Author Archives: Sue

Breaking News. Sshhh.

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Just Journalism accuses the BBC of downplaying Hezbollah’s history of violence. They cite two pointedly non committal BBC articles about Hezbollah, save the brief, hastily written afterthoughts.
‘The US and Israel view Hezbollah as a terrorist group.’ and: ‘Hezbollah’s military wing is proscribed in the UK as a terrorist organisation’

In case BBC viewers don’t know, Hezbollah is a genocidal Iran-backed Islamist terrorist organisation hell-bent on finishing off Israel for starters, and the rest of the western world for mains.
The ideology of Hezbollah has been summarised as Shi’i radicalism. Why the BBC wishes to play down such a threatening, terrible thing we can’t be sure, but the matter of intimidation looms in the background menacingly.

A B-BBC reader alerted me to this JPost article about recently declassified information concerning Hezbollah’s alarming rearmament campaign in south Lebanon.

The comments below the article unanimously feel that, in the eyes of the world, Israel is presumed guilty even before any event occurs, let alone a trial or a Goldstone-style report.

Echoing the successful strategy used by Hamas in Gaza, preparations in Lebanon, for the media war at least, take shape.

“Hizbullah has embedded its weapon caches, bunkers, command-and-control centers and missile stockpiles – and stationed its armed personnel – in and alongside hospitals, mosques, schools and homes.”

“Hizbullah and Hamas terrorists place themselves and their weapons in the heart of populated residential areas and launch rocket fire from there against Israel’s civilian population. When Israel is forced to come to the defense of its citizens, noncombatants on the enemy side, cynically placed in the line of fire by Hamas and Hizbullah, are unfortunately killed.”

The BBC knows that something of this sort is happening. Here’s an article from last April, painstakingly non judgmental and liberally sprinkled with quote marks, but it states that Hezbollah is arming with “improved” missiles, with Syrian and Iranian backing.

If the MSM plays this down, it paves the way for a repeat of the condemnation and outrage that cascaded down upon Israel from the BBC and media worldwide during Op. Cast Lead.
If, on the other hand, the BBC were to bring these latest developments to the attention of its audience, the situation would have to be looked at from a Western perspective by the British Broadcasting Corporation this time round.

“With the UN dominated by states that are both hypercritical of Israel and unwilling or unable to make moral distinctions between democracies and dictatorships, it is highly unlikely that any significant public acknowledgement of Hizbullah’s moral abuses will be forthcoming.”

“But the IDF is right to make the effort. Indeed, it needs to broaden its outreach, and ensure that this information is made available as widely as possible – to the media, no matter how unenthusiastic the reception, and in smaller briefings for key politicians and officials.”

If you’re waiting for it to make headlines on the BBC, don’t hold your breath.
The BBC is more interested in stories that cast Israel in the usual, questionable light; such as “Israel admits Gaza flotilla raid ‘mistakes’ “ and another boatload of humanitarian aid that Israel won’t allow to dock in Gaza. From Gaddafi, with love.

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Paddy Goes Peacemaking

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For some unknown reason Paddy O’Connell of Radio 4’s B.H. went to Jerusalem and spoke to Saeb Erekat and Gilliad Sher, the chief negotiators ten years ago, at Bill Clinton’s Camp David summit.

Erekat was in negotiating mode: “if I can’t offer the Palestinians the removal of Jewish settlements, Hamas will win” he declared, a tactic which requires Hamas to play bad cop to the PLO’s good cop, adding “I’m being honest” (thus implanting the opposite notion into this listener’s head.)
80,000 – 130,000 Jewish settlers will eventually have to be uprooted said Sher.

The issue of Jewish settlements is the only obstacle to peace that is ever mentioned on the BBC. Nobody brings up the Palestinians’ refusal to recognise Israel or renounce violence. If settlements are *Israel’s* obstacle to peace, the Palestinians’ obstacle to peace is that they don’t even want peace.

Jewish settlements in ‘Palestinian designated areas’ are universally considered an outrage and provocation while a considerable number of Arabs are citizens of Israel, not to mention the fact that entire Arab countries reject any Jewish presence whatsoever, an anomaly that is almost universally accepted without the raising of half an eyebrow.

Jews have evicted fellow Jews and have stated that they’re prepared to do so again for peace, whereas there’s little indication that Palestinians are prepared to accept Israel’s existence or cease attacking Israelis.
Jews have coexistence as their goal. Many Arabs have the elimination of Israel as theirs.

Just let’s have the BBC discuss that situation realistically for a change.
Another gripe I have with such reports is the continual subliminal imagery they carry. This might seem trivial, but if you know how advertising works you’ll admit it’s not.

At the beginning of the item Paddy paints a sound picture. Up close and personal, a Palestinian market trader, stereotypical variety, speaks sadly of his dwindling hopes for peace, for him and his little son, five years old. (aaahhh) The ceramic tiles he sells are decorated with multiculturally religious symbols, denoting that he’s the good guy.
The Israeli counterpart, on the other hand, is an awkward looking bar mitzvah boy, distant and impersonal, not very aaahhh, and not very sympathetic. A mention of CCTV cameras in the background is thrown in for good measure.

See what they do here? They make Palestinians appear sympathetic, hard-done-by and tolerant, and Jews distant, aloof and surveillant. This happens too often for it to be accidental.

I’m paranoid, you’ll say. But just because I am, it doesn’t mean they aint out to get me.

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Good Blog Bad Blog

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Things might be looking up. On last night’s R4 World Tonight there was a discussion about the Camel Corps bloggers . The inappropriate sentiment blogged by two important Middle East diplomats and representatives of Her Majesty’s Government; namely UK ambassador to Lebanon Frances Guy’s fond farewell to the late suicide bomb enthusiast and ‘moderate Hezbollah spiritual leader’ Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, and the Arabist /anti Israel views of James Watt, Britain’s ambassador to Jordan, expressed in no uncertain terms on his FCO blog.

The discussion was preceded by the BBC’s Jim Muir who painted a defensive word portrait of Sheikh Fadlallah, which Stephen Pollard rightly described as nonsense. He and Rosemary Hollis of City University chatted to Robin Lustig about whether it was okay for ambassadors and diplomats to publish “paeans of praise for Ayatollahs” or “screeds of anti Israel ranting” on their blogs.
Stephen Pollard said not, while Rosemary said Frances Guy’s admiration for the Ayatollah was tactical and should be taken in the context of diplomacy and foreign office policy, and reminded us that Islam is off limits in terms of “what can be said.”

In March 2009 a programme was broadcast in the Documents series on Radio 4 concerning the BBC’s partisan conduct during the Iranian revolution. In the 1970s accusations of BBC bias abounded. It was thought that the BBC was creating, rather than reporting the news, and had actively encouraged regime change. It had put out a misleading interview with Ayatollah Khomeini, which hid his malevolence and appeared to back him against the Shah.
The conclusion, that there was ‘no evidence of bias’, belied the contents of the programme. But it was being broadcast on the BBC, and it screamed Mandy Rice Davis.

An article that was more interesting still was by Stephen Ward in the Indy of all places, published in 1993. this was about another programme in the Document series, unfortunately no longer available to listen to. The link comes from a comment in Mel’s blog.
“Why the BBC ignored the Holocaust: Anti-Semitism in the top ranks of broadcasting and Foreign Office staff led to the news being suppressed. “
Not only was antisemitism rife in the Foreign Office and the BBC during WW2, there was a widespread belief that this view was shared by the general population of the UK. News of atrocities was disregarded because it came from Jewish sources, and for that reason, echoes of Richard Ingrams, “tended not to be believed.” It’s rather fascinating and shows that this problem is long standing and deep seated.

All these programmes were actually on the BBC as well as being about the BBC. Perhaps the BBC cannot be biased after all, since such openness could be regarded as evidence of self examination and self awareness. But as the first was weighted in favour of Fadlallah, the second came to an unconvincing conclusion, and the third, well, we can’t hear it any longer. So. As you were.

In days gone by there was no internet and the BBC ruled O.K., so although the familiar gathering storms resonate, while there’s blogs, there’s hope.

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Hard Talk

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Insomnia prompted me to watch HardTalk at about 4:30am. Stephen Sackur was TalkingHARD to Nasser Judeh, Jordan’s foreign Minister. The whole point of Hard Talk, Mr. Judeh pointed out helpfully, is that the talk is hard. Fair enough.
If Sackur was interviewing a lettuce he’d have to press home forcefully the argument from the slug’s perspective. If God Almighty was in the opposite chair, Sackur would be obliged to be devil’s advocate. Or, if he was interviewing himself, he’d have to demand, from himself, some answers to the excellent points made by B-BBC.

One can only hope that this was the idea behind his questioning of Jordan’s foreign minister.

He accused Jordan of not being tough enough on Israel, not being sufficiently condemnatory of Israel’s behaviour during the flotilla incident, and asked why Jordan wouldn’t do the right thing and talk to Hamas, and why it wasn’t sending more aid to Gaza. He criticised Jordan for not being friendlier towards its own Islamist political parties. Sackur was trying to get the guy to admit, as though it was something to be ashamed of, that Jordan might want to stop radical Islamists securing a bigger grip on the country than they already have.

I mean. Give hm a grilling by all means. But give him OUR grilling, not Osama Bin Laden’s.
Episode not available on the website.

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The Going Rate

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Panorama, what is it for?
The one about teachers being unsackable. Melanie Phillips has written about this state of affairs here.
“Just imagine the outcry ” she says “if incompetent doctors weren’t struck off but were moved to another hospital, thus exposing yet more patients to dangerous treatment.”
Or if paedopriests were shunted away to other child-rich parishes.
Oh wait. Shocking innit.
Seriously, schools might be a shambles, state education may be all over the place, the teaching profession is probably in meltdown, but Panorama certainly didn’t add anything constructive to the mix.

The number of people who declined to be interviewed outnumbered those who agreed. Panorama pressed ahead regardless, making do with the oddbods they were left with.

The presenter styles herself on the appearance, but not the intellect, of Vanessa Feltz. The camera lingered on her expression while she cocked her head from side to side attentively whilst yet another shocking revelation was revalated.

Chris Woodhead suffers from motor neurone disease and is now in wheelchair. Pity he couldn’t have given Samantha wassaname and Jeremy Vine the day off and produced and presented the whole programme himself.

Now to Today. Charles Moore has decided, now that Jonathan Ross has gone, to pay his licence fee. “In the old days,” someone said, “icons like Sir Robin Day were paid a pittance, and they didn’t complain.” “They didn’t have all the competition from ITV then” said someone else. “It’s the talent. If you want talent, you have to pay the going rate.” It seems that the BBC does pay some of its employees rather handsomely. But where oh where is the talent?

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Bloated And Biased

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In last week’s Telegraph Neil Midgley wrote a piece headed ‘BBC’s £12,000 for lawyers to help keep pay secret.’

The BBC Trust used Baker and McKenzie, an international law firm, to stop the National Audit Office disclosing figures that would allow ‘those in the know’ to make an approximate calculation of individual BBC staff’s paypackets. We’re going to know this soon anyway aren’t we?

I wonder how much more of the licence fee the BBC spends on suppressing things in addition to the hundreds of thousands forked out so far to bury the Balen report?

Another article by Neil Midgley in the Telegraph online concerns Jeremy Hunt and Sir Michael Lyons of the BBC Trust.

Before he became culture secretary and had the power to do so, Jeremy Hunt wanted to abolish the BBC Trust. Now that he has, he’s gone all soft and settled for changing the name a bit, from “The BBC Trust,” to the “Licence Fee Payers’ Trust”. He hopes that, and inserting a non-executive chairman onto Mark Thompson’s executive board, should be enough to address the troubles at the BBC.
Nobody has explained what specific changes Jeremy Hunt is after, apart from that the BBC Trust, or the Licence Fee Payers’ Trust, should be seen to be at arms length from the BBC.

However, as Sir Michael Lyons has secured a promise that the members of the new Licence Fee Payers’ Trust will still be the same old ex BBC members of the BBC Trust, the only way much change is going to happen is when, next year, Sir Michael’s term of Office comes up for renewal, and whether Jeremy Hunt replaces him with someone with very much longer arms.

It looks as though we’ll end up with the same ex BBC staff virtually investigating themselves, and at best giving themselves a token slap on the wrist once in a while.
Everyone agrees that the BBC is bloated, and needs to shrink. But it’s the bias, I’m afraid, that needs to be recognised and sorted out.

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Boothing the Ratings

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We may not like it, but we have to accept that the BBC regularly employs controversial characters, the flakier the better, to boost the ratings.
The risk they’ll say or do something outrageous live on air adds a certain frisson. Will Self and Tracey Emin are popular for that, and Frankie Boyle. So is George Galloway. A number of viewers surely tune in to Question Time when he’s on the panel hoping for some excitement. Think how disappointed we all are when Gorgeous temporarily impersonates mister sensible, surreptitiously reverting back to bonkers as the final credits roll.

One person who gets to be on the BBC a lot is Lauren Booth. Being Tony Blair’s bête noire is probably one reason, and sharing the Scouse Git as a parent with half sister Cherie is another.
These credentials have procured for her many an opportunity to be mad as a hatter on air. She’s been on Question Time, Women’s Hour and Today, where she is inexplicably referred to as a journalist.

She has done some notable things in her own right. One of them is inciting people to attack Israel, another is training her children to perform Palestinian propaganda in rap form and uploading the embarrassing production onto YouTube, and the most notable of all is the ruthless exploitation of her family in a series of second rate misery memoir revelations in the Daily Mail.

My terrible childhood; My mother doesn’t like me; I had a row with my husband and now he’s in a coma; I dumped my husband on Facebook; My husband is an alcoholic; and the latest: My French dream is over.

She is also known for being photographed with Ismail Haniyeh, shopping in Gaza, and addressing rallies against Jews.

Don’t forget, we pay.

Now for something completely similar. Moving on from attention-seeking bigots we see too much of on the BBC, to an article expressing the kind of sanity we see far too little of, or not at all, on our state broadcaster.

“A Hamas that cares not to fill the bellies of those starving in Gaza is also the same agency spending millions of dollars on televised indoctrination designed to manipulate young, plastic minds. See for yourself: go to Palestinian Media Watch. Children, in the prime ages of 5-7 are critically vulnerable to developing attachment figure-like relationships to God. At precisely these ages, they are bombarded with “Hamas Box Office” productions: aspirational propaganda extolling the virtues of suicide bombing as vengeance. Through his work at Palestinian Media Watch, Itamar Marcus has revealed just how institutionalized terror has become in the territories. Work by Dr. Pehr Granqvist and colleagues at the University of Stockholm in Sweden has shown it is precisely at this time and stage of child development at which belief systems are most influenced, and concrete immutable beliefs can be established. Useful, therefore to introduce young minds to the concepts of self-destruction which are quickly embedded, and absorbed and nurtured. Who is decrying the morality of this manipulation? Who is the war criminal now?”

From a must-read article by Qanta Ahmed MD
Must-read is addressed to everybody including Ms. Booth and the BBC.
H/T Elder of Ziyon; CiFWatch.

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Anything Goes

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Sabotaging £180,000 worth of equipment and similar crimes are now quite legal. All you have to do when caught is plead that it was all in a good cause.

Oddly enough the two legal precedents that have set this new standard concern two of the BBC’s favourite causes. Warmism and vilifying Israel.

Melanie Phillips, Robin Shepherd and Jonathan Hoffman have written about this staggering development which was brought about by last week’s judgement at Hove Crown Court, where the jury decided to exonerate all the perpetrators of a demonstrably criminal act merely because the judge’s summing-up directed them that that the end justified the means.

Judge George Bathusrt-Norman acquitted all the accused who had used the defence that “direct action was the only option left”. Never mind the law; now it seems anything goes, with the proviso that the crime involves destroying stuff believed to be aiding and abetting Israel, or causing man-made global warming.

Melanie Phillips reminds us that:
“In September 2008, a jury decided that it was ok to break the law and cause more than £35,000 criminal damage to a coal-fired power station because of the threat of man-made global warming.”

So, by coincidence, two of the BBC ‘s furious campaigns have affected our rational thinking so much that the rule of law can be thrown to the wind. Whole juries and judges have become inflamed with righteousness and indignation till they feel morally obliged to hit out, circumvent the law and chuck the democratic process over the side.

This verdict sanctions any activism as long as it’s in accord with the Judge’s fancy; it opens the floodgates for demos and violent protests.
Why wait for votes on BDS. Just traipse into your local supermarket and stamp on anything you think comes from Israel. Go ahead. The judge will probably think your heart is in the right place.

Notorious “Israel basher and ignoramus” Tony Greenstein was delighted at the verdict, but even he was worried that “Judge George Bathurst-Norman’s summing up was so favourable that some supporters were worried that the jury might react to what they perceived as an attempt to bounce them into a not guilty verdict.”

He continues: “We need not have worried!” adding a revealing comment that hands the judge’s critics a small gift: “Perhaps the fact that His Honour was born in the Arab town of Jaffa opposite Tel Aviv might have something to do with it!”

Another mystery surrounds this judge:
“Judge George Bathurst-Norman was brought out of retirement to hear the case.”
“Why?” one might ask, and “By whom?”

The BBC, obviously sympathetic to the cause, gives a platform to the activists.

Many people think several decades of delegitimisation and biased reporting is responsible for bringing this situation about. If you think this accusation is unjustified consider the alacrity with which the jury complied with the judge’s summing up. If the judge has a Palestinian connection that’s one thing, but how do you think he was able to get away with what he said to the jury?

“In his summing up, Judge George Bathurst-Norman suggested to the jury that ‘you may well think that hell on earth would not be an understatement of what the Gazans suffered in that time’. “
You may well think that; or you may well think that the BBC leaves its fingerprints everywhere.

The world has gone mad today,
And good’s bad today,
And black’s white today
And day’s night today…………
Now heaven knows.
Anything Goes.

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They Say We’ll Have Some Fun if …….

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A B-BBC reader wonders why we’ve missed an important part of the story about Summer Camps in Gaza.

I quipped about Mr. Naughtie’s unproductive chat with Jon Donnison and his cosy tête-à-tête with John Ging on the subject of Hamas torching the UN kids summer camp in Gaza. But I did note later that others had tackled the issue more broadly.

I’m not an investigative journalist. I’m not a journalist at all, but I have got broadband, and I like to find things out. So the aspect that everyone seems to have overlooked, and the thing that was troubling the aforementioned reader is a kind of elephant that should have been in our room.

It’s the indoctrination that goes on in these camps. We all know that Hamas instils hatred in Palestinian children. The BBC knows it. Jane Corbin, who has a soft spot for Hamas, knows it; she even acknowledges it in writing.

Allegedly, this is the primary purpose of Hamas’s summer camps, and must be one of the reasons they want their camps, and their camps only, to be camp of choice for its young recruits to Shaheed. So, to make certain, they eliminate the competition. Good move.

There are many many articles on the internet detailing this brainwashing programme, so the BBC, with its generously remunerated journalists, whose soon to be revealed salaries will undoubtedly reassure us of their worthiness, must be well aware of the situation. Apart from James Naughtie. Oh, and Jon Donnison.

But there’s another thing. It’s a widely held assumption that the UN and the UNWRA schools are genuine summer camps. Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda, Here I am at Camp Granada. Guys are swimming, guys are sailing,…..

But it seems not. It is said that the UNWRA camps are pretty bad too. That would explain John Ging’s contortion-like reluctance to criticise Hamas.

Take me home, Oh Mudda Fadda, Take me home…..

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Loadsamoney

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Sir Michael Lyons thinks the public would be reassured if they were allowed to know roughly how much the BBC pays its stars and executives.
It’s that word everyone’s so fond of: “Transparency. “
Transparency alone is not enough. Knowing the extent of something disturbing is a good start, but it isn’t the answer to the public’s dissatisfaction.

We want reassurance that we’re getting value for money, not just that Graham Norton and Fiona Bruce are raking in vast paypackets “because they’re worth it.”

When Christine Bleakley dithered over her decision to join Adrian Chiles at ITV, her dilemma was presented as a matter of whether to follow the money or preserve her integrity by not being greedy, and staying with the superior BBC for a modest sum. Well, not exactly modest; but what do I know.

Her departure endorsed the market forces argument, which the BBC always uses to defend huge salaries, while their pre emptive sacking of Bleakley made them appear frugal and resolute. It gave them the opportunity to pose as unwilling participants in a bidding war, which was angled to make them appear concerned about spending our money. Maybe they hoped that wouldn’t undermine their their market forces argument; that if you wants talent you pays for it.

Maybe they thought that transparency over pay would allay the public’s disquiet over salaries. But I don’t think it would alleviate the confusion over what actually constitutes talent, and what constitutes greed, and what constitutes quality.

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