Having cut our blogging teeth (blogging teeth?) on the well-trodden website Biased-BBC in the days when there were several above-the-line contributors when no sooner had one hit the ‘publish’ button than responses would start flying in to the comments section, our decision to isolate ourselves here, on our own little venture was not taken lightly.
We ummed and ahhed over it for a while, but finally took a leap in the dark with gay abandon. This is not a hate site, (not that B-BBC is, but it has been regarded as such by the pro-BBC lobby) and both of us (Craig more than me) enjoy a good deal of the BBC’s output.
The fact that we mainly slag off the BBC and draw attention to what we think are its flaws doesn’t mean we deserve to be dismissed as Mr and Mrs Angry.
(Firstly, we’re not married to each other - don’t tell anyone, but we’ve never even met - and secondly, we’re not permanently angry.)
I probably seem angrier than Craig does. I hope so, anyway.
The comparative paucity of below-the-line comments on this blog does not reflect the actual visitor numbers, which are quite good, and growing daily. Mind you, I don’t know how many page views would be considered a triumph and how few a tragedy.
Anyway, I am angry about the way the BBC has influenced the public over ‘Israel - Palestine’, and I am also quite aware of he futility of my anger over the BBC’s biased reporting of all matters concerning Israel.
Look how this has tainted everything and everyone including the people who are supposed to be engaging intelligently and responsibly with the important political issues of our time. Here’s a full transcript of yesterday’s astonishingly ill-informed debate.
“A great evil has overtaken Britain. By this vote – and despite the majority of MPs who absented themselves – the House of Commons has identified Parliament with lies, blood-libels and racist terror and strengthened those bent on Jew-hatred and mass murder.”
says Melanie Phillips on Facebook.
I didn’t see Melanie’s article about the Palestinian statehood parliamentary motion that was published in yesterday’s Times newspaper until this morning. Of course it was written before the so-called debate, but I’d like to reproduce some excerpts. If I had time I’d have liked to reproduce the whole damned thing. Go and buy a copy or subscribe.
It’s headlined: Recognising Palestine won’t promote Peace. (£)
“British MPs should reject this dangerous proposal – just as the Arabs have so often done.
With all the terrifying security issues now facing Britain, just what urgent topic is parliament debating today? Support for an independent Kurdistan, perhaps? Britain’s ties with Islamic State’s backers, Qatar? Whether Turkey should be expelled from Nato for refusing to help to fight Islamic State?No. This afternoon a motion proposed by a group of backbench MPs wants the government to “recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel”.
That’s the part you’re allowed to read free. The rest is obscured by an ad asking for your £s.
".......The idea that Israel-Palestine lies at the core of global danger has been exploded ( literally) in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and other Muslim states.According to the motion’s main proposer, the Labour MP Graeme Morris, the international community has “cruelly refused” the Palestinians their right to a state and thus hindered peace and security in the region.Totally untrue. The sole reason no Palestinian state exists alongside israel is that the Arabs have consistently refused to accept one.
".......The Arab answer has always been rejection, war and terrorist campaigns.The reason the peace process has now stalled is that even the supposedly moderate Mahmoud Abbas remains committed to exterminating Israel. He has repeatedly said that the Palestinians will never accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.. His Palestinian Authority glorifies those who murder Israelis and teaches children to hate and kill jews. In 2012 its TV service broadcast Palestinian leaders applauding children singing: “I shall saturate you with my blood, redeem you with my life”.Now Abbas is trying to turn diplomacy into a weapon of war by building international support to isolate Israel.”
"......Abbas has now embraced Hamas as a partner”[...]”Palestinian leaders have repeatedly said (in Arabic) that Jews would not be allowed to live in Palestine”[....]“For no other conflict has ever been so misreported and misrepresented; no other victims of a century of annihilatory aggression have been so demonised and delegitimised.Last summer’s media coverage of the Gaza war, which caused a huge outbreak of anti-Jewish hatred, uncritically transmitted the Hamas falsehood that the vast majority of casualties were civilians. Israel’s Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information centre shows that 49% of fatalities were terrorists and 51% civilians, a far lower civilian toll than in other wars.” [...}
“Israel is the West’s one ally in the Middle East and is essential to British Intelligence and military security.”
Do these naive British MPs not even realise this? Do they think they can pass futile motions willy-nilly “because they can”, and because they don’t have to take responsibility for “placing Britain on the wrong side in the great battle for civilisation?”
It really is too bad. Parliament and the BBC should get a grip before it’s too late.
When I was blogging at B-BBC, I always assumed that silence was tacit approval. One of the reasons I gave up was that the vast majority of comments to my posts were little more than, "The Left are (insert hurled invective here)." Which, obviously, had precious little to do with any of the points I was trying to make, and demonstrated over and over again that most readers and commenters were more interested in a place to express anger at pet targets than anything to do with the BBC. Specifically, a place to express that anger without challenge or disagreement. There were, and still are, a handful of sane, decent, very intelligent people who cared as much about addressing the BBC's spreading of poison across the globe as we do, but they're a small minority.
ReplyDeletePresumably, as the number of your readers apparently dwarfs the number of comments, silence is also tacit approval.
Having said that, the BBC will not get a grip. The hatred of Israel is institutional. It's a juvenile, black-and-white, David vs. Goliath mentality, which is very difficult to change by arguing facts. My stock response these days to this kind of ghastly thinking is: "Egypt understand that Hamas is the problem, and that removing them is the only way to finally deliver peace and safety to Palestinian women and children. Why can't you?"
Again and again, "critics of Israel" prove that they actually don't care about the safety and liberty of innocent women and children in Gaza, and actually have a different motive for anger at Israel than claimed. Asking them why they disagree with Muslim Arab Egypt usually shuts them up immediately. Either they pretend to think about it and return later with a response, or simply shut up altogether.
One of these days I might set up a Twitter account (the only way to actually engage for a moment with a Beeboid, before they block you) and put that question to villains like Jon "Here's Another Fake Photo I've Swallowed" Donnison or Kevin "Teabagger" Connollly, or one of the multitude of sick Beeboids who push the BDS BS.
This is a good short quote that turns upside down what they have come to believe.
DeleteMahmoud Abbas himself wrote this in official PLO magazine in Al Thura 1976
"The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect (the Palestinian Arabs) ...but, instead they abandoned them forced them to emigrate....imposed upon them a political and ideological blockade and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews lived in Europe"
Hi just wanted to say your efforts are very much appreciated (at least by me) and I hope you continue with reporting bias. I rarely comment unless I disagree with what I read (selfish perhaps) so my silence equals tacit approval!
ReplyDeleteI too never comment but appreciate your brilliant critiques and try and get others to appreciate them too, Sue and Craig. So please carry on your good work!
ReplyDeleteThank you very much indeed for your appreciative and supportive comments. I do exactly the same thing - I rarely comment on other blogs these days and come to think of it I don’t know how some solo bloggers keep their spirits up when they have little or no visible response from the outside world.
ReplyDeleteAs a duo, me and Craig can prop each other up with motivational e-mails when the going gets tough.
We’ll probably keep at it, with the usual peaks and troughs, for a bit longer yet.