Does the Media Aid Israel? Does Amnesty Aid Humanity? Does the BBC Aid Amnesty?
To comply with its charter the BBC needs to convince the world that its coverage of the Middle East is impartial, but you need only glance at certain BBC employees to spot a commonality that belies any such claim. Former BBC Middle East correspondent Alan Hart is a conspiracy nut whose anti-Israel fanaticism crosses the line between rationality and hyper mania. He flimsily camouflages this by producing a faux BBC chat show called ‘Hart of the Matter,’ with a rogues gallery of career anti Zionists as guests. He parted company with the BBC a while ago, but there’s also Tim Llewellyn who worked for the BBC for ten years and knows all about propaganda. At the 2004 book launch of ‘Bad news From Israel’, Mr Llewellyn exposed the tricks used by the cunning Israelis to dupe the BBC into promoting the case for Israel.
“The Israelis appear in studios wearing suits. They’ve learned all sorts of tricks. They are wizards at communication; [….]He added that the tone of complaints against those giving the Palestinian viewpoint was “vituperative, pestering and controlling.”
‘Bad News From Israel’ is a rich source of material from which BBC spokespersons tediously produce morsels to attest to the BBC’s impartiality. (the antidote is Stephanie Gutmann’s The Other War)
Author Greg Philo and his colleague Llewellyn use the technique, much cherished by Arabs, of attributing your own most malevolent inner thoughts, suspicions and shortcomings to your enemy.
To employ one anti-Israel polemicist as Middle East correspondent seems careless; two appears more than mere coincidence. Yet more still …… looks positively purposeful.
When the Arab uprisings began to make the headlines, one of the experts on the BBC’s speed dial was kindly grandfather Kamal Helbawy, spokesman for the Islamist group Jeremy Bowen calls moderate, the Muslim Brotherhood. Moderate in comparison to something in his own head no doubt. Meanwhile, Bowen, himself a man with attitude, has temporarily forsaken his Palestinian pals to support Gaddafi, and Jon Donnison is following in Alan “I’m telling your story” Johnston’s well trodden footsteps, like a kidnap waiting to happen. So Is Wyre Davies. Yasmin Alabhai Brown is on the BBC so often that she acts as if she owns the place. She and Mehdi Hasan are incessantly called upon to review the newspapers. Why?
Abdel Bari Atwan’s eyes bulge constantly from our screens. Thought for the Day regular Oliver McTernan runs Forward Thinking.
“Have a look through Harry’s Place archives and you’ll understand very quickly that this is merely a euphemism for “we support Hamas”.
I could go on, but I won’t.
Tim Llewellyn is consumed by his hatred of Israel. He’s beside himself, a man possessed. He and Mr Philo are continually beavering away alongside other Israel-haters, spreading the word. Amnesty International has unequivocally aligned itself with the Islamists. In the UK the BBC, the rest of the MSM, and probably the global social media network have convinced the majority of the idiocracy that taking an anti Israel stance is cool.
Occasionally the BBC administers Douglas Murray and Melanie Phillips to take the bitter taste away, but that’s just a drop in the bucket of balance. Next time a human rights report from Amnesty headlines a BBC news bulletin, remember the BBC’s charter.
Because of the BBC, Zionism is a pejorative, and the very word Israel has come to embody evil. Heedless that they’re recreating 1930s Germany, the BBC carries on regardless.