John Simpson [2:03 PM]: The UN says the information it has gathered shows that Israeli soldiers fired the shots that killed the distinguished Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh on 11 May. She was covering an Israeli army raid in the West Bank town of Jenin.
John Simpson [2:13 PM]: The UN says Shireen Abu Akleh & her colleagues made a concerted effort to show the Israeli soldiers at the scene that they were from the Press. The Israelis issued no warnings. There was no shooting going on at the time. The bullets which killed her were ‘seemingly well-aimed’.
Alan Lyons [2:17 PM]: John, "seemingly well-aimed" is an unpleasant insinuation. If you or the UN wish to allege that the IDF is deliberately targeting or assassinating journalists Vs being unfortunately hit in the middle of a firefight, then you should state that clearly.
John Simpson [3:00 PM]: I don’t think the UN is insinuating anything, unpleasantly or otherwise. It’s openly saying that Shireen & her colleagues were clearly marked as journalists, there was no other shooting going on at the time, and that Israeli soldiers fired the aimed shots that killed her.
Alan Lyons [3:05 PM]: Could you post a link? I have some problems with this: 1. It would be an epic PR own goal for the IDF to be targeting journalists 2. I read that there was a firefight. Is that not true? Are they describing a "lull"? 3. Is it true Hamas has not allowed ballistics on the bullet?
John Simpson [3:19 PM]: I read this on the UN High Commission for Human Rights website. I’m not sure about its being an epic own-goal for the IDF, Alan — 30 journalists have been shot & killed by the IDF since 2000 in the West Bank. Video just before Shireen was shot seems to show no firefight.
I accidentally listened to Nick Robinson grilling James Cleverly on the Today Programme one morning last week.
As others have mentioned a few trillion times, surely opposing the government is the role of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition and not the role of the Beeb.
Maybe someone could remind Nick Robinson that the BBC is not yet officially amalgamated with the Labour Party? Or am I missing something?
ll
I was surprised to see this programme at lunchtime the other day, while the TV was accidentally tuned in to the BBC.
I hadn’t come across Jiyar Gol before. He’s a Kurd, I find. I know it’s a bit of a stretch but this documentary reminded me of Fauda - but real-life!(I looked at Rachel Shabi’s review of Fauda - in the Guardian, of course.Predictably, Shabi found a way of complaining that (the fictional ) Israeli series (made by Israeli TV) wasn’t anti-Israel enough.)
I dread to think what the bulk of BBC-educated viewers made of this interesting documentary about the Iranian nuclear programme and Mossad’s efforts to disrupt it. BBC educated viewers will probably see things from a Guardianist point of view, but I found this film surprisingly impartial. Facts. Facts and derring-do.
On the other hand, it’s possible that viewers more knowledgeable than I will have spotted flaws and biases that went over this viewer’s head. It was well worth watching.
Update:
And lo and behold, Camera has supplied more info. I hadn’t seen the BBC web article accompanying the film when I wrote the above. The flaws and biases may or may not have been more egregious in the written piece, but I’m linking to it. You be the judge.
lll
I meant to say something about this several weeks ago. It’s growing more belated with every day that passes.
Straight after the Ghislaine Maxwell verdict, the BBC accidentally aired an interview with eminent lawyer Alan Dershowitz -and, shock horror - without highlighting the fact that he ‘had a dog in the fight’.
We know the BBC believes this was ‘an accident’ because the BBC apologised for doing so.
The fact that Dershowitz himself drew attention to his own involvement in the Epstein/Maxwell affair - he is one of Virginia Giuffre’salleged abusers - didn’t seem to materially affect the BBC’s unique display of contrition. The regret was solely that they’d inadvertently given a platform to an undesirable speaker.After the broadcast, the corporation admitted that the US lawyer had not been "a suitable person to interview as an impartial analyst" at that time.
“4.3.12 We should not automatically assume that contributors from other organisations (such as academics, journalists, researchers and representatives of charities and think-tanks) are unbiased. Appropriate information about their affiliations, funding and particular viewpoints should be made available to the audience, when relevant to the context.” [emphasis added]
I hope that apology sets a precedent for all forthcoming interviews with agenda-driven and partisan spokespersons and that the BBC is obliged to state the interests and biases therein and provide relevant apologies where appropriate.
Suggest all interviews with agenda-driven spokespersons be automatically accompanied by a sign-language interpreter signing ‘he (or she) would say that wouldn’t he’
The BBC has spent 17 years and lashings and lashings of licence fee payers' money refusing to release it to the public - or as Jan puts it ''wriggling and weaselling its way out of revealing'' it.
It's been a saga, far longer than most Icelandic ones.
Jan reports that BBC DG Tim Davie has now, ''very belatedly'', replied to her MP Theresa Villiers's letter about it.
And what did Tim, the So-Far Ineffectual Champion of BBC Impartiality, have to say when he did reply?
Well, to cut a long story short, he stuck to the BBC line - hook, line and sinker.
Yes, he'd discussed it with the people who'd previously refused to make it public and, yes, they told him it should still be kept under wraps.
So no change whatsoever. Suppression is still the order of the day.
There must be things in that report that very deeply embarrass the BBC.
Jan now compares their handling of it to the Bashir scandal and hopes Lord Dyson will help.
Her idea is that the BBC's cover-up over Martin Bashir took 26 years to be exposed, so one day the cover-up over the Balen Report will come out too, and Lord Dyson might be the man to help quicken the process.
We'll see. Sue and I have always hoped for a whistle-blower, but given the state of opinion held so widely at the BBC on matters Israeli/Palestininian, we're still not holding our breaths.
Version 1 - The photo of Celine holding a doll in the ruins of the tower block that was brought down by Israeli air strikes next to her family home - which was also hit - clearly struck a chord.
Version 2 [correction, 5 days later] - The photo of Celine holding a doll in the ruins of the tower block that was brought down by Israeli air strikes next to her family home clearly struck a chord.
This morning they came across a BBC journalist called Tala Halawa, whose LinkedIn page reads:
Digital Journalist
Company Name: BBC Monitoring
Dates Employed: Jul 2017 – Present
Employment Duration: 3 yrs 11 mos
Location: Ramallah
Palestine Specialist in BBC Monitoring: specialized in Palestinian affairs and the media, as well as covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In addition to reporting on the politics and media of Jordan. Produced and reported for several services in the BBC such as the Arabic website and TV, and the BBC World Service (radio and TV).
GnasherJew was objecting to the BBC and the Independent promoting someone they consider an antisemite [Eman Asker] and Tara Halawa of the BBC was one of those criticised for considering this particular person ''an acceptable voice to promote on Israel/Palestine''.
Here's how the thread continues:
While we’re on that subject. Tara Halawa has made one of the most disgustingly one-sided BBC videos, whitewashing antisemitism, we have ever seen. People like her are the reason antisemitism has been normalized.
I’ve just checked Tala Halawa's feed. She’s supposed to be an unbiased BBC reporter. She’s an obsessive anti-Israel campaigner.
We’ve found out why Tala Halawa is promoting an antisemite:
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.”
++++++++++++++++
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.
+++++++++++++++++
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"
SUE - We’re making this comeback, possibly a one-off - due to the exceptionally problematic media coverage of (how to put it) the current ‘Israel / Gaza’ war.
The BBC’s ‘domestic’ bias is capable of looking after itself on ITBB but we both think this topic merits special attention.
Really, can't think why!!??
BBC opens special complaints page over coverage of Israel-Palestine violence https://t.co/U9qPxf4Wb3
— SussexFriendsofIsrael (@SussexFriends) May 14, 2021
Unfortunately for the argument that we are about to make, most of the complaints are from people who like to believe that the BBC isn’t pro-Palestinian enough.
Global Chinese Whispers plays out like this. The media sets the stage. Feelings trump facts, and an inflammatory message travels around the world before the truth has time to put its boots on. We’ve covered much of this issue over the years, both on ITBB and (before 2012) over at Biased-BBC. It’s Remember the Hamas Bunny? MEMRI?
Not so long ago the many forms of media bias cited and defined by bias-watching fanatics like us would fall on deaf ears. Not so much now; we are no longer alone. The BBC is coming under much wider and closer scrutiny, partly due to the public’s belated recognition of the BBC’s left-wing, some say Marxist, agenda.
The comments in the non-left-wing press show how frequently that particular problem is alluded to in comments by interested members of the public. The bias is almost universally accepted as a given, which arguably downgrades ITBB to the status of self-indulgent irrelevance.
Obviously, the BBC is conscious of the criticism and perhaps it suspects its future depends on more rigorous compliance with its charter obligations, but even if it’s forced to adopt a genuine policy of impartiality over its output, other broadcasters (i.e., Sky, Channel 4) ain’t necessarily bovvered and can stir up trouble with impunity. The new BBC DG may have been ‘trying’, but his influence looks distinctly lip-servicey. When we get the obligatory ‘other side' of the story it’s delivered at arm’s length - impersonal - and framed with the disclaimer “Israel says”, which smacks of cynicism and a sarcastic voice comes on in my head as I read it.
The most pungent flower plucked from the bouquet of biased reporting is ‘omission’ where vital information is tacitly omitted or concealed, especially that concerning the religious indoctrination that underpins Palestinian rhetoric and incites violence against Jews.
[CRAIG - What follows are various parts of Sue and my email exchanges over recent days. Exclusive free, PREMIUM, director's cut material.]
CRAIG - You may already know this, but did you spot that Naz Shah returned to type? I've just not seen anyone commenting on it yet - though someone probably has and I've just missed - but I myself spotted three falsehoods from her in a single just-over-a-minute video, and I think it's newsworthy.
1. Israeli forces didn't attack innocent worshippers on the holiest of nights, in the holiest of places. [Those 'worshippers', stirred up by rhetoric from Palestinian leaders, had stocked the holy al-Asqa mosque with stones, firecrackers, and the like ready for violent protest].
2. Thousands of Israel weren't celebrating and chanting the burning of a place of worship. [It was a tree that was on fire, not the mosque, and it was accidentally set alight by the Palestinians, and the Israelis were celebrating an annual national day].
3. Settlers didn't illegally occupy or forcibly evict Palestinians from their homes. [The Palestinians are still there pending a Supreme Court ruling].
So, she made three statements, all wrong, and all attacking Israel.
Why has a Muslim Labour MP, who had to apologise for antisemitic anti-Israel tweets and was then widely portrayed in the media as being genuinely repentant, now reverted to blithely spreading lies about Israel?
-------------
I'm thinking that Naz Shah may have got her take on things from watching Aleem Maqbool's misleading piece on Wednesday's Newsnight which chose its words so carefully as to make one side appear almost entirely in the wrong:
Though the focus is now on Gaza and southern Israel, It was events in Jerusalem that led to what we are seeing now.
[CRAIG - And what of the possibility, approaching certainty, that another key cause [perhaps THE main cause] is an intense power struggle between Hamas and Fatah, fuelled by elections cancelled by Fatah, with Hamas ferociously attempting to outbid Fatah in terms of inciting violence against Israel in Jerusalem, and elsewhere, in the hope of reaping the rewards, and that this ultra-heightened level of incitement has been strongly encouraged by Iran and Turkey, emboldened by a weak US president? Shush!!]
An Israeli court decided it was right to evict several Palestinian families from their homes
[CRAIG - So, an Israeli court put in the dock by Newsnight. Whether those homes really are their homes and whether they were reneging on the terms of their occupancy by refusing to pay their rent, suddenly, for some reason, right now, being just a few questions ignored by Newsnight.]
in occupied east Jerusalem.
[CRAIG - The Israelis didn't evict anyone. It's now gone to the Supreme Court - something else unmentioned here].
Last Friday those families and others had gathered to break their Ramadan fast
[CRAIG - nice and peaceful family stuff, with lots of invited onlookers].
but Jewish settlers came to make their presence felt and stake their claim to the homes.
[CRAIG - Israeli settlers - boo! - joining that Israeli court in the Newsnight dock].
It quickly led to scuffles. The UN and US condemned any forced evictions of Palestinians in east Jerusalem
[CRAIG - which didn't happen anyhow].
but the issue had already sparked more confrontation in Jerusalem,
[CRAIG - so that's just the Israeli side in the dock then, so far].
Israeli police using rubber bullets and stun grenades and water cannons.
[CRAIG - Ah, now the Israeli police are in the Newsnight dock].
But it was Monday when things escalated so dramatically. Israeli nationalists
[CRAIG - Israeli nationalists, step into the Newsnight dock please!]
prepared to march through the Muslim quarter to celebrate their country's capture
[CRAIG - ''capture'', eh?]
of east Jerusalem 54 years ago. Palestinians had been in the al-Aqsa Mosque, some ready to oppose the march
[CRAIG - BBC understatement! They stocked this holy site with rocks, Molotov cocktails, firecrackers and the like],
when Israeli police stormed
[CRAIG - ''stormed'', eh?]
the mosque compound, once again using force
[CRAIG - ''using force'', eh? Unlike the violent, well-stocked protestors inside the sacred mosque, spoiling for a fight, ]
in the form of sound bombs and rubber bullets but now at the doors of one of Islam's holiest sites.
[CRAIG - Must remember to stock my parish church with rocks, Mototov cocktails, firecrackers and the like. Not sure if my vicar would agree though. Should I ask Jeremy Bowen if he can recommend an imam from a mosque in and around Jerusalem?].
Around the compound Palestinians threw rocks and bottles
[CRAIG - yeah, and the rest Aleem].
and more that 300 were injured and as well as 21 Israeli police.
[CRAIG - Imagine how that would sound the other way round ''More than 21 Israel police were were injured, as well as over 300 rioters'].
Later, when a fire broke out
[CRAIG - Just 'broke out', did it? Wasn't started by Palestinian rioters accidentally setting a tree ablaze with one of their firecrackers, Aleem?]
at the mosque compound, Israelis were seen celebrating.
[CRAIG - ''Seen celebrating'', eh BBC? Leaping to conclusions without fact-checking, BBC? As it was the annual Jerusalem Day celebration, where thousands of Israelis gather each year, were the several foregrounded Israel people filmed dancing actually celebrating the fire around al-Aqsa, or just celebrating and getting filmed against a background of a burning tree on the Temple Mount? Not that bigoted, vicious Israeli Jews have been absent from the recent violence - unfortunately, far from it - and I'd been full for admiration for how the pro-Israel people I follow on Twitter have both brought up their actions and damned them unequivocally. But I can't find any evidence that these people were rejoicing at fires on the Haram esh-Sharif / Temple Mount complex rather than just rejoicing as they do, every year, even amid the horrors of recent days. Wrong place, wrong time, perhaps, for the people featured in that 'viral' footage, dancing as a tree burned on the night sky as the backdrop of their celebrations? Or maybe, entirely guilty as charged by the like of Labour's Naz? But shouldn't the BBC do a huge amount of due diligence by trying to find out and not spouting off in a potentially inflammatory way without evidence?]
SUE - I did hear a leek Maqbool (autocorrect struck) speaking the other day but I’m thinking it was an abridged version, or maybe I was half asleep. The language he and his colleagues use is typically loaded and you are right that this kind of thing is where Naz and her ilk get their inspiration. Even in the first section of that transcription [below] there are clues that anyone with an interest in language could pick out:
This is not a story about buildings coming down, or a rocket count. It is about civilians suddenly being thrown into despair. A boy in Gaza running to a coffin, after his father and elder brother were killed. Dozens have now died. Panic and fear etched on the faces of those in Ashkelon in Israel as the warning sirens go off again and where the number of dead rises there too. Today started with more air strikes in Gaza, this tiny densely packed territory, just 25 miles long, five miles across, given a deadly wake up call. And the day was punctuated with more massive bombardment, Israel saying it is targeting places associated with senior figures in Hamas. And while militants have been killed, many civilians, including children, are known to be among the dead. And if they haven't lost relatives, more and more of those living in this impoverished strip are losing their homes and belongings, and are in fear. Overnight, militant groups in Gaza sent a huge barrage of rockets into Israel. And while most were stopped, many did manage to get through, some hitting buildings. In Rashon LeTsizon a 50-year-old woman became one of six Israelis who have now been killed. So how did we get here?
I mean Palis are always defined as ‘families’, usually with empathetic adjectives, whereas Israelis are held at arm’s length without “personalisation’. The lip service that is half-heartedly paid to balance is shamelessly gratuitous. Then there are the half-truths that have embedded themselves into the language such as ‘densely packed’. Then every single utterance about Israel’s action is reported as ‘Israel says” which implies reluctance at the compulsory obligation to ‘put the other side’. In fact, I’m sure that’s actually passive-aggressive.
And that’s even before the ‘how did we get here’ section.
The terms used are always emotive. Jewish Settlers. Right-wing. Etc. Not to mention the lazy, sloppy, malicious, deliberately misleading emoting throughout.
CRAIG - As we've quoted two-thirds of that report from Leeky Maqbool, as I'll think of him from now on, we might as well finish it off. This is how he ends it:
Several rockets were fired from Gaza, and although they were shot down Israel decided to hit back hard, with air strikes across the Gaza Strip. It said it was targeting militants but of nearly 30 people were ten children including a four-year-old and 6-year-old. By Tuesday, it felt like a point of no return had been crossed and Gaza had, as has happened so many times in the past, become the cauldron of conflict. For the most part, Gazans do not appear to blame the Palestinian militants or the rocket fire for bringing this catastrophe on them, saying it their occupier that is the aggressor. But Israel says this is entirely the fault of Hamas and that it will continue its military action. With neither side backing down, the funerals look set to keep coming for days.
First sentence, for starters: Just ''several'' rockets. Then Israel deciding to hit back hard ''although they were shot down'', making the Israeli response sound unreasonable, even disproportionate. And then comes another of those 'Israel says' phrases followed by a ''but'', i.e. language of contradiction. And another ''Israel says'' comes later, this time after a ''but''.
And there was a good example of Jeremy Bowen doing an ''Israel says'' on Thursday's BBC Breakfast. The ''they call'' bit was HIS emphasis:
You mentioned appeals for calm coming from abroad, but this is not going to end, I think, until both sides can find a way of declaring a victory that they like. Hamas will want to be able to say that they defended Palestinians and Jerusalem, and Israelis want to do something that they call "restoring deterrence", which essentially means giving a good hammering to anybody who raises a hand against them. So I think that this has got some way to go at the moment. The ''disproportionality'' charge was there too, of course, in his sneer about Israel ''giving a good hammering to anybody who raises a hand against them''.
What's happening in and around Israel at the moment is horrible, and worse than ever this time, with sectarian violence inside Israel adding to the usual story of genocidal terrorists trying to kill as many Jews as possible (and not caring how many of 'their own people' die in the process) and Israel robustly defending itself and being demonised for doing so.
And then, as if things couldn't get any worse, Jeremy Bowen - the man with a deep personal grudge against the State of Israel, one he's been nursing for a couple of decades - pops up at Heathrow Airport announcing to the world that he's on his way.
Living the dream (again) sitting on my bags on the pavement at Heathrow waiting for a plane I might not be able to board… no seats in the terminal. journalism in action pic.twitter.com/JyMTNgjClp
CRAIG - David Collier just replied to AP about that; ''If AP, Al Jazeera and co didn't know that the very building they are reporting from in Gaza is used by Hamas to hide military assets - then maybe they should change jobs?''
The Jewish Chronicle has a leader column this week which surely ought to make the BBC sit up and take notice:
BBC Arabic’s anti-Israel bias is a problem for the region
What is the purpose of the BBC’s Arabic service? The answer might seem obvious — to bring the BBC’s editorial standards to coverage of Arab countries in their own languages. But its output reveals what seems to be a very different purpose: to promote a view of the Middle East with which we are all wearily familiar, in which Israel is the wicked enemy and those who fight it are heroes. That includes news coverage in which Jerusalem is called “the occupied city”, the Israeli army the “Israeli Occupation Forces” and the PLO “the Palestinian Resistance”. The anti-Israel bias of BBC news in general has long been an issue, but the specific failings relating to its Arabic service are of a different order of magnitude. As our investigation reveals, the BBC has itself admitted to 25 mistakes in its Arabic coverage in just over two years. But that figure barely scratches the surface of the problem.
In this week’s JC Essay, David Patrikarakos shows how polling in parts of the Arab world show a move towards a more favourable view of Israel; a slow move, but a move nonetheless. One of the blocks to progress is the BBC’s Arabic service. Instead of being given the facts, impartially and without bias, viewers are often given barely more than anti-Israel propaganda. This matters because it means the BBC is itself part of the problem in the Middle East. Last year, the BBC published new impartiality guidelines, supposedly to be enforced by a senior executive. Ken MacQuarrie, the man appointed to the role, is paid £325,000 a year. We would suggest that he might now start earning it by turning his attention to BBC Arabic.
There's a lot of damning detail in Jonathan Sacerdoti and Gary O'Shea's JC accompanying investigation into BBC Arabic's "anti-Israel bias and inaccuracies" and it's quite something to learn that the BBC has been compelled to admit 25 "mistakes" in its Arabic coverage of Israel in just over two years, "issuing on average nearly one correction every month". It suggests at best that standards at the BBC's Arabic Service aren't what they ought to be.
The BBC has been given "a detailed dossier of apparent breaches" this week.
As well as listing the inaccuracies and the forced apologies, the dossier accuses the BBC of "systematically downplaying terror attacks on Israelis; repeatedly using Hamas-inspired language; showcasing extreme views without challenge; and publishing a map in which Israel was erased".
According to the piece, the BBC has apologised in recent years, among other things concerning BBC Arabic, for:
A "fawning" portrait of a Hamas terrorist.
Describing Jerusalem as “the occupied city”.
Calling the Israeli army the “Israeli Occupation Forces”.
Describing the PLO as “the Palestinian Resistance”.
Referring to nine victims of a terrorist attack as “nine Jewish settlers”, though four weren't Jewish and none was a settler.
Also detailed is the fact that BBC Arabic repeatedly calls the West Bank, Gaza and even Israel “Palestine”, despite its own style guide outlawing the term.
Strikingly, the JC notes the service's employment (one as a correspondent, another as an editor) of two journalists who previously worked at the Hezbollah-owned TV station Al-Manar (a channel designated a “Terrorist Entity” by the US).
BBC Arabic are also accused of "regularly giving a platform" to blog favourite, Abdel Bari Atwan - though the BBC News Channel has been indulging his extreme views on Dateline London for well over a decade now. At least on Dateline, he was sometimes challenged. Apparently, BBC Arabic hasn't provided “appropriate challenge and / or other context”.
One I'd not heard of came last May: BBC Arabic "showcased social media comments which celebrated a sci-fi drama that envisioned the destruction of the Jewish state".
The article also says:
The corporation has also appeared to depart from editorial standards in its Arabic output with respect to reporting terror attacks.
According to the BBC style guide, journalists must “report acts of terror quickly, accurately, fully and responsibly”.
But while the BBC reported in English on 34 fatal terror attacks on Israeli civilians between 2015 and 2020, its Arabic service covered just 25 of these, analysts said, seriously downplaying the extent of Palestinian brutality.
A BBC spokesperson has responded already: “BBC Arabic shares exactly the same principles of accuracy and impartiality as BBC News in English, and we strongly reject the suggestion that its impartiality is compromised.”
Instead of the usual kneejerk dismissal, however, the BBC would do better to thank the people behind the study for their efforts, and then go away and think about all that they've been presented with here.
They've a really big problem if they don't see that there could be a big problem with the BBC Arabic service here that needs careful consideration and maybe serious action.
Andrew Marr had the Israeli health minister Yuli Edelstein on today to talk about Covid and vaccines. I guessed yesterday that Mr Marr would do the usual BBC thing, and he did: Precisely 34.5% of the 7½ minute interview consisted of Andrew confronting (and interrupting) Mr Edelstein over Israel's behaviour towards the Palestinians.
I'm assuming that this interview is what provoked David Collier to post the following:
The BBC pushed more disgraceful lies and anti-Israel bias today.
Truth is, the BBC love dead Jews, weak Jews, injured Jews, scared Jews.
It's why they hate Israel so much. They can't stand independent, strong, empowered Jews.
Jake Wallis Simons has a piece in The Spectatortaking Amnesty International to task for traducing Israel's much-admired handling of its coronavirus vaccination rollout.
Amnesty, which has become remarkably anti-Israel in recent years, has accused Israel of "denying Covid-19 vaccines to Palestinians", which is claims "exposes Israel’s institutionalised discrimination".
I'll summarise it:
The Palestinian leadership hasn't complained because, under the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority runs health in the parts it runs (Hamas runs health in Gaza) and they don't like asking Israel for help, viewing it as collaboration with the enemy, and initially insisted on obtaining the vaccine themselves via the WHO/United Nations. Israel, meanwhile, speeded ahead impressively with Israeli Arabs being fully encouraged to take up the vaccines. The PA, seriously lagging behind, appears to have now changed its mind and (covertly) asked for - and received - Israeli help.
Jake concludes, "Seen in this light, the picture bears little resemblance to the narrative pushed by the likes of Amnesty International. The Palestinians neither expected nor requested help from Israel. They held no sense of grievance, even as hand-wringing commentators from overseas sought to stir up resentment by reporting that a great injustice had been done. Palestinians appear to be seen by some as an infantilised people in need of Western intervention. But this is certainly not how they see themselves."
Enter the BBC. On Friday, the BBC News Channel announced:
Israel is also facing criticism over what responsibility it has to share its vaccine supply with Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Gaza. Well, to discuss this more we are joined from Jerusalem by Dr Gerald Rockenschaub, head of the World Health Organization office in Palestine.
Anyhow, here were the BBC's questions to Dr Rockenschaub:
How many people - and we are talking about 5 million people, aren't we, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, roughly? What percentage of those people have actually received a vaccination yet?
So what are Israeli officials are saying about this criticism then?
If it has been doing really well vaccinating its citizens, what is it saying about the lack of vaccinations for people in the West Bank and Gaza? Why is it saying that has or hasn't happened?
I know you have said nobody is safe until everyone is safe, so presumably that's a message that you are really trying to hammer home with the Israeli authorities as you try to facilitate the fair spread of the vaccine, I guess, can we put it that way, through the region?
Looking at the new cases, more than 8000 new cases per day leading to a third lockdown, believed to be because of this new variant first identified in Britain. Do we think this variant started to take off before the effects of the vaccination programme could really be felt?
Getting new supplies in before hospitals become overwhelmed and before health care becomes overwhelmed is absolutely of the essence now, isn't it?
Dr Rockenschaub, thank you for talking to us today. Dr Gerald Rockenschaub, head of the World Health Organization office in Palestine.
It would have been interesting to hear an Israeli perspective on this.
The BBC has spend most of this past month doggedly attaching phrases like "without providing any evidence" to headlines about US President Trump's claim of election rigging, so it's intriguing that they are adding no words of caution whatsoever to headlines like this this morning on the BBC News Channel:
Iran's President Rouhani blames Israel for the assassination of a top nuclear scientist, saying his country won't be deterred from its nuclear ambitions.
Shouldn't that be?:
Iran's President Rouhani, without providing any evidence, blames Israel for the assassination of a top nuclear scientist, saying his country won't be deterred from its nuclear ambitions.
A beautiful noise rang out last week in the wake of the news that the government is considering Charles Moore to become the new chairman of the BBC and Paul Dacre to be the head of the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom. The noise was the sound of the British left wailing that toys they thought were theirs alone might now (under a Conservative government) finally go to identifiable conservatives.
The former editor of the Guardian Alan Rusbridger shrieked that ‘this is what an oligarchy looks like’. This and similar tweets were presumably sent from the lodgings of the Oxford college that Rusbridger was made principal of five years ago. Others who screamed themselves sick included BBC employees who briefed that Moore’s appointment ‘would shatter morale. People will leave.’ For there can be no greater way to refute accusations of institutional leftism in the BBC than for the corporation’s employees to threaten to resign en masse in response to a conservative appointment. Elsewhere, Have I Got News For You tweeted that this would be the end for the BBC. Which is as funny a joke as that show has mustered in the present century.
*****
In case you missed it, Abdel Bari Atwan, the BBC’s favourite political pundit and popular guest on Dateline London offers the Arab world some wise advice on the best strategy for ’victory’: “Terrorism”.
Senior Palestinian-British Journalist: The Taliban Showed That Terror Attacks Are The Way To Defeat The West; The Israel-Bahrain-UAE Agreements May Turn The Palestinians Back To This Path
****
On the bright side, I have noticed a sea change within the centre-right media/blogosphere or whatever you like to call it.
Not so long ago any Israel-related opinion piece would attract a heavy proportion of negative comments - anti-Israel bordering on antisemitic. But in recent times - probably only a few months, there has been a swing. Now I sense a supportive majority. At last, people have started to get it.
I was just going to post the questions here, but why not post the whole interview? (I can guess an answer to that, it's Tony Blair!)
The questions are very BBC.
There's James Reynolds going straight for the negative and suggesting that Israel's agreements with Arab nations might be putting the region "on the road to open conflict", then pursuing the "sidelining" of the Palestinians angle, and then interrupting to point out that "many" more than just the Palestinians don't want peace with Israel yet.
And there's Katty Kay (naturally) going for the Trumps - as she did even more emphatically in her follow-up question about Trump and climate change.
Enjoy!
*******
James Reynolds: Let's look at the reasons for this alliance coming about. The Iraq War, which you co-led, got rid of Saddam Hussein but it also gave much freer rein to Iran to expand as a regional power. In order to counter that Israel and some of the Gulf States are getting together potentially putting the region on the road to open conflict. How is the Middle East a safer place after this deal?
Tony Blair: James, I think you can tell the history a little bit differently. The fact is, this is now just about security and about Iran. It's about the belief in the Middle East that if you want to establish a peaceful Middle East, then you have got to establish relationships between the State of Israel and the Arab nations. That is entirely sensible, not just for reasons of security, Yes, it's true, Israel and the Arab nations are very worried about what Iran does to destabilise the region, but they're also worried about the various extreme groups on the Sunni side who also want to destabilise the region. And what these agreements symbolise are people coming together in pursuit of a different Middle East, one that is based on religiously tolerant societies and modern economies. And that's what is really behind this. And I think what you will find with the agreement signed today is that this is not going to be a cold peace, and it's not going to be about security. It will be about a warm peace and it will be about actual engagement in the economy, in culture and, of course, in the resolution of the Palestinian issue.
James Reynolds: When you visited Israel and also the Palestinians as prime minister after 9/11...I remember those visits. I was a Jerusalem correspondent at the time...here was a common belief that you couldn't solve any of the problems until you had tackled and solved the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But doesn't this 2020 agreement show something completely different, that you can solve parts of the Israeli-Arab conflict by sidelining the Palestinians instead of resolving their fate?
Tony Blair: You're not sidelining the Palestinians. Look, you're not going to get a...I've studied this now for the best part of 20 years, I was heavily involved as Prime Minister. I was involved afterwards as the quartet envoy, I've spent the last five or six years working on the Arab-Israeli relationship. You're not going to solve it unless two things happen. You've got to get a Palestinian politics that is unified and in favour of peace, and you've got to bring the Arab nations alongside the Palestinians in that peace effort. And so, when people say - and there are, of course, people on the Palestinian side who say - no, you should have nothing to do with Israel....
James Reynolds: (interupting) Many are saying that.
Tony Blair: ...until the Palestinian issue has been resolved. They do say that. but the strategy they've had up to now has not worked, and it won't work in the future. The right strategy is to encourage the relationship between Israel and the Arab nations and then say to the Arab nations. 'We need your support. A unified Palestinian politics in favour of peace needs your support. That is a strategy that can succeed. If we carry on doing what we have been doing for the last half-century, we'll carry on with the same result'.
Katty Kay; You've just came from the White House, Mr Blair. I remember speaking to Jared Kushner at the beginning of this administration, and he said that Donald Trump was the person to bring about the Palestinians and the Israelis, nobody else could do it, but he was the guy that's going to do it, but effectively they've given up on that, haven't they? I mean, they're now saying, well, if the Palestinians want to come along but I'm not seeing much outreach from the White House to the Palestinians to get that agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Tony Blair: Katty, the White House, to be fair, have been reaching out the entire time. It's the Palestinians that won't engage with the Americans at the moment. Now, I understand all the reasons for that, moving the embassy to Jerusalem and so on. But the fact of the matter is, the intervention of the UAE was what prevented the annexation plans going ahead, and if the Jordan valley were to be annexed that would make a Palestinian state very difficult. So that intervention has actually preserved the possibility of a future Palestinian state. And, you know, the best thing for the Palestinians to do would be to engage with the Americans, engage with them by the way not saying that we agree with your plan, but saying let us sit down and discuss the detail of it. Because otherwise, and this is why...I understand completely why...people like me, when we encourage this relationship between the Israelis and the Arabs, they say. oh, you're an Israeli stooge, you don't care about the Palestinians. If the Palestinians don't get a different political strategy they will never get a state. What they've got at the moment is a strategy for sympathy. They need a strategy for statehood, and a strategy for statehood has to begin with making sure you engage with the Americans because they are powerful, making sure you bring the Arab nations on side because they can help, and making sure the Israelis feel secure with a Palestinian state because at the present time they don't. So if you want the strategy to succeed, that's how to do it.
On an earlier thread rockylivesposted a comment which well and truly hit the target:
The downplaying of the peace developments in the Middle East by the BBC is unconscionable.
Obviously we know why.
They have created an ill-informed groupthink that sees everything as "Israel bad, Palestinians good."
Add to that the role played by Donald Trump (another who can do nothing right in the eyes of the BBC) and you can see why the Corporation wants to play it down.
But they should be deeply ashamed of themselves. These are some of the most significant developments in international relations since the fall of Saddam and the collapse of Iraq, which huge implications for the wider world.
How dare they say with straight faces that their journalism is impartial?
My sentiments exactly.
In recent weeks we've had:
The historic Israel-Bahrain peace deal
The historic Israel-UAE peace deal
The historic Serbia-Kosovo agreement
Muslim-majority Kosovo's recognition of Israel
These are the most historic developments in terms of peace in the Middle East and the Balkans for many, many years, and - fingers crossed - could be truly transformative in terms of peace. Yet the BBC has barely reported any of them.
Why?
Well, you could obviously put it down partly to the BBC's ingrained disinclination to report anything positive about Israel, though that doesn't explain the underreporting of the Serbia-Kosovo agreement.
And you could also put it down to the BBC's increasingly narrow, insular focus as far as its world news output for a UK audience goes (obviously excepting internal US matters, about which it remains obsessed.)
But surely the vital connection between all of the above is that Donald Trump's presidency has played a key part in brokering them, and there's a strong case to be made that Donald Trump has been the most successful US peacemaker president in decades.
How many BBC reporters can you imagine wanted to report that?
Here's the charge then:
Especially with the US presidential election being just two months away, the BBC simply can't bring themselves to give any credit whatsoever to Donald Trump for being a successful peacemaker. Therefore, they're underreporting these historic developments out of their antipathy for Donald Trump.
If true, how petty and partisan would that be!
(Answer: Very.)
*******
P.S. If you're wondering where the BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen is in all this, well, he has had nothing to say about the Israel-Bahrain peace deal, even on Twitter.
He's been busy 'liking' stuff about cooking today though and was retweeting an attack on the UK government for being mean to the EU over Brexit yesterday, so he's around and about and active on other fronts. So why so quiet on this?
The piece deal between Israel and Bahrain is another historic breakthrough, following Israel's recent peace deal with the United Arab Emirates.
The BBC hasn't paid it much attention, but their Jerusalem reporter Tom Bateman has covered it. He ended his report on the story with the following, downbeat pay-off line:
The Gulf countries believe their move could nudge forward an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but critics see more self-interest than peacemaking for the parties involved. Tom Bateman, BBC News, Jerusalem.
Earlier in his report, which stressed how the deal "leaves the Palestinians feeling sidelined", he'd seemed to be giving succour to those critics himself by stressing the "new security ties" that could develop "among countries that share a common adversary in Iran".
Now that Bahrain has joined the UAE in recognising Israel, Saudi Arabia cannot be far behind. A sea-change in the geopolitics of the Middle East is underway, leaving the Palestinian leadership isolated.
Consider this from the state-backed Saudi Gazette: "Palestinian politicians have sabotaged negotiations and rejected all peace initiatives for six decades in order to keep the aid funds flowing to their private bank accounts."
Or this: Bahraini activist: “Growing awareness among many in Arab world that Jewish people not foreign colonialists in Land of Israel, but part of this land, and part of our region… it’s a fact, and we can do many things together for prosperity, security and peace for region.”
And Abu Dhabi's official National newspaper: “The UAE-Israel accord is a win for every Muslim … Since 9/11, Muslims across the world have been on the defensive. I saw the suspicion of Muslims in the eyes of American officials. It always boiled down to: show us peace in Islam. Now, with visionary accord between UAE and Israel, a new horizon is opening to reinstate Muslim dignity by showing peace between peoples. We can now say: ‘A new way of co-existence is achievable. We are not pawns for mullahs of Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood. Look at the UAE.’”
It appears that the good news about Israel and the UAE establishing ties might only be the beginning, and that other good news could be coming soon.
It appears that Saudi Arabia is giving its blessing to the deal by allowing flights between Israel and the UAE to cross its air space - something that sounds to me like a definite signal of where the Saudis are heading.
And it appears that Oman and Bahrain are on the point of following the UAE's lead, which would give the Saudis cover to follow suit some time soon.
And, very intriguingly, the post-al Bashir Sudanese government appear to be on the verge too.
So peace might be breaking out all over between Israel and the Arabs as more and more Arab regimes realise that (a) Israel could be a valuable friend against their enemies (principally Iran) and (b) that the twin Palestinian leaderships - both nice Holocaust-denying Mr Abbas's lot and the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood Islamists of Hamas - are more of a clapped-out hindrance than a help to making the region a safer space to live.
If Israel can then tempt them to treat their citizens humanely, move towards democracy, and work against spreading extremism (including Wahhabi influence) then the world could be a much better place for it.
On blog-related matters, Maajid Nawaz rightly (as he is so often these days) called the Israel-UAE deal "immensely significant" and a "HUGE victory for diplomacy and peace" and says that next up "it must be peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia"...
...to which former Brexit Party MEP Lance Forman replied:
Maajid - why do you think there has been so little coverage of this historic deal in the MSM? I find it bizarre.
Lance isn't wrong. Yes, Jeremy Bowen - the BBC's anti-Israel Middle East editor tweeted about it (with the absolute opposite of enthusiasm) - but he wasn't across the BBC's airwaves talking about it.
And the third Israeli peace deal with an Arab state was reported (as TV Eyes confirms) but as a very, very marginal story.
The paucity of coverage was truly something to behold.
Punditry is unable to analyse Israel & Trump except through a narcissistic West-centric lens. Which, by definition, “otherises” Palestinians (bigotry of low expectations) while taking a Eurocentric “ownership” of Jews: a combination of domestic antisemitism & foreign Orientalism.
...which, if you strip out the (intentional) jargon, is a very astute observation. It captures Jeremy Bowen & Co's outlook perfectly, don't you think?
