Category Archives: Ant-Israel

I wrote the following article last week, but events prevented me from finishing it. Now I see that E.O.Z. has written on a similar theme, and has come to similar conclusions. So here’s mine.

I’ve touched previously on the fate of refugees from the Horn of Africa after their perilous journey to Israel. Many of those that survived had been subjected to rape and abuse along the way. Strange that they took the trouble to make for such an evil, brutal, racist country.

The BBC obliquely criticises Israel for putting a limit on the numbers to whom it can provide sanctuary. They utter nary a peep over the reasons they seek refuge, nor a squeek of condemnation of the people-traffikers murderers and rapists who foment their harrowing predicament, because they’re too busy implying that Israel should accept unlimited illegal immigration.
The BBC is fixated solely upon the measures the Israeli government has taken to stem the flow, because a wall is being constructed to secure Israel’s pourous border with Egypt, a wall which the BBC impliedly deems to be a racist apartheid separation barrier.

Meanwhile, back at the UK, we proudly boast about our reputation for tolerance. Some would say the reckless pursuit of this ideal might be about to turn round and slap us in the face. Some may wonder, what if those we have bent over backwards to accommodate don’t reciprocate? Some might speculate that there’s little sign that they will.

Could we, ourselves, one day, be outsiders wondering where to seek refuge? Some might think that in our haste to embrace diversity and multiculturalism, we’ve embraced our own extinction, and little baby tolerance has been thrown out with the bathwater.

Israel was envisaged as a homeland and sanctuary for Jews. An insurance policy which history tells us is a must-have. Nevertheless, Israel is diverse and multicultural, and refugees from far and wide already squeeze in, but Israel must prioritise the preservation of its Jewish identity, or it will cease to be fit for purpose.

Not that the BBC will understand this need. Having backed the total abandonment of our own national identity, the BBC rigidly perceives Israel as racist, that it has no business trying to retain its Jewish identity, and it must do the decent thing and abandon it. before it can be seen as a decent country like Britain.

This article is typical.
The first paragraph sets out the plight of the African migrants in bold type. The emphasis is on Israel’s efforts to limit overwhelming mass illegal immigration. It concentrates on personal ‘human interest’ stories, leaving Israel looking hard-hearted and racist for putting ‘full up’ on the door. Someone from an organisation called Hotline for Migrant Workers is wheeled in to criticise the Israeli governent without a trace of sympathy or understanding of a dilemma which has not been taken into consideration at all.

Some would say this is the usual fare, e.g. reporting from Israel which ignores historical context, disregards Israel’s omnipresent existential stuggle and fails to acknowledge that its citizens are under constant threat from hostile duplicitous and violent neighbours who are hell bent on exterminating them.
In other words it treats Israel as though it was a London suburb.

The BBC must get real and grasp the fact that Israel isn’t London. They should also get into their heads, if it isn’t too late, that as things stand, even London isn’t London.

US given one-month deadline to rescue Mid-East talks.

Arab League ministers, that reasonable, even-handed body of sages has spoken. They must have carefully weighed up all the pros and cons, deliberated, cogitated and anguished over their decision before arriving at the conclusion that Abbas should stand firm and walk out of the peace talks. More time must be given and more pressure applied to Israel by Obama. The world shall greet this announcement with joy, wonderment and feigned surprise.

Name one factor in this farcical chess game of manipulation that would favour the Arab League advising Abbas to return to the table and overlook the end of the freeze on settlement building? Can’t think of one? Nor can I.

Consider.
The world has swallowed, hook line and sinker, the theory that settlements are the obstacle to peace.

The world has swallowed, h l & s the contention that the occupied territories are illegal under international law.

The world has swallowed the contention that all settlement building amounts to Jews stealing Palestinian land.

The world unquestioningly accepts the Arab demands for ‘preconditions.’

So the long awaited decision by the Arab league was a bit of what they call a no-brainer. A bit of a foregone conclusion.

So now Obama has to demand that Israel brushes aside the Palestinians’ refusal to renounce violence, recognise Israel’s right to exist, budge on the right of return and all the rest of it, because the whole wide world and your BBC has conspired to delegitimise Israel, and instil the notion that Arab intransigence and pride are quaint traits of their culture. Innit.

BBC seemed more perturbed this morning that one rocket fired by peace-loving Islamic “militants” from the Sinai landed in Jordan than the several fired at Eilat in Israel. There is an almost blase approach to the BBC method of reporting terrorist attacks on Israel almost suggesting that the Israelis have invited such attacks. But since the BBC is neutral on all these matters, that can’t be the case, can it?

The TUC conference in Liverpool is to vote on yet another call to boycott Israel. As Sarah Jane put it on another thread “My opinion of Afghanistan is derived entirely from the news I receive about it.”
I suspect this also applies to members of the Fire Brigade union, Unite and Unison vis-à-vis the Middle East.
Today’s interview between James Naughtie and Israeli Deputy Ambassador Talya Lador-Fresher did little to enlighten the listener. The BBC’s theory that the settlements are the only obstacle to peace was put forward to justify the boycott using the “What else could they do?” argument, as in Cherie Blair’s empathetic defence of suicide bombers. Talya Lador-Fresher was only able to squeeze in, just at the end, a reference to the forgotten obligation, the other side of the requirement for peace- ‘some sort of gesture from the Arab world.’

The logic of boycotting Israel escapes me, but coming from people who are continually accusing Israel of collective punishment it is hypocritical in the extreme. Naughtie suggested boycotts are justifiable if you decide a government has failed, or “failed to convince people that its policy is reasonable.” (By that token we should be boycotting….never mind)
Whose fault is it that Israel has failed to convince people anything about its policies? For years the BBC has done its utmost to unconvince them.

A whitewash here, a smear there and half truths everywhere. It seems that the necessity to sustain cordial relations with oil-rich countries is reaching the the point of no return, and the BBC grooms us with its unrelenting campaign to sanitise Islam, vilify Israel, and erode the British identity in a seemingly unstoppable multi pronged onslaught.

Something slipped through the net on BBC World Service.

“Our reporter Mat Heywood has visited the site of a new biocluster that’s being built in Israel. This is a specially designed massive science park, where institutions like universities and hospitals stand alongside small start up companies and even investment banks. The idea is that they can then talk and do business with each other.”

A report so effusively admiring that you had to wonder how it escaped.

“Claire Skentelbery from the Council of European BioRegions joins us on the programme to explain why this set up is vital for the biotechnology industry.”

She was so enthusiastic about bioclusters in general it begged the question – whether, in the long term, Israel’s cutting edge science would not be even more valuable to this country than the Arab oil we’re bending over backwards to be allowed to acquire.

And if we don’t want Israel’s expertise, or if the brains in UK academia do plump for their academic boycotts, I’m sure plenty of other countries will be only too glad to take advantage. So go on Liverpool, boycott everything from Israel and shoot yourself in the foot.

That predictably biased UN report that criticises Israel and calls for war crimes investigations, and generally condemns Israel for existing, has stirred up relatively dormant Middle East issues again.

Laura Trevelyan’s reports on News 24 even sounded balanced in comparison. She pointed out that Israel has said the UN report was hugely biased and didn’t represent the evidence that was given to them, but merely reflected Hamas’s account of events in Gaza.
From her report alone, one might almost think anti-Israel bias was easing up at the Beeb. This was a momentary blip.

The report on the web reverts back to normal, and a few moments ago News 24 interviewed Ehud Barak, after a short emotive film clip from Katya Adler, and a subliminal flash of Ban Ki Moon.

The Beeboid made no attempt to conceal his contempt for Mr Barak and his Broken-English attempts to explain Israel’s situation. Something made Beeboid believe it was his job, as interrogator, to pass judgment on Israel’s morality, rather the immorality of fighting a terrorist organisation that had been sending rockets into Israel for eight years, then continued doing so from behind civilians the moment Israel decided it had had enough and retaliated.