Trouble ahead

“The al-Aqsa compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount” is how Tom Bateman introduces his report about Israel removing those ever so incendiary metal detectors from Islam’s third holiest site. Well, that’s one way of looking a it.

For once a topic involving an Islam-related controversy wasn’t assigned to Mishal Husain on the Today Programme. Nick Robinson (£250,000-£299,999) struggled. Re-naming (and imaginatively relocating) the infamous trouble-spot: “Alaska Mosque”, and  if I’m not mistaken generously allocating well-known Palestinian peacemaker Manuel Hassassian one extra “ass”, he handled the topic bravely.

Manuel Hassassassian

The news that Israel is removing the metal detectors from al-Aqsa was unexpected. Looking through the online press reports and skimming various below the line comments one finds a predictably mixed response. 

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What is journalism like? 

Some of the stuff I read this morning is barely comprehensible. In most reports the stabbing incident in the Israeli Embassy in Jordan and the subsequent release of the Israeli security guard (from where? By whom?)  was so poorly explained that no-one could have properly understood who did what and why. The leftie press evidently sympathised with the perpetrator, almost absolving him of responsibility by calling him a teenager or 'teen'. 

The Guardian has this: 

“The announcement came shortly after the evacuation of all Israeli diplomats from the embassy in the Jordanian capital, Amman, following an incident in which an Israeli security guard shot two Jordanians including a teenager who had allegedly stabbed him with a screwdriver.”

Leftie newspaper Haaretz (Israel’s very own Guardian) has this:

“The Israeli government was faced with an additional crisis on Sunday when an Israeli Embassy guard in Jordan was barred from leaving the country after shooting dead a Jordanian teen who tried to stab him

However, in my opinion the most cogent report was in the Washington Post. It was the only one that made sense throughout.  With far more clarity, their account of the incident calls the perpetrator a Jordanian workman, which is surely more objective and less emotive:

“On Sunday, a Jordanian workman of Palestinian descent used a screwdriver to stab and wound an Israeli security guard at the Israeli Embassy compound in Amman. The guard shot and killed the assailant and killed another Jordanian, reportedly an innocent bystander.”

This video from JPost was on Facebook

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The way the “al-Aqsa incident” is being explained varies greatly. The BBC’s version is so dumbed down I won’t even bother to address it. I’ll leave it to primary schools, who might like to use it for year 6 comprehension. (Do schools still do ‘comprehension'?)

Several reports amplify the so-called ‘threat to al-Aqsa’,  so-called because the Muslims believe the Jews are about to destroy their holy site and replace it with something Jewey.

There’s no smoke without fire as the saying goes, and there are indeed some religious Jews  campaigning for the right to pray there. Why this is seen as the end of the world is inexplicable to most rational people, but rationality doesn’t come into it. The status quo, whereby Jews can visit but must not pray, is being upheld by the present Israeli government and will be for the foreseeable future.

 The threat to al-Aqsa is imaginary and a whopping great pretext for rage.

The incident that provoked the metal detector fiasco was also reported in ways that suited the appropriate agenda.

The Washington Post sets it out briefly and simply thus:

“Netanyahu and his supporters said the metal scanners were needed after three Arab Israeli gunmen smuggled homemade machine guns into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound on July 14, then shot and killed two Israeli policemen at the site, which both Muslims and Jews regard as holy.”

If you’ve been following the story you’ll also be aware that the two murdered policeman were not ‘Juze' but Druze, and they were actually on guard duty to protect the worshippers at al-Aqsa. You couldn’t make it up, as they say on the interweb.

The diplomacy behind the decision to remove the metal detectors is set out by the media in various ways too, but again the Washington Post article is the easiest to understand. 

Commenters regard Israel’s decision as capitulation and a sign of weakness or pragmatic and wise, depending on their political stance. One thing comes up a lot, which is the fact that metal detectors are currently part of everyday life all over the world. In these dangerous times the necessity for security measures that inconvenience us all are in no small part due to the ubiquity of Islamic terrorism. (could you make that up?)

In its latest bulletins the BBC has reversed the naming of Jerusalem’s infamous flashpoint. In a later report it’s now being called “Temple Mount, known to Muslims as  al-Haram ash-Sharif.” 

(The news is currently moving down the charts.)

Obviously, when the metal detectors are disposed of the Israelis intend to install more subtle, even more dastardly security apparatus, which will do nothing at all to alleviate the Palestinians’ primary grievance, the Judaisation of the al-Aqsa Mosque compound. 

There will be trouble ahead.

Lie on Sky

Yesterday, Sky News was sending periodic reports from Jerusalem. They interviewed a female journalist from JPost to discuss the recent escalating violence and the outbreak of stabbings and shootings in the Old City.

My understanding of the bizarre status quo with regard to Temple Mount / al-Aqsa is that Jews are allowed to visit the compound but are prohibited from praying there. (They do not wish to go into the mosque)  

Rabbi Yehuda Glick is part of a movement that campaigns for the ‘no-pray’ restriction to be lifted; last year he was shot and seriously injured.  The Israeli government stated categorically that there are no plans to alter the status quo. Nevertheless the Palestinians claim there’s a plot afoot - to let Jews pray there, and to DESTROY AL AQSA. 

Meanwhile, female Muslims are employed by the PA to harass Jews and tourists by screaming, ululating and and shouting the usual Islamic chant. Palestinian youths gather rocks and other ammunition and pelt Israeli soldiers from inside the mosque, their ‘third holiest site’. Violence has spread to the surrounding area.  Israelis have been stabbed by Palestinians; the stabbers subsequently shot by the IDF.

All the while Mahmoud Abbas has been ramping up the rhetoric, perhaps encouraged by the raising of the Palestinian flag at the UN and the apparent reduction of support for Israel by the US. He has been openly calling for violence against Israelis in that flowery, blood-flecked language they use.

Palestinian youths took Molotov cocktails and rocks into al-Aqsa to pelt religious Jews who they knew would be visiting for a religious holiday. The IDF rarely venture into the Mosque, but are occasionally forced to do so to dampen down extreme violence.

This was roughly what the Jpost journalist explained to the Sky anchor Samantha Simmonds.

When she had gone, along came Ghada Karmi, who is beginning to look madder than a hatter. She was incandescent with rage, and got away with an execrable, preposterous and fanciful diatribe, which she repeatedly insisted was ‘fact’. I think she must have been chatting to Ali Abu-nimah of E.I. who also gets reality and fantasy mixed up.

Kharmi, quivering with fury, said that the violence was caused by armed fanatical religious Jews forcing their way into the al-Aqsa mosque and demanding the right to pray inside. She kept stating that this was fact. She insisted that a mob of religious Jews had stormed, not the compound, the actual Islamic mosque, armed with fireworks and rocks. 

(Why would Jews even want to pray in a mosque?) Oh yes, they’re going to destroy it and supplant it with filthy Jewish stuff. Fact.

What a travesty. The only armed fanatics inside the Islamic ‘holy’ mosque were Palestinian hooligans, whipped up by Mahmoud Abbas’s incitement, after being bolstered by the symbolic flag-raising malarkey at the UN. 

  

Saddest of all was that Samantha Simmonds let it all go unchallenged. 

“Filthy Jews Feet” and other fears

Yesterday I mentioned Lyse Doucet’s approach to her work as the BBC’s chief foreign correspondent. When working abroad she aspires to get to know the people who live in that country, so that she can properly present their views; for interest’s sake she tries to find something new or unexpected to focus on.

There’s nothing wrong with this noble and admirable aspiration, if only it were more evenly spread.  The BBC’s obsessional focus on Gaza and the Palestinian cause has been queried by many people. Those whose political sympathies lie wholly with the Palestinians will argue that this is fully justified, but even they must see that in accordance with the BBC’s charter some sort of  attention should be paid to the opposite point of view.

I know many people believe it is wrong for broadcasters to give a platform to outrageous ideas and evil regimes. For example, no-one seemed to think that ‘showing the humanity of the Taliban‘ was appropriate. 

If Israel’s worldview is thought to be on a par with that of ISIL or North Korea, then I guess it’s okay to leave the British people with a vague impression that Israelis are mysterious warmongering zealots who ‘claim‘ this, that and the other, and whose spokespersons occasionally ‘say’ something dubious, though we should be sure to assume it is a lie.

However, since that is not the official position of this country, and I daresay it’s not the position of quite a few members of the British public, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask why the BBC sees fit to allow, say, Yolande Knell to represent the Palestinian point of view in detail and with considerable sympathy, without ensuring that someone of equal emotional attachment to Israel should be placed in situ, purposely to put Israel’s perspective before the British public.

One recent example illustrates where reporting falls short in this regard. It’s the trouble at Al Aqsa Mosque.  This topic has a long and complicated history, but few people will bother to look it up. eg., Elder of Ziyon has 200 posts tagged Temple Mount, The Jewish Virtual Library, here 

and another  detailed history can also be found here. 

We’re rarely reminded that the West Bank (previously part of the Ottoman Empire) had been under the British mandate since the end of the first world war. When the Arabs attacked Israel in 1948 just after its Declaration of Independence, Jordan illegally occupied the West Bank. 

(Excerpt: Eli E Hertz.)

“From 1948 until the Six-Day War in 1967, the part of Jerusalem controlled by the Jordanians, again became an isolated and underdeveloped provincial town, with its religious sites the target of religious intolerance.The Old City was rendered void of Jews. Jewish sites such as the Mount of Olives were desecrated. Jordan destroyed more than 50 synagogues, and erased all evidence of a Jewish presence. In addition, all Jews were forced out of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City adjacent to the Western Wall, an area where Jews had lived for generations.For 19 years [1948-1967], Jews and Christians residing in Israel (and even Israeli Muslims) were barred from their holy places, despite Jordan’s pledge to allow free access. [...] It was only after the Six-Day War that the Jewish Quarter was rebuilt and free access to holy places was reestablished. “

Readers of Yolande Knell’s reporting will find that the recent ‘clashes’ have been pitched to appear as though religious Israelis have made some kind of bid for supremacy over one of Islam’s holiest places, and to that end, have intruded into the Al Aqsa mosque, aided and abetted by the Israeli police force.

“......... the clashes that have taken place over the Jewish New Year’s holiday at the holy site you can see behind me: the Al Aqsa Mosque compound. Known to Muslims as Haram al Sharif – the Noble Sanctuary – this is the third holiest site in Islam and it’s believed that at that golden dome over there – the Dome of the Rock – that’s where the Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven. 

“..... in the Al Aqsa Mosque[...] where these clashes happened over the last three days. There were young Palestinian demonstrators who barricaded themselves inside the mosque. They were very worried about Israeli police bringing non-Muslim Jewish visitors – hundreds of them – to this site because of course for Jews this is Temple Mount and for Jews this is the holiest site in Judaism. Many people wanted to visit over the holidays.”

As Hadar of BBC Watch points out, Ms Knell says that Palestinians were very worried. (about Israeli police bringing non-Muslim Jewish visitors – hundreds of them – to this site) 

By putting it like that, she’s giving credence to a completely unfounded fantasy. The Palestinians can ‘fear’ anything they like, from Mossad sending spies in the form of birds and fish, to Jews plotting to take over the world, but that shouldn’t confer upon Yolande Knell the right to disseminate conspiracy theories without explaining that that is precisely all they are. 

If a reporter was dispatched to Jerusalem to get to know the Israelis and put their point of view in the way Lyse Doucet champions, we might hear, for instance, that those Muslim women who ululate and shout Allahu Akbar in the faces of non-Muslim visitors to the Temple Mount / Al-Aqsa site, are salaried. They are hired specifically to harass Jews who dare to venture into the compound. It’s a form of employment; job creation if you like.

If a reporter was sent to the region (to get to know the Israelis and present their point of view) we might also be told something like: 

“in reality, the Israeli authorities are pursuing Palestinian rioters who took refuge in the mosque, and terrorists who were plotting to conduct attacks against Jewish worshippers.”

(From a piece in Algemeiner, headed ”Abbas: “Filthy Jews’ Feet Not Allowed on Temple Mount”) The piece describes a series of bizarre Tweets from “The International Union of Muslim Scholars” who are asking Palestinians to rise up against Israel and “rescue al-Aqsa” and “ divulge the plans of the Zionists”.

Perhaps the BBC should also have a go at divulging the plans of the Islamic Ummah, for the sake of balance and impartiality, in accordance with their charter.

“The hashtag #RescueAlAqsa is also included in a subsequent tweet featuring a picture of flames engulfing the al-Aqsa mosque, with a sniper’s target fixated on the dome of the mosque. 

“Al-Aqsa is burning Oh Umma of a billion and a half Muslims!!!,” reads the slogan on the provocative tweet. 

Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas glorified Palestinians fighting Israelis in Jerusalem and called for Palestinians to prevent Jews from entering Al-Aqsa with “everything in our power,” Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reports. 

“The Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is ours… and they have no right to defile it with their filthy feet. We will not allow them to, and we will do everything in our power to protect Jerusalem… We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every martyr (Shahid) will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah,” Abbas said in a speech, segments of which were aired on official PA TV and posted on his website.”

Don’t you think the British public might be interested in reading about these bonkers-sounding quotations from the people with whom we’re always encouraged to empathise, and who, we’re told, are ‘just like us?’

If the BBC sent one of its trained foreign correspondents to Israel, to absorb the weird and wonderful ways of the alien beings that we’re constantly made to perceive as monsters, hell-bent on committing genocide on the Palestinian people, and if that BBC correspondent happened to find something unexpected or new, especially if they unexpectedly and newly found that Israelis are quite as ‘just like us’ as their soul-mates in Gaza and the West Bank, (or even more so) - then what would be so wrong with that? Some equilibrium might be achieved, even if some people won’t like it and don’t want to hear it.

Burning issue

The BBC normally leaps into action at the slightest scuffle around the Temple Mount, so it seems odd that no-one is on hand to report this. H/T Daphne Anson

"Burn it burn it! ..... in the cause of God. 

Allah the greatest. 

Prophet Muhammad is our leader forever."

Does this mean that unless a Palestinian is hurt and the IDF or Israeli Jews are involved there’s no story? 

Not even if the black flag is flying.... on a holy site.....and the cry is Allahu Ackbar? 

Intolerable Bias

The BBC’s conduct over the recent outbreak of violence in Israel has been worse than ever. Today a parade of commentators, one after another, have reacted to the synagogue murders 

with a begrudging half-hearted condemnation swiftly followed by the kind of justification that they know the public will swallow, namely that violence is understandable because of Netanyahu, ‘the occupation’ and the settlements. 

We even  had to watch Ben Brown interviewing an individual named Ismail Patel from Leeds ‘Friends of Al Aqsa’ who couldn’t even bring himself to condemn the murders, and Rachel Shabi of the Guardian who attributed all the violence to provocation  by belligerent, far-right Jewish activists who demand the right to pray at ‘Al Aqsa’  and of course the occupation.

Sabri Saidam from Fatah condemned Israel on Al Jazeera and on the BBC, Mustafa Barghouti  was able to make outrageous accusations including blaming Israel for the murder of a Palestinian who was thought to have committed suicide. 

Ever since Rabbi Glick was shot because he had been campaigning for Jews to be allowed to pray at their holiest site, the BBC’s reporting has been wracked with omissions and bias.

The BBC and the British press are not the only ones who use the term ‘right-wing’ pejoratively, and they’re not the only ones who applied it to Rabbi Glick. 

What’s the definition, though? Some use it as shorthand for ‘intolerant racist’.

  

Anyone with the slightest interest in the topic could easily find videos of Rabbi Glick praying, in Arabic, alongside a group of Muslims. 

They appeared to be positively pally with each other. Yes, that was a pun. So he wasn’t a Muslim-hating racist but a friendly, rather gentle, respectful individual who’s ‘right-wingery’ was merely in his religiosity and his desire to pray at the Jews’ holiest site.

Why, one might wonder, should Jews not be allowed to do that? I understand that it was part of a deal by a former Israeli government who handed control of Al Aqsa  back to the PA. It was an   an act of ‘reaching out’, a gesture, which in hindsight looks futile to say the least.

Astonishingly, though the BBC’s initial reporting would describe the Al Aqsa / Temple Mopunt compound as the third holiest in Islam and the holiest in Judaism, no-one batted an eyelid at the obvious imbalance of the situation.   

BBC News has: 

“Mr Abbas's office issued a statement saying: "The presidency condemns the attack on Jewish worshippers in their place of prayer and condemns the killing of civilians no matter who is doing it."

So why didn’t the BBC report the incitement that all the other non-anti-Israel media is full of? Mahmoud Abbas’s blatant incitement, calling for days of rage, asking Palestinians to defend Al Aqsa by whatever means; the handing out of sweets, praising and glorifying Palestinian terrorists who succeeded in murdering Jews and martyred themselves in the process.

At the moment The BBC is appallingly biased. It really is intolerable.