Anyone who heard BBC radio 4 and BBC World Service news this morning might have been surprised, and perhaps dismayed, to hear the headline, broadcast several times over in ominous tones, that Israel is about to construct a new ‘hi-tech’ wall on its border with Egypt. Someone in the BBC headline department evidently thought it would make an interesting headline.
The listener, probably cross at still being stranded atop the Clapham omnibus, might assume this was a continuation of what he likes to think of as the expansionist separation wall. “Apartheid Israel is at it again.” he may think, irritably.
Obviously there are walls and barriers to prevent illegal immigration all over the world, but these rarely make headlines. As it happens, even this particular one is nothing new. Not even to the BBC, who reported it at the planning stage in February 2008.
At first it seemed that the BBC wasn’t going to flesh out the headline at all, but by mid-morning they did indeed put something on the website, although other, perhaps more impartial, news agencies have been both more forthcoming and more contemporaneous. Al Jazeera for instance, explained in January this year:
“Thousands of African and other migrants have come to Israel through its desert border with Egypt over the last few years, fleeing conflict back home or searching for a better life in Israel. The PM added that while his country would continue to accept refugees from conflict zones, “we cannot let tens of thousands of illegal workers infiltrate into Israel through the southern border and inundate our country with illegal aliens”.
also, here:
”But this new fence is ostensibly different to the others. The Israel-Egypt border has become a major transit route for economic migrants, asylum-seekers and drug smugglers, and some estimates suggest that over 1,000 people are crossing the border into Israel every month.”
When I thought they weren’t going to reveal the story at all, I might have written: “on the off-chance that someone’s curiosity had been aroused by the emotive headline, the BBC could have been more expansive” which is another way of saying that if they are going to make suggestive announcements about Israel’s ‘walls’, they must also explain precisely why they’re erecting the wretched things.
But now that some context has been provided for anyone who cares to search for it, I can still point out that there is one awkward bit of explaining left for them to do
Why, when Israel is such a cruel, racist and brutal state, do people go to such lengths to get there?
P.S. Who, I wonder, was the genius that scheduled the BBC 1 Panorama about Saudi-inspired education in UK faith schools against the C4 Dispatches programme about Islamic terrorism in Islamabad?
Not forgetting how many lives have been saved by the other wall.
The BBC hate the wall because it has meant that fewer terrorist atacks on Israel has meant less retaliation, that has led to fewer “Palestinians” being killed in the retaliations, therefore fewer excuses for the BBC to attack Israel. Their blatant anti-Semitism has to get out somehow so they have to find excuses to condemn Israel for building it.
Of course, if the “Palestinians” had built the wall the BBC would have supported it saying that the “Palestinians” needed to build it to defend themselves from the wicked Israelis.
To keep out “economic migrants, asylum-seekers and drug smugglers…?” Would the Israelis build us a wall too please? We seem to have similar problems
Arizona wants one, too.
Arizona has a partial one. Mark Mardell did a dishonest hit piece on it.
Now that every man and his dog (bar one news agency)is reporting how Hezb-allah was behind the murder of the Lebanese PM in 2005. Wil Lebanon descend into civil war and if it does will the blame be directed at Syria,Iran and Hezb-allah and not Israel. Of course Hezb-allahs masters Iran don’t want trouble in the region just yet, So they may demand they attack Israel instead. That way the whole country will side with Hezb-allah and Iran’s so called second front will remain intact. But something tells me Abu Bowen won’t in a month of Fridays ever report that angle.
I wonder why?
There was no way I had the stomach for the BBC so watched the Dispatches ! again this program has shown up the pathetic shell that panorama has become,a pressure group led focus group made views show !
After all those trails, which were in fact the best bits, Panorama was the anticlimax you knew it would be.
For a start, Jeremy Vine’s appearances at either end of Panorama manage to dumb down whatever comes in between. What is he for? Anyhow, what the viewer wonders is what is Michael Gove going to do about it? Nothing, I imagine.
As the Koranic sage said, all this could, possibly, lead to something or other which might lead, indirectly, to something slightly unpleasant. Nothing wrong with the Koran you understand.
The Accused – The Verdict.
So, the powerful drama which has caused all this hooha with the army wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. We had been warned how powerful it was going to be, so naturally we awaited the anticlimax with eager anticipation, and were not disappointed.
The theme, bullying, teamwork, and injustice, was uncannily reminiscent of The Weakest Link, with Mackenzie Crook out of The Office playing Ann Robinson.
The outcry about it misrepresenting the army as merely a hotbed of bullying, was justified. It was not, as the programme’s apologists would have it, all about relationships.
The argument that might have given some credibility to the plot,
namely that the weakest member mustn’t be allowed to jeopardise the whole the group, was made so feebly that it rendered the entire plot as implausible as the previous episode (with Christopher Eccleston) and it was equally miscast.
Gareth from The Office, a scary bully? No. The father, an intimidating ex soldier? No. The abundantly hirsute baby and the confusing similarity between the two heroes whom I kept getting mixed up.? I don’t think so. Is that the correct use of ‘whom’? Who knows.
Someone must have taken ‘Gareth’s’ tales of the ‘Territorial Army’ seriously, and thought, “I know, we’ll have him.” You’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh when Mackenzie Crook stood up and said “I’m twice the man you are.”
Apart from Jimmy McGovern’s political views and his obsession with shit, the production itself was the weakest link. The characters’ sudden appearance in a WWll style hail of bullets with apparently no previous training seemed odd, as did the immaculately turned-out corpse, and the total absence of any army routine, besides the intimidation of the victim.
You have to ask, why didn’t someone knife Mackenzie Crook earlier?
It would have save all the bother.
Now, someone from the BBC has come on Today to defend the programme, and people have been Tweeting “I can’t believe the army isn’t a hotbed of bullying.”
I despair.
The Islamic Egyptians already have a wall.
A wall of lead.
They kill dozens of attampted migrants every year.
If it was Israel doing it you would never hear the end of the bBC saying it was barbaric evil jooos, as its Egypt they give it a miss.
Never even occurs to the bBC why so many are trying to exit an islamic country and deperately trying to get into Israel, after all its the worlds worst tyranny isn’t it, and they are leaving the tolerant loving arms of the peaceful caliphate, the bBC are plain mystified by the story.
The BBC can’t understand or even acknowledge that Palestinian Arabs try any means possible, legal and illegal, to enter Israel and remain there. Nor can they accept that the Palestinian Arab minority will riot rather than become part of the Palestinian Authority no matter how many complaints they make about Israel. This is the real cause of the animosity against Leiberman who has proposed moving the borders (gerrymandering?) so they, their land and property become part of another state.
So how can anyone expect the BBC to acknowledge that Africans try to reach Israel and not Egypt?