ID) kills some people, all of a sudden he’s ‘Palestinian’.
Aoun,
Was this killer a Palestinian or not?
David Vance | Homepage | 02.07.08 – 3:43 pm
I don’t know.
And nor do you.
All we know is that he had Israeli papers. He may have preferred to self-identify as an Arab-Israeli for all I know.
Nor do we know yet whether his killings were motivated by political considerations.
He may be have been like one of those US mailmen who ‘went postal’ or ke the Virginia Tech killer.
The BBC (and Biased BBC) should wait until the detectives find out.
Well, whether he was a Palestinian or an Israeli, he’s dead now. And the guy who shot him missed out on a good opportunity to say something like, ‘You have the right to remain dead.’
But when someone holding a blue Teudat Zehut (Israeli ID) kills some people, all of a sudden he’s ‘Palestinian’.
Aoun | 02.07.08 – 3:42 pm | #
I think that’s a Strawarab argument. And not a very good one either.
Maybe the Arab was trying to emulate the late unlamented queen of the bulldozers, Rachel Corrie.
Well he’s dead, so at least he achieved that limited goal.
A Palestinian from East Jerusalem deliberately plowed a bulldozer he was driving into a passenger bus on Jaffa Street in the capital shortly after noon Wednesday, killing at least three people and wounding dozens more.
One of the dead was a woman who had been driving her car at the scene of the attack. Police shot and killed the driver of the bulldozer, who held an Israeli identification card, and who had a criminal record.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/998294.html
I have to agree with Aoun on this, all races have their nutters, the odd whacko who wants a ‘death by cop’ or feels hard done bt etc. Untill we know this guys motivation we cannot judge BUT the BBC should not be interviewing anti semites about the killings because whatever the real cause they will always try and tie it in to current political events? The BBC seems to have decided that the nutter was doing for his ’cause’ when in fact we know nothing of the kind yet. He may have been sacked and then flipped or he may have been dumped by his missus or had mental/money problems? The vast majority of israeli arabs live in peace within the state of Israel and they would certainly prefer to live in a free democracy than some of the neighbouring hellholes! Perhaps the BBC wish to sow the seeds of hatred between Israelis, Jew and Arab? We do know that the Jews and Arabs that live side by side in peace are almost never shown or heard from, as though the BBC wishes the world to think that ALL arabs live under occupation or in fear and poverty in refugee camps(like they do over the borders) and neither are the ELECTED Arab/Bedouin MPs from the Knesset! The BBC seems to forget the fact that Arabs have full democratic rights and representation in Israeli institutions.
This is another example of Sudden Jihad Syndrome.
In this case, a Muslim Arab with a criminal record but no previously known “terrorist” activities, out of the blue decides to try and kill total strangers who (as far as he knows) do not share his faith.
It happens quite regularly in America. Recent examples that spring to mind: Salt Lake City Mall, with a 17 year old Bosnian Muslim immigrant. LAX, with a 37 year old Egyptian Muslim immigrant.
Females (children and adults) seem to be a particular chosen target of those suffering from Sudden Jihad Syndrome.
Aoun | 02.07.08 – 3:50 pm |
All we know is that he had Israeli papers. He may have preferred to self-identify as an Arab-Israeli for all I know.
Fair point. However, I think it’s also fair to say that, according to common usage, you’re all Palestinian, regardless of where you live. That’s part of the whole political/national identity deal. The term “Arab-Israeli” is used to denote place of residence, not national identity. I’m just saying that’s how the term is used everywhere, not just here, not just by the BBC. I’m not implying here that nobody can self-identify that way.
Rhetorical Question, not directed at you personally: And then what happens if some who currently call themselves Palestinian are granted the “Right of Return”? Do they call themselves Palestinians then or not?
Nor do we know yet whether his killings were motivated by political considerations.
He may be have been like one of those US mailmen who ‘went postal’ or like the Virginia Tech killer.
The BBC (and Biased BBC) should wait until the detectives find out.
Actually, as I pointed out in my earlier comment, the Israeli police have already defined this as a terrorist attack, adding that they think the guy acted alone. The BBC quoted a police spokesman in a previous edition of the article, but that has gone down the memory hole.
Other news outlets allow the Israeli police to have their say:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,374904,00.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4254225.ece
Palestinian militant groups claimed responsibility for the attack, although Israeli police said initial evidence suggested that Dwayyat was a “terrorist acting on his own”.
It is the first major attack on Jerusalem since March, when Alaa Abu Dhein, a 25-year-old resident of the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabel Mukaber, attacked the Mercaz Harav seminary. Police drew parallels between the attacks, which they said could mark a trend in Arab residents of East Jerusalem using their identification cards and freedom of travel to western Jewish neighbourhoods to carry out attacks.
Three organisations claimed responsibility for the attack: the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, loosely affiliated with the Fatah movement; the Galilee Freedom Battalion; and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
What’s more, the various Beeboids reporting on this are making a concerted effort to make the case that if the murderer was not affiliated with any of the usual groups, this can’t be a terrorist attack. One of them even tried to stretch it past “inspired by” one of the groups.
The BBC should have also waited for the police to actual do a little investigating before they re-define the term so that this incident can’t fall into that category. Come to think of it, the BBC shouldn’t do that at all. Yet they’re doing it this very minute.
On BBC coverage of this, Melanie Phillips has:
” A Warped Reaction ”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/811471/a-warped-reaction.thtml
Honest Reporting noted that the BBC’s first response was Israel bulldozer driver shot dead.
The captions on the BBC video still read:
MORE LIKE THIS
Bulldozer rampage in Jerusalem
A bulldozer has crashed into a commuter bus in Israel, overturning the passenger vehicle and causing a number of casualties
BBC man witnesses attack
The BBC’s Tim Franks witnessed the moment a bulldozer ploughed into buses and cars on Jerusalem’s Jaffa Rd
Rather makes it sound like a traffic accident.
Incidentally Franks and the BBC are wrong on an important point. The man in the blue shirt who shot the driver and probably killed him was an off-duty soldier from the undercover Egoz unit not a policeman. I would have thought the shorts and CROCS would have been the give away. A policeman finished him off. This is quite clear in the video.
In case no one notices, the vehicle was branded Caterpillar. Now that the Palestinians use the ‘marque’ as a tool to kill Israelis perhaps the company will drop off the divertisement/boycott list?
It would be a good example of the law of unintended consequences if the this man’s act of murder saw employers refusing to take Arabs on to sites with heavy earth moving equipment.
Aoun | 02.07.08 – 3:50 pm |
All we know is that he had Israeli papers. He may have preferred to self-identify as an Arab-Israeli for all I know.
Arabs from the areas of Jerusalem annexed by Israel carry blue ID. Given that the P.A., the United Nations, etc refuse to recognise East Jerusalem as Israeli territory it is unlikely he would have identified himself as an Israeli Arab.
Nor do we know yet whether his killings were motivated by political considerations.
His screaming Allah Akbar may give a hint.
The BBC (and Biased BBC) should wait until the detectives find out.
At which point the story would be cold. Killers organised by Hamas and Fatah usually leave a video testament behind them. If he was a ‘freelancer’ he may not have. Police interviews with the victim ‘may’ not provide sufficient evidence for the BBC. 😉
I forgot to mention that during the news bulletin at 6:30pm (Euro time), Deutschlandfunk did a quick report on the incident, allowing the Israeli Police to get in their word, as well as giving airtime to Hamas’s statement that they weren’t involved but gave the thumbs up. The German radio guys played full audio clips of both Israeli and Hamas mouthpieces, with German translation voice-overs.
They just quoted the Israelis as calling this a “terrorist attack”, and quoted Hamas as well, with no editorializing, no pushing the correspondent into making a definitive statement that this could not be a terrorist act, or “now we know why” nonsense. They even mentioned that it was not known if the guy was connected to other Terrorbrigaden.
That’s how a professional news broadcast does it, unlike the biased BBC.
The BBC’s initial reaction in their headline “Israel bulldozer driver shot dead” with no mention of the victims in this headline, is damning evidence of their warped mindset.
H Green & others:
Revionista has 19 versions of the story. It had three headlines:
The first heading, at 09.31, read
Bulldozer ‘rampage’ in Jerusalem
This changes at 09:51 to
Bulldozer Rampage Hits Jerusalem
which changes at 13.31 to:
Deadly Jerusalem bulldozer attack
which is current as I write.
Unless Revisionista is suddenly covering up for the BBC, the “driver shot dead” line never headed the story at all…
When you examine the BBC news pages, it becomes clearer what happened.
Honest Reporting have got this wrong.
The driver shot dead line appears only on a video clip of the actual shooting. It never was the headline on the news story.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7485162.stm
The BBC 10:00pm news carried the story, and a Hebrew-speaking policeman gave a brief – immediate – report. The voice-over translation began – “The attacker . . .” But the Hebrew, I believe, was “Ha-mechabel atsmo . . .” which means “The terrorist himself . . .”.
Anyone catch that – I could be wrong.
What we don’t hear from the BBC:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1214726186987&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
A half-dozen cars were flattened and others were overturned by the Caterpillar vehicle. A bus was also overturned, and another bus was heavily damaged.
…
A car was dragged several meters by the bulldozer before being crushed under the vehicle. A baby was pulled out by a passerby before the vehicle was crushed, with the child’s mother still inside.
…
Dwayat was employed by the construction company working on the Jerusalem light rail project, and drove the bulldozer out of the construction site before perpetrating the attack.
“My son never spoke of plans to carry out such an attack, if he had I would have tried to prevent it,” Duwait’s father Tayseer told The Media Line as police officers came to question him.
Nevertheless, Israel Radio reported that a woman started singing in praise of the terrorist when security forces left the home.
…
“I saw the bulldozer smash the car with its shovel. He smashed the guy sitting in the driver’s seat,” said Yaakov Ashkenazi, an 18-year-old seminary student.
BBC Radio 5 which tends to be the most left wing of all the BBC output simply called the terrorist Palestinian ” a man”.
No mention of religion or race from 5 live.
These are the human beings massacred by terrorist scum:
http://www.israellycool.com/2008/07/02/jerusalem-terror-attack/
Jerusalem residents Bat Sheva Unterman, 33, and Elizabeth Goren-Friedman, 54, were killed in the attack, as was a third person whose identity has not yet been released.
Unterman was a resident of Jerusalem’s Rehavia neighborhood, and worked as a nanny in a religious kingergarten in the city’s Har Homa quarter. She was killed when the car she was driving was crushed by the oncoming bulldozer.
Unterman’s 6-month old daughter, Efrat, was evacuated from the car just before the vehicle was hit.
Her husband, Ido, was notified only hours after the attack that his wife had been killed.
Unterman was the daughter of Rifka and James Lubenstein, immigrants from Holland. Her husband, Ido, was the grandson of Rabbi Isser Yehuda Unterman, who served as chief rabbi of Liverpool and of Tel Aviv, and also as chief rabbi of Israel from 1964-1973.
The Unterman couple had tried for years to have children, but managed only with the birth of Efrat last year. Bat-Sheva had extended her maternity leave by a few months, returning to work last week with her daughter to celebrate the end of the year party.
Unterman’s friend, Meira Schwartz, described her as a person filled with faith, who never gave up her dream of having children, even after having to go through countless procedures.
“Until Efrat was born, the children in the kindergarten were like her own, and she was a nanny of the highest excellence, with exemplary patience for each and ever child,” said Schwartz.
Unterman will be laid to rest at 11:30 P.M. in the Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem.
‘It’s difficult to speak about her in past tense’
Elizabeth Goren-Friedman, originally from Austria, was a resident of Katamon who worked as a teacher in a school for the blind. She was laid to rest at 10:30 P.M. in Givat Shaul.
Goren-Friedman was divorced and the mother of three children: Yael, 16, Issachar, 19, and Zvi, 23. Both of her sons were students at the Horev hesder yeshiva in Jerusalem.
Her friends described her as a “wonderful person,” who volunteered regularly at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.
Rachel Sakrovish, who worked with Goren-Friedman, said her colleague was an excellent teachers. “It’s hard to speak about her in the last tense. Lili was a wonderful person. There was not a student that she did not help progress on a personal, educational, and rehabilitative level. We knew that if a student was retreated or having difficulties, Luly was the teacher who would do the fundamental work to help him advance.”
“When I think of her, I remember the phrase, ‘a woman of valor, who can find,’” she said
May their blood be avenged.
Biodegradable:
What we don’t hear from the BBC:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Sat…icle% 2FShowFull
A half-dozen cars were flattened and others were overturned by the Caterpillar vehicle. A bus was also overturned, and another bus was heavily damaged.
—————
So it was a Caterpillar? If only War on Want had had its way and forced the Church of England to ethically disinvest from the company, thereby forcing it to cease trading with Israel, this needless tragedy might so easily have been avoided.
Recall the BBC showing pictures of Palestinian and Lebanese aide workers holding injured or dead children for the camera?
Think they’ll run this photo of the 7-month-old injured infant who was rescued seconds before her mother was crushed by the bulldozer? Equally dramatic I’d say. It’s on MSNBC.com and in the Jerusalem Post.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1214726186987&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Msnbc.msn.com/id/25489631/
In fact, there are much more dramatic photos than the ones on the BBC picture gallery, which seem to favor showing gun-toting Israelis, one of whom is caught in a moment oddly smiling while holding his gun (what bloodthirsty demons Israelis are!) and also show vehicles from high angles damaged, while eschewing ground level carnage in photos I’ve seen elsewhere in which another car is utterly flattened and the horror of what might have happened to whomever was in it is conveyed quite viscerally.
BBC World last night. I was staggered by the female newsreader who, at the conclusion of the piece on the bulldozer attack, then stated that they (BBC) had received a number of emails on this, the biggest international story of the day, and then read out one: The writer drew attention to the BBC website coverage of the story and compared this with the coverage when the Israelis used bulldozers against Palestinians.
Now, hang on a minute.
Initially I thought that the BBC was using this as a clumsy example of their even-handedness – ‘Look, we get flak from everybody’- but then thinking about it…
Why this email? No others. A view, not from a reporter or a spokesman or a police officer. No, an unattributable email from a man giving only a first name which gave a view that I daresay the BBC may hold; that the attack wasn’t unprovoked.
I’m not having this. No way. Seriously, I don’t look for this sort of crap, it just leaps out.
As an aside, I was waiting for somebody to pick up on the Caterpillar bulldozer being used as a weapon and linking it with Rachael Corrie. Not yet, as far as I’ve seen, but no doubt soon.
This is the complaint I just submitted to the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7485022.stm
Sir, I realize that the names of two of the victims of today’s horror on the streets of Jerusalem have not yet been released. But a third one has been—as have the names of the fifty-five grievously injured people. Yet, you do not give the names of these Jewish victims, you only name (and photograph) Hussam Dwayat, the Palestinian terrorist who is responsible for so much grief.
And yet something occurred that would be of particular interest to Britons. For the man who saved 33-year-old Batsheva Onterman’s baby was himself British. Here is the story:
“Jeremy Aronson ignored the danger of the approaching bulldozer on Wednesday afternoon to pluck a baby out of a car seat before the car was crushed with the mother, 33-year-old Batsheva Onterman, still inside.
“Just as I took the baby out, he reversed on top of the car. The baby is okay, but not the mother,” Aronson told The Jerusalem Post quietly as he sat alone in the waiting room of Hadassah-University Hospital in Mount Scopus.
“Onterman, who was a kindergarten teacher at Ganei Homat Shmuel, initially had difficulty conceiving a child and had undergone two years of fertility treatments, friends told the Post at her funeral late Wednesday night in the Givat Shmuel cemetery.”
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1214726194375&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
And here are the stories of some of the other Jewish victims:
“When his bus was grazed by a bulldozer on Jaffa Road on Wednesday, Egged driver Asaf Nadav expected the offending vehicle to stop and change lanes. Instead, it rammed into the side of the bus, knocking it over and wounding many of its passengers.
“I was in a traffic jam on Jaffa, and I heard people yelling and running in the market,” said Nadav, who has driven a bus for 12 years.
“He was speaking at Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Kerem, where he is recovering from back injuries. “I didn’t know what was going on. Then the tractor turned and flipped the bus. Then the passengers broke the back door and it came off.”
“Nadav is one of at least 55 lightly wounded victims of the attack, which also claimed three dead, one seriously wounded victim and one moderately wounded
….
“Esther Shavit, 18, who was riding in the back of the bus, was one of the first to exit after the back door was broken.
“We heard noise outside, but we didn’t see the tractor,” Shavit said. “Then, suddenly, the bus turned over and people were falling all over each other. Somebody got the back door open and we got out.”
“Bat-El Ganen was on a second Egged bus, No. 13, which overturned when the bulldozer slammed into it, spoke to reporters as she emerged, in her hospital gown, into the lobby of the Shaare Tzedek Medical Center’s emergency room.
“I fell on my back. I just thought about how to get out, and it seemed like forever, but finally someone came and smashed out the back window, and we were able to crawl out from there.”
“Ganen said they were afraid that the bus’s gas tank would explode. “Nobody knew what had happened,” she said. “The bus just flipped over.”
“Ayamll Dennis, an older woman who was also on bus No. 13, was keening quietly in pain in her bed at Hadassah University Hospital on Wednesday afternoon.
“Dennis told The Jerusalem Post that she didn’t remember much from the accident.
“I just know that we flipped over and that the bus was shaking,” she said. “My side hurts and my wrist hurts,” she continued, clutching her wrist as her bracelets clinked together.
“This was not Dennis’s first terrorist attack, she told reporters as she shook underneath her many blankets. She was also at a shooting in the city’s Mahane Yehudah market nearly nine years ago.
“Her daughter was on her way to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv when she heard of Wednesday’s terrorist attack, but didn’t know Dennis was on the overturned bus until she called to check on her.
“I don’t know if I can take the life here,” her daughter said. “I was born here, but this was her second time.”
“In another part of Hadassah’s emergency wing, a mother worried over her daughter, who was at the scene of the attack.
“I was at work when my daughter called me,” Bracha Arad said. “She saw the tractors and the buses. I think it’s terrible that she had to go to the Central Bus Station today, but this is life in Israel, and that’s how it is.”
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1214726194375&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Are Jewish lives as valuable as Palestinian lives to the BBC? Since the BBC names (and thus humanizes) Palestinians but does not provide its viewers and listeners with even a single Jewish name, one must conclude that to the BBC at least Palestinian lives are worth a great deal more than Jewish lives.
LFJ | 02.07.08 – 11:58 pm |
The driver shot dead line appears only on a video clip of the actual shooting. It never was the headline on the news story.
The Honest Reporting article includes a screen grab of the story. It must have been the initial response, listed as ONE-MINUTE WORLD NEWS.
On television the BBC used the headline as a banner:
BREAKING NEWS
ISRAEL ATTACK
Jerusalem bulldozer driver shot dead by security
Makes it sound like Israel attacked with the victim being an innocent working man, doesn’t it.
The discrepancy between the initial story and the story LFJ caught on Revisionista makes me wonder. Is whoever is employed (or the department) by the BBC to react to breaking news even more biased than the regular team?
——————————
BTW, sorry for the incorrect link to the HR story. I would have attached the pictures to my comment but that is no longer possible at Biased-BBC.
David Vance, even though the service B-BBC used had technical difficulties, it was often useful. Bring it (or similar) back, please.
deegee:
The Honest Reporting article includes a screen grab of the story. It must have been the initial response, listed as ONE-MINUTE WORLD NEWS.
The screen-grab is actually of the specific video clip of the shooting alone and not of the whole story.
This is the clip:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7485162.stm
HR have got it wrong and in the interests of honest reporting should withdraw their criticism.
I wasn’t watching the TV story, but I strongly suspect that the TV screen grab you refer to is an update to a running story, letting viewers know that the attack is over because the driver has been shot.
deegee,
Wasn’t aware of the picture thing, I have not changed anything but will find out what the story is and come back to you.
I refer to my comment above regarding Sudden Jihad Syndrome, which was made before I knew anything about the victims.
This is the well documented condition where peace loving Arabs and/or Muslims become infected by a mysterious urge to go out and kill as many Jews ands infidels as possible.
I did note that those infected have a particular penchant for murdering FEMALES (women and girls). I see from the many posters above that this case exhibits all the classic symptoms.
It’s such a mystery to the BBC why these perfectly normal Arab Muslims would commit such road rage.
Jack Bauer:
I refer to my comment above regarding Sudden Jihad Syndrome…the well documented condition where peace loving Arabs and/or Muslims become infected by a mysterious urge to go out and kill as many Jews ands infidels as possible.
Sounds a bit like the Black Rage defense employed some years ago in a celebrated case in New York in which a man opened fire on a crowded commuter train with no apparent warning. As I recall it, the jury didn’t find the defendant’s reasoning very persuasive.
mugwump .. now you mention it I do recall that case.
Yes, it does seem to echo SJS.
It was reported on Breakfast News that “Security guards killed a Palestinian man who had driven a bulldozer into a bus, killing four people.”
Talk about focus on the Israelis killing a Palestinian man, not Palestinian terrorist killing four people, then being killed by the security forces.
Tom Gross writes
A friend writes from New York:
“I was listening to the BBC World Service this morning (broadcast on NPR), which broadcast the following headline: “Palestinian killed by Israeli in Jerusalem today … after leaving trail of death and destruction.” Even NPR’s own headline (broadcast later after they has stopped the BBC’s broadcasts) was: “Palestinian causes death and destruction in Jerusalem today, before being shot by an Israeli off-duty officer.” i.e. The two organizations had the same information: one set forth in order of time and consequence (guy does bad things, then gets killed) and the other in order of bias and propaganda (Israelis kill guy, he did bad things).”
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000958.html
Hillhunt| 03.07.08 – 8:14 am |
I wasn’t watching the TV story, but I strongly suspect that the TV screen grab you refer to is an update to a running story, letting viewers know that the attack is over because the driver has been shot.
Yes, that’s what this clip is, but you are misrepresenting the way the BBC presents this clip online. It’s not an update, it’s the last part of someone’s footage of the incident. The BBC wasn’t filming and reporting from the moment the guy first ran into the bus.
If the report with the “Israel bulldozer driver shot dead” headline was merely to inform viewers that the rampage is over now, where was the coverage when it started, and during the event? And why doesn’t the text below the clip say anything to indicate that it is the follow-up you suggest?
You have this one completely wrong. This is a stand-alone news bulletin. If this were a follow-up, the first sentence would indicate that an ongoing event has now reached a conclusion. This brief is clearly not doing that.
I think the headline is kind of clumsy, but that’s no surprise. I don’t really see too much bias in it, though. Just your average thoughtless, sloppy BBC editor work which we’ve all seen before.
David Preiser:
I’m afraid you are wrong. There are two separate screen grabs on HR.
One has the headline Israel bulldozer driver shot dead.
That is a grab from BBC Online. It’s a page containing a video clip. It’s not a story at all – it’s raw news footage of a single event. It’s offered as an addition on a previous page to the text-only version, which tells the whole story. That story was always headlined either Bulldozer ‘rampage’ in Jerusalem; Bulldozer Rampage Hits Jerusalem; or Deadly Jerusalem bulldozer attack (See Revisionista if you don’t believe me).
The second grab is what I’m talking about in the quote you use. This is from a TV screen, of a moment in the BBC News TV coverage.
It’s the update pane on a running story. It’s adding to what’s already being reported. It’s not an attempt to summarise the whole issue. You can actually see the summary itself running immediately below – the words In Jerusalem, ploughing into a crowded…. That’s from a rolling news ticker.
No-one at the BBC summarised the story in terms of a man being shot by the police. That label was used to identify a single video clip. That’s all.
Hillhunt,
I sort of see what you mean about the second one. I still think the tenses have been confused a bit, and don’t reflect the real chronology of BBC coverage, but that’s almost at the level of splitting hairs, so I won’t bother.
The clumsy headline is at the root of this anyway.
The BBC lie through their teeth, and search high and low for some justification for killing Jews:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7488067.stm
Correspondents said Dwayat’s home in east Jerusalem showed no sign of the crowds and banners that normally accompany the funerals of Palestinian militants.
Palestinian civil rights activist Hassib Nashashibi said Dwayat had received a heavy fine and demolition order from the Israeli authorities for carrying out illegal building work, which may have provided a motivation.
Other reports say the the father-of-two – a devout Muslim married to a Palestinian woman – may have been seeking revenge for experiences in the past including a failed love affair with a Jewish Israeli woman and a spell in prison.
“Everyone is in shock,” said a family friend.
Well fuck the family and their fucking shock! What about the terrorist yelling “Allah Ackbah” while he killed as many defenseless Jews as he could?
And the obligatory BBC bottom line:
Since the start of 2008, across Israel and the occupied territories, 29 Israelis have been killed in violence linked to the conflict as have more than 400 Palestinians.
As reported yesterday:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1214726186987&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
“My son never spoke of plans to carry out such an attack, if he had I would have tried to prevent it,” Duwait’s father Tayseer told The Media Line as police officers came to question him.
Nevertheless, Israel Radio reported that a woman started singing in praise of the terrorist when security forces left the home.
Anyhow, regarding the BBC’s lies:
Dwayat’s home in east Jerusalem showed no sign of the crowds and banners that normally accompany the funerals of Palestinian militants.
Explain this Beeboids:
Terrorist’s mourning tent dismantled
Jerusalem border police ordered the family of Husam Taysir Dwayat – the man who perpetrated the deadly bulldozer terror attack in Jerusalem on Wednesday – to dismantle a mourning tent which they were erecting in memory of the man on Thursday.
According to reports, officers who had been stationed in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sur Bahir following yesterday’s attack observed members of the Dwayat family beginning the process of establishing the tent, this despite explicit instructions from Jerusalem police chief Aharon Franco forbidding the act.
The BBC: presenting the human face of terrorism – even if it means making it all up!
I think American blog site Ace of Spades sums up Al-BBC’s position..
“Meanwhile, of course, details are always provided front and center regarding Palestinians killed by Israel anti-terrorist strikes; it’s the details that humanize the victim, of course, and make him more than digital cipher. No Palestinian dies or is even injured without poignant details of his family, his hopes, his dreams; but Jews are different, basically the nameless mooks in an action movie, and no one should pay much heed to them as the Palestinian Action Heroes cut them down in bloody swaths.
This is of course completely deliberate.
For the BBC, “Never again” is a trite and politically incorrect motto. They prefer the more nuanced, modern version of it: “How about next Thursday?”
Biodegradable:
Contrast this:
“And the obligatory BBC bottom line:
Since the start of 2008, across Israel and the occupied territories, 29 Israelis have been killed in violence linked to the conflict as have more than 400 Palestinians.”
with this from, of all places, the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/02/israelandthepalestinians.middleeast
Israel: Jerusalem bulldozer attack marks rise in violence
0. Matthew Weaver
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday July 2, 2008
“Today’s incident marks the fourth serious attack on Israel this year following a lull in violence in 2007.
In February, a woman was killed and 11 people injured in the town of Dimona, in which was the first suicide bombing inside Israel in more than a year.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by hardliners within the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a group linked to the Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.
In March, eight students were killed when a gunman opened fire at Mercz Harav Yeshiva, one of Jersusalem’s largest seminaries. It was the worst incident inside Israel since April 2006.
In May, 90 people were injured when a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip hit a busy shopping mall in central Ashkelon.
The rising violence this year is yet to match the scale of attacks in 2002 at the height of the Palestinian intifada, when 220 people were killed in 55 separate attacks.
Last year there was only one fatal attack inside Israel, when three employees of a bakery were killed in a suicide bombing in the southern city of Eilat.
The decrease in violence has been attributed to the effectiveness of the West Bank barrier in restricting access for Palestinians.”
The Guardian puts the violence against Israelis in its proper context–the history of violence against Israelis for the last several years. The BBC cherry picks from this year alone with the expressed purpose of making the Israelis look like mass murderers in comparison to the Palestinians. Disgusting.
simon,
Another indication of how the BBC views things is this line which I’ve also seen repeated in various reports on the “truce”:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7489656.stm
The truce is designed to halt Israeli incursions into the Gaza Strip, and stop rockets and mortars being fired from Gaza into southern Israel.
While it’s true that the truce was suggested by Hamas as a way of having a respite from the IDF’s anti-terrorist operations in Gaza, the above sentence deliberately gives the impression that it’s the IDF which is the problem, not the rockets and mortars. It faithfully echoes the Hamas line that the rockets are a response to “Israeli aggression”. Just as the BBC repeated the Hamas line on the Jerusalem bulldozer attack as being a “natural response”.
If one accepts that then one could also accept that if Israel were to carpet bomb Gaza, that too would have to be seen as a “natural response”.
Further to this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7488067.stm
Other reports say the the father-of-two – a devout Muslim married to a Palestinian woman – may have been seeking revenge for experiences in the past including a failed love affair with a Jewish Israeli woman and a spell in prison.
“Failed love affair”?
See http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/812896/murder-and-boon-this-wasnt.thtml
and
http://adloyada.typepad.com/adloyada/2008/07/telegraph-romanticizes-jerusalems-rapist-terrorist.html
Meanwhile police have confirmed Dwayyat also had a criminal record, and had served two years in prison after being convicted of raping a Jewish Israeli woman he had been romantically involved with. He married and had two children upon his release.
http://www.miamiherald.com/697/story/592143.html
Israel’s Channel 2 reported that Dwayyat had served two years in prison for rape and attempted murder.
Maybe that explains why he appears to have targeted women…
Maybe that explains why he appears to have targeted women…
Biodegradable | 04.07.08 – 2:05 pm
That and the fact that these Arab terrorist scum appear to delight in killing Jewish women and children.