Biased BBC contributor Daniel Pycock tackles one of the BBC’s most egregious instances of serial bias.
‘If there is one line of BBC journalism that readers should be familiar with; it is “about 500,000 jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank and (of) East Jerusalem. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this”.
The line (in bold) finds its way into every article*, including a recent one regarding the release of prisoners by Israel that, whilst encouraging diplomatic talks, will never be enough for a politically astute Palestinian Leadership. *http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25548773
The BBC’s general bias against Israel is well documented, but I would like to enquire: what is illegal according to whom? There are some individuals (including Ban Ki-Moon) and a few scholars (such as Roberts) who have proposed that settlements are illegal; and there are the advisory opinions of the International Court of Justice (more regarding the wall than the settlements – from 2004) – but these constitute neither enforceable laws nor established precedents.
By international law, the BBC means majority opinion in the UN, and – as the Israeli proverb goes:
“If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions”
There are interpretations of the Geneva Convention upon which the accusation of illegality is based (Article 49, for those interested), but there is no judgement or ruling outstanding from international courts regarding Israeli Settlements in disputed territories. A majority opinion in the UN constitutes nothing legally, and the BBC’s insinuation that Israel is legally a dissenting opinion against a closed case should be scrapped as inaccurate.
The disputed territories are just that – disputed; and Israel is – until such time as negotiations conclude – the legal authority there**.” **http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/03/04/the-myth-of-jewish-settlements-in-international-law/ and http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/9/rozenman-ban-ki-moon-wrong-about-israeli-settlemen/
No BBC…shielding paedophiles, doing tribute programmes to them over the Christmas religious season, employing them and encouraging them to fiddle taxpayers by avoiding their Occupy-duties…there may be more illegal stuff in there for the BBC to fuss over.
Not that they will.
The complex legality of settlements
It took a while but the Arabs eventually learnt that expressing a desire to kill the Jews, openly and in English (or at least a major Western language) was counter productive and the Koranic justification for the elimination of Israel had no resonance outside Muslims. Expressing the conflict as opposition to illegal settlements works better when dealing with the West. However it should be noted that when talking in Arabic they refer to all of Israel in any borders as illegal and any Israeli community as a settlement.
The BBC boilerplate is especially insidious because it implies the conflict is about actions 1967 and later and not 1948 (or even earlier – some Palestinians date the conflict to the late 19th century). The implication that Israeli withdrawal will bring peace is at best opinion expressed as fact.
Secondly it implies that Israel is alone in considering settlements legal. This is a parallel to the boilerplate that a Israel considers Hamas as terrorist organisation ignoring other countries, especially the United Kingdom that think the same way.
who is this Daniel Pycock?
Anyway, Israel is in the top 5 (top 3?) BBC continual bias club. There is a certain amount of bias in EVERY piece of reporting and this ‘illegal’ phrase is part of that. The BBC reporters and editors are not stupid so they know the history, they know the timeline, they know the facts; this makes their bias intentional and as such sinister; not just them though, as we know, lefty fools, even those who claim to be Christian (St. James’ wall anyone?) show time and again that Jew hating is as strong as ever.
You don`t think that BBC reporters are “stupid”?
If they wilfully trash and disparage the only functioning democracy for thousand of miles amongst the Arabian hellholes (that range now from Indonesia to Algeria…with hotspots of Islamic barbarism and evil ranging north to Woolwich and Malmo, south to Nairobi and Cape Town)…then you`ll have to give me a better word for them.
All their issues-gaydom, equality, feminism, Starbux-boycotts-won`t get commissions if Israel goes as they seem to hope. That is sheer self preservation for these ignorant slugs in keffayim and burkas-surely!
You don`t think that BBC reporters are “stupid”?
No. I do not, if you want to give them a get-out clause of ‘pleading insanity’ then go ahead but I do not.
then you`ll have to give me a better word for them.
I say “this makes their bias intentional and as such sinister”, do you understand what this means? It means so there are many words, serious words, all of which lay the blame at their intentional misleading: believing they’re just stupid let’s them off the hook.
No, don`t mean stupid as being ESN or such like.
These are well-paid Oxbridge arts graduates after all.
But they are stupid in the sense that they think they will escape the consequences of their lazy journalism-much in the way a superior weight of turkey thinks that the electric fence will not affect it when it moseys over to it.
Believe you me-they`re off no hook, but still think they`re stupid in the sense that Common Purpose thinking is beehive thinking.
But I`ll lose no sleep over it-happy to drop the word if it rescues one BBC moron from gobbling us all into sharia.
Seeing a few of these people on Celebrity Universal Challenge and similar shows where they’re off script and have to think on their toes doesn’t really disprove that. Lots of PPE and English and liberal arts majors who know very little about anything else and have poor applied knowledge skills. I studied in the liberal and fine arts area, but have also always opened my mind to other things in more depth than reading Wired or science articles in newspapers and hip magazines.
Credentialed, but not especially educated. Good intelligence, but not good at using it in many areas.
As for escaping the consequences of such lazy, biased, and corrupt journalism, they will, for the most part, because while they may not be any better at learning lessons (like Stephanie Flanders or the President, for example), they are very adept at making sure enough of their asses are covered.
The entire BBC system seems to be geared towards that, instead of making sure they shape up and produce serious, balanced journalism.
I must be naive, I’ve heard this claim so often and unchallenged that I had assumed Israeli settlements in the West Bank really were illegal. I guess not. Well, at least not illegal in the sense that the Chinese occupation of Tibet is illegal – but then who now protests that?
See, this is where the clever lawyers and expert wordsmiths come in. The key is in the passive: “are considered to be”. Many do consider them to be illegal under international law. That’s not the same thing as stating that they are illegal.
So, as usual with these things, the BBC is being “accurate”. Their clear intent is to give the impression that the settlements are illegal, but without having to say it outright because they know Israel will nail them on some legal hair-splitting. In fact, I’d bet they’ve already gone through that one way or another, and this weasel phrase is the result. That’s why it’s copied and pasted verbatim into all those articles.
Come to think of it, that makes the whole “Isreal disputes this” clause silly. Israel doesn’t dispute that many consider the settlements to be illegal: they do dispute that they are illegal. This, of course, reinforces the desired impression.
For more on how the BBC filter news about Israel to present it as they see fit…
http://bbcwatch.org/
“Who is this Daniel Pycock?”
That would be me. If you have any questions just reply to this comment 🙂
why are several new threads being credited to you?
Maybe he’s taken the time to submit them.
Have thought about it my self ,but then my decidedly better half would have to proof them for me, and she’s to busy trading blows on twitter.
I’m submitting a few blog posts in my spare time, and David V is publishing them as he sees fit.
I’ve followed the blog for years (though not as a particularly active commenter or anything) and thought I would contribute to the good work already being done here.
Appreciated
this jew baiting by these left wing journalists at the bbc and other outlets is a national discrace.anti zionism is just a clever cover for anti semtisim and frankly speaking this must stop.look at the example of the footballer nicholas anelka and his nazi salute tribute to his racist comedian freind in france this week,notice how the anti semites on the left have more all less come out to defend him and excuse his racist behaviour,he even played for west brom against newcastle yesterday even though he is under investigation by the fa for this nazi salute,funny when john terry was accussed of racism and was found not guilty by the courts chelsea suspended him until the outcome of the court case,why does this not apply to nicholas anelka.simple answer to that,rampant anti isreali and anti semtiism in this country who sees anybody that sticks there 2 fingers up to isreal as heroes..
… and then there’s the case of Paolo di Canio. Hounded out of Sunderland for his politics.
I came across this in the Telegraph yesterday, but the BBC are studiously ignoring it. It’s one of those bits of news that they would label as being “not newsworthy”:
“Israel ‘proposes land swap’ as part of peace deal with Palestinians”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/10545947/Israel-proposes-land-swap-as-part-of-peace-deal-with-Palestinians.html
This deal would see part of northern Israel, known as the triangle, ceded to “Palestine” in exchange for Israeli settlement blocks in the west bank area.
It would mean that the 300,000 inhabitants of the triangle living under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.
The only fly in the ointment is that the population of the triangle is overwhelmingly and vehemently opposed to any such trade off.
Rather strange really when you consider that the 300,000 mentioned are Arabs. Given the mass hysteria generated by the BBC over “illegal land grabs” and how the “Palestinians” want to be recognized as a separate state, you’d think that the residents of the triangle would be champing at the bit to become part of such a state.
Somehow I just can’t put my finger on why they all want to remain part of Israel, especially after everything the BBC tells us about it and why the BBC aren’t reporting it.
TPO, that’s the key to this whole thing, isn’t it? It’s one of those things the BBC deliberately censors out of all coverage of the issue. The Palestinians want a Judenfrei state. Jews would be banned from living there, period, never mind in settlements.
Ironically, with their relentless demonization of Israel for violating international law, the BBC supports the creation of a State with a violation of international human rights law written into its constitution.
I’d love to ask a journalist how this works. And nobody better tell me it’s all good as this is proof the BBC gets complaints from both sides, either. It’s the quality of the complaints that matters, not the quantity. Compare my complaint of censorship to Paul Mason’s, and discuss.
The reason they don’t report the land swap is because the BBC wants to make it irrelevant. No one is interested in Israel being nice, cuddly and liberal when all they’re offering to trade is land that they’ve already stolen…
If the BBC perpetuates the stolen land myth, then whatever Israel does is null and void – which helps the PA pressurise Israel to greater degrees which eventually will produce terms even more favourable to the PA. Why the BBC supports the PA is anyone’s guess – but I would suspect one could find it in their abrogation of ills committed by, for example, terrorist organisations or islamic states…
To most BBC employees, the entire State of Israel, including that within the so-called 1948 borders, is stolen land. It’s the Palestinians’ desire for a Two-State solution that’s the myth.
Sorry to come late to this thread, which deals with a topic that I have researched repeatedly. If I, a layman (laywoman) could do this research from primary sources available online, so could the so-called journalists at the BBC. They could, but wouldn’t.
There is nothing illegal about the settlements. International legality is a matter of abiding by international agreements to which you are signed. In the matter of borders of Palestine, the last international agreement accepted by all sides dates from the 1920s; everything later has been mere recommendations rejected by the Arabs.
By this last legal agreement of the 1920s, Western Palestine (west of the Jordan) is the ‘Jewish National Home’, i.e., Israel. Eastern Palestine, alias Transjordan (today’s Jordan) is an Arab state.
What happened in 1948/9, is that a Jordanian army under British command ILLEGALLY occupied the area west of the Jordan, since then known as the West Bank. It is internationally agreed that this occupation was illegal; the only countries to accept it were Britain, a partner to this illegality, and, for some reason, Pakistan. This is why no Brit, and especially the BBC, is in any position to accuse anybody else of illegality in this matter. The illegality is entirely on the British-Jordanian side.
Jordan no longer claims the West Bank, and rightly so, since it has no leg to stand own. By the last legal agreement, 1920s, this area is Israel’s to keep or give away, as it pleases. Israel, with no legal obligation, has repeatedly offered to give it away in return for peace. The results are well known.
Could any ME country other than Israel claim even half these rights for its citizens?
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