Here we go, a new OPEN THREAD to detail the bias. Please keep it polite and to the point.

The BBC’s security correspondent has decided to redraw the borders of the Middle East and hand over Israel to the Palestinians as their ‘homeland’….talking about refugees generally in the Middle East he stated that…. (12 mins 50 secs)

‘It would be quite wrong to talk about refugees in the Middle East without mentioning the Palestinians because,  you know, there is a refugee problem for them going back to 1948, you know, generations have grown up exiled from their homelands…er as they see it.’

 

Not sure why we shouldn’t forget about the ‘Palestinian refugees’…as they see themselves…as all their fellow Arabs seem to have forgotten them and left them to rot.

BBC Trending seems to have a habit of picking ‘trends’ that are in some way damaging to Israel.  The latest is this:

#BBCtrending: Schoolboy’s Facebook photo divides Jewish South Africans

A Jewish schoolboy from South Africa has posted a photo, and message of support, for Palestinians living in Gaza – highlighting a rift in the country’s Jewish community.

Last week, Joshua Broomberg uploaded a picture of himself and two friends to Facebook. All were wearing Palestinian scarves, and it was accompanied by a message reading “Team South Africa… show our opposition to the human rights violations being carried out against the people of Palestine”.

Can’t imagine why the BBC would like to showcase that but not a video that could expose Palestinian duplicity and lies.

We’ve mentioned before that BBC Trending dodged examining the video that alleged that an ‘Israeli sniper killed a Palestinian civilian’…..it frequently does look at the possibility that many photographs and videos on social media may not be all they purport to be…but not in this case despite the video almost certainly being a fake.

However such possibilities didn’t prevent the fearless Orla Guerin, who previously made a totally false claim that the Israelis had massacred Palestinians in Jenin, from deciding that a war crime has probably been committed, as ‘evidenced’ by that video….she expresses absolutely no doubts at all about the video….nor about the claims of a Palestinian who said he was shot in his home by an Israeli officer….a claim backed up by no evidence at all other than the Palestinian’s word….

Gaza conflict: Allegations of war crimes

The BBC reports:

Israel export licences warning from UK

UK arms export licences to Israel will be suspended only if there is fresh violence in Gaza, ministers have said.

The UK has identified 12 licences for components which could be used in equipment in Gaza by Israel. It said it would suspend them “in the event of a resumption of significant hostilities”.

The Lib Dems had urged a suspension regardless of the current ceasefire.

A spokesman said this was “as far as we have been able to reach in collective agreement with the Conservatives”.

The Lib Dem spokesman said it was “no secret” there had been a difference of opinion in the coalition government on the issue of export licences.

What this BBC report, and there is no later one, isn’t making clear is the level of disagreement over these export licences as revealed by their own Ben Judah on Twitter:

All kind of worth a mention I’d have thought…Cable opportunistic and playing to the gallery with a policy that rewards the terrorists.

Definitely worth a mention you’d have thought.

Always  of interest what catches the BBC eye and what doesn’t.

Here they report that the Great barrier Reef is in trouble….mainly from climate change:

Australia Great Barrier Reef outlook ‘poor and deteriorating’

The outlook for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is poor despite conservation efforts, with further deterioration expected in coming years, a report says.

The bleak forecast came in a five-yearly report released by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

Climate change remained the biggest threat to the site, the report said.

But poor water quality from land-based run-off, coastal development and fishing also posed challenges, it said.

Contrast the attention paid to climate change in that report with the reluctance to mention it in the BBC report on this story:

From the Times July 3rd:

‘Dont’ blame climate change for loss of coral’

A misplaced focus on the impact of climate change has delayed vital work to save vanishing coral reefs in the Caribbean, a leading scientist said.

The main reasons why the area covered by live coral has more than halved since the 1970s are overfishing and coastal pollution, according to Carl Gustaf Lundin, director of the global marine programme at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The BBC in its report on ‘The most detailed, careful study of its kind that’s ever been done.’ took a different tack and decided not to mention the inconvenient claim that climate change had little to do with the reef destruction…..

Caribbean coral reefs ‘could vanish in 20 years’

This BBC report managed to completely ignore the explicit statements in a study from the International Union for Conservation of Nature which had 90 experts run an analysis of 35,000 surveys of Caribbean reefs from the last 40 years and found that you can’t blame climate change for loss of coral…..it had been a ‘convenient truth’ to blame climate change as it allowed local governments in the Caribbean to avoid taking difficult measures to deal with overfishing, pollution, the impact of tourism and sewage, and soil erosion.

Climate change has not been the main determining factor when assessing what causes damage to the Caribbean reefs….the main factors were pollution, overfishing and overpopulation…..ocean warming played a very minor, if any, role in reef loss, but its future effects shouldn’t ignored.

From despair to repair: Dramatic decline of Caribbean corals can be reversed

If these factors were addressed it was found that the reefs recovered…therefore proving climate change was not the cause of reefs disappearing….climate change is still occuring and yet the reefs recover from almost total lifelessness.

The BBC report whilst managing to avoid mentioning the analysis that stated quite clearly that climate change was not the main factor does manage to fit in this comment of their own:

Conservationists say that warming ocean temperatures are also driving some of the losses.

As temperatures rise, corals lose the tiny algae that live in their tissues, causing them to turn white – a process known as coral bleaching.

A more honest report comes from Forbes which reports both that previous damage had little to nothing to do with climate but also that climate change may pose a threat in future:

Solved! The Mystery Of The Disappearing Coral Reefs

The report says the consequences of global warming “pale in comparison to the introduction of the unidentified pathogen that caused the die-off of Diadema antillarum”.

“The threats of climate change and ocean acidification loom increasingly ominously for the future, but local stressors including an explosion in tourism, overfishing, and the resulting increase in macroalgae [seaweed] have been the major drivers of the catastrophic decline of Caribbean corals,” says the report, edited by Jeremy Jackson, Mary Donovan, Katie Cramer and Vivian Lam.

Just curious that the BBC weeded out the negative statements about climate change that other news outlets picked up on…is this just another example of the BBC ‘managing perceptions’ in its attempt to persuade us of the dangers of climate change?

Seen this?

BBC bosses have refused to apologise after a tribute story to paedophile Jimmy Savile appeared second on a list of ‘most popular’ stories on its website – below coverage of the death of Robin Williams.  Twitter users expressed outrage as the Savile story, filed hours after his death on October 29, 2011, suddenly appeared on the website and shot up the most read story list this morning. The BBC said it was because it had been shared through social media and was automatically added to the BBC’s most viewed story list as it rose up the charts.

I was discussing this with Jon Gaunt over on Fubarr Radio earlier and my point is that I really do believe that the BBC still don’t quite “get” the fact that for DECADES they sheltered one of the most notorious paedophiles this country has ever seen. Sure, they cannot be held responsible for whatever story from the past trends on social media – I get that – but they should still come out and express some contrition over THEIR star – the predatory monster Savile! Thoughts?

Time for a new one of these so please detail the bias, keep it polite and don’t resort to any form of abuse. The haters want to see that, deny them.

We’ve had a few looks at the likes of Jon Donnison who have been disseminating endless pictures of dead and injured children from Gaza and using them to attack Israel but Dan Hodges in the Telegraph neatly encapsulates all that needs to be said about the use of casualties as propaganda….

‘Atrocity porn’, and the online campaigners who use dead children to push political points

If you want to persuade me of your cause, persuade me. But don’t try to shame me, or shock me, or bully me onto your side.

If you do try to persuade me, do it with your arguments. Don’t do it with the broken, lifeless body of someone else’s child.

And most importantly, make your arguments with your words. Because if you can’t find sufficient words to convey at least part of the horror of what’s happening in Gaza and Iraq and the rest of our benighted, crumbling, morally bankrupt world, then it isn’t me that needs to take a look at themselves, it’s you.

John Humphrys yesterday (08:10) blamed the invasion of Iraq in 2003 for the rise of ISIS, choosing a moment in time and a particular event that Humphrys’ world seems to revolve around, and making that the sole trigger for events that occurred subsequently.

Humphrys is anti the Iraq War and so any chance he gets he tries to pin some blame for world calamities upon the invasion.

Two can play at that game of course…a good argument could be made to say John Humphrys is solely to blame for the rise of ISIS and the spread of Islamic terrorism around the world…having made false allegations about Tony Blair and having misled the world into thinking that the war was illegal he has ensured that governments now are very reluctant to engage in military action or suppression of Islamic terrorism…..leading to a free for all in the Middle East….never mind the rise of ‘conservative Islam’ here in the UK.

But let’s not be judgemental…let’s be more generous and merely ask why Humphrys limits his historic blame game to events in 2003?  He has always opposed the Iraq War and was prepared to mislead the listener and spread misinformation when broadcasting on the subject…perhaps his editor or producer should reconsider when choosing who to front a piece on Iraq, Humphrys being seriously compromised, damaged goods.

Wy not choose to go back to say 1914?…..the BBC are after all always ready to blame the British in WWI for the creation of Israel, which as we know is the cause of all the trouble in the world……so why not blame Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip, for the rise of the Jihadis?

The link is clear…Princip kills the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, leading to the First World War, the rise of the Soviets, the rise of Hitler, the  eventual creation of both Israel and Pakistan and Al Qaeda.

Hitler started the Second World War and lost.  The Soviets then annexed much of Europe and started the Cold War which climaxed in their defeat in Afghanistan by Mujahideen supported by the West.  The Mujahideen had morphed into Al Qaeda under the guidance of Osama Bin Laden.

Bin Laden wanted to invade Iraq and depose Saddam with his own Mujahideen…’He didn’t like him, and he told me he wanted to kick him out of Iraq, as he considered the Ba’th regime to be an atheist regime. He considered Saddam Hussein an atheist, and he hates an atheist’…… but was rebuffed by Saudi Arabia who invited in the infidel Americans to do the job in 1991…leading to OBL’s terminal case of the grumps against the world and his subsequent plots against the ‘Far Enemy’, the USA, with his creation ‘Al Qaeda’.

Meanwhile Pakistan created the Taliban as a proxy army to control Afghanistan which led to Al Qaeda having a Jihadi friendly training base and 9/11, and thence the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq by the West….then we had the Arab Spring, set in motion by a fruit seller, Mohammed Bouazizi, in Tunisia as the BBC always admiringly tells us , followed by mass uprisings and conflict in Egypt and then Syria.

‘Mohamed Bouazizi’s image has been used to inspire protesters throughout the Arab world’

Events in Syria led to the resurgence of ISIS….So Mohammed Bouazizi must be a good candidate for hanging the blame on for the recreation of ISIS in John Humphrys world.

ISIS is an off-shoot of Al Qaeda, and as mentioned Al Qaeda wanted to depose Saddam long before the US got boots on the ground in 1991…so Humphrys’ claim that ISIS and the current war in Iraq is a creation of the 2003 Iraq invasion has little basis in fact…ISIS was beaten in Iraq by the ‘Surge’, the same Surge that Humphrys always claimed would never work.  ISIS retreated but rebuilt and used the violent carnage in Syria to recreate itself…..only to be driven out of much of Syria by another Jihadi group, al Nusra…..ISIS made the best of it and set out to take as much of Iraq as it could…taking advantage of the discontent felt by Sunni Iraqis towards the Shia lead government.

Humphrys also blames the 2003 Iraq invasion for putting the Shia Maliki in government as PM who then adopted policies that favoured the Shia that subsequently created that ISIS friendly discontent opening the way for the ISIS takeover.

But that is all to convenient and suits Humphrys’ own narrative.  If you want to cast some blame for the Shia/Sunni conflict you only have to look at Saddam’s policy of crushing the Shia rather than integrating them.  They now take their revenge.  Humphrys also conveniently forgets the Shia Iran/ Sunni Iraq war.

Or you could go right back over a thousand years to the split in Islam between the Sunnis and the Shia.

Why doesn’t Humphrys go back to that time?  Why does he stop in 2003? It suits his agenda.

What we have with Humphrys is a BBC journalist hijacking history,  abusing his position to peddle his own fantasies with editors and producers too weak or too much on board the same narrative to stop him.

Trying to pin the blame for particular events on a single previous event is, as shown above, childishly simple to discredit and mock.  No one single event can be said to be to blame for future events, any event is the cumulation of many, many historic occurrences that lead up to it.  Cherry picking ones that allow you to spin a tale that you want to be true doesn’t make it so.

Just as Humphrys misled us about the start of the war he now misleads us about the subsequent fallout.

Good job we don’t have to rely on the BBC for the truth.  Just a shame we still are forced to pay for this misinformation/tripe.

The BBC does not bother its audience with the complexities and horrors of the conflict between Palestinians and Israel but instead offers  a vision not unlike Warsi’s and Clegg’s where Hamas are the heroes and Israel the villain.

Sayeeda Warsi and Nick Clegg are both eager to disarm the Israeli Defence Forces.

They don’t like the Israeli approach to self-defence as illustrated here…far too much disproportionate force….an unarmed little man being herded like an animal by a Jew at the point of a bayonet:

But they do seem entirely unconcerned about the all too likely outcome of their disarmament policy…strip the Israelis of their right to defend themselves and they swap a proud uniform for concentration camp pyjamas…the pogroms have already begun in Europe thanks to the willfully misleading reporting from the likes of the BBC:

From the Telegraph:

Moshe Dayan, then chief of the general staff, put it succinctly in 1956, in a eulogy at the graveside of a kibbutznik murdered by Arab infiltrators: “For eight years, they have sat in the refugee camps of Gaza, and have watched how we have turned their lands and villages, where they and their forefathers previously dwelled, into our home… Beyond the furrow of the border surges a sea of hatred and revenge… Let us not fear to look squarely at the hatred that consumes and fills the lives of hundreds [of thousands] of Arabs who live around us… This is our choice – to be ready and armed, tough and harsh – or else the sword shall fall from our hands and our lives will be cut short.”

[What does Hamas want?]

Like Isis in Iraq and Syria, like al Qaeda, the Shabab in Somalia and Boko Haram in Nigeria, it seeks to destroy Western neighbours.

The Nick Cleggs of this world, who call on Britain to suspend arms sales to Israel, are their accomplices. It’s as if they really don’t understand the world they live in, like those liberals in Britain and France who called for disarmament and pro-German treaty revision in the Thirties. But the message is clear. The barbarians truly are at the gates.

Today, standing in solidarity with the Warsis and Cleggs of this world,  the BBC proudly publishes photographs it has taken from Jon Donnison’s Twitter feed….you might think that there must be something wrong with the BBC’s guidelines if it allows its journalists to use Twitter to promote a terrorist organisation…seems not though.

In pictures: Faces from Gaza

Images taken by the BBC’s Jon Donnison in Gaza reveal the experiences of ordinary people amid the Israeli military operation to destroy tunnels and rockets used by militants. To see more of Jon’s pictures, follow him on Twitter @jondonnison.

No context at all from the BBC….just the usual stream of photographs of injured and despairing people, children mainly, designed not to bring you the facts to allow you to analyse the situation but intended to impact you purely on an emotional level and turn you against Israel.

Perhaps BBC reporters should have their own award, one that marks them out as those whose contribution to the breakdown of civilisation and the rising tide of anti-Semitism has been duly recognised…….something that reflects their integrity, professionalism and balanced, impartial reporting……

Here, from that previous Telegraph article, Benny Morris asks where is all that missing context in the Media?:

Israelis might argue that the (relatively) lightly armed Hamasniks in Gaza want to drive the Jews into the sea; that the struggle isn’t really between Israel and the Palestinians but between little Israel and the vast Arab and Muslim worlds, which long for Israel’s demise ; even that Israel isn’t the issue, that Islamists seek the demise of the West itself, and that Israel is merely an outpost of the far larger civilisation that they find abhorrent and seek to topple.

But television doesn’t show this bigger picture; images can’t elucidate ideas. It shows mighty Israel crushing bedraggled Gaza. Western TV screens never show Hamas – not a gunman, or a rocket launched at Tel Aviv, not a fighter shelling a nearby kibbutz. In these past few weeks, it has seemed as if Israel’s F-16s and Merkava tanks and 155mm artillery have been fighting only wailing mothers, mangled children, run-down concrete slums. Not Hamasniks. Not the 3,000 rockets reaching out for Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Beersheba. Not mortar bombs crashing into kibbutz dining halls. Not rockets fired at Israel from Gaza hospitals and schools, designed to provoke Israeli counterfire that could then be screened as an atrocity.

A vivid description from Benny Morris which perfectly outlines the likes of the BBC’s coverage which is shallow and unsophisticated, meant purely to persuade rather than to inform.

What the BBC deliberately avoids is the likely outcome should Hamas and its fellow travellers prevail and succeed in overrunning Israel.

What would Donnison’s Twitter feed look like then?

Here’s a bit of minority reporting from the future that attempts to predict that future…….a ‘future’ just as plausible as the BBC’s ‘present’ as depicted by its coverage of events in Gaza……

You may think that is a scenario that is way over the top, and hopefully you’d be right.  Islamist Hamas would never go that far…would they?

Then again….look at Syria and Iraq…….500 people being buried alive, Christians forced to convert or die, thousands executed in cold blood, severed heads held aloft by 7 year olds, whole peoples threatened with extinction and genocide.

Look at the Fogels, look at the 3 teenagers abducted and murdered on the orders of Hamas….look at the planned invasion of Israeli villages through the tunnels in September with the probable intent to kill as many Israelis, military or civilian, as possible.

They are capable of it.

The BBC’s journalists seem to be working, by design or stupidity, towards giving them the chance.

Tony Hall must be immensely proud of his swarm of highly trained journos bringing the complexities of the world to us in such simple but lucid and intense reports of the fighting between Hamas fighters and the IDF, the rigorous investigations of casualty figures, the many photographs of Hamas fighters firing from the vicinity of schools, hospitals and mosques,  the accurate analysis of who fired what when, the revelations about the massive transportation of goods into Gaza even as a war rages….the BBC isn’t just some cheap propaganda unit churning out Hamas friendly material…it brings you the truth.

Doesn’t it?