I see that BBC continues to echo Hamas PR by stating “More than 1,900 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in four weeks of Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, the UN says” Where does the UN get these figures, BBC? Since you claim to be all about investigative journalism, I am sure you would seek to be sure of your sources. Or, is it just possible that along with the UN, you have a predetermined narrative that requires Israel being portrayed as the bully?
MOSTLY CIVILIANS…?
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1,922 killed, including at least 1,407 civilians
448 children
235 women
The bit in bold (my emphasis) is completely superfluous and totally unproven
Actually intrigued by the definitions of civilians, non-coms, combatants, etc, in the new and now more terrifying conflicts we are seeing.
Certainly uniforms, or lack of must blur matters, along with who is carrying or pointing what, with what intention, and from where.
Looking a Ukraine, combat camo of various forms seems in vogue, and to an extent understandable, but often with odd fashion accessories top to toe confusing matters.
That said, looking at Vietnam war images, GIs seemed pretty casual on official kit, and I gather special ops guys often use weaponry from the other side.
In the fog of war, at a few hundred metres, I can see few questions being asked beyond where the fire is coming from and whom.
And if it is from a person of indeterminate age or sex, holding a weapon, even dressed in jeans and a Man U shirt or a hijab, it’s hard to see them as not legitimate to engage.
With the decision to scatter young relatives about on their consciences, or those who have briefed them to do so. And any dozy journo happy to ‘report’ the consequences as they have been, encouraging further use of the technique.
”
In the fog of war, at a few hundred metres, I can see few questions being asked beyond where the fire is coming from and whom.
And if it is from a person of indeterminate age or sex, holding a weapon, even dressed in jeans and a Man U shirt or a hijab, it’s hard to see them as not legitimate to engage.
I suggest that the problem with the liberal left is their lack of real world experience. How many of them have had to make a near instantaneous decision whilst lying in a hastily dug hollow, peering out over a small rock, while taking fire from non-uniformed combatants armed with fully automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing – if you live to think about it.
I’m not sure that excuses it. I’m lucky enough not to have been in that situation but it’s still f***ing obvious to me.
We live in dangerous times where a collective insanity appears to have gripped both media and government and it makes me profoundly pessimistic about our future.
‘a collective insanity appears to have gripped both media and government and it makes me profoundly pessimistic about our future’
I am usually of a sunny disposition on most things, but on this my mood too matches the turn in the weather hereabouts.
Too many genies being allowed out of too many bottles, and once out, nigh on impossible to get back in.
A few hundred thousand extra on the civil service pay and pension roll who can never be moved off is one thing, but blowing two-track freedoms and censorships is too far.
The weight of politico-media opinion and pressure in the hands of an incompetent, venal, or both, minority is running away with policy.
I don’t give a flying fig several thousand gobby nutters were on a selective outrage march yesterday in support of something, or that Mehdi Hasan was captivating a few dozen carefully cropped acolytes in a tent about how not enough media are yet prostrating to his narrow, vicious, hypocritical worldview.
Most folk cared less and were not venting on the weekly outrage bandwagon.
They were getting on with their lives. Or trying to.
But somehow the cretins in charge, and the cretins who are paid to enforce their will, are performing contortions to appease those who want to be in charge but (currently) remain a small minority.
I can only hope what is an eroding silent majority eventually get roused enough to notice and say ‘enough’, such that those tasked with representing them grasp who they are actually meant to represent.
A few more Lee Rigby’s and if they don’t the rousing may not be to say anything.
And if the pressure cooker has been clamped down too long, the consequences of action on release will not be pretty.
BBC and NYT Admit Gazan Civilian Casualty Stats Not Credible
Right hand doesn’t know what left hand is doing?
I think I shall have to add to my growing list of complaints on this.
If only to use their own website against them and see what convolutions they get into trying to explain why both are right.
Please let us know how you get on. Unfortunately you probably won’t even get the standard BBC brush-off until the war is over.
Today I complained to Sky News about the reporting by their correspondent in Gaza, Katie Stallard. If you think Bowen, Donnison and Doucet are biased, wait until you see Stallard’s reporting. She’s obviously trying to outdo the BBC’s trio of Hamas shills with her special pleading for the people of Gaza and their masters Hamas. On Friday she allowed someone who claimed to be a doctor to direct her camera operator into showing “casualties” in the emergency room at Shifa hospital while he went on a rant about Israel murdering innocent children and old women. He seemed more interested in using the casualties as propaganda props than in treating their injuries. In fact he made no attempt to give them medical aid. Stallard accepted everything he said as fact.
Let’s see if I get a better response from Sky than the BBC.
The thick bloke on Sky News who does the press review referred to ISIS terrorists in northern Iraq as “troops” last night.
Where does the UN get these figures, BBC?
From Wiki
UNRWA is a subsidiary organ of the United Nations General Assembly and its mandate is renewed every three years. It is the largest agency of the United Nations, employing over 25,000 staff, 99% of which are locally recruited Palestinians
In Gaza, that figure must approach 100%.
Now it is a given, that every official in Gaza, particularly UNRWA, must be a Hamas member. Such a post is too valuable – in pay, pensions and influence, for it to be otherwise.
Thus, the figures of civilian casualties that are emanating , though quoted as coming from the UN, are really UNRWA-Hamas figures.
Also worth noting that UNRWA gets a lion’s share of the UN’s world refugee budget: about 30% of the entire budget goes on the Palestinian cause: truly a world version of benefit addiction.
Doley scum.
This type of thing was demolished some years ago with “Quanagate” I think it was nicknamed. Photographs had been photoshopped to show children, unfortunately the same man appeared in too many and was caught using the same bodies over and over again. The UN and repoirters believed everything they were told with no checks done until the blogosphere picke up the fraud.
Quite a dispassionate commentary on the Gaza casualty figures for the BBC’s “Head of Statistics”. Now there is a job!. He concedes there is no way of knowing whether a 20 year old young man brought in to hospital is a civilian or a combattant. But not to worry, the Hamas Head of Statistics assures us he is an innocent civilian. And, that he is not an “own goal” from mis-fired Hamas mortar. All Palestinians injured are automatically victim of IDF action.
The BBC Head of Statistics seems a fairly professional and objective commentator. However I couldn’t help but notice the piece was fronted by a photograph – of an injured Palestinian child. Never mind what the statisticians say, no-one will remember them – just the child.
Drip, drip, drip, drip… Demonize Israel with photos of injured children, without context or proof, drip drip drip. Now over to a picture of wailing Palestinian women. This is an art form in it’s own right. Getty and the liberal news agencies are busy suppling their mates in the media with an endless stream of photos of injured Palestinian children and wailing women.
Imagine, allied troops advancing on Adolf on Berlin, and the BBC churning out photos of wailing German women and children injured “by allied genocide”, allegedly. The BBC are beyond contempt.
It was the Luftwaffe who made all the early running with destructive air raids on Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, Coventry, Belgrade and dozens more cities.
The Allies then fought fire with fire, by blasting the cities of the Reich, to destroy German morale. By the 1970s, the MSM then began to discredit Bomber Command on the basis of the raid on Dresden, which had less strategic value to the Western Allies than, say, Hamburg.
“…air raids on Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, Coventry, Belgrade and dozens more cities.”
Not forgetting Guernica as early as 1937.
The Allies then fought fire with fire, by blasting the cities of the Reich, to destroy German morale
Oh dear. Disproprtainate response!!!
Navi Pillay would have deemed the UK and the US as war criminals.
I thought muslims loved death. If so, what are they bleating about?
hitlers no 1 henchman joseph goebells said in world war 2 to demonise the jews,if you tell a lie long enough people will start beginning to believe that lie,that lead to the holocaust,the socalist workers party( stop the war coalition), and the the islamists who march around like london like modern day brownshirt fascists and who form part of this anti jewish,anti semetic group with the cover name of the free palestine solidarity movement are telling one big lie about israel,they are liars from top to bottem and should be exposed for there blatant lying and anti semetic hatred of israel and jews.
I am stil waiting for the BBC/C4 and the rest to discuss how come the IDF took such , for them, heavy losses. If over 60 have been killed then many more must have been wounded.
This is clear evidence of heavy street fighting in Gaza. Unless you make the absurd assumption that the IDF are suicidal.
I have not seen or heard much on this.
Why?
Is it because it would then be necessary to admit that the Hamas fighters are operating in close proximity to the general population. In such conditions war becomes really messy and casualties mount .
In addition so called “friendly fire ” is a feature of all combat and unless Hamas are exempt from normal behaviour then they too must have misfired or mis aimed many weapons.
The lack of curioslty by Western reporters is odd and strikes me as either incompetence or reporting under restrictions from outside forces.
Doubtless the future will tell us the reality but by then Israel will be forever demonised.
This is an excellent point. Based on the reporting we’ve seen to this point, the IDF seem to be chasing ghosts. Engaging in battle with nobody and yet somehow taking casualties
The dispute about casualties is a repeat of the last Gaza war. The difference is that last the war was over before the Hamas figures were analysed and disproved.
I stand to be corrected, but amazing how there’s been no journalist casualties yet.
They go to schools to film civilian casualties at schools and hospitals because Hamas have just been launching rockets there, then they go to where they no they’ll be absolutely safe because they know Hamas aren’t launching rockets there. It goes to show there absolute confidence that the IDF does its utmost to avoid civilian casualties, but they report the complete opposite.
No report comes out of Gaza if it isn’t something Hamas wants. Any journalist who wants to go into Gaza or come out is looking to aid and abett genocidal terrorist propaganda. Isn’t it time that Israel starts saying ‘if you want to help our enemy finish off what Hitler started against us, you’ll either have to give Hamas a ring to smuggle you through one of their tunnels, ‘and we’ll be monitoring your calls’.
Israel has a superb case to make against much of the world’s media for inciting genocide against it and Jews worldwide. They need to make it. They need to put the media on trial in the Court of Public Opinion. With the internet the media don’t control the filter.
It’s time they put a big red banner on any TV reports from Gaza saying
“REPORTING UNDER HAMAS RESTRICTIONS”.
Did they not used to do this when Mrs Thatcher imposed reporting restrictions on the IRA? I seem to remember every report was prefaced with this or the words spoken by an actor…………….
From the video the Indian journalist made of Hamas erecting and firing a missile from just outside his hotel, it seems fair to assume that actually Hamas want Israel to kill a few journalists.
Wouldn’t surprise me if in the days ahead that Hamas themselves fire a missile that kills some journalists, and immediately blame Israel for this ‘murder’, Who’s going to argue with them?
I’m confident the BBC for one will happily go along with it.
Having seen how effective Londoners avoided the blitz, and in relation to Palestinian death rates, if I were in charge of Hamas home guard I would try to get the general public to places of safety, obviously pre designated. And when this is all over I would be wanting to see my local councillor and would ask him what went wrong.
Most would accept that a headline is the statement that most readers will pick up on, even if they’re not much interested in the content of the story. It conveys the general message that will create a particular impression. For a media organisation with a particular agenda, the consistency of maintaining a certain theme helps deliver the desired message. We can categorize it as BRAINWASHING, and unless an individual is aware of a particular bias by the media organisation, or a wider knowledge of the topic involved, they will be subject to this brainwashing.
So lets see how the BBC has covered the Israel/Gaza conflict in terms of the headlines that appeared on their Mid-East page for the last month. I will also show how these headlines changed as developments progressed, or an editor thought of a better way (from the BBC propaganda point of view) to get the ‘message’ across.
(Courtesy of the Change Detection Website)
6/7 Israel moves forces near Gaza border
8/7 Israel launches new strikes on Gaza
9/7 Israel ‘to intensify Gaza attacks’
10/7 UN chief in ceasefire appeal
11/7 Israel to ‘resist Gaza pressure’
12/7 UN calls for Israel-Gaza ceasefire
Palestinian deaths continue to mount.
Israeli strike on disability shelter
13/7 Thousands flee northern Gaza
14/7 Gaza fire traded on seventh day
Israel’s operation against Palestinian militants.
15/7 Israel hits Gaza as truce bid fails
16/7 Gaza deaths pass 200
17/7 New Gaza exchanges after truce ends
18/7 Huge rise in Gaza displaced, says UN
19/7 Casualties mount in Gaza conflict
20/7 Gaza and Israel suffer deadliest day
21/7 Israeli strike hits Gaza hospital
22/7 UN chief: ‘Start talking’ over Gaza
Lyse Doucet: Gaza’s grimmest day
23/7 Gaza Hamas leader ties truce to blockade
Israeli blockade. Gaza action could be war crimes’
24/7 Gaza shelter attack ‘kills 15’
25/7 Israel rejects ceasefire plan
Gaza baby delivered from dead mother Watch
26/7 Israelis extend Gaza ceasefire
Bodies recovered amid ceasefire Watch
29/7 Israel steps up bombardment of Gaza
30/7 Israel Strike on Gaza market ‘kills 17
Aftermath of market strike Watch
Disputed deadly incidents
31/7 Gaza school attack unacceptable – US
US spokesman condemns attack Watch
01/8 Militants ‘seize Israeli soldier’
02/8 Israel PM: Gaza operation to go on
Gaza devastation revealed after strikes
03/8 Gaza school strike ‘criminal’ – UN
BBC at school strike scene Watch
Israel: fire into school’
04/8 Israel presses on’ – UN after Gaza truce
05/8 Gaza truce holds as Israel withdraws
06/8 Israel-Palestinian talks under way
Here’s yesterday’s headlines:
I’m pretty sure it’s evident just what the BBC agenda is all about.
No headline to indicate that it has been Hamas either refusing to enter, or breaking any ceasefire, that keeps hostilities going.
Nothing that shows Hamas have been firing missiles purposefully from built-up areas.
Nothing about the use of human shields.
Nothing about Hamas purposefully targeting Israeli cities and airport.
Nothing about the purpose of the Hamas tunnels found by Israel and the children that were used inside.
Nothing that shows the real intent and mindset of Hamas.
This is the BBC notion of Fair, Balanced, and Impartial
I thought this was an interesting tweet (to Media Lens and RT’d):
….
@CathalSheerin: @medialens @STWuk BBC report on mass #GazA9 march in London fails to mention that demo began by protesting the BBC http://t.co/ntvQ9DnrCn
….
Despite rather clearly bending over backwards to show whose side they are on, the BBC still has to go far enough to satisfy the twitterati who count…. to the BBC.
Ironically, they are trying to do this whilst engaging in that famous editorial triage they are now noted for, and still getting called out on it.
It would be funny if not tragic.
Orla Guerrin, who has form, reporting on Sky tonight immediately slipped into her report that Palestinian casualties tonight included a woman and a child- age was mentioned in passing. No verification, it must be true, she said so.
Where does this so-called reporter in flak-jacket get her information from? It makes no difference if you watch BBC ITN or Sky, they each employ the same claque of left wing on-location journalists who know what they have to sell, where to get it from, and who they sell it to. And they know their career is over if they off message. In the era of the internet they are finished. How much longer are we going to pay to be lied to?