Category Archives: flotilla

Understandable Silence

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It’s understandable that the BBC has chosen to wait for the grand finale before reporting any news about the forthcoming Gaza flotilla, even if the build-up has caused a stir elsewhere.So far they have had nothing to say about the elaborate preparations currently taking place in 12 European countries and various other far-flung locations. I’ve been searching the BBC news pages each day to find a reference, but the website only comes up with stories concerning the fiasco which created nine martyrs last year. This year’s extensive preparations by pro Palestinian Peace activists haven’t made the cut. Normally one might just think that’s fine and dandy, after all, ‘if it doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t lead’. But as this stunt is deliberately designed to provoke Israel, and the peaceful protesters are evidently hoping it will lead to another violent confrontation ending in bloodshed, Israel’s supporters would say background information is essential. That is, if there were to be any hope of fair reporting, if and when the anticipated drama unfolds.

I find several reports about this more newsworthy than the BBC does. Apparently, the fashion for using ‘Lawfare’ as a weapon against Israel has been adopted by the Israelis and redirected at the flotillistas, with knobs on. Melanie P explains on her blog that warnings concerning potential accountability for Hamas’s future acts of terrorism are causing suppliers and maritime insurers to pull out. Various other delays and impediments to the preparations have taken yet more of the wind out of their sails.
A number of the recruits on stand-by are elderly, which means that their value as human shields all but equals that of babies and toddlers. Some of us might interpret this as the cynical exploitation of expendable useful idiots, while others will see pensioners’ participation as endearingly brave and selfless.
Ha’artetz has run some stories about preparatory workshops designed to whip up an atmosphere of defiance mixed with fear, creating amongst the passengers such an expectancy of violence that it is very likely to be self-fulfilling. That will provide the requisite anti Israel message for the media.
There have been reports that they intend to kill IDF soldiers, but having seen that this wouldn’t fit the agenda, they are hastily backtracking on that.
The BBC hasn’t reported any of the above, but the Guardian has, putting the case for the flotillistas. The Guardian is not under any obligation to be impartial, so it’s understandable that, as Just Journalism points out, they’re not bothering to report that Israel has promised that after an inspection of the cargo, which must be carried out as per the conditions of the blockade, they will deliver all the humanitarian aid on board, safely and lovingly to Gaza. Similarly, the Guardian hasn’t reflected on the fact that ‘there doesn’t seem to be a practical reason to send the aid.’ But, again that is understandable, since the media’s orchestrated campaign to delegitimise Israel is a given, and the Guardian is not constrained by a charter which limits their freedom of expression. Unlike the BBC whose motto might be
‘if you can’t say something bad, say nothing.’
So the BBC has been silent, in strict, officious accordance with the genetic impartiality it’s so proud of.

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HARDto take

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Israel’s image is being buried by an avalanche of negative reporting, which spans the whole gamut from the severe to the subliminal.

The wholesale acceptance of the so-called Palestinian narrative, and near total rejection of the Israeli one, questioning Israel’s right to exist, the interminable, repetitive reiteration of the number of Palestinian casualties compared with what they apparently regard as pitifully few Israeli ones that’s tacked on to almost every article. All told this makes the rehabilitation of Israel in the eyes of the world seem hopeless.

Palestinian grievances cast a sort of white noise, which surrounds the subject and blots out everything else. Any smidgeon of favourable news that does manage to penetrate this auditory barrier is met with cynicism and suspicion and dismissed as propaganda.

The BBC, under an obligation to be impartial, has taken many years to skew the balance-point. Perceived impartiality, which is in the eye of the beholder, has come to rest way off centre. To stay within the BBC charter, the goal posts have been moved a mile.

Sarah Montague, who often lets her personal left-wing anti-Israel leanings hang out, was an odd choice to interview Ken O’Keefe on HARDtalk. She probably landed the job after a rare interview she did while suddenly overcome by common sense. Overwhelming evidence had finally emerged about the truth behind the flotilla, and she grilled the female peace activist Sarah Colborne till she was toast.

Did the HARDtalk producer choose to pit her against O’Keefe hoping for a bit of controversy and sensation, the one BBC interviewer who would get sparks flying?
So she grilled him, but lightly; and the sparks flew, but not on the programme.

Hundreds of websites were ignited by HARDtalk, furious over what they saw as their hero’s interrogation by that BBC Zionist whore.
The ratio of supporters to critics of our deranged peace activist – is about …..hundreds to three. Hundreds love him, and about three people think he’s nuts.
Tattooed peace activist O’Keefe is a self-styled one-man provocateur, inciter, manipulator, self promoter, instigator of human shield activism, and US traitor. Bizarrely, he seems to have had something to do with CBeeBIES at one time. Not sure what, exactly. Just the man to entertain the kiddies.

People who are incensed if Israel even gets a mention on the air in any capacity other than as the spawn of Satan, people who regard balance as a matter of allocating wall-to-wall air-time to Palestinian victimhood and hardship, while depriving Israel of the oxygen of publicity altogether – these are the people who complain that the BBC is pro-Israel. They are the ones who tip the balance right off the scale, allowing the BBC to tell itself they’ve got it about right.
‘we get complaints from both sides, so we must be doing something right. ‘ they declare, in their complacent ignorance.

O’Keefe is clearly mentally unbalanced, and if anyone should be deprived of the oxygen of publicity, it’s him. Or as the late Linda Smith once said of someone equally repulsive, “ He shouldn’t even be given the oxygen of oxygen.”

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