‘As early as the first paragraph of the Introduction he claims that “never a thought is given to Gaza” in the city of Tel Aviv.’
I lifted that from ‘Philosemite’ Chas Newkey Burden’s blog post about Gideon Levy’s book “The Punishment of Gaza”, which elicited a lively response from people who think of Levy as an obnoxious self serving liar.
Seeing as how Gideon Levy has been hobnobbing with Jeremy Bowen at the Edinburgh Festival, I immediately wondered if this was the source of this morning’s report by Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in which he decided to contrast heartless greedy Jews of Tel Aviv with a couple of Palestinian ‘victims’ in Nablus.
However, as one of the Palestinians seemed to be threatening another intefada, and the other had just been acquiring an MBA from Exeter University, which some see as a Saudi-funded academic enclave and possible hotbed of Islamist subversion nestling incongruously in a South West rural idyll, this seemed at odds with the Beeb’s normal practice of showcasing the righteousness of the Palestinians and the wrongteousness of the Israelis.
The Israelis he interviewed sounded somewhat easier to identify with than the Palestinians this time. So you slipped up there Rupert old bean if you don’t mind my saying so.
Does the theme that runs through the BBC’s presentation of the middle east conflict, namely that the Israelis are land-grabbing expansionist warmongers, actually stem from Jeremy Bowen’s superficial grasp of the situation? He recently exposed this when he stated that a religious element has been “grafted on” to what was fundamentally an issue about land.
Melanie Phillips touches on the topic of ill-informed journalism in this article about the misrepresentation of Jewish history underpinning a Christian theme park in Mallorca:
“It is a narrative which gives the lie to the naive belief that the Middle East impasse is a fight over land boundaries. It is instead an attempt to excise from the region not just the Jewish state of Israel, not just every single Jew from a future state of Palestine, but the historical evidence that this land – including Judea and Samaria – was the Jewish national home centuries before Arabs invaded and conquered it, and many more centuries before Arabs started to style themselves as Palestinian.[…..]
Isn’t it wonderful to have quality newspapers written by educated writers?”
The BBC should educate its journalists, if only because they wield such a disproportionate influence.
Ignorance in journalism is deplorable, but nothing satisfactorily explains the BBC’s “wholesale adoption of the fictional Arab narrative”
Friday night/Saturday is the Day of Atonement – so likely to be the most agressively anti-Israel/anti Jewish reports on air then – when there are less Jews listening.
I have noticed the reports from Israel over the last month in particular have used the word ‘Jews’ when what was meant was Israeli. eg Jewish settlers did this that or another. I never hear about Muslim inhabitants of Gaza or the West Bank did ….. X Y or Z (always Palestinians).
The institutionally anti-semitic BBC make a great fuss about special dates in the muslim calendar , but nothing about the Jews.
Blatant BBC bias.
Not all Palestinians are Muslim. As a result of the intimidation, the harassment and the persecution by Muslims the Christian population is declining and and that decline may be terminal.
The BBC don’t want to focus on the clash between the religious and the nationalist elements of the Palestinian story.It prefers to ignore it.
THIS MESSAGE IS FOR NEW VISITORS TO THIS SITE AND NOT THE REGULAR MUTTON-HEADED CONTRIBUTORS
A WARNING TO *NEW* VISITORS: This Site Contains Pointless Critical and/or Argumentative text that serves only to ‘feed’ a black-hole of hatred against a pathetic corporation that exists through taxation and popular ignorance/stupidity. These people, dear friend, think that they can change this ‘ideology’ merely through the act of venting ‘critical’ comments on this site. They, of course, can’t.
The BBC generates some trashy report, then the ‘commentators’ here dump more pointless trash on that thinking that it is the action of an intellectual. The result being a web-site that ferments foolish statements like a pile of rotting shit.
Contribution to the BBC’s web-site is futile. Commenting on any BBC narrative on this site is less than futile. The first is a waste of time. The second is the act of a retard wasting their time.
It’s far better, dear friend, to spend ones precious time on more useful and intellectual activities. Basically, leave these poor imbeciles to their own demise.
A Friend.
NURSE!!
I take it that this is the new angle the BBC supporters are taking to belittle this blog. I.E…..Go anonymous, pretend your not a beeboid, and attempt to dissuade any new readers from perusing these pages.
Ah subterfuge!!……Are the Socialist Workers Party now actively on the pay roll one wonders?……
Might he be called ‘Cash Converters’?
Every time this silly person posts one of these, I’m going to put up that same picture.
David P,
I can see the chicken but not the chicken s… Please post a more explicit photo !
But, it is great that we are getting up the noses of some fascist lefties !
Try these. I found plenty of pictures with just the droppings, but that’s not as poetic.
And remember, this is an improvement over previous BBC coverage of Israel.
A reminder of Jeremy Bowen’s predecessor, Alan Hart:
Mossad was behind 9/11 and Iran doesn’t want nukes
I hope any new readers check this out as well.
Strewth, thanks for sharing (I think). I wonder what Bowen will come out with when he retires?
I am happy to contribute one penny to Bowen’s retirement fund.
The BBC should be ashamed to have employed a loonie bigoted Truther like Hart.
Was he a colleague of Bowen ? If so – how long for ?
They employed other truthers at one point, if you’ll recall the noise over CBBC’s encouraging children to give credence to truther theories.
There may still be plenty of truthers at the BBC now, for all I know, but there’s little evidence these days.
That was a BBC reporter saying those things? Shocking! I didn’t think even the BBC were that blatant in their anti-semitism.
I looked down some of the comments on that site and it was full of people who really shouldn’t be allowed out without straitjackets for fear of the harm they may do to themselves. I can’t believe that there are people who believe such ridiculous conspiracy theories.
BBC journalists do not have a disproportionate influence on the Israel topic or anything else. They mainly broadcast to a load of Eastenders watchers who don’t give a monkey’s about foreign news especially on complex topics like the middle east.
I’m not worried about BBC news’s non-existent influence but I resent having to pay for the self-indulgence of the BBC staff who deliver it. However, I doubt that their antics are nearly as damaging as those of BBC staff who make the brain rotting trash such as Eastenders which is quite popular with the less discerning and most vulnerable sections of our society.
The BBC influences the minds of more than the likes of the Royle Family. I’ve been witness to it personally, which is why I came to this blog in the first place.
“BBC journalists do not have a disproportionate influence on the Israel topic or anything else.”
What nonsense.
Where do you suppose pro-Palestinian socialists, union members, boycotters, demonstrators, protesters, we are all Hezbollah now-ers, kaffiyeh wearers, flotilla organisers, get their ‘information’?
If the BBC didn’t disgorge an unrelenting drizzle of anti Israel flavoured half-news into our collective subconscious, a good deal of this ‘futile’ B-BBC would be redundant. I quite agree that the BBC does damage us with brain rotting trash, but its opinion-forming influence is widespread and insidious.
“Where do you suppose pro-Palestinian socialists, union members, boycotters, demonstrators, protesters, we are all Hezbollah now-ers, kaffiyeh wearers, flotilla organisers, get their ‘information’?”
These are the people the BBC gets its information from and who determine its editorial line – normally.
Which is exactly why they were so outraged at the Panorama report on the Mavi Marmara affair. They saw it as the BBC selling out on their cause, which until then the BBC had supported and nurtured.
Talking about the misrepresentation of Jewish history, it was this fine blog
http://biasedbbc.tv/2005/11/unto-river-of-egypt.html
that exposed Alan Johnston for the propagandist he is by highlighting the article he wrote on the history of Gaza without mentioning the Jews – except as modern Israeli “occupiers.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4365440.stm
Good Grief!
I hadn’t heard of B-BBC in 2005. The blog was certainly buzzing back then.
Yes, it certainly was buzzing back then. That’s why I am delighted that the archives have been restored. The thought of permanently losing years of history of the battle against the BBC was profoundly depressing.
I think that many intelligent, educated people are influenced by the BBC and do take many BBC lies as gospel truth. They assume the BBC is impartial. This is not because they are stupid, but they are not looking for the bias.
I must admit there are many areas of bias which I hadn’t spotted until I came to this website.
The BBC are quite subtle and clever in their bias and it is easy to let it roll over you, if you are not looking for it.
Without doubt otherwise decent. sensible people hava had their minds poisoned against Israel by the BBC. Some people cling to the notion of BBC impartiality like a 5 year old does about Father Christmas.
Hey!! Are you telling me Father Christmas doesn’t exist?? =-O