Gaza: where a howl of pain and outrage is the only point of view
For journalists covering the horror in Gaza, it must feel obscene to stick to the old routine of ‘fairness and balance’
If you’re a correspondent living the horrors of the Strip from one ceasefire to the next, keeping count of the toll, tweeting pictures of carnage (like the BBC’s wonderful Ian Pannell), wearing the kid gloves of fairness and balance must seem somewhere between obscene and impossible.
It’s a desperate task, gallantly performed. But there are times, remember, where the rituals of F and B don’t work at all – when the truth is a howl of pain and outrage. Jon Snow had one of those YouTube moments a few days ago when he got back from Gaza. Listen to Aidan White from the Ethical Journalism Network: “Bias is not always propaganda – some stories only make ethical sense when told by journalists with a point of view.” Especially as they wade through pools of blood.
No…bias is propaganda…especially in this case where the BBC is pumping out a relentless stream of anti-Israeli propaganda with the sole intention of trying to put political and social pressure upon the Israeli government. There is absolutely no context for the Israeli actions from the BBC. This is not a single battle, this is a 70 year war with the Muslims intent on annihilating the Jews. Which is why the Jews fight so hard. Another Holocaust wouldn’t be a coincidence it would be genocide, ethnic cleansing, plain old murder….a murder that the BBC has unfortunately decided to take sides in.
England cricketer Moeen Ali, of Pakistani ‘heritage’, and a Muslim, wore wristbands that said ‘Save Gaza’ and ‘Free Palestine’. Both are highly political statements, in particular the ‘Free Palestine’ one which cheerleads the destruction of Israel as ‘Palestine’ is considered to be from the ‘river to the sea’ and the State of Israel itself is considered by Palestinians to be located on ‘occupied’ Palestinian land.
Palestinian graphics with Israel included in the map of ‘Palestine’
Perhaps the likes of Moeen Ali would like to explain why they have no such views about the slaughter and mayhem being visited upon the much of the rest of the Muslim world and beyond by people just like him.
Is it just a ‘Jewish’ thing that means the likes of Moeen Ali and the BBC’s battalions of reporters focus on Gaza?
Any impartial observer would perhaps think so . Can be any other explanation as to why so much attention is concentrated upon the Jewish counterattack in Gaza?
Perhaps Moeen Ali would like to consider what is going on in the land of his fathers before criticising Israel…“We left all our belongings. The Pakistani government was bombing our villages.”:
A military offensive in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region has forced more than 75,000 people to flee their homes over the past two weeks, seeking shelter across the border in Afghanistan’s Khost and Paktika provinces. Many left suddenly, with very few possessions. “We could only manage to get ourselves out of Miranshah,” one man told UNHCR staff, referring to the capital of the mountainous North Waziristan region. “We left all our belongings. The Pakistani government was bombing our villages.”
You might also ask where are the endless stream of BBC Tweets with the graphic descriptions and photographs of injured children?
And it’s not as if it’s all quiet elsewhere in the Muslim world:
WARNING: The video linked to below has graphic footage of mass murder by Islamic militants.
Beirut, Asharq Al-Awsat—More than 700 people were killed in Syria over the course of Thursday and Friday, in what activists say were the bloodiest 48 hours of fighting in the conflict to date.
The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), Rami Abdul Rahman, told Asharq Al-Awsat that this was the first time casualties had topped 700 in the space of two days since the conflict began in 2011. He contrasted the violence to the gas attack in the Ghouta region close to Damascus last year, which he said killed around 500 people.
Kano, Nigeria (CNN) — Hundreds of people were killed in raids by Boko Haram Islamic militants in northeast Nigeria’s Borno state, on the border with Cameroon, with some sources putting the death toll at 400 to 500.
On Tuesday, heavily armed men dressed as soldiers in all-terrain vehicles and on motorcycles attacked neighboring Goshe, Attagara, Agapalwa and Aganjara villages in Gwoza district, shooting residents to death and burning homes.
“The killings are massive. Nobody can say how many people were killed, but the figure runs into some hundreds,” said Peter Biye, a lawmaker in Nigeria’s lower parliament representing the Gwoza region.
#ShaveGaza
If Moeen Ali really has a humanitarian conscience then rather than grandstanding for his Islamic brethren against the Jews he might be better off taking a closer look at what is going on in Pakistan and elsewhere in the Muslim world and start asking some questions about what is driving the mass slaughter perpetrated upon Muslims, non-Muslims and those Muslims considered non-Muslims….by other Muslims.
Moeen Ali considers his beard an important visible sign of his devotion to his faith…he’s very proud of it. It’s a very public statement and well known part of his persona.
Maybe he and all other righteous Muslims who want to ‘Save Gaza’ from the Jews should shave off their beards in a sign of their anger and disgust at what is being done in the name of Islam by other Muslims.
Such a symbolic action would have a huge effect on the watching world, most importantly amongst fellow Muslims, and would confirm Ali’s pious credentials as someone concerned with stopping all suffering not just that imposed by the Israelis.
Maybe the BBC will start shipping out its reporters en masse to these locations and start posting photographs of the dead and injured and detailing the graphic deaths in their Tweets as they do ad infinitum from Gaza.
But perhaps not…after all Hamas in Gaza isn’t going to shoot you or behead you as long as you do what you’re told and report only what they tell you to, but getting up close and personal with ISIS and Boko Haram is decidedly risky…so the BBC stick to the low hanging fruit and anyway…who likes the Israeli’s eh?
The BBC did nothing to dispel the Palestinian Pallywood propaganda that claimed an Israeli sniper killed an unarmed man despite the huge response to the video and its uptake by mainstream media.
How different the BBC reaction when a small video goes on-line showing a boy firing an RPG on a beach with a few claims that it is a beach in Gaza.
Israeli shells killed four boys on a Gaza beach recently and it cost the Israelis dear in the propaganda war…the BBC know this and want to keep the pressure on the Israelis and so moved rapidly to squash any rumours that Palestinian kids have been using weapons on a beach that might have made people think the Israeli mistake may have been more ‘understandable’ if they’d seen someone firing an RPG on beach.
The fact that in most YouTube videos of this boy and the RPG it is clear that the video is from Libya doesn’t deter the BBC pro-Palestinian machine grinding into gear to ensure the wrong message doesn’t spread….shame about that other faked sniper video they ignored…..
A video of a young boy firing a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) on a beach has shocked many people. But what’s the story behind it?
The young boy looks tiny as he stands on a beach, places an RPG on his shoulder and fires. There’s a huge bang and smoke billows all around. All the while two adults look on and encourage him.
It’s unclear who the boy or the adults are. The video itself has been posted multiple times. Though it’s being widely viewed now, it appears to have been first posted at least as far back as January.
Though some of the postings refer to it as a “Palestinian child firing an RPG on Gaza Beach”, it actually appears to be from Libya. The accents in the video are Libyan, and some have suggested it may have been on a beach in the Sirte area.
Always curious what catches the BBC’s eye…it’s not just out of interest here….there is a definite motive that generated this BBC story.
The BBC is required to observe certain of the programme standards objectives (“the relevant programme standards”) set by Ofcom under section 319 of the Act, namely:
Refraining from the use of techniques which exploit the possibility of conveying a message to viewers or listeners, or of otherwise influencing their minds, without their being aware, or fully aware, of what has occurred.
In other words the BBC should not be slipping political, social or cultural messages into its programming in order to influence our thoughts and behaviour.
Such a refrain has obviously had little effect as the BBC deliberately set out to manufacture our opinions on climate change and hence the government’s response should it recognise that ‘public concern’ generated by the BBC’s messaging….all organised by the BBC’s Roger Harrabin and implemented in his infamous seminars in which BBC staff were persuaded to accept the premise that climate change is happening and is man made, and that messages about the dangers of that climate change and the actions necessary to prevent it should be slipped into BBC programming be it comedy, drama, soaps, news or indeed science programmes….not forgetting children’s programmes.
The BBC does not limit such Soviet style practises to climate though, apart from immigration, Islam, Europe and welfare there is the Middle East, Israel/Palestine in particular.
As you read this the BBC is probably reporting that Hamas doesn’t really exist…the Israeli army is remorselessly and savagely bombarding Gaza, taking out hospitals, schools and innocent civilians without cause or reason, reducing Gaza to rubble just because it can, and wants to….but curiously there is nobody shooting at them. How many times have we heard from the BBC that the Israelis have bombed or shelled something or someone in Gaza killing ‘x’ number of Palestinians, according to Palestinian health officials ( who are completely neutral and honest) and only then is it mentioned that the Israelis might have been firing at someone who had fired at them first…allegedly? It is rare that the BBC mentions Hamas as the instigator of a firefight or that Hamas rockets falling short maybe the cause of death and destruction in Gaza….the default culprit is always Israel.
BBC News is nowadays more a work of dramatic fiction and emotive angst than straight reporting making dramatic programmes like ‘The Honourable Woman’ almost redundant.
The Honourable Woman though has its place in the BBC battle order…..it is a ‘weapon’ of war as much as any gun or bomb…it is a ‘smart bomb’ delivered into thousands, if not millions, of homes around the world bearing not high explosives but a poisonous message….a message delivered by the BBC on behalf of Hamas, Fatah and all those who wish to ‘wipe Israel off the map’.
That explosive message is that Israel, the ‘Jewish state’, should be dismantled and the Palestinians allowed to take the land of Israel….needless to say the BBC glosses over what would happen to the Jews, merely implying that all would be peace and harmony as the love and understanding flowed between the two peoples.
The Honourable Woman of the title is Nessa Stein, the daughter of a ‘Zionist arms dealer’ who has provided the ‘walls’ for Israel’s successful defence….but he was killed by a Palestinian and Nessa and her brother Ephra took over the reins of his company turning it away from the nasty business of arms dealing towards education and infrastructure development for Palestinians…hoping to bring the two sides together eventually.
That is one message…..the father was ‘old Israel’, the well armed defender of the Jewish State’s right to exist…Nessa is the new Israel taking down those ‘walls’ that separate the Jews from the Palestinians…..‘walls’ being the mental attitudes but also an allusion to the physical security barrier the Israelis had to build to keep suicide bombers and various Palestinian murderers out of Israel….the writer, Hugo Blick, obviously feels he knows better than the Israelis here about the need for security.
In later episodes this theme is expanded on and the BBC can be seen to relish the potential destruction and defeat of Israel and the triumph of the Palestinians as the ‘purity’ of the Jewish state is corrupted and undermined by the influx of Palestinians into the land.
Nessa’s father was killed on the orders of a Fatah commander, the father of the man who raped Nessa when she was kidnapped in Gaza, Nessa giving birth to a son as a result of that rape.
The Fatah commander, naturally representing the various Palestinian ‘resistance’ movements in this allegory, gloried in the ‘poisoning’ of the Stein bloodline with Palestinian blood….
‘The grandson of Eli Stein with my blood in its veins…first I ordered his death and now I take his heritage….how great is his defeat!’
A clear message…the Palestinian militants have fought the Israelis and killed many but the real battle will only be won by destroying the ‘heritage’, the bloodline, of the Jews by flooding Israel with Palestinian people…the ‘right of return‘…in other words destroying the Jewish nature of the Israeli state…the whole reason for its existence….that second phase can only begin when Israel drops its guard, its military defence (represented by the death of the arms dealing father) and more importantly the will to defend itself….this loss of will is represented by Nessa taking over the company with a completely different mindset and attitude and who believes that if only the Jews and the Palestinians could work and live together all would be well…there would be no ‘Israel’ but a one state solution…..a Palestine from the river to the sea…in other words Israel is wiped out.
A nice bit of pro-Palestinian propaganda from the BBC.
Hugo Blick slips in many more little kickers to push the message that Israel is an evil state that needs to be dealt with…….
The Palestinian nanny, Atika, tells us that she is ‘A stranger in her own land….but we learn how to wait’….clearly the thought is that the tyrannical Israel cannot last forever.
Nessa proclaims Atika is ‘The Wandering Arab’…not once but twice to reinforce the message…this is an allusion to the ’Wandering Jew’, Blick trying desperately to turn the Palestinians into victims of Israeli oppression and tyranny….The Wandering Jew was forced to roam the world homeless and scavenging for a living…..Atika dramatically states ‘It is what the world has made me.’ Not really though…it is what the Palestinian leaders have made her.
When Nessa first meets Atika in the West Bank Blick has them mouth a rather forced exchange, the only reason for it to once again paint Israel as an oppressor when Nessa asks Atika how often she visits her home in Gaza….Atika replies she doesn’t, the borders are closed…Nessa replies… ‘Of course…how stupid of me!’
But….The borders aren’t closed, just restricted…no surprise as the Palestinians are conducting a war against Israel….having said that Atika and Nessa somehow manage to get themselves into Gaza…so clearly ‘closed borders’ are no obstacle.
When Nessa and her brother Ephra, are at a family party the camera lingers on a group of Jewish men who cheer the news on the TV that ‘Israel will not negotiate with terrorists’…..Nessa says to Ephra, who initiated the change from arms dealing to ‘promoting peace and reconciliation’ for his father’s company, that ‘Pappa would be proud of you.’….Ephra looks disdainfully at the cheering Jews and says ‘Yes I think he would have been.’ Clearly a tough stance on defence is not welcome by Ephra/Blick.
Ephra describes the educational faculties provided by his company as being in Israel, East Jerusalem and the West Bank…..Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its capital…so a sly dig there by Blick.
The Israeli Ambassador is played as if he were a Gestapo officer from the war….very reminiscent of so many WWII films….Just a coincidence I’m sure.
Blick also introduces a device into the programme seemingly just so that he can accuse Israel of being a racist state running an apartheid system. He creates an unnecessary storyline where Israeli ex-military are given preferential treatment when applying for university courses…to the detriment of Israeli Arabs.
This was, as said, just an excuse to malign Israel by proclaiming it an apartheid state (repeated for reinforcement of effect as with the ‘Wandering Arab’ line) despite being in reality one of the most democratic and open states in the Middle East…and one where Christians can consider themselves safe…not something they could do anywhere else in the Middle East.
The real, central, storyline was that the Israelis had tapped into the Palestinian’s communications by using the cables laid by Nessa’s company….all leading to an Israeli listening post seemingly in a broom cupboard, an unlocked broom cupboard, in the university itself…the entry to which was controlled by an Arab Israeli….top security there then! Great writing!
The character played by Igal Naor, Shlomo Zahary, was a pantomime Jew, a stereotype set up to be portrayed as shifty, money grabbing and untrustworthy….Blick summarises him as someone ‘who could always smell a deal.’…what does he mean about our stereotypical Jewish pantomime villain?
Blick has a clear message to impart…Israel is a racist, apartheid state that oppresses the Palestinians but will eventually be overwhelmed by a flood of returning Palestinians to ‘their own land’ when Israel’s will to defend itself militarily is broken and the ‘purity’ of the Jewish state is leavened by the demographic reality of that mass of Palestinians making a Jewish state meaningless and impossible.
‘How great would be their defeat?’
It would seem the BBC is wishing such defeat upon Israel….and it has no shame in broadcasting such a programme as Israel battles the very forces of terrorism, ethnic cleansing and murder that the BBC supports and broadcasts on behalf of in both its news bulletins and drama….still three more episodes to go but somehow doubt Israel will turn out to be the ‘good guy’ in all this.
Apparently the new front runner for the job of BBC Trust Chairman is Nicholas Prettejohn…already a BBC Trustee…and yet another Oxbridge PPE graduate.
The Guardian tells us he is a former ‘city Grandee’ and advisor to George Osborne….but he is also a former trustee of the Royal Opera House working with the BBC’s DG, Lord Hall, who has already employed a former work mate from the ROH, Anne Bulford, along with several other appointments made without an open recruitment process.
Good that one of Tony Hall’s mates may become the person who would be responsible for regulating the BBC run by Hall.
The BBC…starting to look like the top tier of the Tory party. The irony.
As the 22nd day of the IDF’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza draws to a close, MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute) has published a video in which a Hamas cleric lays out the organization’s “doctrine” in its fight against Israel: genocide.
Speaking in a televised address from Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, the preacher said that Hamas’s aim was to “totally exterminate” the Jews living in Israel, because “wherever the Jews lived they spread corruption”.
Mosab Hassan Yousef, a Hamas defector who worked for 10 years as an informer for the Shin Bet, explained to CNN last week that, for Gaza’s rulers, human life is of no consequence.
“Hamas does not care about the lives of Palestinians, or the lives of Israelis, or Americans; they don’t care about their own lives,” Yousef said. “They consider dying for their ideology a way of worship.
“Hamas is not seeking coexistence and compromise; Hamas is seeking conquest,” he added. “The destruction of the state of Israel is not the Hamas final destination.”Hamas, Yousef asserted, wants to build an Islamic state “on the rubble of every other civilization.”
“In the mosques, Hamas told us that without shedding innocent blood for the sake of the ideology we will not be able to build an Islamic state,” he said. “At five-years-old, that is what they were feeding us.”
The correct use of words and phrases is essential when trying to communicate your message accurately and clearly to an audience…Theresa May hopefully recognises this after her disastrous use of the phrase ‘The nasty party’ in reference to the Tories, a phrase that will now haunt the Tories forever more.
The Israelis already know that the media will leap on any nuanced or mangled phrase and use it to propagate their own conspiracy theories.
Jon Donnison has recently done just that in an attempt to discredit the Israeli position that Hamas was responsible for the kidnap and killing of its three teenagers…via Is the BBC biased?:
Israeli police MickeyRosenfeld tells me men who killed 3 Israeli teens def lone cell, hamas affiliated but not operating under leadership1/2
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 25, 2014
Israeli police spokes Mickey Rosenfeld also said if kidnapping had been ordered by Hamas leadership, they’d have known about it in advance.
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 25, 2014
Donnison’s Tweets had a dramatic effect:
The twittersphere exploded with I-told-you-so’s from pro-Palestinian activists, who claimed Israel had manipulated events surrounding the killing of the teens to prepare for and justify its assault on Gaza, which has since killed more than 1,000 Palestinians
Ironically the BBC’s not so impartial journalist Jon Donnison is now complaining of Israeli ‘spin’ and doing his best to undermine Israel’s PR effort in the face of a pro-Hamas and hostile media…such as the BBC.
Why is Donnison linking to 5 year old news just now…and why is he so concerned with Israeli PR and attempts to discredit it? Why is he, a BBC journalist, trying to blacken the name and reputation of other journalists?….journalists who may take a more even handed approach to reality.
Donnison would be justified in linking to the document itself if he can show it is in use by Israeli officials…but he offers no proof. He is certianly not justified in linking to Patrick Cockburn’s article in ‘Counterpunch’ which is itself nothing but spin, anti-Israeli black propaganda.
And which organisation doesn’t have guidelines on how to talk to the Media or the Public?
We are committed to giving them high-quality, original and at times challenging output. Creativity is the lifeblood of our organisation.
Equally, we must give our audiences content made to the highest editorial and ethical standards. Their trust depends on it.
We must therefore balance our presumption of freedom of expression with our responsibilities, for example to respect privacy, to be fair, to avoid unjustifiable offence and to provide appropriate protection for our audiences from harm.
11.4.5 We must report acts of terror quickly, accurately, fully and responsibly. Terrorism is a difficult and emotive subject with significant political overtones and care is required in the use of language that carries value judgements. We try to avoid the use of the term “terrorist” without attribution. When we do use the term we should strive to do so with consistency in the stories we report across all our services and in a way that does not undermine our reputation for objectivity and accuracy.
The word “terrorist” itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should convey to our audience the full consequences of the act by describing what happened. We should use words which specifically describe the perpetrator such as “bomber”, “attacker”, “gunman”, “kidnapper”, “insurgent”, and “militant”. We should not adopt other people’s language as our own; our responsibility is to remain objective and report in ways that enable our audiences to make their own assessments about who is doing what to whom.
11.4.6 For similar reasons, it is also usually inappropriate to use, without attribution, terms such as “liberate”, “court martial” or “execute” in the absence of a clear judicial process.
Perhaps Donnison should give them a read and have a look at his own work before he presumes to lecture others……..
This is what Donnison links to….an article that is clearly designed not to enlighten but to encourage anti-Israeli hate, trying to portray everything the Israelis say as mere spin and lies to cover up war crimes and atrocities….but what war crimes and atrocities?
The Israel project’s 2009 Global Language Dictionary should be required reading for everybody, especially journalists, interested in any aspect of Israeli policy because of its “dos and don’ts” for Israeli spokesmen. These are highly illuminating about the gap between what Israeli officials and politicians really believe, and what they say, the latter shaped in minute detail by polling to determine what Americans want to hear. On every occasion, the presentation of events by Israeli spokesmen is geared to giving Americans and Europeans the impression that Israel wants peace with the Palestinians and is prepared to compromise to achieve this, when all the evidence is that it does not.
This is the Independent’s own spin on the story…..Patrick Cockburn being an Independent journalist…..
The headline is already trying to twist your thoughts by claiming Israel is hiding the facts…but nowhere does it say what facts are being hidden, in fact in a later article Cockburn complains that the Israelis want you to know the facts and not just the ‘message’….
“Don’t confuse messages with facts,” Dr Luntz advises the spokesmen as he explains how facts should be selected and best presented to make Israel’s case.
The Israelis can’t win….Cockburn thinks any ‘message’ such as Israelis having empathy for Palestinians and wanting to live in peace together is a lie……he gives this as an example of such a ‘lie’:
“The day will come when Israeli children and Palestinian children will grow up together, play together, and work together side-by-side not just because they have to but because they want to.”
Cockburn however admits if it is spin it doesn’t work……
‘A Gallup poll shows that among Americans aged between 18 and 29 some 51 per cent said Israel’s actions were unjustified while only 23 per cent said they were.’
The Independent is so desperate for this negative narrative about Israeli propaganda to take off that it has Cockburn have another go two days later:
Cockburn says that Israel is making outrageous claims that Hamas welcomes dead civilians:
For all the good advice of Dr Luntz there are signs of Israeli leaders getting rattled. Mr Netanyahu complained on CNN that Hamas wants “to pile up as many civilian dead as they can” and “to use telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause.”
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.
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.
The Independent…Masters of spin themselves….
Thank god we’ve got the honest and impartial BBC to bring us the real truth….oh hell!!!…no!!…they’re busy spreading the Independent’s smears and lies as well……but then who needs the Independent to do the dirty work when you can do your own:
Talking of Jon Donnison, he saw fit to re-tweet this attack on a favourite blogs of ours a couple of days ago from one Bekah Wolf:
@HughNaylor@CiFWatch is not a real organization, just a crappy smear campaign run by a couple of dunderheads
— Bekah Wolf (@BekahWolf) July 27, 2014
And who exactly is this Bekah Wolf who doesn’t reckon much to CiF Watch?
Bekah Wolf@BekahWolf Founded @PalestinePSP with my husband Mousa Abu Maria. I live in the U.S. and in Beit Ommar, #Palestine. Have worked in Palestine since 2003
Or, to put it another way, a pro-Palestinian activist who sometimes writes for Israel-hating sites like Electronic Intifada and Mondoweiss. (That’s her in the picture at the top).Interesting company Jon Donnison keeps on Twitter, eh?
One of the questions that kept coming up during the programme was why do we need to frack and use gas when we have so many opportunities to use renewables.
Germany’s push toward renewable energy is causing so many drops and surges from wind and solar power that the government is paying more utilities than ever to help stabilize the country’s electricity grid.
Twenty power companies including Germany’s biggest utilities, EON SE and RWE AG, now get fees for pledging to add or cut electricity within seconds to keep the power system stable, double the number in September, according to data from the nation’s four grid operators. Utilities that sign up to the 800 million-euro ($1.1 billion) balancing market can be paid as much as 400 times wholesale electricity prices, the data show.
Renewable energy sources has apparently lowered the wholesale price of energy but there is a massive hidden cost as the government pays energy companies to back up the renewables with fossil fuel and nuclear power….as well as an increasing risk of blackouts.
R4 had a phone in on fracking today, Call You and Yours: Fracking, on which they asked ‘Would you welcome fracking near you?’ but we didn’t actually hear too much of that, the show being more a question and answer session with Francis Egan, Chief Executive of Cuadrilla, in the hot seat fending off the fanatics.
One caller at 23 mins, a Jake Whitefrom London, as he was introduced, turned out to be Jake White, Friends of the Earth’s legal advisor…..Egan recognised him and blew his cover….or rather the BBC’s cover as Winifred Robinson had to admit his allegiance was on her computer screen but she had decided not to reveal it to the listeners for some reason.
Other than that little faux pas the show was actually more pro-fracking with its ‘experts’ more weighted in favour…even the ‘neutral’ academic, a geological expert, was on message for fracking.
The BBC’s David Shukman admitted that fracking could be the short term answer to reducing CO2 emissions as advised by the IPCC in its AR5 report….which the BBC at the time of the report’s publication limited itself to mentions of ‘natural gas’, making no mention of such gas coming from fracking.
Robinson finishes on the usual BBC misrepresentation…she ‘fitted in’ a last caller (52 mins) but cut him off saying ‘I wanted to get you in because what you said summarises the huge scepticism that there is between the people and big industry.’
Curious…she told us earlier that a large majority supports fracking….off message there for a minute then.
Another programme of interest was this…National Parks: In this week’s Shared Planet Monty Don looks at where wildlife fits into this complex mix of wilderness and human activity.
What was interesting was one of those little truisms that slip out when the BBC thought police lose total control over the message….here Monty Don concudes that there is a problem for national parks due to there being ‘so much human pressure inside and outside the national parks’…meaning of course pressure to develop, especially housing, in such a small and crowded land.
Not a message the BBC likes to expand upon normally as it brings into question mass immigration and the resultant housing and land shortages.
Another programme was typically BBC, ‘Roots Reggae and Rebellion’ in which racism (White British of course), slavery and colonialism all got a shoeing. Interesting to hear that West Indians are still traumatised by their slavery….hadn’t realised it is still going on…oh and Rastafarianism saved the world.
The BBC could of course do a programme looking at the oppressed British workers in the factories, the mines and in the fields during the industrial revolution, or even the conscripts forced to fight and possibly die for Queen and Country…just as much slavery as any suffered by Africans shipped off to whereveer. The BBC however is more interested in Black ‘suffering’ and how it can be used as a tool to force Whites to hand over cash and advantage.
What else did we have today…oh yes…shoplifting is on the up…due to Austerity….shoplifters are victims of this government’s callous indifference to their plight.
Inspector Paul Wycherley from North Wales Police explained the force’s changing strategy in tackling food theft, with officers trained to guide potential shoplifters towards the use of local foodbanks.
Hmm OK……..but then there’s this example of what might be a cause from last year:
A SHOPLIFTING gang have been locked up after admitting a string of distraction thefts across North Wales.
Colea Niculescu, 34, and his partner Mandria Rostas, 29, his uncle Toie Niculescu, 40, and another woman Maria Rostas, 34, from Luton but all Romanian citizens, admitted charges of theft from jewellers shops in Ruthin and Llangefni and a Llanberis pottery in March this year.
All five were arrested and one of them, Romanian national Inot Constantinescu, 25, of Bear’s Road, Birmingham, was jailed for ten months after he admitted theft and entering the country in breach of a deportation order.
Just so we know that this isn’t a local thing down to a few bad apples….
The Star (Ireland), February 18, 2008
DETECTIVES in the border counties have sparked a major alert over Romanian shop raid gangs after huge shoplifting sprees. Gardai believe the gangs are composed mainly of young females, directed by male “bosses” Several Romanians have appeared in courts in recent weeks throughout counties Louth, Monaghan and Cavan, in connection with shop hits.
The police are so concerned about foreign nationals shoplifting, amongst other crimes, they set up a special taskforce:
An annual national campaign to target foreign criminals on roads in England and Wales has been launched by police.
Police officers from Romania, Lithuania and Poland have arrived in the UK to join the campaign, launched today (24 March 2014) and aimed at catching travelling criminals who use the roads to avoid detection and move around the UK.
Such gangs are thought to be involved in shoplifting, fraud, metal theft and theft from vehicles.
Immigration must contribute to this rise in shoplifting….but the BBC yet again looks away and is happily able to blame the ‘Tory’ government.
The BBC’s Jon Donnision is back in Gaza despite not having a very good reputation or track record when reporting from there previously…this is one of his efforts and is worthy of some scrutiny as he reported on the death of a friend and colleague Jihad Mashhrawic’s baby…
Standing in what is left of his burnt-out home this week, Jehad showed me a photo on his mobile phone.
It was of a cheeky, chunky, round-faced little boy in denim dungarees, chuckling in a pushchair, dark-eyed with a fringe of fine brown hair pushed across his brow.
“He only knew how to smile,” Jehad told me, as we both struggled to hold back the tears.
Most likely is that Omar died in the one of the more than 20 bombings across Gaza that the Israeli military says made up its initial wave of attacks.
UN verifies that BBC reporter’s son was killed by Hamas
On 14 November, a woman, her 11-month-old infant, and an 18-year-old adult in Al-Zaitoun were killed by what appeared to be a Palestinian rocket that fell short of Israel.69 In addition, OHCHR received reports related to an incident in which two civilians, including a child, were killed, and five persons, including three children, were injured, as a result of what appeared to be a Palestinian rocket that fell short and hit a house in Al-Quds Street, near Khilla Gas Station, Jabalya, on 16 November.
Back in the present Donnison continues the good work on Twitter:
Donnison gives the impression that the Palestinian Authority (Western backed as Donnison slips in), and Fatah by extension, are not popular in the Palestinian territories…..he tells us that the PA might be considered collaborators with Israel…as they work together to provide security in the West Bank….no misgivings reported about Hamas though.
Donnison shows us pictures of the PA police tackling rioters..or ‘protestors’ as Donnison prefers.
He also shows the Israelis dealing with similar events but makes no mention that the Palestinians have been using live ammuniton and petrol bombs against the Israelis….hence some get shot….Donnison instead picks up a rock from the road and tells us this is what the Palestinians have been using…indeed they have….along with guns and bombs.
Donnison then tells us that the PA has failed to capture the public mood, they do not listen to the people… they don’t launch rockets into Israel presumably….that ‘people’ who ‘all’ support Hamas we are given to believe.
The whole piece is a subtle pro-Hamas piece, anti the ‘Western backed’ PA, the people ‘united in their anger’…ie against Israel which must be doing evil things...and if the PA doesn’t reflect that anger in its actions, as Hamas does, it cannot be representative of the people and their demands….and if the people support Hamas and its policies, those demands must be to rocket Israel.
We could easily conclude that Donnison is giving implied support to Hamas’ policy of rocketing Israel here….what then does he make of Hamas’ intention to wipe out Israel?
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