In 2006 Hamas was busy murdering its rivals for power in the Palestinian territories, dragging Fatah men from their hospital beds before shooting them or throwing other Fatah members from the roofs of buildings.

The BBC told us that Hamas were ‘merely flushing out the corrupt and violent Fatah’.

How different the BBC reaction when Israeli bombs accidentally kill civilians and hit a home for the disabled.  Whilst Hamas deliberately set about killing patients the Israelis did not.  But it is Hamas that receives the BBC’s stamp of approval….despite deliberatley storing weapons in hospitals and mosques.

 

Whenever you read, hear or watch BBC, and indeed other organisation’s, news broadcasts about Israel and the Palestinians you have to remember the context…that Muslims have been attempting to wipe out Israel for over 60 years and that attempt is ongoing.  Israel has endured repeated invasion attempts and endlessly relentless terror attacks on its civilian population.

And yet it is Israel defending itself that comes under the most concerted attacks by its self- appointed critics.

The only reason Palestinian civilians are caught up in the war is because their leaders, Hamas, in this case, continue to prosecute a war against Israel with the intent of wiping it out.

Stop that war and the killing will stop, stop the war and life will begin for Palestinians.

The Israelis cannot proclaim a unilateral peace treaty.  It takes both sides.  Those like Rory Stewart who declare that there is only one solution, a one state solution, have no idea of what the outcome would be….but the BBC don’t tackle him on his idiocy…for an ex-diplomat he is surprisingly naive…or maybe not….perhaps he realises that Israel would be finished and so would the Jews…once again destined to roam the world at the mercy of every anti-Semite in the countries they seek refuge in. Perhaps like many in the FCO he doesn’t care….remember ‘Fucking Israelis, fucking Jews’?

 

Israel is doing the job all civilised nations should be doing…attempting to neutralise one of the most dangerous proponents of an ideology that has sprung up across the Globe since Nazism or Communism.

 

Here is what a senior Hamas member said in 2007:

“We believe that this is the era of change, that the coming decades will see Islamic rule in Arab countries,” he said. “I am not speaking about hopes here. I am just reading the reality. Today, even the thief, before he commits his crime, asks god to help him.”
“In a few years [Islam] can gather supreme power in the form of money, power, armies, human beings… from Morocco to Indonesia.”
“How are we going to manage the relationship between the West and Islam? If we are going to see each other as enemies we will see world war IV.”

 

In 2007 he predicted the Islamists would be taking charge across much of the world…..they’re certainly giving it a good go and having a great deal of success.

Hamas of course is a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot….the same Muslim Brotherhood championed by the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen.

The same Jeremy Bowen who now tells us that in this complex world ‘…you have to be careful of your reporting and the words you use.’

 

 

The BBC has indeed been very careful recently, selecting words and images that present a very particular view of Gaza to the world….concentrating on Palestinian civilian casualties, oh, Bowen mentions Israelis are being rocketed…but he says the Palestinian attempts are far less potent.  I guess an Israeli injured or killed by one would only conclude that Bowen thought their life was worth less than a Palestinian one.

The BBC’s concentration on civilian casualties can only be a calculated attempt to sway public opinion against the Israelis.  Its reporters acknowledge the power of images of dead and injured women and children.

And yet it uses them to full effect.

 

Here Kevin Connolly admits Hamas uses civilian casualties for political advantage….

Hamas’s military leaders might be calculating that the sight of Palestinian civilians suffering under terrifying aerial bombardment will force the Palestinian Authority to show much greater solidarity and prompt Arab governments to show more support.
Hamas might reason that there were few advantages in keeping the peace whereas once hostilities have started it can demand concessions for agreeing to end them.

 

Connolly then highlights the advantages of the dramatic exploitation of dead children to a cause….

Israel might argue that it’s trying to avoid civilian casualties while Hamas is trying to cause them. But television pictures of civilian dead in Gaza – especially children – will help shape perceptions of Israel round the world.

 

Why then does the BBC not only ‘ambulance chase’ dead and injured children but allow Palestinian propaganda to go unchecked in its news?

 

Here Yolande Knell not only doesn’t challenge a claim that Israelis deliberately target civilians but accepts it as true (via BBC Watch):

BBC News website under the title “Gaza death toll rises as air strikes continue” – which amplified and promoted the same inaccurate claim from the head of a political NGO – the PCHR.
In that report, the BBC aired footage of Raji Sourani saying:

“This is a third consecutive war against Gaza since 2008 and Israel always, I mean, do target the civilians and they are in the eye of the storm.”

 

 

Bowen yesterday (08:49) decided that his main role was not to report the conflict and the politics behind it but to influence listener’s perceptions by using emotive language and exploiting the traumatic injuries of a child.

Bowen told us that there was ‘Terrible death and destruction, terrible human pain’ in Gaza just now…of course Israel was suffering…but as said above…its suffering was far less potent.

He made a beeline for a hospital in Gaza where in the intensive care unit he honed in on an 8 year old  with the ‘fragments of an Israeli bomb punched into her brain.’

Bowen asked the Palestinian doctor….‘As a Palestinian what do you think when you see this?’

A curiously loaded question as we know exactly what the doctor would say.  Bowen clearly wanted a particualr response and got it…easy money.

The doctor said the girl had been injured at home where she should feel safe…and asks Bowen where his children would feel safest…Bowen pointedly replies ‘At home’.

Not saying Bowen is manipulating us emotionally…but he is.

 

Possibly no coincidence that earlier a Hamas spokesman said this:

“There is no safe haven in this place and Palestinian civilians are once again in the eye of the storm and are paying heavily. Israelis.. are trying to pressure militant groups through targeting civilians.” ”

 

Note that ‘Targeting civilians’ claim once again…which the BBC prints without challenge.

Bowen moves on to another patient and once again goes for the emotional asking….‘How would describe what has happened?‘….only to be told that she isn’t a ‘patient’ she is a ‘victim’ of Israeli aggression.

Bowen tells us that this is an example of how you have to be careful of your reporting…
A sign of the complexity of issues in the Middel East.

To me that sounded like an excuse to treat Palestinian claims as fact even when the facts prove otherwise…all is relative to the BBC….and once again adopting the Palestinian narrative in preferrence to the truth….as with the word ‘Terrorism’ and the BBC’s reluctance to use it.

 

Kevin Connolly was also out ambulance chasing (2 mins 30 secs) visiting the home where disabled residents were killed by an Israeli bomb which hit their home.

At the home for disabled people where two women were killed he tells us that it is ‘a daily routine in Gaza searching ruined buildings’…and that it is ‘particularly heartbreaking today.’

Locals, he tells us, were angry and bewildered and that the UN has said that the Israeli targeting homes of militant commanders could be a war crime.

Strangely Connolly doesn’t dwell on the inconvenient revelation by the local who complained that the Israelis were normally very careful to target only military locations and rocket launch sites.

 

As said the context of this latest round of fighting has to be considered…it is a 65 year war so far and the BBC’s attempt to isolate this recent fighting and tote up the casualties, the body count, as if that gives some sort of moral superiority to one side, the Palestinians in this case, is hugely dishonest.

 

The Israelis have suffered thousands of casualties in dead and injured over the decades as they are forced to defend their country…casualties that the BBC doesn’t bother to detail….casualties that would nevr have occurred had the Israelis been left in peace.

Remember the Fogels?  Well you wouldn’t if you’d had to rely on the BBC for news…the Fogel family that was slaughtered one night in their own home by a Palestinian with a knife…practically cutting off the head of the baby of the family.

Fogel family butchered while sleeping

 

And just as the BBC didn’t report the Palestinians holding up three fingers celebrating the kidnapping of three Israeli teens they didn’t bother with this either:

Palestinian TV airs show praising Fogel family murderer

In weekly show dedicated to Palestinian prisoners in Israel, Hakim Awad’s mother and aunt describe convicted perpetrator of Itamar attack as a ‘hero and legend.’

 

 

Or what about this family in 2009?:

Three people — two men and a woman — were killed and an 8-month-old baby was critically injured Thursday morning after a rocket blasted into a four-story building in Kiryat Malachi in southern Israel. Six people suffered from shock.
The names of the victims were cleared for publication late Thursday afternoon. Aharon Smadga, 49, Itzik Amsalem, 24, and Mira Sharf, 26 will all be buried Thursday evening. Sharf was reportedly pregnant.

 

Or how about civilians forced to flee their homes?

Yolande Knell tells us that:

Israel has warned Palestinians in the north of Gaza to evacuate their homes ahead of further airstrikes.

“This isn’t a family outing; it’s an exodus. Palestinians head away from their homes in northern Gaza and take their most prized belongings with them. Israel’s warning there’ll be a heavy bombardment of the border area where they live….We find hundreds of Gazans coming inside a school for shelter. They’re exhausted and distressed.”

 

Knell doesn’t mention that Hamas has tried to keep the people in their homes, to ignore the Israeli warnings:

“Urgent call to the residents of the Gaza Strip” in which locals were told to ignore the calls and warnings made by Israel and the IDF. “To all of our people who have evacuated their homes – return to them immediately and do not leave the house.”

 “You must follow the directives of the Interior Ministry. This is psychological warfare, random messages to instill panic in people.””

 

Nor does the BBC tell of the thousands of Israelis who have been forced in the past to evacuate their homes under the threat of constant Hamas rockets.

 

It is curious how the BBC seems to follow the narrative of the Palestinians and their supporters.  Concentrating on Palestinian civilian casualties, how the Israelis are supposedly perpetrating war crimes and that this is a battle of the Palestinian David versus the Israeli Goliath…the impoverished, under-equipped Palestinians up against the might and power of the Israel war machine.

Here is Owen Jones last week…….

‘Israel under renewed Hamas attack’, says the BBC. More balance is needed
The media coverage hardly reflects the reality: a military superpower armed with F-15 fighter jets, AH-64 Apache helicopters, Delilah missiles, IAI Heron-1 drones and Jericho II missiles (and nuclear bombs, for that matter), versus what David Cameron describes as a “prison camp” firing almost entirely ineffective missiles.

 

And here is Kevin Connolly a few hours later (51 mins 35 secs) :

Connolly tells us that Hamas’ only weapon against Israel (and her aggressive, violent attacks on Gaza?) is these rockets…the subtext to that is that Israel is the aggressor and Hamas is almost defenceless against that aggression.
He says that the only tool Hamas had at its disposal to respond to the round-up was rocket fire from Gaza – and those arrests were reason enough for that bombardment to intensify.

 

Though the BBC pays lip service to Israeli’s being bombarded, targeted, by Palestinian rockets, the thrust of the narrative is all about the suffering of the Palestinians whilst dodging around inconvenient truths that the Israelis work hard to target military sites and that Hamas is using civilians as human shields.