BBC Watch has an update on Sarah Montague’s claim on the Today programme that Israel persecutes Christians and this is a problem that the Israeli government could solve.

It includes a very rapid reply to a complaint about this interview which tries to whitewash the matter:

BBC R4′s ‘Today’ programme implies persecution of Christians in Israel

SM: “But are you saying – can I just ask – countries like Pakistan that you refer to, or perhaps Israel or even Iraq where there is a functioning government – is it just down to the politicians in those countries to speak out and this problem could be solved?” [emphasis added]

However, one listener at least received the following reply to a complaint made to the ‘Today’ programme:

“Thank you for your email. Sarah Montague cited Israel not as an example of a country which persecutes Christians but of a country where there is a functioning Government. She did this in the context of asking what responsibility politicians should bear for promoting harmony between those of different faiths.

There is evidence of an outflow of Christians from the Middle East caused in part by the unresolved dispute between Israel and the Palestinians but more widely by social, economic and political concerns. But Sarah’s question did not seek to apportion blame onto one single country or group of countries. It is clearly a more complicated issue than that.

I hope this helps answer your concerns.

Yours sincerely

Dominic Groves

Assistant Editor

’Today’ “

No she did not. Sarah Montague lumped Israel together with Pakistan and Iraq and asked “is it just down to the politicians in those countries to speak out and this problem could be solved?” – thus clearly implying to listeners that similar problems of persecution of Christians exist in all three of the countries she named.

The BBC refusing to take responsibility yet again ( £300,000 spent to hide Balen…and you wonder why?) for helping to spread anti-Semitism.

Which is what they are in effect doing….‘Look everyone…the Jews are persecuting Christians’

Sounds a bit like the old anti-Semitic trope….‘The Jews killed Christ’ doesn’t it?

Even the reply denying Montague meant Israelis persecuted Christians  just reinforces her comment with another blaming Israel again ….It’s the creation of Israel that is helping to drive the persecution of Christians.

‘First The Saturday people, Then The Sunday People’

Graffitti on a wall in Bethlehem where Christians are being driven out…and not by Israelis.

The Jews have pretty much been driven out of all their old communities in the Middle East….and now a drive to eliminate the Christians is under way…and not just in the Middle East.

Thanks to Downboy for highlighting this interview:

Baroness Warsi was in the Today studio being interviewed by Sarah Montague (53:30) about her claims that Christians were being persecuted.

Sarah Montague has an unusual take on who is doing the persecuting…..asking is it in countries like Pakistan, Iraq…and Israel, that politicians must speak out and then this problem could be solved?

Israel?  Israel is persecuting Christians?  Really?  Of course the truth is that she is insinuating that Israel is persecuting and oppressing Palestinians.

Christians have always been a minority in Israel, but it is the only Middle East nation where the Christian population has grown in the last half century (from 34,000 in 1948 to 140,000 today), in large measure because of the freedom to practice their religion.

The BBC is all too ready to make baseless accusations about Israel and include it in a discussion in which it has no part to play but is very reluctant to give it any credit for what it does do…..

Which country is absent from the BBC’s list of international aid efforts in the Philippines?

On November 10^th a lead team of experts in search & rescue and medicine from the IDF’s Home Front Command left Israel and travelled the 6,000 miles to the typhoon-stricken Philippines in order to assess the needs of the local population.

On the basis of that lead team’s assessments, a delegation set out for the Philippines on the morning of November 13^th. In addition to around 100 tons of humanitarian aid and medical supplies, the mission includes 150 team members from the IDF Home Front Command’s Search & Rescue Unit and from the IDF Medical Corps. A field hospital is being set up and live updates are available here and here.

It looks like the BBC has form on this:

 No BBC reports on Israeli medical aid for wounded Syrians

The IDF has now set up a field hospital in the north of the Golan Heights in order to provide medical care for the increasing numbers of Syrians seeking Israeli help.

So far, the BBC has shown no interest in reporting this story.

And again:

Israel builds a field hospital in Haiti. Anti-Zionists not fooled!

Clever people the Jews… oops, I mean the Israelis. Look at the lengths to which they have gone to distract the world from their daily ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The latest trick is an Israeli field hospital, rushed into Haiti last Friday and erected in a soccer field.

Information from Israeli government sources should, of course, be taken with a grain of salt, but footage of this tent-city/hospital has now been seen on SKY, Fox and CNN, ABC and CBS and the video seems to confirm (Mossad video fabricators are tricky) at least that the facility is large, clean, and full of modern equipment. CBS’s piece called the hospital the “Rolls Royce of medicine in Haiti”.

Thankfully, the BBC has kept its head and is not colluding with the Israeli government’s attempt to make the world forget its sins.

All just a coincidence that little old Israel gets forgotten by the BBC.

One of the BBC’s favourite radicals has spilt the beans about Labour’s bean counting cock ups when in power.

Just how will the BBC report this?  They love Ken but hate the message which is one they have been ignoring for 3 years….Labour smashed the economy:

Labour are cowards for racking up billions in debt, says Ken Livingstone

The former Mayor of London criticises Labour for spending billions to avoid tax and spending cuts in the ‘boom years’

roger harrabin ‏@RHarrabin 11 Nov @billyblofeld @latimeralder @aDissentient This is wrong. BBC does NOT have an agreed approach to #climatechange which is why sceptics abound

Shame Harrabin once said this:

I have spent much of the last two decades of my journalistic life warning about the potential dangers of climate change

And he famously engineered the adoption of the ‘scientific consensus’ within the BBC.

And I can only assume from the tone that freerange sceptics ‘abounding’ is something not very welcome in the Harrabin brave new world.

A reminder of one of Harrabin’s Tweets from a while back…..

roger harrabin ?@RogerHarrabin  @aniolesteban Earthquakes and volcanoes also boost economic growth. The Philippines mud slide was good for builders and undertakers.

Very caring from our Roger.

And then there was this:

roger harrabin ?@RogerHarrabin
Asking if climate change caused Sandy is like asking if gravity caused an old house to collapse when it did.

So a very definite link between climate change and storms…isn’t there?

In this recent report  he claimed that:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says the jury is out on whether the frequency of tropical cyclones will increase, but Michel Jarraud said it was expected that the impact of storms would be more intense.

The Telegraph says the IPCC said something else:

Here’s what it says in its new report: 

Current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century … No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin… In summary, confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones since 1900 is low.

What’s interesting when you read their [Those who say climate change produces more extreme weather] claims is that none of them is capable of producing any credible scientific evidence that “climate change” has anything whatsoever to do with Typhoon Haiyan.  That’ll be because – as Benny Peiser notes in the Spectator – the science says no such thing.

A more recent Tweet from Roger:

roger harrabin ‏@RHarrabin 13 Nov @BarryJWoods @etzpcm

Look at it decadally, Barry. Year by year is weather not climate.

Which is why of course he has headlines like this:

2013 ‘one of warmest’ on record

Apparently it is a ‘wake up call’ for us….

roger harrabin ‏@RHarrabin 13 Nov @etzpcm There’s nothing incoherent about wake-up calls unless you are deaf. The piece was written in 30 mins on deadline. Not great but OK

Nice to see quality journalism counts at the BBC…any old rubbish as long as it’s on time.

And still peddling that theory of the oceans absorbing all that heat…which is why we have a pause in global warming…so they claim…without proof:

roger harrabin ‏@RHarrabin 12 Nov @conservatarist @BarryJWoods @tan123 Higher sea levels = higher storm surges, warmer ocean has more energy. Creates greater storm potential.

A theory they now use  to tell us that though hurricanes and extreme weather may not be more frequent they will have worse effects because of higher sea levels etc.

If there is no ocean warming…then that’s another theory out the window.

He also Tweeted this:

roger harrabin ‏@RHarrabin 11 Nov

Rising sea levels and warmer seas will create conditions for ever-stronger tropical storms.

Tom Nelson ‏@tan123 11 Nov .@RHarrabin So why aren’t tropical storms getting ever stronger?

Harrabin backtracks:

roger harrabin ‏@RHarrabin 12 Nov @tan123 There are many conditions for storms. But rising sea level and hotter oceans create conditions for more damaging storms.

Getting grumpy…

roger harrabin ‏@RHarrabin  @BarryJWoods @conservatarist @tan123 Don’t misquote me. More heat = more energy. higher sea = higher surges,

Trouble is they weren’t misquoting him……Harrabin said ‘ever stronger tropical storms’.

Quality stuff from our campaigning friend of the earth.

Don’t misquote me…I didn’t say highly misleading twaddle.

I suppose most reasonable people would think that anything that can be done to improve the level of service given by our GP’s to the most frail members of society is on balance a good thing? Yet the BBC has been sneering all morning at the announcement by the Coalition tha 100,000 of the most frail patients in England will be identified and given a named GP to co-ordinate their care.

The move has been agreed by the British Medical Association and NHS England in talks over next year’s GP contract. Ministers had been pushing for doctors to take greater responsibility for the most vulnerable patients in society to relieve pressure on hospitals.

The BBC are suspicious of this and they have been quick to allow that politics giant with SUCH a great record on Health, Andy Burnham, a platform to whinge and bitch and never a mention of the fact that it was LABOUR that presided over the change in GP contracts that provided so much extra £££ for the GP’s in exchange for so much less CARE for us. Labour’s brass neck is perhaps predictable but the BBC’s wilful compliance with it is sickening.

Wonder if anyone else watched BBC QUESTION TIME last night? It lived up to its reputation for unending leftist bias of course and none more so than when the question came about whether the Typhoon in the Philippines that has caused such tragic loss of life was caused by …yes, global warming.

What struck me about the ensuing debate was the zealotry of those on the panel who all proclaimed that it was most likely the case that global warming (or climate change, as they subtly switch narrative when it suits them) was to blame and that it was indisputable that global warming WAS STILL HAPPENING! Poor old Nigel Lawson did his best to put forth a reasoned case to suggest that what was being proclaimed as fact by the panel was in fact at variance with reality but he was shouted down. We also had someone proclaim that banning carrier bags might help end Hurricanes and of course we have to fully embrace “renewables” and all the “free new deal” jobs they bring (none) Lawson was attacked on all fronts and the audience was also seemingly stacked with climate fantasists. You wonder how this can be when poll after poll shows the UK population increasingly sceptical of the AGW agenda. However the BBC is a key driver of the watermelon agenda and last night showed that when it comes to conducting a rational debate on the science of the matter, the BBC aren’t remotely interested. You see it is a matter of faith for these Gaia worshippers…

Channel 4 poached Paul Mason and it seems they have given him wings to take his flights of fancy to ever greater heights…we shall miss him on the BBC.

His latest thought:

Russell Brand is ……one of the key voices of his age.

Here you go, and on time for a change! Detail the bias as you see it!

Guest post by Graeme Thompson aka “hippiepooter”

How do we combat Jihad?

We recognise it for the Act of Treason that it is.  We recognise that the global counter-terrorist war we have (half) been engaged in is a war against the Jihad being waged against us.  Whether Jihad is prosecuted against us by violence or by the black propaganda of internal enemy organisations like Cageprisoners, we deal with Treason accordingly, we deal with captured enemy accordingly.

Any Muslim who says the West is waging a war against Islam is committing Treason.  Any non-Muslim who says the West is waging war against Islam is committing Treason.  It is enemy black propaganda.  At time of war, aiding and abetting the enemy should lead to immediate incarceration.  We should have military tribunals to deal with these incarcerations according to the rules of war.  We need to have our own Guantanamo’s.  Not just for our domestic jihadists, but for those on the Marxist left and the Jew haters who make common cause with Jihad.  After 12 years of being at war, it is time we got up to speed on what being at war means.

Unlike Melanie Phillips whom I hugely admire, I have a lot of time for the Prime Minister’s diplomatic hypocrisy over Islam in the wake of the Woolwich Jihad atrocity.  There are a lot of British Muslims who practice their religion through the prism of the common humanity that binds us all.  The last thing any decent human being wants to see is a violent backlash against innocent British Muslims at the hands of opportunist racists like the EDL.  President George W Bush did of course set this great example of restraint and tolerance in the wake of 9/11.

However, too much diplomatic hypocrisy leaves us vulnerable.  We encourage the enemy to think we are utterly stupid, we encourage ourselves to be utterly stupid.

One still marvels that most of the country thinks that when waging a counter-terrorist war there is something wrong with having TPOWs (Terrorist Prisoners of War) in Guantanamo or wheresoever.

Who has been at the forefront of fomenting this suicidal idiocy?  The BBC.

The anti-western narrative of its predominantly left wing news and current affairs coverage of the Afghan and Iraq wars has played directly into the hands of jihad propaganda.

Possibly, the best example of the BBC’s complicity with the enemy, is that brainchild of former Guantanamo inmates Moazzem Begg and Binyam Mohamed, Cageprisoners.  It could not be more patently obvious that Cageprisoners is a Jihadi propaganda organisation.  The best argument in favour of Guantanamo is that Jihadists want to close it down.  Moazzem Begg and Binyam Mohamed should be in a British Guantanamo yesterday.  BBC journalists like Steve Evans and Angela Saini who do their propaganda work for them should enjoy a nice friendly chat with officers from MI5 on the meaning of Treason, and be left in no doubt that the next time they commit it they’ll be in a jail cell within 24 hours.

That’s how wars are fought.  If we don’t fight this war we’re in, we’re going to lose it.

Had we heeded Churchill’s warnings about Hitler we could have avoided WWII, let’s hope we heed his warnings about Islam before we end up in WWIII.

I listened to an item on the BBC Today programme this morning (around6.45am) concerning the fact that Obama himself has weighed in on the all important matter… of the naming of the Washington Redskins. It seems that the Great one has been able to take time out from less weighty matters such as the collapse of his “signature” Obamacare programme to suggest that the use of the term “Redskin” causes offence and perhaps the owner of the club should do something about it.  Native Americans are unhappy it seems and every good liberal shares their pain. The BBC reporter was entirely on the side of those seeking to see Washington scalped off the Redskin name but conceded at the very end of the item that the Billionaire owner of the Redskins has utterly rejected the idea. He added that it still might come eventually. Totally one sided piece.