The BBC dismiss the thousands of Palestinian rockets that bombard Israel as something and nothing…homemade, inaccurate rockets that do little damage and scare nobody….and anyway the Israelis have bomb shelters and Iron Dome….no problem.
How different when it is on our own doorstep….as in Northern Ireland when a single ‘homemade’ pipe bomb (and they are usually relatively small) is found…suddenly that is news…a ‘viable‘, and therefore dangerous, device was found, and reported with due concern and gravity by the BBC yesterday. NI breathed a sigh of relief…safe for now.
Here is a BBC report on a rocket being found…note it is also homemade…and note how dangerous the police think it is…..
‘Four men in their 40s are still being questioned by police after a home-made rocket was found in a car stopped in Londonderry on Thursday night.
A senior police officer has said he has no doubt the rocket was to be used to try and kill his officers.
Chief Supt Stephen Martin said “This a weapon which is used primarily to attack armoured vehicles and kill the occupants of those vehicles,” Chief Supt Martin said.
“Unfortunately it has been used extensively in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan to deadly effect….So we are obviously concerned that there was one of these in the city last night, but delighted that we have been able to take it out of circulation before it was used for its deadly purpose.” ‘
Pretty clear…homemade but still lethal.
Note also this report…a councillor has her windows smashed and house attacked by a rock throwing mob……she is terrified……if only it had been merely Hamas homemade rockets…then she could have relaxed….nothing then to fear….
‘The home of an Alliance party councillor was attacked in County Down overnight.
The party said windows were smashed and a car also damaged at Linda Cleland’s house in Newtownards.
“I saw this tall hooded person in my garden – I have a rockery – and they were lifting the boulders,” Councillor Cleland said.
“There were more bangs and I heard people on the roof and then I phoned 999.
“They’ve literally put in all my downstairs windows, they’ve put in all the windows of my car and they’ve put in one of my upstairs windows. I have never been so scared in my life, or felt so helpless.” ‘
Shame the BBC doesn’t allow the same sense of danger concerning such weapons and attacks when reporting about attacks on Israel….Why doesn’t it? Because of course to do so would ‘legitimise’ the Israeli response to such a bombardment….can’t have that when we all know Israeli actions are the disproportionate use of force by a savage army, and quite probably war crimes.
And this is from a Today programme a while back with Justin Webb reporting on the ‘Peace Walls’ in Northern Ireland….just think how the BBC report on the Israeli security barrier and compare….
Justin Webb tells us that communities in NI are still separated by high walls...‘and they need these walls’…these ‘peace walls’ as he called them. He noted that there were now more peace walls built than before the ‘peace agreement’ and the ‘surrender’ of the IRA..….’13 miles of wall in Northern Ireland and more going up as the peace deal is signed, 40 years of fence…peace lines…to stop bricks and petrol bombs being thrown through windows and terrorising toddlers and pensioners.
The walls are thick enough to stop a bomb and with metal railings high enough to stop even the most athletic bigot getting a brick or bottle over the top.’
So there you go, bigots, bricks, bottles, petrol bombs and the odd pipe bomb merits a huge ‘peace wall’.…
But Israel’s security fence is all about apartheid. And it is mostly just ‘fence’…the walled parts are there to stop Palestinian snipers shooting across the border at Israeli civilians.
Never mind that the wall has stopped the incidence of suicide bombers and decreased attacks on Israelis enormously. Security or ‘peace’ doesn’t seem to be an issue for the BBC in this context…the wall is an Israeli land grab and forced separation of Jews and Muslims….despite there being a massive population of Arab Israelis within Israel’s borders.
Webb did have one interesting question…he asked if the IRA ‘dissidents’ were deranged or psychopathic….when have they ever asked this about Hamas or Muslim killers?
The BBC correspondent in 2004 called the rocket damage “pin-pricks” and it reminded me of the speech of Shylock’s “when you prick me do I not bleed?” It should be clear that this is anti Jewish rascism but the BBC have got away with it because it is directed against a country called Israel. But every one knows that Israel is the only Jewish State. .
‘The BBC correspondent in 2004 called the rocket damage “pin-pricks”
Is there a link for that?
I’d just like to ask the BBC, its ME experts and maybe even one of ‘The Flokk’ (as Jim seems to have taken holy orders) how that jibes with the Minuteman M75 Mayhempole they are currently dancing around in Gaza.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20656364
And INBBC’s Ms Knell is happy to uncritically spread the jihad propaganda:
“Khaled Meshaal rallies Gazans on Hamas anniversary”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20649583
A critical response to Hamas from ‘Jihadwatch’:-
“Hamas top dog: ‘Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on an inch of the land.'”
[Excerpt]:-
“This open call for the complete eradication of Israel, and implicit endorsement of the genocide of the Jews that would certainly follow that, will not be condemned anywhere. The self-righteous and increasingly anti-Semitic Left will ignore it and continue to pretend that the jihadis of Hamas have the moral high ground. ”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/12/hamas-top-dog-palestine-is-ours-from-the-river-to-the-sea-and-from-the-south-to-the-north-there-will.html
Are you listening INBBC and Knell?
” Are you listening INBBC and Knell? ”
Errr….in a word: NO!
The BBC are listening, trouble is that they are supporting Hamas’s aims.
Knell? As in death knell?
Someon on here used to say that in the event of another genoicide where people like Beeboids are partly responsible, that a list is being compiled of those guilty. That is guilty of war crimes! But Jihadwatch, in George R’s link, are clearly suspecting that will be no retributions against the new nazis if the Jews are slaughtered again. Chilling but probably correct.
I know this is boilerplate but something is missing. Israel, the US and the EU consider Hamas a terrorist organisation. Only them? Canada and Japan also consider Hamas to be a terrorist organisation. Australia lists the military wing of Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades as a terrorist organization. In short most any country I would consider living in.
Still, that’s not the glaring error. What about Great Britain? The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades have been listed as a terrorist organization under the Terrorism Act since 2001. As a consequence of listing by the EU on 12 September 2003, the UK Government listed Hamas as a whole as a terrorist organization on 22 September 2003. You would think the British Corporation Broadcasting might feel an obligation to let us know what the United Kingdom thinks but you would be disappointed.
The BBC will dismiss your complaint by telling you that Britain is part of the EU. They’re being “accurate”, the usual get-out-of-bias-free card.
‘They’re being “accurate”’
They also have been known to use ‘but it’s still legal’, which I am hearing a lot at the moment from Australia.
It appears to be part of the unique ethics exclusions they get as a job lot wit FoI, when needed.
One very interesting aspect of the Meshaal visit which of course the BBC ignored, or more likely were completely unaware of, is this little gem. It was reported atthe Ma’an Palestinian newsagency
“I pray to God that my fourth birth will come the day we liberate Palestine,” he said, clearly moved by his reception, with uniformed police breaking ranks to try and kiss his hand.
“Today is Gaza. Tomorrow will be Ramallah and after that Jerusalem then Haifa and Jaffa,” he said.
Ramallah serves as administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority. Was this a slip or policy?
BTW does anyone have an idea what he is talking about as 4th birth?
The BBC report drops Ramallah as a target. Unfortunately Mashaal’s voice is also dropped out so I can’t make out what he actually said.
Hamas leader Meshaal: Gaza ‘always in my heart’ I’ll try and locate a another video for comparison.
Anyone want to take bets on when the BBC moves Palestine territories from the Territories side of Country Profiles into Countries?
Not everything is rosey-dovey for the al-beeb Palestinian Idol, though.
After taking the side of Al-Q over Assad and seeing his lieutenant die of, ahem “heart attack”, Khaly-boy returns to Gaza while his family is still held hostage by the Assads. Not to mention that right now Iran is big in Gaza. And Khaly is a traitor.
As for his declaration to conquer Ramallah, it is known Hamas and PA are keen at removing each other kneecaps given the occasion. Obviously he is an easier target for the IDF in Gaza rather than Syria, and no he din’t return from “exile”, he just have nowhere else to go.
My non-educated guess would be that Khaly won’t be around to lit Chrismas candles next year.
Adi, he may not be around to light Christmas candles this year even!
Yes, Adi, you summed up everything so well I understand you have a true picture of what is going on “out there”.
However, do you really think Khaly-boy, traitor though he may be, might be “offed” by an Israeli drone?
I very much doubt that, but according to my thinking he might well be “offed” and it will be *blamed* on an Israeli drone.
Then you will see them BEEBs squwak (How do you spell squawck?) [How do you speel BEEBS?]
My Math teacher used to say that a probability zero doesn’t mean an event won’t happen.
Iran will continue to supply Hamas with rockets if there is a change in leadership, so I guess Khaly will have a “work accident” and electrocute himself while changing a lightbulb.
Ofcourse I wouldn’t mind IDF sending him singing “Yassin in the sky (without the diamonds)”, and since this is an area where Joos are to blame for everything from bad weather, infertility or a twisted nerve, they must just as well do it. Seriously, doesn’t require a pHD in analytical statistics to see who will be blamed.
Either way, the employees of Osama bin Laden’s favorite TV news network are going to be left heartbroken.
INBBC-KNELL-HAMAS.
INBBC and Ms KNELL’s non-stop propagandising for jihad Hamas.
On leave from her MB INBBC Cairo Bureau, Ms Knell is propagandising flat out for her ‘militant’ (translation: ‘jihadist’) Hamas in Gaza still.
She apparently regards the following as normal behaviour for young children, as she makes no critical comment:
“Some small children dressed as militants” [Islamic jihadists] “and carried toy guns and rockets.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20656364
Alternative analysis:
“The shocking video Muslims don’t want you to see!!”
(6 min video clip).
“She apparently regards the following as normal behaviour for young children, as she makes no critical comment:”
No she doesn’t, in fact the opposite I suggest given their prominence in the piece.
Jim Dandy, did you watch that video right through?
You reply to this comment: “She apparently regards the following as normal behaviour for young children, as she makes no critical comment:”
WITH THIS: “No she doesn’t, in fact the opposite I suggest given their prominence in the piece.”
What prominence? What piece?
Are you trying to claim “they” are teaching their children that this hatred and bloodlust concerning Jews is wrong? That is not what I saw.
If you had a single piece of true consciousness in your mind, or in your soul, you simply could not answer the previous comment in that way. The video goes on for six minutes demonstrating the Jew hatred which is so rampant in the Middle East, not just in “Palestine”.
I wonder just where you bought your rose-coloured glasses from? Are there now opticians supplying very special “Middle East” lenses to view the world from the Palestinian/Arab point of view. (By the way, if you did pay a fortune for such glasses you could have saved yourself some money: simply watch the BBC!)
And also by the way, a quick hypothesis: Imagine for one moment that a BBC film crew ever discovered a bunch of Jewish “settlers” dressing their children in military mufti, complete with firearms.
ANSWER ME THIS: Where would such a film appear on the BBC “News” and just how often would it reappear?
When YOU AND THE BBC can honestly answer such questions, then I may start listening and watching them again. (And maybe paying attention to YOUR comments!)
‘I suggest’
Mr. Dandy, when you fall back on the bunker retreating semantic SOP of ‘suggesting’ I know you’re phoning it in to clock on like an MEP on a Friday morning.
1) Was any aspect of that video incorrect?
2) If not, was any aspect of the behaviour of any/all adults involved acceptable?
3) Was much of this produced in full public view and in archive by the authorities of states currently in conflict with Israel?
4) If so, has this level of institutional child abuse been mentioned much less highlighted by the BBC? And no, I do not consider in comparison featuring a picture of a moppet in his tamper-proof suicide vest (in case those nasty IDF fail to shoot him and try and help again) comparably ‘prominent’.
5) And if not, why the hell not?
Or are you more a ‘Bravo, bravo, bravo’ bystander to the kind of child abuse that here will only get an official response if you are a UKIP voter or if mummy has failed to make the payments to TVL?
As Henry has pointed out, you could have kept wisely schtum and at least been a… person… who did nothing.
But no, you had to chip in.
And if that gets you get on your ‘how dare you’ ethical high horse again, tough.
In fairness assume he was referring to
BBC piece by Yolande Knell.
The point is tough,she does not make
a critical statement, rather seems to trivialise (and thus normalise) it.
“Some small children dressed as militants and carried toy guns and rockets.” (Like kids dressing as elves for a Christmas parade?)
Is this an accurate description or more obfuscation of an inconvenient truth?
Based on the BBCs domestic reporting of all things Islamic I tend to the latter,again that’s the problem with BBC bias
Thanks, but I know full well what he was trying to refer to and, clearly, what the BBC bargepole would not let him near.
Which is fine except when opting for a career as a cherry vulture, at which point that which is right next to an already sinking argument and dragging it down even quicker, needs holding up clearly until they either blink, see the evidence their own eyes cannot accept or choose to keep quiet. Being part of the problem is not an option that should be tolerated.
Ms. Knell’s piece was achingly po-faced, free of the ‘analysis’ that characterises all such such as Messrs Donnison, Bowen, etc have been ’emoting’ forth of late.
When I was a kid I had guns and played soldiers, so that munchkin looks pretty innocent. When I see the video, the whole thing seems a lot less so. Now, why is one the BBC (as you say, normalised) version and the other.. what… inaccurate?
In amongst a bunch of clipped sentences I notice in closing this one:
‘Khaled Meshaal insisted there would never be acceptance of Israel’s right to exist and restated the commitment to armed struggle.’
Next time the BBC ME, me, me crew decide to wail ‘think of the children’, maybe they’d care to ponder what exactly that means for all those under 18 in Israel?
Or are we going to get a semantic Clintonian exercise in what he meant to say in translation on par with I’madinnerjackets speech, now sidelined like a BBC market rate board bonding weekend.
Showing a captioned photo of children dressed up as armed militants doesn’t indicate criticism. It does indicate that whoever put it up there thought it important, but it could very easily be seen as sympathetic to the plight of poor innocent children driven to war because of Israeli oppression. Or, more simply, it could be there to show just how deep the support is for Hamas and the fight to end Israeli occupation.
It all depends on the goal of the editor selecting the photo. Considering just how little attention the BBC gives the death cult indoctrination going on at UN-funded schools in Gaza and the West Bank, my bet is that there’s more understanding than criticism going on.
Yes, I’m referring to the BBC article. This blog is about the BBC.
Do you expect her to make an explicit criticism David? I suggest the facts here speak for themselves
Do I expect her to make an explicit criticism? Are you kidding me? A simple sentence along the lines of, “Schoolbooks in Gaza teach resistance to Israel” or “Children’s TV programs encourage violence against Israel ….” would suffice, and would not necessarily imply criticism. However, it does make Hamas look bad. The bias makes the BBC staff less likely to make too much out of it for that reason. You might just be projecting your own opinion of right and wrong onto Ms. Knell.
If one considers BBC reporting on Israel/Gaza/West Bank/Jerusalem over the long term, it’s very clear that the BBC doesn’t see the indoctrination of children as particularly newsworthy. The question is, why not? They can report facts about it without making explicit criticism, and merely reporting it doesn’t equate to value judgment.
Except everything with them is so wrapped up in the David vs. Goliath mentality, that they’re less likely to see Hamas as monstrous and figure they’d best leave it alone for fear of being accused of favoring Israel. I personally believe there’s a bit of tacit blame on Israel for creating the situation as well.
The region is such a controversial topic that anything they do is going to be considered supporting one side or the other. Their timidity and anti-Israel bias makes them avert their eyes.
The notion of a dedicated (in all senses of the word) blog critic presuming to act as hall monitor is still unique enough to intrigue.
Your variable acquaintance with ‘facts’ and personal interpretation of them are of course yours to hold and share, but be aware that all that is being spoken for remains just… your views.
That this site is not under the control you seem to share with the BBC in feeling holding to account is only by you and not of the BBC must frustrate, but does not get around you offering only opinions. No matter how much you wish telling it often enough will change this.
You have again answered none of the legitimate questions your intrusion prompted, and again dived off on vague tangents based on no more than a desire to obscure and distract.
This is getting to be a repetition too far, too often.
Whatever you think you are playing at, or gaining from this, it is not healthy.
Alan, this is a very good post highlighting very clearly and beyond any doubt the double standards of BBC reporting. I believe that the comments about the BBC culpability in abetting the current and possible future murder of Jews is not exaggeration.
my view about the sentence on the children carrying toy guns was that it was a sentence of description and that it was left to the reader to decide their own view of it. I was actually quite surprised that the BBC had included that sentence. I heard knell’s broadcast from the Gaza “celebrations” and I thought her tone of joy, ecstatic excitement and hey folks its a party, lets all join in, was quite disgusting given Hamas’s stated and public policy and aim of killing all Israelis and Jews worldwide. Which includes me, my children and grandchildren.
My main hope, and I think it might happen, is that haniyeh the prime minister, and Mashaal will be rivals for power and do each other down. Mashaal is only returning because he had to leave his former HQ in Syria, now that is falling to bits, and has nowhere else to go.
The use of the Some children at the rally were dressed as Hamas fighters photograph may be support it may be neutral. For arguments sake although I strongly doubt it, What is even more disturbing is the thought that some picture editor was thinking ‘how cute’.
OOPS I meant to say For arguments sake although I strongly doubt it, some may find it disproving.
In fairness, someone changed Knell’s militants to the vastly more accurate fighters. I wonder why?
Aplogies took so long to reply but for those that are interested From Our own Correspondent was broadcast on 15th July 2006 where the rockets are compared to “pin pricks” See the whole appeal in my blog at http://www.netanyalynette.blogspot.co.il/ Radio4 appeal to the Governors
Thank you for that.
I am always interested in others’ experiences with CECUTT.
And the more I hear, the more it comes clear they are nothing more than a bad case of The Emperor’s Old Censors, and they have but a half dozen tired cliches they trot out… for no other reason that, currently, they can.
The internet, and blog such as this are blowing this house of cards down around them.
‘head of the ECU personally did not think that listeners would be affected by the distorted introduction’
How many times have the BBC got away with dismissing a complaint based on personal belief at Directorial level?
As one who has not allowed that to prevail, I can tell you…. a lot.
‘ raised two separate issues, however the notes to the Governors seem to have omitted the second issue.’
No seem about it. of course they omitted it. Anything that doesn’t serve they pretend never existed. At Trust level! These are folk on fortunes, presiding over the most misnamed committee in the history of hype over results.
The complaint was not upheld.
Lucid. Polite. Fair. Well articulated. Factually-supported.
Of course it was not upheld. Because they are unique, and that is all they need to be.
Deserves to be read by more…
http://netanyalynette.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/new-post-to-be-named.html
Thanks.
I should put on my blog all the complaints and answers from the BBC that we made in our “spare time” between 2001 and 2007 but it is very time consuming. now.but there is a lot to interest biasedBBC and I will add more. Now I am interested in the present and promote weekly news of Israel achievements to combat the distortions of the BBC at http://www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com
Of course the achievements of any culture, country or indeed individual can be of interest and worth documenting, and those you mention are evidently around for all (if, perhaps, bar the BBC and staff) to access and appreciate.
As to matters of BBC bias and in particular their oddly one-track responses, I shall look forward to those you share.
Even if, as I suspect, the BBC will not.
Generally I do not read article on blogs, but I would like to say that this write-up very pressured me to try and do it! Your writing taste has been surprised me. Thanks, very nice article.
Good post. I am experiencing some of these issues as well.
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