The association of UNRWA employees (staff in UN-funded schools for Palestinian “refugees”) in Jordan have voted to ban acknowledging that the Holocaust happened in their school curriculum. Responding to a recent rumor that the subject might get re-introduced to students, the executive committee said this:
“We condemn this decision, which equates the butcher and the victim,” read the teachers’ statement, demanding instead to introduce classes on the Palestinian “right of return” to Israel and the history of the 1948 war with Israel.
This isn’t the domestic education system of a sovereign nation, mind. This is a UN-funded body, paid for by you and me. And as many people here might be aware (but those who rely on the BBC for their news won’t be), this is nothing new.
Last year, the association of UNRWA employees endorsed a decision to ban the introduction of Holocaust studies in UNRWA schools, Jordanian daily Al-Ghad reported Tuesday, a decision the teachers said was still binding.
“We shall monitor the curriculum being taught under the title ‘concepts of human rights’ [which is] aimed at reducing [Palestinian] students’ awareness of the right of return,” read the statement.
The BBC hasn’t touched this topic since 2009. Go ahead, do a search. I’ll wait.
This was during the last time Israel clashed militarily with Hamas in Gaza. At the time, the BBC was discussing – purely impartially, I’m sure – the notion that what the Israelis were doing to Gaza was equivalent to what the Nazis did to the Jews. The math doesn’t add up in my view, but that shouldn’t stop the BBC from considering viewpoints from all sides. On certain issues, anyway. The BBC had no problem discussing Hamas’ desire to ban discussion of the Holocaust at the time, providing a balanced news brief featuring both the fact (at least the BBC seems to be presenting it as such) that 6 million Jews were killed and the opinion that it’s now used as an excuse for Israeli atrocities. Not as an excuse for Israel to exist, but for atrocities committed by Israel.
I guess BBC editors have decided that it is the same, because they’re censoring this news now. The BBC is well aware of this situation. They get the same wire service reports and press releases as everyone else, never mind their close working relationship with the Palestinian media. Please note that I’m not suggesting bias because of that in this case. I’m merely presenting this as evidence that the BBC clearly has good sources of information on these issues, and there’s no way they don’t know about it. They do know, and have decided not to tell you.
Why? This is a UN organization we’re talking about. It’s in all our interests to know what they’re up to. I wonder how many BBC staff agree with the following sentiment:
“Teaching UNRWA students about the so-called ‘Holocaust’ as part of human rights harms the Palestinian cause… and changes the students’ views regarding their main enemy, namely the Israeli occupation.”
As I’m not a professional journalist, it’s possible that I’m simply too ignorant of how it all works to understand why this isn’t being mentioned by the BBC, while they currently have a feature on the Palestinian criminal who was released by Israel in exchange for Gilad Shalit declaring his continued desire to fight Israel, a piece about Israel doing wrong by some Bedouins, and a report on how an Israeli court has “forced” their Government to release a study about how much they deliberately prevent Gaza children from getting the proper nourishment (that’s the impression given by the BBC article).
Perhaps any lurking media professionals can explain it to me. Balance over time? Dog bites man? What?
Good article Dave.
It’s worthwhile keeping up to date about what is actualy going on at the Islamic Nations………..sorry, United Nations here..
http://www.unwatch.org/site/c.bdKKISNqEmG/b.1277549/k.D7FE/UN_Watch__Monitoring_the_UN_Promoting_Human_Rights.htm
And yesterdays hideous Today programme managed to smear the opening of a university in the “Occupied territories”…provocation, and well worthy of a boycott-if the good unions who listen avidly and rabidly to Today would be so kind as to oblige…then the BBC would report THAT..and so on in a virtuous circle of positive howling feedback…which would drown out the sounds of the throats of the Fogels being cut.
Must be the only time that the BBC have NOT wanted an “expansion in higher education” anywhere on earth…maybe if the Israeli Government doled out EMA allowances in surfboard sciences, then the BBC might be kinder to them!
Despicable…24/7…that is our BBC.
We no longer want them, need them or believe a damn word that they utter-but we`re clearly “in denial” eh?
On Tuesday Victoria Derbyshire asked Listeners to message in to say whether we had lost confidence in the BBC in relation to their handling of the Jimmy Savile affair and their subsequent ability to carry out an Inquiry into the involvement of the BBC in covering it up.
I text in to say how could we trust the BBC to investigate honestly when they commissioned the Balen Report and then spent £250,000 suppressing it. I added ” I would not mind betting you do not read this out.”
I was right despite VD…. ( !!!!)… claiming at the end of the show they had read out the messages which did not support the BBC as well as those who did.
Subsequent to this text they have now blocked text messages from my phone !!!!
Balanced and unbiased in seeking and presenting the differing views of the Nation ?????
‘Subsequent to this text they have now blocked text messages from my phone !!!!’
I was not aware that this was possible, but…. excuse me?
In this case the Beeboid asks for input, and you get blocked for not offering what they want? And then they lie about how they handled the feedback?
Notasheep is blocked by Jeremy Vine on twitter for asking polite questions?
Several others from this forum are either banned or under the sword of expedited complaints because the BBC can’t find a way to blow them off on raising concerns any other way?
Maybe these little nuggets need to be brought to the attention of those ‘investigating’ the BBC culture that has lead, most recently, to the Savile crisis?
It’s like a version of Downfall, only without the laughs.
This is something that’s cropped up before on the old version of the site. I can’t recall the details but there was something about a blocked number list. I might be wrong but I think it was someone who had tried to call the BBC and was filtered by a researcher during a programme. Again I may be wrong but I think I recall there being some kind of admission of such a list.
Also still awaiting a response from the BBC over the Jeremy Bowen Q&A on Middle East that he decided to hold on Rosh Hashonah. Maybe they are still trying to formulate a reasonable answer to that one…
No they are not trying to formulate an answer, they are giving it the same treatment as if it were good news on the economy or unemployment figures ………………ignore it, bin it.
At risk of being seen as one, to avoid a good thread getting sidelined because the grammar nazis are desperate for a quick petty score (which they would spare a professional journalist paid for by unique funding), you may wish to revisit one small detail of the headline.
Oops. Thanks, fixed.
One of signs in the Bible of the end of the world is Israel will be attacked and god will save it.
What will all the self-loathing left-wing/liberals do then. They will all suffers gods rightous judgement upon them.
If they think global warming is a problem wait to see whats in store for them.
Burn you buggers, burn.
David conveniently forgets that the BBC has had to make huge cuts in its services as the Tories tried to hobble it for Murdoch’s benefit. 20% to be precise. World Service coverage has been a big casualty. So now the BBC is biased because it doesn’t report stories despite not having resources due to cuts ordered by the Right.
However if it’s a choice between a story in Jordan or the Daleks, I know what most licence fee payers would prefer!
Poor effort, Prole. Surely one of the skeleton crew who had time to produce those reports on Israel I highlighted could have done a quick copy & paste job for this story instead of the news brief about Moshe Dayan’s grave being vandalized. That’s almost as weak an excuse as the BBC’s re: Savile.
As I’ve said on another thread
It’s good to know that the bBBC has its priorities right, using our money to investigate the price of pies at every football ground in the country!
Now, George … shall we report on World War III, or football?
I’m not sure but I think this could be a contender for most ridiculous post; there are at least 5 errors in the first sentence!
I assume you refer to Prole’s desperate bleat. He really is even more pathetic than Dez.
Yes Demon, Prole’s effort.
Prole, this is probably one of the most pathetic defences of BBC bias I’ve ever read here.
Obscene as well.
20%?!
Still a long way to go, then….
Yes I think 100% and then a few enforced cash refunds to the tax payer would settle some of the bill this heap of proles has caused us !
It’s their religion of Multiculturalism that makes them so stupid.
Read “The Innocence of Infidels” at:
http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/
Dear Prole all the cuts you talk about are having a tweribble effect on the lurvies just look at the middle east propa?? soz views section I mean to cover this trivia they would have to have dropped important stuff like this =
A Lebanese minister has threatened to sue the makers of hit US TV series Homeland for misrepresenting Beirut in a recent episode of the show.
or this world breaker =
The head of Saudi Arabia’s religious police has said there is a pressing need to employ more women in the force.
Still Prole good old BBC still managed to get 3 negative story’s about Israel despite the baby killer thatchers cuts !!
Any chance David you could link to another Uk broadcaster or media outlet who has reported this? Your point falls otherwise.
Lemming journalism is your defense, Jim? If so, have other UK broadcasters spent so much time on those negative Israel stories I’ve highlighted?
‘Lemming journalism’
It’s the ‘new’ ‘reporting’ amongst those now tasked to educate and inform, apparently. We must defer to our betters, because… they say so.
Thought that the BBC were meant to set the debates(you know, Leveson, Mitchell, legalising drugs and euthanasia)-as opposed to sheepishly following the pack…orders, you know…that muliculti EU/UN/Green worls of theirs they`re busy trying to set us up for.
Come on Jim-which is it to be?
“Former BBC Middle East correspondent Tim Llewellyn:
‘Zionists are scattered at strategic points throughout British business.'”
By Richard Millett.
[Excerpt]:
“The reputation of the Jewish community was dragged through the gutter at last night’s book launch of The Battle for Public Opinion in Europe: Changing Perceptions of the Palestine-Israel Conflict. The event was staged by anti-Israel pressure group Middle East Monitor at the University of London’s Senate House.
“The panelists were Tim Llewellyn (former BBC Middle East correspondent and now adviser to Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding), Jackie Rowland (Al Jazeera correspondent) and Seumas Milne (The Guardian associate editor). Yasmin Alibhai-Browne (The Independent) chaired the event.”
http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/tim-llewellyn-zionists-are-scattered-throughout-british-business/
A political context:
“The Arab Lobby: The European Component”
By Steven Rosen, (2010).
[Excerpt]:
“The strongest external force pressuring the U.S. government to distance itself from Israel is not the Arab-American organizations, the Arab embassies, the oil companies, or the petrodollar lobby. Rather, it is the Europeans, especially the British, French, and Germans, that are the most influential Arab lobby to the U.S. government. The Arabs know this, so their preferred road to Washington often runs through Brussels or London or Paris. ”
http://www.meforum.org/2774/arab-lobby-europe
BBC, Al-Jazeera, Guardian, Independent.
This rather proves the point of this site to show which bedfellows the Beeboids choose.
What those teachers are doing goes right back to the Jew hating founder of Islam.
Read “The Innocence of Infidels” at:
http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/
Back in 2005 BBC Complaints said they would stop dealing with my complaints as they were from one source and a waste of taxpayer’s money. A letter from my local MP fixed that – I was a license taxpayer just like everyone else and they were obliged to reply. What does the BBC Charter say about this now?