There seems to be consensus at the BBC that the peace talks will fail solely because of obstacles put up by a Mr Net’n’Yahoo. Something to do with the interweb?
As ever, the obstacles they constantly posit are: Settlements, 1967 borders and Jerusalem. Oh yes, and the right of return. Oh yes, and the necessity of talking to Hamas which Israel regards as a terrorist organisation. Oh yes, and the newly conceived theory that Israel’s existence endangers the lives of the US military.
All obligations on the part of the Palestinians that were formerly included in the roadmap have been airbrushed out like the model’s arse in a photoshoot.
So notwithstanding the inconvenient fact that they have been indoctrinated from the cradle to the grave with a murderous antipathy towards Jews, the Palestinians will submit obediently, with the proviso that Israel has rolled over and acceded to all requisite concessions as demanded by the majority. For example people like Paul Rogers, professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University who was consulted by Jane Little on the Sunday programme R4, for his expertise on peacemaking.
Professor Rogers has come to Peace Studies via climate science and environmentalism and he wears a leather gilet over a sweater for lecturing duties. His analysis of the incorrect way the West deals with terrorism relates to a theory he calls lidism, that is suppressing insurgencies rather than understanding their fundamental causes. That’s a superficial summary on my part, you understand.
Equally superficially, I’d say implementing a strategy informed by his own analysis of the M/E peace process would itself provide a perfect example of lidism, ie ignoring the aforementioned underlying causes of Arab resistance to Israel, and putting a lid on the lot of it by forcing Israel to give in, while not troubling the Palestinians to do some similar fundamental rethinking.
On Friday’s Any Questions programme, Alex Von Tunzelmann, batting for the BBC, kept reiterating that Muslims were not ‘other’ but were just like us. They do indeed arrive just like us in their birthday suits, Ms Von Tunzelperson, but are henceforth hot-housed into a belief system that is anything but just like ours, and wishing it weren’t so is not enough, by a long chalk, to make your wish come true.
Excellent, well-researched piece Sue.
Here’s more on the good professor (the odd punctuation is the website’s own).
Paul Rogers continues to focus on trends in international conflict, developing an analysis of the linkages between socio-economic divisions, environmental constraints and international insecurity. Much of his work since the 9/11 attacks has focused on western military responses to political violence and the numerous problems that have arisen through the pursuit of the ¿war on terror¿.
Bibliography
■Rogers, Paul: Global Security and the War on Terror: Elite Power and the Illusion of Control, Routledge, 2007.
■Rogers, Paul: A War Too Far: Iraq, Iran and the New American Century, Pluto Press, 2006
http://www.brad.ac.uk/peace/staff/academic/ProfessorPaulRogers
The professor (at Bradford University no less) sounds like the ideal commentator on the subject for the biased BBC.
Isn’t it the clear responsibility of the BBC to report that there is damn-all chance of the “peace process” reaching a satisfactory conclusion ? Like – setting out the obstacles to agreement – ALL the obstacles, and the likelihood of concessions on each side ?
That rather depends on how one defines “success”, and what one sees as the problem. I’m confident most of us here have a drastically different definition of both than they do at the BBC.
George Will’s article yesterday summed up the pointlessness of it all – kust Obama and Hillary being officious.
End of the day, Israel will not be forced to commit suicide.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/20/AR2010082004682.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
A first-rate article that John.
Like Charles Krauthammer, George Will is one of America’s great political commentators. Being a conservative though the BBC ignores him. I can only find only four articles, astonishingly, that quote him on the BBC website (every time labeled as a ‘conservative’) since 1998.
….so that is two of the most wodely respected conservative commentators (in print and on TV) in the US deliberately ignored by the BBC. They write and speak well, but their politics are tainted in the eyes of the BBC.
This has the effect of “blacklisting” one half of the political compass.
If that isn’t bias – what is ?
Success = putting Israel in the corner and slapping it. Clear enough?
Anyone interested in Israel may like to see this video
It’s little more than a collage of old photos, but interesting.