Orla Geurin’s gratuitously appended remark about the Palestinians follows the same pattern as Tim Wilcox’s notorious and equally inappropriate gaffe of an attack-line during a live interview with an “Israeli-born Jewish woman” after the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Remember?
“Many critics though of Israel’s policy would suggest that the Palestinians suffer hugely at Jewish hands as well.”
Interestingly, the BBC defended Willcox just as they are defending Orla Geurin. Nevertheless, Willcox apologised (for any offence caused) “on Twitter”. I don’t know if Orla will be apologising, but I think not.
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People have noted Prince Charles apparently snubbing Mike Pence at the gathering. A video shows HRH passing along a handshake line-up, where he seemed to be avoiding both the hand-shake and eye-contact with the VP. Whether or not this was deliberate is uncertain, but I understand the two men were also seen chatting together, so maybe it was just a moment of clumsiness.
What was deliberate was Prince Charles’s overly chummy meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the Holocaust-denying Palestinian leader. It makes a mockery of what had been rather a good speech by HRH, and it rather throws the whole thing into a new light. Slightly hypocritical, if you ask me. Cake and eat it.
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It’s totally inexplicable that much of the Holocaust-related commemorations avoid mentioning Muslim antisemitism in so many words. Various allusions are made to this in a roundabout way, with artfully camouflaged wording that carefully circumvents the necessity of confronting the oxymoronic aspect of the matter head-on. “We condemn all forms of hate” sounds ok as far as it goes, but sticking “and Islamophobia” onto the end of every lip-service condemnation of antisemitism epitomises cognitive dissonance gawn mad.
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The ‘very experienced Middle East reporter’ Orla Guerlin is discussed on BBCs Newswatch. It would appear the BBC are more than willing to totally disregard the concerns of the Jewish community. Not sure, based on recent history, if that’s really their best option! pic.twitter.com/YwBAaizBQi— SussexFriendsofIsrael (@SussexFriends) January 24, 2020
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The sparsely attended parliamentary debate on the topic was sad to see. About six of one party and half a dozen of t’other. Speakers condemned antisemitism, but took care to avoid naming a source, a couple with oblique allusions to nameless persons connected to ‘this place’.
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If you like football, here’s a nice tribute from footballer chappies:WATCH- Many if the U.K.s biggest football stars including Harry Kane, Gary Lineker, Frank Lampard and Glenn Murray (Brighton player) have come together to make a very powerful and moving video ahead of Monday’s #HolocaustMemorialDay. If you only ever share one thing make it this pic.twitter.com/tJagzcxjiV— SussexFriendsofIsrael (@SussexFriends) January 24, 2020
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Meanwhile, the BBC has lost interest in Harry and Meghan thank goodness and all attention has turned to the Corona emergency and Victoria Derbyshire’s shock horror “Axed!”
On 'Newswatch' Samira Ahmed's description of Orla Guerin as "the very experienced Middle East reporter Orla Guerin" was curious.
ReplyDeleteThe 'BBC spokesperson' said, "The brief reference in our Holocaust report to Israel's position today did not imply any comparison between the two, and nor would we want one to be drawn from our coverage".
So (a) what's with the "But" in Orla Guerin's closing sentence? Didn't that imply a link, or was it just clumsy wording? and (b) why was the offending sentence included at all? How does the BBC defend its inclusion? Will they admit it was unnecessary? Can they justify it as being appropriate? The BBC response ignored those points, though they're surely the crux of the matter. Was it just Orla betraying the usual BBC obsession, or was she deliberately 'gaslighting' Jewish people? It's good that so many are taking this to Ofcom.
Orla Guerlin hates Israel and the fact that she is allowed in the country to report on things always with the usual Palestinians are the victims regardless of context, responsibility for their own actions or how much Israelis have had to endure with suicide bombings, rockets and petrol bombing soldiers before they retaliate. Israelis are always the ones Orla reports as in the wrong merely for existing in Israel.
ReplyDeleteShould have added the Israelis let her in despite knowing how biased she is in all her reporting.
ReplyDeleteI feel uneasy about Holocaust Remembrance as politics or as part of an official PC ideology (which mobilises perfectly proper revulsion at the events in WW2 to help advance some very dangerous policies).
ReplyDeleteAbout 300 UK citizens died in the Holocaust. It isn't obvious to me why this country has to have an official memorial day. Presumably we remember our civilians who died on Rememberance Day - if not, why isn't there a Memorial Day for the 70,000 civilians who died in bombing raids and other attacks?
Holocaust Memorialism as part of an official ideology is of recent origin - instituted some 60 years after the War by the Blair/Brown government.
It's already led to unseemly competitive memorialising with others - gays, gypsies, Rwandans, Russians, Armenians, descendants of African slaves and others wanting -with perfect justice - to have their special remembrance as well. But of course, there is no place for the millions of innocents killed in the name of class war by Far Left regimes.
It is understandable that Israel will want to memorialise the Holocaust for all time.
In that context, Guerin's commentary was absolutely appalling and of course focussing on armed Israeli soldiers remembering the dead was not accidental. I'm not surprised she tried to get into the European Parliament on the Irish Labour Party ticket. She would have been working away to support the Palestinian cause within the EU. But BBC makes a nice second best for her.