Am I right?

The weather man was right. Sorry, I mean the weather man was correct.  I am sitting under a veil of cloud this morning while the rest of you are out frolicking in the sunshine.

Never mind, all the better to stay in and obsess about the usual stuff.

First, via a trail of links and clicks I alighted upon Adam Wishart’s Twitter.  Topmost Tweet was about Melanie Phillips’s article in the Jpost, more of which later, but first I must say Adam Wishart is starting to sound petulant. 

I know it must be tough getting bombarded with criticism, but that’s what you get when you make films about sensitive subjects, particularly if you decide to structure them in the way Adam did in his infamous film about the Jerusalem Light Rail for BBC1 Panorama.

Passive aggressive responses such as  “Did you speak to them?” “Have you been there?” “So I shouldn’t have reported it?” are emerging, and a lot less of the “I’m all ears” as per his initial responses to critical Tweets.  Of course if you hold debriefing sessions through the manacled medium of 140 characters you would get fed up.

The BBC said the Panorama had been watched by over a million and a half viewers.

“In its response (to Mr de Mesquita,) the BBC said it believed “the film was balanced and fair” and was “careful to represent the views of both Israelis and Palestinians living in Jerusalem”. 

It added: “The film was largely observational in style with Adam spending time with two main contributors, Rivka Shimon and Baha Nabata” — one Jewish, the other an Arab. 

It also noted that Mr Wishart was an experienced filmmaker and that the programme took care to explain his background as a British Jew and how his grandparents had campaigned for the establishment of Israel.”

So that’s okay then. It's not really though, eh?

A while ago someone complained about the photo Adam uses for Twitter, asking why he was looking so pleased with himself. He said it was taken at a wedding. At the time I thought that was a bit uncalled for. Now I must admit, the nastier it gets, the more incongruous gets Adam’s grinning avatar.

Now to the important stuff. Melanie’s piece in the JPost. 

Contrary to what you might have thought, it’s not all about Adam Wishart, though he does get a substantial mention.

It’s so pithy, punchy and concise that I’d like to reproduce it all, but you’re not supposed to do that so I’ll just take the bit that’s particularly relevant to this blog:

In Britain, there has been a total absence of any discussion of the Iran deal. Instead, there has been scandalized coverage of the terrible events in Israel last week, the murderous firebombing of the Arab Dawabsha family and the Jewish terror attack on the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade. 

There has been no coverage whatever of the dozens of terrorist attacks on Israeli Jews which have been going on now for months. Instead there was a BBC TV Panorama show devoted to the Jerusalem Light Rail system. 

This was an absolute travesty, composed of historical illiteracy, present-day distortions and wholly unrepresentative and selective interviewing. The light rail is a force for integration since it brings Israeli Arabs into central Jerusalem. Yet presenter Adam Wishart – himself a Jew – only looked in the opposite direction and portrayed it, entirely falsely, as a weapon of Israeli colonization of Arab land. 

The BBC dismissed complaints about the show.
But it is no use whatsoever complaining to the BBC about its anti-Israel animus. The most frightening aspect of this anti-Israel ideology is the way it takes over the mind so that those in its grip are intrinsically unable to recognize their own irrationality. 

Accordingly, the BBC really does think that its anti-Israel position and wider knee-jerk leftism represent the political center-ground. So those who actually occupy the center-ground and who uphold truth against lies are dismissed as extreme or “rightwing” – and so cannot ever have truth on their side. 

Since this mind-bending left-wing prism is the default position amongst the intelligentsia in Britain and the Democratic Party in the US, Israel and its supporters are in the nightmarish situation of being the only people telling the truth about what is happening – and yet being disbelieved or smeared simply because it is they who are saying it.”

“Israel and its supporters are in the nightmarish situation of being the only people telling the truth about what is happening – and yet being disbelieved or smeared simply because it is they who are saying it.”

I know Melanie Phillips is the ultimate sufferer from that Kafka-esque scenario, but I wholly concur. 

So there you have it. I always wondered why I was deemed right wing when I’m nothing of the kind. At least not in the stereotypical bowler hat and handlebar mustache, bring back hanging, unprogressive way. 

It amused me to see this definition of Left-wing beliefs which was probably written by a lefty (yes, she admits that ) and it will be interesting to see if her definition holds when (if) 70s throwback Jeremy Corbyn gets to be dear leader.

Left wing beliefs are usually progressive in nature, they look to the future, aim to support those who cannot support themselves, are idealist and believe in equality.

Image from here: