Okay. here’s another egregious example of the BBC’s hatred of Israel.
Please cast your mind back to July, and the “Rape by Deception case.”
Various news organisations heard that an Israeli court had convicted a poor Arab Israeli of rape just because he tricked a silly loose woman into believing he was a Jew.
“Oh!” they cried. “In the eyes of an Israeli – sexual intimacy with an Arab is tantamount to rape!” “See how very racist they are!” they all screeched, jumping up and down with glee.
I blogged it here after hearing Ed Stourton in full flow on the above theme.
However. Not only is there more to this story than meets the eye. Not the bit about him being married with children, which he was. Nor the bit about the strong support for him from many Israelis that made him feel really really integrated; which there was, though we can’t be sure how it made him feel.
Now it has emerged that the verdict was a result of a plea bargain – ill-advised though it surely turned out to be – to protect the victim, a damaged and vulnerable woman. The full story can be read here, and I heard about it when it came to light at the beginning of this month through Israeli journalist Lisa Goldman’s article, which was also the source of the BBC’s report.
Somehow or other it has taken a couple of weeks to be given the BBC treatment, emerging as this story, deceptively entitled “Unravelling the Israeli Arab ‘rape by deception’ case”.
The deception, Dina Newman whoever you are, is all yours.
Because you have left, in true BBC fashion, the sorry tale well and truly ravelled.
You reiterate the racist innuendo, cast doubt on the veracity of the woman’s testimony, focus on various protestations of innocence by the accused, re-tell the tale which was contrived for the plea bargain – that she went to the police two weeks later when she found out he was an Arab – and omit the part that says “he then assaulted her and raped her, leaving her naked and bleeding – which is how the police discovered her.” You omit to mention […] “By the time the verdict was published, Kashur had been under house arrest for nearly two years, wearing an electronic monitoring device, presumably living in the same house as his children and his wife while he was on trial for raping another woman.”
So Dina Newman, unravel that.
Update. So as I don’t stealth edit my error without an explanation, I apologise for misinterpreting the last quote – he wasn’t accused of raping ‘another woman’ The ‘other’ alludes to a woman apart from his wife. Thanks to Dez for pointing that out.
‘Because you have left, in true BBC fashion, the sorry tale well and truly ravelled.’
B…b… but…
Impartiality is in their genes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2010/09/impartiality_is_in_our_genes.html
[Their] job is to ensure [they] remain absolutely impartial and present the facts to our audiences – without following any agendas.
That’s because [their] audiences trust [them] and [their] specialist journalists…
When stories are complex, highly charged and politicised, audiences rely on [their] specialists to give them context, assess evidence and test opinions without fear or favour.
All [their] journalists – on and off air – are acutely aware of their responsibility to be impartial.
Uh-huh.
One is sure therefore that this is just an isolated case of agenda crushing any hint of professional probity.
And if not, surely easily sorted in post.
After all, with the boss out there being in place despite a clear loathing of anything Israeli or Jewish (possibly entirely understandable, if professionally inexcusable on part of management to leave such a conflict of interest-compromised, incapable of objectivity person on station), anything is possible.
Now, about that ‘in the genes’ thing. Any other clearly documented ‘lapses’ cropping up?
Now ain’t that just typical BBC.
I was debating this when the first story broke with a woman who brought it up on another blog and was unsympathetic to the victim while making no judgement on the accused. I suppose that was understandable given the confusion around the case at the time. That debate lapsed and then when I saw your earlier post I brought it up again and continued the debate with the fresh knowledge that the earlier “Rape by Deception” verdict was a plea bargain.
She then changed tack and started to bash the Israeli justice system but then fell into a shamed silence when I demonstrated that she hadn’t read all the aspects of the case before jumping to confusions. I’m fascinated by the various communication styles on these blogs and how people duck and dive when their prejudices are exposed.
I wonder if Israelis are aware of how much their internal affairs are scrutinised by the rest of the world (and taken down and held against them) and whether that does or should affect their decisions.
If they do take this into consideration, should they really have to be guided by what things will ‘look like’ to the outside world?
Such pressures don’t seem to hold back certain other countries much, but maybe Iran and co. just don’t need the approval of their enemies.
My impression is it’s mostly the academics and politicians (and of course not all of them) who are concerned about approval from the outside world. I don’t think the average Israeli worries much about it and if he/she thinks about the anti-Israel attitude of outside world at all, generally puts it down to the well-known fact of the unjust singling-out of Israel for condemnation.
“You omit to mention the other rape he was accused of…”. Sorry, you seem to have misinterpreted your quote. There was no “other rape” accusation; he’s been under house arrest for this particular case – not for something else.
Yes you’re quite right, I did misinterpret my quote. I was too eager to paint Kashur guilty in the light of everything else I have read about the case.
I will rephrase the piece, but I stand by my points about the writer’s spin on the story. If you had read Lisa Goldman’s report is that what you would have come up with? The man had already been portrayed by the media as hard-done-by and a victim. Dina Newman won’t let go of that, even though she must have known full well that it was not the case.
Yet another example of Islam being higher up on the cultural marxist totem pole than women’s rights (or victims’ rights or gay rights or the right to freedom of speech or… well, anything). A bit of Jew/Israeli bashing is a juicy bonus for the beeboids.
Because of the ill-advised nature of the plea bargain and the sensitivities over the issue of race, the media, including Israeli media, managed to turn Kashur into a loveable rogue.
Now he is alleged to have violently raped this woman. Things have changed. However Dina Newman, while acknowledging the new evidence, reiterates the original story and refers to the woman disparagingly as though her evidence is unreliable. Concern that her evidence would be discredited because of her background is one of the reasons this plea bargain was constructed in the first place. Dina Newman shows us how predictable it was that this would happen.
It’s interesting the implication that rape by fraud or deception has no place in law of civilised countries (Israel is by definition beyond the pale). At least two American states have it on the books (California and Tennessee, I think) and the matter has UK and Commonwealth Common Law precedent.
See: Fraud affecting consent in rape and Adult Impersonation: Rape by fraud as a defence against statutory rape
There is an interesting implication in the case of Travellers or Fixed Term Marriage in Islam. If a girl was to complain in a UK court she gave consent to intercourse not realising her ‘husband’ intended to divorce her after a brief time period would consent by deception be so quickly dismissed?