Category Archives: anti-Israel

Bias V Bias

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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.

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As Mandy Rice Davies Would Say……..

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“They would say that wouldn’t they.”
That’s how anything said in Israel’s defence by the likes of Melanie Phillips, Alan Derschowitz, Robin Shepherd, or anyone Jewish, is brushed aside.
The BBC’s anti Israel bias is so pervasive that it is impossible for anyone to defend Israel almost anywhere in the world without being dismissed by someone uttering the notorious Mandy Rice Davies quote.

“I didn’t know you were Jewish,” the reflexive exclamation made to Richard Littlejohn when he was making ‘The War Against Britain’s Jews,’ was for me the one memorable thing about it. Yes, they thought, that would explain the inexplicable, someone siding with Jews. (He isn’t.)

Well, we can also use Mandy’s iconic phrase. With real justification.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B’Tselem, Sweden, the Guardian, Islam, and most of all the BBC, are suffused with bias. Reports about human rights abuses, organ harvesting, and now that IDF has been infiltrated by rabbis who are are fanatical religious extremists.
To all of these:
You WOULD SAY THAT wouldn’t you.
The appalling Newsnight report is just the latest in the long line of the BBC’s war of attrition against Israel.
Increasing evidence of bias in individuals, groups, institutions and organisations is emerging. The Islamification of Europe is taking hold. It only remains to be seen just how far the BBC wants to take it. Will they persevere till they lose all credibility, or will they continue the indoctrination till the lunatics take over the asylum?

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The Holocaust Tool

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This is not straightforward bias, but an example of painfully elaborate impartiality. AKA tolerance of the intolerant, or the other one: ‘there is nothing so unequal as the equal treatment of unequals’.
The BBC has been announcing in its hourly news bulletins, that Hamas has “slammed” its friend and supporter UNWRA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) for having the audacity to suggest the Jewish Holocaust might be included in the curriculum of the schools they run in Gaza.

The BBC reports this in the simplified manner they deem appropriate for their simpleminded readers. But although they have omitted to add the usual scare quotes or indeed “Israel says” to the penultimate paragraph,
– ‘During the Holocaust, Nazi Germany murdered some six million Jews’ –
the last paragraph goes some way to counterbalance the omission.

“However, the event’s significance is often disputed in parts of the Middle East where Israel is seen as the enemy and the Holocaust is seen as a tool used by Israel to justify its actions.”

Contrast this with the other report, from a Chinese news agency.
This report, written for adults, includes some rather revealing quotes from one Husam Ahmed, including this one about the material in question:

“”…..was formed in a way that shows sympathy with the Jews.” He warned of having an attitude “to construct a generation that supports the Jews and the Holocaust” in the Palestinian territories.

The article takes care to show that the thing Hamas fears most about teaching the Holocaust is that it might spark sympathetic feelings in the children, and they might stop hating Jews and striving to eliminate the Zionist entity.
Less danger of that sentiment coming through in the BBC’s report; they must at all times be careful to avoid any traces of partiality.

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Predictable Probe

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There are two sides to every story. With infinite nuances and variations, obviously.

For many years the BBC has listened more sympathetically to one side in the interminable Middle East conflict than the other. As the story has evolved and become more complicated, the BBC’s position has become more entrenched and also more incongruous, being that it supports democracy, liberty, gay rights and all things that make radical Islam such a strange bedfellow.

Jeremy Bowen has an agenda. We are told he still resents the killing, by an Israeli, of his Palestinian driver. He sympathises with the Palestinians, and finds most Israelis prickly and brusque. His fixers and enablers are Arabs.

One could well disregard all that, but his most egregious failing is that he has only a partial knowledge of history. He tries to appear fair to both sides, but he doesn’t know or won’t tell us that different but equally valid and credible versions of historical events even exist. He might omit a crucial detail that would throw things into a different light here; add a word there, and imbue his reports with subtly disparaging innuendos everywhere.

The recent BBC Trust’s decision to uphold two complaints against Jeremy Bowen, and to publicly censure him brought forth a petulant outburst from Jonathan Dimbleby. He blamed this outcome on the absence, on the day of the hearing, of Richard Tait, head of the BBC’s Editorial Standards Committee.

Now it seems, the BBC are going to investigate another complaint against Jeremy Bowen – with Mr. Tait as chair.

Richard Tait has already stated his position. He has the utmost faith in Jeremy Bowen. So we await the outcome with bated breath.

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Talk Talk

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The BBC is the main source of the misinformation that makes some people call all supporters of Israel ‘foam-flecked fanatics,’ and which makes us in turn think of those people as gullible fools. These wordbattles continue in the face of the mass of evidence piling up before your very eyes, evidence that some of you go to great lengths to avoid acknowledging.
Fanatical Islamists can hold meetings in Kensington Town Hall, people can write books filled with inaccuracies and propaganda, pockets of the UK can sprog radicals and recruits to Al Qa’eda, primitive cultural practices can be turned a blind eye to, and the majority will still fall for the BBC’s lulling reassurances rather than risk mentioning their concerns, and being labelled a phobic racist.

Compare two approaches to the recent activities of Hamas in Gaza. Not the crackdown by the virtue police enforcing modesty regulations upon ladies’ swimwear and shop mannequins, or the new ruling about ‘school uniform’ for girls, but the conflict between Hamas and another extreme, radical outfit that managed to cast Hamas into the absurd role of ‘more moderate.’

Think of this in the context of the BBC’s continual mantra that talking to Hamas will hasten the peace process. The BBC tells us ‘Gaza Islamist leader dies in raid,’ a strangely passive headline for a shoot-out between Hamas and the leader of Jund Ansar Allah, ‘Soldiers of the Followers of God,’ in which several people were killed and a mosque was damaged. What they wanted was an Islamic emirate, which on the face of it is what Hamas wants too. But they wanted it to be their Islamic emirate, and not Hamas’s, and they were keen to fight to the death; which they did. So everyone got what they wanted for the time being, and Hamas continues to fight against Israel which they will never recognise, no matter how much Britain, America, Mahmoud Abbas, or even the BBC, talks to them.

Ambassador Ron Proser (who spoke to John Humphrys this morning,) says of Hamas:

“sections of the media are determined to whitewash and legitimise it. They are joined by various politicians, commentators and activists, who argue that Israel and the West must talk to Hamas, so implying that it is on the verge of a switch to moderation.”

The BBC’s article, apart from a bizarre reference by Ismail Haniya to “Israeli Zionists.” portrays Hamas as reasonable people who ‘one could do business with”, Compare that with Ron Proser’s piece in the Telegraph. It begins:

“Earlier this month, Hamas launched a devastating bombardment of rocket-propelled grenades and machine-gun fire against a mosque in Rafah. The attack killed at least 22 Palestinians, including an 11-year-old girl. Over 100 more were injured and the mosque, which belonged to a rival Islamist faction, the Jund Ansar Allah, was left riddled with bullets. The adjacent building was destroyed. Yet Hamas’s disregard for the sanctity of a house of worship, and its contempt for the lives of neighbouring civilians, is unlikely to be the subject of any probing reports from Human Rights Watch.”

And criticism of them brands me as a foaming-at-the mouth phobic racist.

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OCCUPIED LAND

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Israeli PM Netanyahu was in London today (So am I!) to see Macavity and I have lost count the number of times that BBC reports make references to “occupied” parts of Jerusalem. Let us be straight. This is right out of the Palestinian propaganda playbook and it seems to me that the BBC is institutionally incapable of being fair-handed on this issue. Palestinians do not “own” so much as one grain of soil in Jerusalem and the notion is risible. Judging by our poll numbers (Thanks to the almost 3000 people for taking part btw) along with Islam, most of you agree with this proposition. I would hope that the more sensible BBC people reading this (Not you, Medicated) might reflect on this. There is a major problem here and the BBC must answer.

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Left Right and Centre

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At odds with the theory that we’re all right wingers, some of us regularly visit “left leaning” Harry’s Place.
Four recent posts there indicate the way we’re heading, frogmarched along to an unknown destination by our trusted state broadcaster.

1.) More Islamic rules being imposed by the ministry of education in Gaza. This doesn’t auger well for a future self-governing state peacefully existing alongside Israel. The BBC could register this, maybe pondering over the wisdom of their persistent urgings to talk to Hamas.

2) “Beti Betak” (My House is Your House) the seldom-heard plight of Jews driven from Egypt, in stark contrast to the much publicised and sympathetically treated Palestinian refugee problem. Then there is the neglect, disregard and denial of access to archives, records, religious artefacts that remain in Egypt following the expulsion of Egypt’s Jews. When will the BBC commission a serious documentary on this subject? Is Jeremy Bowen too busy dreaming of his never to be realised appearance on Strictly Come Dancing. Or Stinkily Come Dancing as Mandrake would have it.

3) Israeli “Organ Harvesting.” This Harry’s Place article explains the fictional origins of both the Aftonbladet blood libel and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
There are two brief BBC web articles about the sensationalised Swedish newspaper allegations that stem from Palestinians tales of kidnapped children, murdered by the IDF for their internal organs.

The BBC articles on the subject are brief, but painstakingly ‘impartial.’ The allegations and refutations are given equal weight which gives unmerited credibility to these completely unsubstantiated and libelous allegations. A sudden outbreak of impartiality on a particular issue can be more biased than actual straightforward bias.

A further indication of their less than even-handed attitude is that in the first piece the BBC chose to feature their pet figure of derision Avigdor Lieberman, when of course they could have featured any of the Swedish protagonists, or the Israeli Ambassador to Sweden who are central to the original story.
The second web article focuses a little more on indignant reactions from Israel, dwelling on them just enough to make them look petty, a message reinforced by gratuitous mention of an online call to “boycott Ikea.”

4.) Finally, Kensington Town Hall is being used as the venue for another horrendous Islamic propaganda meeting, and Harry’s Place gives some staggering examples. K.T.H. seems to be a regular haunt for lefty get-togethers including Islamic hate preacher Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, and various others. Someone should complain to the MP for Kensington and Chelsea, the Rt Hon Sir Malcolm Rifkind ….of Jewish descent! If the BBC cares for Britain they should be telling us all about it.

I offer each of the above items, and the way they are treated or downplayed by the BBC, to explain my reasons for posting on B-BBC.

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LIES, DAMNED LIES AND BBC STATISTICS

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This is a great catch by Pounce that I think deserves much greater prominence.

“The BBC, it’s insipid hatred of Israel, arms exporters and just a little extra added to the story.
So has anybody seen that bBC revised coverage of that parliamentary report on weapons sales to Israel and Sri-lanka while omitting the real gist of the report on HMG not knowing that brits were buying weapons from the Ukraine and selling them to …Sri Lanka.Have a look at that chart of arms sales they have posted up . Why guess who it has in 4th place. Why its Israel. How dare the the jews sell more weapons than the UK.. and then the BBC quotes they gleaned that info from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.The thing is I read and use their website all the time and knew something wasn’t right. So I had a look. Well guess what Israel isn’t the 4th largest seller of weapons in the world rather it comes in 11th place after China. A country which the bBC says doesn’t inform the world what its sold. Don’t believe me here is the Link for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute web site on the top 50 arms exporters or importers. Just click the button you wish Web or ExcelAnd if you can’t be asked here is a screen dump of what I downloaded onto Excel.The bBC it’s insipid hatred of Israel, arms exporters and just a little extra added to the story

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ARMS WARS

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Right, been away all day and just back in at B-BBC central. Did you catch this item that the BBC ran this morning on how UK arms are used when exported? The narrative was simple – it is wrong for the UK to export arms components if these are used to fight terrorists. Roger Berry MP was visceral in his misrepresentation of how Israel and Sri Lanka used the weapons supplied. Loved his repetition of the “occupied territories” mantra during the interview, wonder had he a little keyiffeh on when being interviewed? The BBC might have provided us with a little background on Mr Berry, and in particular his call back in March to ban all arms exports to Israel. He’s just one more Jew-hater and given a free run by Today. At no time did the BBC interview ask Mr Berry how Israel or indeed Sri Lanka can fight against Jihadists that deliberately shelter amongst civilians? This was an exercise in bashing those Nations that FIGHT terrorism rather than appeasing it.

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Human Wrongs

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Defending Israel is not the same as preaching *Israel right or wrong.*
We have a tough time making our case especially when Israel does things we find hard to defend. But facing what Israel faces, we accept that it generally behaves with considerable restraint. As yet, we in the UK are not up against what Israel is up against, and who knows what we would do if we were.

What we “apologists” can do is point out the unfair way Israel is portrayed by the BBC. The recent hoohah about the ‘ white flag killings’ that are the subject of a report by Human Rights Watch is typical of one-sided reporting by the BBC. One-sided reporting of a one-sided report.

Even though near the end of the BBC article they allow: “an Israeli spokesman said the report lacked credibility because it was based on evidence from an area under Hamas control,” the general impression one gets is that the BBC does give the Human Rights Watch report considerable credibility.

Is this fair, thorough, or impartial, considering that it seems HRW did capitalise on their reputation for anti-Israel bias when currying favour with Saudi Arabia in a funding bid.
Saudi Arabia!
Not to mention the reputation of a certain Joe Stork a virulent Israel hater.

Even if that was not relevant, the evidence used in the report largely consists of eyewitness accounts extracted from interviews with interested parties and comprises little more than emotive tales of individual tragedies. Shocking, yes, but it can hardly be considered definitive data.

Does Human Rights Watch detail human rights violations perpetrated by Hamas in this emotive way? Do they forensically probe Hamas’s ploy of hiding behind the white flag to exploit the IDF’s tendency to obey the rules? If they did, their report might have some credibility. Even if all eleven ‘white flag’ incidents were cavalier war crimes committed by Israeli soldiers, and it could be proved that none were due to accidents, misunderstandings, exaggerations or embellishments in the reporting, does the perfunctory paragraph that pays lip-servivce to Human Rights Watch’s accusation that Hamas committed war crimes as well, constitute “proportionate” counterbalancing information?

If the BBC examined HRW’s reputation and scrutinised their methodology, it might add a little something to its claims of impartiality. What about a little interest in the paper from the Israel Ministry of foreign Affairs “The Operation in Gaza – Factual and Legal Aspects

Maybe even go the whole hog and give it similar prominence to that given to the Human Rights Watch report?

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