Even those amongst us who staunchly defend the theory that size doesn’t matter would agree that there are limits to the number of immigrants a geographically challenged country such as Great Britain can absorb.
You’d think, therefore, that the chaps and chapesses from the British Broadcasting Corps would be ideally placed to sympathise with the problems facing a country the size of Wales that has been taking in around 700 African refugees per week, and treating them as humanely as it can. But not if that country is Israel.
The story behind this tale is tragic, with many ramifications (human rights abuses, people-trafficking, desperate asylum seekers, rape, murder, immigration, and the Pope) but the aspect that seems to interest the BBC is Israel’s attempt to curb unlimited unsustainable immigration.
I’ve received a message from a viewer who was so distressed by a broadcast aired on BBC World News that he made a transcript to compare it with two articles covering the story. The Guardian’s article by Khataza Gondwe explores the story fully, with the emphasis where it should be. The other, which is on the BBC website, is relatively neutral.
My correspondent says: ”The harrowing story is of sub-Saharan migrants who, fleeing poverty, violence and persecution, make their way north towards Israel […] partly for the economic opportunities but largely because the Arabs at best move them on, at worst shoot them on sight or allow then to be captured by people-traffickers.”
The transcript of the broadcast spotlights the way the tone and emphasis have been shifted in the editing. By leaving certain key phrases and paragraphs on the cutting room floor they alter the balance, throwing Israel’s attempts to ‘keep them out’ into sharp focus while relegating the plight of the victims and the criminality of the perpetrators to second place.
I didn’t see the broadcast myself, but my informant recounts that the ‘redacted passages’ are as follows:
“Even though they had been caught by an Israeli border patrol and were not really sure what to expect next, they said they now felt relatively safe.
That’s because many migrants are fleeing persecution and poverty in their own countries, and even travelling across Egypt and the Sinai is fraught with danger.
Human rights groups accuse Egyptian border guards of shooting indiscriminately at them. Although officials insist they only fire at those who ignore repeated orders to stop, since July 2007, at least 85 people have been shot and killed trying to cross into Israel.
Many are also abused by the networks of trafficking gangs, who charge huge fees to transport them across the desert.”
“Coming here is a dream for me. I love Israel and I want to stay here.”
“It is thought that as many as 700 African migrants are crossing into Israel from Egypt every week.”
In case anyone should think that these passages are dispensable and that they ‘just happened’ to be the ones that got the chop, here’s Kirsty Lang’s introduction which sets the tone, ahead of Wyre Davies’s report:
”Israel has started building a huge wall around its SOUTHERN border … with Egypt. The controversial project which is costing hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars is designed to KEEP OUT thousands of African migrants who try to cross into Israel every year.”
Oh yes, and the title? “The Great Wall…of Israel.” I rest my case.
I thought at first you were comparing the Beeb piece to the Guardian piece, but I see now no.
Yeah, the Wyre Davies piece on the internet is perfectly fine, what, according to your correspondent, got broadcast, is entirely sinister. It is clearly trying to implant in the viewers mind, aided and abetted by M/s Lang’s loaded introduction, that the illegal immigrants are being shot by Israel.
The Nazi Left at the BBC at it again.
There is plenty of material for say ‘Sky’ or ‘ITV’ to produce a ‘Drop the Dead Donkey’ style satire on a supposedly impartial national public funded broadcaster that is riddled with dayglo anti-semites, Communists and Islamists determined to subvert the country’s democracy and pave the way to a second Holocaust. Grim, tragic, yes – but rich with the comic absurdity of them being allowed to get away with it and the stellar humbug of them keeping a straight face when they say they abide by ‘public service’ broadcasting values.
The stinking BBC at its worst. Simply hateful.
The BBC features in Melanie Phillips’s latest masterpiece which encapsulates the situation with her usual clarity.
The trouble is that anything so overtly pro Israel gets dismissed as propaganda by the usual suspects before it has a chance to undermine their misdirected certainty.
It is indeed shocking but predictable. The Western liberal media narrative must be maintained. It amazes me that the Israelis still put up with a foreign media that is so actively hostile that it presents a real threat to the existence of Israel and the lives of every Israeli.
I would treat this hostile media circus with disdain. Refuse facilities and interviews, expel at random and generally harrass and discomfort them.
It won’t make matters any worse and might make the Israelis feel better.
As for the liberal media nothing is going to alter their minds so their feelings can be discounted in advance.
I too noticed this last night and had half written something about it. But when I tried to post it, it came back as too large(500 characters) and as it was late I just went to bed. But what I was trying to say was while the bBC bitches about Israel (and even the UK) removing a paltry number of illegal immigrants. A few miles south east of Israel in Saudi Arabia reveals they have build such a wall along the border with Yemen and are going to build one along the border with Iraq.
Then there’s how it deports over 30,000 people back to India a year, around a 1000 each month to Somalia and Nigeria and in 2008 deported over 23000 people back to Indonesia. That is just the countries I can be bothered to look up. Yet Israel (Always Israel) is deemed in the wrong for doing so on a much lesser scale.
In its typical news-laundering fashion, the BBC has chastely averted its gaze for years as African regugees desperate to get into Israel have been gunned down in the Sinai as a matter of course by Egyptian border guards.
And for years the BBC has tiptoed on eggshells around such issues as the barbaric treatment meted out by the Egyptians to Sudanese regugees crammed into camps. And of course the very last thing the BBC has been prepared to do is marvel at the flight of African Muslims to the Jewish state, where they are fed and housed and placed in temporary employment where possible.
The Wyre Davies article is a sharp departure from this agenda, and it is good to see. However, the ending is quite peculiar:
Despite the many dangers along the route, desperate migrants are unlikely to be deterred by Israel’s latest attempt to keep them out. [My emphasis.]
That belies much of the article. While Israelis have indeed been scratching their heads for some time now as to how to deal with this thorny problem, the refugees have been assisted in a number of ways by an organisation set up specifically for that purpose and treated with compassion, in stark contrast with their treatment at the hands of the Egyptians. Why reduce that simply to a number of attempts to keep them out?