But what about Gaza?

What if every item of BBC news had to include a comparison with “Gaza”? That seems to be what Jeremy Bowen has in mind.

Today programme. (2:28:47) 

“….someone usually on this programme to talk about the Middle East” 

says Mishal Husain as she introduces Jeremy Bowen and his 'choice of poem' at 8:28 am. 

“G’morning to you and y’now I’m gonna be as cheerful as possible because this is a very hard time and it’s miserable for so many and people are dying. Y’know, we’re gonna get through it. 

Um. There have been some comparisons made with this fight against the virus and the war, and I think that’s valid - without the bullets - now, a reason why this is so shocking is because usually in this country and most other developed countries we have pretty secure - most of us - and stable lives and in wars that mass security gets taken away I’ve seen it all over the world many times, and that’s what the virus is doing; now - it’s not a competition of course, but man people around the world never have that kind of safety and security that usually we’re used to. Untimely death is always part of it for them. 

And so think about all that and the fact that, you know, we have the NHS and many countries don’t, and figures I’ve seen lately - forty ventilators in Gaza for two million people - three ventilators in the Central African Republic for five million, so it’s a time to count our blessings, I suppose is what I’m saying. Now this poem………

Jeremy Bowen, your agenda is showing. Why on earth did you shoehorn that particular statistic into your ‘cheerful’ intro? (I suppose it cheered you up to do so)

Is there a new rule that every item of BBC news has to include a comparison with “Gaza”? 

BBC Watch has been monitoring the BBC’s agenda-littered reporting of Israel / COVID-19 related issues, which invariably includes snide anti-Israel innuendo. For example, just examine the emotive language in one passage of Jonathan Marcus’s report. One could easily omit the gratuitous insinuations, without compromising the accuracy of (e.g.,) the following report.

“But the densely populated Gaza Strip presents an altogether more worrying case. The population there is isolated; the Palestinians are under effective blockade from both Israel and Egypt, who say it is a necessary security measure against militants. 

There has been a long-running debate between Israel and the international community as to its abiding responsibilities for the territory. Israel’s troops have left and it insists that it is no longer responsible for events there, which is now the job of the Hamas rulers. 

But if the pandemic sweeps through Gaza this may become a very difficult case to argue given the grip that Israel still retains from outside. 

No wonder there have been calls from Palestinian experts and humanitarian agencies for the so-called Israeli “blockade” to be lifted, and for Palestinians in both the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Israelis to make common cause to fight the pandemic.”

Here’s a suggestion:

“But the Gaza Strip presents a worrying case. The population there is isolated; the Palestinian residents are under effective blockade from both Israel and Egypt, which is a necessary security measure against Palestinian terrorism. 

There has been a long-running debate between Israel and the international community as to its responsibilities for the territory but Israel is no longer responsible for events there; this is now the job of the Hamas rulers. 

There have been calls from Palestinian experts and humanitarian agencies for the so-called Israeli “blockade” to be lifted, and for Palestinians in both the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Israelis to make common cause to fight the pandemic.”

Contrary to the BBC’s insinuations, it has been widely reported on the pro-Israel press, (not the BBC) that Israel has continued to supply goods to Gaza including medical supplies, throughout the epidemic and the ubiquitous references to the density of the population do not give a true picture of reality in terms of ‘comparative densities’.   

The Palestinian Authority leadership has done virtually nothing to help the Gaza Strip confront the coronavirus pandemic. Ironically, the only country that has been helping the Gaza Strip in the past few weeks is Israel. https://t.co/QQUYpuCOn2

— Gatestone Institute (@GatestoneInst) April 1, 2020

and yet:

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar threatened to kill all of Israel's Jews if Gaza does not get enough ventilators. 

“If ventilators are not brought into [Gaza], we’ll take them by force from Israel and stop the breathing of 6 million Israelis," he said, as reported by Times of Israel and Arab media.

In common parlance

Another one for connoisseurs of BBC complaint responses...

There's no such position as “the Palestinian ambassador to the UK” or “the Palestinian ambassador to London” but in late January the BBC - Today and the World Service - repeatedly described Husam Zomlot as being such. BBC Watch complained and, three days ago, received this reply:

Thank you for contacting us regarding the Today programme and Newshour, both broadcast on Tuesday 28th January. 

We have spoken with senior staff about your concerns. We acknowledge the point that Husam Zomlot is not strictly speaking an ambassador, although the phrase is in common parlance in the media. We will remind editors of his actual title, but it is clear from our wider reporting that the UK does not recognise Palestine as a state.  

That's an interesting precedent. BBC accuracy can go whistle if a phrase, it seems, jf something not strictly accurate "is in common parlance in the media". 

It's common parlance, beyond the BBC, to call Hamas and Hezbollah 'terrorist organisations', so might this signal a massive shift in how the BBC refers to both of them from now on? (Very unlikely.)

Annual occurrence

There are so many things I would have blogged in the last few days /weeks. But I couldn’t.  

The worst thing (for me) was the BBC’s oh so predictable Christmastide anti-Israel emoting based on the BBC’s (and Sky’s) saccharine and weirdly sentimentalised portrayal of the Plight of the Palestinians - and at this time of year, of Palestinian Christians. If Palestinian Christians are beleaguered, it’s due to the ongoing persecution of Christians that the mainstream media persistently ignores, (because it’s) perpetrated by their favourite peaceful religion.

The BBC must know is going on, but they just ain’t interested. Only when they believe that Israel can be blamed by insinuation do the Beeb’s ears prick up and its eyes light up. The BBC must feel that the current climate offers a safe space for unsubstantiated innuendo and their special brand of passive-aggressive reporting.

BBC Watch has been on the case - does the BBC even bother to look at these painstakingly researched articles?

https://bbcwatch.org/tag/barbara-plett-usher/

https://bbcwatch.org/2019/12/26/the-bbcs-biased-bethlehem-binge-continues/

https://bbcwatch.org/2019/12/25/bbc-politicisation-of-christmas-continues-on-ws-radio/

https://bbcwatch.org/2019/12/22/bbc-news-again-self-conscripts-to-banksys-israel-delegitimisation/

https://bbcwatch.org/2019/12/23/bbc-ws-radio-airs-anti-terrorist-fence-falsehoods/

https://bbcwatch.org/2016/12/22/documenting-five-years-of-bbc-politicisation-of-christmas/ 

........and here’s a comprehensive summary of the Banksy nonsense by Camera. 

The way the BBC magnified Banksy’s tiny wee nativity scene is beyond (even my own) belief. I mean they’ve surpassed themselves. 

“Has the opening of any other art exhibit – never mind a single small installation – ever garnered so much interest before in Israel or the West Bank, warranting headlines in numerous leading news organizations? None of the aforementioned media outlets which covered the opening of “Scar of Bethlehem” gave any coverage to the graffiti murals painted on Israeli bomb shelters by visiting international artists.” […] 

“By giving the small installation such disproportionate coverage, journalists have provided an unfortunate platform to propagate the falsehoods.
Moreover, the suggestion that the Israeli military is firing on Jesus evokes ancient antisemitic charges of deicide. The widely-accepted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism includes the following:
Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
Instead of exploring and exposing the antisemitic canard behind the installation, or choosing not to give the vitriolic message a platform, media outlets uniformly provided warm, approving coverage. 

As you know, Craig took up the baton on behalf of  ITBB. 

The BBC sticks to its agenda, year in, year out. Surely they must know what’s going on. If they don’t, they must at least know there’s another side to the story. 

🇮🇱 BBC and Sky News demonise Israel for Christmas. 🎅

RT if you're sick of the medias anti-Israel bias. pic.twitter.com/82U4oXtQFk

— Israel Advocacy Movement (@israel_advocacy) December 26, 2019

Who is ‘they’? I don’t know if it’s the on-the-ground personnel, from Jeremy Bowen and downwards and onwards through the ranks, or maybe it's in accord with a directive from on high. It’s relentless. Wherever it comes from, it plays a significant part in the current outbreak of overt racism. It all adds up.

Fact-checking

As BBC Watch points out, the BBC's Barbara Plett Usher - recently relocated from the UN to Jerusalem - isn't wholly in command of the facts. 

Her 22 November article for the BBC News website reads:

A lot will depend on senior members of Mr Netanyahu's Likud party. Until now they have maintained their tribal loyalty to the prime minister, but he is facing a possible challenge from within. 

The education minister, Gideon Saar, has called for party primaries to replace him. There may well yet be others.

As BBC Watch says, 

Gideon Sa’ar has not been the Minister of Education for over six years. He held that post between March 31st 2009 and March 18th 2013 and since then there have been three other ministers.

Indeed, Mr Sa'ar hasn't been a minister for five years.

Where's Chris Morris when you need him?

Clueless in Gaza

Yesterday BBC Watch described Mishal Husain as ‘clueless’ because of her limited grasp of the Israeli / Palestinian conflict, meaning that she completely fails (refuses) to see the ‘bigger picture’.

One could speculate that this is because of Husain’s innate, tribal ‘AsaMuslim” hostility to Israel. However, as various insiders frequently attest, the Today Programme is routinely preceded by an editorial briefing, therefore one assumes that Husain isn't given totally free rein on the angle through which interviews are framed. So the aforementioned cluelessness probably isn’t solely down to Husain. 

Ever since the recent reports of the killing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader, or ‘commander’ if you like, it seems increasingly clear that the BBC is presenting this as an ‘extra-judicial’ assassination, an isolated incident, solely responsible for ‘kicking the whole thing off’. (‘The whole thing’ being the escalation of violence in which several (allegedly) innocent Palestinians have lost their lives. )

Once upon a time I would have weighed in and taken on the argument (that this was by no means an isolated or random incident) all by myself. But not now. I’m weary and disillusioned. Then, lo and behold, along comes this article in Commentary Magazine and does the job for me.  

Gaza's Cycle of Self-Destruction - Terrorists in isolation

Before I go into any more detail, let me just remind myself of Mishal Husain’s (and the BBC’s) starting point. They regard PIJ (Iran’ s proxy) as a legitimate and properly kosher fighting force. This takes impartiality to its logical conclusion, where the devil and the angel get equal billing.  Some might even say the devil is pitched as the protagonist and therefore captures the audience’s sympathy.

Let me quote from Commentary Magazine: (bold added by me)

“First things first. According to the New York Times’s Isabel Kershner and others, the latest round of violence between Israel and the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in Gaza was “set off by Israel’s assassination of a senior Islamic Jihad commander on Tuesday.” This is not strictly true.”

(The NY Times is as left-leaning as the Beeb)

“That senior Islamic Jihad commander, Baha Abu al-Ata, was behind a series of rocket attacks on the Israeli city of Sderot less than two weeks ago. That, and other recent attacks against Israel, is what got him killed; the confrontation, therefore, predates his assassination. It’s just that the earlier rocket attacks didn’t make much news outside of Israel.

(Particularly on the Beeb.)

“But since Tuesday morning, the Iranian supported Islamic Jihad has fired 350 rockets from Gaza into Israel, some reaching as far as Tel Aviv. And Israel has been pounding Islamic Jihad targets inside Gaza. The casualty numbers change quickly, but last I saw, Gaza’s Health Ministry claimed that 24 Palestinians have been killed, and 69 others have been wounded—20 of the 24 were Islamic Jihad fighters. In Israel, 48 people were wounded, and none killed.

And so on. Mishal Husain was keen to point out that “Islamic Jihad is not the main militant group in Gaza.” Why say that? Could it be to suggest that Israel’s actions are unnecessarily provocative because “Hamas will be further drawn in” But of course it's PIJ that's doing the 'drawing in', not Israel.

“During this week’s conflict, Israel has not yet targeted Hamas, Gaza’s governing terrorist organization. But there’s now much speculation about what Hamas will do in response to the flare-up. Islamic Jihad has no governing control of Gaza, but, as the current violence demonstrates, it can easily draw the Strip into conflict. And it is Hamas’s failure to curb Islamic Jihad’s continued provocations against Israel that has led to the present crisis.  

As Abu al-Ata ramped up his campaign against the Jewish state, Israel warned Hamas that it wasn’t going to take it forever. “Via publications in various media outlets; messages conveyed by Egyptian intelligence; and warnings via international mediators,” writes Avi Issacharoff at the Times of Israel, “Israel repeatedly urged Hamas to take action.” Hamas didn’t act. Israel did.

Please take a few moments to read the whole thing. Don't be daunted - do read; it's not too long.

It’s a shame that the BBC takes such a superficial, half-a-story approach to all its reporting on this topic. It’s largely because the general public is being misinformed and deliberately kept in a state of ignorance through the BBC's biased, one-sided and Philo-Islamic reporting that the Labour Party is able to get away with its rampantly sanctimonious antisemitism.  

Numbers

Talking of the BBC's Middle East editor, this is interesting from BBC Watch. 

They cite a Media Masters interview with Jeremy Bowen where Jeremy says:  

“I would say that the conflict, it looms with real weight and damage on the shoulders of many Palestinians, because they are weaker and don’t have the resources and many of them live under occupation. That’s the key thing, if you live under occupation, life becomes way, way more difficult.”  

“…plenty of Palestinians feel very threatened by settlers, armed settlers, by soldiers, by raids in the middle of the night, by helicopters, you name it. And many Israelis have been hurt by and continue to be worried about attacks by Palestinians, though there haven’t been all that many in recent years.”

BBC Watch says:

What Bowen means by “recent years” is not entirely clear but in 2015 there were 2,398 terror attacks in Israel (of which the BBC reported 3.2%). In 2016 there were 1,415 attacks (of which the BBC covered 2.8%), in 2017 there were 1,516 attacks – less then one percent of which were reported by the BBC – and in 2018 the BBC covered at most 30.2% of the 3,006 attacks launched. During the first nine months of 2019 the BBC reported 23.6% of the 1,709 attacks which took place. 

Obviously the BBC’s ongoing failure to adequately report the scale of terror attacks against Israelis serves its Middle East editor just as badly as it does the corporation’s audiences. 

Of Language and Lod

Rina Shnerb

BBC Watch takes apart a report about the murder of a 17 year old Israeli girl by Palestinian terrorists on Saturday's Midnight News on Radio 4, criticising several aspects of it: 

(1) The use of 'politically partisan language' - "militant", "settlement", "occupied West Bank" and "protests". 

(I'm assuming BBC Watch would prefer "terrorist", "village", "Judea and Samaria" and "violent riots"). 

(2) The 'downplaying' of the gravity of the attack which killed the girl while she was out hiking with her family.  The BBC's Yolande Knell said, "Unusually, a homemade bomb is said to have been used" whereas The Times of Israel says, "Channel 12 quoted unnamed officials as saying that the size and complexity of the device indicated that one of the major terror groups was behind the attack" and Channel 13’s military correspondent says that the IED weighed between three and four kilos and contained a large amount of shrapnel, adding that the incident was “planned and organised – and not a spontaneous or improvised terror attack”. 

(If the Israeli voices are correct there, then the BBC appears to have seriously mischaracterised the nature of the device used). 

(3) Yolande Knell's 'choice' to use the Arabic pronunciation of the name of the Israeli city of Lod. She pronounced it 'Lud'. 

(What a strange thing to do on Yolande's part! She unquestionably did pronounce it in the Arabic version 'Lud' rather than the Hebrew version 'Lod'. Is that another BBC guideline or her own choice?) 

BBC Watch is right to claim that the language used was deliberately chosen and also right that the chosen words cannot but shape how the listener reacts to the story. 

The geographical words used in point (1) are those recommended by the BBC's own editorial guidelines and commit the BBC to a particular line on the politics of that geography (which you may agree or disagree with), and the BBC's refusal to use words like "terrorist" and "riot" are a longstanding BBC policy to try not to be 'judgmental' in their language. Here such language is more favourable to the Palestinians than the Israelis, softening the harshness of the Palestinians and hardening the image of the 'occupying' Israelis. 

Quite why Yolande Knell gave a central Israeli city an Arabic pronunciation though remains beyond me. Was she being deliberately provocative?

As an aside, here's a fascinating YouTube video about the beautiful 19th Century rebuild of the Church of St. George in Lod - a church the city's Muslim overlords (even Saladin) kept on knocking down:

The case against the BBC

A head of steam is building up and critics of the BBC are on the warpath. The Conservative Woman’s David Keighley, an ex-BBC man, has raised enough money to fund a legal challenge. The idea is to sue the BBC for breach of the crucial impartiality obligations within its charter. Lawyers have been hired to build the case. 

  

Robin Aitken, another ex BBC man, has been pursuing a similar agenda for decades. 

Aitken believes the left-wing consensus is so ingrained in the confirmation-bias-prone media bubble that the inhabitants of such an insular environment just don’t see it.

 O wad some Power the giftie gie us /To see oursels as ithers see us!

This video was made in January 2019.  In conversation with Peter Whittle, Robin Aitken articulates the collective mindset within the Beeb. He alludes to a deliberate strategy of social engineering which entails sanitising and normalising ‘Muslimness’, (a condition with a bespoke word of its own).

 “Our view of the world is this. Muslims are always victims, they are victimised and Islamophobia is rife in the country and that’s the story we want to tell. Do we want to tell a story about Muslims behaving badly? Attacking Jews, or attacking women? No, we don’t want to really. We don’t want to tell those stories. That’s why, for instance, it took so long, and it took some brave journalism by The Times newspaper to bring that whole thing about the Pakistani rape-gangs into the open.”

If the aim is to aid social cohesion, it’s a big fail. You can’t hide things from the public forever, and once people realise they’re being manipulated they’ll resist. Only the BBC itself supports its own ham-fisted attempts at social engineering.

If you listened to today’s Sunday Programme you will have heard that the findings of a ‘com res poll’  show that nearly half of the UK believe that Islam is incompatible with British values

(if the specific time-link doesn’t work for you, scroll to 10:20)

The MCB’s Miqdaad Versi thinks that (presumably because Jews argue that they should be allowed to define antisemitism) Muslims should equally be allowed to define Islamophobia. The existing definition, which has been accepted by several organisations but not the Conservative Party, includes the invented terminology ‘expressions of Muslimness’ which, in practice amounts to the introduction of blasphemy law by stealth. So no wonder the Conservative Party is reluctant to accept it. 

Sadly, portentous attempts to equate everything ‘Muslim’ with everything ‘Jewish’ have succeeded in toxifying specific Jewish religious practices that had been rubbing along quite peacefully in British society for years, and with one fell swoop has driven an expedient Israel-bound mini-exodus of British Jews.(£)

 “With the rapid rise in size and political importance of the Muslim community in the UK, there is also a feeling that Israel is being singled out for opprobrium and that the balance has swung decisively against the Zionist cause. For those whose biggest fear is Corbyn, many are waiting to see if Labour wins a general election before deciding whether or not to make aliyah.”

“I think the air has already changed, regardless of Corbyn. Some 730 years since King Edward I expelled the small mercantile Jewish community from England, the Jews are leaving again. This time not through the decree of an absolute tyrant, but as the consequence of a subtler, stealthier tyranny. There seems to be nobody left, over here or in continental Europe, who will fight the Jews’ corner, so electorally insignificant have their numbers become. That it is primarily the left that is driving them out is something they surely could not have foreseen or imagined. But here it is.”

David Keighley’s current criticisms of the BBC principally concern the BBC’s demonstrable anti-Brexit bias, the long-term effect of which, he believes, will prove disastrous for the country. 

However, I think the long-term consequences of the BBC’s pernicious, interminable hostility to Israel and Jews will have equally serious and perhaps even longer-lasting ramifications.

A decades-long history of ‘half-a-story' reporting, a Middle East editor with a built-in grudge, and contrary to the allegations of Miqdaad Versi and others, the BBC’s institutionally pro-Muslim outlook including the ever-presence of anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian talking heads on panels and political broadcasts has produced an ill-informed consensus. Public opinion appears to be perfectly content to exchange 250,000  loyal British Jewish citizens for over 4million incompatible or not necessarily loyal British / Pakistani / Middle Eastern/ African Muslims.

The antisemitism in the Labour Party is just the beginning. The leadership’s inability to deal with it is a great shame, but the BBC’s biased reporting makes rectifying the situation impossible.

BBC Watch constantly researches, writes and posts several articles per day in an effort to keep abreast of endless unreported examples of Muslims behaving badly. Shamefully, the BBC still refuses to report almost all of it; at least, not until Israel retaliates. Day after day aggression against Israel is ignored. “The BBC is only interested when Israel fights back” is a saying that is becoming more tired and worn every time it’s uttered. Repetition might make that saying ineffectual, but that doesn’t make it wrong. 

Nor has the antisemitism from the right gone away. For once Yasmin Alibhai Brown had a point when she mentioned that on Sky recently.

That too is tacitly reinforced by the BBC’s failure to fill in crucial gaps in what ought to be general historical knowledge. Right-wing antisemites often cite the infamous bombing of the King David Hotel to reinforce their theory that Israel was founded on terrorism, a stance that conveniently ignores the fact that at the time the King David Hotel was more of an army HQ than a tourist destination and more importantly, it disregards the fact that Britain’s post-war government’s hostile, antisemitic, pro-Arab political policies denied sanctuary to many desperate Holocaust survivors, an important factor in understanding why certain (arguably renegade) Jews fought against the British at that time. You have to seek that information out, and who nowadays can be bothered.

So I think the BBC’s bias against Israel and Zionism will inevitably lead to a major Jewish exodus and a predominantly Muslim Britain.  A great loss to this country. 

If it’s indeed true that this important aspect of the BBC’s bias has taken a back seat in this particular crowd-funded and well-intentioned litigation project, then I’m sorry and disappointed.

Churnalism

Yolande Knell, BBC News, Tel Aviv

My favourite BBC Watch piece this past week featured BBC Middle East correspondent Yolande Knell.

It looked at a BBC World Service report  (6th June) which she then recycled for an edition of Radio 4's From Our Own Correspondent (13th June).

And, by the looks of it, that wasn't the only bit of recycling she engaged in!

BBC Watch notes its remarkable similarity to an earlier Associated Press report (4th June).

Here's that AP report in full:

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Hundreds of Israelis have participated in a mass wedding in Tel Aviv to demand the right to same-sex marriage ahead of the country’s Gay Pride week. 

Tuesday’s event involved an unofficial wedding ceremony for 23 gay couples, who walked down the aisle, took vows and danced at a banquet, cheered by friends, family and supporters. 

The annual pride parade, set for June 14, draws flocks of foreign visitors to Israel, which flaunts itself as one of the world’s most gay-friendly tourist destinations. 

Yet political rights for Israel’s gay community lag behind increasingly widespread cultural acceptance. 

Jewish ultra-Orthodox parties, which wield significant influence in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government and have a monopoly over matters of religion and state, have rejected legislation that condones homosexuality, which they see as defying Jewish law. 

And here's Yolande's BBC report, via the BBC Watch transcript:

Beaming, Nikita stomps on a glass wrapped in foil to cries of muzl tov – congratulations. But this isn’t a traditional Jewish wedding: it’s a symbolic one. Nikita and his long-time partner Roy are in a row of 23 gay couples hugging and kissing. All walked down the aisle and took vows at an open-air mass ceremony in Tel Aviv.

But while same-sex marriages are increasingly recognised around the world, here in Israel they’re still not legal. The state doesn’t permit any civil marriages – only religious ones – and there’s no religious gay marriage option. ‘We participated so everyone would see us and know we exist’ Nikita says. ‘We love each other, we want to be married and have a normal life’.

Tel Aviv’s gay-friendly reputation – which it recently flaunted while hosting the Eurovision Song Contest – draws many same-sex Israeli couples to live here as well as lots of foreign visitors. Every year its pride parade along the beach has a carnival atmosphere. Young and old, gay and straight join the huge party, many dressed in flamboyant outfits or skimpy swimming costumes.

But in Israel rights for the gay community fall behind rising cultural acceptance in society.

In the Right-wing coalition governments of the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jewish ultra-orthodox parties have had an influential role. They reject any proposed legislation which they see as condoning homosexuality, saying it defies Jewish law.

Hmm.

So here's a summary of the overlap:

1. "walked down the aisle"
2. "gay-friendly"
3. "flaunted"
4. "foreign visitors"
5. "fall behind rising cultural acceptance in society"
6. "reject any proposed legislation which they see as condoning homosexuality, saying it defies Jewish law"

So is the BBC's Yolande Knell a journalist or a churnalist? 

“You saw it here first”

Allow me to point you in the direction of a couple or three topics we’ve covered on ITBB, which have subsequently been expanded upon at much more length and in much more depth on other blogs and websites.

If we had the time and the expertise to flesh out pieces we’ve barely scraped the surface of, we’d do so. (if appropriate) Of course, if we did they’d likely end up “tl;dr”. It’s a fine line.

Search for ‘gotcha’ on this site and several posts show up, amongst which are those infamous ‘wasted opportunity’ interviews by the two Andrews - the Andrews Sisters I’ll call them - where the ‘gotcha’ strategy backfired.

Anyway, this piece is on CAPX. It's by Douglas Carswell, and he addresses the “Gotcha’ phenomenon concisely. 

“Is more gotcha journalism really what people want?” 

If most ordinary people had a chance to put a question to Farage, I reckon it might be to do with the government’s handling of the Brexit negotiations or the state of our democracy. What did Marr decide to challenge Farage on instead? Things he might or might not believe about president Putin or gun control. 

UK audiences might be unfamiliar with Shapiro, so one might have expected a series of questions that would enable him to inform the viewers a little about his world view – with follow up questions to challenge it. Instead, he was confronted with a tweet he had sent out in 2011. 

Yes, Shapiro was guilty of losing his temper.  But what does it say about his interlocutor that he set out to goad him? 

Perhaps Marr and Neil thought that they were being clever and cunning by not asking the obvious. But what they did lead with sounded to me like one long effort to insinuate and smear. 

That either man might have some opinions that aren’t mainstream among UK media circles is hardly interesting or surprising. It requires extraordinary self-absorption on the part of the BBC production team to imagine otherwise.

He’s making sense.

I’m not the only one who’s blogged that nasty interview on the Today Programme, in which Dr Rosena Allin-Khan got away with some blatantly anti-Israel propaganda, uncontested and egged on by Mishal Husain.  In fact, I had a couple of goes at it. 

BBC Watch also deconstructed this story, producing a forensic and detailed two-parter on the website,  here and here, and Honest Reporting took it a step further and included similarly exaggerated claims made in the Independent by Dr Allin Khan.

That Hamas regularly diverts international aid money to its own leaders over-inflated bank accounts is undisputed. Instead of investing in homes, schools and medical clinics, Hamas has taken away desperately needed funds and poured them into terror infrastructure, wasting countless millions of assault and kidnap tunnels built dug deep into Israeli territory. Hamas has also taken over Gaza’s medical services, with the Washington Post describing Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital in 2014 as the “de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.” 

The article also fails to mention that the Palestinian Authority recently declared its refusal to pay for medical expenses in Israeli hospitals. The move came in protest over Israel deducting the amount of money the PA pays in salaries to imprisoned terrorists and families of “martyrs” and withholding the equivalent sums from tax money Israel collects on behalf of the PA. As a result, hundreds of Palestinian medical patients are currently left in the lurch regarding their treatment.

Now for something completely the same.

I wrote about the casual  - nay, affectionate references to Hezbollah and its bizarre theme park that I heard on the BBS’s radio 4 programme “Loose Ends”. Anecdotes from a nostalgic Dom Joly about his childhood in Lebanon left the impression that Hezbollah are merely cheeky rogues, rather than Iran’s proxy and brutal murdering terrorists. Again, BBC Watch has addressed the story about Hezbollah’s terrorist plot intended for London and the BBC’s lack of interest in it.

“The story has led to questions as to why details of the raid were kept secret, why Members of Parliament were not informed and why the incident was never mentioned during extensive debates about whether all of Hezbollah should be banned as a terrorist organisation.”

Finally, the question of the BBC’s instructions on the use of the word ‘terrorism’. I thought this matter had been wrapped up in 2005. Done and dusted, as they say. 

My understanding was that the use of the word was discouraged by the powers that be because it involved making a value-judgement. Staff were only allowed to use it in reported speech or in other exceptional circumstances - apparently one was that it was ok to call it terror if the offence was committed by Jews. That’s hearsay  - but I’ve heard it so I might as well say it.

Now it seems that there’s a new edict from on high. I can’t quite tell if it differs from the old edict, but it’s based on the principle that “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” In other words, the BBC is scared to offend Islam-fuelled terrorists by showing disrespect for the cause, which could be deemed judgmental. 

I thought terrorism had a definition. Google says: "a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims."

In other words, it’s not really anything to do with whether Isis, Hezbollah, Hamas and the IRA fancy themselves as freedom fighters. 

In the case of those ‘lone wolves’ it’s a toss-up between being a ‘qualified’ terrorist, or an insane, psychotic madman, (or woman) but cloaking it all in euphemistic language makes the BBC look less impartial, not more.

Missing details

Forgive me for revisiting a story I posted a few days ago, but as often happens, BBC Watch has now supplied the details that I did not. (And there’s a second part due on that website tomorrow)

In the old days, when I first began blogging about the BBC’s unfair reporting on Israel and Jewish matters in general, I would spend hours researching the facts before setting them out to the best of my ability. These days I don’t bother, for the simple reason that I’ve realised that facts definitely have nothing to do with it. They’re irrelevant in the post-factual age. 

However, for old times’ sake, I hope you’ll accept the following recap, if only as a reminder of how the BBC implements its anti-Israel activism. Here’s the gist of it. 

In my post, I explained that I had missed the middle section of an emotive Today Programme report - but I’d heard just enough to feel the abject nastiness in the tone of Mishal Husain’s interview. There didn’t appear to be any particular reason or relevance for the timing of this particular story on this particular morning, but it’s possible that I might have missed it. 

A lengthy, uninterrupted speech - can I call it a diatribe? - from a Labour MP called Dr Rosena Allin-Khan was aired, followed by one of Husain’s distinctly adversarial interviews with deputy Israeli ambassador Sharon Bar-Li.  No doubt Hadar Sela will address this in more detail in tomorrow’s follow-up post on BBC Watch.

You will remember Mishal Husain’s infamous interview with Gil Hoffman - I’ve cited it many times - in which she referred to Hamas’s rockets as Home-made contraptions, and in true “Jeremy Paxman style” repeated the question concerning the tally of murdered Israelis. “How many Israelis?” she nagged, knowing full well that the answer was ‘none’. (None so far because we take pains to protect them) Husain obviously thought that ‘not enough Israelis’ had been murdered to justify Israel’s decision to retaliate to barrages of rockets.

In this recent case, Husain repeatedly demanded to know the number of medical tubes that had exploded, with the certainty that the answer would probably be ‘none’, which would show listeners that Israel had no right to stop patients travelling back and forth to Gaza willy-nilly and that the Israeli authorities were preventing ‘free movement’ out of pure malevolence, (or perhaps Islamophobia.)

Now, according to BBC Watch, who still scrupulously research the facts before supplying them to the handful of curious people to whom the truth still matters, the actualité is quite different from the impression Husain and  Dr Allin-Khan left us with. Apart from the fact that Dr Khan is hardly an impartial spokesperson .....

“Allin-Khan did indeed visit the region between April 4th and 8th this year on a trip paid for by the political NGO ‘Medical Aid for Palestinians’ (MAP) as she went on to state. However, listeners heard nothing from her or from Mishal Husain about that NGO’s political agenda and its history of anti-Israel campaigning.”

...the denial of permits seems not to be the fault of the Israelis at all. If you follow the link, you get (Google translate is your assistant)

“Throughout these months, when Shedd's (sic) condition deteriorated, the hospital repeatedly turned to the Palestinian Authority to file a request to the Coordinator of Military Activities in the Territories to allow the mother or father to enter Israel and reunite with their daughter. "We tried again and again and they refused," Elian testified.

Now, who to believe? 

I know which testimony I’d believe, but that’s not my main point. It’s the BBC’s pure nastiness and hostility that I find so disgusting and so inappropriate. Mishal Husain’s overt and truly spiteful anti-Israel hectoring interviewing approach is a disgrace. She shouldn’t be let loose on any BBC broadcasts connected with Israel or antisemitism. She would be better suited to Al-Jazeera. I understand that’s where retired BBC hacks are often put out to grass.

The Intent

What’s your position on the ‘gotcha’? I'd say they’re a useful tool in the armoury, but they’re not the be-all and end-all.

“The whole thing. The last word. Something that so entirely suitable as to eliminate the need for a search for an alternative.”

Therefore, we had good reason to be appalled by the egregious (outstandingly bad) use of attempted gotchas by the two Andys, which certainly did NOT eliminate the need for an alternative. Not from two of the BBC’s most revered political titans with reputations on par with the 13th Duke of Wybourne. 

What we wanted from Andrew Neil and Andrew Marr was not so much to see their ‘interrogee’ demolished, destroyed or, in internet parlance, pwned. We wanted to see their philosophies/ policies drawn out, laid bare, and if appropriate, hoist by their own petards.

What the Andys did was lazy and amateurish, which, with their reputations, they had no business to be. 

We, on the other hand, are also guilty of using this tool when we can. (Not only ‘we’ here on ITBB, but practically every online keyboard warrior on the interweb) And elsewhere.

Personally, I’m more interested in the intent. Intent is all. It’s a state of mind thing.

Here, on BBC Watch, is an example of a piece that contains a ‘Gotcha” and reveals a good deal of ‘intent’. In case it’s too dense for you because you’re hung-over/suffer from ADD or AHDD or LGBTQ etc,. I’ll try to precis. Here goes:

Quite recently, (18th March 2019) Nick Robinson interviewed a man called Dr Tarek Loubani about an incident that had occurred in Gaza during the GMoR. To be precise, it happened on the  “One Day” that was brought to us by the film “One day in Gaza.”

“I was just hanging about minding my own business when bang! I was shot! “  

said the good Dr. Loubani (Not verbatim) 

“The paramedic who rescued me, Musa Abuhassanin, was killed an hour later when he was shot in the chest.”  (Verbatim)

BBC Watch reminds us that this wasn’t the first we’d heard from Dr Loubani:

“BBC audiences had previously heard that story from Tarek Loubani in an article that appeared on the BBC News website in May 2018 and which included a link to his blog.”

If you follow all the links provided by BBC Watch, (I’m sure we don’t always bother) you’ll soon see that Dr Loubani is a bit of a rogue himself; a blogger and a very naughty boy. His mission was to give the impression that his rescuer Musa Abuhassanin was nothing but a paramedic, good and true, who was shot as he went about his business (hanging about / minding his own etc)

“Despite our efforts to clearly identify ourselves as first responders, several of our medical team were wounded by Israeli live fire. One paramedic, Musa Abuhassanin, was killed while attempting a victim rescue under fire. One hour before he was shot in the thorax and killed, Musa was one of my rescuers when I was shot by live ammunition.”

Dr Loubani blogged.

Musa, the paramedic in question, was evidently doing a bit of moonlighting. His other job entailed being a fully-fledged Hamasnik. Oh well. (Hamas helpfully released the incriminating poster) exhibit A.

“The ‘paramedic’ identified by Hamas in that poster as a member of its internal security apparatus turned up again in BBC Two’s recent film titled ‘One Day in Gaza’.”

says BBC Watch.

The film “One Day in Gaza” addressed the same incident. Here, BBC Watch details separate examples from the film where accounts “contrast sharply” with Dr Loubani’s disingenuous statement that went out unchallenged at a later date by Nick Robinson who should have known better.

“Eyewitnesses say at least two armed Palestinians stood aside from the crowd and began firing on Israeli soldiers.” […] “Hamas admits that Palestinians opened fire”

The film’s producer Olly Lambert Tweeted about interviewing Mishal Husain who was also in Gaza for the Today programme (for some unknown reason) while Lambert’s team were filming in December 2018. That pins down the BBC’s knowledge (that Dr Loubani had been a little economical with the actualité all along) to well before Nick Robinson allowed him to repeat his falsehood once more on the Today Programme.  That’s the Gotcha. 

That wise old owl Don Macintyre talking to @MishalHusainBBC for @BBCr4today in our hotel in Gaza this morning. Felt a proper schoolboy thrill to silently sit on the sidelines (checking my phone was on silent every 30 seconds) pic.twitter.com/TZ2UnH2Bn0

— Olly Lambert (@ollylambert) December 17, 2018

Here’s a bit of the ‘intent’ I mentioned earlier. The Tweet in question (seen on Olly Lambert’s Twitter feed or timeline or whatever it’s called) refers to “That wise old owl Don Macintyre….”

Wise old owl, eh? Donald Macintyre may be a wise old owl to Olly Lambert, which says more to me about Olly Lambert and his ‘intent’ than all the gotchas put together.

Pitch perfect

Here’s a much more fact-packed account of the subject of my previous post, including Huw Edwards’s intro, which I had missed.

The thing that struck me was, well, it looks as if Huw knew that the shortages and deprivations inflicted on Gaza's civilians were due to internal political feuds and enmities, but he threw in “years of an Israeli blockade” for good measure. Why? Because he could. Lazy and biased.

Nearly all BBC broadcasting is fundamentally pitched from an identifiable position. Andrew Marr’s line of questioning is clearly constructed from the Remain perspective. All Middle East reporting is as seen from ‘one side of the fence’. All religion-related items are from an anti-Christian and pro-Islam base. (As illustrated in today’s The Big Questions) If not explicitly pro-Islam, the more contentious elements of the ideology are invariably ‘let off the hook’

Here’s one of my favourite people; I don’t know if it’s still legal to call yourself ‘Fats’ these days, but this particular 'Fats' shows you don’t have to be skinny or young to be beautiful. 

This should be the Brexit song. There are better sound recordings available, but the pure visual joy in this performance cheers me up. My quibble is with the subtitles. Why write “strolling” when the lyric is clearly ‘rolling’? The word is vital to understanding the strange title of the song.

I love the musicality of the first legato “cra-a-a-a-y” followed by the jaunty, almost triumphant staccato of the second “cra-ha-ha-ha-hy”. That’s our message the EU when and if we ever finally actually exit.

Oh, and I much prefer the new set of The Big Questions. No more green and orange quilting, which was obviously designed to make your eyes bleed, as Claudia Winkleman might say.

Give Your Story a Voice

Remember this post? Perpetually funding Gaza?

I wrote it in a reflexive, knee-jerk fit of disgust.  Here’s what BBC Watch has made of it - it’s a much more knowledgeable take-down of Ed Stourton’s Sunday Programme than mine - starting with the missing ‘d’ in the name of one of Stourton’s two interviewees, the representative of Embrace the Middle East, Nigel Varndell,

I didn’t check the name, and I didn’t research the organisation in question, Embrace the Middle East.

 “Headed by Jeremy Moody, who has an extensive history promoting anti-Israel sentiments. “

As a relatively well-informed (obviously not well-informed enough) pro-Israel listener I merely reacted to the interview, having spotted enough bias in Ed Stourton’s approach even without the facts I neglected to ascertain.

The interviewees’ partisan interests were not properly identified. Sarah Elliot was defined dismissively as a “Trump supporter”, While Nigel Varndell was presented as a ‘do-gooder” from a Catholic charity. While doubting the veracity of Sarah Elliot’s assertion concerning UNRWA textbooks (by demanding ‘evidence’ of antisemitic content) Ed Stourton failed to question, let alone challenge an allegation about child mortality, which appears to have been based on selective information sourced from Chris Gunness of UNRWA. 

To sum up - BBC Watch:

“Radio 4 listeners heard more than an academic discussion. They heard a significant contribution from the “head of marketing and fundraising” at an NGO that is raising money for this particular cause – a cause that was repeatedly portrayed to the Sunday morning audience as the right “moral” choice.”

It also seems that a PR firm with the slogan: Give your Story a Voice describes ‘Embrace the Middle East’ as one of its clients and claims to have been involved in the item’s production – shouldn’t listeners have been made aware of that?

Who cares?

Aren’t you looking forward to the Labour Party Conference 2018? The BBC is preparing to give it full coverage. 

Here’s a taster:

“Mark Serwotka, General Secretary of the PCS Union, who publicly insinuated anti-semitism is “a story that does not exist” in the Labour Party, will be speaking at:
Labour and Palestine’s ‘Speaking Up for Palestine’ alongside Len McCluskey and Richard Burgon. 

CLASS’s ‘Review Of The Year’ alongside Owen Jones and Clive Lewis.
Public and Commercial Services Union’s ‘Social Security Under a Labour Government – What Would Need To Change’, alongside John McDonnell.”

I can’t wait.

********

The BBC’s coverage of other Jewish-related matters is not nearly as assiduous. Melanie Phillips:

“Through its educational materials and other media, the P.A. routinely incites hatred of Jews and the murder of Israelis, teaching its children that “all Israelis deserve to be killed and that dying while committing a terror attack is ‘the path to excellence and greatness … the great victory.’ ” 

The Arab writer Bassam Tawil has specifically blamed the murder of Ari Fuld by 17-year-old Khalil Jabarin on incitement by Abbas. According to Palestinian terrorist groups, Jabarin decided to murder a Jew in response to Israeli “crimes” against the Al-Aqsa mosque and other Islamic holy sites. 

Two days earlier, in a speech to the PLO Executive Committee in Ramallah widely reported in Arab media, Abbas had repeated the lie that Israel was planning to establish special Jewish prayer zones inside the Al-Aqsa mosque. 

No mention of any of this in Western media. Nor the fact that the P.A. immediately said it would pay the Jabarin family 1,400 shekels per month (nearly $400) for the next three years as a reward for Ari Fuld’s murder. According to the P.A.’s finance ministry, its total “pay-for-slay” budget amounts to 1.2 billion shekels ($335 million) this year and last.”

*******

Last but not least, Jeremy Bowen is at it again.  Part of BBC Watch’s post concerns the BBC World Service so you may not have seen it, but the filmed report was featured on BBC One and the News Channel. The long list of inaccuracies and omissions in this report can be accessed here, but in the post-truth world, who cares? 

Bowen’s one-sidedness is getting more and more audacious and the BBC is evidently okay with that. 

ITBB is a futile endeavour

Melanie Phillips has written a penetrating essay in the Jerusalem Post. Do read it through.

The gist of it is that bloggers like me are on the wrong track. Being on the defensive is an utter waste of time. Typically, we wait for some slanderous attack on Israel to appear before pleading “unfair!”.

She’s completely right about this. To struggle against institutional anti-Israelism and antisemitism is a hopeless endeavour. The BBC is impervious to reason.

On and on they go.  Here are just a couple of prime illustrations. 

1) Stephen Sackur’s sclerotic approach here, in an episode of Hardtalk with Danny Danon, 

His questioning is straight from the “……. dozens of Palestinians including children were gunned down – unarmed innocent civilians – by the Israeli military,” “Mark Serwotka” school of thought. 

Way beyond Devil’s advocate, Mr Sackur.

2) Jeremy Bowen’s obnoxious and partisan Tweet featured by Craig here. 

Why does Jeremy Bowen think it’s alright to Tweet out a random slice of a complex situation? 

Why does he assume no-one will notice that the story has been abridged to portray it as “another” example of Israeli brutality? 

The obvious omission of context is one thing, but the wider and more significant consideration, as I see it, is that it’s being done in the context of the current atmosphere of antisemitism and anti-Israel hysteria. 

Antisemitic shit-stirring is the only plausible motive I can think of.

Further reading

Here are a pair of powerful pieces from BBC Watch:

BBC R4 news reporting of Corbyn ‘irony’ story to domestic audiences

BBC political correspondent fails to fact-check team Corbyn ‘defence’

Please give them a read. 

How bad is it?

I think I might have mentioned this before, but I haven’t watched much TV recently. The media’s treatment of the antisemitism crisis in the Labour Party makes for excruciating viewing. Of course, that’s not the only reason I’ve stayed away. There’s also the matter of the BBC’s aggressive ‘diversity’ policy, where every other presenter is Black, Asian or minority ethnic, or a woman.

Many of whom must have been employed purely on the grounds of race, identity or gender. 

The Victoria Derbyshire show, hosted by Reeta Chakrabarti gave us a shocker a couple of days ago. BBC Watch has transcribed much of it. This is an example of the BBC plumbing new depths.

It must have been their aggressive diversity policy that possessed the BBC to bring in a young lady named Katy Sian to opine on left-wing antisemitism, and outrageously, to present her as an authority on the topic.

A respectful Reeta Chakrabarti treated Ms. Sian as if she was a disinterested arbiter and expert, whose contribution to the discussion was necessary for the purpose of counterbalancing the allegations of the two Jewish guests, whose lack of objectivity needed to be put in its proper perspective.

The reality couldn’t be further from the truth.  This lady may well be an expert on racism, but her specialty is ‘Islamophobia’. Listening to this inarticulate and slow-witted woman speak, the mind truly boggles at the idea that she’s involved in a university in any academic capacity at all. But I guess that says something about the sorry state of universities these days.

A cursory Google comes up with enough information - surely the commissioning editor was aware of this - to show that she’s not an authority on “racism” at all. She’s a left-wing, pro-Islam, anti-Israel activist. So, the BBC brought an important debate on antisemitism in the Labour Party down to the lowest possible level.

Sikh blogger SikhSangat describes Katy Sian as “an Islamist apologist and ‘academic crackpot,’ “ and

“a left-wing author who likes to think of herself as an intellectual on racism but in reality, she’s a pseudo-intellectual racist.“ 

She supports CAGE, sources her Tweets from the Guardian and her Twitter banner picture is of PLFP hijacker Leila Khaled. 

Reeta Chakrabarti generously gave her the last word, which she took advantage of to make this  plainly antisemitic announcement:   ”to critique Israel’s settler colonial state is not antisemitic.”

Unhealthy diet

BBC Watch has published a detailed two-part examination of the connected items on the Today Programme broadcast 16th July 2018. Here and here This was also the subject of our earlier post “imagine”.

Hadar Sela offers a fact-packed synopsis of Chris Gunness’s lies and omissions, so I thought it was worth revisiting the topic in the cold light of three days’ hindsight. (Three days ago is the past, in terms of news broadcasting and the past is another country.)

Heavily biased broadcasting by the BBC (and media outlets of the same mindset) has produced the entrenched anti-Israel feeling that’s everywhere nowadays. Biased broadcasting has had such a pernicious influence that hating Israel is the default position in Corbyn’s Labour Party. This resonates with the current fiasco, with the NEC quibbling over the definition of antisemitism. Rather than accepting the internationally recognised definition, the NEC wants to exclude segments they believe would preclude or limit ‘legitimate’ criticism of Israel. They want to be free to criticise Israel, no holds barred, from its right to protect itself to its right to exist, while reserving the right to boast that they haven’t a racist bone in their body. For some reason, they don’t want to be seen as antisemitic and they don’t want to think of themselves as antisemites.

No wonder so many of them respond to what they’ve absorbed from the ‘news’ this way, with loathing, indignation, and ire. They think railing against Israel is synonymous with virtue and humanity. Being fed on a diet of lies and half-truths gives you acute outrage. The pro-Palestinian pandemic has spread to the anti-Trump protests. Wrong-headed social justice warriors get big thrills from the illusory satisfaction of self-righteousness. 

Considerable damage is done through interviews with the likes of fanatical Israel-hater Gunness when venomous fantasies remain unchallenged. Gunness knows he can get away with it because ‘man-of-all-trade’ anchors such as John Humphrys and Justin Webb are inadequately briefed and couldn’t provide factual rebuttals - had they the appetite to do so.

The BBC evidently considered the item newsworthy because two Palestinians were killed in the incident, and they were children. Teenagers.

 “As was the case in BBC World Service news bulletins, while listeners had heard plenty about two teenagers – or “children” – killed in Gaza, they were not told that the wounded in Sderot also included people in that age group.”

Gunness got away with describing the location of the incident as “a popular gathering place in Gaza City, a park where many families go” when in fact the location was an “urban warfare training facility that includes access to Hamas’ tunnel network”.

Humphrys let Gunness waste our time with his histrionic invitation to British listeners to ‘imagine’ themselves in a string of invented, dishonest and irrelevant scenarios, which were clearly dreamt up to elicit empathy for the helpless and innocent Palestinians.

But facts and statistics are available,

“in April, May and June Palestinians engaged in Hamas facilitated violence at that border carried out, inter alia, 294 attacks with petrol bombs, 20 shooting attacks, 35 IED attacks and 5 grenade attacks.” 

should a BBC researcher supply them. But they don’t, and multiple misrepresentations and factually inaccurate allegations pass by, uncontested. I’m sure even John Humphrys knows that Gaza isn’t occupied, but he let it go when Gunness said it because he very likely feels that ‘everyone knows’ it ‘kind of’ is. 

I’d go further. I think Humphrys is in awe of Gunness. Perhaps he’s wary of triggering an emotional meltdown to the embarrassment of us all.

Just as the Labour Party bows to their supporters in the Muslim community, the media kowtows to the anti-racists who require smelling salts at the merest whiff of Islamophobia. They don’t admit that the Islam-friendly anti-racists who condemn Israel so vehemently are actually racists. Perhaps it was on their behalf that Justin Webb gave the Israeli spokesman Lt-Col Peter Lerner a hammering during his attempts to make a very reasonable rebuttal.  You can almost picture Webb looking around for approval after each ham-fisted interruption.

When Tom Bateman was asked to give an account of what the Israelis were saying -  the word on the street, so to speak - he chose to give the Israeli perspective through the prism of BBC groupthink, and the ‘Israel says’ qualifier was uttered with a discernible air of cynicism.

What made me almost lol was hearing Jeremy Corbyn accuse Theresa May’s government of being ‘divided’.
Heal thyself! was the tacit chorus from the watching nation. The Hodge affair has brought a few of the formerly silent Labour MPs out of the woodwork. I heard Kier Starmer tentatively venture the proposal that the Labour Party could staunch the wound by adopting the full-frontal internationally recognised definition of antisemitism and pretend they meant that all along. Where were all these people when Shami first came up with her whitewash? 

And now…heeerrre’s Seamus:

I hadn’t seen this. It’s frightening. x pic.twitter.com/YN9JJ76UUs

— Basil Bruschetta (@SirBasilBrush) July 18, 2018