Author Archives: Natalie

compares BBC treatment of Muslim-on-Christian violence in Nigeria to that of Christian-on-Muslim violence. He has screenshots.

(Max in comments here spotted the same thing.)

A reader who wishes to remain anonymous wrote the following email. I lost it for a bit, and seem to be unable to cut and paste the internal links he provided to the R4 programmes, although I can play them myself. Never mind. You go find them yourselves. Here’s the email:

Today (Feb 18th) I’ve witnessed one of the grossest examples of the BBC’s anti-American agitprop (or rather, anti-American-when-there’s-a-Republican-in-the-White-House agitprop).

On Radio Four’s “Any Questions”, the very first question put to the panel was this:

“What action should the British government take to bring about an end to the use of torture at Guantanamo Bay?”.

Hear the actual transmission here. [This is the first link I couldn’t seem to copy – NS]

The premise of the question assumes as fact that the U.S. authorities are indeed administering torture at Guantanamo Bay. But only two months ago the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a particularly full account of the U.S’s total rejection of torture, not only by the U.S. itself, but also the U.S.’s allies in the war against terror. As if that’s not bad enough, the BBC itself had actually reproduced Condi’s statement in full in a dedicated news report.

There have been all sorts of Guardian articles implying all sorts of maltreatment by the US authorities, but I’m not aware of any specific allegations that can be verified, or which, in any event, actually constitute torture.

Of course, when it came to Any Answers [another link I couldn’t copy here – NS] following transmission, all but one of the contributors on this topic were rabidly anti-American and anti-Bush administration. The one who wasn’t was a grandmother, no doubt chosen for that very reason (nevertheless she gave a good defence of the reasoning behind Camp X-Ray’s existence).

Is it any wonder, with the BBC being the planet’s most influential broadcaster, that America is becoming reviled in some parts of the world, and universally disparaged even among its allies?

Rottweiler Puppy has a (bleeding magnificent, actually) post about the same subject.

Because, here’s the thing: the United States has never been credibly accused of torturing its prisoners at Guantanamo. Not once. Indeed, the UN report Beeboids are swooning over is about as critical of the base as it’s possible to get, but even here there is no accusation that the U.S. engages in torture. The report, which you can read here [pdf], actually comes across as a protracted whine that the U.S. refused to grant investigators from the twin human rights capitals of Algeria and Pakistan, unmonitored access to its intelligence assets. The word ‘torture’ is used 89 times, though, in connection with the actual treatment Gitmo inmates receive (as opposed to attempts to define the term or explain its meaning), the closest the UN team get to the Any Questions position is to claim that force-feeding of hunger-striking inmates ‘amounts to torture’. (As, some people might say, do chemotherapy, lumber-punches and any other number of painful-but-lifesaving medical procedures.)

However, the point is that no one — not the UN, not Amnesty International, not the Guardian — has ever accused the U.S. of no ifs or buts torture in the way that Any Questions does here.

of Ilan Halimi in France has been reported by the BBC here.

In fairness to the BBC, I must point out that my colleague Laban was mistaken in thinking this murder had not been reported as of yesterday. A search for “Halimi” would not have found the earlier report that the BBC did make (on 17 February), as only the first name of the victim was mentioned at that time.

So let us look at the more recent BBC report, which appears to have been posted at ten minutes to midnight yesterday evening.

Reported: that the victim was Jewish, that there is a strong suspicion that he was killed because he was a Jew, and that the gang leader for whom a warrant has been issued is called Yussef Fofana. All these facts are relevant.

Not reported: that the kidnap gang recited verses from the Koran in their calls to Malini’s family.

Not reported: that Ilan’s mother, Ruth Halimi, has accused the French police of ignoring the anti-semitic motives of the murder in order not to alienate Muslim opinion in France.

Not reported: that the photos that the kidnappers sent Malini’s family to show them what was being done to their son, and the tortures and humiliations themselves, bore a strong “impregnation” (according to the authorities) of resemblances to the Abu Ghraib photos and the photos issued by Iraqi kidnappers of Western hostages.

Not reported: that Yussef (sometimes spelled Youssef or Yossef) Fofana has fled to his country of origin, the Ivory Coast. That would have involved saying that his country of origin was the Ivory Coast.

[UPDATE: the Ivorian angle has now been mentioned. Still no mention of the Muslim angle.]

If the religion of the victim is relevant to understanding the crime, then so is the religion of the perpetrator. The BBC would not dream of leaving it unmentioned when a religious or religious/political hate crime is carried out by a Jew. The BBC had no trouble saying Asher Weisgan was Jewish, and no trouble quoting the view of a commenter that Weisgan’s murder of four Arabs was the “wild grapes produced by Israel’s extreme right.” The BBC had no trouble mentioning the Jewish skullcap worn by Eden Nathan Zaada as he killed Israeli Arabs on a bus, and no trouble reporting on his extremist political views.

Yet all that the BBC gives us about Yussef Fofana is his name.

The BBC’s longstanding reluctance to even mention that most modern European anti-Jewish violence is carried out by Muslims, let alone discuss it, has made a small but dishonourable contribution to the legitimisation and normalisation of such violence.

, so quick to flutter their eyelashes around “terrorist” and “holocaust denier” and then at other times they just won’t come out and play.

“BBC soft soaps Holocaust denier” – blogs Adloyada, referring to this BBC article about David Irving. I quite agree with the view of the sociologist quoted in the BBC article that the law should not be used to silence the likes of Irving (although when he brings a libel case to intimidate and silence a critic and then loses, I laugh loud and long) – but that’s not the issue. The issue is, as Adloyada says that he isn’t a “holocaust denier” as the BBC sidebar repeatedly puts it, he is a Holocaust denier. We don’t have to wait for a court to tell us this; it is quite clear to anyone who has read any substantial portion of his output – but even if we did, a British court has unambiguously ruled that he is not only a Holocaust denier but has actively lied about and distorted historical evidence in order to further his Holocaust denial.

As Adloyada also points out, there are a few other points in the BBC article that could do with some scare quotes. Irving is not an “academic” and he is not “engaging.” On my own account I rather felt that the description of Irving as a “gentleman”, even if offered as one of two alternative futures, would have been better employed at some editorial distance.

There is a more profound question discussed in Adloyada’s post: that the Western media seems to have accepted a line pushed by the Iranian state-controlled media among others, namely that Holocaust denial is an offence against the Jewish religion. But that is a matter for the advanced class.

UPDATE: I see that as I was writing this post, Laban was writing another – concerning the Adloyada post just above the one I quote. The coincidence is not that great. There is a common theme to the two stories concerned.

First off, please note I’m off on my hols. So don’t write to me for the next two weeks. I hope my colleagues will keep posting; but if they, too, are busy on other aspects of their lives I expect the world will carry on somehow.

• Matt comments:
  

  All of the way through the US Lobbyist scandal BBC Online have been presenting the matter as if it were only Republicans who had been in receipt of questionable largesse and laregly ignored the, admittedly lesser numbers, of Democrats also tainted. Their choice of headlines for these stories has been particularly biased and misleading.

  Now today they are reporting a story regarding the changing of Wikipedia entries which solely implicates Democrats on Capitol Hill without even vaguely making it clear that it was only the Democrats who have been doing this indeed the only Republican mentioned has had his entry changed in a perjorative manner by Democrats. This is a perfect example of the constant subtle anti conservative bias that dominates BBC Online: “Congress ‘made Wikipedia changes'”

• Context, context, context says the Pedant-General regarding the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. Jyllands-Posten originally wanted to make a point about a climate of fear. BBC reporting is not doing its job when it leaves this context out.
• Mike Jericho compares the headlines on the beating of two Chinese activists, one an activist against corruption, the other against abortion.
• Disillusioned German writes: “Not sure if you were aware of that but the BBC are actually running banner ads for their News Website. I’ve taken the attached Flash Banner from the International Herald Tribune Europe website. I’ve also come across it on the Yahoo News Germany website.” He included a download, but I’m too ignorant to know how to post it. Personally, I’m not particularly bothered by this advertising, but in the old days the BBC used to boast of being above crude commercialism.
• Every now and then we like to include links to websites taking a different view to our own about BBC bias. I was asked, very politely, to link to this one. I must state frankly to the author that I would not usually link to a website with these views:
  

  How fair has the media been really to the Palestinian cause? I mean, you had a man by the name of Bob Elkins who was a Zionist, in the very least a strong Zionist sympathizer, and he was hired by the BBC to report during the crucial 67 and October wars, as well as just the everyday situation, and he was very very misleading
  The BBC is labeled as one of the more just TV stations, but always at some point they have had and they do have, Zionists controlling the programmes and the different points of views

  – But during the present controversy, it seemed appropriate, somehow, to make an exception. BTW, looking at the following and previous few posts on that blog I can’t quite figure out where it’s coming from. They do not all seem of a piece with the above.

• Susan comments on this BBC story:
  

  “Shooting kills priest in Turkey

  Yes, that’s right – a “shooting” killed the priest, according to al-Beeb. Said shooting just got up and done that poor man in all by its little self.

So goodbye for the next two weeks. One thing I won’t miss is the obligation to delete mindlessly anti-Islamic comments. I have typed approximately these words many times: this site tolerates debate about religion, including the religion of Islam. Tolerates, but does not encourage. We would prefer you discussed, critically or favourably, the British Broadcasting Corporation, since that it what this site is about. For now we choose not to operate a strict policy of restricting the subject to the BBC, a decision that may change. Sober criticism or defence of any religion or atheism is acceptable. Inflammatory comments are not.

Do we believe this? I don’t.

This page entitled “Should ‘anti-Islam’ cartoons have been published?” is an edited roundup of opinions sent in by readers of the BBC website. This is the style that the BBC used to have for all its Have Your Say pages until the organisation rather creditably changed to a lightly moderated forum style last year, in which posts can either be read in the order of most to least recent, or, crucially, in the order of most to least recommended.

So why is this page not an open forum? Well, it says “We are running this style of debate due to technical problems. We apologise to all our readers and contributors and will return to normal service as soon as possible.” The Pedant-General, he of Infinitives Unsplit, emailed me to say, “you must post something about this.” As it happens I had taken a hurried look at the page myself earlier and I confess that like the Pedant-General, I had thought cynical thoughts. But almost certainly it is true; there is immense public interest in this issue and so one would expect many people to be attempting to use the board, which might well cause technical problems.

So while I’ll accept the BBC’s explanation that there were technical troubles I am frankly sceptical when it says it “reflects the balance of opinion we have received so far.” It sure didn’t look like that on the open forum – which seems to be open again now.

As the Pedant-General says,

In the “recommended” section, not one of the first five PAGES of comments was anything other than wholly supportive of need to publish. The vast majority of the supportive comments were coherent and rational, where the vast majority of the Muslim complainants demonstrated that they had no concept of free speech. Many were of the form “Free speech does not mean freedom to offend or insult”. To which the answer is “Yes it is. That is exactly what it is”.

The current top comment has 1121 recommendations. For most of these debates the top comment has about a hundred.

In this post the Pedant-General points out that the Have Your Say homepage (NB: link will change) currently takes you to the edited roundup, not the open forum. I just checked. As of 6.21pm, he’s right. On the BBC news front page, too, the link that says, “Heated Debate – readers from Europe and the middle east react…”) again takes you to the edited roundup.

You can get to the forum if you go to the Have Your Say homepage then go via the quotes in the grey box on the top left – but there’s no indication to users who don’t already know that those quotes will take you to a forum. You know what I think? I think that the technical problems were real, but they came in very handy for the BBC. They’d rather unsophisticated, non-regular readers went to the edited discussion rather than the free-for-all.

The Pedant-General has more here (“Where is OUR spine, damnit?”) In this post he talks about the failure to report the context of the original publication. It has not been well reported – arguably it should reappear in pretty much every report – but to be fair it is mentioned in this Q & A.

Pity. The BBC showed half a spine in showing the cartoons on TV, albeit with a ridiculous dramatic reconstruction of an artist drawing them. (What was this, Crimewatch?) Half a spine is more than the British press showed.

A reader writes:

Just wanted to point out how quickly the story of the storming of the EU offices was taken down from the Beeb’s Middle East section on the News website. It was first merely squeezed into the other stories list and then in the blink of an eye removed from the page altogether. In contrast, a story such as ‘One killed in Israeli air strike’ was first entered as a headline with a picture and was then left on the page in the ‘More from Middle East’ list for several days if not a week. The tactics and strategies of the BBC’s news website’s editors are truly fascinating and they have perfected the art of getting their readers to focus only on the stories they want them to. Thought it was worth pointing out.

It is.

Paul Marks thinks pro-Bush comments may have been edited out from a session of “Any Questions.”

I followed this link to an “On This Day” article about the 1985 airlift by Israel of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. I have no bias complaints about that article itself. It actually said that the Jews had suffered particular president under “Marxist President Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam.” But I noticed several funny things about the “Timeline Israel/Palestinians” covering the 1950s to the present.

I’m afraid this is going to take some space to demonstrate. Below I have posted the entire timeline. I couldn’t cut and paste for some reason so I typed it out myself. The only thing I have edited out because they were too tedious to type is the exact dates; other than that these are the BBC’s own words in full. I have, however, changed the original font or added reference symbols in the following four cases:

1) Headlines where Israel or Israelis (category includes “Jewish” as no non-Israeli Jews are mentioned) are identified as doing violent acts have been put in italics. I counted 17.

2) Headlines where Arabs (category covers any Arab nationality or political group) are identified as doing violent acts are marked with an asterisk (*). I counted 5.

It would be absurd to expect exactly equal numbers. However the discrepancy between the category above and this one is surprising: no Arab is mentioned as carrying out any violent act until 1973 (“Arab states launch war on Israeli forces.) The second explicit mention of Arab violence, and the first explicit mention of Palestinians as the authors of violence, does not come until 1996 (“Palestinian suicide bombing in Tel Aviv kills 12”). Then there are three more, all in 2001 for some reason.

3) Headlines where no race or nationality is attributed to the authors of a violent act but it was actually carried out by Arabs have been put in bold. I counted 18.

The most striking of these was one from 1974, “Teenagers die in Israeli school attack.” Anyone would think the proto-Beslan at Ma’alot was carried out by the Israelis.

The BBC’s reluctance to ascribe violent acts to Palestinian authors has had a paradoxically un-PC effect. In this so-called “Israel/Palestinians” timeline the word Palestinian is not mentioned until 1987.

4) Headlines where no race or nationality is attributed to the authors of a violent act but it was actually carried out by Israelis are marked with a hash (#) sign. I counted 3. Again, it would be absurd to expect exact equality between the previous category and this one, but 18:3 is a startling ratio. I think I see a pattern here.

Headlines mentioning violence by both sides and violence within either side have been left unclassified. Warlike but non-lethal acts have been left unclassified. Headlines mentioning violent acts where who carried them out is controversial have been left unclassified.

This timeline is also unfair to the Palestinians in that the large number of Palestinians killed in the Intifada are not mentioned. I do not refer to actual terrorists but to stone-throwers and civilians who were not carrying out violence at all. Even those sypmathetic to Israel must concede that this is a large category. Possibly the fact that they tended to die by ones and twos means that there were few headline stories.

The BBC timeline follows:

Timeline Israel/Palestinians

1950s:

1953 Israeli raids on Jordan.

1955 Egyptian and Israeli fighters clash over Gaza.

1956 Egypt siezes Suez Canal.

1956 Israeli troops move into Sinai.

1956 Anglo-French forces bomb Suez.

1956 UN forces British to agree withdrawal from Suez.

1957 Israel to pull out of Gaza under UN pressure.

1960s:

1965 West Germany and Israel establish relations.

1967 UN to withdraw peace force from Sinai.

1967 Nasser bans Israeli ships from Gulf of Aqaba.

1967 Egypt and Jordan unite against Israel.

1967 Jordan moves tanks towards Israel.

1967 Moshe Dayan appointed defence minister

1967 Israel launches attack on Egypt.

1967 Israel ends Six Day War.

1967 Moscow calls for UN action against Israel.

1970s:

1970 New peace plan for Middle East.

1970 Hundreds held in series of hijacks.

1970 Hijacked jets destroyed by guerillas.

1972 Israel commandos storm hijacked jet.

1972 Japanese kill 26 at Tel Aviv airport.

1973 Parcel bomb attack on Israeli embassy.

1973 Arab states launch war on Israeli forces.*

1973 Egypt and Israel sign historic ceasefire.

1973 Israel’s founding father died.

1974 Violent border clashes at Golan Heights.

1974 Teenagers die in Israeli school attack.

1974 Dozens die as Israel retaliates for Ma’alot.

1976 Israelis rescue Entebbe hostages.

1977 Egyptian leader’s Israel trip makes history.

1978 Sadat in US for Mid-East talks.

1978 Israel invades Southern Lebanon.

1978 Israel troops leave Southern Lebanon.

1978 Two dead after El Al crew ambushed.

1978 Arab-Israeli breakthrough in US.

1979 Israel and Egypt shake hands on peace deal.

1980s:

1981 Israel bombs Baghdad nuclear reactor.

1981 Egypt’s President Sadat assassinated.

1982 Israeli ambassador shot in London.

1982 Israel invades Lebanon.

1982 PLO leader forced from Beirut.

1982 Refugees massacred in Beirut camps.

1983 Sharon quits after massacre enquiry.

1983 39 troops killed in Lebanon car bomb.

1985 Israel ends major Ethiopian rescue mission.

1985 Gunmen hijack Italian cruise liner.

1985 Gunmen kill 16 at two European airports.

1986 Nuclear technician missing after secrets leak.

1987 Palestinian intifada begins.

1988 Dead heat in Israel elections.

1988 Arafat recognises State of Israel.

1989 Six killed in West Bank village raid. #

1990s:

1991 Bush opens historic Mid-East peace conference.

1993 Israel launches major attack on Southern Lebanon.

1993 Israeli Court sets Demjanjuk free.

1993 Rabin and Arafat shake on peace deal.

1993 Israel and the PLO agree to recognise each other.

1994 Jewish settler kills 30 at holy site.

1994 Yasser Arafat ends 27 year exile.

1994 Israel’s London embassy bombed.

1994 Israelis and Arafat share peace prize.

1994 Israel and Jordan make peace.

1995 Palestinian self rule in West Bank agreed.

1995 Israeli PM shot dead.

1995 Shimon Peres appointed Prime Minister.

1995 Nablus handed to Palestinian Authority.

1995 Israeli troops withdraw from Bethlehem.

1996 Suicide bomber kills 19 on a Jerusalem bus.

1996 Palestinian suicide bombing in Tel Aviv kills 12.*

1996 Israel bombs Hezbollah bases in Lebanon.

1996 Clashes at Al-Aqsa shrine in Jerusalem.

1997 Israel gives Hebron to Palestinian Authority.

1997 Suicide bomb kills four in Tel Aviv café.

1997 Suicide bombings put peace visit in doubt.

1998 Further self-rule promised in Wye Memorandum.

1999 Revised Wye Accord aims to revive peace process.

2000s:

2000 Deadlock in Israeli-Palestinian talks.

2000 Israeli cabinet votes to leave Lebanon.

2000 Hezbollah makes gains in Lebanon.

2000 Hezbollah celebrates Israeli retreat.

2000 “Provocative” mosque visit sparks riots.

2000 Shocking images of boy shot in Gaza.

2000 Sharm El-Sheikh peace talks collapse.

2000 Ceasefire in Israel collapses as fighting erupts.

2001 Ariel Sharon elected Israeli prime minister.

2001 Israel sends F-16 fighter planes to Gaza.

2001 Islamic Jihad bombs Tel Aviv disco.*

2001 Hamas bomb kills 15 in Jerusalem.*

2001 Israel kills PFLP leader Abu Ali Mustafa.

2001 PFLP assassinates Israeli tourism minister.*

2002 30 Palestinians killed in major offensive. #

2002 Suicide bomber kills 19 in Netanya hotel.

2002 Fifth suicide bomb in one month kills 14.

2002 Israeli troops besiege Arafat HQ.

2002 Israeli seige of Bethlehem begins.

2002 US calls on Israel to leave West Bank.

2002 Israeli soldiers die in Jenin ambush.

2002 Fierce fighting in Jenin and Nablus.

2002 Horror at pictures of Jenin in ruins.

2002 Powel peace mission ends in failure.

2002 Israel loosens grip on Jenin.

2002 Bethlehem siege ends – militants deported.

2002 Israelis begin building security wall.

2002 Suicide bomber kills 19 on Jerusalem bus.

2002 Israel kills Hamas leader Salah Shehada.

2003 Suicide bombers kill scores in Tel Aviv.

2003 Mahmoud Abbas to become first Palestinian PM.

2003 EU, UN, Russia and US launch Peace Roadmap.

2003 Israel tries to kill Hamas lead al-Rantissi.

2003 16 dead in Jerusalem suicide bus bomb.

2003 Abbas resigns after clash with Arafat.

2003 Geneva accords rejected.

2004 Sharon plans removal of settlements in Gaza.

2004 Israel kills Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

2004 New Hamas leader al-Rantissi killed. #

2004 Tourists killed in Egyptian resort bombings.

2004 Veteran leader Yasser Arafat is dead.

2005 Abbas triumphs in Palestinian elections.

2005 Israel completes Gaza settler evictions.

ADDED LATER: Here are some more. In the comments, Lee Moore writes: “I noticed this same headline tendency before, and this is a good example – a BBC page summarising Israel v Palestinians headlines in 2002.

Link to BBC story

There are twelve stories about Israelis committing violent acts and they are named eight times in the headlines for those stories. There are fourteen stories about Palestinians committing violent acts and they are named in the headlines for those stories….not once.”

BBC Eye is a Beebwatching blog by “Cerdic”, who started the Beebwatch blog before blogs existed. His post for today says:

Five Live Drivel continues to not surprise. In awaiting Charles Kennedy’s statement (no, not ‘mine’s a pint), they said that the Shadow Cabinet was split over his possible departure. Since the Shadow Cabinet is currently Conservative (I know the BBC hopes the LibDums will become the official opposition, but really), I suspect they’re fervently hoping Good Time Charlie stays put. The LibDem Frontbench are another matter entirely. But then, facts and the BBC…..