Excellent dissection of BBC bias against Israel here.
Writing for the BBC, freelance travel writer Matthew Teller veered sharply off-course in his article, “Jerusalem Tram Offers View of Other Side of Tracks” about Jerusalem’s light railway. The author demonstrates his shocking ignorance about the history of Jerusalem, about international law, and about present-day Jerusalem with passages that alternately suggest that Israel seized, settled and segregated Jerusalem.
Give it a read, it is a very good read.
I am a bit shaky on the history of this and there are many other posters here who can elucidate, but I thought Jordan entered into a pact with Egypt and attacked Israel in 1967 and were comprehensibly beaten by the Israelis.
Captured by Israel in 1948?
A Jewish suburb which is described as an illegal settlement.
Strong implication that “Palestinians” were banned from entering West Jerusalem. Rubbish.
The Palestinian mother who was looking around her “as if in a foreign country”. No doubt she was probably looking around to see if her next tram was in yet.
He is totally missing the point as to who has caused these seperations between the communities – his inference is clearly the Jews but history tells the opposite.
I think with this article he will become a regular BBC contributor – he has all the right prejudices.
This writer Matthew Teller seems to have an impressive CV, but his attitude is undoubtedly deeply BBC. I fear he’s another wretched “AsaJew”. He was one of the BBC’s Tahrir Square journos in Cairo, eulogising over the glorious Arab Spring.
At a slight tangent, his picture reminds me of another propounder of Israel-bashing rhetoric I stumbled across the other day. Here’s a similarly-styled journo, moaning about John Lydon aka Jonny Rotten who intends to perform in Israel. David Cronin, in the Guardian, thinks Lydon is abandoning his righteous lefty principles for nasty material considerations:
“How can Lydon so callously disregard the suffering of a people under colonial occupation? The answer is easy. PiL will be performing in Tel Aviv as headliners at a festival sponsored by Heineken. Along with giving him all the free beer he can swallow, Lydon can be sure the brewers will help to swell his bank account. Finally, he has found a corporation that gets “the opportunity of me”.
“ Lydon claimed he’s “well-known for being a pacifist” and named Mahatma Gandhi as his all-time hero. Surely, then, he would be open to supporting one of the most impressive examples of Gandhi’s principles being put into action in today’s world: the weekly demonstrations in the West Bank village of Bi’lin, where unarmed activists are regularly fired at by Israeli forces. Surely, too, he would be sympathetic to the call made by numerous Palestinian trade unions and other campaign groups for a cultural and economic boycott of Israel.”
He includes, but disregards Jonny’s rotten excuse:
“If Elvis-fucking-Costello wants to pull out of a gig in Israel because he’s suddenly got this compassion for Palestinians, then good on him,” Lydon told the Independent. “But I have absolutely one rule, right? Until I see an Arab country, a Muslim country, with a democracy, I won’t understand how anyone can have a problem with how they’re treated.”
Cronin obviously ‘can’t bear Lydon the liar’. I rather like him.
That’s Matthew Teller.
You can almost tell just by looking at him that he is a Beeboid !
In terms of the history, the writer has it spot on. The history of the events prior and subsequent to the Arab invasion of 1948…fuelled by pan-arabism…the creation of a ‘Palestinian’ identity…..and the religio-cultural refusal to countenance religiously defined second class peoples determining their own identity is woefully and (in some quarters) wilfully traduced to fit the irredentist Arab programme.
The natural way in which the light-weights of the BBC operate shows that their knowledge and understanding of the region and its history is lacking.
In the absence of knowledge, the stage is left clear for the ‘fashionable’ narrative and quite biased reporting we read from the BBC.
All very shameful.
No chance of the BBC having a closer look at the Edinburgh Tram debacle is there?…Alistair Darling?…Alex Salmond?..and all manner of Labour/SNP luvvies with(no doubt) a few eco greenies to smear and slander.
No…course not! So Jerusalem it is then!
Yes; a reminder of a tram scandal nearer home-
Obama and Sakozy on same political tramlines as INBBC on Israel:
“Sarkozy called Israeli PM Netanyahu ‘liar'”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15635476
cj,
Please don’t mention the tram. Some of us have to live with it although I suspect it will never be completed. Another £1 billion down the drain.
But, of course, not a story for the BBC.
Sorry Grant!
At least you will be the remaining Athens of the North that won`t need the EU Commissars in just yet.
If you were to remove tax from Tennants/Dryborough heavy and the equivalent….and piled it all onto Tuscan wines and anything that boozy firestarter from Labour a few years back might drink…then you could save Salmonds liver, smugly slap Sturgeons face AND contribute to the well-being anti booze agenda so beloved of the EU.
Keep the Brussels dilettantes well away with the white cider…make it free on prescription..it`s what Andy Stewart would have wanted..and Moira Anderson may still want
Woe betide the EU if they try and separate Scots from their alcohol and me from my Irn Bru !
All the attention seems to be upon what President Sarkozy said to President Obama. ““I can’t stand him ( Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu) any more, he’s a liar,”
Obama’s response is as great a story. “You may be sick of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day,”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15635476
Arguably what Obama thinks is more important to Israel than what Sarkozy thinks. His animosity underlines what Jewish Democrat voters in the USA refuse to believe, while the anti-Israel BBC will be delighted that their favourite American shares its views.
On a broader point of competence: no-one should hold confidential conversations with a radio mic still attached. Ask Gordon brown! The first lesson in the media is “beware the microphone – on or off!” Radio mics are particularly lethal. Every junior intern knows this. Leaders of countries should know it too.
Yes Louis I noticed that, the BBC are focusing on what Sarko said not St Barry of Obamastan. Can you imagine if George W Bush had said that back to Sarko? The BBC wouldn’t shut up about it.
Whether these two cheese eating surrender monkeys choose to accompany it with a croissant or a hot dog bun is neither here,nor there.
Netenyahu has put his life on the line as a soldier(and a good one) in the service of his country…he is a patriot if nothing else.
Obama and Sarkozy have only ever had to deal with the likes of Segolene Royal and John McCain…who was a patriot too for all the good it did him!
Still both have trophy wives-but one needs a booster seat and elevator heels just to stare at Bibi ankles…and the other is (to quote a greater mind than mine on this site)…a “walking word cloud”.
Palin had him stitched up in two sentences once-his autobiography preceded any effort at legislation was one!
The israelis hopefully will rush to the synagogues this Saturday and thank God for the calibre of enemies they currently are facing here in the flabby west.
Israel is an independent,well-defended and democratic state in the midst of a Euro-style caliphate that wants them in the sea!No wonder the BBC/Democrats and Airfix test pilot that is Sarkozy hate him so.
Postal votes for Netenyahu anyone?…
“Airfix Test Pilot”. That’s brilliant. 😀
Demon,
I was just about to post the same. I don’t know what cj is on, but I hope the government don’t ban it !
Louis,
I posted elsewhere that it just shows what utter idiots Sarkozy and Obama are. Laurel and Hardy without the humour.
It’s hard to imagine what Teller wants in this ‘damned you do – damned you don’t’ piece.
The train also serves some Arab majority areas? Illegal attempt to exert control.
The train doesn’t serve some Arab majority areas? Illegal attempt to deprive Arabs of services
The station names were announced in Hebrew, Arabic and English? Further evidence of the municipal authorities’ desire to define this tram as a project of unification.
The station names were announced in Hebrew and English? Further evidence of the cultural genocide practised by Israel.
There are other niggling things. “I never spoke to an Arab before I rode this tram.”? That would be a very rare Israeli Jew (and vice versa for Israeli Arab.
Boarding city buses means running the gauntlet of attention from the driver and the route regulars. Has Teller in his 30 years of visits never travelled on public transport? Arabs travel every day on buses and trains, openly speak Arabic and where traditional and otherwise ethnicly identifying clothing (those who do).
BTW and just for the record. I hate the bridge and think it is quite inappropriate for the surroundings.
Has Teller never travelled on public transport ? If he is a Beeboid, probably not.
The BBC has found a new useful Jew.
“Unfortunately” is a completely inappropriate word for the BBC reporter to have used.
The BBC weren’t quite so squeamish about private conversations becoming public knowledge when Wikileaks began.
My apologies, Craig, I just moved that comment to the new Gaffe post, where it’s relevant.
I’ll move my reply too, David! 🙂
I’m tempted to leave Teller a comment, or point him at this blog or CAMERA just to balance the adulation he’s receiving on his blog:
http://quitealone.com/2011/11/07/tracks-of-my-tears/
This could do with a good fisking too:
http://quitealone.com/2011/10/11/tears-of-a-stranger/
In Teller’s own words:
I pointed at the wall, showing I wasn’t photographing them. It was a lie. I’ve lied like this many times. As if my photographs matter.
I did leave a polite comment pointing out his historic distortions, but he’s decided not to let it through his censorship.
Apparently only comments telling him how wonderful he is are allowed.