Category Archives: pro Islam

I’ve been writing on this website for a couple of years or more
and it don’t seem a day too much,
but there aint a broadcasting corporation livin’ in the land
as I wouldn’t “swop” for a bit of honest reporting.

However for all my efforts, and those of David Vance and the others, nothing changes at the BBC. In fact, things have taken a turn for the worse now that the chair of the BBC Trust happens to be a known pro Palestinian advocate.
The situation seems to be this. The BBC, and therefore the liberal unintelligentsia, have given special status to Islam by conferring a unique religious diplomatic immunity upon it. By qualifying as a religion, Islam as a whole is awarded sanctity which exempts it from being criticised. This applies in varying degrees to other religions and holy things. For example, in order to give vent to one’s antisemitic urges, one must stick to Israel-themed criticism. You’re not supposed to admit that this has anything to do with your distaste for Jews.
Christianity is an open target, and Catholic misdemeanours have made it acceptable to condemn the entire religion, whereas similar unmentionable Islamic practises are given a free pass or regarded as unrepresentative.
However, desecrating something holy is still thought not nice, particularly setting fire to it. So if Nazi ideology were elevated to the status of a religion with Herr Hitler as its prophet peace be upon him, it would immediately be distasteful to point out the racist, supremacist and murderous proclivities therein, and Mein Kampf would be a holy book, the fire-resistant immutable word of God speaking through the prophet. Can you imagine, post WWll – “It’s their culture, innit” ”Only an extremist minority” “Not inherent to the ideology”
and it would then have to be “ because of the Jews” rather than “because of Israel”

Being an atheist, I don’t see why anything should be given a free pass, or absolved from accountability, yet, perhaps inexplicably for some, I still have values which encompass what is loosely called right and wrong, and I don’t ask for God’s backing to justify them.

The BBC is a crazy mixed up place. In a good way, viz: On one hand it is all patriotic, with the most unlikely celebrities performing Royal Wedding-themed antics, and talking about ‘the big day’ as if the ordinary viewer regards it as such, and on the other, it’s giving air space to staunch republicans. I like that in principle, although I am more than indifferent about the topic. Or should that be less than indifferent. (Meaning I couldn’t care less) like when people mistakenly say something can never be underestimated when they mean overestimated.
But crazy mixed up in a bad way is when they eulogise about the uprisings in the Arab World without a care or a thought about the rise of Islam, and what this will mean for Israel, and the Jews and others who are trying to live there.

If you look back at my incontinent output, just click on the anti Israel tag in the label cloud, you’ll see that I’ve covered a myriad of variations on the theme, and not made one iota of an impression on the BBC.
Call me an idiot and knock me down with Louise Bagshawe, but how’s that for a waste of time?

“An Israeli teenager wounded when a Palestinian rocket hit a bus has died of his injuries.
Daniel Viflic, 16, was on a school bus in southern Israel on 7 April when it was hit by an anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip.
The driver was slightly hurt in the attack, which happened just after the other children had been dropped off.

Nineteen Palestinians died in the ensuing wave of Israeli air strikes and Palestinian counter-attacks.
It was the most serious violence since Israel’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009.
About 1,400 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, and 13 Israelis, including 10 soldiers, were killed.”

This hideous example shows that the BBC cannot report the death of a boy at the hands of terrorists without adding gratuitous references to previous unverified and disputed death-toll statistics; and by various weasely words, making light of the attack itself.

In the last couple of days there has been an extraordinary mish-mash of television on the subject of Islam and Israel. All but one sanitising Islam and denigrating Israel.
For example, yesterday’s hostile portrait of Geert Wilders BBC2 seen through thick-lensed left-wing specs. The filmmaker’s agenda was showing – almost embarrassingly – so hopefully no-one will have been persuaded to change their minds on the issue from watching it. One thing that stood out was the way the filmmaker saw Israel. He assumed that just a slight association with it was enough to turn Wilders into a villain. And the bit where he approached Wilders with his furry microphone, feebly bleating something unintelligible while Wilders and entourage swept past, then “See! He wouldn’t speak to me!” I found that hilarious.
Straight away, most people will have switched on to Dispatches Channel 4 for the Islamic Schools programme. I thought they were trying to stretch a tiny bit of material too far – they kept repeating bits of it – they should have concentrated more on the Ofsted inspectors, and asked why nobody seemed to suspect anything or care. Melanie Phillips has this.
Nevertheless, these contrasting items provide a good example of the art of television, showing how it can make you think one thing one minute, and another, the next.
Which brings me to the major four-parter on Channel 4, The Promise. The director has a left wing agenda, and he tries to pretend he hasn’t. Take a look at the website, see Lindsay Hilsum’s potted history which leaves out the important bits, read some of the tweets and comments, and weep. The audience thinks they’re being educated.

Then for desert, last night’s Newsnight with Michael Morpurgo. He’s been to Gaza, and he’s got it into his head that Israelis target children. It’s so firmly embedded in his brain that even though Paxman says “the Israelis don’t go in to deliberately target children” , and he admits that “It’s not that they they’re targeted”, it still pops back in a few seconds later, when he says “You can’t achieve peace by targeting children.”
Call me cynical, but I think I know whose side he’s on. Even Paxo had a tiny go at him, reminding him of the traumas suffered by Sderot children. Louise Ellman did well, but she missed a few opportunities. Of the malnutrition he witnessed – not caused by the blockade of course – she should have pointed out the lorryloads of goods that go into Gaza every day, not to mention the international aid that pours in. Where is it all? She should have mentioned the hate that is taught to the children, not in Israel, but in Gaza.

I wondered why the donkey cart with the allegedly injured child rushed past at the exact moment they were filming. But Pallywood makes you cynical. I’d also like to know exactly what the Israelis had to say about targeting children. Of course, as Jeremy Bowen would say, they’d be partial, so we shouldn’t believe them, which makes rather a mockery out of all reporting. The BBC could just get ‘impartial’ people to speculate, and stop bothering to verify or investigate anything. That’s what they already do on the telly, some broadcasters more than others.

Throughout the uprisings in Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen, and of course Egypt, the BBC has avoided raising the alarm over the danger, some say inevitability, that when repressive dictatorships topple, there’s a vacuum, and in Muslim lands, Islamists are waiting in the wings, poised and raring to go. The BBC aint bovvered.
Political turmoil in Lebanon poses a serious threat to the stability of the region, but in an erratic tribute to impartiality, the BBC reports the utterances of Hassan Nasrallah, being scrupulously careful to avoid taking sides.
Kevin Connolly thinks the appointment of a pro-Hezbollah PM is a way out of Lebanon’s immediate political crisis, with the caveat:

“It is an uncomfortable outcome for the US, which denounces Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation and reflects the growing regional influence of the movement’s sponsors, Iran and Syria.”

The Syria/Iran infiltration of Lebanon may not worry the BBC, but then they wouldn’t be worried by the content of this article by Michael J Totten.

“Hezbollah had 10,000 rockets before the war in 2006. Now it has between 40,000 and 50,000. Some are stored in warehouses. Others are hidden away a few at a time in private homes.”

Hezbollah positions itself amongst houses and mosques because they know the Israelis cannot retaliate without killing civilians.

“Its fighters and officers wear no uniforms. Only rarely do they carry guns out in the open.”

The BBC should be very alarmed at what is happening in Lebanon, not complacently telling us that the political crisis is over.

The Foreign Office is reported as stating that they have no objection to dictators being overthrown, but they’d prefer it if they were replaced by secular rather than religious governments. For example, “democratically,” as in Lebanon. What? Are my ears deceiving me?

Does this mean that the Foreign Office thinks that Hezbollah, having murdered the Lebanese Prime Minister, refused to accept responsibility for the murder, promised to cut off the hand of any accuser, embedded a massive stockpile of arms within civilian areas and in mosques, not to mention being dedicated to the destruction of Israel – does the foreign office or a spokesperson thereof, really hold Hezbollah’s roughshod trampling over the Lebanese government as an example of democracy, desirable for Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen et al ? And to add insult to that salty wound William Hague has gone off to suck up to Syria.
I wrote here about the BBC’s decisive action over a film produced by Christopher Mitchell. They abandoned it.

Professor Paul Rogers, author of “Why We’re Losing the War on Terror” has been on BBC discussing Rachid Ghannouchi’s return to Tunisia. “He’s anti American, but a moderate.” he reassures us casually.
Rachid Ghannouchi a moderate?
Christopher Hitchins begs to differ. He visited Tunis University:

“to talk to a female professor of theology named Mongia Souahi. She is the author of a serious scholarly work explaining why the veil has no authority in the Quran. One response had come from an exiled Tunisian Islamist named Rachid al-Ghannouchi, who declared her to be a kuffar, or unbeliever. This, as everybody knows, is the prelude to declaring her life to be forfeit as an apostate. I was slightly alarmed to see Ghannouchi and his organization, Hizb al-Nahda, described in Sunday’s New York Times as “progressive,” and to learn that he is on his way home from London.”

The BBC may be hoping Rachid Ghannouchi is a moderate, but didn’t blink an eye at his being “anti American.” To them that’s a trivial detail. The Ghannouchi daughter, or is that daughters, contribute to the Guardian and the BBC. Yusra Khreeji was on Broadcasting House a week ago, and Soumaya Ghannouchi is a regular contributor to the Guardian, and attends anti-Israel rallies, unleashing a mean impersonation of Lauren Booth.
Paul Rogers thinks we mishandle Islamists, driving them towards likes of Al Qaeda. Terrorism is our fault, we’re too hard line.

This morning we were treated to the oily reassurances of the odious Tariq Ramadan, another professor who has insinuated himself into the BBC’s speed dial directory.
We’ve seen John Kerry, he of the cylindrical head and massive chin, evidently fresh from overdosing on PaliLeaks, advising Israel to make concessions and stop oppressing the Palestinians.
“Israel is worried”, someone is saying now, on the BBC.
Abdul Bari Atwan, another speed dial buddy: “Illegal set-telments under internationallaw” he screeched, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. “Yes” said Polly Toynbee, also high on the Guardian’s deceitful spin on the PaliLeaks.“It’s all Israel’s fault.”

Everyone is rooting for the Egyptian protesters. “Look at the chaos! Whatever next?”
Whatever next indeed.