Category Archives: anti-Israel

Who’s Complaining?

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Some months ago, we commented on an item on The London Breakfast Show, hosted by Wossy’s brother Paul and an actress called JoAnne Good.
They were interviewing Michael White, political editor of the Guardian.

In synch with both the rag he represents and its conjoined twin the BBC, this man bears considerable hostility to Israel. Both news organs are renowned for their anti-Zionist position, but the BBC alone is constrained by an inconvenient obligation to appear impartial.

These incompatible phenomena (hatred of Israel and the obligation to appear impartial) might condemn the BBC to a lifetime struggle, viz. maintaining an increasingly fragile charade that compels them to wriggle and contort in a doomed attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable.

But by designating Israel automatically guilty (on all counts, at all times,) they shift the entire middle ground, readjusting it till it’s accepted that all and sundry are steadfastly opposed to Israel. This allows partiality to masquerade as impartiality, solves the problem of irreconcilable anomalies and upholds the BBC Charter, all in one fell swoop.

Because of the BBC’s own shortcomings, namely their lack of rigor in tackling the complexities of the Israel Palestine conflict, BBC reporters probably rely on romantic Lawrence of Arabia type fantasies or instinctive suspicion of Jews to influence the decision over which side to regard as the goodie, and which the baddie.
Then all they have to do is swallow and regurgitate the Palestinian narrative, lock stock and fiction.

Michael White’s words on December 14th 2009 obviously met with the approval of the interviewing duo, because their chorus of mmmms in agreement floated audibly across the airwaves.

“In Israel they murder each other a great deal. The Israeli Defense Forces murder people because they don’t like their political style and what they’ve got to say and it only means that people more extreme come in and take their place.”

Some listeners found this highly offensive, and were persistent enough to engage with the complaints procedure, whereupon an unfortunate BBC employee named Andrew Bell was tasked to respond. It appears he set about adapting the regulation one-size-fits-all reply to suit the occasion. He conceded that the terminology was “not as exact as it might be,” but added that since Michael White’s meaning was clear to Andrew Bell, ( that Israel murders people willy-nilly if they “don’t like their political style,”) he decided that all awkward, contrary and pedantic Moaning Minnies could ‘away and bile their heeds’ to borrow a phrase from north of the border.

While the BBC Trust, or the BBC Itself are the sole adjudicators,
complaining about the BBC seems as useless, as Mitnaged on CiFWatch puts it, as shouting down a well.

However, this has just popped into my inbox. Honest Reporting has concluded that complaining to the BBC is still worth it!
“All complaints are logged, and there is no better way to make the BBC aware of your concerns.”

I often wonder if anyone from the BBC still glances at this website.

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Demon Eyes

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Friday’s Any Questions broadcast from the London Muslim Centre aka the East London Mosque was part of the BBC’s strategy of embracing Islam.

After the recent C4 Dispatches programme that showcased the unpleasant side of the Islamic Forum of Europe, appeasing Muslims might have seemed a good move by the BBC, what with their desire to promote social cohesion.

The fact that Ken Livingstone was one of the panellists and Mehdi Hasan was another, guaranteed that the programme would be on message.
Predictably, halfway through came the question ‘Does the press demonise Muslims?’
Mehdi Hasan’s outburst was as astonishing as it was hypocritical.

He said the MSM erroneously represent the outpourings of Anjem Choudary as though they were the views of all Muslims. They do this merely because they seek sensational stories. He insisted that the majority of Muslims, including the Islamic Forum of Europe, are moderate and peaceful. He said Andrew Gilligan was a disgrace.

He thought the press has created Islamophobia, which has turned people against Mosques being built in their area because they believe all Muslims are terrorists making bombs.

These ideas might have resonance from an Islamic perspective. But from a UK perspective things look different. Many people who don’t want Mosques do not have a phobia. Their objection to Mosques is likely because they associate them with non-assimilated communities whose cultural practises are at odds with the UK, quite a rational fear one might say. Many people who are perfectly sane don’t wish to be subjected to calls to prayer over loudspeakers several times a day – heaven knows some people find church bells intrusive – and many people, completely right in the head, just don’t want people walking round their neighbourhoods wearing shrouds. Certainly some ordinary English people still hang on to traditional English customs, like monogamous marriage, free speech, as well as new-fangled concepts such as equality for women and tolerance of homosexuality, agnosticism, sex drugs and rock’n’ roll; some of them like keeping dogs, listening to music and looking at cartoons of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban.

Back at the BBC noticing that radicalised Muslims predominantly perpetrate terrorism is considered Islamophobic, as is expressing concerns about such things as the increasing demands from Muslims that we conform to their idiosyncrasies.

All the panellists on Any Questions played it by those unspoken rules, tiptoeing round the subject dutifully, to boldly taboo where no man has tabooed before.

If anyone does want a prime example of demonisation by the press, the New Statesman is it. But Mehdi Hasan’s New Statesman target is Israel, so in that case demonisation is fine.

Any demonisation of Muslims by the media pales into insignificance beside the demonisation of Israel that has been the norm in the MSM for decades.
Even examining areas where Islamic ideology is incompatible with UK ideals is unacceptable in BBC world, whereas decades of the BBC’s treatment of Israel has resulted in hostile hordes, ready willing and able to express their passionately misinformed, phobic opinions in the press.

Exhibit ‘a,’ is the Guardian, closely followed by the Financial Times.

Future generations are affected too. Postcards that were sent to the Israeli Embassy by Spanish children declare: “Jews kill for money,” “Leave the country to the Palestinians” and “Go somewhere where they will accept you.”

They probably didn’t get this directly from the BBC, but it’s indicative of the European malaise that the BBC at once reflects and creates.

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The Trials of The Diaspora and Other Stories

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When Melanie Phillips went to Australia she thought she had died and gone to heaven. She discovered that down under, unlike here in Blighty, supporting Israel does not have to be done in private, by consenting adults.

For your information, Melanie Phillips is “known to be an extremist Zionist insane warmongering Islamophobe” who must be treated with circumspection and labelled “Mad Mel” by all liberal-leaning followers of the BBC. She does appear on the BBC from time to time, but as her views are deemed insane the listeners and viewers are allowed to snigger, knowingly.

Start The Week.
Good grief. Anthony Julius is on!
There’s good news and bad news.
The good news is that Andrew Marr was unsettled by Anthony Julius’s book, and the bad news is that Marr and guests still seemed to think anti-Semitism (in the UK) is understandable because of the actions of Israel.
Or do I mean anti-Zionism.
“We could go on talking about this for ages” said Marr. But we won’t. There was an elephant in the studio somewhere, too.

It might be time to get my coat.

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Hero or Villain

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If anybody had any doubts about the BBC’s bias take a look at the way they spin this fascinating story.
A courageous man has not only risked the penalty for apostasy, but also converted to Christianity and denounced his father’s organisation, Hamas.
“But now we learn that his courage and his principles extended far further than this. As Ha’aretz reports, for ten years Yousef worked for the Israeli security service Shin Bet for whom the intelligence he provided saved countless lives from human bomb attacks:”

The BBC sees it differently.
Written primarily from the Palestinian perspective, Mosab Hassan Yousef is portrayed as a traitor and a spy. With highlighted quote ‘Slander and Lies’ the BBC unstintingly promotes the way Hamas sees things.

“Earlier, senior Hamas leader Ismail Radwan condemned Haaretz’s report as “baseless slander” aimed at the elder Yousef.

“The Palestinian people have great confidence in Hamas and its struggle and they will not be fooled by this slander and these lies of the Israeli occupation,” he told AFP news agency.”

The contents of the book Mr. Yousef is about to publish will confirm what we already know about Hamas. By ‘we’ I mean everyone apart from those employed by the BBC.

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BIGOTED FEAR MONGERS….

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Did you see that the New York-based American Jewish Committee has blasted the BBC on Sunday for airing an accusation that Jews around the world assist in supposed Mossad assassinations.

The AJC said in a statement that it was “dismayed that a guest on BBC Radio 4 was allowed to state unchallenged” that the Mossad relies on Jews for assassination plots. “This baseless accusation crosses every red line between legitimate public discussion and bigoted fear-mongering,” said AJC executive director David Harris. “In less than a minute, the BBC has cast a shadow on the lives of Jews worldwide.” BBC Radio 4’s PM program interviewed Gordon Thomas, author of Gideon’s Spies, a book about the Mossad, about the January 20 assassination of Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

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Dark Forces

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I consider the BBC’s bias against Israel to be potentially the most dangerous branch of its non-impartiality. Part of the problem is that they start from a wrong premise, confusing moral equivalence with impartiality. That is to say they give equal consideration, painstakingly, to the views and sensitivities of “all”* no matter if doing so entails promoting the views of thugs, criminals, liars and racists, sometimes above those of law-abiding members of society. And they do so with a contrived “who, me?” innocence. A repercussion of all this is the turmoil we are experiencing now.

Another part of the BBC’s problem is their superficial grasp of anti-Semitism. If the BBC sets out to educate, it should first be educated itself. I doubt if anyone at the BBC would be interested in reading the enlightening essay by professor Geoffrey Alderman today on CiFWatch that explains the antisemitism inherent in Islam.
He had to write such a thing because of the ignorance and bias shown by employees of the BBC’s Siamese twin newspaper the Guardian, who chose to withdraw his privileges and prevent him from expressing pro Israel views on their ‘Comment is free’ platform.

Robin Shepherd has written about another speech, immensely supportive of Israel, made by the heroic Col Richard Kemp. He gets it. He refers to the knee-jerk almost Pavlovian response from many, many elements of the international media to anything done by Israel as “utter automatic condemnation.”
Robin Shepherd gives credit to the BBC just for publishing this article on its website. (Surely that should be a given, dark forces or no.)
There are a couple of the usual gratuitous inclusions in there, but on the whole, we should be grateful for small mercies.

*For “all” read “some.”

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I’m Sorry, I Haven’t a Cleudo

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The BBC is not alone in its certainty over who killed the honourable Hamas Commander. While it is still by no means a foregone conclusion, other MSM have also known from the outset, and have had no problem telling the world, that Israel is the guilty party.
As it stands there are many unanswered questions, inconsistencies, and suspects with a motive.
Even if it turns out the culprit was actually an elderly BBC presenter, with a pillow, in the conservatory, the BBC will still believe it was Mossad, and continue to insinuate such by innuendo and snide remarks from people like Jeremy Hardy “It’s a matter of give and take; or in Israel’s case, take.” Ba boom The News Quiz.

‘Must be time for another reminder of how awful Israel is’, thought the producers of Today, (scroll to 0:43:44) so they got someone to go to Nablus to find out what has happened to the generous gift of olive trees a charity has sent along. But alas and alack, the land had been stolen by a nearby settlement, illegal under international law, and the poor farmer was very sad. The Olive Tree is a symbol of Arab nobility, and Settlements embody Israeli oppression, so this was a gift in more than one sense.

Anyway all that is by the by. Back to the assassination. There has been a spate of assassinations, or as some people like to call them, mercy killings, recently. A Saudi Prince has done one in a hotel, apparently. Some have our approval, some not.

The press and blogosphere are going mad. All hell has been unleashed in the rush to condemn Israel and implicate Jews in a worldwide conspiracy in which they’re all traitors and would-be assassins on standby. I myself always carry a pillow with me just in case.

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Carry on Assassinating

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Where’s Charles Hawtrey, Kenneth Williams and Sid James? I’ve got a great idea for a Carry on Film.
It’s about a plot to assassinate this awful bloke, a murderer and a villain who deserves to die, and the gang bump him off after an elaborate Carry On type of adventure.

The antics of the gang could be hilarious. They play members of Mossad, the infamous Israeli intelligence service. In real life their ingenious planning and meticulous preparation would miss nothing, only in this version their antics and blunders are played for laughs. First, they recruit an enormous gang of assassins, when more than three or four would look superfluous, so everyone should get the joke.

Then they clone several passports, overlooking the risk that the locations of the real passport holders could give the game away, and point the finger at themselves! That’s amusing isn’t it?
Then for another laugh, they ignore the ‘no grinning’ rule for a passport photograph, and have some of them grinning in their pictures. I nearly split my sides at that one.

The preparation is the funniest bit. It’s supposed to be meticulous and thorough, don’t forget, but hilariously the gang overlooks the CCTV cameras that are positioned every six inches from the arrival hall at the airport to the hotel en suite, capturing on camera every gang member as they enter the hotel lobby and step in and out of lifts, right up to the to the moment when Barbara Windsor goes into the bathroom bald and comes out wearing a wig. Sid James and the skinny one are disguised as tennis players, and everyone is wearing dark glasses just like a James Bond movie or something, only a spoof.

Afterwards, the gang escapes but everyone is full of moral outrage at the dastardliness and audacity of the plan, and public opinion forces the prime minister to take some sort of action a bit like when the Queen was made to look sad when Princess Diana died. Even the murder victim seemed less bad, or not bad at all, and people even felt sorry for him, and the BBC started calling him a Hamas Commander. But worse even than that, is the plight of the poor people whose identities had been stolen. The media even forgot that they were Israeli Jews, and called them British, and were engulfed with moral indignation on their behalf.

I’m not sure of the ending yet, but it’s bound to be funny, and involve the sort of come-uppance we all love and expect from the BBC.

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Justifying Jihad?

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I only had half an eye on Peter Taylor’s Generation Jihad last night – and also, until I noticed it on the website, I didn’t realise it was only part one of a series of three. So my impression that he was more sympathetic to his Jihadi interviewees than strictly necessary may be premature. He may have been coaxing them into letting their fanaticism speak for itself. But this episode strove to convince us that Islamist extremism wasn’t the real Islam, but as chalk to ‘moderate’ Islam’s cheese.
I was horrified to see him perpetuating the discredited tale of the Al Durah shooting at the hands of the Israelis, when the veracity of that has been exposed, at the very least, as dubious.

If Peter Taylor is sufficiently ignorant about the controversy surrounding that case to use it to illustrate justification for Jihad how does that make the rest of his programme look?

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Ash Sends Incendiary Message

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“Hello and welcome to Outlook from the BBC world service.
I’m Lucy Ash.”
A heart-sinking announcement for anyone familiar with Ms. Ash

“In Today’s Programme: The aid worker inside the Gaza strip helping traumatised children there to rebuild their shattered lives.”

Lucy Ash is about to deliver rather more than an interview with the aid worker.
In her introduction she milks the latest revelations by Israel about their own misconduct in Gaza down to the very last drop.

“Now Israel has revealed that it’s disciplined two senior officers for endangering civilians by firing white phosphorus shells during last years attack on the Gaza strip,” she announces with palpable relish. “The officers, a brigadier general and a colonel, were found to have exceeded their authority in ordering the use of the weapons, which were fired in the direction of the main United Nations warehouse in Gaza City,” she continues, emphasising their ranks lest we might think lesser beings were responsible. “Use of such munitions near populated areas violates international law. White phosphorus sticks to flesh and burns for many hours causing appalling injuries.”

But what has this got to do with the aid worker? Does white phosphorus relate to the forthcoming tale of psychological healing she promised us?

“ More than 1100 Palestinians were killed during operation cast lead,” (We’ve got the white phosphorus now, so we’ll stop bothering to exaggerate the body count) “and the devastation wrought by the 22 day conflict in Gaza is still everywhere to be seen. Large areas of the strip were reduced to rubble, leaving thousands homeless. Children are amongst the worst affected.”

“Osama Damo (?), an aid worker with Save The Children has been involved in setting up centres to look after them, and to help them come to terms with the loss and insecurity overshadowing their young lives. Many of them have been severely psychologically traumatised by what they saw in the war.”

In addition to the traumatising effect of being indoctrinated with hatred of Jews then used as human shields by Islamist terrorists, which Ms. Ash omitted to mention.

The interview with the aid worker proceeded to detail psychological damage typical of that suffered by most war victims anywhere, and the incident graphically related to illustrate a particular child’s trauma had nothing to do with white phosphorus so far as I could see.

Lucy Ash’s introduction conjured up the notorious image of the napalm-burnt, running, Vietnamese child. The average listener could only have assumed that white phosphorus was routinely authorised by senior Israeli soldiers and deliberately used as a weapon against civilians, while Operation Cast Lead appeared to have been perpetrated for no other reason than baseless hatred of Palestinians, by aggressive expansionist Israel. Must we now expect the white phosphorus revelations to be added gratuitously to the fluctuating body count that accompanies all references to the Middle East conflict?

Do not assume that I approve of white phosphorus, or that I know enough about it to defend or attack its use. Do not assume that I think Israel can do no wrong. But Israel did one right thing in investigating and admitting this error, and in so doing handed ammunition to its enemies in the propaganda war, so was damned either way.
People who support Israel would rather it didn’t do anything at all that placed it in a bad light in the eyes of the world, but in the scheme of things how plausible is that?

Lucy Ash knew what she was doing, and, I assume, so did the BBC.

Belated Update.
So not only was Lucy Ash’s introduction gratuitous and biased, it was also factually incorrect. The reprimand she was so eager to tell us about was not about the use of white phosphorus at all. The alacrity with which she, and the BBC blurted out erroneous unverified material concerning Israel is telling. It’s not as if this was the first time such a thing has happened. It should be a lesson to them, but it seems they’ll never learn.

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