Is that really why a peace settlement hasn’t been negotiated in the last 20 years…or is it more likely that this is the problem?:

In December 2006, Ismail Haniyeh, Prime Minister of the PA, declared that the PA will never recognize Israel: “We will never recognize the usurper Zionist government and will continue our jihad-like movement until the liberation of Jerusalem.”

That was in 2006….but just a few days ago things hadn’t changed:

Hamas won’t recognise Israel

Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Hamas will never recognise Israel and will not accept the conditions laid out by the Middle East peacemaking Quartet, according to the Islamist movement’s deputy leader.

Speaking late on Saturday, Mussa Abu Marzuq said Hamas, which recently signed a reconciliation deal with the Western-backed Palestinian leadership in the occupied West Bank, would never agree to recognise Israel.

“We will not recognise the Zionist entity,” he said at a press conference in Gaza City

Recognising Israel is one of the key conditions laid out in the 2003 peacemaking roadmap of the Middle East Quartet, which brings together the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia.

The other two key demands are a renunciation of violence and acceptance of all prior agreements with Israel.

And considering the Israelis suspended talks because Fatah joined up with Hamas you might think that was the real problem:

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, accused the western-backed Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, of forming an alliance with Hamas, which he called “a terrorist organisation that calls for the destruction of Israel” – and hinted at further retaliatory measures.

“What has happened is a great reverse for peace, because we had hoped the Palestinian Authority [PA] president Abbas would embrace the Jewish state, the idea of two nation states, Palestinian one and a Jewish one,” Netanyahu told NBC. “But instead, he took a giant leap backward.”

“If Abbas is back to doing business with an organisation that refuses to recognise Israel and believes in armed resistance, one cannot blame the Israeli government for abandoning the peace process.”

And yet Bowen thinks the major problem is the Settlements…Settlements are an issue but not the major one bearing in mind that the Palestinians have agreed to exchange settlements for other land handed over by Israel.

The problems are much deeper than the shallow, simplistic accusations Bowen makes in his Tweets…it’s a very selective choice of what was in the Ynetnews article in which the American’s attitude was called into question.

The US did indeed try and blame the settlement issue for a failure of talks:

The American version of why the current round of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians failed is fundamentally different to the one presented by Israeli officials. The list of those to blame for this failure is also very different. From the US perspective, the issue of the settlements was largely to blame.

You can get an inkling of the US attitude to Israel, apart from Obama not seeming personally interested, in this comment by one of the American team:

“One of the Palestinians who participated in the talks told an Israeli participant: ‘You don’t see us. We’re transparent, we’re hollow.’ He had a point. After the second intifada ended and the separation barrier was built, the Palestinians turned into ghosts in the eyes of the Israelis – they couldn’t see them anymore.”

Ynet: It almost sounds like you wish for an intifada.

“Quite the opposite, it would be a tragedy. The Jewish people are supposed to be smart; it is true that they’re also considered a stubborn nation. You’re supposed to know how to read the map: In the 21st century, the world will not keep tolerating the Israeli occupation. The occupation threatens Israel’s status in the world and threatens Israel as a Jewish state.”

However, earlier in the interview one said: “I guess we need another intifada to create the circumstances that would allow progress.”

Ynet: The world is being self-righteous. It closes its eyes to China’s takeover of Tibet, it stutters at what Russia’s doing to Ukraine.

“Israel is not China. It was founded by a UN resolution. Its prosperity depends on the way it is viewed by the international community.”

Not quite sure why the way Israel was created is relevant…either it is a sovereign, legitimate nation or it isn’t, regardless of its origin.

The American team give a version of events that favours only the Palestinians and damns the Israelis…here even when Abbas rejects the deal it’s still the Israeli’s fault:

He was willing to give the process one final chance, but found, according to him, that he has no partner on the Israeli side. His legacy won’t include a peace agreement with Israel.

“In February, Abbas arrived at a Paris hotel for a meeting with Kerry. He had a lingering serious cold. ‘I’m under a lot of pressure,’ he complained. ‘I’m sick of this.’ He rejected all of Kerry’s ideas. A month later, in March, he was invited to the White House. Obama presented the American-formulated principles verbally – not in writing. Abbas refused.

“The claim on your side that Abbas was avoiding making decisions is not true. He wasn’t running away, he was just stuck.”

Not Abbas’ fault at all then.

No wonder Bowen wants to draw attention to this interview…unattributed by name to anyone…just ‘the team’of American negotiators beating up on Israel….bearing in mind their boss, John Kerry, used the phrase ‘apartheid state’ in relation to Israel.

Question is why would Bowen like to point to the Settlements as the major issue rather than Hamas’ refusal to recognise Israel and its stated desire to wipe Israel off the map?

Well then, I have of course been following the BBC’s coverage of the arrest and subsequent release of Gerry Adams. What struck me was the almost palpable euphoria expressed by SOME BBC correspondents when Grisly was released last evening.

The Today programme this morning summed it all up when, during an interview with one of Jean McConville’s children, the interview seemed struck dumb when he said he did not trust Gerry Adams. Further, he added that in 2005/2006 Adams had brokered meetings between him and IRA men. The interview interrupted to suggest they HAD BEEN in the IRA but obviously they were no longer. Mr McConville explained they were in IRA in the present tense.

The BBC has long sanitised the likes of Adams and McGuinness and the very idea that Gerry the Peacemaker is actually a terrorist godfather whose IRA are dripping in the blood of innocents such as Jean McConville, who it kidnapped, tortured and murdered in cold blood.

Why does it not ask Adams how can it be that if he was not in the IRA, others who were said he was their leader? Why does not it not ask Martin McGuinness, who by his own admission WAS  an IRA commander, what exactly did he command be done? Why does the BBC give every impression of being pro-Sinn Fein???

I see the BBC is now actually leading the campaigning against Sugar.

Two thirds of people support a ban on sugary drinks in all UK schools and academies, suggests a poll carried out for the BBC. The Populus poll of 1,000 adults in Britain also found more than four out of 10 people would support a tax on sugary drinks. And 59% said warnings on packaging – similar to those on cigarettes – would encourage them to eat more healthily. Six out of 10 wanted supermarkets to stop promotions on unhealthy food.

Now, whether or not one approves of sugar (I don’t but then again I am diabetic and have little choice!) surely the BBC has absolutely NO mandate to campaign either FOR or AGAINST??

Bank Holiday arrives and so does this! Enjoy!

Here the BBC reports the latest news on the Trojan Horse plot:

‘Trojan Horse’: Head teachers’ fears over six schools

 Head teachers believe there were “concerted efforts” to infiltrate and run about six Birmingham schools in line with hardline Muslim principles.

The head teachers’ union, NAHT, has been working with about 30 members in 12 Birmingham schools over claims of a plot known as Operation Trojan Horse.

General secretary Russell Hobby said he had serious concerns about events in half of these schools.

He said he believed the Trojan Horse letter was fake but it did refer to some incidents that appeared to have happened in some schools.

Mr Hobby will address the matter in his speech this weekend, saying that it is neither a cause for panic nor a cause for comfort.

He will say: “A tight network of religious leaders of the Islamic faith has made a concerted effort to get involved in the running of schools, and to strengthen the power of governing bodies to have a dominant influence in shaping the character of local schools.

“It is not clear that they have done anything wrong just by doing this. Indeed, such actions are officially encouraged.”

Firstly….the BBC once again reports that the belief is that the Trojan Horse letter is fake.

The problem with that is that the letter is not a fake, it reiterates everything that the man at the centre of the claims, Tahir Alam, laid out in 2007 in the Muslim Council of Britain’s ‘guidelines’ for schools to follow if they had Muslim pupils attending.

The BBC makes no mention of those guidelines, and never has in its reports concerning the Trojan Horse plot…a surprising omission considering that they provde conclusive proof of the intentions of Alam and his cohorts in the MCB…..a man who also claims the letter is a fake…“a malicious fabrication and completely untrue”.

Wonder just who the fake is really?

How many education authorities adopted those guidelines?

This one certainly did:

This is from Ealing Council:

So just how far spread is the problem?  Clearly it could be country wide and not just limited to areas with a Muslim majority…any school with Muslim pupils could be adapting itself to run under Muslim rules rather than secular or Christian ones….and it seems the rest of the pupils have to adapt also….which is a rather curious way of operating….are their cultures and beliefs and values so unimportant that they can be cast aside under pressure from Muslim activists?

How easily we cast aside our own society and culture……as illustrated by Hobby’s revelation and attitude:

“It is not clear that they have done anything wrong just by doing this. Indeed, such actions are officially encouraged.”

As indeed Ealing Council demonstrates.

Therein lies the problem…the Establishment are in a mess….on the one hand they encourage Islamisation (in the interests of cohesion and integration),  on the other they proclaim they are horrified by it.

And the BBC does its best to not report what is really going on and the threats and claims of victimisation used to keep the pressure on the appeasers who continue to cede ground and allow further Islamisation of the West under threat that not to do so will alienate and anger Muslims….who will then do what?

That’s what the likes of the MCB subtly hint at isn’t it…inter-communal conflict…..not so subtle blackmail….do what we say because we can’t control the ‘youth’ if you make them angry!

Iain Dale was reported to the police and ‘Tell MAMA’ for anti-Muslim bigotry by Mo Ansar after a little spat on Twitter which Iain Dale relates here:

The Truth About Mo Ansar

One comment about Mo Ansar in particular that stood out was this:

‘I know of three BBC programmes who won’t entertain him as a guest’

Raises the question why those programmes refuse to ‘entertain him as a guest‘ and why programmes like Nicky Campbell’s still do when he has so little of real substance to offer?

And just for your entertainment here’s Mo’s letter to the fuzz complaining that his dignity had been violated, an experience that was unwanted, humiliating and offensive and he wished to pursue criminal charges for being called a gobby prick, a smear, amongst others,  based on his Islamic identity:

It’s dated April 1  and sounds like a joke but apparently it’s the real thing.

(A guest post by Graeme Thompson who comments as ‘hippiepooter’)

‘No word on TODAY ‘notes MEP and Telegraph blogger Daniel Hannan.  What on earth, in Mr Hannan’s view, could merit a ‘word’ on Britain’s flagship radio news programme that it doesn’t get?

This.

An election candidate arrested for quoting Winston Churchill’s unflattering observations on Islam.

The election candidate in question, Paul Weston of Liberty GB, notes on his party’s website, that had he quoted Adolf Hitler’s admiration for Islam he would not have been arrested.

Why should it come as a surprise to anyone who has listened to the TODAY programme over the last 30 years that it does not cover this latest outrage against British democracy?

Police officers now uphold political correctness instead of the law with impunity.  BBC Thought Police on TODAY and other programmes have been instrumental in creating the conditions for this.

Not so much now, as they have achieved their major objective in bringing about the transition stage to tyranny of ‘shamocracy’, but I regularly used to hear TODAY ‘interviews’ with correctnick guests that were nothing more than propaganda pieces.  Correctnick guests were fed prompts to give them a platform.  Guests out of lockstep with ‘kulturkampf’ would be harried and harangued to ‘unperson’ them.  In my experience ‘ex-catedra’ pronouncements dressed up as ‘interviews’ were – and still are – most in evidence with representatives from Stonewall, spurious ‘anti-racism’ campaigners, the EU and those aiding and abetting enemy propaganda in the Jihad war against the West.

Islam is as much a natural ally of the totalitarian left as it was for the fascist right in the 30’s.  The arrest of Mr Weston clearly demonstrates that.

For the record, I do have qualms about Liberty GB.  Maybe it is a racist party, maybe it isn’t.  I wouldn’t dream of voting for them while doubts remain.  However, whether Mr Weston is a closet racist or not, the fact remains he was exercising his democratic right to free speech within the law.  But in ‘New Britain’, Political Correctness trumps law.  There have been many examples of Christians being arrested for saying homosexuality is a sin.  Invariably charges are either dropped or dismissed at Court.  In the most recent case the Magistrate cast doubt on whether a Police Constable was acting in the execution of her duty.  To date, to my knowledge, no Police officer has ever faced disciplinary action for such clear abuse of power.  As in these cases as will no doubt prove to be the case with Mr Weston, Correctnick police act with impunity.

They know that BBC programmes like TODAY and Newsnight have their backs.”

By coincidence as I posted on the BBC’s latest dumbing down by harvesting the ‘social media’ for news John Lloyd seems to agree that the BBC is heading for a fall…at least as far as its comedy is concerned as real comedy competes with “any w—– who’s flown in from Middlesbrough who says “I’ve got 3,000 hits on YouTube with my animation.”:

Television comedy is now a “thoroughgoing disaster” which could “sink” the BBC, the creator of some of Britain’s best-loved television programmes has said, as he condemns today’s inexperienced commissioners.

Modern TV comedy is a “disaster”, with even excellent producers with a proven track record being required to beg for new commissions along with “any w—– who’s flown in from Middlesbrough who says “I’ve got 3,000 hits on YouTube with my animation.”

“TV used to be world beating,” he said. “We used to be brilliant at it and we’re not anymore.

“Comedy is a disaster in television, and it is more acute in comedy than anything else because so few people know how to do it.

“Few people know how, consistently, to produce comedy.”

“It’s about time someone says it,” he concluded of his home truths. “I am speaking for tens of thousands of people in the industry who are too frightened to speak out because their jobs depend on it.”

The BBC has hit upon a convenient and deniable way of spreading propaganda, rumour and innuendo….they report twitter, Youtube and other social media offerings as ‘what’s trending’ at the moment…which is just a high tech way of mud slinging most of the time…..it could be any old rubbish, much of it highly political, based on the highly prejudiced and unprincipled mobilisation onTwitter etc of particular activist groups…especially those with an anti-Israeli stance.

And just how reliable is it?

Here is the final paragraph from one long ‘report’ based on Twitter:

It’s important not to believe everything you read on social media. “Everybody please calm down,” the journalist who originally claimed the men had been drinking beer has now tweeted. “My tweets were based on interviews of locals around the area. I do not claim it as gospel truth. Peace !!”

In other words it’s tripe…but the BBC report on it and legend becomes fact despite any disclaimers as to the truth of the report.

Here for instance is the blurb for the video above from the poster…..

‘an Israeli soldier attempting to shoot a 15 years old, after detaining him for two hours, the soldiers took the injured boy to unknown place, after beating him up near Qurtuba school in Shuhada Street.’

You can see emotive language and lies deployed to generate reaction against Israel….‘attempting to shoot’?

The BBC takes it up…and cleans up the language but retains the subtext intended to portray the Israeli soldier as unnecessarily violent towards a ‘teen’ or a ‘young Palestinian’.

The BBC’s intro on their magazine frontpage…a subtle jibe at Israelis in the title…how dare they praise someone for pointing a gun at someone else?:

Praised for pointing a gun

Thousands of Israelis have “liked” a Facebook page supporting a solider who cocked his gun at a young Palestinian.

The article headline:

#BBCtrending: Support for Israeli soldier who aimed gun at teen

It started on Sunday when a Palestinian activist group, Youth Against Settlements, posted a video to YouTube which shows two young Palestinians in a standoff with an IDF solider. After one of them fronts up to him in a challenging way, the soldier cocks his gun as if to shoot and points it at each of them in turn.

The problem with the BBC ‘report’ is that it underplays the danger and the reality of the situation in that video….if you were that soldier what would you feel and what would you do?

You might ask where all the people with cameras came from, the BBC doesn’t.  You might ask why a Palestinian was hassling  the Israeli soldier, the BBC doesn’t, you might ask why an Israeli soldier might feel justified in cocking his weapon in that situation, the BBC doesn’t.

The BBC doesn’t really provide much of an answer for anything, but instead seems happy to have ‘fallen’ for a piece of ‘Pallywood’ where a confrontation is deliberately engineered to force a soldier to react in an aggressive manner ‘to highlight the aggression of the Israeli military’ and allow activists to claim that all this is “a sign that Israeli society is getting more aggressive and extreme”.

The truth is that this was deliberately engineered anti-Israeli stunt designed to capture the attention of the useful idiots of the Press to demonise Israel, painting it as an oppressive aggressor beating up on defenceless Palestinians.

The truth is that a lone Israeli soldier is in a dangerous position and he is surrounded by people whose intentions he doesn’t know but are acting aggressively towards him and past history suggests it would be foolish not to be prepared.

This is a war zone, a low key war zone but one in which the Muslims have been trying to erase Israel off the map for 60 years now…..something the BBC doesn’t highlight….it’s not Notting Hill or Islington on a quiet Wednesday afternoon.

The BBC does not give you the soldier’s side of the story, for instance the Palestinian is quite clearly shoving the soldier, nor how dangerous the situation really is  but the BBC are keen to put the other side…’there are other perspectives on the story.’

The BBC is happy to provide a world platform for ‘Pallywood’ and the anti-Israeli, anti-semitic brigade…..is there any wonder that anti-semitism is rising around the world?

The BBC is playing its part and you suspect the hidden Balen Report revealed that.

Again the BBC targets Israel with this report of the traumas inflicted on Israeli children by the Israeli education system teaching them about the Holocaust and reaction to it:

Too young for the Holocaust?

Who is too young to learn about the horrors of the Holocaust? A new law in Israel means kindergarten children will be taught about the Nazi genocide for the first time, triggering an acerbic response on social media.

Trouble is this was a controversial story they have already run back in January but it seems the BBC have found an excuse to disinter it and have another go at the Israelis…..we looked at this then…..

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

FOOC had a little report on the Holocaust and education in Israel…it started off as if it was just a human interest story bringing us the lives of Israelis and the meaning perhaps of the Holocaust and how it still touches their lives….much as the BBC brings us the  heartwarming or heartstring plucking tales from Palestinians or asylum seekers.

You soon realised that was not to be here…as soon as the BBC stated that there was a ‘row’ over the Holocaust education you knew what had attracted the BBC’s attention to this story.

The BBC gleefully tells  us that Holocaust education in Israel is traumatising children.

Those Jews eh!

Then there is this from India…the BBC targeting its old enemy the BJP……..

Beaten in India for ‘drinking beer’

In the latest macabre twist of India’s election season, campaigners have been beaten up next to the country’s holiest river – but did they drink beer and pee there, and was this “moral policing” by thugs allegedly linked to the BJP?

After making us read about the bad old BJP thugs beating up people out for a nice drink they finish with this revelation:

It’s important not to believe everything you read on social media. “Everybody please calm down,” the journalist who originally claimed the men had been drinking beer has now tweeted. “My tweets were based on interviews of locals around the area. I do not claim it as gospel truth. Peace !!”

Then there was this one a while back:

Is London safe?

London and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are closely connected. Thousands of tourists from the UAE visit the capital each year and the city’s biggest football arena is Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium. But a violent attack in the city has led thousands of Emiratis to tweet that #london_is_not_safe – threatening to unwind that relationship.

The #london_is_not_safe hashtag was started by Emirati Twitter accounts 20 hours ago and has around 3,500 tweets. “Emiratis living in London are concerned,” one of those tweeting, Bader al Kaabi, told BBC Trending. “I feel unsafe because two families have been attacked. And London police do nothing.”

So this hashtag was started a mere 20 hours before the BBC rushed in to report on it…and send in its reporters for the story….quality stuff.

You have to question the BBC using social media to provide them with news stories…..it leaves them open to the people who mostly populate Twitter and Facebook…the activists who know how to manipulate the press and generate headlines.

The real trouble here is that the BBC not only ‘fall’ for the stunts but go out actively looking for ‘trends’ that reflect their world view in the full knowledge that they are just ‘gossip’ and often deliberately malicious gossip at that…they use this new way of working to target their pet hates or to burnish their pet likes…and all of it ‘deniable’ as they can fall back on the excuse that they are merely reporting the vagaries, the curious interests, prejudices and extremes of people online.

It does seem a particulary dangerous route to go down for the BBC, and one that would seem to be a waste of time and money….and all rather self-reverential in a way…if the BBC were to look at the motives of those running the Twitter campaigns and place it all in context then it might be a useful service….when activists are targeting businesses or countries or politicians it would be a useful to provide proper analysis of those campaigns rather than just reporting the effects as businesses etc retreat under a barrage of Twitter comments which may in fact only represent a very tiny number of people but who have enormous apparent clout magnified by Media, such as the BBC,  giving them legitimacy and power by reporting their activities as if they were representative of the whole country or at least an influential majority.

At the moment ‘#BBCtrending‘ just seems to be nothing more than a self-serving project dreamt up by BBC techies and reporters obsessed with the gossip and ‘more interesting than truth’ myths and legends that social media generates.

It could be a powerful myth busting tool and fact checker but seems more on the side of the propagandists than the truth at the moment.

Here you go, a new thread to see us all off into the weekend. BBC seem a bit upset that Gerry Adams is being questioned about murder. Bless.