Author Archives: Sue

Uturn

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James Delingpole’s Telegraph article about Fidel Castro’s unexpected about-turn set me thinking.

The magnitude of recent events – Hezbollah’s ominous 15,000 rockets, Jeremy Bowen’s cosy chat with Gideon Levy, the rape/race case that was rape not race, the Al Quds march, various portentous happenings that BBC viewers were spared from troubling themselves with, some annoying personal things – dodgy internet connection, insomnia, work-related stress, hiccoughs, a huge bluebottle flying near me in the kitchen and a sneezing attack – have amalgamated to form an insurmountable obstacle to a piece.

So instead, I’m going to fantasize that the ludicrous juxtaposition of angry (what else) Muslims burning the US flag because a preacher might burn some Korans, will bring the Beeb to its senses.

Will he, won’t he? Who cares? The Muslims don’t, for one. All they need to set them off is the thought. Muslims know a lot about burning things, books, flags, effigies. Are they claiming sole prerogative on burnings? The irony couldn’t be more in yer face, yet apparently some can’t see it. Surely they’re pretending? Angelina Jolie said she was speechless, but oh no she isn’t. Hillary Clinton and William Hague are appalled.

How long can the BBC keep on keeping a straight face? Auntie will have to cave in. “Uturn if u wnt 2, “ she’ll text “ “now the ladyz 4 trning 2.”
Then we can all go home and live happily ever after. Atishoo pass the fly swatter.

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BBC V Israel

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First of all we had the headlines about Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s pledge to kill more Israelis, but they used the phrase “Israeli targets” which subtly lends legitimacy to their murderous intentions.
Of course the real threat is to Israeli civilians, but the BBC would rather we didn’t realise this.

Then they announced that right-wing Israelis were angry with the prime minister for stating that Mahmoud Abbas was a partner for peace.

Was that by way of some sort of crazy counterbalance? Pitting proposed genocide against a run of the mill thumbs down?

The next bulletin promoted the angry Israeli story to the top spot; death threats relegated to second place. I said this somewhere else. They’re spending some of the anti-Israel venom saved up and banked from the even-handed Panorama.

Jeremy Bowen was still on about the grafted on nonsense. He thinks the conflict is over land, or stolen land, “occupied land, Palestinian land, holy land” as yesterday’s Hamas expert Beverley Milton-Edwards would have us believe.

They have managed to filter out the fundamentally antisemitic nature of the religion of peace which has been driving the Islamic resistance to Israel’s existence since before it existed.
Jeremy Bowen thinks it’s something that’s only just been “grafted on”.

They guy they interviewed this morning, he was from the electronic intefada. Sarah Montague said so in her introduction. What she didn’t say was what the electronic intefada is. It’s an intefada. Uprising. (against the existence of Israel)
Some people may not realise that. Others may know what it is, but think it’s a perfectly respectable outfit, seeing that the BBC turns to it for advice.
So it’s official. It’s not only the Israel/Palestine conflict but also the Israel/BBC conflict.

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Israel/BBC Conflict

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There seems to be consensus at the BBC that the peace talks will fail solely because of obstacles put up by a Mr Net’n’Yahoo. Something to do with the interweb?
As ever, the obstacles they constantly posit are: Settlements, 1967 borders and Jerusalem. Oh yes, and the right of return. Oh yes, and the necessity of talking to Hamas which Israel regards as a terrorist organisation. Oh yes, and the newly conceived theory that Israel’s existence endangers the lives of the US military.

All obligations on the part of the Palestinians that were formerly included in the roadmap have been airbrushed out like the model’s arse in a photoshoot.

So notwithstanding the inconvenient fact that they have been indoctrinated from the cradle to the grave with a murderous antipathy towards Jews, the Palestinians will submit obediently, with the proviso that Israel has rolled over and acceded to all requisite concessions as demanded by the majority. For example people like Paul Rogers, professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University who was consulted by Jane Little on the Sunday programme R4, for his expertise on peacemaking.

Professor Rogers has come to Peace Studies via climate science and environmentalism and he wears a leather gilet over a sweater for lecturing duties. His analysis of the incorrect way the West deals with terrorism relates to a theory he calls lidism, that is suppressing insurgencies rather than understanding their fundamental causes. That’s a superficial summary on my part, you understand.

Equally superficially, I’d say implementing a strategy informed by his own analysis of the M/E peace process would itself provide a perfect example of lidism, ie ignoring the aforementioned underlying causes of Arab resistance to Israel, and putting a lid on the lot of it by forcing Israel to give in, while not troubling the Palestinians to do some similar fundamental rethinking.

On Friday’s Any Questions programme, Alex Von Tunzelmann, batting for the BBC, kept reiterating that Muslims were not ‘other’ but were just like us. They do indeed arrive just like us in their birthday suits, Ms Von Tunzelperson, but are henceforth hot-housed into a belief system that is anything but just like ours, and wishing it weren’t so is not enough, by a long chalk, to make your wish come true.

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Islamobiquity

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The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign has set about summoning the masses to rise up in anger in the form of an Action Alert about the Panorama programme ‘Death on the Med’.

Revised: ‘Death on the Med’ – taking your complaint to the BBC further
Following feedback from members to our email ‘Death on the Med – The Next Steps’; we encourage you to write back to the BBC and go through the three stages mentioned below. (Ofcom has written to members saying it is unable to hold the BBC accountable on issues of ‘accuracy and impartiality’).

With admirable efficiency they have compiled a step-by-step guide about how to complain about the BBC’s complaints procedure which up to now hasn’t been very responsive to their original objections. Deepest sympathy about that.

The PSC appears to be primarily concerned with a multitude of omissions from the programme, so most of the instructions headed ‘points to make during the complaints process’ begin: “no mention of this, no mention of that, and no mention of the other.”

However they provide little or no answers for the points that were made, so we’ll wait and see how steadfast the BBC will be in their resistance to this concerted and efficiently orchestrated lobbying onslaught.
Let’s hope the BBC is as intransigent with their allegations of bias as they invariably are with ours.

As some of us have been haphazardly complaining about the BBC’s 60-year campaign to delegitimise Israel for about 60 years, if the BBC caves in under pressure from the PSC, perhaps we can take a leaf out of their book and learn a thing or two about how to organise ourselves. Or, if they stand firm, even if only for disingenuous evidence of impartiality, we can take comfort from the fact that their charter does at least still oblige them to attempt that.

The irony being that for so long the PSC and its ilk has it all its own way with the media. The first sign of the truth and they respond with mass apoplexy. Funnily enough, we know how they feel.

BBC, if you’re out there, don’t let it get to you!

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Islam-O-Ubiquity

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This week’s Any Questions and its loony appendage Any Answers.

For once the panel consisted of two estimable non-leftists, Douglas Murray and Baroness Ruth Deech, but their rational approach was counteracted by Quilliam founder Maajid whassisname and Alex von-something-to-do-with-Jeremy Paxman. Her PC fanaticism was more than enough to outweigh the others, with plenty left over for a rainy day.

The questions raised concerned Tony Blair’s ‘generosity’, the NY mosque, Lockerbie and Pakistan. The Islam theme interwove the programme, continuing throughout A.A.

Most of the callers thought Douglas Murray and Ruth Deech represented evil personified, but towards the end a courageous caller tentatively put forward the suggestion that the Islam theme permeated the BBC itself! Oohh Nooo!

In an ironically humourous twist of fate obviously engineered by the Jewish Lobby, the trail immediately following the programme was for the upcoming propaganda fest: “British Muslims, Father and Son.”
Laugh? I nearly split my sides.

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Fatah Chance

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Watching the BBC’s blanket coverage of the announcement of forthcoming peace talks between Israel and Fatah, I noticed that requirements for a possible peace deal consisted exclusively of concessions that must be made by Israel.

What has happened to recognising Israel and renouncing violence? Without these, accomplishing any kind of peace seems a very tall order.

At least Mark Regev was given a slot, which is bound to stir up those who see the slightest peep out of him as a sign that the BBC is controlled by the Jewish lobby.

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No Change

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It could be that the tide is turning in the BBC/Israel conflict.
But one swallow doesn’t a summer make or whatever jumbled up sentence means ‘don’t think one tiddly Panorama signifies light at the end of the tunnel’.

If the BBC was really the pro-Israel outfit that the Israel-haters say it is, they’d hardly approach the subject in the way they’ve consistently done to date.
We don’t know whether it’s ignorance or malevolence, but whatever the cause, the result is the same. If there’s a momentary let-up, as we saw with the aforementioned Panorama, the Israel-haters they’ve created are up in arms expressing outrage. The thing they find particularly upsetting is hearing the Israeli perspective.

That’s it. It’s as if there was a court in which the entire case for the defence was ruled inadmissible, and if any of it leaked, the leaksmith would be deemed almost as guilty as the accused.

The small but perfectly formed ways the BBC sticks the boot in are relentless and cumulative, comprising such things as gratuitous reminders of the body count during Cast Lead, or the new improved variation, the death toll of the nine Turkish peace activists. Either way there are too few Israeli casualties for the BBC’s complete satisfaction.

In this report about the armed Palestinian at the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv who was thought to be seeking asylum in Turkey and probably got lumbered with the wrong sort of asylum, the BBC helpfully concluded with this reminder:

“Correspondents say Tuesday’s incident appears to be unrelated to a recent diplomatic dispute between Israel and Turkey.
Ties deteriorated after nine Turks were killed in late May in an Israeli commando raid on a flotilla of aid ships bound for the Gaza Strip.”

Does an incident that involves one Palestinian, suffering from a delusional psychotic episode, combined with a possibly arbitrary connection to Turkey really require such a reminder? Maybe if it was an in-depth analysis, but this wasn’t that.
If the BBC feels it’s essential to attach such reminders to everything relating to Israel, they should equally attach a reminder of the Hamas charter to everything related to Gaza.

What is this headline? Israel ‘to blame’ for child death. Follow the link, and it’s this:

“Israel was responsible for the 2007 death of a 10-year-old Palestinian girl, a court in Jerusalem has ruled.”

So an Israeli court accepted responsibility for the death of a 10 year old girl hit by a rubber bullet, overturning an earlier ruling where there was uncertainty over whether she was hit by a Palestinian protester’s rock. Not exactly ‘Israel to blame for child death’ more ‘Israel accepts responsibility for girl’s death.’ Subtle difference but emotive, and telling.

Last but not least, the BBC article about Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. The BBC is keen to tell us that since 1948 Lebanon has been tolerating their unwanted Palestinians who really belong in Israel, (booo!) and that permission has generously been granted for some of them to actually work, legally, in Lebanon. (Hoorah!)

The BBC is less keen to tell us that many have never been to “Palestine.” They were born in Lebanon, wish to work in Lebanon, and hope to jolly well stay in Lebanon.
Other news organs have quoted Ahmed al- Mehdawi, 45. Why can’t the BBC?
So; one Panorama does not a light at the end of the tunnel make.

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BBC Eases Blockade on Balance

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At the beginning of the year Jane Corbin made an appalling Panorama about Jerusalem called “A Walk in the Park” which was full of malicious innuendo.
However this time she must have done something right, because this one about the Mavi Marmara incident has antagonised Ken O’Keefe and at least one other Israel-hating blogger. They are convinced that the ‘pro Israel BBC is at it again’. You’d laugh, if it wasn’t so sad.

It was gratifying that this Panorama took Israeli testimony seriously at last, bearing in mind that as far as the BBC’s concerned we’ve been conditioned to be grateful for small mercies.
Jane Corbin’s whole programme lacked context, so you knew that despite being presented with an exceptionally generous airing of the Israeli perspective, most viewers would still be thinking uneasily about the ‘’humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the ‘illegal blockade’ and ‘the Israeli attack occurring in International Waters’.

Panorama could have been more forthcoming about the IHH, and about Ken O’Keefe’s dubious record. They could have said something about the reason for the blockade, and about Hamas’s genocidal ambitions.
But I realise that one programme can’t tackle everything, and learning that there was a pre-planned strategy of violent resistance from the activists, and that the ‘aid’ was symbolic rather than useful might have set some people thinking.

The programme would have been livelier if they’d taken a little look at the media’s response, notably the BBC’s instant reflexive condemnation of Israel. In view of all the emerging evidence, a hindsight examination of the rush to pass judgement would have made compelling viewing.

There was very little in the programme that wasn’t already in the public domain, should anyone have taken the trouble to find out, despite Jeremy Vine’s hyperbole about revelations.

Honest Reporting has linked to the Panorama message board. I haven’t looked at it since this morning, when many comments said it was outrageously biased in favour of the evil Zionist entity. They know it’s evil because the BBC has told them so.

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Special Situation

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I’ve been alerted to this BBC story about the arrest of serial killer Elias Abuelazam who was stopped at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport as he tried to board a flight to Israel. What particularly concerned the tipster was that though the BBC must have been keen to tell us what sort of man he was because they headline the article “Israeli man held at airport over US serial stabbings” they haven’t followed through with another detail that would have provided an even more accurate picture. Because this is just not any Israeli man, this is a specially selected, ethnically specific, succulent and delicious, Israeli Arab man.

This species is practically unknown to mankind! Or more specifically, not just any mankind; the mankind that subscribes to the theory that Arabs were ethnically cleansed from Israel in 1948, the run-of-the-mill, ubiquitous, man-on-the-Clapham-omnibus, BBC-listening mankind.

I am a diligent opponent of bias, so I looked at hundreds of other articles on this to see if the BBC was alone in omitting this arguably crucial fact, and I found that it was not.

Most of the US press omitted it too. From my rigourously scientific scrutiny only abcnews and Wikipedia actually said he was an Israeli-Arab, and msnb said his mother’s name was Iyam al-Azzam, a bit of a give-away. Far down in the story Journal News says he comes from Ramla, a “mixed Arab-Israeli working-class district,” which I took to be a small clue.

So is it unfair to expect the BBC to include this teeny detail in its report?
Well, for one thing most of his victims were black, so race, or ethnicity has crept in tangentially.
Also, in the US, Jew- Arab sensitivities might be less heightened than in the UK. In Israel it seems it’s not an issue. Jerusalem Post has:

“The Israeli citizen arrested in Atlanta late Wednesday for allegedly murdering five people and injuring many more has been identified as Elias Abuelazam, 33.
Police believe the attacks were racially motivated.
Abuelazam was arrested while attempting to board a flight from Atlanta to Tel Aviv.”


So, should the BBC have mentioned something that others didn’t, just because of perceived sensitivities surrounding the BBC’s relationship with Israel, bias, impartiality, and truth?

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