Author Archives: Sue

Katya Adler’s report for Newsround Tuesday 13th October. BBC Newsround.

“Heading to school in Gaza, 9 year-old Huda and her brother and sister set off from their temporary home. Their real one was bombed in a war against Israel.”
“Their school came under attack too.”

“Israel says it bombed the school to protect its own soldiers from attack. 42 people were killed including two children. Some of the classrooms were totally destroyed and for months kids couldn’t go to lessons.”

“things look different now [….] the classrooms are freshly painted and the fighting in Gaza has stopped for now.”

“School kids like Mahmood are still angry about what happened to him. He says everything was burned and destroyed; how can we forget the war. It’s our right to live in freedom and safety.”

“Many of the children are still frightened, like Huda.
Many children have nightmares [..] remembering the war.
Living in Gaza is hard and there’s always the threat of more violence.

Coming to school is one of the best ways to have a normal life and escape the conflict.”

Katya ignores the 10,000 Kassams and mortars fired at Israel, that Hamas terrorists hide near and inside schools, the plight of children of Sderot, oh, and she forgets to mention the cause of the war.
The language she uses gives a false picture. It emotes innocent victims of a frightening enemy that deliberately targets children and prevents them from living in freedom and safety. In fact, the impression she gives is the opposite of the truth.

Freedom and safety is the last thing the children will ever have under Hamas, the only party that is guilty of deliberately targeting children and civilians.
Hamas is the cause of all their hardships, suffering, and nightmares. The radical Islam of Hamas is the cause of the war.
Hamas, its immutable charter, its genocidal aspirations towards Israel, they are the stuff of nightmares, for the children of Gaza, and the children of Israel.

Astonishing bias, broadcast to British schoolchildren by your BBC.

One video in exchange for the release of several Palestinian prisoners? The knowledge that Shalit is alive, unlike the two kidnapped soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser whose corpses were exchanged for Palestinian prisoners not so very long ago. How good a deal is that? How proportionate?
A resounding silence from the usual bunch who screech ‘disproportionate’ every time the numbers don’t tally. A bit quiet now though aren’t they.

It’s good news to see that Gilad Shalit looks okay on the video.

Even the female anchor on BBC news 24 managed to appear fairly glad. She was quick to point out however, that it wasn’t poor Gilad’s fault he was in the beastly Israeli army. He, and all young Israelis are forced to join. So it was okay to suspend our dislike of Israeli soldiers in this one case. Momentarily.

His relative was even given air time to explain that Israel is surrounded by enemies, and that people in the UK who have had a taste of terrorism courtesy of the IRA shouldn’t forget what it’s like as they sit comfortably at home casting dispersions on Israel, and furthermore Hamas is a terrorist organisation.

That told ‘em.

Will the BBC put the brakes on the incremental nudging, step by step, of the acceptable limit of on-air condemnation of Israel before the momentum takes us over the top and tumbling down the other side to hell in a handcart?

The boundaries are being pushed further and further towards outright antisemitic hostility, in casual and formal BBC output.
This consensus-creep defies logic and reason. It deliberately airbrushes out most of the terrifying characteristics of our mutual ideological enemy and constantly allows biased narrative to remain unchallenged.

John Simpson thinks ‘Obama hasn’t put enough pressure on Israel, and “on the other hand” hasn’t offered the Palestinians enough.’
BBC world service features a group of bereaved parents from both sides working together for peace. A good news story? No, an anti Israel one. An Israeli daughter, murdered by a suicide bomber, a Palestinian daughter shot by an Israeli soldier. Leading questions by the interviewer have the Israeli allege they are ‘brainwashed into hating Palestinians,’ and that, for his peacemaking efforts, other Israelis regard him as a traitor. The Palestinian father says that Israeli soldiers shoot Palestinians with impunity, and that Jews never punish their own. Both interviewees express resentment against Israel. Economical with the actuality? Inversion of the actuality.

“Israel’s refusal to stop building in the Jewish settlements – all of which are illegal under international law – despite repeated American requests, means that the Palestinians will not renew negotiations.” opines Jeremy Bowen.

Israelis are required to live side by side with a Palestinian state, while the Palestinians still refuse to even recognise the Jewish state, let alone renounce violence. Such obligations have simply been airbrushed out of the equation and now the settlements are deemed the only obstacle to peace.

So the BBC disapproves of brainwashing, yet embraces Islam. It disapproves of harming civilians, yet calls terrorists and suicide bombers freedom fighters or militants, and describes their atrocities as audacious. The BBC admires peacemaking, yet ignores Koranic-based antisemitism and hatred.

Netanyahu’s admirable speech to the UN General Assembly was ignored by the BBC and the British walkout during Ahmadinejad’s was disguised as something else. So. Criticism of Israel ratchets up till all-out condemnation of Israel becomes overt antisemitism which bit by bit loses its stigma.

There’s a lively discussion going on at Harry’s Place right now about the BBC. It’s taken as read that the BBC is institutionally biased against Israel, but there is disagreement over whether it is due to ignorance, laziness, a conspiracy or a multi faceted combi of all three and more.

They do know about the subject, and don’t just ‘think they do’ from listening to the BBC.

Jeremy Bowen has written another article summarising the conflict in the middle east in which he refers authoritatively to the fundamental differences between the two sides.

With signs of strain palpably peeping through the prose, he fulfills his obligation to present Israel’s case, as all impartial journalists must. To set the scene, he describes some tacky, militaristic fripperies tourists can purchase at Tel Aviv airport. Inflatable helium balloons shaped like helicopter gunships and decorated with missiles, and suchlike.

For pathos, he mentions the tragedy of the son of a celebrated dead Israeli hero who was killed recently in an air-training accident. He recounts some poignant observations from the funeral. A continuous thread; father and son laid to rest, early Zionist pioneers, “farmers with guns.” Thus, the case for Israel is concluded. But not quite. Suddenly, in a line all on its own there comes a startling insight.

“Many Israelis feel as if they are surrounded by enemies.”

No. Really? So that explains the military style toys! Many Israelis feel, because of “historical vibrations,” that the Arabs are unremittingly hostile. Is this an illusion? Or just some bad hysterical vibes. Jeremy Bowen says that worries over Iran push into perspective the Palestinian problem, which boils down to a squabble over a bit of stolen land.

Any fule kno – cos the telly tells us so – that The Jews Stole The Palestinians’ Land. Now Jeremy informs us, by way of innocently relaying ‘Palestinian beliefs,’ that what the Israelis are after is “Not just the soil and rock, but the water underneath it too.” So give it back immediately you damned Joos, so there can be peace.

There is one fundamental thing missing in Bowen’s analysis of the fundamental differences between the two sides.
Islamic Fundamentalism.

This curious blind spot is due to moral equivalence. It involves projecting our own pacifist and altruistic ideals onto others and ‘denying that a moral hierarchy can be assessed.’

Those who proudly adorn themselves with the Kaffeyeh and proclaim their solidarity with the Palestinians have had to confer upon them a sentimental chocolate-box fiction of wronged and suffering passivity. How else could they justify siding with a people whose faith embraces values diametrically opposed to their own liberal ones? And anyone who says so is a racist Islamophobe.

Forget Bowen’s wrong-headed interpretation, compare it with this eloquent analysis. Don’t ask the Jews to offer the Palestinians a bunch of helium love-hearts, or urge them to give ‘their land’ back; rock, soil and Israel.

It is said that the UN investigation was set up on the premise Israel was guilty. Melanie Phillips calls it a show trial. Mark Regev says it was a kangaroo court. Members of the commission had already publicly declared their positions before the event.

The record of Human Rights Watch and their employee Nazi memorabilia collector Marc Garlasco illustrate the dangers of treating such organisations and figures as infallible or beyond reproach, which the BBC tends to do.

Both BBC articles mention that criticisms of Hamas were also made, but the captions and images lead the reader to conclude that the war crimes were all Israel’s.

Judge Goldstone requires the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority to set up more investigations, but on Channel 4 news he has just accused Israel of bias in theirs.

So if neither side can rely on the impartiality of the other, where does that leave us?

“HonestReporting will be releasing responses to the Goldstone Report within the next 24 hours. Stay tuned and be prepared to react to what will undoubtedly be a major story in your media.”

We are unlikely to hear much in Israel’s defence from the BBC, of that we can be sure.