Two pariahs and problems with sound

Two things we’ve been saying for years on Biased-BBC and Is the BBC Biased? have suddenly become more obvious than ever. 

The first thing we’ve been saying for years concerns the BBC’s left-wing bias. 

Over the years interviewee and interviewer have come to find themselves corralled into a kind of ritualistic courtship pattern. If it’s a left-wing subject the tone is gentle and coaxing, perhaps with a spot of token feather-ruffling. 

If the subject is not left-wing, there is normally a hostile, badgering tone peppered with interruptions and adversarial rejoinders. The recent incontinent whooping and cheering from the audience of the BBC’s latest flying circus was something to behold. Never mind the irrelevant claims concerning ‘weighting’, the evidence was there before our very eyes. 

The second thing we’ve been saying for an equally long time concerns the BBC’s obsessional fascination, ostensibly supportive of ‘the Palestinians', but in reality it’s a surreptitious compulsion to demonise Jews and / or Israelis. This has become especially clear now that Christians are being persecuted (by Muslims) and Palestinians are being massacred by forces other than Israel. 

Yarmouk. No pictures of injured civilians

As Craig says, the BBC’s distinct fixation with the former and lack of interest in the latter highlights the bleedin’ obvious.

Incidentally, David Cameron’s recent interview in the Atlantic about antisemitism and the safety of British Jewry in the current climate is worth mentioning here because of the disparity between his intent and his actions.

Cameron says he’d be heartbroken if all the Jews fled.

“I don’t think in Britain we have all the answers, but we’ve been quick off the mark in stopping the hate preachers coming in.”

I mean, really? How so?

“We have to clear up the problems you find on campus, we’ve got to go after incitement and hatred and violence, we’ve got to do more work with the Jewish community to help them protect themselves. And we’ve been doing these things.”

Yes, “we’ve got to” and no, we haven’t been doing them.

“So I think in Britain we’re taking the right approach, tackling anti-Semitism, emphasizing the contributions of the Jewish community, and all the rest of it. It’s something that needs renewed attention.”

I can just hear him reeling off that list, as is his wont when in electioneering mode. Words; meaningless until they make it happen.

“People have every reason to be concerned because you’ve got several things happening at the same time. You’ve got the poisonous narrative of Islamist extremism, which is targeting Jews generally. You’ve got specific attacks in Europe. And you have the rise of anti-Semitism on campuses or in public life, including sadly in Britain in some cases. Plus, you’ve got the issue of delegitimization being pushed, the boycotts of the state of Israel by universities and the like, and soon you add all these things up and you can see why some in the Jewish community are very concerned.”

Yup. All that and more, but Islamist extremism isn’t the only kind of “Islamism” that engenders antisemitism. I’m afraid it’s endemic in the Muslim community. Mehdi Hasan even says so, and Mehdi even stuck his head above the parapet over Yarmouk, although he blotted his copybook with some dodgy references to Israel - conveniently confirming my previous point. 

I digressed slightly because what I set out to do is draw a comparison between two pariahs.

Nigel Farage and Israel!

Ukip is the new Israel, in that the BBC has succeeded in delegitimising both in a similar fashion.

For example they see both of them as racist, they discredit anyone who dares to support them or make an uncritical comment about them; then they set the gremlins on them.

I always used to complain that Israeli spokespersons were sabotaged by BBC technology. In this day and age surely someone could arrange a line with decent sound quality on the rare occasions that an Israeli spokesperson is allowed to get a word in. But no. They have to sound as though they’re trapped in a deep underground cave  talking through a woolly balaclava with no mouth-hole.

The same thing keeps happening to Nigel. How come there’s always something wrong with the line? When a youth group representing each party was being interviewed about their voting intentions the other day, whose sound link do you think stuttered to a standstill? 

When Nigel was interviewed by Andrew Neil this morning, was he speaking from outer Mongolia? No! he was somewhere in suburbia. In his own garden perhaps. Then why was there a humungous time delay on the line? It looked as though he was stumped by the question, each time. Not a good look.

The BBC must think we’re really really stupid, the lot of us.