Saturday 15 April 2017

"This is madness. Just to keep the people out"



Israel's security barrier, which opponents call 'a wall', has drastically reduced the number of victims of suicide bombings in Israel since its construction began. The figures are dramatic:
Year        Dead Suicide attacks
2001        85 40
2002 238        47
2003 145        23
2004        98          17
2005 33          9
2006 15          3
2007 3            1
2008 1            1
2015 0            1
2016 0            1
That didn't stop BBC One from broadcasting the following during its main Good Friday special, Fern Britton's Holy Land Journey:
Fern Britton: This is a nice little town. People going about their daily business on a Monday morning. But life here isn't as simple as it first looks because, running through the town, is a wall built by Israel for what it says are security reasons. Oh, my goodness! Now you've heard about the wall. Look at this! This is the wall. And that is NOT a thing of beauty, is it? Oh, my goodness, look! You hear about humans erecting big walls like this in the middle of cities. Obviously Berlin, here, possibly between Mexico and America. This is madness. Just to keep the people out. You won't be able to climb up that, would you, that's for sure?
Is it really "madness" when "just keeping the people out" has actually led to 4 deaths from suicide attacks in Israel over the past ten years (2007-2016) compared to 647 deaths from suicide attacks in the preceding ten years (1997-2006)?

8 comments:

  1. Reminds me of windmill-armed Dan Cruikshank in the Holy Land some years ago dropping agitprop lite.

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  2. What a vacuuous nonentity she is.

    If she wants an example of a wall - how about the peace wall in Belfast? Or the wall we have paid to be built in Calais to keep out illegal migrants from our country? Oh, yeah - we do it ourselves...who'd a thunk it Fern?

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  3. As a small, lone Western woman abroad, Fern perhaps lucky not to have come across any already there or who did manage to get past such a wall harbouring dark intent.

    A young music student wasn't just now.

    Maybe Fern had company that made her feel safe?

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    Replies
    1. That's one of the things that annoys me about Fake News TV. They often show single women for instance walking through a Middle Eastern market or similar as though she is by herself - whereas in reality there's an armed guard or police officer in the vicinity.

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  4. I bet she has to show a pass or sign-in to get into BBC studios - a wall by any other name.

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    1. Precisely. There's an image of a row of security guards at the barricaded entrance to W1A when the BBC felt threatened. They are hypocrites of the worst kind.

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    2. When their own staff were under threat during the Westminster attack, it was amazing how quick they were to declare it an unambiguous terror attack and did not call into question the actions of the police.

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  5. Okay, I know this is a facetious point. But given the BBC’s expressed desire to educate the ignorant masses and given the gross ignorance of most of Israel’s critics, I would have thought that here was the perfect opportunity to explain why Israel was forced to build the wall.

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