Category Archives: israel

The BBC’s Little White Lie For Palestinians

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On the heels of Turkish PM Erdogan’s remark that Zionism is a crime against humanity, the BBC felt the need to briefly explain what Zionism is.

Zionism is an ideology or movement that asserts that the Jewish people have a right to a national home or state in what was the Biblical “Land of Israel”. There is no consensus among Zionists where the borders of the state should be. For Palestinians, the success of Zionism has meant the frustration of their national aspirations and life under occupation.

Except for one thing: there was no such thing as Palestinians or their national aspirations until after the Arabs failed twice to destroy Israel. Only then was there any movement to create the concept of Palestinians and a national identity, leading to the founding of the PLO in 1964. Only after Israel occupied territory ceded by Jordan and Egypt after yet another failed war to destroy the Jews was there even a concept of Palestinian territory. Until then, Israel’s enemies saw them as Jewish usurpers in Muslim Arab land, full stop. There was no such thing as Palestinian nationalism. Rather, the identity group was encouraged as a buffer and cannon fodder for the Arabs’ continued war against the Jews. As always, the BBC rewrites history so that 1967 is Year Zero. There was no “occupation” before that, unless one feels that the entire State of Israel has been an occupying force since 1948. That’s the impression given by this BBC article, though.

For other examples of this kind of BBC revisionism, see here, here, and here.

There was no movement for a Palestinian homeland when it was part of Jordan, or under the British Mandate, or under the Ottoman Empire or anything else. It’s a modern concept, created long after the creation of Israel. Of course, by “the success of Zionism”, one assumes that the BBC journalist who wrote this means that Israel hasn’t been destroyed yet. After all, the Palestinians’ true goal is not self-governance in Gaza and the West Bank (which they already have), but the removal of the Zionist Entity entirely. Every once and a while, the BBC admits this, but for some reason fail to mention it here. Nor do they ever mention that a Palestinian State will be Judenrein. If, hypothetically, there was a sort-of contiguous Palestinian State existing side-by-side with the Jewish State, does anyone seriously believe the Palestinians and the Arabs (and Iranians) would accept that the occupation of Arab/Muslim land had ended? Of course not. The very existence of Israel is the “success of Zionism”. That’s what the Beeboid meant here. The only logical conclusion is that, so long as Israel exists, Palestinian national aspirations will remain stunted.

(UPDATE: On further reflection, I’m now wondering if perhaps by “the success of Zionism”, the Beeboid meant not merely maintaining Israel’s existence but the conquest/occupation of Arab land. That’s more Palestinian/anti-Israel propaganda, as if 1967 was all about Israeli conquest and precious little to do with the attempts to destroy it. Can someone else find a better explanation? Or is this code for the evil Settlements?)

Whatever one thinks about the right of people who now call themselves Palestinians to their own self-governed territory, or the Jews’ right for same, the BBC is spreading a false version of history. This goes beyond mere criticism of Israel and strays into demonization territory. It’s impossible to have an honest discussion of the situation when the BBC taints the scene in this way.

Please don’t anyone try to start arguing about whether or not Israel is right or wrong, or give me any BS about how I think Israel can do no wrong or any other nonsense. This is about the BBC distorting reality in way that favors one side and demonizes the other.

 

 

Spinning For Syria

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Typical BBC spinning history to make Israel look like the villain in this Q&A article about the recent Israeli airstrike on Hezbollah weapons and a related facility in Syria. The only real background context to the conflict you get is this:

Syria and Israel have been technically in a state of war since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The main grievance is over Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights in 1967. Syria has been demanding the area back as part of any peace deal. But the border area has been quiet and Damascus has never retaliated to Israeli attacks.

Let’s just break this propaganda down line by line.

Syria and Israel have been technically in a state of war since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

Well, that’s “accurate”, anyway. Any reason why Syria would be at war with Israel since then, BBC?

The main grievance is over Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights in 1967.

Oh. So let’s just forget about why Syria would be at war with Israel since 1948. As always, the BBC rewrites history so that 1967 is Year Zero. And Israel now becomes the villain of the piece over its “occupation”. Why is Israel there, BBC? Why did it happen, BBC? Without this important bit of background info, Israel is made to look like the aggressor. It’s a main grievance now, sure. But it’s “a” main grievance, not “the” main grievance, which is key. I’m pretty sure an astute News Online editor carefully chose the indefinite article there, which is nice. But it doesn’t make up for the lack of context.

Syria has been demanding the area back as part of any peace deal.

Has it now? That’s nice, but pretty pointless in the face of Syria’s real goal of eliminating Israel, which has been censored here. Since you aren’t told why Israel is “occupying” the Golan, this line lends support to making Israel appear as the villain, full stop. Oh, if only those vile Jews would hand back land they stole, all would be well, eh? That sounds familiar, somehow. Yes, the article itself makes no bones about Syria arming Hezbollah, but at no point are we told why or given any other context in which to view this. Of course, even that bit of honesty is watered down a bit by it all being qualified as “Israel believes”, etc. No other authority we can appeal to has an opinion, BBC? I guess we can’t go to the US for confirmation because, as Katty Kay told us, they’re under pressure from the Jewish Lobby.

But the border area has been quiet and Damascus has never retaliated to Israeli attacks.

Other than arming Hezbollah in a couple of different wars against Israel – and obviously continuing to arm them now – and trying to control Lebanon and doing everything it possibly can to aid violence against Israel, yeah, Syria has never retaliated. Sure, the Syrian military has never officially done anything overtly, but please, let’s not pretend that Syria is always doing the good Christian thing of turning the other cheek. Even something as simple as “Damascus has never officially retaliated” would have helped immensely. Plus, anyone already sympathetic to Syria – or just already anti-Israel – will read the bits about Syria being unable to deal with Israel directly due to their own internal problems will see only Israeli aggression, adding fuel to what any observer of comments on BBC output will know is an already raging fire of anti-Jewish sentiment in their readers.

We’re also told further down that Hezbollah and Israel both expect another war between them, only adding to the long-term BBC Narrative that Hezbollah is a legitimate defense force against Israeli aggression. The takeaway impression is that Israel is the villain, full stop. This goes beyond criticizing Israel and strays into demonization.

 

 

LOVING IRAN..

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Anything to do with Israel always brings out some of the worst bias in the BBC. Have a read of this story concerning how the country’s leadership is supposedly “misleading” the public on the merits of a possible military strike on Iran. Throughout the article, Israel is portrayed as the bully with poor Iran as the victim.  Nehanyahu is a guy that the BBC can barely disguise its contempt for – one reason why I find him a most agreeable chap. I bet Ahmadinejad and the rest of the genocidal Mullahs must give thanks for the BBC every morning.

SUDANESE DREAMS..

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If you tuned in to the Today programme at 08:41 today you would have had a fascinating insight into the evolution of the anti-Israel movement as supported by the BBC. Biased BBC’s Alan carefully notes..

You may be surprised as they were talking about Sudan….but if you listen you might think they were talking about Israel and the Palestinians. There has been a long civil war in Sudan with over 2 million dead and it finally resulted in the creation of South Sudan which split off from its northern Islamic neighbour recently.

South Sudan is mostly Christian.

The report started off with Mike Thomson giving us the run down on events in the region….though in a somewhat one sided manner. Thomson failed to mention some important facts….that Sudan had forced the closure of South Sudan’s oil pipelines, was bombing her oil fields and was using the Heglig region to launch attacks against South Sudan.
Thomson told us that Sudan’s President made a speech calling for the liberation of certain areas from the ‘insects and vermin’ of South Sudan and that the only language they understood was that of bullets and bombs.

Now where have we heard such language before, could it be from Hamas and Fatah?

Thomson then tells us that the South Sudanese president issued these ‘chilling words’….’the government of Khartoum has declared war against the Republic of South Sudan.’
Why would Thomson characterise these words as ‘chilling’….are they not fact? Is he blaming the South for the violence perpetrated upon it?

The report then switches back to the studio with Humphrys interviewing Baroness Cox who has just been to Sudan. Humphrys opens by saying ‘in proportioning blame you are more sympathetic to the North than to South Sudan.’

Baroness Cox soon puts him right telling him ‘Not at all’ before going on to explain at length what she calls the ‘barbarous policies’ of the North. She tells us that the area of Heglig was used as a base for attacks against South Sudan and that the South were therefore justified in taking action against it.

She states there is no moral equivalence between the two states as Humphrys tries to blame the South for the violence…she says the North is the major perpetrator of violence.
Humphrys asks ‘has the creation of the South made things better or worse?’…forgetting there has already been a war that killed 2 million. Cox says the South desperately needed independence.

She states that Khartoum is running a racist policy, wanting to turn the North into a United Islamic Arabic state and expelling anyone with relations in the South…it is carrying out ethnic cleansing.

The whole charade seemed set on blaming the South for all the violence and excusing the North’s actions. You can see the genesis of the anti-Israel feeling at the BBC in Humphrys approach…asking is the creation of South Sudan a problem?, missing out important reasons that explain the South’s actions as well as the inversion of truth when Thomson quotes the North’s president calling for the extermination of the South but says the South’s President’s own words were ‘chilling’….despite just being a mere statement of fact.

All this and more you can see in the reporting of the Israel/Palestine conflict where one side is the villain and the other the blameless victim of Jewish aggression….the attempt to make some moral equivalence between Israel and the Palestinians whilst all the time not reporting Palestinian violence nor their real beliefs about the future of Israel’s existence….that is they aim to wipe it out.

Of course the North is Muslim….which could go a long way to explaining the BBC’s attitude.

IRAN, ISRAEL AND SYRIA

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Anyone catch this John Humphyrs interview with William Hague on Today this morning. What fascinated me was how a discussion regarding what could be done to help those people suffering under the Assad regime in Syria suddenly was switched by Humphyrs into trying to get Hague to say that the UK would never support military action against…Iran. And in particular, should Israel move against the Mad Mullahs, would the UK ensure no support whatsoever would be afforded. To be fair to Hague he did repeat the line that NO options are off the table but it’s the way in which the BBC seems to have linked Assad’s butchery of his own people to that of Israel seeking to prevent the annihilation of their people at the hands of the thugs in Tehran. As I recall there was a similar attempted “gotcha” last week using the same trick and it makes me think the BBC worry more about Israel defending itself than Iran attacking it. I’ve had an exchange in the past day with New Statesman Editor Medhi Hasan and he articulates a defence  for Iran that I believe will become the narrative for the BBC as conditions deteriorate.

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DRAWING BLOOD

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Biased BBC’s Alan observes;

“Not content with inflaming Muslim anger towards Jews the BBC is set on creating antagonism between Christians and Jews with its creative use of the truth in Bethlehem….as noted in a previous post. The reporter, Jon Donnison, had a template to write his story around and mangled the facts to fit that narrative….the Jews killed Christ and now they are destroying the Christian communities in the West Bank….and a university graduate doesn’t want to be a shepherd because of those damned Jews….sorry ‘Israelis’. Whatever the Balen Report said its message has clearly been forgotten…or ignored. What was that message? Probably that BBC News kills Jews. No wonder They don’t want you to see it.

Naturally of course the BBC don’t bother reporting much at all from Pakistan….a nation created in a similar way to Israel (and with less legitimacy) and one which supports terrorism in India and the Taliban…and of course is a Muslim state. One reason the BBC might not want to report from there……

‘For the second year in a row, Reporters Without Borders has named Pakistan the most deadly country in the world for journalists. The biggest threat is not terrorists, but the intelligence service, a prominent talk show moderator alleges. The same man just received an ominous warning via text message. ‘

 You haven’t heard much about that on the BBC. Perhaps if Jews promised to vote Labour they might get a better Press from the BBC? No matter what Labour does the BBC draws a veil over it…13 years of corruption and incompetence goes unreported. 

Recently the BBC presented us with ‘Drawing Blood’, a programme revealing the dangerous art of political cartooning.

As all political time begins with Thatcher the BBC of course went straight to her, then continued with the Tories and onto the Coalition….remarkably it seems the cartoonists had found nothing funny or satirical about Labour’s 13 years of misrule…..the BBC had their very own cultural Great Leap Forward and decided not to show us any anti-Labour cartoons.

What they did give us was Martin Rowson, of the Guardian (natch) who lectured us on the hateful nastiness of the Coalition….destroying Labour’s legacy of fine economic management and destituting the poor to pay for the Tory Toff’s mates in the Cities bonus’s….. ‘

“This government in particular makes me angry….it doesn’t know what it is doing….I get angrier when I think of the effect they’re having on the most vulnerable in society and economic mismanagement’.

Nice that the BBC doesn’t let an opportunity go to damn it’s political enemies.

Even John Simpson has lowered himself to puerile, student level abuse when reporting on the death of Vaclav Havel…he told us how intellectual Havel was….unlike other leaders….cue film of George Bush with Havel and Simpson’s narration….‘In terms of intellect he was way ahead of other political leaders.’ 

Ho Ho Ho.
(HIGN4Y 6 mins 30 secs in….)  No doubt the editors were all laughing at that one…..and at the picture of Bush as Hitler in the BBC news room.

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HALF THE STORY….

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When you look at this video and then you read this BBC story, you wonder if we are living on the same planet. BBC staff should don Keffiyehs when reading out every story on Israel as the visual cue for what is a patently underlying contempt for Israel and a cloying support for whatever trash the Palestinians put out.

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GILAD SHALIT

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I’ll be honest and state my own prejudice. I am pleased that Gilad Shalit is being freed today but I TOTALLY oppose the swap on the simple principle that rewarding terrorism usually ensures you get more of it. But it’s a big day for Israel and also for Hamastan.

I was surprised to hear the BBC refer to Shalit’s five year incarceration as “detention” this morning. Detention, eh? Even after all these years they just cannot bring themselves to admit that Shalit was kidnapped and then held hostage by Hamastan. Nor do they mention that two of Shalit’s colleagues were murdered by the same loathsome Hamas killers.

The BBC also seems a bit coy about the nature of those Palestinian “fighters” being released, almost as if their convictions for terrorism against Israel has no meaning. Similarly, the comment “Those released will return to armed struggle. It is a great national achievement.” by Khaled Mashal, Chairman, Hamas Political Bureau, Damascus, Syria, seems to have been missed by the world class BBC.

The BBC will record the jubilation amongst Palestinians as they celebrate their hatred of Israel and yet I suggest it will do everything possible to sanitise the blood lust on display, I will leave it to you to determine why.

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ANOTHER READER WRITES (BARELY)

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When I open the Biased BBC mailbox each morning, there are always really good emails. And then there are the droolings of the moonbats who send me the likes of this;

Elders of Zion

Message*: I realise that British people who are not traitors long ago gave up bothering to read the inane rubbish on your pathetic “Voice of Tel Aviv” website,but is it not time we asked what would have happened if a group of westernised Arabs had “returned” to the ME after a few thousand years and kicked a settled community of Jewish people of their land with the assistance of the sort of Wall Street vermin who have wrecked the global economy twice (1929 and 2008)?
Would the loyal and diminishing band of ignoramic Zionist imbeciles who post on your “Loyalist” (loyal to whom?) grovel to the power of global organised crime be gibbering about their “right to exist”? 

I assume that this series of lunatic mails have been prompted by the fact that this site rightly and persistently flags up BBC imbalance of the coverage of Middle East affairs. So, i just wanted to say to the individual concerned that we shall continue to hold the BBC responsible for how it treats stories from the Middle East and we thank you for your interest.

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The BBC Continues To Lie About History And Censor Calls For Ethnic Cleansing

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Apologies for the lengthy title, but there are two issues here which need to be covered, and I’m combining them into one post. First, the BBC’s continued attempts to lie and rewrite history.

Q&A: Palestinian statehood bid at the UN

Most people here will know exactly what’s coming, and I know this has been covered here many times before, but it’s even more important to call the BBC out on it now because of the looming UN fight over creating a State of Palestine. For the benefit of those who don’t know the BBC’s bias about the “West Bank”, here’s the map they use to explain history to the public:


Notice on the left, the BBC is claiming that there was such a thing as the West Bank (i.e. Palestinian) Territory before the 1967 war. They’ve just erased a chunk of Jordan from history. As we all know, that was part of Jordan at the time, a country at war with Israel. Why else would Israel have invaded? This map indoctrinates the public with PLO propaganda, that Israel invaded sovereign Palestinian territory. Your license fee is being used to promote false history and anti-Israel propaganda.

Reality, on the other hand, is not Israeli propaganda. This map of Jordan – from a non-partisan source – and environs showing the borders during part of the 1967 war in question is fact, not fiction:


Notice the clear border lines of Jordan encompass the area about which the BBC is lying. Yes, I am accusing BBC News Online of telling a lie. I don’t care what some Beeboids personally believe about nasty old Israel’s land grab or the plight of the poor Palestinians or anything else. This is historical fact, and the BBC is lying about it. How can there be an honest Q&A about the topic when one of the answers is a lie? Until they remove that first map and replace it with an honest one, my accusation will stand.

Needless to say, this propaganda demonizes Israel in the minds of the public. Most people are seriously uninformed about the facts of Israel and 1967 and the “Palestinian Territories”. When one tries to explain the facts to get past the emotions, one is then accused of spouting Israeli propaganda. This is how the BBC’s editorial policy and style guide is blatantly biased, causing them to demonize Israel at every opportunity, although the BBC disputes this.

It’s impossible to have a civil discussion, national or otherwise, about the situation when the national broadcaster promotes propaganda for one side and demonizes the other. This then promotes anti-Jewish sentiment, but that’s a topic for another time.

Now for the BBC Censorship angle. Last week, Maen Rashid Areikat, the Palestinian ambassador to the US, said that there should be no Jews in a State of Palestine:

“Well, I personally still believe that as a first step we need to be totally separated, and we can contemplate these issues in the future,” he said when asked by The Daily Caller if he could imagine a Jew being elected mayor of the Palestinian city of Ramallah in a future independent Palestinian state. “But after the experience of 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it will be in the best interests of the two peoples to be separated first.”

Actually, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard about their desire for a Judenfrei Palestine. He said the same thing a year ago. Not only that, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said the same thing last year, and went further:

Almost no notice was taken of another pre talks decision that the PA chairman revealed, as he announced clearly that if a Palestinian Authority state is created in Judea and Samaria, no Israeli citizen will be allowed to set foot inside.The PA chairman also stated that he would block any Jewish soldiers from serving with an international force stationed on PA-controlled land.

“I will never allow a single Israeli to live among us on Palestinian land,” Abbas declared.

Judenfrei, Judenrein. And the BBC has steadfastly censored all of this. Justin Webb didn’t bring it up to the feckless Lord Levy on Today, it doesn’t feature in any BBC News Online report about Israel or the Palestinians, and it hasn’t been mentioned anywhere else on the BBC. If someone can show me one single example of it, I’ll post it here, shocked but grateful.

Without the truth and all the facts, it’s impossible to have a rational debate and reasonable understanding of the situation. Yet the BBC actively prevents that, promoting propaganda for one side, rewrites history, and censors the Palestinians’ desire for ethnic cleansing.

ADDENDUM: Here’s Katty Kay interviewing US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, in which Katty states uncategorically that only Bibi Netanyahu is the problem, and Amb. Rice corrects here. No surprise that this is Katty’s belief as she recently tweeted to her followers that this New York Magazine article – which blames Netanyahu and uncritical, “steadfast” support for Israel in the US Congress as the only obstacles to peace – is “All you need to know about the frosty relationship between Barack and Bibi.”

Why, it’s almost as if there’s a groupthink on this issue extending across the spectrum of the BBC.

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