"So why misrepresent?"

Col. Kemp again:

Only yesterday morning BBC & other UK media were salivating over fiction that Soleimani’s killing had brought national unity in Iran. Along with many others I told them the reality in this article. Their journalists are not stupid so why misrepresent?

To which can be added Suzanne Evans's reply:

Will never forget most broadcast journalists salivating over the Arab Spring too, thinking it was positive. Watched with utter disbelief. Nothing changes.

Col Richard Kemp and Lyse Doucet

At least Lyse replies (and does so politely):

Lyse Doucet (on Today): It is true that this major international crisis is not just of Iran's making.
Col. Richard Kemp (on Twitter): Speaking this morning of Iran shooting down Ukrainian plane BBC correspondent Lyse Doucet asserts as fact: “this international crisis is not of Iran’s making alone”. Actually it is. Who else is to blame for Iran’s aggression?
Lyse Doucet (on Twitter): Morning Richard...meant in the sense of many actors involved in this global crisis..but ultimate responsibility in this disaster lies with Iran.

The ‘Islamist lobby’ has us on the back foot. Here’s why.

The ‘Islamist lobby’ has us on the back foot. Here’s why. I will be honest and admit I don’t really know why. But this has been allowed to happen somehow. All I can do is present a couple of examples.

On the Spectator website, Stephen Daisley brings us: Take it from this expert: Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite

“Yair Lapid is not mincing his words. One of the leaders of Israel’s main centre-left party broke with protocol this morning at a conference in Jerusalem to urge British voters not to elect Jeremy Corbyn.”

Many responses to this piece seem to agree that “interfering” in another country’s election is unbecoming, but more relevant to me is that there is also a disturbing assertion that whining about antisemitism is counterproductive. 

Yep. We mustn’t barge in and trample too heavily all over the Labour Party’s antisemitism problem because it will antagonise people! Oh, dear. Whose terms are we arguing on? 

That was number one. Now for number two:

Don't frighten the horses

On Sunday a rally against antisemitism took place in Parliament Square. Some celebrity speakers were invited, including Tracy Ann Oberman and Rachel Riley.  You might have read the post about this on Harry’s Place (you probably wouldn’t have heard about it elsewhere) but it’s not so much the rally itself that I’m interested in. (Did it do any good? I have no idea.) More worrying is the fact that one of the advertised speakers was dis-invited. His name is Col. Richard Kemp. 

I’m a fan of Col Kemp for several reasons - one being that his pro-Israel advocacy has the inbuilt advantage of (him) not-being-a-Jew.  This is the opposite of being an As-a-Jew. In the current climate of rampant Jew-bashing, any Jew who complains about antisemitism is automatically placed on a “they would say that, wouldn’t they” footing. (Whose terms are we on now?) 

Another good reason to admire Col Kemp and to accept the validity of his views is his formidable military experience, which gives him a unique understanding of Middle Eastern warfare and what drives it. He has huge respect for the moral and ethical standards of the IDF.

So why was he un-invited to speak at the rally? Because his outspoken views on Islam might ‘discredit’ the cause. Yes, suspend your disbelief - this really happened. Look at the video on Daphne Anson’s blog (and on YouTube) and weep. If you see this fearful timidity an insignificant example of ‘don’t frighten the horses’ I think you're mistaken. Tracy Ann and Rachel, admirable as they may be for speaking out, especially as they work alongside many lefty, anti-Zio luvvies, both still feel the need to tag “Islamophobia and all forms of racism” onto their campaigns against antisemitism. 

Whose terms are we on, again? If you look at the responses to the aforementioned article, you’ll find a mixed bunch of comments. Fancy having to argue over the no-platforming of a loyal ally, and all for the fear that he might offend someone by mentioning that a large chunk of the antisemitism they're rallying about emanates from within Islam. The ones who defend that awful decision are on the back foot - and there’s your embryonic blasphemy law for you. 

Two things

A couple of things amused me watching the 'journalists' questions' part of the Theresa May/Donald Trump press conference yesterday.

The first was Emily Maitlis getting was passed over in favour of Beth Rigby from Sky. She tried to look happy for Beth, but not very successfully!

Emily gets trumped (thanks to Theresa May)

The second was when The Donald dropped Jezza in it by casually mentioning that he'd turned down the Labour leader's request for a private chat. When journalists then began eagerly tweeting about it the first response of hardcore Twitter Corbynistas was to accuse the President of making it up and the hacks of 'fake new' - until a Labour spokesman said, yes, Jezza had indeed asked for an interview with Donald Trump.

Col. Richard Kemp was characteristically forthright in his reaction to the latter piece of news, commenting of Jeremy Corbyn: "You screamed against Trump, rejected an invitation to meet him yet secretly tried to meet him. How can anyone believe a word you say or take your seriously?"

In fairness, the Labour leader had always said that he would like to have a chat with Mr. Trump. 

Fetishising Palestinian extremists

I’ve been out of the country, and have missed most of the last couple of week’s domestic news. However, one morning on internet radio I caught a Palestinian speaker decrying the “Israelisation of Palestine”, and perpetuating the falsehood that “The Jews” are interlopers on “our land”.  Unchallenged, of course, by the interviewer. I can’t be bothered to go off in the pointless pursuit of a link, but it reminded of the Tamimi clan’s extensive publicity tour, where they’re busily perpetuating the same “our land”  theme.  

Ignorance of history is so widespread that one is resigned to the fact that the battle for hearts and minds is truly lost. The BBC’s role in the public’s ignorance about Israel was highlighted the other day by Col. Richard Kemp on this BBC related clip.  H/T EoZ

Talking of ‘Ahed Tamimi the icon’, the BBC has fallen for another cynical Pallywood stunt and perpetuated it in a sickeningly partis pris manner. BBC Trending picked it up and featured it, fanboy fashion, online with the headline: Gaza protest image likened to famous Delacroix painting.

Elder of Ziyon had a laugh about it, and BBC Watch dissects it more seriously here, but the most pertinent response to it that I’ve seen is by Stephen Daisley in the Spectator.

“As a live Palestinian, Amro, who was snapped mid-rampage on Monday, will not have the same impact on low-information media consumers. He has, however, stirred that morbid romanticism which draws Western progressives to the Palestinians, ever since Laleh Khalili, a professor at SOAS, tweeted the photograph and the words ‘Holy shit what an image’ on Tuesday. Khalili’s tweet has been retweeted 48,000 times and liked 124,000 times. 

Newsweek gushed of ‘the now-iconic photo’ that ‘some [are] suggesting the image is reminiscent of the Biblical story of David and Goliath’. The New Zealand Herald wrote it up under the headline ‘Palestinian goes viral while leading the people’ and told its readers the image had ‘drawn comparisons with the iconic French Revolution painting, Liberty Leading the People, by Eugene Delacroix’. It topped The Guardian’s best photos of the day gallery and The Atlantic’s photos of the week list. Social media is awash with the picture and there is scarcely an anti-Israel agitator who has not tweeted, Facebooked or Instagrammed it. A student dorm room poster has been born.”

So it’s not only the BBC. But the BBC should have higher standards. Some hopes.

70th anniversary celebrations

This is Melanie McDonagh in the Spectator.

Israel’s 70th anniversary celebrations ignore an inescapable fact. I think she meant ‘inescapable fiction’ unless she had the same history teacher as Ken Livingstone.

“The founding of Israel was the consequence of an historic injustice to the people already living there.

Look at that sentence. Does it make sense? It’s as if she’s seen something on a pro-Palestinian forum - say: “The consequence of the founding of Israel was that those already living there suffered a historic injustice.”  then decided to chop it up with scissors and reassemble it in random order. 

“The founding of Israel was the consequence of an historic injustice to the people already living there”  is not even a coherent sentence in the English language Melanie, but even if you re-arranged the wording to mean what I assume you intended it to, it would still be wrong because the founding of the state of Israel needn’t have been an injustice to the “people already living there”, some of whom were Jews by the way. 

If the Arabs had stayed put, as the founders of the new state of Israel advised them to, they would have become citizens of Israel and benefited from the prosperity that the Jews brought about, just like the Arabs who chose to remain where they were. 

If the surrounding Arab countries hadn’t waged their intended war of annihilation there needn’t have been any conflict at all. If only the Arabs weren’t so intransigent, so intolerant of Jews their self-inflicted Nakba need never have happened. Their unnecessary wars are the sole reason for their catastrophe.

McDonagh continues:

‘But to say so has become not just an error of taste but risks putting yourself in very bad company, of anti-Semites and the kind of people who make up groups such as Momentum.”

And if you did say so, that’s exactly what you would be. Very bad company, antisemitic, and appallingly ill-informed. I really didn’t expect to see such nonsense in the Spectator. Not above the line, at any rate.

“And that, as I say, is the problem. Because when it comes to the founding of the state of Israel 70 years ago, the inescapable fact is that it was founded on the expulsion or displacement of over 700,000 people”  

Change “inescapable fact to “inescapable fiction” and you might be near the mark. I wonder if McDonagh reads the comments. If so, she will have been put right by several of them. She doesn’t seem to be aware that hundreds of thousands of Jews were forcibly displaced from Arab and North African countries said to number 850,000.

“Palestinians who had next to no involvement with the persecution of the Jews in the Holocaust which gave urgency to the question of a Jewish state.” 

“Why should the “Palestinians” be “punished” for the crimes of the Germans?” seems to be Melanie McDonagh’s message. We’ve heard that line of reasoning before. In fact, we heard it the other day on the Today Programme from the founder of Hamas, Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar.

 “You put your enemy in our land,” said he. ”You English inflicted them (The Joos) on us to compensate for what Hitler did.” 

Are these views representative of the Irish/Catholic mindset? I am very sorry the Spectator allowed this past their quality control. 

“They did not intend to vacate their homes for the founders of the new state; they left terrified, but, by and large, fully intending to return.”

Yes, poor things, they were supposed to return when the Jews had been eliminated. Too bad it didn’t work out, Melanie.

“Three, four, generations on, they are still refugees, and the consequences for neighbouring states like Lebanon has been nothing short of catastrophic.” 

Wrong. The Lebanese are suffering a different catastrophe; Hezbollah is virtually in control there. No other set of refugees can pass down their status through the generations. You must know that, surely. 

I repeat this section from the piece I appropriated the other day, from Aviv Ezra, in American Thinker.

“This is the real tragedy of the Palestinian Arabs.  Those who left their homes wound up not far from home, in Arab countries which had supported their cause during the war. They were among other Arabs, who spoke the same language, had the same culture, and the same religion.  No refugee population should have had it easier, given that Arabs wound up among their own people.  But the Arab countries refused to allow normal resettlement, as usually occurs with refugees, instead relegating many refugees to squalid camps, in which their families have lived now for 3 or 4 generations.  Many Palestinians have chosen to remain in these camps dreaming of a return to Israel, clanging old keys from 70 years back, or been threatened if they wanted to leave.  But how can you “return” to a place where you have never lived or even visited? The truth of the matter is that there may be no more than 25,000 refugees remaining alive from the 1948 war. The rest are descendants -- children, grandchildren even great-grandchildren of original refugees, none of whom have been in Israel or left it.”

Why am I complaining about a piece in the Spectator on a blog about the BBC? Because this BBC-like version of history paves the way for what’s happening right now in the Israel/Gaza border.  ITV is as bad, as is Channel 4. Lindsey Hilsum upped the number of displaced Palestinians to one million and threw in an imaginative ‘massacre’ for good measure. Check out Emma Murphy on the ITV website, too:

"Why the coming days in Gaza have the potential to be so dangerous"

“During our time here the phrase we have heard over and over again from Gazans is they live in an open air prison and Israel is their warder. 

It is not hard to see why. 

There’s a lack of jobs, electricity, clean water and the basic services needed for a well functioning society. A Palestinian colleague summed up the crisis in medical care telling me, “If you get a cancer diagnosis you may as well start digging your own grave. They can’t treat it properly here and there’s little chance of getting out to get care.” 

This stretch of land is under almost complete blockade and has been for a decade. The Israelis control the north and eastern crossings, as well as the sea to the west and the skies. The Egyptians control the southern border crossing.

 It's all there, nicely packaged into one inflammatory, grossly misleading, Israel-bashing message. She even topped it off with the “not enough Israelis have been killed” meme.

“So far, with no death or injury on the Israeli side, 49 Palestinians have been killed in six weeks of protest and thousands more injured.”

The Today Programme had a go, too. John Humphrys was decidedly snappy with Dore Gold.

JH

“Israel is celebrating its birth as a nation 70 yrs ago today and the US is recognising Jerusalem as its capital by opening its embassy there from Tel Aviv where it’s always been much to celebrate but also much to fear. Hope of a peaceful settlement with Palestine has evaporated over the years and the talk today is of war with its powerful neighbour Iran. I’ve been talking to a man who’s been closely involved over the years in trying to find a peaceful settlement. Dr Hussein Agha of Oxford University….. 

(In the absence of the Today Programme’s ‘running order’ facility, it took me ages to find out who Dr. Agha is.) 

“….who tried and failed, during the Obama administration, to broker and Israeli Palestinian peace agreement” 

I steeled myself for the pro-Palestinian propaganda that I expected would follow, but apart from insisting that Mahmoud Abbas believes in achieving peace through diplomacy, (presumably, as opposed to 'through violence') which seems decidedly at odds with his behaviour during the so-called ‘stabbing intifada'. (Not to mention the 'vehicular intifada'; oh, and the glorification of martyrs and murderers.) But apart from that, as I was saying, he seemed very reasonable.

This was further endorsed by the next speaker, Dore Gold, who praised Dr. Agha and made some wise observations of his own vis-à-vis Iran and the global political situation in general.

Humphrys hastily steered the conversation away from that, returning to the specific issue of the US Embassy move and the use of live ammunition on the Gaza border:

“shooting so many protesters dead”.

“That’s more than a provocation, that’s a positively criminal act. Israel has to behave in a more reasonable manner”.

Mr. Gold made a lighthearted remark about Israel’s PR, (it could do with a shot in the arm) which was immediately pounced upon by the scathing anti-Israel brigade on Twitter, then he continued: 

“I will say this. What’s going on in Gaza, and the misunderstanding about Gaza is extremely problematic - you basically have an illegitimate organisation, Hamas, regarded as a terrorist organisation by the Arab States, and they are pursuing an illegitimate goal, which is to break down the border fence between Gaza and sovereign Israel and they’re doing it by illegitimate means, using children as human shields”


“Well..” (JH, interrupting)

“I would expect the foreign policy establishment, certainly in the west and certainly in the UK to reflect that reality…

“Alright, well..” (JH, interrupting)

“I’m afraid that isn’t happening.”

“We’ve run out of time.”

After a doom-laden piece from Tom Bateman, who acts as a spokesperson for the Palestinians - (remember Alan Johnson pleading “But I’m telling your story” as he was being whisked off and held captive for months by the very people he was supporting?)  Maybe Hamas will kidnap Tom Bateman. 

All day the Israel-bashing has been going on, so I’ll end with this from Col Richard Kemp, writing on the Gatestone Institute website: 

I predict a riot — and much worse. The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas is orchestrating a 'demonstration' at the beginning of this week of up to 200,000 people on the Gaza border with Israel, and is intent on turning it into an orgy of death and bloodshed. If that happens, the UN and EU, human rights groups and many Western media organizations will have helped bring it about.

This is what they do. The BBC, ITV, Channel four - and now the Spectator - are all ‘helping to bring about’ the bloodshed as well as the subsequent vilification of Israel and the consequential anti-Semitism. I didn’t expect it from the Spectator, but there you have it. 

“…………. so the true and malevolent purpose of Hamas's plan is to incite violence in such a way that the IDF has no choice but to respond with lethal force, killing Gaza civilians. This makes Hamas the first government in history to deliberately lure its enemies to kill its own civilian population. Why does it wish to sacrifice its people so barbarically? To bring down upon Israel the vilification of the Western world. To isolate and criminalise the country and cause condemnation by political leaders, the UN and the EU, human rights groups, academics and the media.”

Another atrocity

I've been vaguely aware for a while, especially after reading about various atrocities in Pakistan and the hyperactive assault on ancient Sufi shrines in Mali, that Sufi Muslims (the mystical ones) have become yet another of the seemingly endless prime targets for vicious fundamentalist Muslims. 

Watching tonight's Newsnight on the horrific slaughter of Sufi worshippers in Sinai, apparently by Islamic State groupies, only confirms to me that this is yet another murderous problem provoked by the apparently inexorable spread of Islamic fundamentalism.

We'll doubtless be seeing it in the UK soon, following attacks on the Ahmadiyya and the Shia here.

Tonight's Newsnight also saw Mark Urban - one of the BBC's finest - firmly applying the brakes to one of Kirsty Wark's half-baked assertions. Kirsty boldly asserted that today's attack was unprecedented. Mark, evidently somewhat taken aback, replied that that's too sweeping a statement. 

In fact Kirsty's performance during that entire section felt disappointingly under-researched and knee-jerk (in a "London liberal outlook" kind of way). 

She seemed particularly keen to suggest that military aggression shown by the Egyptian authorities might have been (somehow) ultimately responsible for today's attack. 

In that light I wasn't at all surprised when Colonel Richard Kemp tweeted the following tonight about this particular Newsnight segment:

BBC churning out all these so-called experts to blame Egyptian security forces for ISIS attacks in Sinai. Trotting out many platitudes but no alternative to military solution.

Pandering to Arab nations

The BBC hardly reports any genuine news these days. It’s more interested in stories about itself, such as who’s lined up as the next Dr. Who, or assorted gossip about various BBC productions.

Of course it reported John McDonnell’s comments about whether or not he is an actual Marxist, but as such revelations often emerge directly from interviews with BBC staff, this  still loosely qualifies as insularity.

Andrew Marr does an interview, then bits of it are revisited on The Sunday Politics (when they did dig up a 4 year-old clip of John McDonnell stating unequivocally that he is a Marxist.) So, all good.

One subject area about which the BBC is less than forthcoming is “general matters concerning Israel”, where any news we do get is seen from the Palestinian or the anti-Zionist perspective.  The language as well as the narrative is the giveaway.

In March the Independent reported that a British Royal (Prince Charles) was to become family’s first member to make state visit to Israel later this year’. 

Being the Independent, the piece was frosty. Unsurprisingly the Palestinian point of view was given considerable coverage; the piece could easily have been written by the BBC. If one bothered to read the whole thing, however, one would soon have realised that the headline was misleading, premature and presumptuous. The Prince’s visit was by no means a certainty. I don’t know why they bothered with the story in the first place.  

Now it’s the Sun’s turn. The visit that never was, has been cancelled.  I don’t know why they even bothered. 

Well, it’s not quite a non-story about the man who wasn’t there (and certain people wishing he wasn’t there again today) …. it’s more of a tale about the Foreign Office and the Arab lobby. 

Needless to say, the BBC hasn't reported this story or (as far as i can tell) the earlier story ......so far.

Hope and Chutzpa

I feel the urge to revisit some recent topics.

Sayeeda Warsi is one of the BBC’s privileged Muslim spokespersons whose visceral hatred of Israel is always allowed to stand unchallenged. Since I posted my earlier comments several further reviews of her book The Enemy Within have materialised.

Jenni Russell, for instance, in the Sunday Times (£) has written a rather respectful review, but one gets a vague impression that she’s written it through gritted teeth.  If that’s not purely a figment of my imagination, one might well ask, why? Why submit a review that seems to be holding something back? I know. That sort of speculation is  above my pay grade.

Here’s a passage:

“She identifies the anger over Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses, in 1988, as the first time that British Muslims became politicised as a community. Furious Muslims felt the state was failing them by refusing to prosecute Rushdie for blasphemy. The government, horrified by the bounty placed on Rushdie’s head by Iran, felt bound to defend one of liberal Britain’s fundamental rights, to speak and publish freely. Mutual incomprehension “set Muslims on a journey of simmering resentment and a narrative of grievance”. After 9/11 and the war on terror, Muslims came to be seen as a problem, with their religion, not their Britishness, as their defining identity.”

To me that seems almost conspicuously non-committal. Has Ms Russell caught the BBC’s value-judgment-o-phobia?

Another article on the Baroness cheered me up far more. It’s by Col. Richard Kemp. Surprisingly the BBC still consults him on military matters from time to time, which is surprising. One would think his commitment to defending the IDF would have discredited him altogether in the eyes of the BBC.

Here are a couple of passages:

“The chutzpah of Sayeeda Warsi. I mean that in the Yiddish sense of despicable insolence, but likening the Israel Defence Force to the Islamic State is much worse, it is dangerously irresponsible. Warsi excuses IS and Muslims who leave Britain to murder and rape for them yet condemns the IDF and British Jews who serve in their honourable ranks. 

Coming from the most prominent Muslim parliamentarian, this will make Islamic jihadists sniff blood. It will encourage UK Muslims to join terror groups and embolden IS. Repeating the lie that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza validates Hamas’s human shield strategy and encourages further violence and killing. She has blood on her hands.
Her arguments are absurd. She obviously doesn’t care about the so-called loophole she demands is closed: allowing British citizens to join a foreign army. If she did, she would apply the same in reverse, condemning the thousands of Gurkhas and Commonwealth soldiers in the ranks of the British forces today. 

[…]The IDF are the diametric opposite of this (IS) evil. They are the army of our close allies, at the forefront of the war on terror. Israeli intelligence has saved many British lives on the battlefields of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, here at home and abroad.
Israeli drone, counter-IED and battlefield medical technology have made our forces more effective and kept British soldiers alive and fighting. 

Israel’s staunch military backing to Egypt and Jordan has held IS at bay and prevented an even worse immigration flow into Europe. 

Will our young people who join the IDF cut off their victims’ heads, burn them in cages, bury them up to their necks and leave them to die, line them up and shoot them in the back of the head, systematically destroy their cultural heritage, rape their women and children, torture their prisoners, beat and abuse their elders, as IS do? 

I won’t even answer that. The IDF complies with the Geneva Conventions and with Jewish morality handed down across the centuries. In their efforts to avoid civilian casualties in battle, they are admired and emulated by armies throughout the world. 

I have seen many young British IDF soldiers in action. I hugely admire their dedication, humanity, professionalism, courage and fighting spirit. 

I abhor and reject the contemptible accusations of Sayeeda Warsi. Unlike these brave Jewish men and women, she has never put herself in harm’s way for her country, has no understanding of the depredations of our bestial IS enemies or the righteousness of our friends and allies of the IDF.

*************

The other piece I want to quickly revisit concerns our old friend Ken Livingstone and his wretched hearing.

On Harry’s Place Sarah AB draws our attention to a pathetic Steve Bell ‘cartoon’ that the Guardian deems worth publishing. In my opinion it has nil merit. It’s really badly drawn and its message contains neither wit nor humour. Any discernible satire, should anyone wish to discern some, misses whatever target was in Steve Bell’s head and lands - bullseye fashion - upon seriously unfunny antisemitism.

Tomorrow. The verdict.

************

I see Owen Jones has put his social media flounce behind him and has returned to Twitter. Having been  vilified by the Corbynistas for not being sufficiently antisemitic, (at least not enough to boycott the Jewish Labour Movement) he used the first Henry Smith Memorial Lecture  to try out  a spot of damage limitation by keeping a toe in both camps. 

Firstly condemning antisemitism - why, some of his best friends are Jews -  then denouncing Benjamin Netanyahu: “riddled with bigotry”,  and the current Israeli government: “hard-right, bigoted, violating international law and making peace impossible.” 

Here’s a taster from a report in “Jewish News”:

“But Mr Jones — who has not yet visited Israel — did not pull his punches when it came to condemning the current Israeli government. Describing himself as a passionate supporter of Palestinian self-determination, he described Mr Netanyahu’s government as “hard-right, bigoted, violating international law and making peace impossible.”

Owen’s Twitter thingy gave me a nasty shock, too. Owen is appearing at the Hall for Cornwall next week.. His performance is titled: “The Politics of Hope”.

I’m well aware that there is a strong Corbynista contingent in west Cornwall, as well as a mini branch of the PSC.  (H/T David Collier)The Corbynistas in the audience, if they could afford the £13 per ticket, could easily turn into a nasty little baying mob. 

It’s a great shame that so many social justice warriors believe their racist campaign is morally righteous. For disseminating misinformation and bias, I hold the BBC responsible.

**************

One of the least offensive stories of the day is the undercover apostrophe doctor. Many viewers must be baffled. The greengrocers amongst us, at any rate. 

The BBC really ought to set out the proper rules for apostrophes so that the people who aren’t quite sure could get educated. (Oh, they do!) I have to say that the intrusive ‘greengrocer’s apostrophe’ undermines many an otherwise fine bit of prose.

What the media won't report

This video is called "What the media won't report' (that's one good reason for posting it here)

The might of the pen

May I recommend a recent article on Gatestone by Richard Kemp and Jasper Reid.

Why? Because it covers all the bases, from A (for antisemitism) to Z (for Zionism.) 

It’s a must-read. Here are two excerpts that have particular resonance for this blog.

Recognizing their collective inability to eliminate Jews from their historic homeland by force, the Arabs have waged a pernicious and all-pervading propaganda war to demonize the Jewish State. Their lies have included the blatant falsehoods that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are illegal under international law; that the Israeli government operates an oppressive apartheid state; that the IDF is strangling Gaza under an unprovoked and illegal siege; that successive Israeli administrations have been the sole obstacle to peace in the Middle East; and that Israeli security forces deliberately murder innocent Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.Understanding that the might of the pen is magnified by the flash of the sword, the Palestinian leadership and their Iranian paymasters have frequently used violence to seize international attention. Provoking the Israelis into killing Palestinian people to ensure global condemnation was the true purpose behind the Gaza rocket wars and the recent wave of murderous knife attacks and car-rammings.

This is why we see Western leaders condemning Israel for insufficient restraint while defending itself from lethal Hamas rockets, when they know full well Israel has done all it can to avoid civilian deaths. It is why not one single EU member state had the courage to vote against the false condemnation of Israel for war crimes in the UN Human Rights Council last year. It is why the British government unequivocally asserts that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal when it knows they are not. It is why Prime Minister David Cameron, a friend and supporter of the Jewish state, accused Israel of turning the Gaza Strip into a 'prison camp' when he knew it had not.These false and malicious condemnations fuel hatred of Israel and of Jewish people everywhere. They are driven and intensified by a media that is dominated by strident, virulent and unyielding anti-Israel bias.

Media madness

What a terrible shame that as soon as one is associated with “the unconscionable” one becomes unconscionable too. From then on everything one may say is tainted, nullified, disbelieved, ridiculed, branded devillish and rendered void.

Thus describes the hopelessness of defending Israel at the present time. H/T Elder of Ziyon

Col. Richard Kemp has been the subject of sustained assaults and had his words wilfully distorted and falsified by particularly virulent anti-Israel networks, has been the subject of demonstrations in universities that have sought to silence him. He has been publicly accused of corruption and being in the pay of the Zionist entity, and he has been subjected to virulent anti-Semitic hatred and threats.  He has been placed on a terrorist death list.

All of this because he has been recognised and befriended by Israel for his substantive  defence of the IDF in the face of an onslaught of vilification from the media and thence from the rest of the world.

Also via EoZ and BBC Watch, tributes to Professor Robert Wistrich who died suddenly  a few days ago. It’s worth watching the video of a speech he gave earlier this year about a particular brand of “English antisemitism”. He understood better than anyone the way it works, and his insights offer background to Col Kemp’s eloquent analysis of the media’s contribution to that particular form of racism. 

I wish I could somehow persuade some (or any) of our impartial broadcasting chiefs to watch Col. Kemp’s speech or read a transcript of it. But I fear even that would be nigh impossible, and should that obstacle somehow be overcome, the next hurdle would be a collective emotional resistance to its contents. 

  

Col. Kemp does not merely critique the moral bankruptcy of Palestinian warfare and pay tribute to the integrity of the Israeli Defence Force, he clearly demonstrates a shrewd grasp of the media’s overwhelming influence, which shapes the world’s current morally bankrupt attitude. That’s why this speech is essential reading or viewing by anyone capable (if there is such a person) of independent thinking at the BBC.

A glimmer of light at the end of a very long, deep, dark tunnel is the gradual recognition by ordinary people, if not those that inhabit the media bubble, that the terrible destruction and desecration being wrought by Islamic Jihad on the other side of the world bears resemblance to Israel’s enemies in the shape of Hamas, Hezbollah and of course the Ayatollahs of Iran. If the western media is determined to portray Israel as a pariah, through wanton appeasement of relentless campaigning by what Col Kemp calls particularly virulent anti-Israel networks, the harder it will be for the current madness to revert to a state of  justice and equilibrium.

Listen to Col. Kemp, BBC. You might not like what he has to say, but it’s your responsibility to listen.