On BBC News 24 yesterday, Jon Donnison reported the demonstrations in the Gaza strip and the West Bank by Palestinians celebrating Nakba day. I use the word ‘celebrate’ deliberately because Nakba day has become a celebration of victimhood rather than a commemoration of a Nakba (catastrophe) or cataclysmic disaster. Using this name brings it into line, in the world’s eye view, with a real catastrophe when half the world’s Jews were exterminated.
Naming the anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel after the Arabic word for catastrophe puts the largely self-inflicted expulsion of approximately 700,000 Arab inhabitants of the region on a par with the murder of six million Jews.
Jon Donnison’s report was more than a mere account of the demonstrations attended by ‘Thousands of Palestinians’. It was also a history lesson – consisting solely of a dumbed-down version of the ‘Palestinian narrative’, which itself is a very particular version of the creation of Israel. “The beginning of our continued hardship” he quotes Abbas saying, sorrowfully.
The role that Arab leaders played in this fright and flight exercise in 1948 by propagandising and scaremongering is ignored, as is the fact that the exeat was intended as a temporary inconvenience while the Jews were neatly disposed of by invading Arab armies. Forgotten altogether is the little known “other Nakba”, the expulsion of approximately 800,000 Jews from the Middle East, who were absorbed into Israel.
“How Palestinian Arabs became refugees and how they have suffered at the hands of the Jews,” is a version of history that many have chosen to adopt as *the* authentic account of the creation of Israel. The term Jews has been prudently ‘euphemised’ into ‘Israelis’ as if to dissociate it from the malevolence that dare not speak its name.
Of course many suspect there is another side to this story, but, with the help of the BBC, they have chosen to adopt this one, and this one alone. Glorifying, or ‘rooting for’ the underdog bestows a quick-fix self-righteousness and a comforting sense of belonging. For the activist, the more radical, the more rewarding; the more assiduous, the more smug; the more strident, the more dangerous.
It can’t just be a simple case of unavoidable brainwashing from an overdose of incessant, biased reporting, because it’s easy to discover both sides of a story through the internet. Even if you know you’re not going to like it, the knowledge that the information is there for the asking suggests there’s an element of choice in the Israel-bashing zeitgeist surrounding the intelligentsia and the unintelligentsia, and the fact that so many choose to ignore or reject the so-called “Jewish narrative” out of hand, yet adopt the Arab one unquestioningly indicates that antisemitism resides within the default Israel-bashing epidemic.
Surely the BBC’s own biased reporting can’t be due to brainwashing either, unless they’re hopelessly incompetent, and incestuously regurgitating each other’s biased reporting. Their unique access to funds and resources means they are capable of ferreting out the whole story, so their failure to do so must be because of somebody, somewhere’s conscious decision, and their failure to fulfill their obligation to report fully and impartially must also be a matter of choice.
Celebrating Hamas style.
This clip was filmed at a Palestinian wedding when the bride, groom and several guests were brutally murdered for the sole crime of playing the music too loud.
Hamas has deliberately murdered more Palestinians than those caught up in the conflict with Israel yet the media remains silent about it.
This includes publicly hanging children as young as 8 for being in posession of a music cassette to raping, beating and hanging young girls for having the wrong hairstyle.
Orla Guering, Barbara Plett, Yolanda Knell etc. are well aware of these crimes yet keep silent.
These so called reporters pretend to show concern for the Palestinian people but in reality they couldn’t give a sh1t about them defending only the terrorist dogma behind the crimes.
Now, maybe I’m over simplifying things, but didn’t the noble Arab armies of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Syria respond to the creation of Israel by suggesting that the Arab inhabitants of Palestine should bugger off for a few weeks, whilst the aforesaid noble Arab armies crushed the Jews and machine gunned them into the sea…….
Trouble is the noble Arab armies got given a good kicking by the evil Jews, which led to those Arab inhabitants of Palestine who had buggered off becoming refugees.
I suppose that it was a bit of a disaster – but not quite in the way in which it is usually presented.
Not only that I think the Arab countries vetoed a two state solution put forward through the UN in 1947 (Resolution 181?) – which would have given the Palestinians their own homeland – as they were sure they could quickly drive the new state of Israel into the sea. The rest, they say, is history – but only as the BBC choose to tell it. Further attempts to obliterare Israel in 1967 and 1973 also ended with the Arabs getting a good kicking, but I cannot honestly remember the last time either of these got the briefest mention by Al-Beeb. But then I suppose their version of history needs to be seen to match that taught in our state schools doesn’t it, comrades?
This fits right in with the BBC obit of Vidal Sassoon where they described him as going to Palestine to fight in the Arab-Israeli war. Not the fight for Israeli independence or anything so profane as that. Rewriting history every day at the BBC.
What? Are you trying to tell me that he didn’t go as a volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement? I’m sure its a complete accident that the BBC left the uninitiated viewer with that impression.
2 reports on Islamic Republic of IRAN:-
1.) ‘Daily Mail’:
“WikiLeaks cable ‘led Iran to hang kick-boxer it claims was Israeli spy who assassinated nuclear scientist'”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2145218/WikiLeaks-cable-led-Iran-hang-kick-boxer-said-Israeli-spy-assassinated-nuclear-scientist.html#ixzz1v4VisyFy
2.) INBBC:-
No INBBC mention of WikiLeaks here:
“Iran hangs ‘Israel spy’ over nuclear scientist killing”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18068820
If this is true, it’s just another reason for the BBC to see St. Julian as a hero.
No link but suggests Nakba not got a lot to do with ‘Palestinians’…
On page 312 of The Arab Awakening, Antonius writes, ìThe year 1920 has an evil name in Arab annals: it is referred to as the Year of the Catastrophe (Am al-Nakba). It saw the first armed risings that occurred in protest against the post-War settlement imposed by the Allies on the Arab countries. In that year, serious outbreaks took place in Syria, Palestine, and Iraq.î
Yes, the answer to our little quiz is 1920, not 1948. That ís 1920, when there was no Zionist state, no Jewish sovereignty, no settlements in “occupied territories,” no Israel Defense Forces, no Israeli missiles and choppers targeting terror leaders, and no Jewish control over Jerusalem (which, however, had a Jewish demographic majority going back at least to 1850).
The nakba had nothing to do with Jews, and nothing to do with demands by Palestinian Arabs for self-determination, independence and statehood. To the contrary, it had everything to do with the fact that the Palestinian Arabs saw themselves as Syrians.
IIRC etc wasn’t around 1920 the date that the League of Nations ‘created’ the British Mandate which gave all indigenous peoples the right to abode within it? This was the ‘universal’ solution to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after WW1.
This right is supposedly guarenteed by the United Nations and is the legal basis for the ‘re-occupation’ of land held by Jews in the West Bank but stolen from them by the ‘Palistinians’ in 1948.
Perhaps they are regretting the acknowledgement that Jews have a right to abode on the Middle East?
Correction it was the Jordanians who did the theiving.
Before Israel existed all peoples in the area of modern Israel were Palestinians. In 1948 Jordan invaded and stole land of Jew and Arab alike.
Having watched this ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UmZFGld0bIk#!
) it raised a question about ‘Palestine’.
Luton Islamists demand Bradford be turned ‘Islamic’ and say that Islam has no nationalities and no borders.
Therefore you have to ask is there such a thing as a ‘Palestinian’ identity under Islam…..surely as all Muslims are ‘brothers’ (or sisters) they can all live together anywhere in the Muslim world…no need for a Palestinian state…..although that already exists …it’s called Jordan.
Also just as an added incentive to encourage you to submit yourself to Allah’s mercy apparently Islam pays your bills…providing the basic needs….free food, clothing, shelter, electricity, water…..all provided free by Islam.
Oh Yes…Muslims are merely ‘Muslims living in Britain’ they are not British.
The English are racist and no Muslim must obey the Kufar’s law….and the Kufars are nothing but liars.
That’s true, this is all utter balls, that’s a lie as well. And that.
I also see George Galloway has expressed an interest in running for Mayor if they decide to hold elections.
Being Sheriff of his own town would suit him and this agenda well.
George is a great reminder of why you should always vote – because otherwise people like GG will motivate a small percentage of the population and rule over you according to his supporters wishes!!
“In Israel, As Elsewhere In The West, People Forget That
They Are In The Right”
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/42049
Absolutely spot-on, Sue! Very well said, as usual.
Thank you Daphne!
As long as Jews live in their own land there will never be peace with Arabs, its not about a little bit of land or two states or the so called right of return, it has nothing to do with the artificial construct called the ‘Palestinian people’.
Its about eradicating the Jews, its about extermination, its about Arabs who have nothing in their hearts but a burning race hate and lust for blood and death. The only peace these ‘Palestinians’ require is the peace of the graveyard.
Until people realise that the so called two state solution is simply a way point on the road to weakening and then destroying Israel which itself is only the focal point of their efforts to begin the eradication of Jews they can never begin to understand the grotesque mindset that drives these Jew haters.
You are correct. Look at this table for opinions on Jews throughout the Arab, and South Asian world:
Views of Jews
2006 2011 change
US 77 82 +5
Spain 45 59 +14
Britain 74 76 +2
Germany 69 71 +2
France 86 84 -2
Russia 59 63 +4
Israel – 88 –
Turkey 15 4 -11
Jordan 1 2 +1
Egypt 2 2 0
Lebanon – 3 –
Palestine – 4 –
Indonesia 14 9 -5
Pakistan 6 2 -4
Coincidence, or just plain hatred?
Source:
http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/07/21/chapter-2-how-muslims-and-westerners-view-each-other/
The figures didn’t copy properly. Basically they show the % of population who feel positively about Jews. 2006/2008/change between the two polls. As you can see, the highest opinion of Jews in an Islamic country was in Indonesia, with an abysmal 9%.
A poll conducted by the b-bbc world service tells us that the world really hates the Jews.
http://honestreporting.com/they-dont-like-us-should-we-care/
Why? because they’ve being telling their listeners hour after hour, day after day, year after year the the Jews are a spiteful evil people.
Expect the b-bbc to be crowing about this poll for a long time to come in their usual unbiased manner.
Included in the Nakba report, the BBC announced the end of the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike. They seemed to see it as a victory for the Palestinians and an uncharacteristic capitulation by the Israelis. It was a much more complicated affair. The full story is in Haaretz, a newspaper hardly known as one of the ‘Israel-right-or-wrong’ publications that Israel-bashers are so fond of dismissing as propaganda.
“Glorifying, or ‘rooting for’ the underdog bestows a quick-fix self-righteousness and a comforting sense of belonging.”
I’m sorry, but a small Jewish state the size of Wales, with around 6 million of the remaining worlds Jews, surrounded by hostile, populous, virile, belligerent neighbours is the true underdog. The second the US withdraws support for Israel there will be a second Holocaust. The Jewish people are under constant siege and incitement from within and without. Somehow the left has transmogrified this inconvenient fact by turning it on it’s head.
Unfortunately, the BBC and people who view Israel as the problem won’t agree with that assessment. They see Israel as the product of the all-powerful Jews and their money and the all-powerful US (take your pick which controls which). I would bet you that every single Beeboid in Israel and in London and in Salford would laugh in your face if you suggested that Israel was the true underdog.
Sultanknish( Daniel Greenfield) deals with the Western reporters in his latest essay. Everything he says applies to the BBC
From Donnison’s “Report:”
The Israeli authorities agreed concessions over the use of detention without trial and solitary confinement, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners agreeing not to co-ordinate “terrorist activity” from behind bars.
The BBC sticks like glue to its dogma that there is no such thing as an Arab terrorist.
Just started to read ‘Egypt & Israel’ by Howard Sacher, published in 1980 when he was Professor of Modern History at George Washington University. It’s always instructive to note how academics manage to create a balance and a moral equivalence between opposing sides when there is little or none in fact.
How does one step back and look at the events around 1948 and portray the attack by a number of Arabs armies on newborn Israel as morally equivalent to Israel’s defence against those attacks? Difficult indeed, but he manages it, though he disturbs the balance a bit by adding neat little touches like labelling Jews “terrorists” and Arabs “guerrillas” when they are involved in similar acts. And he does it all while writing in a style that indicates considerable attachment to both peoples.
However, it must surely be a feat of historical revisionism beyond compare to write a chapter on Israel’s War of Independence and call it The First Palestine War.
This he seems to accomplish without even a hint of embarrassment. Could be this book is a training manual for BBC hacks purporting to report on the Israeli-Arab conflict.
I think Donnison just made history with this bit:
About five million Palestinians and their descendants are scattered in neighbouring Syria, Lebanon, Jordan as well as in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Many live in crowded refugee camps and are denied some of their basic rights.
I believe this is the very first time the BBC has acknowledged, albeit in a feeble and non-judgemental way, that Palestinians suffer at the hands of their Arab brothers.
Could be that Donnison has actually learned something during his stay in Israel.