Following on from Laban’s post below concerning the BBC’s claim that the motives of John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo are a mystery, it is only fair to point out that for some religiously-motivated terrorists the BBC does feel able to pass on the statements of the perpetrators as to their own motives:
Murder charges for Jewish settler
A Jewish settler has been charged in Israel with murdering two Palestinians and attacking left-wing Israeli, gay and messianic Jewish targets.
Yaakov Teitel, an American immigrant who lives in the West Bank, faces 14 charges, including two counts of murder and three of attempted murder.
“God is proud of what I have done,” Mr Teitel said in court.
Police called him a “Jewish terrorist” when he was arrested in October. His lawyer says he is mentally disturbed.
(For bonus points, the BBC even managed to mention that Mr Teitel was an immigrant and told us where he emigrated from! Compare this.)
If Teitel had been anything other than Jewish, he would be a `militant’ in Al – Beeb parlance and every effort made to excuse and understand him! What he did was inexcusable, of course, but it would nice to see a level playing field where Islamic terrorists are called just that and similarly condemned! Some hope!!
PS The fact that he was from the US was a bonus to Al-Beeb.
He didn’t come from Mother Russia then ?
I guess the Jews fear reprise attacks article is being proofread as I type.
Some interesting simularities and differences in the BBC approach to the Jaacov Teitel and Nidal Hasan Stories. I normally hesistate to link to any Haaretz articles but this one contains so much more information than the BBC managed to glean.
Who is suspected Jewish terrorist Yaakov Teitel? By Chaim Levinson, Haaretz Correspondent
Unlike Hasan, Teitel was described as an introverted loner, who did not have much connection with the community in which he lived (Shvut Rachel BTW – the BBC didn’t bother telling us). Not even regular synagogue attendance. His Hebrew was so poor that he had little to do with his neighbours. Nevertheless the BBC stresses both the Jewish cand the Settler connection in the headline and the first sentence, which may be all a reader reads.
This is compared to ‘all American Boy’ Hasan who fit in so well with his community. He was a regular attendee at a mosque with some dubious membership but we are assured that had nothing to do with his murderous ways. Both had training as psychologists. That must be the connection.
I can’t imagine why ‘Murder charges’ for US shooting has scare quotes but Murder charges for Jewish settler has none but the use of passive when an Arab kills and the active when an Israeli kills is right in the BBC Manual of Style. Hasan is suspected of shooting is a bit of a joke as there is no doubt he shot only whether he was guilty of murder but the innocent until proven guilty mode never applies to Israelis.
Whilst I take your point about BBC bias against Israel, there’s still a few things to tidy up here.
If Yaakov Teitel had no Hebrew then how did he manage to distribute hate literature in Ivrit? He must have had people helping him out. And why is there video footage of Teitel being dropped off at the Ortiz residence, if he was acting alone? Teitel has had accomplices along the way, even the former head of Shin Bet says it was impossible for Teitel to be acting alone.
The BBC has, if anything, under-reported the facts. But at least they mention the Messianic Jewish victims, which in turn is way better than the Jewish Chronicle, which has only bothered to mention Ami Ortiz’ case today, nearly two weeks too late, and still can’t bring itself to actually call Teitel a terorrist without putting “terrorist” in speech marks, despite (rightly) calling Islamic terrorists terrorists.
I can only speculate about the hate literature but here are some options and there may be more.
1. The literature was written by Teitel with the help of tools such as a dictionary and/or translator software, such as Babylon or Google. The word literature is quite deceptive. It’s not a quality judgement.
2. Teitel distributed the material but didn’t write it.
3. Teitel stole material others had written, laid it out as a pamphlet and claimed it as his own.
4. Teitel’s written Hebrew could have been vastly superior to his spoken Hebrew. That’s not uncommon. My daughter has learnt French for four years at school. She can cope with quite advanced material, almost to the level of a newspaper but her spoken French is a poor joke.
5. Maybe you are correct that he wasn’t alone with the hate literature but his cohorts had no knowledge about his other activities.
6. He was part of a gang whose identities are as yet unknown.
I don’t read the Jewish Chronicle, have no knowledge of its strengths and weaknesses. BTW I assume you refer to the London Jewish Chronicle as there are Jewish Chronicles in Pittsburgh, Kansas, Cape Town and a number of other cities. However even if you refer to the largest of them I doubt it has anything like the staff and resources of the BBC nor does it have a legally mandated duty of neutrality. If it is anything like Jewish papers I have more experience with it relies on agencies and stringers to provide foreign news rather than carry the expense of a foreign correspondent. This too frequently leads to ommissions.
In any case B-BBC is not here to defend or attack any other media outlet other than the BBC.