A frustrated B-BBC reader writes;
“Is the BBC making no mention of some important protests by large numbers of people all round a country, proof of bias? 24 hours ago, Saturday evening, in Israel 150,000 people protested in at least five cities about the cost of living – food, housing, childcare, baby and child necessities and others. it’s a major happening in Israel, the PM cancelled a trip to Poland and there is talk about the summer recess for the Knesset being postponed or cancelled. Netanyahu is setting up committees to urgently look at the problems. Israelis are talking about the relatively few rich Israeli families who apparently own many commercial and industrial companies. There is a lack of competition and many prices are far too high for people’s salaries, people just can’t manage
What does the BBC have on its website about this groundbreaking story? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. WHY? Because the BBC would have to show Israelis as ordinary humans rather than Palestinian-bashing monsters. Because the BBC seems to have an aversion to economics generally? Because they’re lazy and it’s easier to keep hacking on about the Palestinians? Who to my mind are increasingly irrelevant.
The BBC has always had a strange reluctance to show film of Israelis doing ordinary things, shopping, walking along Israeli streets, in ordinary homes. Showing this would reveal that Israel is a busy, bustling, vibrant and especially peaceful country. Anathema for al Beeb.”
...and by the same token they are very reluctant (understatement!) to show the normal lives of Palestinians: the shopping malls, the hotels, the car dealers, the weekends at the beach.
This did get a very brief mention on the BBC World Service on Saturday. However the report was asking the question if these protests were an Israeli version of the Arab Spring and a couple of lefty Israelis were found to say it was. Totally ignoring the fact that Israel is a functioning democracy and has been since independance. What we are seeing in these peaceful demonstations are normal in a democracy. But it appears that could not be mentioned.
Dog bites man is not news?
Yes, it could just be that this isn’t interesting to the Beeboids covering the region. The only reason for they think they need to report on Israel is because its in conflict with Muslims. If the story doesn’t fit into that context, there’s no point in covering it. It’s not news to them.
If Israel wasn’t such a place of focus because of the conflict, they wouldn’t even bother doing those human interest stories on holidays and whatnot.
The decision-makers in the bbc may be lazy but their actions (omission and commission) are wicked. The frightening thing is that they probably don’t know that what they are doing is wicked. I suppose to do that would be to recognise that some belief systems are just wrong, without equivocation.
Good on the dirty juices getting out in numbers and doing something about increasing prices. Can you imagine the general riff raff of this country doing the same thing? Not since the poll tax has this country been motivated enough to get out and protest about unpopular government policies!
Secondly, you would think this would be right up al beebs alley…protests about dirty jews who own everything and hold everyone to ransom! But no, instead its crickets and tumble weeds.
Mailman
John,
“Lazy” is not the right word that guides BBC editorial policy. Rather, it is the firm conviction that, in the end, their view is correct. And to them “correct” means that the post-war liberal welfare state is the only way to govern, that racism is in the DNA of conservatism, that the rich are evil bloodsuckers and poor are victims, that religion is a fraud, that pacifism should be the national defence stance – you know the rest – just listen to words of the patron saint of BBC producers Tony Benn to hear the rest.
This collection of beliefs is “Truth” and the depressing thing about it is that it is never questioned. Even those who disagree with it go along with it because the weight of the establishment is too heavy to move.
I do not believe in the conspiracy theory of the BBC. But it a body so set in its practices, so inbred in its staff enrollment, so arrogant in its self-esteem, it doesn’t see – and I mean truly recognize – its defects. This is a comfortable place to be for most people. As one colleague described it: “its nice to be on the old gravy train, isn’t it? A moment of candour in a sea of self-deception..
So the “Israel is an evil country” narrative will never be questioned. It is, as Jane Austen would say, simply “a truth universally acknowledged”. So in BBC terms, “Enough said. Come on, old boy, let’s adjourn to the bar”.
“Its nice to be on the old gravy train, isn’t it?”
If you peel off the “We only do it for the sake of the poor” label the above is the real motto of the Leftist establishment.
At University I cannot think of a single Leftist I knew who did not go onto work in the Public Sector.
The thought of creating wealth, rather than redistributing wealth made by others into their own pockets (all for the sake of the poor of course) would horrify them.
If all the Guardian readers moved to Australia, and the billions saved was used to reduce all tax rates to 10%, the living standards of the poor (especially the very poorest of what used to be called the “deserving poor”) would dramatically rise, almost overnight
To be blunt, Guardian readers are not just parasites, they are scum. The reason why the BBC has the constant message (the equivalent of loudspeakers endlessly giving the Party message) that public services are GOOD private profit is BAD is that everybody knows that public services are more expensive, less efficient, and run for the benefit of the Guardian readers who provide the services not the benefit of the people who use them.
What percentage of those Beeboids that you see itching to tell you how much they care about the NHS go private? Take Michael Crick the just retiring Leftist political editor of Newsnight. The chances that he uses the private sector for his medical care is a racing certainty.
To understand the BBC mentality read a book about the way the Soviet Union was run. The Soviet equivalent of the The Guardian reader bled the country dry while promoting slogans about equality. It was one of the most unequal (and politically intolerant) societies in the world, with an ever diminishing pot of wealth devoured by nomenklatura as the poor literally starved to death.
No wonder the Beeboids are horrified at the prospect of having to move to Salford.
Hmmm…. I have thought carefully about this one – perhaps a story that doesn’t have to be reported although I can David’s point.
I was surprised (shocked??) to read this week on this site about Hama in 1982 when Syria murdered in excess of 10,000 (up to 40,000) of its own people. How little reporting there must have been at the time by the BBC and others that I can remember nothing of it – yet how easily I can recall the names of Sabra and Shatila where the BBC said it was the Israelis aka as the Jews to blame in spite of the fact that they didn’t do the killing.
I am not sure how the BBC would make these present demonstrations into a negative story about Israel (perhaps the wealthy Israelis that own the businesses must be evil right-wing Jews?) but I know they would.
Aaah but the BBC narrative would be contradicted if Jews were shown to be just ordinary human beings. The BBC led dehumanization and delegitamization of Israel dictates that the the Jews and Israel should never be portrayed as human UNLESS they are that tiny minority of useful idiot Jews who side with their enemies.
The BBC are experts at constructing
Ooops dont know what happened there =-O .
The BBC are experts at constructing a purposefully distorting lens through which we are invited to see their version of reality as they would wish us to see it. The Jew isnt normal, the Jew is not to be sympathised with, the Jew is different from normal human beings with different values, the Jew is a settler rather like locusts eh BBC?.
Middle ages: The jew wants to steal your children.
19th century Europe: The Jew wants to steal your money.
20th century Nazi Germany: The Jews want to steal the entire world.
21st century BBC: The jews want to steal Palestine.
An historical chain that stretches back as far as Catholic church, blame the Jew, persecute the Jew, hate the Jew, kill the Jew and still today after millions of Jews paid the ultimate price for the ultimate Jew hatred we still see the old hatreds at work, we see clearly the old prejudice and the old pathological urge to target a scapegoat group.
The most concentrated and dangerous source of the old Jew hatred is not in Iran or some other hell hole cesspit, it is right in the very heart of the UK in the form of the BBC and if it is not stopped it will end up like Der Sturmer.
Steal Palestine and commit genocide. And we still want your money, surely.
Cassandra: ” it is right in the very heart of the UK in the form of the BBC and if it is not stopped it will end up like Der Sturmer.”
Too late! It’s been there for a few years already.
Whats the diference between extreme right wing hatred and extreme left wing hatred?
Presentation of course. And the BBC are nothing if not experts at presentation.
I’ve got it: the Beeboids in Jerusalem are all on strike. That’s why they’re silent.
What, all 97352645 of them?
BBC Jersey have been very quiet about this http://voiceforchildren.blogspot.com/2011/07/cowardly-underhanded-and-dishonest.html
Just read Kevin Connoly’s article. And very interesting it is too, in the usual malevolent way.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14344515
Connolly writes just like he looks. It is a dull, miserable piece (remember those celebratory agitprop paeons to the “Arab Spring”?) but what really characterises it is its negativity and petulance.
Yet this is an inspirational story… here we have another young nation in which ordinary citizens are demanding justice, and are doing it with verve, passion, peacefullness… and fun!
And all fatman Connolly can do is hold his piggy nose and bitch.
But worse than that, he misses the fundamental point. Here we have another popular revolt in the ME. And unlike in the neighbouring countries, people are not getting torured and mowed down by their government, or raped, or dismembered to punish parents, like that poor 124 year old boy in Syria who had his penis cut off… you get the point.
In Israel we have street parties, intelectuals speaking out, music, totally free journalism and a participatory defiance that has already forced down the price of a staple food.
And no government, or general, or “leader for life” will dare to go against this people. Why? Because ISrael is their’s.
Is this not what we need in the ME? Real freedom and free protest?
Evidently not according to the stinking BBC.
Well thanks magic lantern for alerting to me that as of today the beeb have finally woken up to the situation and written something about it. Wonder if the Biased BBC article was what woke them up!