Today I’ve been mostly looking at reports of the terrorist bomb in Jerusalem.
Leaving aside the unnecessary inclusion of:
”Jerusalem suffered a spate of bus bombings between 2000 and 2004 but attacks had stopped in recent years.”
and again further down:
”However the attacks have stopped in recent years. Jerusalem last experienced a bus bombing in 2004.”
– duplication possibly intended to imply good behaviour on the part of Hamas – this time the BBC fares better than Reuters, who, according to Elder of Ziyon have a poor track record where matters Israel are concerned. (Contrary to the impression given in my last post)
Until Jon Donnison’s contribution pops up towards the end, when things revert to normal, the BBC’s effort seems reasonably informative. They actually include some quotes from named Israelis rather than the usual ‘Israel says.’
The BBC’s:
“But an Islamic Jihad leader said a Palestinian attack would be a “natural response” to this week’s Israeli strikes in Gaza.”
is at odds with the Jerusalem Post’s:
“Authorities said that there was no connection between the attack and events in the Gaza Strip in recent days. However, they suspected a connection between this attack and one several weeks,(sic) in which an explosive device was left on the side of a main road near Gilo.”
– and the BBC is still eager to mention Wednesday’s airstrikes by Israeli warplanes, dutifully adding:
“after Palestinian militants fired two rockets into southern Israel.”
– though in my book, reversing these two events gives precedence to the wrong one.
It seems strange that the BBC needs to include:
“Islamic Jihad said it carried out the rocket attacks in reprisal for the killing of eight Palestinians near Gaza City on Tuesday. Four of those killed were members of one family and two of them were children”
while the Fogel family ‘weren’t there again today’ (Oh how they wish they’d go away)
You beat me to it, sue. I was just about to put something together showing how the BBC Arabic service reported this to the other side. Notice how they place the blame for this squarely on Israel and point out that the bus was headed for the (“illegal, although, etc.”) settlements, and censor the news about exactly to what Israel’s attack was responding. The BBC Arabic sub-editor also included the President’s condolences to the Gazan victims, which was censored from the English version. It’s pretty damn unbelievable to see the two faces of the BBC in full flower like this.
Here’s the original in Arabic, and I’ll reproduce a Google translation in full below (In two parts due to character limits). Everyone can decide for themselves what to make of it.
An explosion on Wednesday near the central bus station in Jerusalem, killing an Israeli and wounding about thirty.
Said Shireen Younes us, quoting Israeli police sources said the blast occurred during evening rush hour as a bus near the station, which is usually packed with passengers boarding buses to other Israeli towns.
The Israeli ambulances rushed to the station to transport the injured, and showed us that the situation of at least three injured seriously.
The Minister of the Israeli Internal Security immediately inspected the blast site and said that the blast was caused by an explosive device was placed inside a bag. The minister Isaac Aharonovitch accused Palestinian factions of masterminding the explosion.
Reports have suggested that the device exploded as a bus heading to the settlement of Maale Adumim, near Jerusalem.
This is the first explosion in Jerusalem years ago, the last in a bus bombing took place in January 2004 while the work of a suicide bomber targeted a bus No. 19.
Has postponed the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Russia to follow up the developments of the situation.
The blast came after an escalation in recent days in the Gaza Strip and threats from the Palestinian factions to retaliate to Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip, which finally resulted in the deaths of eight Palestinians.
According to witnesses in a number of areas of the West Bank saw some of the roads connecting cities in the West Bank, a proliferation of temporary barriers to the Israeli military in order to check the identities of passers-by from the Palestinians and traveling between Palestinian towns.
Proliferation and focus in the Container checkpoint at the entrances to the city of Bethlehem, and the road to the city of Jericho, as well as roads leading to the city of Ramallah.
Continued:
Condmenation and warning
In the first reaction of Western condemned U.S. President Barack Obama, the bombing in Jerusalem.
The President said: “There is no justification for carrying out terrorist attacks. The United States calls on the movements responsible for such operations to stop these attacks Foran also stress that Israel has a right to defend the people, like all nations.”
President Obama in turn offered his condolences to the families of Palestinians killed in Gaza.
Also condemned the U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates strongly condemned the attack and described at a news conference in Cairo that the “terrible act of terrorism.”
But Gates does not believe the situation can be described Palmtdhor.
On the other hand, warned Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Arab Israel of rushing to implement the military operation in Gaza.
According to an official statement that the Arab “called on Israel to exercise restraint and caution against rushing into a military operation in Gaza.”
He also warned to give Israel any pretext to use violence, adding that Egypt rejects and condemns the violence against civilians.
Palestinian comments
On the Palestinian side in an exclusive interview with BBC Arabic, “said Abu Ahmed, spokesman for Al-Quds Brigades military wing of Islamic Jihad, they blessed the Jerusalem operation.
أAs a leader Yahya Moussa said Hamas political leaders said in connection with the BBC that “people have the right to defend itself against Israeli attacks, by all means do not be afraid of the Israeli threats are not new.”
Mussa and that “there is no truce with Israel in order to be violated as it exists is to assess the position by the Palestinian factions, but Israel also seems to want to be her absolute and shed the blood of the Palestinian people.”
“We do not have any information yet as to who was behind the attack Jerusalem.”
The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a statement condemning the Jerusalem operation.
Prime Minister also condemned the Palestinian government in Ramallah, Salam Fayyad, highly explosive and described it as “a process of terror, regardless of the party that stands behind it.” Fayyad and by the hope for a speedy recovery to the wounded.
Fayyad said: “It is disgraceful, and after all that has caused such operations from the scourge of our people and harm through its struggle and just cause, there should be any Palestinian party still insists on invoking such acts and scenes shameful and under the slogans and names hollow is no longer deceive the people, and totally incompatible with the legitimate quest for freedom by peaceful means and by insisting on the stand and stay on their land.”
The focus has been on the unrest in Libya and other Arab lands. So Hamas decides to drag Israel back into the picture.
Slit a few throats of Jewish children and parents. That doesn’t work. So lob a few missiles into Beersheba and other towns.
Israel retaliates by bombing a few Hamas buildings in Gaza. Blow up a bus station in Jerusalem. Hey presto. Its not Ghadafi Egypt, Syria. Its Israel thats the problem! How sick.
Very interesting point about shifting the focus. Now that you mention it, I suspect this also may have something to do with Hamas’s activity:
Gaza Strip residents seek to join the ‘Arab spring’
The demonstrators in Gaza say they have been inspired by the uprisings elsewhere in the region. You sense they see an opportunity to try and make a change.
They are calling for an end to the division between Hamas and its secular rival, Fatah.
Let’s see if any of the high quality BBC journalists in the region will make a similar connection.
“attacks had stopped in recent years.” Yes I noticed this on the BBC news channel at about 6oc they kept mentioning things along the lines of that the Israelis were not used to this in Jerusalem and it had been a long while ago since the last terrorist attack. It just stuck out as being forced and trying to push a point. This was in the couple of minutes I watched the BBC news during channel hopping.
Melanie Phillips writes: “Clearly, there is currently a huge upsurge in murderous violence by Arabs from the disputed territories, of which this bus bombing is but the latest example. It therefore takes a particular degree of bone-headed malevolence to view this latest attack instead as a ‘tit-for-tat’ response to Israeli violence. But then, the BBC and other British and western media have all but ignored the rocket attacks, and minimised the Fogel massacre. As usual, Israeli victimisation is thus denied in an obscene moral equivalence – which invariably turns Israel from a victim attempting to defend itself into the aggressor.”
As if on cue, here’s Washington-based BBC World News America producer Katie Beck adopting that very same “obscene moral equivalence” by re-tweeting the views of a Washington-based Palestinian Hamas-sympathising radical one-state lobbyist:
YousefMunayyer BREAKING NEWS: 9 dead in past 48 hours of Israeli/Palestinian conflict 1 Israeli, 8 Palestinians. about 7 hours ago via TweetDeck Retweeted by katiebeck1 and 35 others
I wonder if they met at right-on Washington soiree.
Munayyer’s writings often refer to Israel as an apartheid state. The BBC’s Lucy Williamson promoted the same opinion on her Twitter account last year. It’s almost as if it’s the accepted natural viewpoint within the BBC. But no, that couldn’t be, could it?
(Incidentally don’t waste your time searching for any tweets from Katie Beck about the Fogel massacre or recent missile attacks against Israel – there aren’t any.)
(Robin Shepherd agrees with my point re. ‘attacks have stopped in recent years.’)
Lucy Williamson’s smart-alec “What Next” tweet is an example of a lazy incurious know-all seeking the approval of other ignoramuses.
I’ve suffered that kind of thing as long as I can remember. (You have to let it go or start a horrible argument)
One wonders what the BBC are going to do now it turns out the dead victim is British.