I wondered what you think of the following comments made by Jeremy Bowen? “After inflicting so much pain and death, Israel still says that Gaza’s civilians are not its enemy. That is something that Gazans – and millions of others in this part of the world – do not believe.” I am sure he includes the BBC in that number, don’t you? Also, after Hamas firing rockets into Israel AFTER the ceasefire came into effect, I was curious as to why Jeremy has not asked his excellent UN for a comment on this act of war?
JEREMY BOWEN WRITES..
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David, the third part of Bowen’s piece from which you quote, is utterly disgraceful in its pro Hamas bias. The glee with which he plays to the Arab gallery in this comment should be enough to remove him from his post.
Why on earth should I have to pay for this?
He has spoken, so shall it be. I wish he’d calm down a bit, i’m running out of stone here and could do with a new chisel.
Bowen is just a twisted hate filled moron.
What really naffs me off about the BBC is that I have a legal obligation to fund a politically biased propaganda machine that in no way reflects my own opinions.
Dump the TV licence NOW! Make the buggers work for their money instead of giving them billions to waste on airy fairy crap. Let’s see how long they last against the competition…
Lawrence Auster:
‘Why the media'[inc BBC] ‘have not attacked Israel for attacking mosques’:
“Israel has been viciously and hysterically condemned by international opinion for everything it has done done in Gaza, except, strangely, for the fact that it has bombed six mosques. Why no criticism over the mosques? Apparently because weapons including anti-aircraft cannon have been found in the Gaza mosques, and the supporters of Israel’s enemies don’t want to draw attention to the fact that Israel’s enemies use mosques for weapons. It would make the nature of those enemies, and of their religion, so obvious that even a Karen Armstrong couldn’t deny it. ”
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/012319.html
Link to: Youtube 1:30 sec video clip of Hamas weapons captured inside Gaza mosque:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/01/022565.php
George, that’s a very good point.
That’s an excellent point by L. Auster, George, and one more classic example of the ‘Pravda’ nature of the BBC so frequently flagged here.
Ah the BBC. Bias beyond the call of duty for their socialist cohorts.
LOOK AT THIS
It says it all….
Crikey, very powerful. Whose GCSE project was that?
BBC World News presenter to IDF spokeswoman Avital Leibovich, “… but Hamas just want Israel to withdraw all its troops from Gaza and open all the border crossings, it’s that simple.”
I couldn’t believe my ears, a clear example of the BBC cheering for Hamas.
Subject: Hamas ‘announces Gaza ceasefire’
From: BBC Breaking News Alert
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2009 12:40:17 +0000 (GMT)
Militant group Hamas calls a ceasefire in Gaza giving Israeli troops a week to leave, reports say, hours after an Israeli ceasefire began.
For more details: http://www.bbcnews.com
ROTFLMAO!
Last night I was watching “The Alamo: The Legend” on Spanish TV. Hamas’ call for a “ceasefire” reminded me of the scene where Billy Bob Thorton is on his knees before General Sanatana, the last survivor of the massacre at the hands of the Mexican army. Billy Bob says, “General, I’m willing to negotiate the conditions of your surrender…”
Hilarious!
Biodegradable: The BBC really are tossers. Could you imagine the following
The Nazi party: If the Allies withdraw from Germany we will order a cease fire.
Hmm. I don’t think so.
Simply disgusting. Sack Bowen and end the Beeb. I seriously don’t know how much longer they expect to go on with this bulls**t.
Excellent article by former deputy PM of Israel Natan Sharansky offering a totally different perspective to the Bowen/BBC/UN/Hamas narrative:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_sharansky&sid=axZLAbvx.p6E
Compare the BBC’s (lack of) sympathy when reporting Hamas attacks on Israel with this:
Robbers kill pensioner’s budgie
How many traumatised Israelis = 1 dead budgie?
The answer to the question appears to be – what traumatised Israelis?
If you believe the BBC reports that is…
It’s time for the British citizenry to kill the BBC’s budgie.
Don’t you mean turkey?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7836616.stm
the mendacious abu bowen tells us in his little diary
“….Gaza was bordering on anarchic in the year or so before Hamas used force to remove its rivals from Fatah in the summer of 2007. Shoot-outs in the streets were common.
About that time I was staying in a hotel on the seafront in Gaza City. We had been working hard, and had a few hours off one afternoon, so I went for a snooze in my hotel room.
A wedding hall stands next door to the hotel. Palestinians have an unfortunate custom of shooting in the air at weddings, something I have never liked ever since I heard that bullets come down just as fast as they go up.
So when I was half roused by gunfire I put it down to a wedding. Then I was woken again by one of the hotel staff advising me to stay in my room. Naturally, I went down to the foyer to see what was happening.
A cleaner was mopping up a big pool of blood. Someone had been wounded, not too seriously, and had crawled into the hotel. Outside Hamas men with guns, beards and black uniforms had taken up positions and were firing sporadically down the road.
Once Hamas took over, they sorted out the streets. It was not pleasant for their rivals. People died. Some followers of Siad Siyam, the interior minister killed by the Israelis a few days ago in an air strike, had a reputation for violence and torture.
Gazans appreciated the calm, except those who fell foul of the Hamas security services. For foreigners in Gaza, mainly journalists and aid workers, life became a little easier under Hamas. ”
jeremy, don’t watch this video of hamas firing on a wedding party, killing guests, and beating the groom to death. Their crime?
They were singing.
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2009/01/real-face-of-hamas-terrorists-murderers.html
This interview from the Independent is quite revealing of Bowen:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/jeremy-bowen-the-man-in-the-middle-427930.html
“The BBC struggles to convince Israelis that it will give them a fair hearing, he acknowledges. “It’s certainly the case that many Israelis and… many people in the British Jewish community regard us as, if not anti-Israel actively, then certainly pro-Palestinian. Some regard us as being actively anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic. I think it’s unfortunate because it is not true. The difficulty of reporting from the Middle East is that what people really want, even if they realise you have to represent all views, is for you to come down on their side. They want you to acknowledge their victimhood and that it’s not their fault. If you don’t, you are on the other side. The reality is more complicated than that. I’m not a cheerleader for any side.””
Bowen is the worst possible kind of liar.
Unfortunately for him the viewing public are not as stupid as he thinks we are and he is not as clever as he thinks he is.
Anonymous | 18.01.09 – 10:02 pm | #
Nail on the head. The word “mendacious” sums Bowen up perfectly.
And yet everyone who owns a TV set in the Uk is forced to pay this scumbag’s wages. Time to cut the parasitic al-BBC off from it’s host.
Re. Abu bin Bowen and his pro-islamic propaganda:
The phrase “religion of piece” doesn’t quite wash when the guy shouting it blows himself up next to you. I mean how stupid can you be if you believe hamas are a bunch of peace-loving freedom fighters???
Therefore Abu bin Bowen must be more stupid than we give him credit for. What an **** !
With regard to the mendacious and tendentious reporting of Mr. Bowen, I think a new transitive verb should be coined for the English language, namely: [to] Bowenize. We already have Bowdlerize, whose meaning is: “to modify by abridging, simplifying, or distorting in style or content” (especially with regard to the works of Shakespeare).
I think the definition of Bowenize, would be curiously similar, except it would refer to simplifying and distorting news reports against Israel in favour of Islamic terrorists. For example, “the news reports of Hamas’s missile attacks and Israel’s response was clearly seen to be heavily Bowenized”.
The Northumbrian | 19.01.09 – 1:27 am
Like it.
Hope the blog can help me, I have heard/read it referred to before, and must confess to having ‘bought’ into it, and I really hope in hindsight because I saw it confirmed at the time (something I task the BBC to do), but does anyone have a credible link to Mr. Bowen’s statement to the effect that ‘he could never forgive the IDF’, following what was admittedly a pretty ‘influential’ event in a person’s life.
The circumstances, though terrible, are not relevant here, but if it’s true suggests that this statement is a stretch: I’m not a cheerleader for any side.. Is this a Clintonian way of still seeing no problem slamming one ‘side’ disproportionately? Such weasels, along with the obvious errors of omission and/or edit suite shenanigans really are getting rather blatant.
Of all possible choices, it’s hard to understand how the BBC feels their commitment to objectivity (sic) is best served by his position and posting.
The Times survey (and I know they are usually worth zippy and often can be guided by the way questions are asked… BBC please hang head) quoted elsewhere (hat tip ‘anon’ ) – http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/pollresults.htm – does at least suggest that the public is less than cooperative in slavishly having their opinions ‘shaped’ in the ‘correct’ ways, on this and many other topics, too.
The Northumbrian | 19.01.09 – 1:27 am | #
I’ll second that.
I would say to “Bowenize” means to report things that are true in isolation, but act to deliberately distort the overall message by a deliberate acts of omission.
Glaring example – not reporting the duration and frequency of rocket attacks into Israel. Just some verifiable numbers would have gone a long way to balancing things out a bit.
Or to put it another way: to “Bowenize” = to follow the letter of the law but not the spirit.
How soon before Bowenise makes the Urban Dictionary?
“The difficulty of reporting from the Middle East is that what people really want, even if they realise you have to represent all views, is for you to come down on their side. They want you to acknowledge their victimhood and that it’s not their fault. If you don’t, you are on the other side.”
Bowen is absolutely correct in that. The problem is that he doesn’t practice what he preaches, particularly in his highly emotive TV pieces over the last month which have focussed almost entirely on “acknowledging the victimhood” of the Palestinians without context, balance or any suggestion that there might be a blur between civilians and Hamas or that Hamas might deliberately use civilians to further its political aims.
The longer piece referenced in David’s post is actually a pretty intelligent and balanced analysis of both sides’ possible political motives (as with a lot of his online writings) in announcing ceasefires at this point, but then there’s the inevitable, pointless throwaway line at the end…
Everyone knows there’s been horrible suffering etc etc in Gaza but Bowen doesn’t need to smother it over everything with a trowel. He’s the Middle East EDITOR for f***s sake and should be focussing on the much bigger picture in a detached manner.
I have been told there are two types of Israelis: Those who believe the BBC are nothing more than Palestinian propaganda in English and those who do do pay attention to the BBC 🙂
An Israeli spokesman once said he prefers Al Jazeera to the BBC. Al J doesn’t pretend to be neutral and they don’t misquote.
A question for the BBC. Don’t you feel that a whole democratic, educated country who see you as the enemy should cause you to examine your reporting?
deegee | 19.01.09 – 4:46 pm |
A question for the BBC. Don’t you feel that a whole democratic, educated country who see you as the enemy should cause you to examine your reporting?
No, they don’t. I saw a BBC travel piece by none other than Alexi Sayle years ago, in which he scowled at Israel and said they really ought to start acting like a real democratic state.
It’s an old narrative. They are frowning because they think Israel is not behaving as a proper democratic state. Why self-defense, overwhelmingly supported by the public, who democratically elected their leaders to defend them from enemies, is considered undemocratic by the BBC (and its defenders), I have no idea. But I suspect the answer lies in the usual twisted moralizing and fantasy definitions of democracy.
completely OT but i found this whilst scouting about on the interweb –
the website for EU bam RAFAH. the eu monitors who ran away when hamas took power.
the last press release from C in C Senor Solana advises-
“I also would like to warmly thank General Pietro Pistolese for his dedication and the excellent work he carried out as the head of EUBAM Rafah since it was launched in November 2005. The mission has been instrumental in allowing thousands of people to cross the border at Rafah.
Since the closure of the crossing point, the mission has maintained its operational capability and the European Union is prepared to redeploy its personnel at the border as soon as conditions permit”
LOL ! “The mission has been instrumental in allowing thousands of people to cross the border at Rafah.”
yes mainly carrying grad rockets and AK 47s!!!!!!!!
http://www.eubam-rafah.eu/portal/en/node/458
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/jeremy-bowen-the-man-in-the-middle-427930.html
“But Bowen’s career didn’t really start until he reached the battlefield and saw his first corpse in El Salvador in 1989. “I was still in my late twenties. I had seen dead bodies and heard shots fired in anger for the first time and I was having fun.”
I guess he just projects his warped mind on Israel and assumes they’re having fun when they have to kill people?
Yes, and what more could we ask for; a confession.
Bowen, who is a contributor to the BBC’s new College of Journalism, is honest enough to say that objectivity is beyond him. “We all come from somewhere; we all have a prism through which we see the world; we all have an education, and views and experiences. It’s a false objective to be objective.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/jeremy-bowen-the-man-in-the-middle-427930.html