All but eclipsed by the battle between Sunak and Truss, the battle between the IDF and PIJ has reached the BBC headlines.
Using the “Israel said”/“claims”formulation, Yolande Knell sets it out thus:
“As well as air strikes on Gaza, where Israel said its targets included a PIJ tunnel network, there have been continued arrest raids in the occupied West Bank. Dozens of members of PIJ have been detained, according to Israel
Gaza's health ministry blamed "Israeli aggression" for the deaths of Palestinians, and for the more than 200 people wounded.
Israel accused PIJ militants of accidentally causing at least some of those deaths - claiming on Saturday that the group fired a stray rocket killing multiple children in Jabalia, in the Gaza Strip. The BBC has not been able to independently verify this claim.
One can only speculate as to why the BBC has “not been able to” verify this claim butKnell clearly signals which side of the fence she’s sitting on.
I heard Knell’s bulletinon the radio this morning. (1:38 ) She said, “Israel is blaming a misfired militant rocket for killing several people including children.”
Well, technically she’s right - Israel “is” blaming “a misfired militant rocket”,in other words, a PIJ “short-fall”, which is often exactly what these incidents turn out to be - and would it be paranoid to suggest that Knell’s phrasing had an air of “They would say that, wouldn’t they” in true Mandy Rice-Davies fashion?
If you don’t have time for acronyms,“PIJ” stands Palestinian Islamic Jihad. (“Palestinian Islamic Jihad” is an Iranian proxy)
The media's inveterate Israel-opposers such as the BBC, CNN and New York Times have already printed deliberately slanted headlines painting Israel as the aggressor. Slavering for the last two days at the prospect of IDF-inflicted mass casualties, much of the media immediately and without any evidence eagerly pointed the finger at Israel over the tragic killing of seven people, including four children, in Jabalia camp in the Gaza Strip. They will undoubtedly try, but journalists and UN investigators will find it hard to refute the IDF's confirmation that they did not strike the location and have conclusive video and radar evidence that the deaths were caused by a misfired PIJ rocket, launched as so often from within the civilian population. This would certainly fit, as approximately a quarter of all terrorist rockets fired so far during this campaign have landed inside Gaza, not in Israel.
If you still don’t have time for acronyms, IDF stands for Israel Defence Forces - and the BBC is still an inveterate Israel-opposer.
Update
For those without access to her substack Melanie Phillips provides the antidote to the BBC’s (and the MSM’s) ‘half-the-story’ reporting.
Even if you don’t know or aren’t interested in the politics, this will have a familiar ring to many readers:
"What was the immediate reaction of much of the media in Britain and elsewhere? Israel was blamed for defending itself and defamed by recycling Palestinian propaganda.
But of course. It happens every single time. You can write the script as soon as the first Israeli missile lands. You know there will be a total absence of context so that Israeli victim and Arab aggressor are reversed. You know that Palestinian lies will be believed and reported as truth. You know that Israel will be painted entirely falsely as the villain of the piece, as it is year in, year out. You know that untold numbers in the general public will buy into this demonisation."
After setting out the background to the current situation, Melanie Phillips provides an example of - wait for it -The Telegraph’s regurgitation of Palestinian propaganda!
[The Telegraph] makes no mention of the Israelis murdered by PIJ and associates in March and April.
No mention of Iran’s involvement.
No mention of PIJ’s rockets falling short into Gaza.
No mention of the Israeli video showing this happening.
Whatever has happened to the once-responsible Telegraph?
If even the Telegraph falls for this what are the chances that the BBC will fare better?
SUE - Col Richard Kemp’s authoritative views on military matters - notably other than I/P - are occasionally sought by the BBC. He is a staunch supporter of Israel and a huge admirer of the moral integrity of the Israeli Defence Force. His military expertise and intimate knowledge of the IDF is unique.
During an operation in Gaza last week, the Israel Defence Forces attacked a Hamas tunnel complex with 12 squadrons of 160 combat planes striking over 150 targets with hundreds of bunker-busting JDAMs [Joint Direct Attack Munitions] in less than an hour. Although the battle damage assessment is still underway, the raid destroyed perhaps the most critical element of Hamas infrastructure, wiping out vast stocks of munitions and likely killing dozens if not hundreds of fighters. This was a hammer blow to Hamas and may prove to be a turning point in the conflict. It also sent a powerful message to Iran and Hizballah, foretelling the consequences of an assault on Israel with their arsenal of tens of thousands of missiles in southern Lebanon.
The IDF operation was a carefully coordinated combination of intelligence, surveillance, knowledge of enemy tactics, deception, surprise, and precisely targeted, overwhelming force. Of all these, deception and surprise were key. Surprise is a principle of war in the American, British and many other forces, defined in the US Army Field Manual as "striking the enemy at a time or place or in a manner for which he is unprepared." The manual goes on to say: "Deception can aid the probability of achieving surprise". Throughout the history of warfare, surprise achieved through deception has led to many stunning military victories — often against the odds.
The usual crowd is up in arms about this, proclaiming “Assault on press freedom! “ and “No evidence of Hamas’s presence in the media centre’s tower block!”
If one can access viral videos from heaven above, Fred Dibnah must be looking down at the surgical precision of the demolition with awe.
To be honest, I couldn’t care less whether Hamas personnel were there or not.
Propaganda is known to be as dangerous a weapon of war as Mishal Husain’s infamous arsenal of ‘homemade contraptions’. The left-leaning mainstream media also known as The Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda is terrified of angering the ‘already angry’ Muslim community and collectively furious that the IDF exploited their very own left-wing journalistic anti-Israel zeal, knowing that they would be eager to disseminate one particular piece of fake news - namely that the IDF were on stand-by to invade Gaza. This they duly did so effectively that the brave warriors of Hamas scuttled underground to take shelter and hopefully eliminated in one fell swoop. (Echoes of a certain Iranian strategy for ridding the world of Jews).
As Nasrallah famously boasted “if they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”
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More notable areas of one-sided reporting include the media’s tedious parroting of Hamas’s special death-toll figures, which conflate casualties from their own ‘shortfall’ accidents with the unfortunate ‘collateral damage’ that occurs as a result of Hamas’s ‘human shield ‘practices, which they know they can get away with due to the Western media’s ideological hostility to Israel.
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Why the UK’s media is so mealy-mouthed in their condemnation of Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, Islamism is understandable, but will be viewed - retrospectively - as a betrayal. Short-term gain, maybe, considering ‘demographics’ (the rise in antisemitism, civil unrest, BLM, the Labour Party etc etc) but long-term pain. Looking back, will future generations regret the West’s capitulation to Islam?
When I see an Israel-related article in the “non-left-wing press’ such as the Times or the Spectator, I am usually appalled by the politically correct editorial reins and restraints that abound. Nowadays I feel I have to skip straight to below the line for remedial reassurance that not everyone is taken in by it. Some of the ‘tell it like it is’ contributions are spot on. It still chills one to see the overtly antisemitic contributions from certain regulars amongst it all.
One exception is the Australian version of Sky. They have some Fox News-like pundits on their staff. Although subtlety doesn’t seem to be their strong point, it’s comforting to know that not everyone on this planet is out to crush you. Mind you, in view of America’s terrifying political about-turn, the UN’s and the ICC’s staggeringly unhinged anti-Israel animus, it looks like a gathering storm, all too reminiscent of the 1930s.
CRAIG - Col Kemp is a rare voice of informed reason these days.
Mishal Husain's infamous conflated, comparative body count is back.
His whole piece was geared towards making one main point: that Israel is acting disproportionately (as if he'd ever come to any other conclusion).
Well, that's his view.
In the past you might have expected that prominent BBC journalists would have either (a) kept their opinions to themselves or (b) expressed an opinion that sided with democracy against terrorists and their supporters, but not now. It's op-eds all the way from the BBC's Middle East Editor.
Here, as so often, he does the 'moral equivalence' thing first, then blames Israel.
SUE - For the integrity of this blog we’ve been focussing on the media’s bias rather than opining on the actual issues.
After all, what do I know? All I can do is digest as much available information and analysis as I can stomach and inject a little empirical evidence into it.
An HoL speech from 2009 by Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale (Labour) sticks in my mind. Perhaps because this baroness was a Labour Peer (not a ghastly Tory) it seemed extra significant and worth bearing in mind.
I first visited Gaza in August 1967, when Israel had taken control only a few weeks before. As I have said before in this House, I found Gaza an absolute hellhole. It is not easy to understand, and it is even more difficult to forgive, how prosperous Arab countries allowed their Palestinian brethren to live in such wretched conditions from 1948 to 1967.
[Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale Labour 10:51 am, 6th February 2009].
The implications here are profound. I probably don’t need to spell it out. Suffice it to say that when Israel did occupy Gaza after the six-day war (1967) the inhabitants’ conditions improved dramatically, most notably average life expectancy. However, Israel decided to make a disastrous but well-intentioned concession “for peace’! They evicted the Jewish residents and pulled out of Gaza in 2005 and You Know The Rest. As the well-worn Israel-bashing innuendo goes, “lessons should have been learned.” But they never seem to be.
The ease with which lazy and inaccurate memes are parroted is another pincer-prong with which the anti-Israel movement encircles its enemy. Naz Shah has taken full advantage of it, as Craig set out in part 1.
For Naz and her fan base, Tweeting about Palestinians ‘being kicked out of their homes’ was enough. And adding: Jews ‘celebrating the burning of a place of worship’ as if that needed no further examination. We await a sincere apology for the error and the humble pledge not to do it again. With bated breath.
One of the most egregious and ongoing omissions from Western media as a whole is the non-reporting of the vicious incitement that pours from the Islamic world. No story, no analysis, no curiosity. It has to be more than simple respect for other religions that’s preventing our renowned investigative journalists from ‘investigating’ this phenomenon. For example, the PA’s so-called Pay-For-Slay. This policy must be a drain on the PA’s GDP, and the monies would obviously be far better spent on bomb shelters or health care; surely that issue is worth exploring in one of the BBC’s hard-hitting documentaries (!). Mahmoud Abbas must be so confident of the media’s silence on the matter that he doesn’t even make an effort to keep it secret.
What about the unadulterated par-for-the-course anti-Jew racism entrenched in Palestinian culture? Racism is the most taboo of all ‘isms’ these days, yet there’s a collective silence over the racism that is part and parcel of the Arab psyche. I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist, but this looks like a conspiracy of silence.
The UN Security Council is having an emergency meeting at the time of writing, I watched some of it on Sky. The Palestinian rep has appropriated all the arguments for the defence from Israel. He has regurgitated a litany of upside-down facts that are almost laughable. How anyone could be taken in by this nonsense I do not know. But no doubt they’ll swallow it.
This is going on in the UK.
UNBELIEVABLE!
"F**k the Jews" "F**k their daughters" "F**k their mothers" "Rape their daughters"
This isn’t directly related to one specific incident of BBC bias but I’d suggest that the BBC’s long-term anti-British and Islamophillic message has influenced the Government and is behind the appalling decision to “genuflect to their arch-enemies by refusing to support their greatest ally, the United States, in its resolution to extend the UN arms embargo on Iran.“
This interesting articleAppeasement: The European Sickness by Col Richard Kemp, and another posted last Thursday by Douglas Murray The Foreign Office has lost the plot in the Middle Easthighlight the same thing. Why is this so-called Conservative government acting like a load of wobbly lefties? We might as well have voted for Jeremy Corbyn.
Last Friday the UN Security Council rejected any extension of the arms embargo on Iran. That embargo — imposed in 2007 — began to get phased out after the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. But a ‘snapback’ provision was put in place intended to allow the return of all such sanctions should Iran violate the terms of the deal. Iran has been violating those terms for some time, but on Friday, when the United States hoped that its allies would join it in deploring this fact, only the Dominican Republic voted with it. The UK, like France and Germany, chose to abstain. On the question of whether Russia and China should once again start selling arms to Iran, this country apparently takes no view.
It would be nice to be able to say that this was peculiar. But it isn’t. In the same week that Britain abstained at the Security Council the US brokered an historic deal elsewhere in the Middle East. Under its supervision, the United Arab Emirates and Israel signed an agreement to normalise relations. The Israeli President, Reuven Rivlin, has now invited Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed to visit Jerusalem. As the economic and diplomatic benefits of normalisation become clear, other countries in the Middle East are expected to follow suit. Deals like the UAE-Israel agreement are part of a larger attempt to find unity among states wishing to avoid Iranian dominance. Hence President Rouhani’s threatening condemnation of the UAE for its ‘treacherous’ actions. There are rumours of Bahrain and even Saudi Arabia at some point joining the UAE’s acceptance of reality.
There must be something in the water that’s turning everyone into self-hating imbeciles of indeterminate gender. Is it the plastic beading we’ve ingested? Is Covid-19 a message from God - a cull? Pestilence and plague be upon us. I think I’ll have to start going to church or should that be synagogue? No, it would probably have to be mosque.
The only heartening thing is that the comments below such articles (in the so-called right-wing press at any rate) which used to be peppered with antisemitic innuendos now seem to have mellowed. Now the comments are mainly pro-Israel with the odd racist troll chipping in here and there.
This sea-change was especially notable below the line in a piece by Stephen DaisleyHave Arab nations forgotten about Palestine by accepting Israel?
Instead of the usual sneers and anti-Israel snarks, the general tone was positive and supportive of Israel. Maybe more people are getting bored with the Palestinians than ever before. And what is it about the so-called right-leaning press? They have gone all woke and lefty too. The Times is promoting Caitlin Moran for all it’s worth and many people are not keen. Her prose is sparky and entertaining but her attitude is more Guardianista than many an actual Guardianista.
Why on earth is The Times using Sara Tor? She’s a poor writer, but is a Muslim and has written affectionately about the charity called Islamic Relief Worldwide.
The section's sub-heading is: ‘Swift action” don’t all laugh at once. Btl comments were held up for hours, but the ones that eventually crept through were as critical as they could be bearing in mind the heavy moderation that is deemed necessary.
I admit I hadn’t heard of Wiley aka Richard Kylea Cowie Jr., MBE (because grime isn’t my thing) until the latest hoo-ha about his racist Tweets. Oh, and by the way, I don’t Tweet myself - although I do spy on other people’s Tweets when my attention is drawn to them.
BON (a common abbreviation) receives some rather hostile comments for his troubles. (Don’t confuse him with Bono. Or Bonio.) He points out that many people are eager to excuse the poor chap - “he’s suffering from a mental illness”
Then he gets to a broader issue and one I’m very familiar with.
“The NME even referred to Wiley’s tweets as his ‘Israel tweets’. ‘Wiley responds to anti-Semitism accusations over his Israel tweets’, a headline said. Israel tweets? His tweets were about Jews, those snakes who dominate everything, hate black people and are a destructive force. Even where he mentioned Israel, he was really talking about Jews, as is often the case, tragically, in certain sections of the ‘Palestine solidarity’ movement these days. For some people, Israel has become a proxy for the Jews. What they might once have said about the Jews – sly, controlling, bloodthirsty – they now say about Israel instead. We know this from the past few years of Corbynism, which attracted numerous anti-Semites masquerading as critics of Israel.”
The BBC has just come up with something rather spooky.
“Jewish critics” BBC? a truly bizarre description of people responding to an “anti-Semitic tirade.
“The grime artist posted on his personal Facebook page under his name Richard Kylea Cowie, the BBC has discovered.”
Belated discovery, but you could plead ‘better a few days late than never’.
“He specifically named Jewish celebrities - including Lord Alan Sugar, comedian David Baddiel and BBC presenter Emma Barnett.”
Mr Willy’s ’s not keen on Emma Barnett then and I daresay it’s mutual.
A good speech from Barnett. But all this wondering where people like Willy-Kylie-Cowie get their memes from does 'take one aback'. Part of it is down to the organisation that you work for Emma. Look - it’s behind you!
