Wild speculation

The British girl’s case (initial accusation, retraction and trial) about being gang-raped by 12 youthful  Israeli holidaymakers while she was working in Cyprus has taken a turn for the worse. 

On the upside, as far as the BBC is concerned, it gives the news channel an excuse to move on from the spate of antisemitic incidents it has been obliged to dwell on in recent days, even if it couldn’t bring itself to engage with some of the inconvenient facts involved until it had no other choice. 

After all, other media outlets had already published the images of the perpetrator being arrested, revealing something it was hard to miss. How can one put this? Let’s try ‘he had a bit of a funny tinge’. Several other reports ventured so far as to speculate about a possible motivation while the BBC refrained from making a disagreeable value judgement till they were absolutely positive that it wasn’t an unfortunate accident, for example, that multiple people tripped and fell into the arms of a Happy Hanukah-wisher who happened to be holding a sharpened machete.

Anyway, I feel like speculating. Would the BBC have gone to the trouble of putting the case for the girl’s defence quite so enthusiastically, had the alleged rapists been from another religion?

I do realise that this sounds harsh and unsympathetic, but it’s not the reliability or character of the girl herself I’m addressing. How would I know anything about that? It’s just that I think the BBC with the assistance of Kevin Connolly is making one helluva bigger deal about this because of the nationality of the alleged rapists. That’s it. 

Viktor and George and Evan and Kevin

Continuing with last night's PM, here are Evan Davis and Kevin Connolly on Hungary's Viktor Orban. Look out for Evan's introductory remarks about George Soros, and savour the irony (perhaps) of a report about the threat to democracy in Hungary which features voices from just one side of the political divide there:

Evan Davis: George Soros is a wealthy and powerful advocate of liberal causes in the modern world. He uses his huge private fortune to promote the cause of greater openness and, somehow, he's emerged as a peculiarly intense focus of hate from right-wing campaigners, who have even been blaming him for funding the caravan of migrants making their way through Mexico from Central America to the US. But nowhere is he more controversial than in his home country Hungary, where a liberal arts university he founded says it's on the point of being forced out of business by the populist-nationalist government of prime minister Viktor Orban. Mr. Orban's critics say he's shown a pattern of trying to crush or control institution he doesn't like, including Hungary's independent judiciary. Here's the second in a series of special reports from Budapest by our Europe correspondent Kevin Connolly:

Kevin Connolly: We're on a huge Ferris wheel in the heart of Budapest which offers a spectacular perspective on the landscape of Viktor Orban's Hungary. Architecturally, it is impossible not to be charmed. The glittering Danube threads together the city's elegant parks and palaces. But somewhere down there, in the courtroom and colleges, there are growing fears that Viktor Orbán's instincts are authoritarian and that, slowly, he's moving to erode academic freedom and the independence of the judiciary and, above all, to force his least favourite seat of learning out of town altogether.

Eva Fodor: The government has forced us out of this country. It's this simple. It's very obvious that it's designed to make our lives impossible.

Eva Fodor is pro-rector of the Central European University, a graduate college established in Budapest by the Hungarian-born financier George Soros. His liberal globalist instincts seem to really rile Viktor Orban. Eva says the University is being forced to relocate to Austria next month because the Orban government won't sign the papers that would give it the legal authority to operate in Hungary.

Eva Fodor: This is an obvious and clear violation of the principle of the rule of law. The government passes ad hoc regulations without consulting people. This is an obvious and blatant restriction on academic freedom. It's actually closing a university. So this government, the Hungarian government, has designed the legislation that closes a university. This has not happened within the European Union, so it is a purely authoritarian move.

The Central European University can. to a certain extent, look after itself of course. Its students can take to the streets to denounce Viktor Orban's authoritarianism. as they did here. And, in the end, George Soros can afford to fund the move to Vienna, even if he doesn't really want to . But what of the judiciary, which feels itself to be under a similar kind of attack? Hungary's government is taking control of judicial appointments and lowering the compulsory retiring age for experienced judges to create more vacancies for its own people. Zsuzsa Sandor was forced out of her job as a judge under the new rules and says Viktor Orban's Fidesz party is putting the legal system under more pressure than the Communists did back in their day. Mrs Sandor says this is all about Viktor Orban wanting to control every area of life in a way that is just not compatible with proper democracy. Already, she says, prosecutions against Fidesz people only go ahead if the courts get the nod from someone at the very top of the party. Now, of course, no one is saying that Hungary is heading back into the kind of political darkness remembered here at the Terror House Museum, which commemorate victims of the Nazis and the Soviets. Indeed, Mr. Orban's defenders say all the complaints from academics and lawyers are just the predictable moaning of liberals who simply don't like him. But there is surely something more profound at work here. Hungary only emerged 30 years ago from a largely non-democratic history that included occupation by the Austrians, the Germans and the Russians. Small wonder, says the academic George Baron (sp?), that there's a taste for strong leadership here - a taste that brings with it certain dangers.

George Baron: In every nation they would like a strong leader, a father-like figure, but the strong institutions of democracy could make limitations to that desire. If the institutions are weak there are no limitations, and if a cynical guy with talent would like to seize total power he can do it if the institutions are not strong enough. 

The views from Budapest's Ferris wheel are breathtaking and the Budapest the tourists see is as beautiful as ever, but below the surface this is a troubled landscape, and there are real fears here the Fidesz government is eroding the strength and freedom of civil society in a manner that is disturbing and that is not pretty to watch.

Correspondents Look Ahead

As I've written before, I've been tuning into (and enjoying) Radio 4's Correspondents Look Ahead for decades now, and this year was no different. 

A few years back, in the early years of this blog, I posted a review of the predictions made on the previous year's edition and found them to be almost entirely wrong, and I had great fun pointing it out (especially at Paul Mason's expense). The post even got a mention on that year's Correspondents Look Ahead where I was cast as "a rather unkind blogger". 

Unfortunately for me, however, it backfired. I really do think that the programme became far more cautious - indeed boring - as a result, especially for the next couple of years when hardly any concrete (i.e. potentially embarrassing) predictions were made. 

Thankfully, especially as I've held back recently in pointing out the wrong predictions recently, we've finally arrived back the stage where caution is being thrown to the wind again - though, that said, quite a few of this year's predictions weren't exactly that daring!

Here's a list of the predictions for 2018. Should we all rush out to the bookies?

*******

James Naughtie 

• Donald Trump will be devastated by insider revelations about chaos in the White House.
• The Democrats will win control of the House of Representatives in the November election.
• Donald Trump's tax bill is going to prove "spectacularly unpopular with voters".
• Russia will have a successful World Cup.
• Joe Biden will announce that he's running for the presidency but won't win the nomination.
• There'll be some form of internet collapse.

James Robbins

• The Democrats will win control of the House in the November election.
• There will be a Cuba+++ moment in South Korea with the mass evacuation of Seoul due to US/North Korean tension.
• There will be "a non-disastrous rumbling on" of the Brexit talks. 
• The UK government will suffer at least one substantial House of Commons defeat led by Remainers but will then narrowly squeak through a confidence motion and avoid a general election.
• Russia will not have a successful World Cup because of its far-right and outside media scrutiny.
• 2018 will be the year of renewables and batteries. 

Carrie Gracie 

• Donald Trump will announce a series of "robust measures" to try to deal with the enormous trade deficits that the United States suffers in relation to China.
• There will be negotiations on the Korean peninsula between China, the United States, South Korea and North Korea. A deal will be struck whereby North Korea agrees to freeze its nuclear and missile programmes in exchange for the US and South Korea "dialling back" their military exercises on the peninsula.
• Either the Dalai Lama or the Pope will make a visit to China.

Yolande Knell 

• The Democrats will win control of the House in the November election.
• Donald Trump will launch and pursue a peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians which won't succeed.
• Donald Trump will reimpose US sanctions on Iran but the Iran Nuclear Deal will survive thanks to its other signatories.
• Russia's Syria peace conference will fail to bring about peace.
• PM Haider al-Abadi and President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi will win their respective elections.
• Yair Lapid (a "moderate") will lead the next Israeli government after the fall of Benjamin Netanyahu.
• Mohammed bin-Salman's popularity will drop with the young because of his austerity measures and the contrast with his own lavish lifestyle.
• Mohammed bin-Salman to squeeze Jordan and the Palestinians over accepting the terms of a Trump peace plan.
• There'll be a resurgence of al-Qaeda.

Owen Bennett-Jones 

• Imran Khan to become PM of Pakistan.

Kevin Connolly 

• The Democrats will win control of the House in the November election.
• Because of his "terrible" polling numbers Donald Trump might be content to be a one-term president and stand aside.
• Brexit is going to rumble along "a bit less disastrously than you might think".
• Russia will have a successful World Cup.
• Trouble for the EU will come from Poland and Hungary for the EU and they may be more awkward for the EU than the UK ever was.

Everyone

• Vladimir Putin will win the Russian election.

The one that made me chuckle was OB-J's prediction that Imran Khan might become PM of Pakistan. Imran Khan's big breakthrough has been a regular prediction on Correspondents Look Ahead, on and off, for years now. And it's never happened so far. Will it finally come true?

The Continent

I have to say, regardless of his long and, er, distinguished record as far as BBC bias is concerned, that the BBC's Europe Correspondent Kevin Connolly is a very stylish contributor to From Our Own Correspondent and I've enjoyed many of his recent pieces.

His piece on why it's hard to be a Kevin in France has me chuckling along (there's a BBC website write-up here) and today's piece on his first trip to the continent in 1972, the year before Britain entered the European Community, made me smile several times too. 

As the programme's website blurb makes clear....

.... Kevin was to make rather heavy weather of the fact that back in 1972 people in the UK used to refer to mainland Europe as 'The Continent', as in 'We're going to The Continent this year'. 

The funny thing is that I, who was only just out of my terrible twos in 1972, still talk of 'The Continent' when thinking about mainland Europe. I've probably done it ever since I learned to speak. Worse, I've even been saying it in the past few weeks, given that I've been telling people (and am now telling you) that I'm having my first holiday on 'The Continent' for eight years later this year. It's obviously just something I unthinkingly say. 

I didn't realise that people don't say that anymore, apparently. Or that it's a relic of the past that needs putting in inverted commas whenever it's recalled, apparently.

Unless people do still say that and it's just Kevin Connolly, other BBC types and assorted Europhiles who can't believe people ever used to say such a thing.

I don't know what the point of this post is but it was occupying my mind so I thought I'd share. 

Massaging the facts

As noted by Ozfan on an earlier thread, this morning's Broadcasting House included a report from Kevin Connolly on the 2014 terrorist attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels. 

It also included reflections on antisemitism in Europe. 

One remarkable thing about the report was that it failed, at any point, to mention that the "lone gunman"/"lone attacker" was an Islamist terrorist. 

Another even more remarkable thing was that Muslim antisemitism - the root cause of the attack - was not mentioned either.

Instead, Kevin Connolly's report concentrated on antisemitism in general, and Western European antisemitism  in particular (Nazi-occupied France especially) - even though that kind of antisemitism had nothing to do with this Brussels attack. 

The takeaway message, incidentally, was the one quoted at the very start of the programme - It's not only Jews that need to be worried. Muslims and Christians too are hiding from terror in Europe today:

Today, not only the Jew are afraid. Everybody is afraid. Terrorism can attack everybody, and today we have to help everybody to protect our society.

Incidentally, this isn't the first time that Kevin Connolly has airbrushed Islamism and Muslim antisemitism out of his coverage of the terrorist attack on the Jewish Museum. A World Service programme late last year, hosted by James Harding, followed much the same construction.

The massaging of the facts here remains absolutely extraordinary. 

Deflection tactics

Hadar at BBC Watch has written an important piece about a World Service programme on "anti-Semitism in Europe", following up on the Islamist terrorist attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels in 2014. 

The WS programme, On Background, co-hosted by James Harding, the BBC's Director of News (no less), featured a report from Kevin Connolly, and then a joint interview with Kevin Connolly and novelist Howard Jacobson. 

Very oddly, however, Kevin Connolly's report gave no clue whatsoever that the suspect (Mehdi Nemmouche) is a Muslim or that there was an Islamist motive for the antisemitic terrorist attack on the museum. He simply didn't mention that. Instead, he focused on the history of antisemitism in Europe in the first half of the 20th Century.

That set the stage for what followed (click to enlarge):

And not only were they severely playing down the Muslim element of modern European antisemitism while deflecting attention onto Christian antisemitism, because James Harding also asked this:

Yes, it's the "Muslims are the new Jews" card being played by the BBC's Director of News.

Both Kevin Connolly and James Harding clearly knew exactly what they were about here. 

It's still absolutely extraordinary though.

Stabbings and Shootings

Before I say that Kevin Connolly has just filed a stinker of a report on the BBC news website, I’m going to try and be what the BBC claims it is: impartial. 

I’m going to imagine I am a reader with an average amount of  knowledge of the Israel / Palestine conflict (not a lot.) I haven’t taken a particular interest in the recent ‘knife intifada’, but I’ve heard bits and pieces about it, and maybe seen the video that has been widely disseminated online. I come across Kevin Connolly’s report on the BBC website. The BBC is my trusted source of information. (!)

Okay. Are we sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

Kevin’s opening statement is written in the style of the opening passage of a certain type of novel. An ‘airport’ novel, I’d say.

“Almost everything about the shooting of Abdul Fatah al-Sharif made it a very modern moment of news.There was the time and the place.”

I can’t wait to find out what happens next.

“It occurred on the edge of the Jewish sector of the divided city of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank - a kind of crucible of the troubles here, where so many of the stabbings and shootings in the latest wave of violence have happened.”

Wait. “Stabbings and shootings” Cripes! Those Israelis and Palestinians. Six of one and half a dozen of the other. Always at each other’s throats; a plague on both their houses. 

Well, even if we’re not avid followers of Middle East news, we should know, if only  vaguely,  what the so-called ‘knife intifada’ is. It’s random stabbings of Israeli civilians and soldiers by Palestinians seeking martyrdom. The victims are wounded or killed and then the perpetrators are shot or apprehended.  

If I knew a little about recent events I might just wonder whether there was an element of  ‘cause and effect’. Stabbings and shootings, not actually equivalent incidents, perhaps. Let’s just say - without the stabbings there wouldn’t be the shootings.  

Someone might try to catch me out there, by mocking the smart-alec ‘cause and effect’ label. They might say: “The cause is the ‘occupation’ and the effect is the ‘stabbing’ “  

But, hey,  one person’s Understandable Reaction is another person’s  extra-judicial killing. 

Further down the page  Kevin Connolly uses ‘extra-judicial’ to convey an illegal act -  (not authorised by law) - when he refers to “killings of militants”. 

Does he see stabbing as ‘militancy’? Can we agree that however we look at it, these stabbings are intolerable rather than understandable?

Of course one might want to make sense of it all by mentioning some basic background about the occupation. The why and the wherefore. Perhaps one might also need to explain about the incitement. One might even need to go back to the seventh century to the root of the Arabs’ intransigent rejectionist attitude, but  never mind, Kevin Connolly doesn’t want to get into any of that. As he said, this is not “the time and the place”. So we won’t.

“There was the way it was captured on video by a Palestinian working for B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation.”

As an average reader I might not know that B’Tselem is more of a political organisation than a benign human rights organisation. However, your averagely knowledgable reader might be aware that ‘human rights organisation’ has become a sort of code for left-wing anti-establishment advocacy of the kind that prevents Theresa May from extraditing terrorists to countries where they might experience torture, so we’ll let that one go.

“There was the way it has been viewed repeatedly on the internet, dissected and debated, testimony to the ability of those with strong opinions to see what they want to see.”

And there is the way it is being reported on the BBC News webpage, “testimony to the ability of those with strong opinions to see what they want to see.” Got any strong opinions, Kevin?

I’m not going to reproduce every word of Kevin’s article here, but a couple of paragraphs later we read this:

 “Two Palestinians have tried to stab Israeli soldiers and have been shot - the body of one, in a short black jacket, is lying somewhere near the middle of the frame.

Kevin, you’ve seen the video. You saw the blood, you saw the soldier, you saw the ambulance, yet you decided to portray actual stabbing as an attempt. I mean, why did you say “tried to stab” rather than just plain “stabbed”?  Surely you’re not trying to suggest the Palestinian was innocent?

The Israelis gave mixed reactions to this incident. Initially they condemned the soldier’s action and said that if it was a gratuitous killing it would be dealt with accordingly. The soldier would be punished. But later there was the question of a possible suicide belt, not unprecedented in similar situations. But according to the behaviour of bystanders seen in the video that argument seems weak, and seems to have been largely discounted. It’s an ongoing situation.

“This description of what happens next comes from a slightly unusual source.”

How unusual? 

“They are the words of the Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Lt Gen Gadi Eisenkot, speaking in a briefing at an army base that was leaked to Israeli media.”

Is Kevin implying that Lt Gen Gadi Eisenkot and Col Peter Lerner, whom he also quotes, would ‘usually’ try to protect an IDF soldier or worse, to conceal a crime by an IDF soldier, had such a soldier committed a crime?     Now that’s hardly impartial. 

The report then continues in a clumsy and heavy handed fashion (My impartiality is now out the window) to portray ordinary Israelis as  callous, right-wing, warmongers. 

Even if 80% of those polled are of the view that the Palestinian ‘had it coming’, reporting that context-free, as it is here, is bound to look one-sided.  What if one polled post-war Britain’s attitude to what 'we' did to the Germans (without mentioning Hitler)?

Later there’s more emotive wordmongering.

“Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon, who is generally considered a hardliner on issues of national security, has sided with his military commanders. 

But others like the former Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, appear to have scented an opportunity - he turned up at an early court hearing to support the soldier.”

“Scented an opportunity.” That’s a good description of Kevin Connolly’s M.O. He’s scented an opportunity.

The rest of the piece continues with cherry-picked quotations from Haaretz, mainly concerning whether or not the soldier had committed an extra-judicial crime or taken a legitimate precautionary action. 

The tenor of Kevin Connolly’s piece is eerily reminiscent of the overtly judgmental and emotive way the BBC reports the increasing British, and for that matter European, ‘right-wing’ and in the BBC's view ‘wrong’ reaction to terrorism.   

Impartiality out the window all round. 

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you must have missed Martine Croxall doing the papers late last night. Her comments about Trevor Phillips’s “What Muslims really think” articles were pure BBC.  Denial is absolutely not just a river in Egypt.

Duped

Let’s take a closer look at Feedback’s way of dealing with listener’s letters. Feedback’s raison d’etre is to give the listener a voice and Roger Bolton speaks on behalf of the listener, playing Devil’s advocate where necessary.

Craig’s piece included this transcript of one of Roger Bolton’s questions during a remarkably gentle interview with Kevin Connolly:

“I mean, for example, William Parry has been particularly critical of a Today interview that John Humphrys did with you. I think John's first question was, "Yet another attack on Israelis", talking about the knifing (sic) and so on. And that listener felt the very way that was framed, mentioning Israelis first, concentrating on what was happening to them, in a relatively short interview inevitably skewed the coverage. What do you think of that criticism?”

He refers to the complainant as “that listener” and gives us his name. William Parry. Our friend Mr. Google says Mr. Parry happens to be not just any old listener. He’s the author of an artfully compiled book of images of Israel’s separation barrier aimed at people who campaign against Israel, using slogans like: “Tear down that wall” and “Free, free Palestine – from the river to the sea.” Etcetera.

The book must have a certain appeal, because it’s been endorsed by Ghada Karmi, Ken Loach and Roger Waters.  But why would the Feedback team bother to find that out, (even though the BBC itself had formerly promoted the book) and, more to the point, would it trouble them if they did?

One might try substituting the name of a high profile anti-Israel campaigner or antisemitic political figure to test whether Feedback would read out the complaint and describe the complainant as ‘a listener’.

“I mean, for example, “OmarBarghouti” has written in. He has been particularly critical of a Today interview that John Humphrys did with you.” 

 or

 “A listener, Mr. Adolf Hitler has contacted us. That listener  thought the way that was framed, mentioning the Israelis first, concentrating on what was happening to them inevitably skewed the coverage. Etcetera.

Would that dent the audience’s belief that the complaint was in any way valid? Would it be seen to represent a significant tranche of public opinion?

Would you not ask yourself this: If the BBC happens to be reporting “yet another knife attack on Israelis” should not the BBC report that first? Use it as a headline, even?

• If it was a fact.
• If it happened.

Should the BBC not  tell us ‘what is happening to Israelis, or “them”, even when the “them” in question are Israelis? The complainant seems to think that’s wrong. He thinks it skews the reporting. In his eyes reporting something first, i.e., prioritising it chronologically in a report automatically skews the report in favour of the subject.

Having heard you posit that theory, I might pocket it and save it for a rainy day. Thanks for bringing it up by the way Roger, it might come in handy as evidence; it may harm your defence if you fail to mention it later, when questioned. etc.

I say that because, as we all know, straightforward chronology doesn’t normally influence the BBC’s reporting when it comes to violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Not at all. In fact the opposite is the case. The BBC customarily ignores chronology or ‘as it happened’ reporting– notably in their reporting of the spate of stabbings and driving cars into Israelis by Palestinians. The BBC habitually starts by informing listeners of the death or the condition of the Palestinian instigator of any given incident. This pattern of ‘front-loading’, which also applies to headlines, occurs so frequently that it has a name. ‘First last’ reporting.

Might not this “inevitably” skew anything much?

It’s ironic that a rare deviation from this pattern causes that “listener” so much stress that he decides to pen a complaint, send it off to Feedback, and enjoy Roger Bolton reading it out on air.

“No,” he says, “we mustn’t frame our reporting in a manner that concentrates on what is happening (to Israelis) We demand that it is always framed in a manner that concentrates on what is happening to the Palestinians.”

Don’t misunderstand this complaint. Don’t file it under the category: ‘causing offence by mentioning Israel in a non-derogatory fashion’ or ‘allowing Mark Regev’s face to appear on the news because I can’t stand the sight of it’. Many of us see this attitude ‘we must silence the Israelis at all costs’  (an extreme version of BDS) – as hysterical. It’s partly a pathological fear of an imaginary, creeping ‘normalisation’ of the BBC’s relations with Israel. Oh the horror! But I don’t believe it’s even that.

I think the complainant is demanding that implied 'justification' is attached to all reports of murderous activities by Palestinian Arabs, and thinks every report should include a list of their grievances and so on.

He wants it embedded in the BBC’s armoury of ‘background and context’ in the same way that the notoriously misleading 'death tally' is appended to most of the BBC’s articles concerning the Israeli/Palestinian situation. It serves to remind readers that the BBC regards Israel’s defensive actions against Hamas as disproportionate.

Anti-Israel campaigners and activists try to justify Palestinian violence by giving it context and background. They cite unsubstantiated rumours about al-Aksa, the occupation, the settlements, oppression, frustration, no-hope and so on, as the ‘root cause’ of the violence. Journalists throughout the UK media, including the BBC, seem to find this understandable.

Let’s just suppose, for one moment, that these factors were, in isolation, the ‘root cause’. So what would that mean? Would that justify the actions of every violent offender who lashes out with a knife or mows people down with his vehicle if he feels he’s been handed a raw deal in life?

Or is it exclusively applicable to Palestinians who are caught trying to hack people to shreds.

But if you’re going to appease the likes of William Parry and demand that Palestinian violence is rationalised and excused every time it’s reported, then you can’t be selective. You can’t pick n mix your root causes. You can’t ignore the incitement from the Palestinian leadership that has played a major role in whipping it up. But more than that. You can’t ignore the real root cause.

  

Roger Bolton and Kevin Connolly may well genuinely think that this long list of manufactured excuses are behind the current wave of violence because neither of them care to know that the Muslim Arabs’ hatred of Jews dates far back beyond the existence of the Jewish State. That is the root cause.

“Free, free Palestine!” simply means free of Jews “from the river to the sea”.  What could be more clear?

The oldest hatred. A hatred that is detrimental to everyone involved, especially the Palestinian people.

Roger Bolton reading out that ‘listener’s letter’ as if he was a typical listener and representative of public opinion, might have been down to pure gullibility. It reminds me of the time George Galloway was duped into reading out, passionately, on air, an enthusiastic message from one “Hugh Janus”. Oh how we laughed.

But to misquote BobMonkhouse, “We’re not laughing now.”

  

Blood on the floor

That ferocious bulldog on behalf of the licence fee paying public, Roger 'the Beeb-slayer' Bolton, viciously sunk his teeth into a BBC Middle East correspondent on this week's Feedback.

The BBC's Kevin Connolly was left bleeding on the studio floor...

...or maybe not. 

Make that 'very much not' in fact. Typically for Feedback (unlike Samira Ahmed on Newswatch), Uncle Roger chose to vigorously lick the BBC man's face and tickle his tummy instead. 

If I may paraphrase:

Oh Kevin, are things becoming tougher for you because of all those nasty complaints about bias? Kevin, here's a listener who said you did a great report on FOOC. And Kevin, let me slavishly defend you over the issue of context too. But, let me be tough now and have yet another of my digs at John Humphrys, and cite an anti-Israeli complaint to you. (I won't cite a pro-Israeli complaint though). Finally, let me bowl you something nice and soft. My thanks to Kevin.

[Roger Bolton's repeated focus on 'wrongdoing' by John Humphrys is something I've commented on several times before. It's an odd, ongoing Feedback feature. This focus only seemed to arise after JH slammed the BBC for being biased on certain issues, like immigration and the EU, in the past, and RB seemed to take considerable exception to him doing so. It's all very strange, and oddly vendetta-like for Radio 4.]

Anyhow, here's a transcription of their discussion. Unlike Roger Bolton, Kevin Connolly puts in a creditable performance here (whether you believe him or not):

Roger Bolton: Kevin Connolly has been a BBC Middle East correspondent for five years. I asked Kevin if the job of reporting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is getting even more difficult.

Kevin Connolly: I don't think so. The pressure comes and goes according to the pressure of the news. The higher the profile the story has in our news bulletins the more we will hear from people who have very strong views on the conflict themselves about how our coverage measures up against their own feelings. And they will scrutinise every aspect of our language, the words we choose to use, the amount of historical context we manage to add to pieces, the precise manner in which we report disputed factual circumstances. We absolutely accept that, you know, we are accountable to the British public and that they are entitled to express what are often very, very strong opinions and a very strong sense of disappointment where they feel that our narrative is not close enough to the narrative of one side or the other. 

Roger Bolton: Now, it's interesting when we look at the people who've written to us. David Chadwick talks about a "very fair and balanced account" given by you on Our Own Correspondent. When you're doing longer pieces it's possible to put context or at least some context, even though that context is contested. When you're doing a news report you can't, can you? 

Kevin Connolly: Well, some of our news reports are 35 seconds long where we have something on our online service called a 'text box' which is maybe 140 words, so the longer you serve in this kind of job the more you come to understand that news is an imperfect and incomplete medium but it's still the best way we have of, you know, reporting the factual circumstances of the news to each other.

Roger Bolton: So when you've got a short news item...from the letters we get, people care very much which side you mention first. I mean, for example, William Parry has been particularly critical of a Today interview that John Humphrys did with you. I think John's first question was, "Yet another attack on Israelis", talking about the knifing (sic) and so on. And that listener felt the very way that framed, mentioning Israelis first, concentrating on what was happening to them, in a relatively short interview inevitably skewed the coverage. What do you think of that criticism?

Kevin Connolly: Well, I think I would use the argument that, philosophically, news is an imperfect medium. John, in that introduction, is responding to the latest development in the story which is something, obviously, that news journalists are naturally attracted to. And I think in the context of that discussion between me and John Humphrys actually we made the point that very often events are bubbling away below the surface that break through as a global headline news story. So we're accepting that there are background factual circumstances which help the create the situation in which suddenly you are hearing the news being reported. But that is not implying, of course, cause and effect. And very often listeners are analysing the way we're reporting the news using a template that we don't use when we're compiling it. I mean, the fact that John Humphrys is beginning that discussion of the factual circumstances by talking about something that has happened to Israelis - and I'm sure John would be the first to say this - does not imply that that is the BBC's analysis of the cause and effect in the circumstances. 

Roger Bolton: But do you sometimes go and re-listen to something you've done and think, "Hmm, actually they've got a point. Next time I better do it rather differently"? 

Kevin Connolly: Honestly, I think the older you get the more you approach this job with humility. You know, before I write something for From Our Own Correspondent I will circulate it among my colleagues. I've got colleagues who are Israeli Jews. I've got colleagues who are Palestinians from Gaza. We have colleagues who live in Bethlehem and in Ramallah and in Jerusalem. So we take as collegial approach as we can because, you know, that brings in feelings that they are coming across in their own communities and the stories that they are hearing reported by their own local media. There used to be this principle in news, which always struck me as being very complacent and rather arrogant, which was that if you're being complained about by both sides then you must be doing something right. But, of course, that's just not really the case. You can be being complained about by both sides and still be wrong. So you always go back, listen to what you've said and read what you've written and think about how it be better.

*******

UPDATE 2/11: Sue has been doing some digging... 

It turns out that the William Parry whose complaint about 'pro-Israeli BBC bias' was used by Roger Bolton in this Feedback interview with Kevin Connolly isn't quite the 'ordinary, offended Radio 4 listener' listeners might have taken him to be. 

His Twitter feed shows him to be active in opposition to Israel, and he occasionally writes for magazines on the subject of BDS against Israel. 

He's also the author of Against the Wall: The Art of Resistance in Palestine. (The BBC interviewed him about it, of course.)

Only a little spark

The Today Programme this morning (17 mins to 8) brought us Kevin Connolly’s report from Jerusalem about the shooting of an Israeli couple, by Palestinians. The couple were in their car with their four children when a Palestinian car drew up and shot at them, killing both parents.

This was the first I’d heard of it, and I wondered what impression Kevin Connolly intended to give.

I’ve listened again, and I still perceive that the reporting we’re  getting from Kevin Connolly is ‘news from the Palestinian point of view’. If you like, it’s events seen through the Palestinian prism. 

Connolly certainly seems to identify with the Palestinians, though he probably distances himself from the ‘religiosity’ of both the Israelis and Palestinians, whom I suspect he regards as equally religiously fanatical.

The impression I had was that Connolly was keen to imply “they had it coming to them’  because of the way he described the location of this murder. 

“a dark country road between two Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, the nearest big city being Nablus.....”

That insinuates that the Palestinians were defending themselves against ‘settlements’.

On the other hand, it could be seen as essential background of the type we complain about when context and background are omitted from cases where the scenario is reversed.

Nevertheless, it seemed inappropriate because of the brutality of the act.

“and of course today it is friday prayers here in Jerusalem” 

Well, it is “friday prayers,” - for Muslims -  and the 'rising tensions' he alludes to is something that has been woefully under / mis reported by the BBC ever since it escalated into a major powder keg.

Connolly tells us: 

“we were just going back  through our own news archives, it’s far from scientific, but we would say that more than 20 Palestinians have died in political violence on the West Bank this year, at least a half a dozen Israelis.”

Who, might I ask, is “we”? Be that as it may, why bother telling us this? It couldn’t be, could it, to remind us that Palestinians are more deserving of our sympathy than Israelis? It’s the same old death-toll syndrome. How many died? 

What it fails to address is that most of the Palestinian fatalities at the hands of the IDF have been provoked or initiated by some kind of direct, threatening behaviour from the Palestinian, which is usually reported in the ‘last first’ tradition.

“.........one of the times of year when Jews traditionally make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, that means, of course, that they move towards the Western Wall in the old city, that means they’re close to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, many in the Arab world see that as a kind of attack on their religious identity..........”

The Al-Aqsa mosque ‘status quo’ would seem almost unbelievable and inexplicable to any sane person, if reported impartially, or at least not through the Palestinian prism.  It would seem inexplicable that the Israelis would, a) tolerate it, and b) that the world would think it was okay.

The history - how the present situation has arisen - the Israeli government’s policy of appeasement, the unfounded rumours perpetrated by Palestinian agitators, the whole lot of it has been given the BBC treatment, so that we have actually been told (in several previous reports) of the Palestinians‘ fears’ as if their unfounded fears had as much credibility as the factual occurrences they are supposed to be reporting.  

The BBC website has this: 

“Al-Aqsa is one of Islam's holiest sites and is in the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif site also revered by Jews.”

I’m not a religious person, but I do know that this site is known as the third holiest site for Muslims, and ‘the’ holiest for Jews.  Why twist it?

Finally, 

“it takes only a little spark, like last night’s killings, to ignite it.”

Well, I’d hardly call the cold-blooded murder of two people in front of their young family “only a little spark”

The Times of Israel has more details.

and if you want to see a report that starts off on an even more uneven keel, see this one,

headlined:

"Israel sends troops after settler couple killed in West Bank"

Which manages to combine ‘last-first’ and “gratuitous settler” in the space of ten words.

At least, way down the page, the BBC report had: 

“The Palestinian militant organisation Hamas, which is dominant in Gaza, said "we bless the killing of settlers in the West Bank". 

and

“Spokesman Husam Badran said: "We call on our people in the West Bank to carry out more quality operations like the [one] today."This is the only solution which is supported by the masses of our people everywhere."

We don’t really know if  Kevin Connolly concurs.

The BBC's war against Israel

Sleeping fitfully last night while  waiting for the moon to go red I heard Kevin Connolly on the BBC World Service delivering the audio version of  this piece, sparked off, he says,  by a new book named “An Improbable Friendship” by Anthony David.

The introduction he was intoning woke me up sharp. I can’t remember Connolly’s exact words, but this paragraph from the article sums it up:

“You may be familiar with the history of the 1967 Middle East War - a short, sharp conflict in which, Israel captured land from Egypt, Syria and Jordan in a series of lightning operations.” 

I’m not sure that he actually said “You may be familiar with the history of the 1967 Middle East War”, but no matter, Connolly wasn’t going to be of any help to those of you who are not familiar with it. This may or may not have been entirely a bad thing, for whatever Kevin Connolly’s version of the history of the six day war seems likely to be - and I dread to think what it is -  I’d take a bet that we’re far better off without it.

So, it was “a short, sharp conflict in which, Israel captured land from Egypt, Syria and Jordan in a series of lightning operations.”

No reason, no rhyme, just a topsy-like event; there it was - it ‘grew’.

Let’s be clear, as pre-Corbyn politicians used to say. The six day war was a war of intended annihilation.  It was initiated by the Arabs with the intention of annihilating Israel. How cunning, how devious of Connolly to miss out the fact that Israel was fighting a defensive war.

I wasn’t too keen on this misleading,  emotive insinuation either:

“So Israel remains in control of the Golan Heights with its apple orchards and rolling pastures.”

Before the six-day war, Syria’s tanks and artillery were placed high on the Golan, 'apple orchards, rolling pastures' and all. The guns were pointing at, and visible from, kibbutzim below, posing a constant and ever present threat to the civilians living and working peacefully beside the Sea of Galilee. Make no mistake. In the spring of 67 there was a sudden, fierce escalation and a barrage of shellfire landed on Kibbutz Ein Gev.   Israel now controls the Golan for very good reasons. To protect Israelis and allow them to stay alive.

“And the West Bank of the River Jordan, with its huge Palestinian population and its growing number of Jewish settlers, is still under Israeli military occupation.”

Kevin Connolly might not know this. He might not know that the six day war was an intended war of annihilation against Israel, started by the Arabs. He might not know that most of the territory that was captured by Israel was returned (to Egypt) supposedly in return for peace.

If he doesn’t know why the occupation came about, he should damn well go and find out. He seems to think it’s because of unreasonable and unjustified warmongering by Israel, when the exact opposite is the case. 

Of course he does know all this really. He chooses to leave it out. How should I describe the BBC’s war against Israel and what is their intention?

I am mildly curious about one thing. Not for personal reasons, just to clarify something that bothers some of us. Does Kevin Connolly think Israel "has the right to exist?" Does he think it has any legitimacy whatsoever? 

Not that I care what Kevin Connolly thinks, but I am quite interested in whether he and his colleagues who report from the region actually have the authority - the BBC's blessing -  to represent the BBC by reporting everything that happens, and anything that takes their fancy -  solely from the Palestinian viewpoint. 

I suspect that despite the ‘impartiality obligations‘ that the BBC is supposed to espouse, there is an inherent Arabist default position which nothing will budge. No matter how cognitively dissonant  this becomes, what with the ever increasing turmoil in the Arab Muslim world. Muslims fighting, killing each other; followers of Islam changing the face of Europe and making their presence felt in Western democratic countries that they live in, but dislike. How long can this go on and how far can it go?  I say that rhetorically.  Propagandising and emoting against Israel is all the BBC wants to do.

Anyway, this “improbable friendship” theme is interesting. It’s between 98 (and a half) year old Ruth, the divorced widow of  Moshe Dayan and a deceptively youthful looking Raymonda Tawil, the mother-in-law of Yasser Arafat and mother of the fragrant Suha. 

Oddly, that portrait has found its way into the room and it looks as if it’s on the exact same easel as Suha's easel. Not so much a case of the eyes following you round the room, in this case the whole bloody picture follows you halfway round the world.   Is it a BBC prop? How bloody ridiculous. 

Like daughter

Like mother

Now, it’s all well and good that Kevin Connolly has this idea to make a film for the BBC about a heartwarming story of friends across the divide, based on a new book.  But it’s more than a coincidence that as far as I can tell this tale is seen (sigh) from the anti-Israel perspective. If I’m told that the book is less partisan that Kevin’s film, I’ll be delighted to hear it, but I’m doubtful.

Incidentally, another story about friendship and cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians didn’t catch the BBC’s imagination at all. Kevin Connolly didn’t choose to make a film about it, which seems a shame, as it involves another of the country’s favourite topics, football. I bet a film based on that would generate as much interest  - and do more good for the ‘peace process’ than, If I may say so,  this indulgent bit of flim-flam.

Ruth Dayan is indeed a sweet old lady, and no doubt she had a tough time being married to a man she said she should have divorced “ten years ago’” (I assume she meant ten years before she did divorce him) “for political reasons”. Kevin Connolly was keen to tease that out.

Moshe Dayan may have been a difficult man. He may have been a terrible husband. But let’s not forget that if it weren’t for Moshe Dayan and his brave brothers-in-arms, Israel would have been overrun by the enemies that surrounded it then (and still do) and Mrs Ruth Dayan may not have lived till 98 and a half to enjoy a friendship with Raymonda, the mother-in-law of that corrupt old rogue Yasser Arafat. 

I had a little look, just to be sure. Just to make sure that Anthony David is as impartial as Kevin Connolly and the BBC would have us believe. 

I went to Google, as you do, and saw that prof. Anthony David collaborated with Palestinian activist Sari Nusseibeh to produce an earlier, autobiographical  book “Once Upon A Country”

A review by Jeffry Goldberg is generous, but clearly states where the author is coming from.

“Once upon a country “ by Sari Nusseibeh with Anthony David.
“This is a rare book, one written by a partisan in the struggle over Palestine who nevertheless recognizes — and bravely records — the moral and political failures of his own people. This is not to say that Nusseibeh is a Zionist. For one thing, Zionists aren’t in the habit of quoting — approvingly — Noam Chomsky, and Nusseibeh catalogs, sometimes at unwarranted length and in exaggerated form, the sins of Israel, particularly the sins of occupation and settlement. And the narrative he presents in this book is undeniably the one devised by Arab, and pro-Arab, historians. There is no doubt that the 1948 war, which erupted upon the establishment of the state of Israel, did not end the way his family hoped it would, and Nusseibeh unpersuasively argues that the Jews were the Goliath in the fight, rather than the David. “

The new book "An Improbable Friendship" hasn’t been reviewed yet, and who knows, it might be full of surprises. But Kevin Connolly’s film tells a decidedly partisan tale, demonising Moshe Dayan, over sentimentalising or infantilising  his ex-wife Ruth just because she’s an old, old lady, omitting the context and background of the six-day war, giving undue respect to the Arafat family.

On the BBC World Service the continuity announcer thought it was sweet that she insisted on including the 'and a half' in that 98 years old, just like children do. Somehow, that says a lot.

Slinging mud

“You know what their goal is. They can bring Israel to the point where white South Africa was 25 years ago. Y’know, the subject of a boycott, which gathers momentum and which isolates. Do you think they could succeed?”

Is what Kevin Connolly asked Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely in July.

Does Kevin Connolly believe that life for Israeli Arabs in Israel is presently the same as for blacks in ‘white South Africa’ of 25 years ago, and does he imagine, if BDS were to “succeed” it would bring about some kind of justice? Perhaps he thinks Palestinians who live under Hamas and the PA should have voting rights in Israel, or that Israelis should be governed by Hamas or the PA?  We need clarification.

Most South Africans I’ve heard find this comparison not only offensive, but insultingly dismissive of the degree of the malignancy in a genuine apartheid system. 

Giving a platform to BDS chief Michael Deas, perhaps in the name of ‘balance’, if that’s why this was aired, gives credence to a false moral equivalence. Deas seems quite stupid as well as, dare I say this -  racist.  On the BBC website it says:

“The international pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement has been using the same techniques as anti-apartheid campaigners who worked to bring down white minority rule in South Africa.”  

Does Deas mean he wants to “bring down” the current  Israeli government, or bring down any Israeli government, preferring to install the PA or Hamas, or the Middle East’s equivalent of the ANC,  as the new, improved government in the region?

In other words, does the BDS movement want to turn Israel into another Islamic state because they find the concept of a Jewish state in the region “racist”? 

The irony of calling Israel racist is so outrageous that I can’t believe anyone takes BDS seriously. But they do!

Here’s the latest manifestation of BDS. It entails not just boycotting anything produced in settlements, nor merely boycotting anything produced in Israel proper, but vetoing performances by Jews - unless they sign an anti-Israel disclaimer. 

You might have heard about this before. Douglas Murray points out why BDS is a racist concept, if anyone didn’t already realise it. 

Spanish pro BDSers required a Jewish performer to sign an anti-Israel style declaration before performing at their a music festival. He wouldn’t so he couldn’t.

   

“For Matisyahu is not an Israeli -- he is an American. Yet after the intervention of the BDS protestors, the festival's director tried what he presumably thought was a perfectly reasonable request: Filippo Giunta asked Matisyahu to produce a "signed statement or video" stating "in a very clear way" that he supported the creation of a Palestinian state. This was made a precondition of performing. "If you sign these conditions, you can continue the performance," the festival's director told the artist.”

“... perhaps we could also initiate some other geostrategic questions that might be demanded of all other performers in the future” 

says Douglas Murray.

“...Maybe the rest of the world should demand that all musicians from Spain sign a statement or make a video supporting Catalan independence if they are to be allowed to perform in public?

“....To my knowledge Turkish artists are nowhere in the world asked to condemn their country's illegal occupation of Northern Cyprus

“...........to demand such an action or statement from an artist as a prerequisite to perform would be not just outrageous, it would be regarded as surreal. Why then is the BDS campaign able to normalize such a demand, and for a festival to cancel a performance based on non-compliance with such grotesque demands?The answer is the fever of our time. For a while, only Israeli Jews were made pariahs among the nations because of an unresolved border dispute involving their country. Now it is Jews born anywhere else in the world who can be targeted in the same way. They are singling out Jews -- Jews and only Jews. And their singling out of Jews, wherever they are from, makes their racist motivation abundantly clear. If the Rototom Sunsplash festival wants to take part in this racist BDS fever then it is them -- and not Jews -- whom the world must make into global pariahs.

Michael Deas does not recognise the hatred for the Jew (‘Yahud’ ) within Palestinian society; he isn’t even aware that such a thing exists.   

He only wants the right of return to Israel for seven million Palestinians, the descendants of the Arabs who were ‘ethnically cleansed’ in 1948 (and he demands they ‘tear down that wall’) It’s another of those faux reasonable “innocent face” pleas for justice.

Yasmin Alibhai Brown, one of the BBC’s speed-dial talking heads, is now defending Jeremy Corbyn with precisely the same faux reasonableness. There’s such a lot of projection going on in her painstakingly manipulative logic. She  is supposed to be evidencing a lack of racism in Corbyn and his associates, seemingly unaware that she’s using racist arguments and emotive turns of phrase in the attempt. 

Surprisingly, for the Independent at least, the below the line commenters have seen through her argument.

Here are a couple of the responses: 

"the forces of darkness", well that is some fine unemotional fact based journalism for you.
I wonder if she would be as keen to defend the man if he associated with, financed and called friends people who denied Idi Amin did anything untoward, and drew cartoons depicting Uganda's Indian population as bloodsucking, money grabbing exploiters of real Ugandans?  Doubt it somehow, but as usual she has special rules to apply when it comes to some people.

and another:

Mr. Corbyn calls Hamas and Hezbollah his friends and demonizes Israel. He ignores hate speech against Jews and actively supports those who spout it. And I've not heard a word from him against any other nation in the middle east... just the Jewish one.
Why is it the only thing this 'decent human being', this non-anti-Semite, cares about is Israel?
It is not the duty of every decent human being to 'criticise Israel' particularly when your criticism is solely intended to demonize the Jewish state and not make life better for the Palestinians (Otherwise you'd be 'criticising the PA and Hamas too) and once you do that Israeli injustices fade in to the background.”

Here’s an excerpt from Yasmin’s article, which goes under the nifty title :

“Fling mud if you must, but don’t call Jeremy Corbyn an anti-Semite”

“So here is the new claim being put about assertively: those who want to destroy Jewry hide behind the Palestinian cause. They are right, up to a point. Veiled anti-Semitism is around us, and most of all on university campuses, where Palestine is a burning issue and convenient alibi. Attacks on Jewish Europeans are also rising.Just as pernicious is the way Zionists use the charge of anti-Semitism to block probes into Israel’s oppressive practices, its weaponry, and its influence in Western parliaments. Some public intellectuals and politicians – who should have some understanding of nuance – have become propagandists for Israel, be the country’s actions right or wrong. They use images of Nazism and excruciating memories to whip up fears of a new horror, an impending extermination of the plucky nation by its cruel colonial neighbours. I myself have been subjected to such intimidation and branded an anti-Semite over the years. More such muck will be thrown at me when this column appears.

*******

“I myself have been subjected to such intimidation and branded an anti-Semite over the years.”

Oh noes!

Pass the muck Ariadne, quite a lot of throwing is called for.