Kevin Connolly’s lazy narrative

A guest post by Israelinurse:

“In the Middle East once you have chosen between the irreconcilable narratives on offer, everything confirms the narrative you have chosen, and nothing confounds it.”

After barely a year in the Middle East, the BBC’s correspondent Kevin Connolly appears to have reached the conclusion that facts and objective analysis of events are not what he came here to look for. Like many a Western journalist, crippled by preconceptions based on historical inaccuracies and hampered by an inability to speak any of the local languages fluently, he has succumbed to the temptations of ‘narrative’.

Connolly’s report of June 9th from Majdal Shams indicates very clearly the category of narrative he has chosen to adopt and promote. Whilst the acceptance of ‘narratives’ as legitimate versions of events has evolved from the prevailing mores of a politically correct climate in the United Kingdom which recoils from any kind of judgement- based assertions, its application in far flung corners of the world does not necessarily serve the interests of the BBC audiences. The airbrushing of facts, the subjective impressions of a reporter trapped within his own culture and the ‘dumbing-down’of news into pastiches of black and white contribute nothing to the listeners’ understanding of events.

And so Kevin Connolly begins his piece by referring to the 1967 Six Day War, during which Israel captured the Golan Heights. He provides no background to the outbreak of hostilities: no mention of the Syrian attempts at diversion of the water sources which feed Israel’s only fresh water supply – the Sea of Galilee, no reference to the years of shelling and sniper attacks on the Israeli villages situated below the Golan Heights and of course no reminder to his listeners of the attempt by Arab armies to annihilate the 19 year old Jewish state. As far as Connolly’s audience is concerned,Israel just decided one fine morning to conquer the Golan.

Next, Connolly informs his audience that the border fence stormed by Palestinians from Syria is not technically a border but a line of disengagement “since there is no peace deal to make it permanent”. Significantly though, he fails to mention that just over a week after the Six Day War ended, Israel – via America – proposed a return of the captured land in the Golan Heights and the Sinai in exchange for signed peace treaties with Syria and Egypt. This offer was of course met with the famous ‘Three Nos’ of Khartoum; the Arab states chose the option of “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel”.

That decision resulted in Israel’s holding of the Golan from 1967 until the Syrians tried to re-conquer it in the Yom Kippur war of 1973. Once again Syria lost the war it had started and the ceasefire lines eventually drawn up in May 1974 under the Separation of Forces Agreement between Israel and Syria included the return of portions of the conquered territory to Syria. That ceasefire agreement was intended to be part of UN SC resolution 338 which stated that”immediately and concurrently with the ceasefire, negotiations shall start between the parties concernedunder appropriate auspices aimed at establishing a just anddurable peace in the Middle East”.No peace agreement was of course reached, despite Israel having returned some of the territory as stipulated in UN SC resolution 242 which calls for “Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict” in return for “Termination of all claims or states of belligerency andrespect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State inthe area and their right to live in peace within secure andrecognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force”.

Connolly also fails to mention the two rounds of failed negotiations between Israel and Syria in the mid- 1990s and 2000, as well as subsequent efforts by the Olmert government. His listeners remain ignorant of the fact that if there is no peace agreement between Israel and Syria, it is certainly not due to lack of Israeli effort.

Having established in the minds of his audience that the border is not a border and that the land in question is held ‘in sin’, Connolly then goes on to subtly inform listeners where their sympathies should lie. The Syrian protesters are “unarmed”. They find themselves “pinned down by gunfire” with limited cover from an earth bank. Only two paragraphs later does Connolly bother to point out that the infiltrators had actually been warned – in Arabic – by means of megaphone not to approach the fence and that when they proceeded despite this, warning shots had been fired into the air. In his subsequent bizarre comparison of the situation with soldiers caught in razor wire inWorld War 1, Connolly once more indicates where his audience’s sympathies should lie by using the words “vulnerability and pathos” to describe a group of political protesters trying to illegally cross a highly volatile border between two countries at war.

Again he reminds listeners that his heroes “carried no firearms” and that they “risked their lives”. Whilst acknowledging that Syrian reports of the death toll cannot be taken as necessarily accurate, Connolly also purports that “the Israelis have no idea if the live ammunition they claim to have aimed at the feet and legs of the protesters, left people bleeding to death as they waited for treatment”. For some reason he completely fails to mention that the Israeli army responded positively three times to the request for a cease fire in order to permit the Red Cross to evacuate the wounded, but that on each occasion the protesters, rather than respecting the cease fire, took advantage of it to continue in their efforts to breach the fence.

Descending rapidly into ever more ridiculous analogies, Connolly then informs his audience that “the Israel of Majdal Shams hardly seems like the Jewish David ranged against the collective Goliath of the Arab world”. In other words, Connolly is making sure that readers know that Israel actually has nothing to fear from these ‘unarmed’ and heroic protesters to whom he has taken such a shine. Clearly to him, this is just another case of Israelis over-reacting; a function of “the Israeli national nightmare of Palestinians massing on their borders demanding the right of return”.Nightmares are of course illogical; rooted in unfounded fears and something to be got over. In fact, having established throughout his report that Israel is guilty of almost hysterical over-reaction, Connolly then goes on to declare that “Israel sees the protesters as extremists or followers of extremists”, obviously implying that sensible people should appraise the situation very differently. One cannot but wonder exactly what the appropriate term is in the BBC lexicon for groups of people who seek to resolve an ongoing conflict by force rather than by negotiation and compromise.

Connolly then tries to claim that the information regarding the possibility that protesters in this and the previous event were paid to storm Israel’s borders is an Israeli fabrication which shows “weakness”. In fact, as Just Journalism has pointed out, this information came from non-Israeli sources such as the Reform Party of Syria and the Guardian. He also seems to doubt the involvement of the Syrian regime in the organization – either passive or active – of these recurring demonstrations: “And above all, Israel sees Syrian government manipulation in all this”.

Had Connolly any experience or knowledge of value about the area he would know that for over four decades now, levels of activity on the border between Israel and Syria have been dictated by the mood in Damascus. When Assad – either father or son – wanted the border to be quiet for reasons known to them, it was so. When they did not – it was not. There exists a well-entrenched myth that this border has been perfectly calm since the ceasefire in 1974. Whilst it is certainly true that when compared to some of Israel’s other borders, levels of activity by infiltrators has been low, it is not true to say that there have been no attempted terrorist infiltrations over the years. The fact is that on the day following the June 5th demonstrations, the Syrian security forces prevented the protesters from again reaching the border. They could have acted similarly the day before, but chose not to.

Unfortunately for his listeners, Connolly appears to be content with parroting the jaded narratives repeated by so many Western journalists rather than learning from the local people who actually live in the area or making the effort to equip himself with the background information necessary to comprehend this complex region. His report, therefore, is indeed no more than unchallenging narrative; undemanding of both his listener and himself and confirming all his and their preconceived prejudices. News it is not.

WELL THERE’S A SURPRISE!

Regular readers of this blog will know that David Preiser, DB and myself (in the comments) have had our purely metaphorical cross hairs trained on Katie Connolly – the lead reporter at BBC Online’s Washington bureau – for quite some time now.

She was headhunted from Newsweek in the Spring of 2010 to head a new team that (we discovered) also included an enthusiastic Obama 2008 campaigner called Matt Danzico (remember ‘Llamas Heart Obama’?). We noticed that the new online unit began pumping out a lot of heavily-biased reports, generally favouring Democrat positions and undermining Republican ones. Katie Connolly was responsible for quite a few of those articles.

The unit seems to have gone oddly quiet in recent weeks and it now transpires that Katie Connolly has a new job. According to her updated strap line on Twitter she is now a Senior Project Director at the Benenson Strategy Group. They are usually described as Democratic Party pollsters but also help devise campaign strategies for a large number of Democrat politicians and trades unions, playing a major role in the 2008 Obama Campaign and even helping Gordon Brown during the 2010 UK general election. (That went well, didn’t it?) .

So a BBC reporter we’ve long suspected of being biased towards the Democrats leaves to join a firm of Democrat Party strategists.

Who’d have thunk it?

READ AND WEEP

A guest post by Hippiepooter.

This is overdue but I think you’ll agree very worthwile covering. H/T to ‘Buggy’ for bringing this up in the Open Thread a couple of weeks ago.

Here is a BBC Online report 7th April that they headline thus:-

Blackpool children ‘safer than ever from grooming gangs’

When you compare it to the Blackpool Gazette story below, you may agree with me that it touches levels of Orwellian depravity that belong in a surreal horror movie. This is the Blackpool Gazette headline for the story:-

‘We hid nothing’ say sex case cops

Both stories stem from a paywalled report in The Times. Below is how both reports address the The Times as the source of the story.

BBC

A report in The Times said more than 60 girls in the resort were groomed for sex by a group of men.

The Times reported that an unpublished report by Blackpool Council recorded that more than 60 girls in the resort had been groomed for sex by a group of men connected with a cluster of town centre takeway restaurants.

Blackpool Gazette

Lancashire Police came under fire in a report by The Times which accused the force of ‘hiding a sex grooming scandal’ in Blackpool and ‘inhibiting’ further research by political correctness.

The Times article also connects to another missing Blackpool girl, Paige Chivers. […] Paige was just 15 when she disappeared in 2007. The report claims the teenager was also a “victim of sexual exploitation” but police say her disappearance remains a missing person inquiry and they are “keeping an open mind”.

You will be wearily unsurprised that the BBC report mentions nothing about Paige Chivers, nor the comments below by a retired senior detective featured in the Blackpool Gazette:-

Former Lancashire Det Supt Mick Gradwell, said police should, however, have a “more open debate”.

He said: “There is a lot of work going on with these operations (such as Awaken) but there is a reluctance to talk openly about the full facts.

I would suggest that all the BBC report was interested in was whitewashing how Lancashire Police had been whipped into submission by 25 odd years of BBC thought policing and the disaster that their ‘nationcidal’ promotion of multiculturalism has wrought upon us.

The mailonline also published a report on this the same day as the BBC, although they didn’t mention it had been prompted by what The Times ran. It carries more extensive comment from former Det Supt Mick Bradwell and draws yet more stark and chilling contrast to the take of the BBC.

While trying to find the Times report I found there’s plenty on this on BNP and EDL sites, but the views of racist neanderthals don’t interest me.

The Gramscian BBC and the BNP are twin sides of evil. They couldn’t live without each other.

From one of the areas of the BBC untainted by its Gramscian subversives, here is information on how to assist the Police with their inquiries over the missing Paige Chivers.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

Mail Online, which has just overtaken The Huffington Post to become the second most popular newspaper website in the world, reports on a story that the BBC is also running near the top of its news agenda today – but their take on the story could hardly be more different to the BBC’s:

‘We will unleash a nuclear hellstorm if Osama is killed’: Wikileaks releases chilling interrogation files of Guantanamo suspects
Top-secret files detailing the interrogations of more than 700 terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp have been obtained by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.
They include claims that Al Qaeda terrorists threatened to unleash a ‘nuclear hellstorm’ if Osama Bin Laden is caught or killed – and that the interrogations uncovered plots to attack Britain.
Thousands of pages of sensitive documents relate to a decade of interviews in which extremists also admit to plotting attacks against America and across the world.

They go on:

The documents detail the background to the capture of each of the 780 people who have passed through the Cuban facility, along with their medical condition and the information they have provided during interrogations.
Around 220 of those detained are assessed to be dangerous international terrorists, while around 380 are judged to be lower-level foot-soldiers.
At least a further 150 people, including innocent Afghans and Pakistanis, were held and assessed at the U.S. camp, but later released due to lack of evidence, according to the files.

The BBC’s take, on its radio news bulletins and online, has a very different focus:

Wikileaks: Many at Guantanamo ‘not dangerous’
Files obtained by the whistleblowing website Wikileaks have revealed that the US believed many of those held at Guantanamo Bay were innocent or only low-level operatives.
The files, published in US and European newspapers, are assessments of all 780 people ever held at the facility.
They show that about 220 were classed as dangerous terrorists, but 150 were innocent Afghans and Pakistanis.

The bulk of the article then concentrates in considerable detail on the innocent rather than on the dangerous ones.

Both the Mail Online and the BBC Online articles are biased in their own way. One, however, is a private newspaper, privately funded. The other is a public corporation funded by a compulsory licence fee and legally bound to be impartial.

An incident bias, which David Preiser has highlighted in the past, is that the BBC was very enthusiastic about Wikileaks when the Guardian were publishing them around the turn of the year. Since ‘Wikileaks’ moved to the Telegraph, however, the BBC has shown a lot less enthusiasm for reporting the leaks. Taking that into account, isn’t it revealing that The Mail report says of the source of its story, “The documents seen by the Washington Post and Daily Telegraph confirm that the Americans have seized more than 100 Al Qaeda terrorists…” while the BBC Online article says “The latest documents have been published on Wikileaks,the Guardian, the New York Times and in other newspapers…”? Hmm.

The Telegraph itself takes a more even-handed approach that either the BBC or the Mail:

WikiLeaks: Guantanamo Bay terrorist secrets revealed
Guantanamo Bay has been used to incarcerate dozens of terrorists who have admitted plotting terrifying attacks against the West – while imprisoning more than 150 totally innocent people, top-secret files disclose.

The Guardian, however, unsurprisingly takes the same line as the BBC:

Guantánamo leaks lift lid on world’s most controversial prison
• Innocent people interrogated for years on slimmest pretexts
• Children, elderly and mentally ill among those wrongfully held
• 172 prisoners remain, some with no prospect of trial or release

By their friends shall ye know them!

INTERNAL DISAGREEMENTS

Today‘s Evan Davis and BBC political correspondent Louise Stewart had a lot of fun at the expense of David Cameron and Nick Clegg this morning over their disagreement over internships. They returned to the subject later, after which Evan talked to Gus Baker. The Today website describes Gus as “a student and co-founder of pressure group Intern Aware.” Evan Davis described him in similar terms on the programme. Mr Baker criticized the prime minister.

His Twitter account tells us a bit more:

Gus Baker
@gusbbaker Bristol
President-elect of Uni Bristol Students Union. Proud and independent minded Labour Party activist and NPF member. Co-founder @internaware.

Is it unreasonable to think that Mr Baker’s Labour affiliations should have been mentioned?

The same question applies to BBC Online’s write-up of the same interview (Cameron and Clegg differ publicly on internship places) which merely describes him as “from the pressure group Intern Aware” (and generously links to his website).

The Today programme interviewed no-one other than Gus Baker on the subject.

ANTI-SEMITIC SHILLS FOR GADDAFI

A guest post by Hippiepooter:

If I was an anti-Semitic despot desperately trying to cling to power and I wanted to give an interview with pliant Western journalists to make propaganda, I know that Jeremy Bowen would be at the top of my list.

It came as no surprise to me that Mr Bowen was one of the three journalists that Colonel Gaddafi chose to interview him.

This said, in my cursory viewing of the interview, I would say that Bowen successfully maintained plausible deniability that he was acting as Gaddafi’s shill, if indeed it would be fair to construe that that would possibly be his intention.

In what I heard of his reports thereafter there was nothing that really stood out as that untoward. Until recently. As the ‘madman in the kaftan’ has rallied his forces and appears to be gaining the upper-hand over the rebels despite major defections and allied bombing, there has been a decided shift in the BBC Tripoli Correspondent’s tone of coverage.

On Saturday 16th April the Telegraph online reported Lord General Dannatt expressing the following concerns over Mr Bowen’s reporting:-

“People hang on the words of the BBC in Libya and throughout the Middle East and I do wonder if what he has been saying has been entirely helpful,” says General Lord Dannatt, the former Chief of the General Staff. “Mr Bowen has, of course, every right to report what happens, but when he dwells to such an extent on intangible things — such as how long the operation will take and whether the will is there to see it through — then it sets a tone that could hardly have given heart to members of the rebel forces.”

Round about this time I noticed Bowen refer to Gaddafi’s side as ‘Libya’, although he quickly corrected himself straight away.

Not any more though. Here’s Bowen on 5Live’s Victoria Derbyshire (19/04/11). The interview starts 1:18:10 (my emphases):-

“[…]The Libyans say that they will allow some humanitarian access coming out of Tripoli into places. Uh, I think they have motivation for allowing a certain amount of it, now of course there’s a trade off between what the army here might want and there’s a trade off between what the more political people might want, but you can see from the Libyan point of view there are advantages in allowing humanitarian aid in”

Bowen is clearly self-identifying with Gaddafi. I had to wait some time in to the interview to confirm that by ‘Libya’ he actually meant the Gaddafi regime. The lingua franca of covering this conflict is ‘loyalists’ and ‘rebels’. While Foreign Secretary the Rt Hon Wiliam Hague MP has announced that Her Majesty’s Government no longer recognises the legitimacy of Gaddafi’s regime for the murderous brutality with which he has suppressed his people’s quest for freedom, Bowen clearly wants to confer legitimacy on Gaddafi in the minds of the British public.

Why would Bowen do this? My contention, or supposition, is that he sees there is a very real possibility that if Gaddafi is toppled Libya will have a Government that does not share Bowen’s pathological hatred of Israel. Such a thing for Bowen would be enough to give him a coronary.
If you listen to the whole of the interview you’ll see that overall Bowen does enough to maintain a veneer of impartiality – enough to seduce the unsuspecting listener into trusting him so that he may steer their unsuspecting minds to where he wants them to go. Although you might consider, as I do, that he was deftly trying to rubbish a rebel supplied casualty figure without having any idea what they’d been based on (Some idea here).

One occasion however when Bowen’s facade dropped spectacularly is etched vividly in my mind.

During Gulf War I a cruise missile struck a civilian bunker in Baghdad leaving hundreds dead.

David Dimbleby interviewed Bowen live from Baghdad.

Bowen reported in terms of ‘aren’t we bad, we really need to stop this war as soon as possible’.

Prior to this, I had read or heard reports that the allies suspected that Saddam Hussein was sending control and command communication signals from civilian bunkers in the hope of causing the very tragedy that had just occurred to leave the US Coalition discredited and strengthen calls for the war to end. I was heartened when David Dimbleby asked Mr Bowen:-

“But Jeremy, what were they doing there?”

Bowen exploded. Face contorted with rage he shouted: ‘They were trying to protect themselves from the bombs that the Americans are dropping on Baghdad!’

Bowen was livid that Dimbleby had got in the way of him promoting Saddam Hussein propaganda. There is no anti-Semitic tyrant that Bowen will not shill for.

Unfortunately, Mr Dimbleby chose not to pursue the matter further, apparently wishing to avoid any further unseemliness from his deranged colleague.

As all the experts have told us, imposing a no fly zone on Gaddafi is an act of war. We are at war with Gaddafi. If Jeremy Bowen keeps heading the way he’s going he risks supplying enough grounds to the security services to place him under formal investigation for aiding and abetting the Queen’s enemies at time of war. Given that Her Majesty’s Government has stretched Her already overstretched armed forces still further with the much needed action against Gaddafi to stop him massacring his own people for seeking freedom, not to mention the unfinished business of WPC Yvonne Fletcher and Lockerbie that must rightly underlie our action, it might be hoped that if Mr Bowen does take that ill-advised step too far, the P45s awaiting our heroic servicemen upon their return may be cushioned somewhat by the long overdue spectacle of HMG taking action against Treason. Hopefully, our Prime Minister would not feel the need to ask Shami Chakrabati’s permission to do this, or is our country so far into its death throes that this might not be such an absurd notion? Treachery, seek it out.
********************Hippiepooter

PLAYING FAVOURITES

Certain think tanks, pressure groups, unions, associations (etc) can pretty much rely on the BBC to report their press releases, reports and studies. Articles appear daily on the BBC website devoted to such things. Others are not so lucky, having their reports ignored – or, if not ignored, marginalised or criticised.

There’s an article on the website at the moment that, rather unusually, considers two separate reports from different organisations. Not that you’d know that from the headline:

****Teachers’ survey: Schools changes ‘won’t benefit poor’

The headline summarises the findings of one of the reports – that from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) on behalf of BBC regulars, the Sutton Trust charity. This undermines Michael Gove’s education policies from the standard BBC perspective, so it is given the vast bulk of the article. The short fourth paragraph, however, shifts to another report – “Separately, the pro-free market Adam Smith Institute has said free schools should be able to make a profit.” This other report attacks the government from the Right and is subsequently marginalised. Immediately Paragraph 5 reverts to the Sutton Trust study and dwells on it at great length and in considerable detail. Finally, in Paragraph 19 (after 14 paragraphs on the Sutton Trust report), we return to the Adam Smith Institute report. This is given just three paragraphs in total (one of Lilliputian size) and goes into no detail whatsoever.

I suppose the Adam Smith Institute should be grateful that the BBC gave space to their report. (They may even have been surprised!) But I suspect their gratitude will be tempered by not being given an article to themselves, by being given very short shrift, by being shoved at the bottom of a long article about another very different report and by not being given a mention in the article’s headline. I only found the BBC’s take on the Adam Smith Institute report by accident because I spotted the headline and thought it might be a good chance to check out whether the Churnalism search engine (h/t Katabasis)would suspect it of being churnalism for the Sutton Trust. (It did).

(This post of mine might be proof of the saying ‘You wait ages for a bus and then three come along at once!’)