BBC journalist:

#Gaza. Disagree strongly with #Netanyahu’s comments. In the 2 weeks I was there, Hamas never intimidated the #BBC: http://t.co/Z1v8QxtOJz

— Kelvin Brown (@KelvinNews) August 8, 2014

The Foreign Press Association:

Hamas is using threats and pressure to prevent journalists from providing objective reports, the Foreign Press Association in Israel and Palestine said in a statement Monday.

The organization said it “protests in the strongest the blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods employed by the Hamas authorities and their representatives against visiting international journalists in Gaza over the past month.”

“The international media are not advocacy organizations and cannot be prevented from reporting by means of threats or pressure, thereby denying their readers and viewers an objective picture from the ground,” the FPA added. According to the FPA, several members of the foreign media in Gaza were harassed, threatened or questioned about stories they reported.

In addition, the FPA vehemently opposes “a ‘vetting’ procedure that would, in effect, allow for the blacklisting of specific journalists,” which Hamas is trying to put into place.

What appears to attract the attention of Hamas goons is journalists reporting things that Hamas doesn’t want reported. Perhaps that helps to explain why BBC journalists haven’t run into them.

Monday morning arrives and so does a new week of toxic bias from the State Broadcaster. Here is where to detail the bias!

The BBC loves images and heart wrenching tales of children suffering….if caused by Israelis….the guiding principle for any BBC journo is that tears of a child say more than words ever can. Here the BBC examines the suffering of children in Gaza and Syria:  Children in conflict

What they don’t tell us is this remarkable statistic:

‘At least 160 children died digging tunnels for Hamas’

Use of child labor not stopped by police in Gaza, where children’s “nimble bodies” help dig the tunnels that lead into Israel and Egypt.

Hamas used children to help them dig numerous tunnels into Israel and Egypt, a 2012 paper written for the Journal of Palestine Studies reported. The paper, titled Gaza’s Tunnel Phenomenon: The Unintended Dynamics of Israel’s Siege says that little had been done to stop the phenomenon of child labor during the digging of the tunnels by Hamas in Gaza. In December 2011, the paper’s author Nicolas Pelham accompanied a police patrol in Gaza and reported that “nothing was done to impede the use of children in the tunnels, where, much as in Victorian coal mines, they are prized for their nimble bodies.”

Hamas used children to help them dig numerous tunnels into Israel and Egypt, a 2012 paper written for the Journal of Palestine Studies reported. The paper, titled Gaza’s Tunnel Phenomenon: The Unintended Dynamics of Israel’s Siege says that little had been done to stop the phenomenon of child labor during the digging of the tunnels by Hamas in Gaza. In December 2011, the paper’s author Nicolas Pelham accompanied a police patrol in Gaza and reported that “nothing was done to impede the use of children in the tunnels, where, much as in Victorian coal mines, they are prized for their nimble bodies.”

The report miraculously vanished from the fervently pro-Palestinian ‘Institute for Palestinian Studies’ site but has since made a reappearance:

Gaza’s Tunnel Phenomenon: The Unintended Dynamics of Israel’s Siege

A similarly cavalier approach to child labor and tunnel fatalities damaged the movement’s standing with human-rights groups, despite government assurances dating back to 2008 that it was considering curbs. During a police patrol that the author was permitted to accompany in December 2011, nothing was done to impede the use of children in the tunnels, where, much as in Victorian coal mines, they are prized for their nimble bodies. At least 160 children have been killed in the tunnels, according to Hamas officials.

In 1970 Apollo 13 had a problem…a serious malfunction due to unexpectedly extreme cold conditions causing massive icing of control systems.

You never heard about that because the media suppressed the news as it ran counter to the growing consensus that was just starting to form amongst scientists that the world, the universe and everything was warming due to man’s emissions.

Naturally that’s not true…in the 70’s we were worried about global cooling, but that’s all over now.

More up to date though the BBC has been rather coy about giving us all the facts.  Here they report that an Antarctic research station had to close due to power failure:

Antarctic Halley Station lost power and heat at -32C

All power, including heating, to an Antarctic research station housing 13 people was lost for 19 hours, it has been revealed.

With temperatures as low as -32C (-25F), members of the Cambridge-based British Antarctic Survey (BAS) at the Halley VI Station suffered the power loss on 30 July.

All staff are currently safe and in good health, the BAS said.

The cause of the power loss has not been determined.

They tell us that temperatures were -32C but what does that mean?  Where’s the context?

Why does the BBC not tell us that the temps were in fact more extreme…and at record lows?:

Just who is besieging who?

We keep hearing about the siege of Gaza…that’ll be the Gaza that has a free flow of goods into it, subject to them being of no use militarily, and the flow of Gazans into Israel to the jobs they have there…never mind the sick and injured that get treatment in Israeli hospitals.

On the other hand there is the 70 year assault on Israel by its Arab neighbours, not to mention Iran, which aims to wipe Israel off the map and the Jews along with it.

A constant onslaught of savage terrorist attacks on Israelis, not just in Israel but around the world, an endless barrage of rockets into Israel and the ever present threat of State sponsored military attacks against Israel should serve to remind people just who is under siege.

But you wouldn’t guess that from the BBC’s and other media outlet’s coverage which is why a reminder is necessary…..

From Alan Johnson in the Telegraph:

It’s time to bust the ‘Israeli blockade led to Hamas rockets’ myth

Here is the widely believed fallacy: the Israeli blockade of Gaza led to the firing of Hamas rockets from Gaza.

And here is the little known truth: it was the firing of Hamas rockets from Gaza that led to the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

The fallacy distorts our understanding of why these escalations keep happening and what will make a durable peace possible. The fallacy frames the Israeli blockade of Gaza as motiveless and cruel at best, demonic at worst, while it presents the firing of Hamas rockets on Israeli civilians as acts of resistance. The fallacy makes us think that if only Israel “lifted the blockade” then peace would break out.

The fallacy spreads because of ignorance.

People do not know that when Israel left Gaza in 2005, the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon – who, like Rabin and Barak before him, and like Olmert after him, had crossed his Rubicon, finally accepting the need to divide the land – said: “We desire a life living side-by-side, in understanding and peace. Our goal [in disengaging] is that the Palestinians will be able to live in dignity and freedom in an independent state, and, together with us, enjoy good neighbourly relations.”

They do not know that the reply from the Hamas bomb-making chief Mohammed Deif was instant. On the website of the Izz-al Din Qassam Brigades he declared: “I thank Allah the exalted for his support in the Jihad of our people. I ask for your assistance to our jihad… We shall not rest until our entire holy land is liberated … To the Zionists we promise that tomorrow all of Palestine will become hell for you…”

They do not know that in spite of the Hamas threats, after leaving Gaza Israel signed an Agreement on Movement and Access with the Palestinian Authority which gave the Palestinians control over their own borders for the first time in history, allowed for imports and exports, and even approved construction of a seaport and discussions on an airport.

Unfortunately, Hamas does not respect deals made between the PA and Israel.

They do not know that Hamas launched a coup in 2007, took over the Strip, drove out its Palestinian political rival Fatah, threw their fellow Palestinians from rooftops, and declared as the new rulers of Gaza that they would now use the Strip as a base to destroy Israel.

They do not know that as a direct result, not only Israel but also Egypt put restrictions on the borders with Gaza, and Israel instituted a legal maritime blockade around Gaza to keep rockets and other weapons out of the hands of Hamas, while letting food and other humanitarian aid in.

They do not know that a UN inquiry (the 2011 Palmer Report) determined that Israel’s policy was legal given the threat it faced.

They do not know that in March 2014, Israel intercepted an Iranian ship, one of several intercepted by Israel, with a cargo of weapons to Hamas in Gaza, including advanced M-302 surface-to-surface missiles, showing again why the naval blockade is necessary.

They do not know that millions of Egyptians loathe Hamas as much as Israelis do. (Watch this compilation of Egyptian bile being poured over the heads of Hamas.)

They do not know that Hamas describes Palestine as “an Islamic Waqf (Endowment) consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgment Day” or that it pledges “Israel will exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it”.

They do not know that Hamas rejects all possible compromise with Israel, and all possibility of a negotiated peace in the following terms: “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavours.”

David Horovitz, the British-born editor of the Times of Israel, expresses the exasperation of many Israelis about all this. He pleads for “opinion-shapers overseas to… exercise just a smidgen of intellectual honesty”, and stop contriving not to see that “If there was no rocket fire from this non-disputed enclave, there would be no Israeli response, and nobody would be dying.”

Warsi resigned from the government complaining bitterly about the government’s lack of action in holding Israel to account and its failure to stop Israel conducting anymore military operations.

It was all about Israel.

Indeed Warsi wanted to in effect disarm Israel leaving it unable to defend itself.

That of course doesn’t look too good…a Muslim demanding a Jewish state be disarmed and held to account for its ‘war crimes’….when she makes no similar demands about Syria, ISIS or Boko Haram.

And it was all about Israel as this interview on Channel 4 quite plainly shows.

However a few days after resigning she has clearly recognised the stance she has taken has made her look at the very least, anti-Israel and pro-Hamas ….looking very ‘morally indefensible’ herself.

To salvage her ‘moral’ position  she was given another bite of the apple by the Today programme on Saturday….interviewed by Mishal Husain.….suddenly not just Israel but Hamas has to be held to account for its actions and arms must be prevented from being supplied to Hamas as well…..what about Fatah, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria?

So now we know,  she wasn’t just having a go at the Jewish state. Clear?  Good.

On listening to the interview you might think Husain did an OK job…she asked some awkward questions and kept at it when Warsi tried to dodge answering….especially about whether the resignation was political.

However other questions weren’t asked…ones that are just as, if not more relevant.

When asked why she had resigned just as a ceasefire had been negotiated she said that the ceasefire didn’t hold and her hopes were dashed.

But Husain didn’t then jump in and make the obvious point that it was Hamas that broke the ceasefire…so why is the government’s position towards Israel the problem?  Isn’t it the Islamist Hamas that is the instigator of all this violence?

The biggest question though would have been ‘Did you resign because you are a Muslim?’

Warsi has been stating quite clearly that Gaza has ‘radicalised’ Muslims in the UK so it is fair to ask her if she has been ‘radicalised’…in her own way…..blocking attempts to tackle Muslim extremism.

She complains Cameron doesn’t tackle Israeli ‘extremism’ and yet she herself was the problem here at home:

Baroness Warsi is alleged by multiple sources in and out of government to have consistently resisted calls to develop a proper strategy on integration and tackling extremism at its roots, even though this is the Prime Minister’s policy and part of her job at the Communities and Local Government department. One source says: ‘Sayeeda made clear when she got the job at CLG that she didn’t agree with the Prime Minister and that she simply wasn’t going to do this bit of her job.’

A follow on question to that would have been…‘Are you suggesting British foreign policy be driven by those who make threats to bomb or otherwise attack the UK?’  because that was seemingly what she was saying should happen in her coded message about radicalisation and this not playing ‘domestically’….and by domestically she very specifically meant in the Muslim community….‘the British response to the crisis in Gaza will have a long term “detrimental impact on our reputation internationally and domestically”.’

Warsi was without question saying the government’s policies towards Israel should be guided by what the Muslim community thinks….the subtext to that being…or else they will become radicalised…and who knows what would happen then…..though,  as in her C4 interview she links it all to British recruits heading off to Syria and ISIS,  you can see her meaning.

Just what are those ‘consequences’ she speaks of ‘at home’?….’our current policy on Gaza is morally indefensible that it is not in our interests, not in British interests and that it will have consequences for us both internationally and here at home.’

The Interview by Husain on one level was quite good but as always with the BBC, on certain taboo subjects, failed to ask the really nasty, awkward questions that get to the truth….not that C4’s interview was hard hitting in the slightest…..accepting Warsi’s claims about Israeli actions as completely legitimate.

Heard ‘The Brig Society’ for the first time.

Quite painful.

Even the audience weren’t really laughing.

Here’s a sample…

If you don’t want abuse on social media don’t take on the Scottish Nationalists:

Don’t call their beliefs a lot of blue faced william wallacy bollocks...because

I’d have provoked less rage and furious threats if I’d poked a hole in the Stone of Scone and worn it as a prophylactic whilst riding round Glasgow naked singing Donald where’s your troosers and flinging Union Jack painted haggis’ at the locals screaming batter that then you wee ginger health statistic!

Funny he wouldn’t dare say such things about a Muslim community….

I’d have provoked less rage and furious threats if I’d poked a hole in the Koran and worn it as a prophylactic whilst riding round Luton naked singing Jihad where’s your Burkha and flinging Israeli flag painted onion bahjis at the locals screaming behead that then you wee bearded terrorist!

The BBC gave Ed Miliband plenty of coverage for his criticism of Cameron over Gaza…..so far they don’t give similar coverage to his remarkable silence on IS and events in Iraq as his new found friend, Obama, starts bombing the Islamists.

Presumably Miliband is hunkered down with his wonks working out Labour’s ‘position’.  Got to be kind of difficult after turning a blind eye to Syria and cosying up to the Islamists of Hamas.

Still, whatever he comes up with he can probably rely on the BBC to spin it his way…they did after all hide the video footage of Syrian atrocities until after the vote on Syria.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPba_UzV07k

I see that BBC continues to echo Hamas PR by stating “More than 1,900 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in four weeks of Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, the UN says” Where does the UN get these figures, BBC? Since you claim to be all about investigative journalism, I am sure you would seek to be sure of your sources. Or, is it just possible that along with the UN, you have a predetermined narrative that requires Israel being portrayed as the bully?

Excellent analysis of the OUTRAGEOUS pro Hamas bias from BBC journalist Jon Donnison on BBC Watch. Do read.

Clearly Jon Donnison remains on Hamas PR campaign message, promoting context-free images and descriptions of damage and civilian suffering without even a whiff of a mention of terrorist activity in Beit Hanoun. His promotion of a non-existent “military occupation” of the Gaza Strip and of the notion of farmers unable to export their agricultural produce because of a “blockade” he fails to explain also conforms perfectly with the Hamas narrative currently being vigorously promoted. The fact that there is no truth to those notions obviously does not disturb Jon Donnison – or his employers – in the least.

Donnison, Douchet, Bowen – the BBC can sure pick them.