Lock him up!

You've got to hand it to whoever at the BBC selected the photo of Prince Charles here. They couldn't have chosen a better one to make him look shifty. From that photo, he's clearly got a guilty conscience. 

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Yom HaShoah

I would like to feature some poignant articles marking Yom HaShoah.

What is the difference between Holocaust Memorial Day and Yom Hashoah? While both are days to mourn the loss of those killed in the Holocaust, Yom Hashoah is specifically a day for the Jewish community to reflect on what was done to their people. An important theme is also educating future generations on the millions of people who were murdered by the Nazis, to ensure that today’s children know the magnitude and horror of what happened.

Prince Charles made a remarkably statesman-like speech

Elder of Ziyon posted a thought-provoking and chilling piece:

  

The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland, published December 1942, ignored by the world

The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland was published by the Polish government-in-exile in December 1942 and sent to the foreign ministers of the 26 government signatories of the Declaration by United Nations.

BBC Watch presented a film about Shimon Greenhouse - the resilience of such people completely bowls one over.

(Searched the BBC - "no results")

Pandering to Arab nations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spider letters, ITV and the BBC

My goodness, there was one heck of a difference between the ways BBC One's News at Six and ITV's News at 6.30 reported Prince Charles's 'spider letters'! 

The angle on ITV's main evening news bulletin was that the Prince had warned Tony Blair's government about shortages in equipment for British troops in Iraq. ITN's Tim Ewart's report gave us a glimpse of one of Charles's letters to Tony Blair and then two extracts from Tony Blair's long and clearly carefully considered response, showing how seriously the Prince's intervention. This was followed by the welcoming of Prince Charles's views from Roger Bacon, father of Mjr Matthew Bacon, a British officer killed in Iraq. Tim Ewart's report then ended with former ministerial advisor Paul Richards, saying that the Prince's letter had an impact and were taken seriously. Only in a brief follow-up discussion with the ITV newsreader did Tim Ewart say the Prince Charles's critics accuse him of meddling and overstepping the bounds.

BBC One's coverage was almost the mirror image of ITV's. The opening headlines included anti-royalist Labour MP describing some of Charles's interventions as "eccentric" and "barmy" and Nicholas Witchell's report gave us the forced publication angle, raising the question of "meddling" early one. His take on the Prince's Iraq intervention showed Charles's letter but not Tony Blair's reply. Other letters to Mr Blair and Labour ministers were shown, against with no responses? Nicholas asked, "Is that appropriate language to use to a minister?" That anti-royalist Labour MP, Paul Flynn was then heard at greater length criticising the Prince and then, 'for balance', former Labour minister Denis MacShane (yes, that Denis MacShane!), talking about "Charlie" and saying that the Prince's concerns arise from reading the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, and that it doesn't matter very much because the Prince's letters didn't "have much impact". Only in the studio discussion afterwards, did Nicholas Witchell put a more positive case for Prince Charles, saying that it shows that he cares, that he can't just walk by a problem and that he's met many people over the years - more than most politicians, but he ended by repeating that most politicians say they don't necessarily "take any notice of them."

The two reports could not have been more different.  ITV's report featured a strongly supportive 'talking head' while the BBC's featured (and led with) a strong critic and someone who damned the Prince with very faint praise (both figures from the Labour Party, present and past). Plus, ITV's report made the case that Prince Charles's interventions were taken seriously and responded to at length. The BBC made the case that his interventions, while constitutionally dubious, weren't taken seriously at all.

To say that ITV has a pro-monarchist bias and the BBC an anti-monarchist bias on the strength of just these two contrasting reports would, of course, be to jump the gun and land in a minefield.

Still, these two reports were what they were and they appeared on the channels they appeared on. 

Baffling things and conundrums

A couple of weeks ago Beyond Belief (Radio 4) tackled antisemitism. In the chair, Ernie Rea. 

Ed Kessler and Dr. Yaakov Wise were there to speak as ‘Jews’, and for some reason best known to the BBC, Mo Ansar had been invited to represent ‘the Muslims’, doing his utmost to shoehorn 'Islamophobia' into the picture at any and every opportunity. 

Islamophobia

I’ll summarise (my impression) as follows:

"Did you, know, Muslims are the new Jews, and wherever you find antisemitism, Islamophobia is lurking nearby? (Well you do now) Also, antisemitism doesn’t emanate primarily from the Muslims.  No, where it comes from is a bit of a mystery. 
Some people conflate Jews with Israel. Of course not every Jew supports the Israeli government, in fact more and more young Jews support the Palestinians! Not a lot of people know that, so hating Jews just because you think Israel is evil is the wrong thing to do. It’s a complete misunderstanding of the situation, which is (obviously) that almost everyone, including Jews, thinks Israel is wrong. The few exceptions who don’t, they’re the ones you should hate.” 

Here’s me thinking that Mo Ansar had made an absolute fool of himself over various issues; cartoons and stuff like that. Yet there they go again, dragging him in for his ‘opinion’ as though he wasn’t an utter charlatan. Silly me.

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Last week German Jewish writer Julia Franck reflected on her move from East to West Berlin.

Listening to the beginning of this episode, a description of her family’s unhappy experiences as East Germans trapped behind the Berlin wall, then, as new immigrants to the west, the family's gratitude and willingness to put up with the harsh conditions imposed upon refugees, such was their relief at escaping the GDR. 

Upon listening to this lead-up, a casual listener who understood that the talk was supposed to be about PEGIDA, might assume that Ms Franck was about to declare that she was somewhat in favour of protests against the 'Islamification' of Europe. 

Not a bit of it.  In fact it turned out that she was about to explain, from her special position as a one-time immigrant, that she was not at all against immigration, mass Muslim or whatever, nor was she concerned about the Islamification of Europe. 'Islamicization', she (or the voice-over) called it, enunciating it with disgust. Not because she thought it was undesirable. No. She didn’t even recognise it. She didn’t accept that such a thing exits, but if it does, there was nothing undesirable about it.

This is the BBC, and Julia Franck was so heartily in favour of immigration, that the producer (or whomsoever was responsible for directing the actress translating Ms Franck’s words) made sure they were given the full-on ‘Islam is the Religion of Peace’ treatment with a reverential, saccharine, smiley-face tone of voice.

“I am a fugitive myself, therefore all fugitives are benign; look at me,” was what she said, completely forgetting that she was a fugitive for a reason, and similarly forgetting to ask herself what she was trying to get away from and why she needed to get away from it. There’s stupid.

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More melodrama on Harry’s Place over George Galloway. From a link on the thread, more about his attention-seeking threats to sue, and the ‘chilling effect’ of this and most of what he does.

This ‘chilling effect’ is another way of describing the ramifications of what “the terrorist” does. Scares the pants off would-be dissenters from his particular rules.

I understand that Hadley Freeman (me neither) deleted the offending Tweet as soon as George started expressing his outrage, so the forthcoming ‘day in court’ if it ever comes to pass will be a massive publicity stunt for the gorgeous one, whereupon he and his acolytes will be delighted.

Also on Harry’s Place, more on Sizer and  more from Archbishop Welby: Good grief. One interesting point, which I read in a comment, I’ve forgotten where, is that if Sizer religiously (ha) complies with his promise never again to refer to the Middle East, it would seriously hamper his ability to do his priestly duties. It’s where Jesus hung out, after all.

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The BBC has presented 'member of the International Solidarity movement 'Kayla Mueller as another saintly martyr.

She certainly  ‘didn’t deserve to die’, (who does?) but it turns out that she’s a bit of a Rachel Corrie. 

Mark Steyn:

“If "idealism" is defined as taking the side of the Palestinians against the Israelis, Kayla Mueller was super-idealistic. That's her right, of course - the right to choose which side she was on. And then she took her "idealism" and "optimism" off to Syria. And, even though she was on their side and believed as they do that "resistance flows from the minaret five times a day", to ISIS she was just another high-value infidel. So they kidnapped her and killed her.”

More revelations; She might have ‘married’ an ISIS commander before she died! 

"I'm not sure yet how to live in a world without Kayla, but I do know that we're all living in a better world because of her," said a tearful Eryn Street, one of Mueller's closest friends, as she spoke from the courthouse plaza in Prescott on Tuesday.

What can she mean??

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The Telegraph online has a picture gallery. The other day it featured about  30 pictures of a Hamas youth training camp. 

Today it’s Prince Charles touring the Middle East.  “Comments are closed on this picture gallery.” Shame. No. 5 was particularly strange. 

I’d swear that HRH prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud (!) is wearing an actual tea-towel and one of those glass-cloths, on his head.

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And finally, just for fun: