Here you go, an on-time freshly prepared OPEN THREAD to see us all off into the wide blue yonder of the weekend. HERE is where you detail the bias as you see it. A new month commences…

Heeeeeeere’s Jeremy…

PM Netanyahu told BBC that #Israel is in #Gaza to make Israelis safer. Other Israeli PMs said the same. History shows no military solution. — Jeremy Bowen (@BowenBBC) July 20, 2014

History shows that appeasing Hamas does not make Israel safer either but Mr Neutrality misses that. Bowen’s twitter line is astonishingly biased.

I caught Biased BBC favourite Roger Harrabin on the PM programme on BBC Radio 4 late this afternoon. He was telling us that fracking is the road to nowhere but wind power is the future. Nothing changes…..

Apparently the new front runner for the job of BBC Trust Chairman is Nicholas Prettejohn…already a BBC Trustee…and yet another Oxbridge PPE graduate.

The Guardian tells us he is a former ‘city Grandee’ and  advisor to George Osborne….but he is also a former trustee of the Royal Opera House working with the BBC’s DG, Lord Hall, who has already employed a former work mate from the ROH, Anne Bulford, along with several other appointments made without an open recruitment process.

Good that one of Tony Hall’s mates may become the person who would be responsible for regulating the BBC run by Hall.

The BBC…starting to look like the top tier of the Tory party.  The irony.

Seen this?

“A BBC journalist has been scolded by his employer after a tweet he wrote appeared to reference the conspiracy that a Jewish elite are puppet masters, gifted with vast control. Producer Anish Shaikh said: “Attacking David Ward is a strategy to divert focus from real issue #Gaza politicians have no soul as they can be bought & sold by u know who.” He had also been referring to Liberal Democrat David Ward’s tweet,in which the politician said that he would fire rockets to Israel if he lived in Gaza. Mr Shaikh has since deleted his account and has been reminded “of his responsibility to uphold” BBC guidelines, the broadcaster said.

Meanwhile, I am worried that Jeremy Bowen may be going blind..

After leaving Gaza Italian journalist Gabriele Barbati tweeted.

Hamas Spells it Out: Our Aim is the Extermination of the Jews

As the 22nd day of the IDF’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza draws to a close, MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute) has published a video in which a Hamas cleric lays out the organization’s “doctrine” in its fight against Israel: genocide.

Speaking in a televised address from Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, the preacher said that Hamas’s aim was to “totally exterminate” the Jews living in Israel, because “wherever the Jews lived they spread corruption”.

H/T  Rob

Hamas defector slams ‘death worship’

Mosab Hassan Yousef, a Hamas defector who worked for 10 years as an informer for the Shin Bet, explained to CNN last week that, for Gaza’s rulers, human life is of no consequence.

“Hamas is not seeking coexistence and compromise; Hamas is seeking conquest,” he added. “The destruction of the state of Israel is not the Hamas final destination.”Hamas, Yousef asserted, wants to build an Islamic state “on the rubble of every other civilization.”

“In the mosques, Hamas told us that without shedding innocent blood for the sake of the ideology we will not be able to build an Islamic state,” he said. “At five-years-old, that is what they were feeding us.”

The correct use of words and phrases is essential when trying to communicate your message accurately and clearly to an audience…Theresa May hopefully recognises this after her disastrous use of the phrase ‘The nasty party’ in reference to the Tories, a phrase that will now haunt the Tories forever more.

The Israelis already know that the media will leap on any nuanced or mangled phrase and use it to propagate their own conspiracy theories.

Jon Donnison has recently done just that in an attempt to discredit the Israeli position that Hamas was responsible for the kidnap and killing of its three teenagers…via Is the BBC biased?:

Israeli police MickeyRosenfeld tells me men who killed 3 Israeli teens def lone cell, hamas affiliated but not operating under leadership1/2
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 25, 2014

Israeli police spokes Mickey Rosenfeld also said if kidnapping had been ordered by Hamas leadership, they’d have known about it in advance.
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 25, 2014

Donnison’s Tweets had a dramatic effect:

The twittersphere exploded with I-told-you-so’s from pro-Palestinian activists, who claimed Israel had manipulated events surrounding the killing of the teens to prepare for and justify its assault on Gaza, which has since killed more than 1,000 Palestinians

Rosenfeld said that he had told Donnison what the Israeli government had been saying all along. “The kidnapping and murder of the teens was carried out by Hamas terrorists from the Hebron area,” he told The Daily Beast. “The security organizations are continuing to search for the murderers.”

Ironically the BBC’s not so impartial journalist Jon Donnison is now complaining of Israeli ‘spin’ and doing his best to undermine Israel’s PR effort in the face of a pro-Hamas and hostile media…such as the BBC.

Donnison and his anti-Israel cohorts are merely regurgitating very old news….the  Israel Project’s 2009 GLOBAL LANGUAGE DICTIONARY came out in 2009 as might be guessed from the title and was immediately leaked.

Why is Donnison linking to 5 year old news just now…and why is he so concerned with Israeli PR and attempts to discredit it?  Why is he, a BBC journalist, trying to blacken the name and reputation of other journalists?….journalists who may take a more even handed approach to reality.

Donnison would be justified in linking to the document itself if he can show it is in use by Israeli officials…but he offers no proof.  He is certianly not justified in linking to Patrick Cockburn’s article in ‘Counterpunch’ which is itself nothing but spin, anti-Israeli black propaganda.

And which organisation doesn’t have guidelines on how to talk to the Media or the Public?

The BBC itself has extensive ‘spin’ :

The BBC’s Editorial Values

Audiences are at the heart of everything we do.

We are committed to giving them high-quality, original and at times challenging output.  Creativity is the lifeblood of our organisation.

Equally, we must give our audiences content made to the highest editorial and ethical standards.  Their trust depends on it.

We must therefore balance our presumption of freedom of expression with our responsibilities, for example to respect privacy, to be fair, to avoid unjustifiable offence and to provide appropriate protection for our audiences from harm.

This is of course the BBC’s famous guidance on reporting ‘terrorism’:

The relevant Editorial Guideline states:

Use of Language

11.4.5 We must report acts of terror quickly, accurately, fully and responsibly.  Terrorism is a difficult and emotive subject with significant political overtones and care is required in the use of language that carries value judgements.  We try to avoid the use of the term “terrorist” without attribution.  When we do use the term we should strive to do so with consistency in the stories we report across all our services and in a way that does not undermine our reputation for objectivity and accuracy.

The word “terrorist” itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should convey to our audience the full consequences of the act by describing what happened.  We should use words which specifically describe the perpetrator such as “bomber”, “attacker”, “gunman”, “kidnapper”, “insurgent”, and “militant”.  We should not adopt other people’s language as our own; our responsibility is to remain objective and report in ways that enable our audiences to make their own assessments about who is doing what to whom.

11.4.6 For similar reasons, it is also usually inappropriate to use, without attribution, terms such as “liberate”, “court martial” or “execute” in the absence of a clear judicial process.

Perhaps Donnison should give them a read and have a look at his own work before he presumes to lecture others……..

This is what Donnison links to….an article that is clearly designed not to enlighten but to encourage anti-Israeli hate, trying to portray everything the Israelis say as mere spin and lies to cover up war crimes and atrocities….but what war crimes and atrocities?

How Israel Spins War Crimes

by PATRICK COCKBURN

The Israel project’s 2009 Global Language Dictionary should be required reading for everybody, especially journalists, interested in any aspect of Israeli policy because of its “dos and don’ts” for Israeli spokesmen.
These are highly illuminating about the gap between what Israeli officials and politicians really believe, and what they say, the latter shaped in minute detail by polling to determine what Americans want to hear.
On every occasion, the presentation of events by Israeli spokesmen is geared to giving Americans and Europeans the impression that Israel wants peace with the Palestinians and is prepared to compromise to achieve this, when all the evidence is that it does not.

This is the Independent’s own spin on the story…..Patrick Cockburn being an Independent journalist…..

The secret report that helps Israel hide facts

The headline is already trying to twist your thoughts by claiming Israel is hiding the facts…but nowhere does it say what facts are being hidden, in fact in a later article Cockburn complains that the Israelis want you to know the facts and not just the ‘message’….

“Don’t confuse messages with facts,” Dr Luntz advises the spokesmen as he explains how facts should be selected and best presented to make Israel’s case.

The Israelis can’t win….Cockburn thinks any ‘message’ such as Israelis having empathy for Palestinians and wanting to live in peace together is a lie……he gives this as an example of such a  ‘lie’:

 “The day will come when Israeli children and Palestinian children will grow up together, play together, and work together side-by-side not just because they have to but because they want to.”

Cockburn however admits if it is spin it doesn’t work……

‘A Gallup poll shows that among Americans aged between 18 and 29 some 51 per cent said Israel’s actions were unjustified while only 23 per cent said they were.’

The Independent is so desperate for this negative narrative about Israeli propaganda to take off that it has Cockburn have another go two days later:

Israel’s propaganda machine is finally starting to misfire

Cockburn says that Israel is making outrageous claims that Hamas welcomes dead civilians:

For all the good advice of Dr Luntz there are signs of Israeli leaders getting rattled. Mr Netanyahu complained on CNN that Hamas wants “to pile up as many civilian dead as they can” and “to use telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause.”

Curious though that even BBC journalists admit Hamas exploit dead civilians for propaganda purposes….

Hamas’s military leaders might be calculating that the sight of Palestinian civilians suffering under terrifying aerial bombardment will force the Palestinian Authority to show much greater solidarity and prompt Arab governments to show more support.

Hamas might reason that there were few advantages in keeping the peace whereas once hostilities have started it can demand concessions for agreeing to end them.

Israel might argue that it’s trying to avoid civilian casualties while Hamas is trying to cause them. But television pictures of civilian dead in Gaza – especially children – will help shape perceptions of Israel round the world.

The Independent…Masters of spin themselves….

Thank god we’ve got the honest and impartial BBC to bring us the real truth….oh hell!!!…no!!…they’re busy spreading the Independent’s smears and lies as well……but then who needs the Independent to do the dirty work when you can do your own:

 From Is the BBC biased?:

@HughNaylor @CiFWatch is not a real organization, just a crappy smear campaign run by a couple of dunderheads
— Bekah Wolf (@BekahWolf) July 27, 2014

And who exactly is this Bekah Wolf who doesn’t reckon much to CiF Watch?

Bekah Wolf @BekahWolf Founded @PalestinePSP with my husband Mousa Abu Maria. I live in the U.S. and in Beit Ommar, #Palestine. Have worked in Palestine since 2003

BBC seems outraged this morning that HSBC have chosen to close some Muslim groups and other individual and organisations accounts. Given that the radical pro-Jihad Finsbury Park mosque is amongst these, this seems a prudent banking decision but the BBC are in their sniffing around to see if they can detect the Islamophobia that so deeply concerns them.

Here you go, an on-time new Open thread for you to detail the bias!

Just a bit of context to that last post where fracking was mentioned.

One of the questions that kept coming up during the programme was why do we need to frack and use gas when we have so many opportunities to use renewables.

One reason might be this:

German Utilities Bail Out Electric Grid at Wind’s Mercy

Germany’s push toward renewable energy is causing so many drops and surges from wind and solar power that the government is paying more utilities than ever to help stabilize the country’s electricity grid.

Twenty power companies including Germany’s biggest utilities, EON SE and RWE AG, now get fees for pledging to add or cut electricity within seconds to keep the power system stable, double the number in September, according to data from the nation’s four grid operators. Utilities that sign up to the 800 million-euro ($1.1 billion) balancing market can be paid as much as 400 times wholesale electricity prices, the data show.

Renewable energy sources has apparently lowered the wholesale price of energy but there is a massive hidden cost as the government pays energy companies to back up the renewables with fossil fuel and nuclear power….as well as an increasing risk of blackouts.