I’ve been alerted to this BBC story about the arrest of serial killer Elias Abuelazam who was stopped at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport as he tried to board a flight to Israel. What particularly concerned the tipster was that though the BBC must have been keen to tell us what sort of man he was because they headline the article “Israeli man held at airport over US serial stabbings” they haven’t followed through with another detail that would have provided an even more accurate picture. Because this is just not any Israeli man, this is a specially selected, ethnically specific, succulent and delicious, Israeli Arab man.
This species is practically unknown to mankind! Or more specifically, not just any mankind; the mankind that subscribes to the theory that Arabs were ethnically cleansed from Israel in 1948, the run-of-the-mill, ubiquitous, man-on-the-Clapham-omnibus, BBC-listening mankind.
I am a diligent opponent of bias, so I looked at hundreds of other articles on this to see if the BBC was alone in omitting this arguably crucial fact, and I found that it was not.
Most of the US press omitted it too. From my rigourously scientific scrutiny only abcnews and Wikipedia actually said he was an Israeli-Arab, and msnb said his mother’s name was Iyam al-Azzam, a bit of a give-away. Far down in the story Journal News says he comes from Ramla, a “mixed Arab-Israeli working-class district,” which I took to be a small clue.
So is it unfair to expect the BBC to include this teeny detail in its report?
Well, for one thing most of his victims were black, so race, or ethnicity has crept in tangentially.
Also, in the US, Jew- Arab sensitivities might be less heightened than in the UK. In Israel it seems it’s not an issue. Jerusalem Post has:
“The Israeli citizen arrested in Atlanta late Wednesday for allegedly murdering five people and injuring many more has been identified as Elias Abuelazam, 33.
Police believe the attacks were racially motivated.
Abuelazam was arrested while attempting to board a flight from Atlanta to Tel Aviv.”
So, should the BBC have mentioned something that others didn’t, just because of perceived sensitivities surrounding the BBC’s relationship with Israel, bias, impartiality, and truth?
Thanks for this post Sue, I caught that headline and feared the worst. The name “Elias” struck me as a Jewish name. If he is an Arab I guess it’s a story that will soon quietly disappear.
It is double standards by the BBC, Muslim Pakistani men are just called ‘Asians’ so why wasn’t he just called a middle eater’ or something?
Well, the BBC tells us that the victims are black and that the police say they think they might be racially motivated. I thought the BBC didn’t like to tell us the skin colour of people in their reports of crimes. Or is that only certain skin colours in certain circumstances? And only certain circumstances when they flag the possibility of racial motivation? Hm…
Exactly, Race is the salient component of the story, so the usual excuse to censor the perpetrator’s ethnicity doesn’t hold up this time.
Pretty much everyone just copied the AP release, which did not mention that the killer was anything other than an Israeli citizen, and used the spelling of his name as it appeared on the police report. Of course, AP has been busted a few times for anti-Israel bias, so if anything one would have thought a responsible sub-editor might take an extra precautionary step when using AP feeds on stories related to Israel. The first thing I did when I saw the “AP” byline at the top was look for another source. Immediately my suspicions were proved correct. Too bad the BBC News Online sub-editor couldn’t be bothered.
In any case, while the first name could be Jewish, the last name very obviously isn’t, even smushed together as the man himself made it, in order to lessen the obviously Arab quality. “Abu-” anything is a dead giveaway to anyone familiar with it, but most people would stop at the first name, put that together with “Israeli”, and draw the obvious conclusion. And as Martin points out, if he had been a citizen of any Muslim country, the BBC would have designated him “Middle-eastern” somehow.
another chink to this story…
from the IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
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From the link above ( this comments system doesn’t behave itself with copy and paste)
“Israel Radio finds PC way to mention suspected serial killer Elias
Abuelazam is Arab
Reports broadcast this evneing on Israel Radio have studiosly avoided
directly mentioning ithat suspected serial killer Elias Abuelazam is a
Christian Arab. The midnight news did however, feature an interview with
his mother, who spoke in Arabic.”
So Israeli radio is also crippled by PC ?
Everyone there is going to know full well that Elias Abu-anything is an Arab. No issue there.
Also, I always copy text from another source into a simple text editor like NotePad or similar first, and then copy and paste from there into this window. Otherwise there always seems to be a ton of extra formatting code all over the place, either visible or invisible.
One of the more disgusting pieces of BBC deliberate blackening of Israel and Jews that I have seen this month!
Here’s more on this subject.
Here’s how he was described on the Israel Broadcasting Authority’s website:
Alleged serial killer arrested in Atlanta airport is Ramle native.
The suspect in the United States serial killings in Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia was arrested at the Atlanta airport early Thursday morning as he sat on board a plane bound for Israel. The man, Elias Abuelazam, is suspected of killing at least five people in some 20 knife and hammer attacks.
A spokesman for the US Customs and Border Protection said the agency’s officers arrested the man and handed him over to the FBI and the Atlanta police. A newspaper in Flint, Michigan identified the man as Elias Abuelazam. He was reportedly in possession of an expired Israeli passport.
Abuelazam is a 33 years old Christian originally from Ramle and has been living in the US for several years. Most of his alleged victims were either African Americans or Hispanics.
http://www.iba.org.il/world/?starting=ibanews
As David P pointed out, it would be clear to all Israelis from his name that he is an Arab. I note they mention he is a Christian, so differentiating between Muslim and Christian Arab.
(Part 2 coming up)
Alleged serial killer arrested in Atlanta airport is Ramle native <img style=”display: none;” src=”reka/images/rekaPlus.jpg” title=”Expand Details” border=”0″ alt=”Expand Details”/><img src=”reka/images/rekaMinus.jpg” title=”Hide Details” border=”0″ alt=”Hide Details”/> The suspect in the United States serial killings in Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia was arrested at the Atlanta airport early Thursday morning as he sat on board a …The suspect in the United States serial killings in Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia was arrested at the Atlanta airport early Thursday morning as he sat on board a plane bound for Israel. The man, Elias Abuelazam, is suspected of killing at least five people in some 20 knife and hammer attacks.
A spokesman for the US Customs and Border Protection said the agency’s officers arrested the man and handed him over to the FBI and the Atlanta police. A newspaper in Flint, Michigan identified the man as Elias Abuelazam. He was reportedly in possession of an expired Israeli passport.
Abuelazam is a 33 years old Christian originally from Ramle and has been living in the US for several years. Most of his alleged victims were either African Americans or Hispanics.
Alleged serial killer arrested in Atlanta airport is Ramle native <img style=”display: none;” src=”reka/images/rekaPlus.jpg” title=”Expand Details” border=”0″ alt=”Expand Details”/><img src=”reka/images/rekaMinus.jpg” title=”Hide Details” border=”0″ alt=”Hide Details”/> The suspect in the United States serial killings in Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia was arrested at the Atlanta airport early Thursday morning as he sat on board a …The suspect in the United States serial killings in Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia was arrested at the Atlanta airport early Thursday morning as he sat on board a plane bound for Israel. The man, Elias Abuelazam, is suspected of killing at least five people in some 20 knife and hammer attacks.
A spokesman for the US Customs and Border Protection said the agency’s officers arrested the man and handed him over to the FBI and the Atlanta police. A newspaper in Flint, Michigan identified the man as Elias Abuelazam. He was reportedly in possession of an expired Israeli passport.
Abuelazam is a 33 years old Christian originally from Ramle and has been living in the US for several years. Most of his alleged victims were either African Americans or Hispanics.
Oops, dunno what happened there. Anyway, here’s part 2:
This is a difficult one. Though we know how anti-Israel the BBC is, I’m not sure we can accuse the BBC of deliberate bias in this particular case, simply because if it is obliged to mention that he is an Arab, then it is equally obliged to mention the Jewishness of other Israelis. Safer to steer clear of both.
However, it should be added that in the case of the Israeli Arab accused of rape by the Jewish Israeli, the BBC is not coy at all about emphasisinging his race. In fact, Arab is right up there in the headline. Though of course his race is the central issue in the story, so the BBC has a defence here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10717186
We’ll see whether the BBC mentions that Abuwhatshisname is an Arab as the case progresses.
Anyway, I have no doubt that the BBC is baffled by the existence of 1,3 million Israeli Arabs, many of them thriving in businesses such as construction, with their own political parties, aggressive anti-Israel MPs and a Cabinet Minister.
How the hell is the BBC supposed to spin that? Plays havoc with the narrative of the evil apartheid Jews brutally suppressing the Palestinians, only because they are Arabs. I almost sympathise with the BBC’s dilemma here.
You’re playing devil’s advocate there. Because though you’re quite right that the BBC wasn’t obliged to say he was an Arab as most of the other press don’t say it either, the BBC is special because of its obligatory masquerade of scrupulous impartiality, particularly on the Israel question. In that context, when I say Israel, I also mean Jewish.
The BBC specifically used “Israeli” in the headline, while other reports merely said that he was attempting to fly to Israel. So the BBC certainly wanted you to know where he was from.
As the BBC is well aware, Jews are default in Israel, and Arabs, Christians and others are the exception. So it doesn’t follow that if they said ‘Israeli Arab’ they’d also have to say ‘Israeli Jew’.
It looks as though the BBC was affected by extreme P.C. and fear of being thought Islamophobic, having assuming he was a Muslim. Of course they needn’t have worried, since matey turns out to be a Christian, but if that was what stopped them saying he was an Arab, it carries the implication that equally they knew full well that not saying it would make many people assume he was a Jew.
Several bloggers say they were dismayed that an Israeli was a serial killer, having initially assumed from the headline and the misleading first name that he was a Jewish Israeli. If something violent has been done by an Arab, a sensitive news report would mention that he was an Arab, whereas a Jewish-hostile or a neutral one wouldn’t, or wouldn’t see any need to.
Any accusations we might make, namely that the BBC’s willingness to associate Israel with a serial killer exposes their hostile attitude to Israel, are probably less of a deterrent than accusations of prejudice against Arabs that might emanate from the opposite camp had they dared to mention the Arab ethnicity in their report.
In this climate of hostility to Israel, where that’s the right-on view, it’s getting less and less of a stigma to have just that one little area of racism, as long as you call it something other that antisemitism.
I know this is a bit long-winded, but I didn’t have time to make it shorter 😀
Well, I dunno, sue. Wasn’t really playing devil’s advocate, more like thinking out loud. Yes, Jewish Israeli is the default position and I can see how that would dilute my point somewhat but I don’t really see any bias in not mentioning his Arabness straight away, and I’m looking at the BBC in isolation here and not concerning myself with how others have reported it.
If the BBC continues to omit it in subsequent articles, then that’s a different story. There’s another distinct possibility here – that the BBC doesn’t know he is an Arab but simply saw a suspected serial killer with a Jewish-sounding first name on his way to Israel, rubbed its collective hands together in glee and said to itself. “Let’s splash this story around as far as possible.” That’s the good old BBC I know.
As Davieboy pointed out in the first comment, the BBC will stop splashing as soon as it becomes known that he is an Arab. I agree that there would be powerful deterrents in the way of the BBC mentioning that he is an Arab, not least the fact that well over half the planet support and sympathise with the Palestinians and in many cases people would not be able to immediately differentiate between a Palestinian and an Israeli Arab. I have difficulty differentiating between them myself.
Anyway, let’s see how it develops. If the BBC buries it, we’ll know they’ve twigged that he’s an Arab.
Had Abuelazam been responsible for something positive, say saving the lives of stab victims, I expect the BBC would have described him as a Palestinian.
I’m quite sure that the Beeboids knew fairly early on that Abu-something is an Arab name, and no way is this guy Jewish. They simply didn’t care if people assumed he was, whereas we know they go out of their way to adjust their reports if it’s one of the protected groups.
As soon as the wire services added the bit about the racist/hate-crime nature of the violent acts, mentioning the ethnicity of the perpetrator is fair game, never mind the whole point of it. But the BBC didn’t do that, knowing all the while that people will make a false negative assumption about Jews.
TT,
Initially I gave the BBC the benefit of the doubt, but the more I thought about it the more I took it back again. The BBC is in a special situation. They know the way they put things has a unique significance. They have special rules for sensitive words.
The headline in the updated report has dropped the Israel connection. See how much better it would have been if they’d done that in the first place.
The BBC has more-or-less noticed that Abuelazzam is an Arab Christian but the largely irrelevant link to Israel is still emphasized.
He grew up in a Christian Arab community in Ramla, in central Israel, newspaper reports in Israel say. What does that mean, exactly? Could he have been the one Hindu is the neighbourhood? Reports say – Is there any doubt?
Had he been a Pakistani who maintained connections to Pakistan although living for fifteen years in England I strongly doubt the BBC would have worded it this way. He would have been a “Bradford’ man (locality is flexible) and we would have been left to guess his ethnicity from his name.
He’d still be an Israeli to the BBC, until such time as everyone else knew he was an Arab, in which case the BBC would call him a “Briton”.
So, the BBC headline should have been “Racist Arab serial killer arrested in US “.
I would have settled for “Arab-Israeli arrested for racial attacks”.
Yes, I take the point that the headline could have been handled differently. And I note that right near the end of the article you linked to, Sue, comes the bit that deegee quoted:
He grew up in a Christian Arab community in Ramla, in central Israel, newspaper reports in Israel say.
Could well be that the BBC is bemused here and is scratching its collective head, saying, “Oh shit, we thought he was Jewish.”
Why are they distancing themselves from the fact of his Arabness with the peculiar wording of that sentence. Are they assuming the Israelis papers are lying or not telling the full truth?
Anyway, my guess is that we will no longer hear anything further about him being an Arab in subsequent BBC reports.
Doesn’t the offending headline remind you that antisemitism hides beneath a cloak of antiZionism?
So, the BBC grabbed the opportunity to associate *Israel* with crime, the M.O. du jour for lefties and liberals who wouldn’t dream of seeing themselves as antisemites, but as soon as they realised he wasn’t quite what they thought, they dropped it?
Ain’t the slightest shadow of a doubt that many BBC journalists are deeply anti-Semitic and try to cover for it with the anti-Israel narrative. That was demonstrated with crystal clarity during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war when virtually every BBC reporter covering the war sneered at Israel while portraying Hezbollah as innocent victims. I recall the BBC’s triumphant headline a day or two into the war:
Israel kills Lebanese civilians
That was hastily removed and replaced with something more moderate.
Having considered all the angles here, I think the BBC should simply have had this for the headline:
Suspect held at airport over US serial stabbings
It would have become clear in the body of the article, as it did anyway, that he was on his way to Israel – and the BBC could hardly have been accused of bias for that bit of news.
But as we know, when it comes to Israel the BBC can’t help itself.
That MSNBC article mentions another detail about Abuelazam’s background that would run counter to the BBC narrative on Israel (if confirmed):
Abuelazam grew up in a well-to-do Christian Arab family in the city of Ramle, Israel.
http://fieldnotes.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/08/13/4880992-portrait-of-stabbing-suspect-emerges
Not just Israeli Arabs but well-to-do ones too!
The BBC style guide is not equipped to handle this. I wish News Sniffer was still active so we could see the torturous editorial process of the report.
I notice, in a similar vein, that the Beeboid Jew-haters are reporting the killing of 6 Africans trying to make it to Israel for asylum. Note how craftily they blame “people smugglers” for some of the killings. One is eft with the impression that these smugglers must be Israeli Jews, when in reality they are Arab Muslim Bedouin.
In fact today, hundreds of (Jewis) Israeis protested in Tel Aviv for the right of illegal immigrant kids to REMAIN in Israel.
But of course the stealing, stinking bigots at the BBC failed to notice. What a shock!