Monthly Archives: November 2010

Turkish Delight

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Prolific blogger Elder of Ziyon provides invaluable information about the Middle East. If you miss a day, you’re lost. His article on Saturday 13th, now several scrolling miles away, linked to this, for me, heart-sinking news about a new film in a popular but notoriously propagandist series of Turkish films entitled “Valley of the Wolves.” It is based on the Mavi Marmara incident, Turkish version. Elder’s and Michael Tottens’s articles both explain that the Turkish public is pretty much in the dark about the I/P conflict in general, and the flotilla incident in particular.

“The Turkish media reported a grossly distorted version of the events, describing the attackers as “activists” and the Israelis who fought back as murderers. ”

(Not unlike the BBC. ) The film itself is based on a lie. Pity they didn’t consult Turkish journalist SefiK Dinc for advice on the plot but that would have spoiled the fun.
Imagine my surprise when I turned on BBC4 yesterday World News Today. 20:42There was Zeinab Badawi (who has history,) introducing a report from Kathy Harcombe about this horrendous film.

Z.B.)”The Israeli raid on the Turkish-led aid flotilla bound for Gaza last May caused international outrage and sparked protests around the world. Well now a film is being made in Turkey based on the incident in which nine activists were killed. The movie is an action thriller in which the hero is on a quest for justice. Kathy Harcombe reports on the impact of the film on diplomatic relations.”

Over excerpts from the film Ms Harcombe begins:

“This is the moment the Israelis boarded the Mavi Marmara as it was heading towards Gaza with aid supplies. The troops are attacked with sticks and poles as they attempt to stop the ship breaking the Israeli blockade. In the ensuing violence nine Turkish activists were killed. The real events were controversial enough, now there’s the film!”

(The film we are seeing has ludicrous subtitles.)

“The film spin-off from the hugely popular TV series Valley of the Wolves about an undercover agent who takes on Turkey’s enemies. This time the hero sets out to hunt down the Israeli commander who ordered the raid on the flotilla and to avenge the killings. It’s abundantly clear whose side the film-makers are on. The Valley of the Wolves series has already been criticised for promoting nationalism and racial hatred. An episode earlier this year showed Israeli security forces kidnapping children. It caused a huge diplomatic row between the two countries.”

Kathy H seems to have noticed that the film is a tad one-sided; Zeinab, however, appears undaunted. She carries on regardless, bringing in a London-based Turkish analysts named Ziya Meral to point out the increasing divide between Turkey and Israel. When he strays onto the broader picture she reins him in – back to the flotilla:

Z.B. “ Just sticking with the Gaza flotilla and the nine Turkish activists who were killed of course that created a huge stir in the country – to what extent has that exacerbated tensions between Turkey and Israel?”

Zeinab is extremely interested in Turkey’s new-found championing of the Palestinian cause, and Turkey’s willingness to ‘speak out more openly against Israel.’

“There’s been a great deal of international criticism of course of the blockade on the Palestinian people of GGAAZZAA so has that enabled the ruling party in Turkey to become more outspoken…..?”

Why the BBC would wish to publicise such a film at all, when they ignore so many other more important stories concerning Israel, is a mystery, but as Kathy Harcombe has noticed that this Turkish film is one-sided, I have noticed that whatever is in Zeinab Badawi’s genes, it sure aint impartiality.
I used to think BBC4 was the least evil of the BBC’s channels. Silly me.

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PAINTING PORKIES…

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One of the BBC’s main climate change propagandists, James Painter (whose work I reported here,) has prepared a so-called survey (funded by Reuters) on the media’s coverage of the Copenhagen climate change shindig last year, which – it seems – was astonishingly attended by more than 4,000 journalists. His main purpose – as befits a seasoned corporation econut crusader – is to bewail the fact that in 400 articles surveyed, “the science” was not properly reported, that some journalists dared to question the certainty that there is a climate crisis, that that too much credence was given to Climategate (which, incidentally, broke almost exactly a year ago), and that the real message of the event – that the world must be ruled by the UN, endure more taxes, stop burning oils, and slide into serious economic poverty – was lost.

I could go on, but those are the main facts of this useless but chilling document. What it underlines yet again is that BBC staff are up their gills in the political process of disseminating alarmism; the fact that Mr Painter (aided and abetted by the unbiquitous Richard Black) has written this report is proof positive that his main concern, as the Cancun phase of the climate alarmism approaches, is to affect greenie change by propaganda. It will be very interesting to see whether the BBC Trust – who are currently assessing the corporation’s science coverage, and have received this excellent submission from the Bishop Hill and Harmless Sky websites – can spot the constant dissembling, spinning and contortionism being perpetrated so blatantly by BBC staff.

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ON THAT ROYAL ENGAGEMENT….

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Interesting to see how the BBC treats the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton. In the prime time slot just after the 8am news on Today, the BBC invited Lady Antonio Fraser and Stephen Haseler on to discuss the event. Haseler sneered at the event in venomous republican style, thus speaking on behalf of the Corporation. Previous reports this morning zeroed in on the likely cost of the wedding in the age of austerity. Tell you what, how about the BBC donates the cost of the wedding of our future King and Queen from it’s lavish £3billion per annum license tax? In this age of austerity….

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BRUTAL BLACK

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I have just spent two days at a conference about “ethical” investment. The reason is that I am trying to raise money for a charity that is aiming to improve services for deprived children. Thus the aim of the Good Deals event seemed laudable enough – to bring those with funds (banks, trusts, etc)in contact with humble supplicants like myself. There were many senior figures there such as the head of Deutsche Bank in the UK, the government’s minister for social responsibility, and his equivalent at Marks and Spencer. But what I didn’t bargain for was the extent that the agenda of the conference would be totally hijacked and infected by greenies. Every participant semed to be a rabid supporter of AGW. It felt as though I had woken up in the middle of a strange horror movie and I think if I had mentioned any opposition to their crusade, I would have been lynched. One guy, for example, wanted to raise about £1m for a “community energy” (ie useless windfarms)in Cornwall. The contempt with which he dismissed his “opponents” – those hapless individuals who did not want the beautiful Cornish landscape to be despoiled – was blood-curdling.

And so it is in the BBC’s reporting. Here is our friend Richard Black in full flow about the importance of an Anglo-Indian agreement – announced a couple of days back when I was being indoctrinated – to work together to on the path of a “low-carbon co-operation”. What’s chilling is that it seems that everyone – Marks and Spencer, government lackeys, the CBI, and no doubt a whole army of financial advisers – now agree with Mr Black that such econut zealotry is essential for progress. Not only that, they also seem to believe in cult-like fashion that farting cows are the answer to India’s energy problems. Strange however,isn’t it, that India is building coal fired power stations at a rate of knots while Chris Huhne and call me Dave are busy dismantling our capacity to generate cheap electricity? And note how Mr Black’s true sentiments about the crusade he’s engaged in are expressed. The Copenhagen negotiations last year were “brutally ended”. What can he mean? And how does that square with balanced journalism?

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DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A BBC JOURNALIST?

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[Click images to enlarge]

Do you suffer from a sense of cringing left-liberal guilt that is almost beyond parody?


Are left-wing columnists and newspapers your essential reading?


[Read More…]

Do you think that private enterprise is bad and that what society needs is bigger government paid for by higher taxes?


(The Evil Tesco link is to this story about the supermarket chain building houses. The bastards!
Update – should’ve pointed out that the sarcastic exchange with new BBC favourite Sally Bercow followed the government’s announcement that the UK Film Council was going to be scrapped.)

Do you share the views of anti-Israeli bloggers and make adolescent anti-Israeli comments?


Can you spot a genuine interviewee when you hear one?


(D’oh!)

Do you possess a suitably sneering right-on view of American politics?


Is – ahem – impartiality in your genes?

You could be the next Lucy Williamson.

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SCUMBAG MILLIONAIRES

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I’ve already discussed this over on A Tangled Web but I wanted to focus on the BBC coverage with you. One could have anticipated the GLEE with which the BBC would exhibit on the news that the UK Government is to make payments “in the millions” to captured Jihadists held at Gitmo but now back in Blighty. However I feel that the entire coverage of this today is outrageously one-sided  with no one being allowed to argue that these people should NOT be getting any cash and that some of them should not even be in this country. At play today is the explicit BBC meme that these guys are all innocent, that the US (Bush) is to be blame for daring to lock them up, and that we should all hang our heads in shame because we dare to imprison these cor blimey Brits doing the Jihad ordinary Brits just won’t do. What a sickening dhimmified media.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY WATCH

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Professor Mona Siddiqui
You can always rely on the BBC’s “Thought for the Day” slot to be made available for Mona Siddiqui, that most erudite and enlightened Professor of Islamic Studies and Public Understanding. Mona was on this morning informingg us that Christians have been in the Middle East for a longtime and in some cases have been in places before Muslims. She seemed to forget that Jews have been there even longer…in fact she forgot to mentionthem at all…remarkable in a ‘Thought for the Day’ about the Middle East andreligion! Still, I am sure Mona will be back again very shortly to share more of her wisdom with the BBC nation.

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ISRAEL – FASCIST CENTRAL

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Quite a few instances of deranged BBC bias today. Consider this dross from BBC correspondent Wyre Davies. You see it seems that the Israeli government has moved so far to the right that it is incapable of bringing peace. It’s all the fault of the Russians, apparently. Yes, the BBC have finally found some Russians that they don’t like – and they’re Jewish, of course. Quite a few mentions of the word fascism thrown around in this report – the BBC has no shame in trying to label the people who suffered the most grievous loss of life in the 20th century to fascism as fascists. There is a clear editorialising towards the end of this item that Israel is growing increasingly intolerant  and extreme. If ONLY it would move left, dismantle itself, and just jump in the sea. A spiteful item even by BBC base standards.

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An Irrational Fear of God at the BBC

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The BBC, along with the rest of the Left-leaning media, has from almost the very start tried to portray the Tea Party movement as a far-right, extremist movement. At first, their main Narrative was that racism was the primary motivating factor behind the movement, with a generic anti-government theme as window dressing. When the movement which the BBC at first ignored, then played down, kept growing far beyond their expectations, the next Narrative was that it was a primarily Christianist movement. This of course was intended to lead the audience into thinking that the Tea Party supporters were clearly off the deep end, as all good Liberals know that anyone who self-identifies as a Christian is halfway towards extremist beliefs anyway. The recent offerings from various BBC-enabled comedians on such programmes as Have I Got News For You and Radio 5 are proof of this mindset.

As we got closer to the mid-term elections in the US (to which the BBC reacted as if it was the second-most important election in human history), the BBC made all sorts of efforts to portray the Tea Party movement as extremist and Christianist as possible. The staggering number of times they mentioned Christine O’Donnell and the fact that the BBC only once mentioned Marco Rubio and Col. Allen West until about a week before the election (and then only in passing, with no features at all) betray the BBC’s biased agenda for what it was.

A few days before the election, the World Service’s “Heart and Soul” programme gave us an installment entitled “God and the Tea Party” (Oct. 27 podcast). Here, Matthew Wells went to Kentucky to speak to a number of Tea Party supporters. Without exception, no matter how much they professed their Christian beliefs and their attitude that the US was a “Judeo-Christian country”, based on Judeo-Christian values, all of them equally expressed their desire for government to stay out of people’s lives and stop the taxing and spending (Note to bigots at the BBC: If someone makes an effort to include the Jews, they’re not the bogeyman you’re looking for). Yet, Wells kept pressing each of them to express their Christianist goals anyway, as if they all harbored a secret desire to turn the US into the Christian equivalent of Saudi Arabia. Then Wells gave a good portion of the segment to far-Left journalist and think-tanker, E.J. Dionne, who said that yes, they’re all extremist Christianist, but don’t worry because the far-Right Christian movement is not going to last long.

At one point, despite what the people themselves told him, Wells stated that conservative, Christian social issues are “at the heart” of the Tea Party movement.

In August, Mark Mardell had the same thoughts, wondering if the Christian Right wasn’t really at the heart of the Tea Party movement. Again, he asks this in spite of everything they keep telling him. It’s as if he suspects it’s all a big smoke screen. Mardell could always be counted on to find the outlier that fits this agenda and let that color everything.

Then, of course, there’s Glenn Beck, whom the BBC kept trying to portray as being a leading light of the movement, even though he’s actually a social conservative who tried to jump on the bandwagon, and did not come from the heart of the movement itself. There is a wide overlap between conservative Christians and supporters of the movement, but that’s all it is. Beck’s big rally in Washington, DC was for the former, not the latter. And let’s not forget Sarah Palin. The Beeboids sure haven’t. I’m sure the screener of her new reality show is already making the rounds, and they’re having a great laugh while at the same time being slightly afraid.

With this whole Social Conservative Christianist Narrative in mind, how does the BBC explain the fact that now several Tea Party organizers have written an open letter to the Republican Party leaders in Congress, telling them to lay off the social conservative issues and focus on stopping the taxing and spending?

I’m reproducing the full letter below. Read it, and decide for yourselves whether or not this matches the BBC Narrative across their spectrum of broadcasting, or what I’ve been saying for the last 18 months.

On behalf of limited government conservatives everywhere we write to urge you and your colleagues in Washington to put forward a legislative agenda in the next Congress that reflects the principles of the Tea Party movement.

Poll after poll confirms that the Tea Party’s laser focus on issues of economic freedom and limited government resonated with the American people on Election Day. The Tea Party movement galvanized around a desire to return to constitutional government and against excessive spending, taxation and government intrusion into the lives of the American people.
The Tea Party movement is a non-partisan movement, focused on issues of economic freedom and limited government, and a movement that will be as vigilant with a Republican-controlled Congress as we were with a Democratic-controlled Congress.

This election was not a mandate for the Republican Party, nor was it a mandate to act on any social issue, nor should it be interpreted as a political blank check.
Already, there are Washington insiders and special interest groups that hope to co-opt the Tea Party’s message and use it to push their own agenda – particularly as it relates to social issues. We are disappointed but not surprised by this development. We recognize the importance of values but believe strongly that those values should be taught by families and our houses of worship and not legislated from Washington, D.C.

We urge you to stay focused on the issues that got you and your colleagues elected and to resist the urge to run down any social issue rabbit holes in order to appease the special interests.

The Tea Party movement is not going away and we intend to continue to hold Washington accountable.

Here’s a link to a PDF file of the letter, with all signatories.

After more than a year of careful observation, the BBC has figured out that the Tea Party movement has mostly been busy trying to transform the Republican Party (Scott Brown in MA was an anomaly to them, a sign of nothing to come, apparently). But their bias makes them think it’s for an entirely different reason. Why, it’s almost as if they had a story they wanted to tell and went out there and told it, in spite of everything they learned from the very people about whom they were supposed to report.

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