Excellent article by Robin Shepherd here! He exposes some more visceral anti-Israel bias from the State Broadcaster.
“It was another one of those do-I-laugh-or-do-I-cry moments as I came across the latest piece of flagrant anti-Israeli propagandaon the BBC‘s website.
It started off badly enough with the headline — UN “appalled“ by Israel treatment of hunger strikers. Sorry, that’s just not a story. The UN is always “appalled“ by something to do with the Jewish state, and that’s because its members are overwhelmingly in thrall to an obsessive anti-Zionist bigotry which appears to know no bounds.
So, it was clear from the outset that this was going to be something of a gratuitous hatchet job. Then again this is the BBC, so no surprises there. But even I have to admit to having been surprised about just how gratuitous it was going to be. Here are the first two paragraphs from Yolande Knell’s story:
“A UN expert has said he is appalled by the “continuing human rights violations in Israeli prisons”, as Palestinian inmates continue a mass hunger strike.
“Special Rapporteur Robert [sic] Falk said Israel had to treat hunger strikers in line with international standards.“
Do visit The Commentator and read the whole article, excellent work, from Robin.
This is for Sue.
haha thanks D.B.
Women! Know your place!
Sorry, who is Sue? Does she post here?
Ahem.
Sorry, Sue.
She is clearly none-too-over-familiar with her Falks.
Robert Falkon Scott, the famed explorer who died in the Arctic? Actor Peter Falk, star of Starsky and Hutch? Or maybe novelist Sebastian Falk, author of Charlotte Birdsong?
I have no idea who this Robert Falk is.
Looks like Yvonne Knell has well and truly Falked up this time.
Starsky & Hutch? I think you mean Columbo!
“Just one more thing…”
I wish she’s falk off
As usual it’s a shitty little article on Israel from the BBC. Apart from the mistake re Falk’s first name, there’s a glaring spelling mistake in the headline, unless the editors imagine appalls only has one ‘l’.
But I think the truth is that editors pay only cursory attention to these articles. They trust Knell and her ilk to trot out the standard, grinding bias.
I also see Knell has used the standard cop out employed when journalists have no idea what’s going on or don’t want to identify their sources, for whatever reason:
“Reports say that the head of the IPS met Palestinian prisoners, including the jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, at the weekend.”
Funny how the BBC inserts its favourite phrase, The settlements are illegal according to international law, though Israel disputes this, wherever it possibly can, even in articles with only a passing reference to the settlements. But here there is no mention of the fact that Israel released over a thousand Palestinian prisoners, a large percentage of them with Israeli civilian blood on their hands, for Gilad Shalit. I would have thought that info is directly relevant to hunger strikers.
Blinded by its bias, the BBC evidently doesn’t.
Hi TT,
So you didn’t notice this either?
Crumbs!
Now I finally twig to DB’s post.
What’s a shoogly peg?
Scottish expression – it means shaky, “To hang your jacket on a shoogly peg”
as in: here.
I hate to be pedant, TooTrue, but both ‘appal’ and ‘appall’ are legitimate.
It is an appalling article all the same because it says absolutely nothing, nil, zilch, nada, about Falk’s previous. It’s one thing being a 911 truther but quite another to publish virulently anti-Semitic cartoons on your blog, amongst other things. Why, even Navi Pillay condemned him and the cartoon.
He is no dispassionate observer, that’s for sure.
But he is, according to Yolande, “a UN expert” and has the grand title of ‘Special Rapporteur’ so that means he is important and his views on Israel must be taken seriously, even if they are almost indistinguishable from those of, say, David Duke.
Maybe Yolande thought that by changing his name to Robert, no one would notice?
Accusations of anti-Semitism are always dismissed by Israel haters as an attempt to distract from any legitimate criticism of Israel. These very same people will, however, hurl accusations of racism as an attempt to distract from any legitimate criticism of a black President.
David Preiser,
True, and I’ve just been on a Guardian CIF thread where they hurled accusations of racism at Boris Johnson while airily dismissing or altogether ignoring Ken Livingstone’s vile anti-Semitism.
Reminds me of the BBC News Website’s Home page when Boris beat Livingstone to become mayor in 2008. At the same time there was some minor development involving Morgan whatshisname and Robert Mugabe. The BBC splashed a big picture of Mugabe’s mug on the page along with the blurb about him and Morgan and relegated Boris’ win to the small print underneath, giving it the same importance as the death in a plane crash of a Sudanese minister.
That’s the British Broadcasting Corporation for you. If Livingstone had won, the champagne would of course have been flowing off the BBC corridors and his mug would certainly have trumped that of Mugabe.
From the little I’ve read of the BBC’s reaction to Boris’ current victory, they don’t exactly appear to be over the moon with joy. In fairness I should check that out more extensively before venturing an opinion but I think I’ll leave that up to others and deny the BBC the benefit of the doubt.
It certainly doesn’t deserve it.
David, and when you eventually have a black president, then I hope that he will be open to criticism.
Thanks for that. All pedantry is appreciated. I wasn’t sure about appal at first so I Googled it, spelling it appall and I guess I just had my misconception reinforced since a number of results came up with the double-l.
Now I’ve gone back and Googled both versions.
Appal yields 660 000 results while appall yields 2 640 000.
Though I know that’s a strictly unscientific measure, the 4:1 ratio in my favour comforts me to a degree!
I see Robin Shepherd was hoist by his own pedantry – he referred to ‘Falk’ as ‘Fawkes’ by mistake in a comment on his own thread!
Isn’t it annoying when you’re caught out yourself when attempting to catch someone else out. 😉
Dunno. I had another look at the article and couldn’t see any Fawkes, Guy or otherwise.
Maybe Robin saw your post here and corrected his mistake.
Or maybe you were seeing things, Sue?!
How you gonna prove he really did write Fawkes?
(This is starting to get complicated.)
Or maybe you were NOT seeing things?
The clue is in the word ‘comment’.
Yes, Teddy Bear knows what I mean. It’s about nine comments in:
Robin Shepherd1
“The BBC has now corrected its howler on mistaking Richard Fawkes for Robert Fawkes after this article. However, it has not acknowledged its mistake by stating that due to The Commentator they have made the change, nor has it changed the substance of what, by normal journalistic standards, would be considered a dreadful piece of propagandistic writing… Ask them why…? And if you’re a resident Brit, ask them why you should be forced to pay a licence fee for an ideological agenda…. “
Like Reply
2
*********
Someone else (“estebanrey”) tries to be a smarty pants too, and makes an obscure spelling-related remark: “Apparently the hunger strike “appals” the UN, whatever that means. It seems Robin nicked the U and used it in the word ‘reporter’ above 😀
They must be spelling appalls/appals with a ‘U’……..
If I’ve made a mistake in this comment, apols in advance.
I think he’s just poking fun at Yolande Knell for writing Robert Falk by writing Fawkes twice in that comment. After all, he’s already proved conclusively that he knows the shmuck’s name is Richard Falk.
That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.
An article on such a crucial theme that should be proof read by an editor is one thing, a comment banged in is another.
I can’t talk, TT.
My reply to you started with the words, “I hate to be pedant, TooTrue, but”.
Golden Rule of Posting on Forums: never, ever correct someone else’s grammar or spelling because, sure as eggs is eggs, you’re bound to make an error in the course of your reply.
You mean you should have written pedantic or put the indefinite article a before pedant?!
I think you can be forgiven that small lapse. My pedantry was more serious since it led me to unjustly accuse the BBC of an error.
A: “You’re such a pendant!”
B: “Don’t you mean pedant?”
A: “See what I mean!”
😀
Could he be a Pedantophile?
Yes your rite! I don’t make such mistakes cause I rite it on whirred with there spell chequer, !
Incidentally, I was so appalled this w/e to see Abdel Bari Atwan – the man who is on record as saying he will dance with delight in Trafalgar Square if Iranian missiles hit Israel – on “Dateline London” yet again that I posted a blog about him, since I believe he’s another of the types identified by Robin Shepherd.
http://daphneanson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/pumping-out-anti-israel-poison-bbc.html
Got you bookmarked – will have a good read later.
‘as so often, he was a panellist on “Dateline London” this weekend, along with France24 correspondent Benedicte Paviot, John Fisher Burns of the New York Times, and Sir Simon Jenkins of The Guardian.
(A nice politically balanced panel, no? Er, no. But at least yesterday they didn’t focus on Israel, the nearest that they got to it in the time allotted being towards the end, when Burns announced that to defeat Islamic extremism the West must change both its foreign policy and its treatment of its “domestic” Muslim populations… Nobody demurred, by the way.)
Interesting.
I am in discussion with an ECU Director about Dateline London, and the panel’s rather unique mutual support that the UK is the provocateur over the Falkands.
He has refused to deal with the panel composition, and shunted that aspect elsewhere (and despite being asked twice where, has ignored my requests):
‘I should explain at this stage that the choice of panellists is a matter of editorial judgement and discretion for programme-makers and the
selection of particular individuals does not, of itself, raise a potential breach of editorial
standards.
But he has been kind enough to share the thinking behind the composition and conduct of this programme:
‘Breadth and diversity of opinion may require not just a political and cultural range, but,
on occasions, reflection of the variations between urban and rural, older and younger,
poorer and wealthier, the innovative and the status quo, etc. It may involve exploration
of perspectives in different communities, interest groups and geographic areas. ‘
And… my favourite…
“…programme’s Editor who explained in response that the object of the programme is to let the audience hear people’s views.”
Who those ‘people’ are, and which ‘people’ at the BBC choose them, and only them, rather going to the nub of the issue.
Stacking the panel with fellow travellers may create a satisfying echo chamber to one’s worldview, but to any audience less than impressed with single-meme propaganda… that might seem less than impartial.
The programme producers also seem to reserve, as they did with the Falklands stitch-up, a special ‘rushed’ section at the end for a quick ‘what do you think?’ which, if extreme and called to account they have a lovely excuse ready and waiting for:
‘he’s sorry if you objected to Gavin’s throw-away line at the end of the programme and pointed to how it’s a live show.’
It’s live, it’s stacked, it’s rigged, it’s moderator-uncontrolled, it’s shameless and it’s Crackers, Jack!
I remember writing about this person a few times.
I found this here.
“The BBC’s fondness for hiring Abdel al-Bari Atwan is clear. He’s never off our screens. Opining on this and that, his eyes bulging preternaturally, he’s regarded as an authority on all things Arab. Springs, Uprisings, and Resistance? Ask Abdel. His speciality is demonising Israel and fantasising about it being nuked.
Is he impartial? Is he sane? Are his prejudices balanced on the air, in the short term or the long term, by opposing views? Are his views given undue respect and credibility?
Why does the BBC give inflammatory, racist, antisemitic and warmongering individuals the oxygen of publicity on programmes like Dateline or Newsnight? We know the BBC is mischievous and likes a bit of a barney for the ratings. But this is serious. They might want to try and make sparks fly, but sparks have a habit of getting out of control if they’re given free rein.
Any Questions? Here’s one. Does the panel think the BBC is after a conflagration?