‘When will the Syria crisis end? God knows.  

God knows because this crisis is increasingly not about freedom but about religion.’  Paul Danahar BBC

Mark Mardell has long supported Obama’s dithering, sorry, masterly inactivity..no….cautious, wise, diplomacy over Syria.

‘It is clear Mr Obama doesn’t want to go to war in Syria. He regards it as too complex, too difficult, too uncertain.

American action there would have a huge impact on the perception of America in the region – confirming every image he wants to change.

Yet the US is, perhaps, moving slowly and cautiously toward taking action. There is no sense of a time scale and no real certainty about what might be done. This is very Obama: the caution, the desire to bring allies along, the reluctance to rush to judgment.

Enemies call it dithering. Even allies are sometimes impatient. I doubt whether any of that worries a president who says sending young men and women into action is the hardest thing he has ever had to do.’

Unfortunately the real world has intruded into Mardell’s Obamian utopia, oddly, in the shape of the BBC’s Paul Danahar who has introduced a full dose of realism into the debate on Syria.

Mardell,  no doubt through gritted teeth, has even linked to Danahar’s web article:

@BBCMarkMardell via Twitter thoughtful, gloomy take on Syria’s lengthy conflict http://t.co/x9dZJU8H9z

Why through gritted teeth?  Because the article essentially damns Obama for his inaction over Syria…two years into the conflict and still no support for the anti-Assad rebels.  Danahar is honest about the West’s failure, honest about the need for military action if we want to get rid of Assad, honest about a few other things not normally admitted on the BBC….such as the malign influence of Saudi Arabia and the divisive effects of religion.

I first heard Danahar on 5Live Drive  (18:36) on which he poured scorn, diplomatically, upon the ‘West’…which really means Obama.  The web article is pretty much as the live chat but the 5Live report is blunter and more to the point.

What is Danahar’s conclusion?  

That as soon as it became apparent that the anti-Assad movement was serious, long term and capable of sustained action it should have been supported with funds and arms.

What are the consequences of not doing that?  The original, secular freedom fighters, the original revolutionaries, have lost authority and influence because they have no funds or arms.

Into that vacuum have moved the Islamists funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and who are luring men away from the more secular forces and are now dominating the opposition ranks.

The opposition forces are fragmented with no overall command and control…this could have been put in place from the start if the rebels had been supported and helped to form  such structures at the beginning.  A ‘regular’ army could have been formed and the incursion of the Islamists limited.

Having no overall commander and therefore no overall plan of action means that there is no strategy to beat Assad who can survive lots of single attacks and beat them off individually.

That old phrase ‘divide and rule’ is as apt as ever here.

Iran and Russia are supplying Assad with weapons…and of course should he win will retain the influence over the region that they had before.

Assad has survived, he thinks he can, and will survive long term.  He sees his enemies are divided and without funds or arms whilst he is resupplied by Russian and Iran.

He has no incentive to head for the negotiating table or to cut and run.

The war continues and thousands more lose their lives….all because  Obama hasn’t supported the creation of an army capable of making unified decisions and one that is powerful enough to conduct decisive battlefield  operations capable of knocking out Assad’s forces. 

I disagree with Danahar about this statement which seems at odds with the rest of the report:

‘America is not acting because it does not know what to do or whom to do it with.  Neither do the European countries.

Having spent the last few days in Beirut and Damascus, talking to the international community, Western diplomats, FSA activists and Syrian regime supporters, it is clear that nobody knows how to end this crisis.’

The answer is quite apparent, his whole article pointed to the answer….either let Assad win or pile in arms and money….targeted at the secular rebels, but the Islamists if necessary as well….they are a problem that any post Assad regime would have to tackle.

Here are some notable sentences from Danahar’s web article:

• The vacuum created by Western inaction has been filled by two of the Gulf states – Saudi Arabia and Qatar…..These are both sorely undemocratic states, they are not champions of democracy either at home or abroad.
• Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia hates Shia Iran, so it is using the war in Syria to try and weaken it.   The Saudi interest in the conflict dates back 1,300 years to the split within Islam. That is where its ambitions over the outcome of the civil war begin and end.
• When will the Syria crisis end? God knows.   God knows because this crisis is increasingly not about freedom but about religion.  The Syrian war is turning into a sectarian conflict whose influence will spill beyond the country’s borders.There was the chance at the beginning to stop that being the case. That chance has been lost.

Whilst Danahar’s article and report are examples of how the BBC can provide us with intelligent, informed and unbiased news and analysis you know that this will soon be forgotten.

As soon as the US starts to arm the rebels and fighting breaks out on a larger scale the BBC will change that tune and the normal service of anti-war rhetoric will crank into action with demands for ceasefires and negotiations…thereby just prolonging the war…as we find with Israel which is constantly restrained from winning a decisive battle against Hamas or Hezbollah who survive to fight another day and keep pounding Israel with missiles and any other means of attack they can muster.

If nothing else though, it has shown Mardell how to gauge a situation with an honest appraisal rather than checking first to see how things reflect upon the best beloved Obama’s reputation.

The BBC has standards…they might be double standards but it has them.

It seems that for the BBC using social media or crowd sourcing news is bad practice leading to inaccuracy and potential dangers...Many are now asking: should “crowd-sourced investigations” be stopped?…unless of course it is done by a responsible news outlet….em…like the BBC perhaps who say about their own use of social media…’it helps us gather more, and sometimes better, material; we can find a wider ranges of voices, ideas and eyewitnesses quickly.’

Did enjoy reading this on the BBC website today:
Finding joy in the hypocrisy of others
How, too, are we to survive in this richly unfair world if we are to be robbed of the satisfaction of observing and detecting the hypocrisy of the high and the mighty?

Well it seems that the BBC haven‘t  yet been robbed of that satisfaction in observing and detecting the hypocrisy of others…..

Of course they only need look in the mirror to see the greatest example of that……

Justin Webb this morning lays into the US TV and social media (8:56) which ’crowd sourced’ information to be provided the police about the Boston bombs to help with their inquiries.

Webb says that in America the 24 hour TV channels went haywire and broadcast all sorts of things that weren’t true.

Does he mean much in the way that the BBC broadcast claims that the evidence was almost certainly pointing towards a ‘domestic’, that is, white, right wing terrorist?

Webb goes on to say  that ‘So much of this is very wrong and potentially very damaging to people.’

Of course this was the same BBC who was happy to report that Israel had killed a young Palestinian boy, Muhammed Al Durra using film taken by a Palestinian camera man.

The same BBC that broadcast false claims that the Israelis had massacred 3000 Palestinians in Jenin:

The BBC News and World Service gave the microphone to and quoted unchallenged the Palestinian Authority spokesman, Saeb Erekat and other Arab sources to talk on an ‘Israeli massacre’, starting with “data” of 3000 and switching later to 500 or 520 Palestinian civilian casualties. The BBC broadcasted very intensively the big story of the Israeli ‘massacre’ of Palestinian civilians, through reports, unchallenged quotations and  renewing reminders.

The same BBC that blamed Israel for the death of one of its own Palestinian employee’s son in Gaza recently….

The home of a BBC employee, Jihad Misharawi, was hit Wednesday by “what looks like a shell,” according to Danahar.  “It caused a huge fire,” Danahar says.  Jihad’s 11-month-old son, Omar, was badly burnt. He was taken to hospital, but died after about an hour. 

“I spoke to him myself today,” Danahar says, “and he said there was no fighting going on, there was nobody from (Hamas) there. It was just civilians.”

…a death in fact caused by a Hamas rocket.

 
The same BBC which used film of Palestinian casualties, again provided by ‘Pallywood’….only for  the casualties to suddenly reappear later on fit and healthy.

The same BBC that tweeted the picture of an injured Palestinian girl…only for it to be shown that she was in fact a casualty of the war in Syria.

Not to mention this bit of infamously emotive crowd sourcing by Jeremy Bowen:
‘In the last hours before a ceasefire, in a United Nations school in Gaza City that was packed with families who had fled from Israeli shelling, a girl of about 13 pushed a piece of cardboard torn from a biscuit wrapper into the hand of one my colleagues.
It was a checklist for the future, with one spelling mistake:
I hope to stop a war
I hope to live in a happy life
I hope to be pace [at peace] for ever
Happy dream
But this is Gaza, a place where nightmares can come true. ‘

But hang on…doesn’t the BBC make use of ‘Social media’ itself?  In fact isn’t ‘Social Media’ playing a central role in its news gathering now?

Justin Webb had better look out…he may not have a job unless he keeps up with the  new digital age:

BBC tells news staff to embrace social media
BBC journalists must keep up with technological change – or leave, the director of BBC Global News Peter Horrocks says

BBC news journalists have been told to use social media as a primary source of information by Peter Horrocks, the new director of BBC Global News who took over last week. He said it was important for editorial staff to make better use of social media and become more collaborative in producing stories.
“This isn’t just a kind of fad from someone who’s an enthusiast of technology. I’m afraid you’re not doing your job if you can’t do those things. It’s not discretionary”, he is quoted as saying in the BBC in-house weekly Ariel.

And from the Guardian:
The BBC, as an early presence on the web, also spotted the possibilities of social media quickly and it has become a highly important and fast-moving part of our multimedia newsroom- it helps us gather more, and sometimes better, material; we can find a wider ranges of voices, ideas and eyewitnesses quickly.

The BBC already has a fair track record of inviting the audience to get involved in our journalism – web forums; debates; blogs and comments, and most recently incorporating comment within our website story pages, particularly on the live pages.
We are proud of the standards we have set in processing, sifting and verifying material sent to us and sourced through social newsgathering, giving us a new dimension when telling some of the major stories of recent times – the Japan tsunami; the Arab Spring; the Burma uprisings; the Norway shootings; the riots in England.

Good old BBC…never let the facts get in the way of a good story…especially if it is about Israel…or the ‘Right’ in the USA.

The BBC is eager, as we have recently seen from its behaviour when covering the Boston Marathon bombings,  to suppress any speculation that Muslims may have been involved.

This is merely a continuation of a policy that it has adopted and carried out in the UK for a long time in the hope of breaking any association between Islam and terrorism or indeed any activities that would reflect badly upon the ideology in the minds of non-Muslims.

A similar exercise in news manipulation is seen in its reporting of immigration, or  when not reporting the damaging effects mass immigration has had on UK society and infrastructure.

However, as I noted in this previous post, when looking at other countries a more clear sighted and authentic picture appears of the effects of immigration and cultural tensions between different ethnic or religious groups.

One of the most recent such ventures was ‘Frank Gardner’s Return to Saudi Arabia.’.

This was followed by John Ware’s ‘Israel:  Facing The Future’ in which Ware examined the problems facing an Israel with increasing polarisation of its populations between extremes of religion and an increasing secularism.

One stand out comment was this:

‘The Palestinians have found that a more powerful weapon than guns is a receptive Media.’

Just how receptive we’ll never know until the BBC publishes the Balen Report…but Ware makes the point that Israel’s image was tarnished by the use of overwhelming force in Gaza in 2009 in which a watching world only saw dead Palestinians.

There is a reason for that…because that is what the likes of the BBC determinedly emphasized and focused on….and continued to publish the casualty figures for a couple of years after the conflict at the bottom of most reports about Israel.

How fair was this programme though?

Firstly Ware, avoiding upsetting the Arabs, called Jerusalem ‘Israel’s spiritual capital’…no it is its actual capital.

He told us that Israel had been fighting wars for 60 years…..well, only because they have been under attack for 60 years….it’s not a voluntary thing.

Although it accurately pictured the internal pressures upon Israeli society, though not detailing the very successful secular side much at all, it skated over the hardcore Muslim opposition that Israel faces.

Israelis were presented as the bigger part of the problem whilst Palestinians and Israeli Arabs were generally presented as reasonable, undogmatic people just looking for a peaceful life.

It was unfortunate that one Israeli Arab slipped out that ‘we are in a war’…against the Israelis…a comment that Ware left unremarked.

The Israeli Arabs were allowed to present a very one sided view of things, with likeminded, left wing Israelis agreeing.

However the main point about the programme that I want to make is that Ware looks closely at the effects on Israeli society of the rise of religious extremism amongst Jews themselves as well as the presence of Israeli Arabs who make up 1/5th of the population.

In the programme he describes what is going on as ‘religious nationalism’…i.e.  Zionism…though just as applicable to Hamas et al.

That’s interesting…he makes the link between religion and politics….Something that is taboo when discussing Islam in the UK or the West….. here we are told ‘Islamists’ are violent extremists who use Islam to further their political intentions whilst ‘Muslims’ are peace loving, spiritual people.

Ware expands on that comment later saying…..

‘Biblically inspired nationalism is challenging the secular and democratic values of Israel’s founding fathers.  Upon the outcome of this battle will depend the next chapter in the history of the Jewish people.’

Now that’s a pretty interesting comment….were the 7/7 bombings ‘Koranically inspired’? 

You’re not allowed to say they were, and the BBC will deny it till the cows come home.

Does Islam challenge the secular and democratic values of a liberal, secular Britain?

We know Christianity challenges it…on the matter of gay marriage and women’s rights for instance.   Islam also of course challenges the Christian Church itself…..but even the Church is too cowardly to stand up for itself in the face of an insurgent Islam….so perhaps you can’t expect the BBC to do so for it.

You have to ask why is Ware allowed to class the Bible as the driving force behind the politics in Israel when Muslims who express a similar view about the Koran, citing it as their inspiration and guide in life, are dismissed as criminals and madmen who pervert Islam?

And of course it isn’t just that differing approach to handling different religions but also the fact that Ware recognises and highlights that there is a ‘clash of values between secular liberals and the religious’…. and that tensions are growing, with ever more conflict.

That same view could equally be applied here in the UK with the rise of  Islam which is an ideology that opposes most of the values and culture of a secular/Christian Britain.

Or is there no ‘clash of values’ in Britain today between the religious and the secular….or Islam and Western values?

If there is shouldn’t someone be talking about it?  The BBC and the Establishment would prefer you didn’t.

If it is possible to talk about such ‘clashes of values’ in Saudi Arabia or Israel it should be possible to debate them here without the usual charges of racism or Islamophobia being bandied about in attempts to close down the debate.

It is a necessary debate to have.

A peaceful UAF protest

A lot of people don’t like the French National Party leader, Marine Le Pen and her policies.  They would like to prevent any of her policies being heard in public.  Perhaps some like the BBC’s Jeremy Hardy would take the extreme position of advocating shooting BNP members and their ilk in the back of the neck.

Who is the extremist?

Le Pen is speaking today at the Cambridge Union debating society about the future of the European Union and French politics.

Nicky Campbell has decided that this is an opportune moment to run a phone-in asking ‘Do extremists deserve free speech?’

Odd what gets the BBC fella’s excited.   Harry’s Place has been having a long running commentary on the speakers that grace the hallowed portals of the East London Mosque but the BBC has not shown the slightest interest.  In fact the BBC thinks the ELM is a fine, upstanding and moderate example of Islamic tolerance and inter faith dialogue.

By coincidence the top story today on Harry’s Place is from another student union:

“Homosexuals would be executed”

Lucy Lips, February 19th 2013, 2:45 pm

Student Rights has obtained a video showing a speaker at the Manchester University “Global Aspirations of Women Society” endorsing the execution of gay people:

Student Colin Cortbus attended a meeting at the Students’ Union last Wednesday 13th February organised by the Global Aspi­rations of Women society. He asked the chairperson of the meeting if “in the Islamic society in which you strive for” they would “feel comfortable, personally and morally, to kill a gay man?”

“Absolutely” came the response. The speakers added later that homosexuality was an “atrocity, because it goes against what God says”.

That’s of particular interest…Campbell did raise the subject of Qaradawi and his attitude towards Jewish people……but he made no mention of his attitude towards gay people…that being…the only question to be asked is not whether to kill them, but how to kill them…..‘While such punishments may seem cruel, they have been suggested to maintain the purity of the Islamic society and to keep it clean of perverted elements.’

Qaradawi is one of Islam’s moderate and highly respected scholars: “He is a moderate scholar who contributed to combating extremism in Islamic thoughts.”

Interesting that Peter Tatchell has a definition of Qaradawi’s views:

‘Qaradawi preaches a right-wing agenda of misogyny, anti-Semitism and homophobia.’

Many would say that such views were in fact from mainstream Islam…and we need to talk….‘What is going on in these mosques and madrasas? When is someone going to get 18th century on Islam’s mediaeval ass?‘

And yet the Unite Against Fascism spokesman on Campbell’s show had no problem with Qaradawi.….saying he was only interested in combating Fascists…extremist (not Fascist) Muslims were OK by him.

Campbell made no mention of Islam in relation to Qaradawi…it was as if these were purely Qaradawi’s own beliefs, dreamt up in  a cave somewhere after years communing with the voices in his head.

Campbell made no mention of the death threats to MP Sadiq Khan for voting in favour of gay marriage….an odd omission as it is so high profile and of relevance surely?

He did however speak with undue deference to someone named ‘Ali’.

Vive La Deference!  They make a desert and call it peace.

What did Campbell say?

He did in fact make one allusion to Muslims…he said Muslim extremists were only ‘people who call themselves Muslims’.….no Muslim can be ‘extreme’ in the BBC ‘style guide’…..’The styleguide for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) represents wisdom surrounding the use of English in written and spoken communication.’

What other ‘wisdom’ did Campbell’s bright little brain come up with?  Always thinking that boy!

Oh yes……UKIP…aren’t they just the same as Le Pen’s National Front…after all they want to ban Halal meat and the Burkha just as they do?

Never mind that the Burkha has already been banned in France by, presumably, the non-extremist French government.

And the RSPCA in this country, amongst others, want to ban Halal meat.   Are they classed by Campbell alongside a ‘Nationalist’ party?

Any other BBC targets that Campbell could  traduce?

One more…..

Campbell asks should climate change deniers be given the right of free speech.

Funnily enough we already know the BBC’s answer to that one.

So that’s a fair old list….Qaradawi, who wants to kill Jews and homosexuals, is put into the same category as Marine Le Pen, UKIP, Climate sceptics…and the RSPCA.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the largest broadcasting organization in the world. Its mission is to enrich people’s lives with programmes that inform, educate and entertain.

Three days ago a Palestinian was shot in an exclusion zone near the security fence between Gaza and Israel.

The BBC made a lot of noise about that ‘breach of the ceasefire’ as they put it…and it is still, three days later, on the website.

Gaza crisis: Palestinian ‘shot dead near border’

A Palestinian man has been shot dead by Israeli soldiers close to the Gaza border, Palestinian officials say.
It is the first reported killing since the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel came into force on Wednesday evening.

What isn’t on the site is this story which tells you why the Israelis might not be so keen for Palestinians to be anywhere near the fence…and the BBC know the event happened..as Jon Donnison has Tweeted it, interesting use of ‘targeted’ though:
Jon Donnison ?@JonDonnison
MT @AvitalLeibovich Today, a Pal man infiltrated from #Gaza, broke into a house & stabbed a woman there. Targeted by #IDF soldiers at scene

Here is a report from Israel National News

Soldiers killed a suspected Gaza terrorist early Monday after he broke into a Jewish home and stabbed a girl before fleeing.
The IDF discovered a hole in the nearby Gaza security fence, and footprints from the area matched the shoes of the intruder, who had escaped to the Moshav Sde Avraham’s greenhouses after he tried to kill the girl.
Soldiers caught up with him and tried to arrest him, and then shot and killed him when he tried to escape.
The wounded girl is in fair condition. She was stabbed in her family’s home in Moshav Sde Avraham, originally named Yesodot HaDarom.

Never mind the Jews, the BBC though are still keen for you to know how the Gazans have suffered:

Aleem Maqbool reports:

Egyptian mediators have begun separate talks with Hamas and Israel to work out details of a ceasefire agreed last week that ended eight days of fighting in the Gaza Strip.

But it has come at a heavy price for other Gazans. People are still dying of the injuries sustained during the war.

I read these tweets and then read a report on BBC Watch which relates what the BBC’s Kevin Connolly has been saying on the Jeremy Vine show…..that it is not insignificant that the Israeli elections are nearing…..but there is a distinct mismatch between the outlook from the Israeli tweets and Connolly…..reading the tweets would indicate that if this was a war launched as part of an election campaign then that election is lost for Netanyahu:

Amir Mizroch ?@Amirmizroch
It’s absurd to me to watch @netanyahu @barak_ehud @AvigdorLiberman stand and talk about success when alerts all over the south.
Amir Mizroch ?@Amirmizroch
Once again Israel achieves a military victory and a diplomatic defeat.
Marc Leibowitz ?@Marc_Leibowitz
Hamas is celebrating victory right now. How many Israelis are celebrating? Some pundits on Galatz are trying to sell a “tie”. #Bull
Amir Mizroch ?@Amirmizroch
Dear @netanyahu @barak_ehud @AvigdorLiberman please whatever u do please please don’t say “if they fire just one rocket we’ll hit them hard”
Amir Mizroch ?@Amirmizroch
So who won? #GazaUnderAttack or #IsraelUnderFire ?

Marc Leibowitz ?@Marc_Leibowitz
@Amirmizroch Not Israel. This cease fire was a bad deal for Israel. Not Abbas. Initial thoughts, winners appear to be Morsi & Hamas.

Robert Kraychik ‏@RobertKraychik @Amirmizroch If Netanyahu is sincere about not liquidating terrorists during this ceasefire, then this is a victory for Hamas.

The peace deal:

This is what Connolly had to say on Monday 19th:

“Yeah, I think we should is the simple truth. I mean I think from Binyamin Netanyahu’s point of view, if he were able to show that he had eradicated or really, really substantially degraded the threat of rockets from Gaza then that would be something very useful to take into an election campaign. Israelis are going to vote in about two months’ time and there’s no question that that would be a political advantage to him. I think for that reason he might hesitate to launch a ground operation – an incursion – into Gaza. All the talk here is will Israel send troops in or not. I think…you know…Israel looks at these things very differently than international public opinion looks at them. International public opinion is very focused on civilian casualties. Israel says, though, civilian casualties in Gaza are high because Hamas hides its weapons among the civilian population, so a lot of Israelis feel that if they can just stick to this operation until it’s carried to its logical end, they can really, really damage Hamas’ military potential and if Netanyahu can do that without incurring too many Israeli casualties then …you know…it’s a brutal political calculation, but it’s real, Jeremy,… then that would be, I think, an advantage to him. And of course he is an elected politician – that simply has to be in his mind.”

Guess he called that one wrong….no ground war…which the Israelis want, and Hamas probably claiming the victory as they are still alive and shooting off rockets.

The whole article from BBC Watch illustrates everything that is wrong with the BBC’s coverage of this conflict…The BBC automatically tries to impart that Israel is the instigator of any violence and that the Palestinians are fighting an unequal war against a powerful and ruthless enemy…..er…much like the Brits and Yanks against the Taliban then…. a ragtag army defeating the most powerful and sophisticated forces in the world.

It is self evident that Hamas, just as Hezbollah did in Lebanon, are quite capable of putting up the strongest resistance and that it was Hamas who began this latest conflict…as stated by William Hague….but so soon forgotten by the BBC’s correspondents it would seem.

Why Pakistan?

Some of you have questioned what Pakistan had to do with a post about Israel.

The fact you have to ask that answers your own question in a way….the BBC is nowhere near as concerned with the ‘illegal creation’ of Pakistan as it is with Israel.

Just why is the BBC so concerned about Palestinians but so relatively unconcerned about Indians in Kashmir or Bangladeshi history?
Muslims and their supporters claim Israel is an illegal ‘creation’  that shouldn’t  exist, or be allowed to continue.

Israel was created in 1948 and recognised by the UN as a homeland for the Jews…and has ever since been forced to defend itself from Muslim attempts to destroy it which continue to this very day.

The BBC has made it a prime focus of its attention with a forensic dissection of any Israeli action and instant condemnation if, as it usually does, it meets with the BBC’s disapproval.
So important is the Palestinian’s plight that Mark Thompson believed they deserve special treatment from the BBC saying in a radio interview:

‘We provide a bridge to the world, a bridge to freedom, it is very important that the story of Gaza is told around the world.’

…..From that it would seen apparent that Gaza is not ‘free’ and must be freed….with help from the BBC building a ‘bridge to freedom’.

The BBC’s John Simpson said about the kidnap of BBC journo Alan Johnson in Gaza ‘…a savage blow aimed directly at people bringing news to you…stopping the flow of news from somewhere like Gaza is like tying a blindfold around the world’s eyes.’

What they don’t seem to have equal concern about is what is happening in Pakistan.

Why is Pakistan in any way comparable to Israel?  Pakistan was ‘created’ in 1947 ….it was created as a homeland for Muslims…an ’Islamic Zion’ if you like.   During its ‘creation’ over one million people died in fighting…and millions more fled, Sikhs & Hindus forced out whilst Muslims poured in.   And note…inside India there are still millions of Muslims….whilst other religions are not made welcome in Pakistan.
Now the Jews were utterly homeless…with no land or country to call their own and so it was reasonable that somehow, somewhere they might found a Homeland.  Conversely there is no justification for the creation of a Muslim homeland carved out of Indian territory….There are after all numerous Muslim countries around the world should anyone be in need of a Muslim society.

Curiously it is only Israel that is called an ’illegal creation’ that shouldn’t exist and not Pakistan.

Pakistan invaded the Indian region called Kashmir and has illegally occupied half that land since 1949, Pakistan has, as well as fighting several wars against India, sent numerous terrorist groups into India attacking important targets, Pakistan has over 200 terrorist training camps inside its borders, Pakistan created the Taliban in order to control Afghanistan and ensure India did not get a foothold there. The same Taliban that Pakistan still supports as it kills British troops.

And yet the BBC look the other way…towards the Jewish homeland for ‘newsworthy’ stories…..have you ever heard the BBC make a comparison between Israel and Pakistan when supporters of the Palestinians are being interviewed?….are they asked if they also think Pakistan is an ‘illegal state’?

The Muslim attitude might be summed up in this example…..Here is  Inayat Bunglawala, once the media secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain.  He has been criticised by the PCC and accused of being racist and anti-Semitic; he rails against ‘Zionist tactics’ and ‘Israeli oppression of the Palestinians’…..and yet he is someone who has absolutely no concern about the plight of fellow Muslims in Pakistan/Bangladesh: (in the comments at 0821…search ‘Inayat‘)
Inayat Bunglawala says it all with regards to conflict in Bangladesh: 

‘I was born in the UK and am not Bangladeshi, so to be honest, I very rarely think about the 1971 war. I reckon it is of much more import to those of Pakistani/Bengali backgrounds than to me.
I do nothing whatsoever to bring justice to Muslims in East Pakistan. I have enough on my plate here in the UK.’

And yet here is his blog…..(Graphic photos)
Which says it all really about his priorities.

Spittoon suggests….
‘His statement is liberating and should be celebrated. It now frees British Muslims of their obligation to loyalty to the Hamas or Hesbollah or the Islamic Republic of Iran etc, in exactly the same manner as Bunglawala does, by saying these words:
I was born in the UK and am not Palestinian/Syrian/Iranian/Kashmiri, so to be honest, I very rarely think about Palestine/Syria/Iran/Kashmir.
By using this simple ethical argument, British Muslims who choose to, can now detach themselves from the insidious emotional blackmail and moral upbraiding which is used to force them to side with this or that national/territorial cause of other Muslims, simply because they were their  co-religionists’

Now why does not the BBC ask such questions?

Bunglawala demonstrates an attitude all too prevalent amongst Muslims…one that the BBC doesn’t question…..when bombs go off in London and  a Muslim suggests that this is because of the presence of British troops in a Muslim country the BBC interviewer never once questions that attitude….this gives a credibility to such a claim, a ‘received wisdom’ that it is hence ‘confirmed’ as correct and of course just leads to more bombs or Jihadists being recruited as they are persuaded of the justness of their cause…because the ‘Establishment’, in this case the BBC, fails to challenge them.

By coincidence Peter Hitchens makes reference to this in his latest  Mail on Sunday column:
‘All I’m sure of is that the rentacrowd anti-Israeli protests are selective and disproportionate (Have the same people protested against Arab killing of Arabs on much larger scale, in several places? No. Why not? You work it out) .
Significantly, the refugees from the 1948 war were not allowed to settle freely where they chose in Egypt (or in any other Arab neighbour country), but were kept in cramped and squalid conditions in so called ‘camps’ (actually grimly permanent slums ), where their descendants remain. This seems to me slightly to contradict Arab propaganda in solidarity with, and in support of the displaced Arabs of the Palestine Mandate.  As I have pointed out before, the other victims of mass ethnic cleansing of the 1940s – the millions of non-Muslims who fled Pakistan for India or the millions of Muslims who hurried the other way, and the millions of Germans driven (with British connivance) out of central Europe –were long ago resettled and given citizenship of their new states. The curious will have to wonder why it is in the Holy Land and nowhere else that the descendants of refugees still live in cramped penury and misery as citizens of nowhere. I have my own theory, but I won’t force it on anyone.’

The BBC’s supine acceptance of Muslim claims and justifications leads to more terrorism, grievance politics and division in society.

As George Entwistle has found out a lack of curiosity, a lack of the will to question and challenge, has consequences.

Mark Thompson told us that: ‘The BBC’s motto is ‘Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation’ – the idea being that access to news, information and debate about different countries and cultures can ultimately help foster mutual understanding and tolerance.’

If only the BBC walked the walk as well as talked the talk.

Burying your head in the sand hoping not to cause a stir only ends up with more trouble later on…..in this case the ‘payoff’ is a radicalised generation of Muslim youth.