The Simon Wiesenthal Center, antisemitism in 2021 and the BBC

It's truly quite something when the world's most famous Nazi war criminal-hunting organisation, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, puts the BBC third this year on its annual ‘Global Antisemitism Top Ten’ list. 

Only Iran and Hamas beat the UK licence fee-funded broadcaster. 

The Mail on Sunday has the story. 

To its founder Marvin Hier's concerns about antisemitism and inaccuracy in BBC reporting including about Israel, a BBC spokesman is quoted replying in the usual BBC fashion: ‘‘Antisemitism is abhorrent. The BBC strives to serve the Jewish community, and all communities across our country, fairly with accurate and impartial reporting.’’

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Rabbi Hier may have been too early to for the latest issue - a tweet from the BBC's Middle East reporter Tom Bateman on 23 December:

Israeli soldiers have shot dead a 26-year-old Palestinian man - Muhammad Issa Abbas, killed last night near al-Amari refugee camp. IDF says they fired on a gunman who’d shot at them from a car. Palestinian health ministry says he was shot in the back and died in hospital.

The way this was put provoked a strong reaction from many British Jewish commentators because of the tweet's ordering of events - putting the killing of a Palestinian man by Israeli soldiers outside a refugee camp first, and because the 26-year-old Palestinian man was quite literally a Hamas terrorist. There are even photos of him posing with his many guns. And the later 'one side says, the other side says' equivalence doesn't appear to be borne out by the facts which favour the Israeli version. 

Tom Bateman didn't respond to any concerns.

The Great Escape

The Palestinian jailbreak that rocked Israel 

The BBC and much of the UK media routinely approach Middle East news and views from the Palestinian perspective. Historically ill-informed and ideologically hostile-to-Israel staff are dispatched to the battlefield, where they cover selected stories and ignore others. This has been the case ever since I can remember and despite Tim Davies’s promises, the BBC is actually getting worse.

In this film Tom Bateman shows where his sympathies lie. Openly respectful towards the ‘resistance’, he shapes the narrative in a way that dehumanises the Israelis and distances them from the viewer. He pays the obligatory lip-service to “the other side of the story”, but Bateman’s script reeks of awe and admiration for the audacious Palestinian prison break.

“This is the story of an extraordinary jailbreak” Gushes the first caption, and the strap-line in the description exclaims: “But this is about more than just a dramatic jailbreak.” 

So what he's saying is (to coin a phrase) 'this is not just an ordinary jailbreak - this is a BBC portrait of a dramatic jailbreak'. Our own version of The Great Escape. Epic!

Much give-away signalling is in there; in my former OTT tl;dr mode I would have gone into minute detail, citing each of the BBC’s go-to, stereotypically emotive subliminals such as  featuring their pet Palestinian old crones and those photogenic, cheeky and bravely defiant young Palestinian lads Jon Donnison used to be so fond of. But life’s too short to skin a biased BBC film, and who cares, anyway? (I do, though) 

I drafted this a few days ago, and funnily enough, Camera has deconstructed the film for me. 

"Clearly Tom Bateman’s revisiting of this three-month-old story does not provide audiences with any information not already available. Rather, Bateman’s project was primarily aimed at advancing narratives and omissions that have dominated but compromised BBC coverage for years, while attempting to ‘contextualise’ Palestinian terrorism."

Not Another One

Bashir and Asma al-Assad at their betrothal

I think there’s a touch of elephant in my DNA. I should get a test. In the innocent eyes of a child, Babar the elephant and his family seem gentle and sort of poignant, but it turns out he was a massive racist and has had to be banned. Oh well, like the proverbial elephant I can’t let go of certain memories. Just can’t shake ‘em off. (Not that I’ve tried)

I recall Joan Juliet Buck, a senior editor of Vogue magazine at the time, publishing the now-infamous puff-piece about Syria’s first lady Asma al-Assad. The piece was titled A Rose in the Desert. Buck’s subsequent confession of regret and embarrassment didn’t make a big splash, but at least she came clean even if Vogue magazine did not. Of course, that was before hubby Bashir gassed half his subjects. Ms Buck had fallen for Mrs al-Assad and family hook line and sinker, in much the same way as Charlotte Edwardes-with-an-e appears to have done, as evidenced by her obvious admiration for, nay, crush on social media stars and anti-Israel activists ‘the twins of Jerusalem’.

If you thought the illustration I used in my previous post looked familiar, you’ll have recognised it as an oblique reference to an interview in Saturday’s Times magazine, which has been thoroughly deconstructed by others. 

What is it with these fashion mag people? It may be bitchy to say so -perhaps racist - but I see them as a ‘type’ - middle-class, blonde, London-centric, and with a sense of entitlement that allows them to brandish their superficial and totally unsubstantiated polemics with the confidence only fools possess. And they get them published.  I’m disgusted with the Times for promoting this ill-intentioned article, but such things are getting a bit too frequent to be mere aberrations. 

Charlotte Edwardes’s article immediately flagged up the memory of “Rose of the Desert”, which, much as Vogue magazine and its ilk might not like it, we elephants never forget. One day in the future The Times and Charlotte Edwardes might regret the way they’ve decontextualised and glorified such fanatical haters, but the way things are going I ain’t holding my breath.

So here’s where I can safely say, in the words of the great Brenda from Bristol - Not another one!

I used to follow the writings of Hugh Fitzgerald, way back in 2009, when I wanted to educate myself about political Islam. Then I lost track a bit, but he’s popped into my consciousness again because he’s directly addressing the BBC. Here’s his take on Tala Hawala, and this piece: The BBC’s notoriously anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian Middle East coverage is worth a few minutes of your time; here’s an excerpt:

I had occasion some time ago to write about Bowen’s reckless disregard of important facts. As one example of this, I noted that he has been cavalier about the numbers of terrorist attacks that Israelis have had to endure. In an interview Bowen gave to Paul Blanchard, he claimed that “plenty of Palestinians feel very threatened by settlers, armed settlers, by soldiers, by raids in the middle of the night, by helicopters, you name it. And many Israelis have been hurt by and continue to be worried about attacks by Palestinians, though there haven’t been all that many in recent years.”

[…]

“John Simpson once proclaimed at his website that he was “doing my best to make sense of a crazy world.” On the subject of Islam, he has been among its stoutest apologists. When he interviewed Pim Fortuyn, he infuriated that supremely intelligent man with his absurd charges about Fortuyn’s “racism,” and his obstinate refusal to accept Fortuyn’s statement of the obvious, that Islam is not a race; the courtly Fortuyn ordered Simpson and his BBC crew to leave his home after accusing the newsman of “failing to show him any respect.” You can read Simpson’s report on the man he called “Holland’s anti-Islam dandy.” Notice the sneer in his description of Fortuyn’s “high-camp charm” and how the Dutchman “sat in his garden bower like an 18th century dandy whose wig had fallen off.” 

Currently linked to in our sidebar, David Collier has unearthed yet another BBC-related anti-Israel activist and exposed the BBC’s Tom Bateman as a bit of a fanboy, if that’s the right expression. 

This is mere 'tip of the iceberg' stuff. But still, paint me Brenda from Bristol. The BBC really seems to be full of staff members that are hostile to Israel and happy to remain ignorant of and/or turn a blind eye to the implications of political Islam. 

The tip of the iceberg, but still worth reminding you. (Isn't it?)

Peace again

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". 

A contrasting take comes from Andrew Neil on Twitter:

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.’”

The Annexation Trigger

After being treated to decades of spiteful, passive-aggressive anti-Israel spin from Middle East editor Bowen and his subordinates, anyone with a smattering of political and historical knowledge of ‘Middle East affairs’ could rattle off a pretty good case against the BBC.

Last night Yolande Knell treated us to a mawkish, innuendo-laden report on the BBC World Service impliedly blaming Israel for interruptions to Palestinian children’s cancer treatments during the coronavirus crisis - although most obstacles seemed to stem from the P.A.’s latest strategy of refusing to ‘cooperate’ with Israel in answer to the proposed annexation of parts of the West Bank. I wasn’t certain what message she was trying to send to be honest, but I predict a whole lot more mileage will be extracted from that situation ‘going forward’.  

Although criticism of Israel-related reporting is but one factor in a bias-related bigger picture, many bias-watchers regard the BBC’s left-wing/anti-Conservative bias as their chief bugbear and therefore their main target, but in a way, the BBC’s anti-Zionist bias is the ‘low-hanging fruit’ of bias. 

Regrettably, the BBC’s Palestinian-advocacy reporting style has a wide reach. Compare the BBC’s uncritical regurgitation of the Palestinian narrative with the overtly hostile, ‘arms-length’ or even non-existent representation of the Israeli perspective that is routinely dished up by the BBC’s Middle East correspondents. Bog-standard, superficial and shallow reporting, served with ‘half-a-story’ contemporary and historical analysis.

Given that both Britain and Israel are democracies, this attitudinal imbalance is hard to explain. If ‘Palestinianism’ is rooted in (Islamic) religion-based antisemitism, surely a largely secular - or at least a not very religiously observant country like post 60s Britain would see Israel as a natural ally, while instinctively filing overtly racist,’Yahud-hating Palestinians’ as ’other’.  

As non-racist Brits, shouldn’t we at least find the Palestinians’ intractable refusal to accept Israel’s existence a little problematic? Since the opposite seems to be the case, the obvious conclusion must be that this demonisation of the Jewish state stems from the ‘oldest hatred’.

However, the word ‘Annexation’ has triggered a new wave of anti-Israel angst. 

Mark Regev has been Israel’s UK Ambassador for over four years. Here’s a link to his ‘goodbye interview’ It seems like only yesterday that he was merely Israel’s ‘spokesperson’ and his very appearances on the BBC would send the haters into paroxysms of fury.

Palestinians: Is It Really about 'Annexation'? Khaled Abu Toameh offers another perspective on Trump’s plan for peace. He says that the Palestinians’ opposition to annexation encompasses twin objections; the religious one and the political one. According to Islamic clerics and scholars, Israel has no right to exist anywhere in the region, so with that in mind, any legality (or otherwise) appertaining to ‘annexation’ is but a trivial detail, therefore irrelevant to the ultimate objective - eliminating Israel altogether. 

Mahmoud Abbas, whom the BBC persists in regarding as a ‘potential partner for peace’ claims that annexation would destroy any chance of a ‘two-state’ solution, ending all hopes of peace with Israel. According to officials, the plan would irreversibly deprive the Palestinians of their right to establish an independent and sovereign state on the (unsustainable) pre-1967 armistice lines. 

The BBC, being determined to see such disingenuous role-play as ‘the voice of reason’ takes Abbas’s words at face value. But the P.A. is actually with the clerics. Neither strand really wants ‘a state’, or is capable of forming one. Their idea of peace is simply ‘no Israel’. 

True to form, the BBC’s Tom Bateman puts the customary BBC spin on the matter. I don’t know if that was Bateman’s own headline, but whoever penned it is clearly hostile to Israel and sympathises with the Palestinians. Israel annexation: New border plans leave Palestinians in despair

Getting to grips with the complexity of Netanyahu / Trump proposals or analysing the long-term potential is of little interest to Tom Bateman whose job is to promote the BBC’s agenda, which disregards the welfare of the Palestinians. Stuck with their appalling leadership, encouraged to kill Jews by Abbas’s outrageous ‘pay for slay’ policy, and ensuring that the existing stalemate is prolonged indefinitely.

At the present time, while old allegiances in the region are shifting, the BBC’s current anti-Israel animus has been triggered bigly by the word “annexation’. An emotive concept indeed, but what does it mean? That terrible word alone evokes expansionism; land-grab; occupation. But this isn’t the idea at all. 

I don’t claim to be an expert on the legality or otherwise of Trump’s plan for peace, but one thing I have gathered from my research so far is that the idea of ‘annexing’ parts of the West Bank appears considerably less ominous than Israel’s detractors would have us believe.

Here is another piece explaining Trump’s “Deal of the Century”   Israel has the right to annex parts of Judea and Samaria   by Eli Vered Hazan:

“So before explaining what annexation is and why it is imperative, it is important to emphasize a few things: France and the United Kingdom are vocal opponents of the agreement. The United Kingdom, which controls 17 territories, spread over thousands of miles across the globe, is criticising a territorial process in which there is a deep connection between a country and its citizens. France maintains control over 13 colonies thousands of miles away and even uses some of them for nuclear experiments, yet opposes our connection to our historical homeland. Not only that, Turkey illegally invaded and took over Northern Cyprus but threatens Israel over the mere potential of Israeli sovereignty. All of them claim that for Israel “it is not the same”. In fact, they are right – it is not the same.

and from Melanie Phillips

“Under international law, annexation has a precise meaning: the forcible incorporation by one state of the territory of another state. This does not apply to the disputed territories, which never belonged in law to any other state. 

Israel has the only legally grounded claim to this land, including the never-abrogated duty given to the British in the 1920s to settle the Jews throughout what is now Israel, the disputed territories and the Gaza Strip. 

Far from being an illegal annexation, extending Israeli law to these areas actually implements international law after some nine decades during which it was flouted and then ignored by Britain and the world community. It is those who oppose the sovereignty proposal who show contempt for the law.”

If it’s too easy to tar her with the “She would say that” brush, legal expert Eugene Kontorovich, lays out the situation fully in this article: Don’t Buy the ‘Annexation’ Hype (WSJ is behind a paywall, but I will post it in full over the fold.)

I didn’t want to display my ignorance by spouting nonsense about something I know very little about, so I did try to digest as much of the document as I could, and I dutifully watched the interesting (to me) video below. In the end, it seems that the specifics of the annexation plan is still a work in progress.  Also, at the end of the day, the legality is never the main and ultimate clincher when it comes to Middle East policy. Emotion is the real game-changer; hearts and minds and so on.

Even if the annexation ploy turns out to be just one strategic move in a long-term game, and the objective is a genuine, just and lasting peace, the BBC is never going to give us a fully-rounded picture because it is ideologically and ‘institutionally’ opposed to it and not entirely convinced of Israel's right to exist.

Legal situation fully explained overleaf.

Tom Bateman not keen on "right-wing nationalism"

Presumably attracted by this story, “Vandalism in Jish”  Tom Bateman channels the message that “Israel is a racist endeavour” on the Today Programme.

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a rare denunciation of the attack, saying he “strongly condemns the graffiti and property damage in the village of Jish. We will find the lawbreakers and bring them to justice. We will not accept any attacks on our citizens.”

I'm going to wait for BBCWatch to clarify some of the ambiguous material in this report, ( I’m sure they will) so I ought to leave this (mainly) as a transcription. (Some of the names are phonetic approximations)  

Mishal Husain.

“18 mins past seven. Israel will have its third election in a year on Monday. Testament to the deadlock in the political system with Benjamin Netanyahu unable so far to get the majority he needs for his tight wing bock. But going into this election, the Arab-Israeli parties are claiming to be making significant ground. Our Middle East correspondent Tom Bateman reports.

(Arabic chanting)

Tom Bateman:

“In the winding streets of the village of Jish …..is this your friend?”

Laughter

“Everyone is your friend!…..  “The mayor gets stopped; men lean from windows above. ‘Hey, Mister President’ shouts one passer-by. These hills of Northern Israel are suns-drenched even in the winter but the Arab-Israeli residents here recently came under attack.

(shouting)


“Abu Ali shouts down from a window ‘three of the group came down from the street, I called the police. (Background noise) “In Jish Jewish extremists slashed hundreds of tyres and warned Arabs against assimilation. The police are investigating but have made no arrests. The Mayor, Elias Elias gives me a sigh. He has lived here all his life”

“Fifty Eight” 

“Fifty Eight. So you were born ten years after the state of Israel was created?

‘Ahah’

‘You’ve seen the history. You grew up with the history - what’s it like being an Arab-Israeli?’

(He answers in Arabic) Bateman translates: 

“We live here for better or worse, he says. We don’t have the same rights as the others. But we try to preserve our community, our heritage, our existence. And we will stay here.”

(Guitar strums)

I meet Eyob Farrah(?) on the beach in Haifa, a mixed city of Arab and Jewish Israelis. He sings satire about fellow Palestinian citizens of Israel as he prefers to be called, who will vote. He says they will only end propping up a rival government to Mr Netanyahu, that won’t help them either.

(Singing) 

“They pass so many racist laws like
 all the things already done before
They pass the laws ….(unintelligible
The drinking ……(unintelligible

Bateman: 

“Deep anger among many Arab Israelis. There were new laws asserting Jewish sovereignty by Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing nationalist government, and recently the Trump plan, offering to swap hundreds of thousands of people in Arab-Israeli towns into a Palestinian state in return for Israel getting the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.”

(Music) Bateman:

“In one of Haifa’s cafe gardens, as she and her friends sip lemon and mint, Yara (?) chatted to me. Like her, most Arab-Israelis look set to vote on Monday, maybe even a boost to the 60% that turned out in September’s election. 

Girl

“I represent the Arabs that want a future in this country. I want to see that we belong. I don’t think that the Arabic Party is going to be able to achieve a lot of rights for us, more than we have already, but I do believe that we all have got to go and vote to try and stop the deterioration of our situation here.”

New voice.

"My name is May Beyti(?) and I live in Nazareth and I work with her and I’m Palestinian, from the West Bank,..

“You’re not able to vote?”

"No. I don’t have the vote. As a Palestinian who’s married to an Israeli citizen with two daughters who are Israeli I don’t have the right to drive, I don’t have the right to work easily, I don’t have the right to have a bank account, to travel with my daughters and my husband through the same borders. We travel differently, so all I care about is to have a normal life here”

I don’t know the laws and rights concerning Palestinians married to Israeli citizens who reside in Nazareth, but it sounds as if the lady who ‘hasn’t got a vote’ in Israeli elections isn’t an Israeli citizen.

(Maybe she is entitled to vote for Mahmoud Abbas, should the Palestinian Authority decide to hold elections.)  Nor do I know why she can’t drive, travel freely or have a bank account - could this be something to do with the PA?  Maybe Tom Bateman could fill us in. (He wouldn’t want to give the impression that the Israeli government practises ‘apartheid’, surely?)

Bateman: 

“The ice-cream sellers outnumber the political canvassers overlooking the Mediterranean coast here. After all, this is the third election in a year. Its ingredients have been similar to the last two. Mr Netanyahu warns that his main rival Benny Gantz will have to rely on the support of the Arab parties to win. A security risk to the Jewish state he suggests, while the joint list of Arab parties is aiming for an increase up to sixteen MPs in the 120 seat parliament but the sentiment for many of their supporters is likely to remain. It doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government always wins.

Somehow I get the impression that Tom Bateman isn’t too keen on right-wing nationalism. Or on Israel, really. What d’you think?

Absence makes the heart grow hostile

“From Our Own Correspondent is a weekly BBC radio programme in which a number of BBC foreign correspondents deliver a sequence of short talks reflecting on current events and topical themes in the countries outside the UK in which they are based.[1] The programme offers the BBC's correspondents around the world a chance to give a personal account of events from the epoch-making to the inconsequential.” (Wikipedia.) 

"Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world. (FOOC website.)

"Agenda-driven propaganda laced with ill-informed, prejudiced and unoriginal platitudes.
(Is the BBC Biased?)

D’you think the BBC can claim that this series is protected by the FOI exclusion clause “for the purpose of journalism, art and stuff like that”? If so, we can never accuse it of bias because they’ll insist it’s just someone’s personal opinion. One man’s feelings are another man’s facts; something like that.

"President Trump’s plan for peace in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories would allow Israel to apply its sovereignty to all the Jewish settlements as well as swathes of strategic land in the West Bank. The Palestinian leadership has rejected the plan outright saying it would create a "Swiss cheese state". Our Middle East Correspondent Tom Bateman spent time on two sides of a fence that separates an Israeli settlement from a Palestinian family with its own checkpoint. (FOOC website)

 Kate Adie’s intro was roughly the same as the above blurb: A Family Fenced in.

Tom Bateman’s insight, wit and analysis were absent from his contribution to today’s FOOC.  We’ve seen it all before and here it is again. The BBC can’t get enough of Bateman’s personal account of Israel’s malevolence and the Palestinians’ 'love-heart-strewn’ daily suffering. It has already been featured on the BBC, and BBC Watch covered it earlier, supplying the historical information that would have put the whole thing into its proper perspective. The BBC’s deliberate failure to include in Bateman's story essential facts surrounding this unusual situation effectively amounts to gross misinformation.

Here’s the Youtube version.  As BBC Watch writes, the comments below this video illustrate the effect this kind of thing has on public opinion. No wonder antisemitism is on the up and up.

The BBC’s motive for repeatedly airing this kind of thing? You tell me.

A change?

It's not too long ago that any conflict between Israel and the terrorists of Gaza would have received heavy coverage on BBC One's main news bulletins, with BBC reporters rushing to the scene. Except for overnight, when BBC One broadcasts the rolling news channel, this past week's BBC One news bulletins have totally ignored the latest goings-on there. I don't know whether this is a good or a bad thing, but they used to have an obsession with the story - and that wasn't good. Maybe the war in Syria has finally put things into perspective for them?

Even the BBC News Channel hasn't devoted much time to reporting the latest violence, with nearly all the coverage being broadcast overnight. Here, for the record, is the BBC's daytime reporting of the story. It all occured on Tuesday:


12 November 2019 1:38pm
Newsreader: Fresh fighting has broken out between Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip, with dozens of rockets fired into Israel and air strikes being carried out against sites in Gaza. It follows Israel's killing of a commander of a Palestinian militant group. Tom Bateman is near the Israeli border with Gaza. This was a man that Israel said was responsible for hundreds of attacks on its territory?
Tom Bateman: Yes, he was the senior commander for Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the north of the Gaza Strip. He controlled hundreds of fighters, but had ncreasingly been seen as acting independently outside of the control of the dominant militant force in Gaza, that is Hamas. I'll just give you a sense of where we are. This is the Israeli town of Sderot, which is a couple of miles from the Gaza Strip. Behind me here is a warehouse. These firefighters have been trying to douse the flames for well over two hours now. It took a direct hit from a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip. As we showed up we heard three extremely loud blasts which appeared to be interception by Israel's anti-missile system shooting down another barrage of rockets. The trigger for all of that is the predawn air strike by Israel of Abu al-Ata this this morning in which they said that he needed, in their view, to be killed because he posed an imminent threat to Israel. The Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described him as "a ticking bomb", and the significance of that is this is something that Israel has not done in this way for a very long time, targeted killings of senior militant figures. We have not had that for around five years, this kind of level. As for militants in Gaza, well, they said this was "a red line ", that they would respond. We have seen now waves of air strikes by the Israelis on militant targets in the Gaza Strip and Palestinian media are saying that in addition to Abu al-Ata and his wife, who was killed, there have now been the deaths of another two Palestinian militants. 


12 November 2019 7:20 pm
Newsreaders: Fresh fighting has broken out between Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip. It follows Israel's killing of a senior commander of the Palestinian militant group, Islamic Jihad. Baha Abu al-Ata was killed along with his wife when a missile hit their home. At least 150 rockets have since been fired at Israel from Gaza in response, injuring more than a dozen people. More airstrikes are being carried out on sites in Gaza too. The Hamas-run health ministry says two Palestinians have been killed. Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is warning of prolonged tensions in Gaza while the Palestinian presidency has called for international pressure to stop Israel's attacks. Let's speak to our Middle East correspondent, Barbara Plett Usher, who's in Jerusalem for us. Barbara, if I can go back a bit, what can you tell us about this top Gaza leader that's been killed, and how this operation, how long it was in the planning? 
Barbara Plett Usher: He is the head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the commander of the northern Gaza region, and he has been in the Israeli news and in the Israeli Defence Force's discussion for quite some time as a person who is quite aggressive and operates independently and has been responsible for many of the recent rocket attacks in Israel, and they say he was planning more to come and that he would even challenge the main Islamist movement in Gaza, Hamas, which had taken a more moderate approach. So there was a rocket attack in September in which the Israeli Prime Minister had to run for cover and, since then, there has been discussion in the security cabinet about his fate, and we understand that ten days ago they decided to kill him and they had been waiting for the moment, they said, when they could do it in a surgical way with as few casualties as possible, and so they said today that was the day. 
Newsreaders: And more rockets today from Gaza, Barbara, but it's interesting that the Israelis are putting the focus very much on Islamic Jihad and not on Hamas. Seemingly..,It looks as if they are trying to give them an off ramp here. 
Barbara Plett Usher: It is interesting, because the past three Gaza wars have been between Israel and Hamas, which is the governing body in Gaza and the main Islamist movemen. But the Israelis have been sending quite clear messaging that their confrontation is with Islamic jihad. They have been attacking Palestinian Islamic Jihad sites not Hamas targets, which they've done in the past. They've also said that they are not planning to resume their policy of assassinating militant leaders. They haven't done this for five years. It's the first time they've carried out a so-called targeted killing in five years, and I think the message behind that is they are saying to the Hamas leaders, we are not coming after you, this is about this particular leader of Islamic Jihad. Now, Hamas has so far joined together with Islamic Jihad in a statement saying that Israel has crossed all red lines and it's going to be responsible for the consequences, but it's not clear what action it' going to take. 
Newsreaders: Barbara we're going to have to leave it there. And some context: This comes as Israel is in deadlock after a second election this year didn't produce a government. That escalation of violence there likely to have a knock-on effect. 


12 November 2019 9.15 pm
Ros Atkins: There's been intense fighting in the Gaza Strip after Israel carried out a missile strike against his man. He's called - or was called - Baha Abu al-Ata, a senior commander of the Palestinian militant group, Islamic Jihad. And we have these pictures which show the aftermath of that missile strike. It destroyed a whole floor of his home. Authorities in Gaza say five people died - and two other missiles strikes elsewhere in Gaza killed three people. Well, in return militants based in Gaza fired around 150 rockets into Israel. This is footage of one of them striking a motorway, and you can see how close it came to hitting some motorists as they drove along near to the city of Ashdod. So far, more than 20 people in Israel have been injuredl Well, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, says Israel is not interested in an escalation, but he has said. "We will do everything required to protect ourselves..." And he's added, "This could take time". Well, let's here from the BBC's Barbara Plett Usher is in Jerusalem. 
Barbara Plett Usher: This is a serious escalation because this is the first time the Israelis have carried out a so targeted killing against a militant leader in Gaza in five years, and in the past that has lead to wider conflict. But the Israelis have very much been stressing that this is about this man, it's about these circumstances, they say that he is responsible for most of the rocket attacks in recent months from Gaza into Israel and that he was planning more attacks, and so they had to act. They say they are not looking for further escalation but they are prepared for it should it happen. Now whether this goes on for just a few more days or whether it continues for much longer than that depends on the number of casualties. So for around 20 or so Israelis have been slightly injured, and that includes people who suffered from shock or who hurt themselves as they are running for shelter. Seven Palestinians have been reported dead. It also depends on the position of Hamas, the main Islamist movement that governs Gaza. And it has a different strategy than Islamic Jihad. It has been involved in tacit truce arrangements with Israel, trying to alleviate the economic and humanitarian suffering in Gaza. And Islamic Jihad has been challenging that with these rocket attacks. Now, the Israelis have been signalling pretty strongly that they want Hamas to stay out of this fight, that this is about a confrontation with Islamic Jihad only. They've been targeting Islamic Jihad sites, not Hamas targets. And they've also said they don't plan to resume their policy of assassinating militant leaders. In other words Hamas leaders don't need to worry about whether they might get hit. So far the group has joined together with Islamic Jihad and put out a statement saying Israel has crossed all the red lines and that it will suffer the consequences, but it's not clear what sort of action it plans to take. 

Election night in Israel

5:00 am: Before going to bed last night I had a little glance at the BBC News website's report on the outcome of the Israeli election:

I smiled at how the piece went for just one exit poll to give the numbers, whereas the other exit polls (whose numbers were not quoted) looked better for Likud. 

As of 4:00 am (UK time), the Spectator was tweeting:

One hour later the BBC News website was still sticking with...

...and with that same exit poll projection.

Who's right?

Anyhow, while we're waiting for the final results, here's a BBC expert with his hot take:

******

5.10 am: Breaking BBC news (at 5 am)...

The first comment posted in response says:

This couldn’t be a less accurate headline nor could it display how little the BBC understand Israeli politics and the electoral system. The ‘winner’ is the leader of the party that will command a majority in the Knesset (parliament), and that’s Netanyahu by quite a margin.

Who's right?

6:05 am: Sky leaped some 45 minutes ago:

The BBC, as of an update one minute ago, is sticking with:

6:35 am: Well, this popped up three minutes. So, yes, the BBC got there eventually!

And Newsniffer tracks the last couple of hours headline changes:

Israeli election on course for dead heat

32 minutes later: Israel election: Netanyahu and Gantz on course for dead heat

32 more minutes later: Israel election: Netanyahu and Gantz on course for dead heat

32 yet more minutes later!: Israel election: Netanyahu set for record fifth term

"Imagine"

I hope I’m not turning into one of those people who think anyone they disagree with shouldn’t be allowed to air their views on the BBC. You know, the sort of no-platforming that Israel-bashers wish upon persons with the temerity to speak for Israel. Mark Regev used to draw a lot of that when he was the spokesman for the Israeli government. The very sound of his name or the sight of his face drew avalanches of indignant letters of complaint insisting that ‘having him on’ was just wrong.

So now here’s a slightly similar complaint about Chris Gunness of UNRWA. 

There were two occasions in one single edition of the Today Programme. (Today) here and here, where Gunness was given the opportunity to vent his spleen.

The first time, at about seven thirty am, took the form of a conversation between Mr. Gunness and John Humphrys, and the second, at around ten minutes to nine, was a repeat of a chunk of Gunness’s agitated rant followed by a conversation between Justin Webb and Lt-Col Peter Lerner.

The reason I object to hearing Chris Gunness's lengthy, emotional and uninterrupted rant is that he has significant 'history', which should really have discredited him in the eyes of both the UN and the BBC.  We’ve written extensively about this over the years, (both myself and Alan formerly of the Biased-BBC website) and we’ve linked to various articles that set out the case against exBBC employee Gunness.

He is incapable of giving an impartial or a rational account of anything to do with the Israeli - Palestinian conflict. Not only does he have a visceral hatred of Israel, but he has lied about protecting Hamas’s habit of secreting weapons on UNWRA premises. His favourite mantra is that Israel is guilty of committing war crimes. It’s very tiresome to hear him doing the same old thing, over and over again. The following excerpts are from Tom Gros's Mideast Dispatch Archive, c 2014

“But what the BBC and many other media are failing to tell their audiences is that earlier today – under pressure from Israel and the U.S. – the UN agency UNRWA admitted that 20 Hamas rockets (of the kind used to kill Israeli civilians) have been stored at an UNRWA school in Gaza. This is, of course, not news to people who follow the region closely – Hamas has for years stored its arsenals, and fired rockets at Israel, from hospitals, schools, ambulances, mosques and the like, in multiple breaches of international law. It’s just that journalists for many western news outlets deliberately don’t tell their audiences this. 

UNRWA is the western-funded, Gaza-based, primarily Palestinian-staffed agency which supplies very dubious figures about the number of civilian deaths in Gaza (classifying some militants as civilians) – figures which are then unquestionably accepted and rebroadcast by many in the international media, such as the New York Times, without any regard for UNRWA’s past track record of libeling Israel. 

Today’s statement, which UNRWA took a full 24 hours to release, while robust, is less than fully truthful. 

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness is a British citizen, who previously worked for 23 years as a foreign correspondent and in senior editorial positions at the BBC and has a decades-long record of bias against Israel. Gunness is close friends with the BBC’s notoriously anti-Israel “chief Middle East correspondent” Jeremy Bowen.”

REVEALED: UNRWA SPOKESMAN WHO LIED ABOUT ISRAEL PREVIOUSLY WORKED AT THE BBC WITH JEREMY BOWEN

I have previously outlined on this website the concoctions of the well-funded UN body UNRWA which have resulted in defamations of Israel and physical attacks on Jews in many different countries around the world. 

For example, UNRWA has now admitted that their claim that Israel shelled a school in Gaza in January and killed 32 Palestinian civilians is completely false. The shell in question, it turns out, was in response to Palestinian mortar fire at civilians in Israel and killed nine Palestinian adults, none of whom were in the school. Seven of those killed were armed operatives and two were civilians. 

The sensational and false claims of UNRWA led to headlines around the world such as “UN accuses Israel of herding 110 Palestinians into a house then shelling it, leaving 30 dead” (London Daily Mail Online UK, Jan 9 2009 11:59AM GMT). 

The false reports led to anti-Israel riots and attacks on Jews in all six continents of the world.

 A JOINT WAR CRIMES ALLEGATION BY UNRWA AND THE BBC

Now, it turns out that Chris Gunness, the UNWRA spokesman who went on several different international TV networks in January to accuse Israel of “war crimes” on account of the supposed school incident, is in fact a former BBC journalist and a close colleague of the BBC’s notoriously anti-Israel Chief Jerusalem Correspondent Jeremy Bowen. 

In a diary article which Jeremy Bowen posted on BBC online, he states:
“I just broke off writing for a couple of minutes to take a call from Chris Gunness, who is the spokesman for Unrwa, the UN agency that looks after Palestinian refugees.
“He was ringing to say that Unrwa wanted an investigation into whether Israel has committed war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Civilians are protected by the laws of war.
“I have known Chris for years, as he used to be a BBC foreign correspondent. He wanted to make sure that we knew he was using the phrase for the first time. He said that the attack this morning on a UN school in Gaza looked as if it was a war crime.”


I revealed Gunness’ close friendship with Bowen in a dispatch in 2009, here. 

Nor is the BBC finding space in its attacks on Israel this hour, to mention that Israel thwarted a major terror attack this morning involving 13 Hamas gunmen who infiltrated into Israel by underground tunnel from Gaza.

***

I think I can rest my case. Back to this morning.

During the first airing of Gunness’s diatribe, we were treated to a selective description of the incident in which two UNWRA pupils were killed. He did not mention what brought about this airstrike, which, to listeners who may still be unaware of recent events, must at first have appeared callous and completely unprovoked. 

He proceeded to pose a list of hypothetical scenarios, inviting us to ‘imagine”  - “how you’d feel it if this (that and the other) happened in London.” In his eyes, the intolerable provocation that drew Israel’s belated retaliation simply. Hadn’t. Happened. He appears to be blind to it. He’s managed to excise it from his consciousness. A psychological deficiency no doubt; very sad for him and all that, but his inherent unreliability needs to be taken into account, especially if you’re calling upon him to make a credible contribution to the Today Programme.

John Humphrys took it upon himself to put Israel’s case on behalf of a spokesperson for the Israeli government who had pulled out of the interview, making it clear that he was able to do so because he “knew what Israel would say” and “has said”, lest any listener might mistakenly assume his interjections represented his own views.

As well as implying that the Gaza protests were peaceful, Gunness indicated that Gaza is “occupied” both of which he must know to be false. Both misleading implications remained unchallenged by Humphrys.  

Humphrys said that Israel would reject ”an independent and transparent investigation,” which is what Gunness is calling for - because "the international community hates us because we’re Israel”.  Although Humphrys made that claim sound far-fetched and a bit ridiculous, it was probably the most accurate assessment of reality that we heard during the whole conversation.

Next, Tom Bateman was brought in to tell us what the Israelis are saying about the situation, and he took up the offer - literally -  sprinkling his summary of recent events with the qualifier “Israel says”, which is the BBC’s unsubtle way planting seeds of doubt about Israel’s account of an incident and  dissociating their opinion from Israel’s at the same time.

Shortly before the end of the programme - I think it was the penultimate item, they again played a part of Chris Gunness’s speech - the bit in which he invites the listener to “imagine”. It’s a recording, so there was no chance to interact with or further challenge the speaker.However, Justin Webb got to do that with Lt-Col Peter Lerner. Without feeling the need to ask the listeners to imagine anything, he stated that Israel has been subjected to over two hundred rockets and mortars launched from Gaza.

So, let’s use the ‘imagine’ scenario for ourselves. Imagine you’re living in an Israeli town or kibbutz near the Gaza border.  Imagine hearing the chilling sound of a siren at any time of the day or night, knowing you have just a few seconds to rush your family into a bomb shelter. 

That’s enough of that. Justin was keen to put Chris Gunness’s point to Lerner - that killing children “is not a proportionate response”. You cannot allow your ability to defend yourself to be constrained because of your enemy’s cynical exploitation of children was the gist of his reply. If Hamas wanted to protect their children they shouldn’t have placed their facilities in or fired from densely populated areas. They were warned. 

Listen to Peter Learner, listen to Justin Webb’s responses, and note the irritable way he abruptly brought the interview to an end.

Maybe you didn’t realise that hundreds of ‘contraptions’ and incendiary balloons have been launched from Gaza recently, sending families into shelters, scorching acres of farmland and injuring three Israeli civilians. Fire-balloons have scorched 7,500 acres of land in Israel. Admittedly, ”no Israelis have been killed“ or hurt badly enough to satisfy the likes of Mishal Husain when she infamously demanded an unspecified number of Israeli fatalities before considering there was a case for retaliation.

On the BBC’s Middle East web page, there are a series of video reports. One is about ‘terror kites’ and another is titled: “Gaza’s deadliest day of violence” and a there's a particularly one-sided ‘backgrounder’ by Paul Adams called “Gaza, the history behind the anger.”

The selective omissions in his narrative are clearly crafted to coax the viewer towards perceiving the Palestinians as victims of a cruel and undeserved injustice. The passive-aggressive undertone implies that Israel is to blame. Here’s a transcription

“What are the people of Gaza so angry about? What would make so many young men risk their lives along the border with Israel? Israel says they are being manipulated and controlled by the militant Islamist group Hamas, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. It’s a strip of land about 40 km long and 10 km wide along the Mediterranean coast between Egypt and Israel. The question of who controls it is complicated. It’s run by the Palestinians but Israel controls almost all the borders.” 

How did we get here? asks the caption. 

“Egypt controlled it after the 1948 war and the creation of Israel. Then, in another war in 1967 Israel occupied Gaza and the West Bank. Pretty soon Israeli settlers moved in there and set up their own communities. They stayed there until 2005 when Israel finally decided to pull them out of Gaza, along with its soldiers. 

Who runs Gaza now? says the caption 

“Well, Hamas have been in charge for the past decade, following fighting with their more moderate rivals Fatah in 2007. The two sides have tried more than once to bury the hatchet, but the deals have always fallen apart, and so Hamas is still in control. 

What’s life like inside Gaza? questions another caption. 

“With a population of about 1.8 million people, it’s one of the most densely populated places on earth. Most of those who live here are descendants of people who fled or were driven from their homes in 1948. Many of them still live in refugee camps and after 70 years they still yearn for their homes across the fence in Israel. They describe the Gaza strip as the world’s largest open-air prison. It’s been under Israeli land, air and sea blockade ever since Hamas took over. Egypt also strictly controls its border. There are shortages of water and power, dangerously high unemployment and very little freedom to travel outside. 

How often do conflicts break out? the next caption wonders.

“Every few years it seems there’s an explosion of violence. Three major Israeli military operations since 2008 triggered in part by rockets fired into Israeli towns and cities by Hamas. Each time Israeli forces have invaded using overwhelming firepower and killing large numbers of Palestinians. Israel regards any attempt to storm the border or break holes in the fence as a red line. The government has repeatedly warned that anyone attempting to break through into Israel to commit acts of violence risks being shot dead, but Israeli human rights groups and the UN have said that the threat of violence does not in itself excuse the use of lethal force.

Context-free and juvenile, with barely a mention of militant Islam. In the BBC’s world, these wars ‘just happen’, most Israelis are ‘settlers’, Gaza is “One of the most densely populated places on earth” where old Palestinian crones waving gigantic keys  “yearn for their homes”. Too bad. Shouldn’t have started the war, shouldn’t have fled, shouldn’t have rejected Israel, shouldn’t have expelled the Jews from majority Islamic countries, shouldn’t have elected Hamas.

And the reporting!  Not just the BBC, of course.  More, the “international community.” No wonder the Israelis think they hate us “Because we’re Israel”. 

British media pummel Israel with some of the most biased headlines since 2014 https://t.co/QA3s0TPSoH pic.twitter.com/crLtkz247D

— UK Media Watch (@UKMediaWatch) July 15, 2018