I’ve been writing on this website for a couple of years or more
and it don’t seem a day too much,
but there aint a broadcasting corporation livin’ in the land
as I wouldn’t “swop” for a bit of honest reporting.
However for all my efforts, and those of David Vance and the others, nothing changes at the BBC. In fact, things have taken a turn for the worse now that the chair of the BBC Trust happens to be a known pro Palestinian advocate.
The situation seems to be this. The BBC, and therefore the liberal unintelligentsia, have given special status to Islam by conferring a unique religious diplomatic immunity upon it. By qualifying as a religion, Islam as a whole is awarded sanctity which exempts it from being criticised. This applies in varying degrees to other religions and holy things. For example, in order to give vent to one’s antisemitic urges, one must stick to Israel-themed criticism. You’re not supposed to admit that this has anything to do with your distaste for Jews.
Christianity is an open target, and Catholic misdemeanours have made it acceptable to condemn the entire religion, whereas similar unmentionable Islamic practises are given a free pass or regarded as unrepresentative.
However, desecrating something holy is still thought not nice, particularly setting fire to it. So if Nazi ideology were elevated to the status of a religion with Herr Hitler as its prophet peace be upon him, it would immediately be distasteful to point out the racist, supremacist and murderous proclivities therein, and Mein Kampf would be a holy book, the fire-resistant immutable word of God speaking through the prophet. Can you imagine, post WWll – “It’s their culture, innit” ”Only an extremist minority” “Not inherent to the ideology”
and it would then have to be “ because of the Jews” rather than “because of Israel”
Being an atheist, I don’t see why anything should be given a free pass, or absolved from accountability, yet, perhaps inexplicably for some, I still have values which encompass what is loosely called right and wrong, and I don’t ask for God’s backing to justify them.
The BBC is a crazy mixed up place. In a good way, viz: On one hand it is all patriotic, with the most unlikely celebrities performing Royal Wedding-themed antics, and talking about ‘the big day’ as if the ordinary viewer regards it as such, and on the other, it’s giving air space to staunch republicans. I like that in principle, although I am more than indifferent about the topic. Or should that be less than indifferent. (Meaning I couldn’t care less) like when people mistakenly say something can never be underestimated when they mean overestimated.
But crazy mixed up in a bad way is when they eulogise about the uprisings in the Arab World without a care or a thought about the rise of Islam, and what this will mean for Israel, and the Jews and others who are trying to live there.
If you look back at my incontinent output, just click on the anti Israel tag in the label cloud, you’ll see that I’ve covered a myriad of variations on the theme, and not made one iota of an impression on the BBC.
Call me an idiot and knock me down with Louise Bagshawe, but how’s that for a waste of time?
“An Israeli teenager wounded when a Palestinian rocket hit a bus has died of his injuries.
Daniel Viflic, 16, was on a school bus in southern Israel on 7 April when it was hit by an anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip.
The driver was slightly hurt in the attack, which happened just after the other children had been dropped off.Nineteen Palestinians died in the ensuing wave of Israeli air strikes and Palestinian counter-attacks.
It was the most serious violence since Israel’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009.
About 1,400 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, and 13 Israelis, including 10 soldiers, were killed.”
This hideous example shows that the BBC cannot report the death of a boy at the hands of terrorists without adding gratuitous references to previous unverified and disputed death-toll statistics; and by various weasely words, making light of the attack itself.
Interesting story from the bBC about how people in the North of Nigeria have taken to rioting over how their man Muhammadu Buhari failed in the very recent elections in Nigeria which Christian (so the bBC tells me) Goodluck Jonathan won by a majority of over 10 million votes. I say its interesting as the bbC doesn’t mention what faith Muhammadu is, neither do they mention that the North is predominantly ‘Islamic’. But they do take the time to tell you the faith of the man who won.
Neither do they mention that when Muhammadu was last in power he took it by instigating a coup, or that when he was in power he started the “War Against Indiscipline” Aspects of this war included public humiliation of civil servants who arrived late to their jobs (By making them do frog jumps) and guards armed with whips ensured orderly queues at bus stops.
Neither has the bBC mentioned how he silenced critics of his administration, passed decrees curbing press freedoms and allowing for opponents to be detained up to three months without formal charges. He also banned strikes and lockouts by workers and founded Nigeria’s first secret police force, the National Security Organization. His government sentenced popular musician and political critic Fela Kuti to ten years in prison on charges that Amnesty International denounced as fabricated and politically motivated Kuti Muhammadu also sparked a diplomatic incident with Britain, When British officials found Buhari’s former transportation minister Umaro Dikko was found drugged in a crate marked for shipment to Lagos at Standstead airport in 1984.
Even stranger is how the bbC knows all of the above, but unlike its wiliness to air the peccadilloes of say:The UK/The US or even Israel, the bBC remains silent on a real good reason why Muhammadu Buhari failed to win the election in Nigeria last week just like he failed to win in 2003 and 2007.Maybe the people of Nigeria simply don’t trust him
What is even more interesting is how the bBC promotes the view that the vote was flawed:
Young supporters of Muhammadu Buhari, who is popular in the north, have been clashing with police and military.They feel that the elections have been rigged in some areas of the south where there is a discrepancy between turnout and results.With nearly all the votes counted, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Mr Jonathan – a Christian from the oil-producing Niger Delta – has almost twice the number of his main rival.
And
“Figures of 95% and above for one party suggest that these are fabricated figures and, personally, they worry me because they pose serious questions on the credibility of the election,” Jibrin Ibrahim of the Centre for Democracy and Development told AFP news agency.A spokesman for General Buhari, Yinka Odumakin, also said irregularities had taken place, but any challenge would come after the vote count.
The thing is taken Nigerias record on graft and how the bBC devotes a lot of time and effort walking down that path you find yourself supporting the bBCs views. However and a big however (for me that is) Is i read this article in the Economist last week;
Democracy 1, vote-rigging 0
Gambling on the world’s most expensive voting system has paid off.
This BBC report is barely sub-Der Sturmer in its depravity. The author is a genocidaire contriving to creat his moment. One gets the sense of how the author and his editor could barely suppress their excitement at the thought of the upset their schoolboy evil would cause.
I think a freedom of information request is called for to find out the name of the author and the editor who approved it.
I guess we shouldn’t be too censorious though. I guess we should be grateful that the story wasn’t ‘Boy dies after bus collides with missile’, although of course the story isn’t far short of that.
Outside of the fetid pit of hell that the BBC story emanated from, the story is of course ‘Boy dies after rocket attack on school bus launched from Gaza. In response to Israel’s retaliatory strikes against terrorist targets further indiscriminate rocket attacks are launched against Israeli population centres from Gaza. Israel debates whether it should have curtailed Operation Cast Lead in 2009 to end these attacks’. In the democratic world, that’s how such stories are covered. In the depraved totalitarian cesspit that is the BBC’s Middle East Department, it isn’t.
There’s some logic behind BBC news’s unusual views on all sorts of things such as immigration, the EU, the US, the middle east and religion.
Taking a contrary and minority view on a topic is ideal for giving yourself the opportunity for showing how clever you are and for dishing out some ‘analysis’ for the masses wheter they want it or not.
louise.bagshawe.mp@parliament.uk
ANOTHER ANTI-SEMITIC BBC OUTRAGE
Dear M/s Bagshawe, Thank you for your reply. As you may be aware, a few days ago Arab terrorists launched a rocket attack against an Israeli school bus from Gaza. Today it was reported that the boy seriously injured in the attack has died. This is how BBC Online has chosen to cover the story:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13115127 I wondered if you might deem it appropriate to issue a freedom of information request to find out the names of all those connected with this report so that you may call for their dismissal?In case the BBC changes the report, below please find the wording to which I refer:- …Sincere respects ..
Isn’t shooting at a school (yellow) bus a war crime. We all know if the Israelis did the same, we would have a UN resolution condemning Israel by now.
Some chap burns a Koran in Newcastle and gets 70 days in jail, however some Muslim burns poppies on armistice day gets a £50 fine. I suppose the outrage that burning poppies, which upset me. I have to put up with. I’m beginning to think its a to high price.
Perhaps a Scud Missile hitting White City might wake them up a bit at the bBBC. Unfortunately the parcel post from Iran is running a little late…
The poppy burner of course was on benefit, so his fine is paid by us.
Perhaps the Newcastle judge would enlighten us at to the difference between burning Korans and Poppies, apart from one celebrating our country’s heros, the other, some would say, the other enslavement of women and the murder of our troops. I’m sure the New Labour-appointed RedPiginaWig will own up and explain his reasoning.
Theresa May, can’t you sack this tosser, he’s not fit for his position.
That report is truly disgraceful. The good thing is that the pressure on the BBC is building up and the organisation is too stupid to notice. It is losing it’s way now and really floundering.
Emailing Louise Bagshaw is s good idea.
Sue
I had assumed you were Jewish
Like you, I think, I despise the BBC’s news output with a vengeance
John,
As Richard Littlejohn would say, you don’t have to be a Jew to defend Israel. (But it doesn’t help.)
As it happens, I am a Jew. Secular. We’re not a race apparently, so maybe I’m not what I am. Or am I?
😎
I’m also a secular Jew, Sue, and because I “don’t look like one” I have lost count of the number times I’ve found myself listening to antisemitic rants from those I thought I knew (I mostly no longer know them). When I tell them I’m Jewish they always ask, “but are you a practising Jew?”
My reply is that the Nazis didn’t ask that question when they loaded my relatives onto cattle trucks marked for extermination so why should he/she.
Yes I know the feeling. I used to feel embarrassed (for them) when I overheard casual antisemitic remarks, for instance from fellow students. They would have been mortified if they’d realised what they were saying and to whom. It was always said uncomprehendingly.
Poor them.
In the way that a man’s word counts for more than a woman’s under Sharia, is there a value hierarchy amongst pro Israel advocates?
For example, if you’re a Muslim = ten extra points; Atheist = 8;
Christian = 7 points; Secular Jew = 5 points; Observant Jew= Nil.
It works in reverse. If you are a Christian member of the Destroy israel Lobby = 5 extra points; Jewish = 20 extra points; Jewish plus Holocaust Survivor 50 extra points.
If you practised you might become perfect 🙂
Or as a friend would reposte to any negative observation “we can’t all be perfect.” 😀
There are rumours that some Mensa members are withdrawing there licence fee payments (
http://www.bbcrefuseniks.co.uk) on principle due to the BBC Trust’s response to a complaint they made about Climate Change.
I couldn’t get your link to work so I tried this:
http://www.bbcrefuseniks.co.uk
That seems to work. It’s a bit like what Hippiepooter has been suggesting, an organised resistance to paying this Socialst Propaganda tax. I can understand why the BBC aren’t mentioning this campaign but I would have hoped some of the other media might have picked up on it.
“About 1,400 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians [..]”
That is an improvement of sorts. Previously, the BBC had just put ‘1,400 Palestinians were killed’.
I guess this is a genuflection to Goldstone who if memory serves cited how Hamas’ recent figures on how many of its members were killed corresponded with Israel’s figures put out within weeks of ‘Cast Lead’ ending.
Even the BBC’s anti-Jewish hatemongers feel compelled to bend towards the truth, no matter how perversely, when it threatens to leave their bigotry so exposed they feel there might be consequences.
How many of this 1,400 were actually killed directly by Israel anyway? The Pali Murderers are clearly not averse to murdering their own, they certainly use their civilians, particualrly children, as human targets to be put in the way of Israeli missiles.
Allowing (forcing?) children to play outside while a military campaign is going on is deranged and disgusting. Using schools and mosques as the sites for the missile firing is a war crime and should be subject to UN sanction. Strapping bombs to children and pregnant women in an attempt to kill innocent Jews is a bestial and cowardly act and should be subject to streams of UN resolutions, if the UN was actually fit for purpose – which it’s not!
I would suspect that the numbers of “civilians” directly killed by Israel is much lower than the BBC quoted figures, and that most of the victims were probably killed due to the deliberate policy of Hamas, e.g. where to place them so as to get the biggest condemnation of Israel.
The ratio of “civilians” to “fighters” dead in Cast Lead was actually much lower than any other conflict.
If I can remeber where I saw an article on that I’ll post it later, but I seem to remember that the average is 1:3 whereas the IDF average 1:5
I think this must have been the article:
Oh, by the way, Cast Lead was as moral as war can be
There’s also this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio#Israel_in_the_Gaza_War
Here’s an article by Trevor Norwitz about the Goldstone soap opera.
Regarding the three stooges’ statement that as far as they are concerned, nothing has changed,
“Not the fact that, as noted by the McGowan Davis report, “Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigating over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza”. Nor the fact that Hamas has completely ignored its obligation to investigate. Nor the fact that rockets continue to fly from Gaza towards Israeli civilian targets. Nor even Hamas’ admission that Israel was right about the number of Hamas fighters killed in the Gaza operation (making it one of the most accurately targeted military campaigns in modern history, even under near-impossible conditions). In short, it appears that, for these three, nothing less than the sight of Israel’s leaders in the dock will suffice.”
This is just an added nuance to the ghoulish Body Count Narrative. I’m glad, though, that the BBC is at last beginning to separate Hamas military casualties from civilians. I’ve been complaining for years about their use of one lump sum for casualties. It’s one tiny improvement, but the Body Count Narrative itself still needs to be called out for what it is.
The problem here – or a major part of the problem – is the refusal of the BBC to engage. Of course, this is par for the course. On every matter dear to the heart of those at the BBC the chosen BBC response is the same as the Greenpeace/IPPR tactic of refusal to engage on AGW/ACC but, on the contrary, to act as if “the science is in” and there can be no question concerning the facts or analysis promoted by the BBC.
Accordingly, it’s no surprise that the BBC’s line on climate change, Middle East, Islam in the UK (and elsewhere) etc etc. is unchanged and unchanging. In the Middle East, the BBC narrative informs us that Israel – as a cypher for “the Jews” – has stolen the paradise on earth of Palestine from its rightful inhabitants. There is no reasoning with the BBC. Ms Bagshawe can complain all she likes; a million emails can be sent to the BBC Complaints Dept; salient facts by the score can be produced: it will not make an iota of difference. The BBC’s utter contempt for those who disagree with its line mirrors the contempt of the political class for the rest of us. As long as we go on paying, the BBC (like the EU) will continue spitting in our eye.
By all means keep complaining but don’t expect any positive response from the BBC unless you’re Moslem, gay, professionally ethnic etc and chippy with it. If you’re Christian, Jewish, white, tax-paying, law-abiding, work in the private sector etc – forget it.
Umbongo, you sound even more jaded than I do.
sue
I’m probably older than you so it comes with the territory.
Umbongo
And I may well be older than you. Yes, distance lends enchantment to the eye – us oldies remember when the BBC was reliable, was mostly quality TV and radio.
Now much of it is crap, and so biased. At £4billion a year.
I am by nature fairly moderate, I think. But I see nil practical possibility of getting the BBC back on the straight and narrow. The only answer is abolition /sell-off.
Any bank in the City worth its salt would jump at the chance of unwinding the BBC, stripping it down to core services and selling much of it off. The BBC licence fee is as regressive a tax as you can find, taking this succubus off the UK population ought to be a serious political objective.
Age rage becomes you. (It goes with your hair) But do those golden memories withstand scrutiny in the cold light of the here’n’now? Or do re-runs of those memorable iconic programmes from the black and white days reveal that memory lane wears rose-tinted specs?
Programmes were probably as crap then as they are now.
There is a crucial divide between those who can see through it and those who can’t. We’re so sophisticated that we can spot a fake, whereas in the olden, less media-savvy days we might just have been mesmerised by sitting in front of the flickering images in our living rooms.
The BBC did have a reputation for reliability and ‘telling it like it is’ a long time ago, but in comparison to what? Usually in comparison to regimes that restricted their own broadcasting to government propaganda.
Now, we’re the ones being fed the propaganda – and this has happened by sleight of hand so the man on the Clapham omnibus didn’t see the join.
Wadda we want?
Regime change!
When do we want it?
Now!
(Not quite sure what this comment is about)
The BBC news has changed for the worse. There used to be a saying;
“The BBC doesn’t tell you all the truth, but everything it does tell you is true”.
That is no longer the case.
“The BBC doesn’t tell you all the truth,…etc etc” ……. and even that damns with faint praise.
Or, as a Masai tribesman is reputed to have once said about BBC News on the World Service: “BBC News is the truth spoken by gentlemen”.
Oh halycon days. .. wafts off into nostaligic reverie ..
BBC-Democrat’s Obama on Israael.
Glenn Beck gets it right (inc video clip):
“Beck: Obama Passover Message a ‘Slap in the Face’ to Israel”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/beck-obama-passover-message-a-slap-in-the-face-to-israel/