Author Archives: Sue

A reader has asked me to draw your attention to something that the BBC is unlikely to explain.

A Qassam rocket has landed perilously close to a nursery school in a Kibbutz in the Hof Ashkelon area north of Gaza Strip, injuring a girl and an adult.

Squabbles amongst the leadership of the BBC’s favourite terrorist organisation have led to a new wave of provocative acts against Israel. I refer to escalating missile, mortar and raiding attacks, and what DEBKAfile calls “murderous kidnapping operations inside Israel”.
That, of course, was the widely reported incident in which an American woman was murdered and her companion was injured. Incidentally, on a previous thread, I commented:
“On BBC News 24, the anchor woman was interviewing the Jerusalem correspondent. (I think it was Jon Donnison) She kept on asking if he would agree that the woman’s injuries were surprisingly trivial under the circumstances. I have no idea what she was getting at. Surely she wasn’t implying that the victim was exaggerating, or hiding something?
A most peculiar line of questioning I thought.”
Having read the report on DEBKAfile, which describes the incident as a botched attempted at a kidnapping, I think I see what she was getting at after all. Of a policy eerily reminiscent of the way our own police play down certain sensitive issues, I quote: “Israeli police officers spoke vaguely about exploring different paths of inquiry and cast implicit aspersions on her testimony.”
Casting implicit aspersions. That’s what the BBC did too, but why? Does Jon Donnison know more than he’s letting on, or what? Where’s Julian Assange when you need him.

According to DEBKAfile, Israelis are acutely aware of, and constrained by, the international outcry – “disproportionate force!” This now affects their response to provocation. At one end of the scale Israeli police play down the severity of incidents. At the other, it was these concerns that led to a policy of deliberately sending their precious soldiers into a war zone on foot rather than striking from the air, something that Col. Kemp pointed out repeatedly after Operation Cast Lead.

From DEBKAfile, another example:

“Monday, Dec. 20, saw not only a 10-mortar barrage from the Gaza Strip, but three Palestinians armed with long knives trying to assault an Israeli soldier at Givat Zeev. They fled when he cocked his sidearm.
The soldier took care not to shoot and injure any of his assailants – and so bring Israeli anti-terrorist authorities a valuable asset for interrogation – because he was afraid of sharing the fate faced by some of his comrades – trial by the military prosecutor and the media for responding with “disproportionate force.”

However, take a look at how the BBC reports this escalation of “tensions”. In an article by Jon Donnison headed “Israeli air strike on Gaza as tensions rise” he concentrates on Israel’s retaliation, and plays down the incidents that provoked it. For example:

“The rockets fired by Palestinian militant groups into Israel rarely cause injury or damage, but they do cause widespread fear.”

The rockets certainly cause widespread fear, but they do cause injury and damage, and I’m sure the militant groups would be delighted if they caused more. They rarely do only because the Israelis have taken the trouble to protect people. The kindergarten is a bomb shelter.

“They are not fired by Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls Gaza, but by smaller militant groups. Nevertheless Israel says Hamas is responsible because it controls the territory.”

“Israel says?” I think most people would say that Hamas does bear responsibility, unless they were trying to defend Hamas. And why “nevertheless?” Is Jon Donnison saying that he doesn’t think Hamas is responsible? By Jove, I think he is!

“The Israeli military says the air strikes were in retaliation for the firing of 13 rockets and mortars at Israel this week.
Israel Radio says the rocket fired by Gaza militants on Tuesday landed near a nursery school. No serious injuries were reported.”

No serious injuries, so that’s okay then.

The article concludes with the return, after a short absence from every single Israel-related BBC web article, of the death toll from Operation Cast Lead, and another statistical comparison of “Palestinian” and Israeli deaths and injuries, courtesy of the UN.

I do realise that the intricacies of power struggles within the Hamas hierarchy are of little interest to the BBC audience, but surely turning the incident upside down in your impartial report is going a bit too far.

It occurred to me that we could have a permanent thread called `Israel-Bashing for the day.’ But it would soon fill up and cause congestion.

You know the one about paranoia? “Just because I’m paranoid, it doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get me” That one. Well it must go down well in Israel, because everyone will be aware that Israelis have good reason to always be on their mettle. They’re in a state of war with some very hostile neighbours don’t you know.

Some people don’t seem able to understand that. They think any signs of suspicion or discrimination against the Arab population in Israel is racist, while similar behaviour the other way round is understandable and legitimate.

On the Sunday Programme this morning an English lady reform rabbi was given a slot to complain about a controversial demand that some of her Israeli counterparts have made recently. Their idea is that Israelis must not rent properties to Arabs. Many Israelis including PM Netanyahu have denounced this idea, but our rabbi still needed to air the view, apparently shared by many diaspora Jews, that such racism reflects badly on themselves. She managed to include comparisons with apartheid, and 1930s Germany, and neither she nor her interviewer mentioned the openly and proudly proclaimed announcement by Arab leaders to the effect that no Jew will ever be allowed to set foot in the new Palestinian state.

There are quite a few ‘AsaJews’ around these days who have the knack of publicising their criticisms and denouncements of Israel, seemingly having swallowed the BBC’s version of the situation hook line and sinker.
One of the things this English lady rabbi was bothered about was that because of Israel her Muslim neighbours might hate her for being a Jew. Lady, many of them would hate you for that no matter what Israel decided to do, and if this is indeed anything like the 1930s, let’s hope you never have good reason to call on Israel, if it still exists, as a safe haven.

I digress. There’s nothing wrong with these views being aired on the radio. I welcome them in fact. But please, let’s have some counterbalance. If the presenters of these programmes don’t know how to do it, and they obviously don’t, they must know a man (or a lady) who can.

That was Israel-Bashing for The Day.

Even those amongst us who staunchly defend the theory that size doesn’t matter would agree that there are limits to the number of immigrants a geographically challenged country such as Great Britain can absorb.
You’d think, therefore, that the chaps and chapesses from the British Broadcasting Corps would be ideally placed to sympathise with the problems facing a country the size of Wales that has been taking in around 700 African refugees per week, and treating them as humanely as it can. But not if that country is Israel.

The story behind this tale is tragic, with many ramifications (human rights abuses, people-trafficking, desperate asylum seekers, rape, murder, immigration, and the Pope) but the aspect that seems to interest the BBC is Israel’s attempt to curb unlimited unsustainable immigration.

I’ve received a message from a viewer who was so distressed by a broadcast aired on BBC World News that he made a transcript to compare it with two articles covering the story. The Guardian’s article by Khataza Gondwe explores the story fully, with the emphasis where it should be. The other, which is on the BBC website, is relatively neutral.

My correspondent says: ”The harrowing story is of sub-Saharan migrants who, fleeing poverty, violence and persecution, make their way north towards Israel […] partly for the economic opportunities but largely because the Arabs at best move them on, at worst shoot them on sight or allow then to be captured by people-traffickers.”

The transcript of the broadcast spotlights the way the tone and emphasis have been shifted in the editing. By leaving certain key phrases and paragraphs on the cutting room floor they alter the balance, throwing Israel’s attempts to ‘keep them out’ into sharp focus while relegating the plight of the victims and the criminality of the perpetrators to second place.

I didn’t see the broadcast myself, but my informant recounts that the ‘redacted passages’ are as follows:

“Even though they had been caught by an Israeli border patrol and were not really sure what to expect next, they said they now felt relatively safe.
That’s because many migrants are fleeing persecution and poverty in their own countries, and even travelling across Egypt and the Sinai is fraught with danger.
Human rights groups accuse Egyptian border guards of shooting indiscriminately at them. Although officials insist they only fire at those who ignore repeated orders to stop, since July 2007, at least 85 people have been shot and killed trying to cross into Israel.
Many are also abused by the networks of trafficking gangs, who charge huge fees to transport them across the desert.”

“Coming here is a dream for me. I love Israel and I want to stay here.”

“It is thought that as many as 700 African migrants are crossing into Israel from Egypt every week.”

In case anyone should think that these passages are dispensable and that they ‘just happened’ to be the ones that got the chop, here’s Kirsty Lang’s introduction which sets the tone, ahead of Wyre Davies’s report:

”Israel has started building a huge wall around its SOUTHERN border … with Egypt. The controversial project which is costing hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars is designed to KEEP OUT thousands of African migrants who try to cross into Israel every year.”

Oh yes, and the title? “The Great Wall…of Israel.” I rest my case.

I know it’s no good getting nostalgic, but in the olden days, when BBC spokespersons such as “John Reith” called in occasionally to remind us of our stupidity, they would cite a survey which concluded that the BBC was indeed biased in its Middle East reporting. In favour of Israel.

Anyway, the other day when ace reporter John Pilger was holding forth to Justin Webb about his new film, aired last night on ITV, it reminded me of those times.
“When we’re embedded,” he bleated, “we distort the news by peddling the government line.” Justin Webb, remembering that his job is to probe, ventured chummily: “You’re a bit of a polemicist yourself, my old matey”.
“I was waiting for that” Pilger countered, chuckling with feigned good humour, and with that unequivocal put-down Justin surrendered.

Anyway, the survey that showed that the BBC was biased towards Israel was something to do with this: “Bad News From Israel”. Here are some eager BBC converts:

“I wasn’t under the impression that Israeli borders had changed or that they had taken land from other people – I thought it was more a Palestinian aggression than it was Israeli aggression.”

But now, thanks to the BBC, I think the opposite of the truth is the truth! Hooray!

“The impression I got (from news) was that the Palestinians had lived around about that area and now they were trying to come back and get some more land for themselves – I didn’t realise they had been driven out of places in wars previously.”

Thank goodness for the BBC!! Thank goodness for misinformed journalists who are keen to pass on all they don’t know. Yippee!

“You always think of the Palestinians as being really aggressive because of the stories you hear on the news. I always think the Israelis are fighting back against the bombings that have been done to them.”

Until now I haven’t hated the Israelis properly. Thank you BBC.

There. Conclusive proof that the BBC is biased in favour of Israel.
The Pilger programme is on ITV iPlayer. One of Pilger’s theories seems to be: if only people knew that war is a nasty business there wouldn’t be any more wars.
Pilger is no peacemaker however. He is full of hate and malice.
The Palestinian section demonstrates why this filmette is so hypocritical. Pilger detests Israel so much that he has overlooked the fact that the thesis underpinning the whole thing doesn’t hold up when applied to what he calls ‘Palestine’. He promises to show that ‘embedding’ influences reporting. Which reporters does he think are embedded with the IDF?

Never mind though, in the exceptional case of Israel, or should I say Palestine, embedding isn’t necessary because mere phone calls from Israeli government propagandists are so terrifying that BBC broadcasters crumple up and obey.

What incenses Pilger more than anything is the hateful propagandist Mark Regev. Even the oddly dull Fran Unsworth wouldn’t swallow that. “He’s a government spokesman.” she replies bravely.
“Where’s the Palestinian equivalent to Mark Regev?” he asks her. She didn’t mention that the Palestinian viewpoint permeates every report that is ever put out on the BBC because she hasn’t noticed that.
Pilger even brings in the incontrovertible Bad News From Israel I mentioned earlier.

“Never believe anything” he says, towards the end. Wise words from Mr. Pilger, which rather encapsulate the elephantine flaw in the whole programme.

I do realise by the way, that this film wasn’t shown on the BBC, so please don’t bother pointing that out.

Which producer had the idea of bringing Rupert Wingfield- Hays’s outrageous report about a five month old story to us today? I thought I was hearing a skit from Caroline Glick’s satirical show Latma.
He even managed to include a donkey in his pathetic report.
Wingfield- Hays resurrected the incident which has been spinned every which way to show either a) the brutality of Israeli
settlersillegalunderinternationallawthoughIsraeldisputesthis, or b) the deliberate and callous exploitation of Palestinian children and a prearranged, orchestrated publicity stunt.
If anyone doesn’t know what happened in Silwan, it’s here.
Rupert set out the incident in the emotive partisan way we’ve learned to expect, then turns to a child for pathos, to Micky Rosenfield for balance, and for the last word, to a spokeswoman from the generation of antiestablishment human rights activists who take for granted their freedom to criticise their country, having forgotten altogether the struggle that their forebears endured, the very thing that enables them to express it.