I wrote the following article last week, but events prevented me from finishing it. Now I see that E.O.Z. has written on a similar theme, and has come to similar conclusions. So here’s mine.
I’ve touched previously on the fate of refugees from the Horn of Africa after their perilous journey to Israel. Many of those that survived had been subjected to rape and abuse along the way. Strange that they took the trouble to make for such an evil, brutal, racist country.
The BBC obliquely criticises Israel for putting a limit on the numbers to whom it can provide sanctuary. They utter nary a peep over the reasons they seek refuge, nor a squeek of condemnation of the people-traffikers murderers and rapists who foment their harrowing predicament, because they’re too busy implying that Israel should accept unlimited illegal immigration.
The BBC is fixated solely upon the measures the Israeli government has taken to stem the flow, because a wall is being constructed to secure Israel’s pourous border with Egypt, a wall which the BBC impliedly deems to be a racist apartheid separation barrier.
Meanwhile, back at the UK, we proudly boast about our reputation for tolerance. Some would say the reckless pursuit of this ideal might be about to turn round and slap us in the face. Some may wonder, what if those we have bent over backwards to accommodate don’t reciprocate? Some might speculate that there’s little sign that they will.
Could we, ourselves, one day, be outsiders wondering where to seek refuge? Some might think that in our haste to embrace diversity and multiculturalism, we’ve embraced our own extinction, and little baby tolerance has been thrown out with the bathwater.
Israel was envisaged as a homeland and sanctuary for Jews. An insurance policy which history tells us is a must-have. Nevertheless, Israel is diverse and multicultural, and refugees from far and wide already squeeze in, but Israel must prioritise the preservation of its Jewish identity, or it will cease to be fit for purpose.
Not that the BBC will understand this need. Having backed the total abandonment of our own national identity, the BBC rigidly perceives Israel as racist, that it has no business trying to retain its Jewish identity, and it must do the decent thing and abandon it. before it can be seen as a decent country like Britain.
This article is typical.
The first paragraph sets out the plight of the African migrants in bold type. The emphasis is on Israel’s efforts to limit overwhelming mass illegal immigration. It concentrates on personal ‘human interest’ stories, leaving Israel looking hard-hearted and racist for putting ‘full up’ on the door. Someone from an organisation called Hotline for Migrant Workers is wheeled in to criticise the Israeli governent without a trace of sympathy or understanding of a dilemma which has not been taken into consideration at all.
Some would say this is the usual fare, e.g. reporting from Israel which ignores historical context, disregards Israel’s omnipresent existential stuggle and fails to acknowledge that its citizens are under constant threat from hostile duplicitous and violent neighbours who are hell bent on exterminating them.
In other words it treats Israel as though it was a London suburb.
The BBC must get real and grasp the fact that Israel isn’t London. They should also get into their heads, if it isn’t too late, that as things stand, even London isn’t London.
Brillinant post Sue!
A tragedy all too clear with eyes to see it coming, our Quisling class are destroying the only homeland we will ever have akin to a deliberate sabotage with some able to escape but the majority bound to endure the tragedy as best they can.
The other thing the article fails to ask or to explore when the vingettes clearly point out is why the various migrants make specifically for Israel and do not seek asylum at the first ‘safe’ country they appear at. I’m also fascinated with the first story that the failure of the UNHCR to protect asylum seekers in Egypt somehow becomes something to bash Israel for.
It is strange how this short story layout only seems to work one way. The recent story on the air strike in Gaza would have really benefited from this had they used it to show how people who live in the shadow of Qassam rockets deal with this. It might of put some perspective on the situation. However perspective is not what the Beeb want in stories like this and rely on the deliberate use of Ericksonian language (but that’s a whole other thread) to steer perception.
You are correct when you mention perception, it is how the BBC operates and how they use it to get their narrative across. The BBC has determined that to shape the perception of Israel as a criminal state it must pitch all news about Israel and the Israelli state in a negative light.
A long term portrayal of Israel in a negative light will eventually implant the BBC narrative in the minds of the viewer/listener, its the delegitamization of the state of Israel in the eyes of the world.
The BBC likes to think it is powerful and influential enough to destroy a state in the eyes of the world and maybe it is. The moral degeneration that we see, the moral decay that is so plain for those with eyes to see it must have a root cause, why would the BBC take such great pains and expend such energy to poison a state and its people?
There is so much more to Israel and its people than the struggle for its continued existence yet the BBC are determined to hide that from us, no positive images are allowed throught the BBC censors.
A modern enlightened democratic state, a tiny nation that has given the world more scientists/artists/composers than almost any nation on earth and is a vibrant hot bed of technological/pharmaceutical/agricultural/industrial brilliance and yet the BBC sees none of this. The BBC shows a positive adoring side of the gangster run Gaza, it hides so much while fabricating an entirely false reality.
BBC coverage is spiteful but leftists are spiteful by nature, the BBC exhibits all the characteristics of the rabid left, arrogance, burning hatred, spite and dishonest cynical manipulation to further their political ends. The BBC has decided to play a leading part in the eventual destruction of Israel as a homeland and haven of the Jewish people, perhaps they believe this will earn them the gratitude of the Arab agressors? Perhaps they hope that by attacking the victim they will be safe from the vengeance of the islamist states surrounding Israel? One thing is for certain, the BBC has become the enemy of Israel.
Cassndar King
Brilliant post. The BBC has become a loathsome organisation which hates everything about Israel. It can only do this with impunity as it is funded by the taxpayer and hides behind its long past reputation for impartiality. There is no way for the taxpayer to exact punishment, short of electing a government that stands for Western values. So the BBC carries on, slandering Israel, maintaining the fiction of AGW, and praising Islam – the most vile politico-religious oideology that has ever inflicted mankind.
Excellent Cassandra. In the eyes of the BBC the only good Jew is one who can be relied upon to condemn Israel on cue.
All the others are war mongering zealots.
All other countries with overt ethnic identities are accepted by the BBC. They don’t try to delegitmize the Swiss every time they vote to turn down more Turkish immigrants applying for full citizenship, nor has the BBC ever made a peep about Jews not being permitted to enter a certain Mohammedan country.
‘I love Israel and care about its security but I am worried that now officials are trying to scare people by saying the black Africans are coming to take over’
How many Africans can a tiny state like Israel look after? Refugees are cared for to the highest standards in the region, better even than those ‘looked after'(crushed into an ever lasting refugee status) by UNRWA with all its bloated budget.
How much money is given to Israel to look after the migrants that flee to the safety of Israel? Israel looks after as many refugees as it can to the highest level of care that it can afford but Israel is tiny and money is tight and space is at a premium to say nothing of the security checks that need to be carried out on each refugee to watch for terrorist infiltration. The Arab states that surround Israel do not look after refugees and many Arab states indulge in active persecution.
The refugee problem is being used as just another stick with whith to beat Israel.
Arabs have total contempt for Africans. Racism barely begins to describe it. The Sudanese attempted to wipe out their African Christian citizens, and only the fear of the Texan president, some “fascist” known as GWB, stopped them. They even agreed to a referendum, such was their fear after seeing what happened to Saddam Hussein. Pres Bush has never been credited for his saving of Black Sudanese.
Its not surprising that Africans head for Israel, the next best thing to Europe.
Inviting self-declared antisemite Richard Ingrams to guest edit Today encapsulates the current manifestation of antisemitism, the only form of racism that meets with the approval of the ‘chatterati.’
Imagine an overtly racist from any other strain of racism being awarded that honour?
I was staggered to discover, via Google, how many complaints come up that the BBC is biased in favour of Israel. Complainants generally feel that it is unacceptable to broadcast anything at all from the Israeli perspective, such as a statement by a government spokesperson. This, they attest, amounts to favouritism.
I’ve often commented that all the BBC’s reporting from the Middle East has one fundamental failing. Every correspondent seems unable to grasp the concept that Israel is in a state of war. That means that what they think of as ‘normal circumstances’ do not apply. When Israel does something that the BBC thinks is intolerant, prejudiced against Arabs, selfish, arrogant, defiant, intransigent, they need to put it in context. But they won’t. They don’t want to, they choose not to, and they refuse to own up to doing such a thing.
This does not sit well with the BBC’s understanding attitude to everything else.
Most people would agree that the personal circumstances of most criminals that occupy our prisons, for example, have contributed to their fate. From those that advocate hanging and flogging, to those that favour a spot of community service, I hope we can agree that while not condoning or excusing criminality, everyone’s background contributes to their eventual fortune, be it as a springboard or an excuse.
The BBC is particularly understanding where criminality is concerned. The easy answer is to blame poverty. It’s poverty that causes bad behaviour, resentment, disenfranchisement and crime. Even if they don’t condone it, they are ready willing and able to understand it, and are interested in finding innovative methods of dealing with it.
With Israel, however, all understanding evaporates. Even if they don’t condone selfishness, arrogance, intransigence, and most of all, prejudice against Arabs, they should try to understand it. To ignore, or to deny the context smacks of hypocrisy, or worse, racism.
Most supporters of Israel have been accused of being “Israel firsters”, or saying Israel can do no wrong. This is not the case with any one I’ve ever come across. In fact the opposite is the case. With so many of Israel’s denigrators, from those who think it has no right to exist, to those who think it has the right, but should allow itself to be quietly subsumed by the surrounding caliphate, it is the case that despite all the fantastic things it does do, Israel can do no right.
For the record (and for INBBC):
– rocket and mortar attacks on Israel by Islamic jihadists in December:
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/31610