Wake up Call

For those without the patience to plough through long posts on B-BBC, I urge you to make one special effort to read this terrific sermon brought to us by Phyllis Chesler.
Everyone, especially the appeasing BBC should read Rabbi Lewis’s words. Every single one.

Barry Rubin summed it up succinctly here:

“We ought to have called on you before, and I beg your pardon for intruding now in this informal way, but your house is on fire.”

Yes, freedom of speech stops at a boundary of shouting “fire!” in a crowded theatre. But when there actually is a fire, that’s where it must start.

Self-Fulfilling Backlash

So Shimon Peres has noticed that the English are antisemitic and pander to Muslim votes. The Telegraph has chosen to whip up a controversy by heading an article:
“Fury as Israel president claims English are ‘anti-semitic’
So who’s furious?

“senior MPs and Jewish leaders who said the 87-year-old president had “got it wrong”

So far it appears that these furious MPs consist of:

“James Clappison, the Conservative MP for Hertsmere and vice-chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel”

Since Mr Peres’s comment was ‘buried in an interview with the historian Professor Benny Morris of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev published last week in Tablet, a Jewish news website, ‘ could someone be trying to make a mountain out of a molehill?

“The wide-ranging interview covered Mr Peres’ role as one of Israel’s longest-serving political leaders – an MP for 48 years, twice prime minister, and holder of other ministerial posts over the decades. He is firmly on the Israeli Left. “

He could have just been taking the opportunity to use the very dryly comical quote:
“There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary” a saying that contains a bigger grain of truth and considerably more wit than “Gaza is a prison camp.”

Haaretz has a slightly different way of making a mountain out of this.
“ Peres sparks U.K backlash after labeling England anti-Semitic” the headline screams out, continuing:

“President Shimon Peres provoked a media backlash in the United Kingdom on Sunday”

So far, the media backlash consists of an article in the Telegraph. The BBC hasn’t reported it yet, but I expect it will.

Antisemitism in England? Or do we mean AntiZionism?
Connection with the BBC? Tenuous, but not as tenuous as all that.

What If

Inspired by CifWatch, here are some What Ifs.

You know that Panorama episode where they set up a Muslim honey-trap scenario to highlight Islamophobia? Well, what if they made a Panorama with a decoy Jew to expose antisemitism like the Amsterdam police had to.

You know Alan ‘I’m telling your story’ Johnston, theBBC kidnapee that became a cause célèbre? Well, it’s 4 years on friday since Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas and the Army of Islam. What if the BBC marked this horrible anniversary by making a little fuss about his human rights?

You know the BBC’s fixation that peace will be brought closer by talking to Hamas? What if they suddenly realised that this was specious and delusive?

The New Belle Époque.

I’ve been very busy not watching telly, but I did accidentally stumble upon MEPs in Strasbourg discussing the Flotilla on the BBC Parliament channel last night, between the repeats of QT and Andrew Marr.

Needless to say it was an Israel-bashing jamboree, with left wing and green MEPs making their rabidly anti Israel / pro Turkey speeches.

They kept demanding Baroness Ashton ‘does something’ to lift the blockade of Gaza. Immediately! The conservative and centre-right MEPs were similarly receptive to the peace activists’ tale, but they sprinkled their speeches with “but there must be security for Israelis as well”.
It was almost as though they’d been informed, educated and entertained solely by the BBC.

There were some notable exceptions. A German Green MEP spoke up for Israel, and most supportive of all, and under the circumstances rather heroic, was Charles Tannock MEP, Conservative Foreign Affairs Spokesman.
But that’s nothing. What about the debate on the subject in our own parliament?
Louise ‘we can ignore her because she would say that, wouldn’t she,’ Ellman, Ivan Lewis and Denis McShane were more or less the only voices of sanity. Take a look at this gorgeous website, which has a tag entitled Anti-Racism. Are they quite mad?

What I’m leading up to is this. On Start The Week two ‘Jewish’ books were being plugged. One by Ruth Harris was about a scandal that shook France to its core – the Dreyfus affair.
The other, The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal concerns a Jewish art historian, aesthete and collector Charles Ephrussi.
Antisemitism.
How rife it was in Paris during the Belle Époque. Jews being accused of killing children, for blood to make Matzos.

Tom Hollander’s family had a brush with antisemitism too. All the guests had a contribution to make on the topic . Even Andrew Marr. “Mmmm, Mmmm,” he goes. “What it means to be French” he analyses, sagely.

“Modern France too. All this argument about the burqua.”

So is Andrew Marr talking about “Racism?” “Islamophobia?” Is he saying that Muslims are the new Jews, or what?

Bigots R Us

Where’s Peter Oborne? He likes lobbies and documentaries doesn’t he? Documentaries about lobbies are his speciality I’m told.

I am a bigot, because I don’t like Islam and I don’t really fancy the Islamisation of this country. Also, I support Israel’s ‘right to exist within secure borders.’ So, definitely, a bigot.

I write about these things, so in my own little way I am a lobby. How about that? A lobbying bigot. Bigoted lobbyists R Us. But, Mr. Oborne, you’ve done one about the likes of me already. Change, that’s what we want.

So Mr. O., if you like exposing lobbies, and you like making documentaries, you’ll like the idea of making one about the Muslims.

Muslims, in case you hadn’t noticed, have organised themselves into various pressure groups, and are making considerable headway with their efforts to exert their regressive influence on UK policy. Someone thought of a word you might like to use. Tentacles, I think it was.

Schools have been targeted by them for years, and all too often have caved in for fear of being labelled with the smear of smears, racism. Since they engineered the downfall of Ray Honeyford in the 80s Muslims have ganged up against any school exhibiting signs, real or imagined, that someone is attempting to impede their progress. The BBC habitually colludes by insinuating Islamophobia.

The latest wrangle between Erica Connor and Surrey County Council is no doubt costing the taxpayer £squillions.

The tentacles reach much further. Are you listening Mr. Oborne? What about the influence on our universities? Islamic studies here, Islamic studies there, here a veil, there a threat, everywhere a burqa. Old MacDonald had a news agency. Ee Aye EE Aye Oh.

Document that Mr. O, and this time you won’t need to make any of it up . Only, I wouldn’t rely on the BBC to commission it., but for funding you could try approaching one of the greedy rapacious Jews you’re such an expert on.

Dark Forces

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.”

Gentle Persuasion

Anti-Zionists have persuaded the BBC to alter a report about a row at the meeting held at the School of Oriental and African Studies, (SOAS) in which the guest speaker was South African trade unionist Bongani Masuku.

Mr. Masuku has been condemned for hate speech by the South African Human Rights Commission. The SOAS audience consisted of pro Palestinian left wingers who wanted to confer chummily amongst themselves and share their outrage at the way Israel treats the Palestinians.

During the audience question time, up pops Jonathan Hoffman, vice chair of the Zionist federation, whose courageous personal appearances at hostile gatherings have earned him a reputation as a ‘hard-line Zionist’ and damned nuisance.

His question was simply “Why has this man, condemned for hate speech, been invited to speak at this place?” Admittedly, he read out the charges against Mr. Masuku first, which the audience found rather unpalatable, and this, combined with the fact that they disliked Mr. Hoffman and his well-known views, caused the whole audience to begin jeering and heckling. The chairman, Mr. Tom Hickey, then took over, warning them not to answer Mr. Hoffman’s question, or listen to anything he might say.

The BBC, uncharacteristically, reported this incident thus:

“Raheem Kassam, of student anti-racism campaigners Student Rights, said: “The overpowering racist jeering as displayed by some audience members at the event is a stark and chilling revelation of what can happen when extremism is allowed to take root in universities.

“This man was first shouted down, then ignored by the event chair and panellists.
“Why? From what we hear shouted when he is speaking, because he is, ‘Jewish’, and ‘not welcome here’.”

However, a few individuals didn’t think much of that, and emailed the BBC to complain, whereupon the BBC cut that out altogether and amended the article so it was more in line with the BBC worldview, along the lines that anti-Semitism is the sole prerogative of the SS., and it died out in 1948.

Funny how impossible it is for some people to get the BBC to alter things, while for others it’s as easy as writing a couple of emails.

Comment is Free But is Ignorance Bliss?

If anybody who shares my interest in the BBC’s bias against Israel is reading this – as they say on Amazon – you might also like ……CifWatch.
CifWatch’s raison d’être is to draw attention to the anti Israel and anti-Semitic flavour of the online Guardian’s, ‘Comment is Free’. (Cif)
CifWatch commenters and posters document, then knowledgably and authoritatively rebut, anti-Semitic slurs that abound on Cif.
Recent CiFWatch posts by commenter AKUS give an outsider’s view of the British media and the ‘Brainwashing of Britain’
CiFWatchers must be aware, and indeed some of them have pointed out, that the BBC has a far broader reach, and necessarily influences a wider spectrum of the public, but the Guardian’s malevolence grates on this pro Israel and mainly Jewish online community more than the BBC’s seems to. If only it weren’t so virulently anti Jew and anti Israel, the Guardian might be their newspaper of choice. They remember with sadness the days when it was known as the Manchester Guardian and was highly respected. Perhaps they see the BBC as a lost cause, with a passive, easily brainwashed audience.
The Guardian isn’t hampered by a charter or any other inconvenient obligation, so it can more or less let rip and pander to an Israel hating audience if it so wishes, whereas the BBC has to restrain itself. The BBC is at least obliged to appear even-handed, but its underlying agenda often seeps through.

This morning for example there was an item on the Sunday Programme R4(0.19.50 in) about the multi faith celebrations in Haifa. A feel-good item one would think. Then just as you begin to feel good, Hugh Sykes chips in at the end with a reminder about the settlers who vandalised a mosque. Report it, okay, but put it in context, and don’t bring it gratuitously into an unrelated report lest the listeners might stop hating the Jews.

I don’t think the BBC’s bias is always deliberate. Ignorance has permitted myth to replace fact. Shoddy research, laziness and incompetence have worn away at the truth over many years, and these imperfections compound themselves as they bed in.
Now – we have what we have. One undoubted result is appalling ignorance from many who should know better; it produces characters like the gentleman outside the Baptist Central Church in the video that I linked to recently. Not the runny nosed John Sullivan, but the other one, the well-spoken John Benyon, who seemed blissfully ignorant about the organisation his church was hosting.
The virulence with which people express their indignation is matched by the ignorance in the endless strings of comments highlighted by CifWatch. What could be a clearer demonstration of the extent of the damage done by the brainwashing of Britain?

Pro(sperous) Palestinians

Melanie Phillips links to a report in the Wall Street Journal by Tom Gross. It’s about life in the West Bank and Gaza. No, it’s not the usual tale of hardship and deprivation.
She ends by asking “When we will get to hear about this on the BBC?” Well, probably never. All we’ll get is endless stories about settlers, olive trees and illegally occupied land.
With the BBC for an educator is it surprising that a virulent streak of anti-Semitism prevails?
I see Rowan Laxton is back at his desk at the FCO.
And this clip is all over the web.
If it weren’t so shocking you’d have to laugh. The man bears an uncanny resemblance to Brian Murphy.
“Everybody in Britain can see what a nasty unpleasant type of people Jewish people are in English.”

(Breaks into song.) ”It’s in-dic-ative that the Jews are vin-dic-ative, so if you’re living in English…. You can….. fuck off back to Israel!”” Tap dances off stage, right. Not really.

Gathering Storm

I am well aware that Peter Oborne’s C4 anti-Jew documentary was not a BBC programme. However, years of biased reporting on the Israeli/Palesinian situation well and truly prepared the ground for Peter Oborne to score his illegitimate goal.
Meanwhile, if anyone was acting as referee, they must have steadfastly withstood the pressure from the mighty Jewish lobby and looked the other way.

The inferior quality of the programme was no secret, and many of the supportive comments that popped up in response seem to be of a similar standard. But the obvious flaws in both provide little reassurance that the groundswell of anti Israel feeling can be disregarded as an aberration of the ignorant; like tattoos.

The insinuations littering the programme were designed to implant the idea that everything ever said in support of Israel was sponsored by wealthy Jews with an ulterior motive, while if any denunciation of Israel remained unsaid, that was only because wealthy Jews with an ulterior motive have suppressed it.

Peter Oborne says anti-Semitism is no longer a racist abomination against Jews, but a weapon used by them to quash protests from victims of the sinister Jewish lobby. The suggestion that Jews cynically use accusations of anti-Semitism as a silencing tool is itself a silencing tool of the first order.

What really is sinister is the media’s suspicion and dislike of Jews and the BBC’s affection for Muslims. Is nobody aware of the gathering storms of 30s Germany? How long before they drop their guard and blurt out that Hitler was right.

See Robin Shepherd’s article in the Wall Street Journal, read his blog. Check out CiFWatch.