Daindruss Times

Jeremy Bowen has been promoted from Middle East to **International** editor and has been mostly covering the war in Ukraine but he still can't resist pontificating on Israel/Palestine. On 4th Jan 2023, Today programme  (19 mins to 9) Nick Robinson called upon him to report upon a dastardly provocation that Melanie Phillips describes as:

“a Jew walking for 15 minutes on the site that is most sacred to Judaism … without fanfare or media attention, early in the morning when the compound was almost empty and didn’t pray there or say anything to stir up trouble.”

 The Arab press calls this “storming” the al-Aqsa Mosque!

Here’s a near-as-dammit transcription of the item I heard on the Today Programme last Wednesday at 19 minutes to nine. 

Nick R

Now, why did a brief visit by the new Israeli security minister to the Alaska (sic) mosque compound in Jerusalem lead to such international condemnation and also to warnings of violent retribution from Hamas? China and the UAE have now called for a UN security council meeting to condemn the visit. Jeremy Bowen knows the area well, he’s our international editor and joins us on the line. “Morning, Happy New year to you Jeremy!” (Bowen mumbles) “Deliberately naive question if I may Jeremy - a daft laddie question - he didn’t pray, he didn’t enter the mosque at all, so why the fuss? “

JBowen

Well, it’s very symbolic. Ah, the piece of ground in question, which Jews call the Temple Mount in English, and Muslims call - Palestinians call The Noble sanctuary in Arabic, ah it’s probably the - it’s certainly the most disputed ground - piece of ground - in the Middle East and quite possibly the world - it’s holy to both religions - the holiest place for Jews, the third holiest place for Muslims and it’s also a massive national symbol, particularly for Palestinians; and now this particular individual, Itamar Ben-Gvir is the most prominent group …. prominent of a group of militant right-wingers on whom the new government of mister Netanyahu relies for support, and they’re driving the ideology of the government and of course his supporters say that they’re elected fair and square, that’s democracy; but Ben-Gvir, he’s a police minister but he’s got a long criminal record of which includes incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organisation.”

Nick R

Huge symbolism then, as it is it’s him going there, but I guess what everybody’s watching is to see the underlying question of what policy actually changes under this new wide coalition.

JBowen

Yes, well, Netanyahu’s come back to power, relying on the votes in the Israeli parliament of these hard-line right-wingers, which, y’know, Israelis in the election liked the look of their coalition and voted for it. It’s not just a question of supporting harder action against Palestinians in the occupied territories, although that’s a big part of it. The— in Israel when they form a new coalition government they have a … they put out a political agreement, a statement. Now, this is often, not at all um, ah, brought in ‘to the letter’, but it’s clear that Ben-Gvir and his colleagues, they want big changes inside Israel to make it more religious, more their version of how a Jewish state should be and this horrifies many secular Israelis, and what would that mean? It means putting orthodox Jewish beliefs ahead of the rights of women - of LGBTQ people, of Arab citizens - 20% of the population of Israel is in fact Palestinian Arab. Ben-Gvir says those people need to know who is the landlord of the country, by which he means “the Jews.“ And they’re also, there are talks about removing much of the independence of the Israeli judiciary which for Netanyahu may have the result of  rescuing him from his own trial, which is continuing, on very serious corruption charges and all this at a time when the West Bank is very tense and anything that stirs the pot there is… daindruss!

Nick R

When you say tense Jeremy I’ve heard people predicting that it could ‘blow’ this year, that we could see very serious trouble indeed. On the West Bank that might be the excuse the Hamas wants to move out of its stronghold in Gaza and move in, do you think that’s a likely scenario?

JBowen 

Tensions are very high on the West Bank, and also in Palestinian parts of Jerusalem without question and it’s a really daindruss situation, it’s a really daindruss cocktail of a new generation growing up of Palestinians, a lack of hope, a feeling that um their aspirations towards - towards independence, towards freedom because there are millions of people who’ve been under a harsh military occupation now for generations, if you feel that that’s never going to go away - one thing that Netanyahu’s government has given another hard right-winger Mr Smotrich a lot of authority over settlements to expand them and so it’s a very difficult and daindruss situation; it’s a really nasty cocktail. Last year in 2022 something like 150 Palestinians were killed in the area by Israeli security forces, and more than 30 Israelis. Now Netanyahu. in his politics, has tried to play a double or a treble game, where he says one thing and does something else, reality and rhetoric being separated, but hard-liners like Ben-Gvir are very serious about imposing their views - and now can Netanyahu control them? Does he want to? and at the same time there’s this rising tide of anger among Palestinians and it’s just one serious incident, I’d say, at any given time, away from a very serious situation.

Nick R

Jeremy, thank you.

It did occur to me that the disdainful description of the new Israeli government: “militant  ‘hard-right-wingers’ that's “putting orthodox Jewish beliefs ahead of the rights of women, of LGBTQ people, of Arab citizens” looks oddly hypocritical when it comes from someone who happily overlooks the illiberal “orthodox religious beliefs” of his favoured ethnicity. On this occasion, only Nick Robinson specifically mentioned the word “Hamas” but that particular absence from Bowen’s narrative was conspicuous.

New Normal

I gather Jeremy Bowen has been snatched from Ukraine to cover Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia. 

I rarely listen to the BBC. I’m finding it increasingly unbearable. I have Radio 4 as the default wake-up alarm, but always have to turn it off in dismay. It’s beyond repair. What is Tim Davie doing? Nothing has changed. People are still calling for the Balen Report to be revealed. As if!

The Jewish Chronicle asks:

Why did BBC ignore 99% of attacks on Israelis?

Meanwhile, the corporation reported 89% of Israel’s responding counter-terror operations

"I’ve been reading a fascinating report from the Israel Security Agency on terror attacks, which took place last month and how these were reported. Or, more accurately, not reported.

There were 189 terror incidents against Israelis in June — which was more than six per day. These included 117 attacks with petrol bombs, 42 with pipe bombs, 16 arson attacks, 11 shootings and two stabbings. There was also a rocket attack directed at the southern city of Ashkelon."

The Muslim narrative has irreversibly taken hold. It’s too late to bring the BBC back to something resembling reasonableness, fairness, and normality.  Antisemitism is the new normal.

'Flawed' reporting?

How BBC Manipulated a Major Arab World Survey in Order to Slam Israel is the headline of a piece at Honest Reporting by Gidon Ben-Zvi. The BBC online report, Arabs believe economy is weak under democracy, is mainly about what it says it's about, but also contains this passage:

According to the EIU [Economist Intelligence Unit] Democracy Index, the Middle East and North Africa is the lowest ranked of all regions covered in the index – Israel is classed as a ‘flawed democracy’, Tunisia and Morocco are classed as “hybrid regimes”, and the rest of the region is classed as ‘authoritarian’.

I can see what Gidon means when he says that this makes Israel sound akin to the 'hybrid regimes' and 'authoritarian regimes' that surround it rather than the democratic exception that proves the rule. The BBC 'achieves' this by not giving context - specifically by not saying what a 'flawed democracy'. Other 'flawed democracies' include France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, the United States, Belgium, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Malta, Cyprus and Greece. Indeed, Israel ranks higher than all of those except France.

The Honest Reporting piece ends with a question, which it doesn't leave hanging in the air:

Does the national broadcaster of the United Kingdom have an anti-Israel agenda? The British Broadcasting Corporation’s long history of perpetuating an alternate version of reality with regards to the Jewish state certainly raises serious questions about its ability to report on events coming out of the Middle East with any kind of impartiality.

We need to talk about bias

After unearthing some historic Hitler-related Tweets by its employee Tala Hawala the BBC dismissed her from her job as Palestine Specialist for BBC Monitoring. 

An impassioned response to the dismissal appeared on Twitter and was reproduced by some of the media, many of which chose to close comment fields that are normally open to the public. This is so sensitive a topic that a partial “don’t go there” situation apparently prevails. We’re tacitly colluding in a conspiracy of silence. (Are we?) The prospect of being drowned under a tsunami of un-woke, racist hate-speak must be a bit too much for the editorial community if there is one.

Why though - why close the comments? Opinions on Israel and the Palestinians (and sometimes on ‘Islam-in-general’) are invariably divisive and turn nasty at the drop of a hat, but I wonder if preemptively cancelling comments altogether is a sensible policy. It probably is, while the general public is so ill-informed and ill-equipped to argue knowledgeably. See that, BBC? 

But suppurating boils ache to be lanced, and because this blog is all about the BBC and Bias, and because one aspect of the media’s egregiously one-sided reporting is the BBC’s pro-Palestinian / anti-Israel bias, particularly by omission but also by inference and outright advocacy -  because of all that -  we need to talk.

In the self-pitying reposte above, Ms Hawala paints herself as a victim of the pro-Israel mob. I’ve heard it argued that her views are perfectly in accord with the BBC’s, therefore singling her out for dismissal is unfair and that she merely crossed the line with a much-too-unsubtle reference to Hitler, accidentally a little too overt and in-yer-face to pass for impartiality.

“I apologise for my single offensive and ignorant Tweet” came the weasel-worded non-apology. “I blurted out the “Hitler was right” remark in the heat of the moment” This confession looked suitably self-deprecating with a whiff of mea culpa thrown in. and had she left it at that, with the possibility of a Naz Shah style redemption. ‘Lessons learned / sorry for what I did‘ she might have bought herself some time. 

But no. Racism will out. Begging for sympathy, Hawala painted her heat-of-the-moment outburst as understandable. Cherry-picking incidents from Israel’s 2014 retaliatory incursion into Gaza - devoid of context and full of obvious omissions - not least three murdered Israeli teenagers - was a clumsy and stupid tactic. She even managed to trash her own boast, of (her own) ‘impartial and professional journalism’ by coming out with a litany of stereotypical antisemitic conspiracy theories. Hoist on her own gratuitously self-damning petard and reducing her vindication thing to parody.

There’s no way back. Chances of reconciliation - quashed. She needn’t worry though. There are plenty of opportunities still open to her. The Times might be interested.  

For anyone who still cares, that loaded allusion to ‘Industrial in scale’ is quite obscene 

Just 60 or so words

It's impossible to keep up with the BBC at the moment. 

Their reports and articles, like infinite numbers, seem far too many in number for a human brain to handle.

But here's one very short example from BBC World/BBC One overnight:

 A BBC newsreader read out the following:

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has become the first top US diplomat to pay official visits to both a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and to the Golan Heights, seized by Israel from Syria in 1967. The Trump Administration has taken a staunchly pro-Israel position, both on settlements and on Jerusalem in defiance of international law.

A simple fact-stating BBC news bulletin?

Hardly.

I think those words clearly make out both Israel and the Trump Administration to be the bad guys - much as you'd expect from the BBC. 

It's all in the language, of course. 

Doesn't it make Israel sound aggressively bad for both "occupying" the West Bank (Mr Abbas's territory) and "seizing" the Golan Heights back in 1967 (context please BBC?) from the extraordinarily brutal, war-mongering Ba'athist regime of Salah Jadid - someone who even Hafez al-Assad found far too extreme and too much of an adventurist as far as Israel goes? 

And the loaded adverb describing the Trump Administration "pro-Israel position", "staunchly", is tied to the phrase "in defiance of international law" - which, on Jerusalem especially, is highly disputed, and which the BBC ought to acknowledge is highly disputed, and something that US presidents of both parties (Democrat and Republican, including the ones the BBC liked) have previously committed to.

Just 60 or so words, yet so much black-and-white opinion.

The BBC's "ongoing propaganda war against the Jewish state"

 

On the subject of Sue's Tuesday post, David Collier has now posted a coruscating attack on the BBC over this week's Panorama and BBC Arabic's heavy involvement with it. 

It's too powerful a piece to be read in paraphrase, so you really ought to read the whole thing.

He looks at why the BBC targeted Roman Abramovich ("a wealthy, proud, Zionist Jew who fights antisemitism – what is not for the BBC...to hate?"); argues that the BBC has "amplified beyond recognition" certain fringe Jewish voices through "editorial choices"; and says the BBC is "obsessed with Israel".

He further argues that BBC Arabic's story about Mr Abramovich's funding of an NGO (Elad) that invests in Jerusalem isn't news ("Shock horror – A Jew invests in Jerusalem"):

Jews investing in Jerusalem is like Muslims investing in Mecca or Catholics in the Vatican. It is a non-story.

He then outlines the "usual smears", the loaded language, the "nonsensical propaganda stories" and "the standard deceptive tactics"  used by the BBC - eg:

BBC Arabic [found] a fringe Israeli left-wing politician to claim he was ‘shocked’ on camera. That politician left the scene 14 years ago after his party failed to gain enough votes to see him re-elected. This is truly desperate stuff.

He sets out the historical background to the story behind the BBC "hit piece" in detail before describing how "as always" the BBC tried to make it personal" and then proceeded to "hide most of the story" of the family presented as a victim of Mr Abramovich’s funding and Elad’s activity. David lays out what the BBC "hid" - the exposed forgeries, the wealth of the "poor" family, the legal rulings against them - and the funding for them from "Jewish American billionaire George Soros":

You may not know this, as some backing of Jewish billionaires the BBC don’t want people to know about.

He then describes BBC Arabic as "a propaganda network":

Anyone who doesn’t realise this doesn’t understand the way news is produced and isn’t paying attention. Using mainly locals to create its news, it is entirely subservient to local pressure and norms. When they do get to tell a story about life in Gaza, they spend it talking about fishermen and ancient coins rather than the brutal rule of Hamas. And inside every human interest story like that, they never miss an opportunity to talk about Israeli ‘oppression’.

David has seen the full interview between Doron Spielman of Elad and Rosie Garthwaite of the BBC (the main journalist and producer behind this piece) and describes how the 55-minute exchange was reduced to "just a few seconds for her piece" after "careful snipping":

Anyone who ever wants to see how bad BBC journalism is – should seek out evidence such as this. It exposes an exercise in creating propaganda, ignoring what you are being told and writing the piece they were always going to write anyway.

What points made by Mr Spielman did Rosie Garthwaite omit?  

• This is Jerusalem, the City of David and what we do benefits everyone
• This is an archaeological site of world importance
• Many Arab voices are with us, why are the BBC only using those against us
• Some well-funded NGOs are dissuading Jewish/Arab cooperation
• Suleiman forged documents and has no real claim
• Israel abides by the law
• The EU and some governments fund those dissuading Jewish / Arab cooperation

He adds, "Each of these is a story in itself. None of them made it into the piece." 

He then writes about the BBC's use of an activist from Peace Now "to help with their case during the documentary", noting:

They had all the information necessary to remind viewers Peace Now is financed by foreign governments. If funding on one side is important, then surely it is on both. This isn’t neglect or an accident. The BBC have completely aligned themselves with only one side of the argument. This isn’t telling the truth, it is spreading disinformation. If the BBC knows there are problems with Sumarin’s claim – wasn’t it the duty of a proper journalist to remind viewers his evidence was proven to be forged?

We've already written about Rosie Garthwaite's history of "hard-core" anti-Israel activity on social media (and yet the BBC still went ahead with involving her here), and David adds to that the name of Uri Blau, who he calls "an anti-Israel activist". Mr Blau is 'friends' with numerous anti-Israel activists on Facebook. David concludes:

It is impossible for the BBC to claim impartiality when he is one of the producers of the piece. Uri Blau sits firmly on one side of the argument. He is in the enemy camp. How on earth can the BBC let him produce a news piece and then claim their investigations are impartial? It was a set-up from the start.

He goes on to say, "The truth is that the BBC and the Guardian are at war with the Jews" and then makes a point Sue has often made:

They don’t mind Jews when they are victims of a terror attack or Holocaust, but cannot stand them when they call for Jewish rights to be protected.

 He ends by writing:

It is an old-school British supremacist antisemitic mindset. A Jew investing in an archaeological site in the City of David – the historical biblical Jewish capital is enough to set them off. No longer interested in telling the truth, they sit firmly in the Arab camp, pushing out anti-Israel propaganda at every opportunity. Which makes pieces like the recent BBC piece on Panorama just par for the course. Just another shot in their ongoing propaganda war against the Jewish state.

Please give the whole piece a careful read. It deserves a proper response from the BBC.

Not another one!

 

Another day, another item for Tim Davie's in-tray - except that he's already received this one.

This one comes via Lee Harpin at The Jewish Chronicle again:

So here she is, a Senior Digital Producer for the BBC with a history of (often inaccurate) anti-Israel tweets and retweets, "currently producing a new BBC documentary [for BBC Arabia] looking into the activities of Israel’s Elad and City of David organisations in East Jerusalem".  

These organisations aim to strengthen the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, and renew the Jewish community there so, obviously, will be absolutely anathema to Ms Garthwaite. 

The JC reports that both Rosie Garthwaite and Tim Davie, plus BBC chairman Sir David Clementi, have already received a letter from the City of David organisation. It accuses Ms Garthwaite of having “repeatedly presented us with one-sided and inaccurate statements” and alleges that the programme “intends to vilify Israel, Jewish history and Jewish charities and present a number of false and misleading claims.”

Wonder what will happen to that documentary now?

*******

Here's David Collier's take on it:

Another BBC employee caught spreading lies with raw anti-Israel propaganda.

The first thing the BBC should do is stop any Israel related program she is working on.

It is impossible to calculate the damage these 'journalists' and the BBC have done to the truth.

Shameful.

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.

BBC employees back an anti-Israel stunt

The estimable Daphne Anson notes a recent stunt by anti-Israel activists.

This last Friday, a group called inminds projected a slide show onto the walls of Broadcasting House in protest at Israel hosting the Eurovision Song Contest next year. They want the BBC to pull out of the competition.

The protest group's own website says:

'The projection lasted over an hour during which time many passers by and BBC employees came to congratulate us for voicing their own concerns of how inappropriate it would be for the Eurovision to be hosted by Israel, and shameful for the BBC to support it.' 

"And many BBC employees"? Why doesn't that surprise me?

Anyhow, happy Hanukkah to our Jewish readers!

Wordplay (Updated)

The BBC reported that an Israeli policewoman was stabbed to death in Jerusalem.

Israeli policewoman stabbed to death in Jerusalem 

“Two of the Palestinians attacked police officers with guns and knives while the third stabbed the policewoman, police say.
The three were identified by police as two men aged 18 or 19 and another man, all from the West Bank.”

BBC News World Tweets: 

“Three Palestinians Killed after deadly stabbing in Jerusalem.”
 

“Israeli police shoot them after a policewoman is stabbed and other people injured.”

So, what happened? Who stabbed whom? And why?

Distorted reporting from the most trusted news organ in the world.

Three Palestinians killed after deadly stabbing in Jerusalem https://t.co/aG79IGqoZ1

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) June 16, 2017

What a disgustingly misleading tweet. Why not quote the ACTUAL headline? "Israeli policewoman stabbed to death in Jerusalem."

— Teresa 📚 (@Teresa_ETC) June 16, 2017

Because that WAS the ACTUAL headline until they changed it pic.twitter.com/Y4VFrc6e1l

— (((EinLi))) (@EnLiEretzAheret) June 17, 2017

http://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2017/06/17/bbc-deletes-tweet-about-three-palestinians-killed-after-deadly-stabbing-now-guess-who-did-the-stabbing/?utm_campaign=twitchywidget

Update:

H/T David P - more on this topic on ‘Twitchy’. (I assume my first ‘embed’ disappeared when BBC World deleted the Tweet)

It’s remarkable that Israel’s ‘partner for peace’ called the killing of the three brave martyrs a war crime. 

Forgive me for thinking that some of the Palestinian spokespersons and officials have the maturity of a four-year-old.

Refugee appeal

Can anyone explain why the BBC is carpet-bombing its early morning radio 4 news bulletins with what seems to be a nine-month old hyperbolic story emoting Israel’s malevolence, involving the ubiquitous “The BBC has learned”?

It goes something like this: It is alleged that 40,000 African (Eritrean and Sudanese) refugees in Israel are being given the choice of jail for life or being deported to (other) African countries in secretive deals, considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.”

(Not verbatim)

This announcement headed news bulletins at 5:30 am and subsequent bulletins - until 8 am, when it seems to have disappeared or have been relegated to some other position in the hierarchy.

I can think of several explanations but I haven’t time now. 

Can anyone help? 

Update:

Ah.  Has the BBC “parachuted” young Kathy into Israel to dig dirt on the way it treats African refugees? 

See this article and virtual trailer for a TV report to be broadcast today at 17:30 GMT on BBC World News. H/T Daphne Anson

I’m guessing that some commissioning / copy editor has chosen to promote this resurrected story  under the “BBC has learned” banner because it ticks so many boxes. It got shunted up this morning’s news-bulletin hierarchy because it chimes with the BBC’s pro-immigrant agenda AND the anti-Israel agenda. Two birds with one stone - what’s not to like?

Of course using the disparaging phrases “secretive”and “Illegal under international law” in one short report somewhat gives the game away. Impartiality? As far as Israel is concerned, forget it.

The parallels between this and the current European refugee crisis would seem obvious to the children running the BBC; but the similarities are superficial. Dig deeper and you’ll find there is very little comparison.

However, in the current “changing” climate I think the BBC might find some people think Israel’s approach is rather wise and very generous. 

Update 2:

The story has been picked up by the usual suspects and passed off as News. Ben White has Tweeted and Facebooked it (H/T Daphne Anson) 

"Gathered evidence" 

and the BBC has labelled it "No Room at the Inn". Interesting association going on in in someone's tiny brain.

The International Business Times has regurgitated it, quoting “Lawyer Anat Ben-Dor” without mentioning that Anat Ben-Dor is a professional advocate for refugee rights.

Talk about churnalism getting halfway round the world before the truth has time to get its boots on.

This is your BBC. I don’t think they’ve even bothered to report this, which is Genuine News.

Update 3:
Eddie Mair has grabbed it now.  (H/T 'happy goldfish")

“BBC Africa has gathered evidence that Israel is sending unwanted African migrants to third countries under secretive deals which may be in breach of international law”

Bibi-bashing from the BBC

Blogs are personal, We write about what interests us. You don't have to pay a licence fee to us. If some things obsess us more than others, you're not put out of pocket by that fact.

That thought sprung to mind again today because both From Our Own Correspondent on Radio 4 and Dateline London on the BBC News Channel (broadcast concurrently) focused on Israel and the Palestinians yet again. (FOOC even led with it, for the second week running). 

It's clearly what interests/obsesses them, as it does us. You, however, have to pay your licence fee to them though - and that's one big difference. Our obsession comes free; theirs doesn't.

Plus, they are mean't (and charter-bound) to be impartial, and we aren't - which is the other big difference. 

It's only a week or so ago that I was moaning that both FOOC and Dateline were obsessing again about Israel - and yet, one week (or so) on, here were are again, repeating that point.

Today's Dateline certainly wasn't exactly a beacon of impartiality on the issue (to use British understatement).

Its central discussion focused on Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks about the Palestinian pro-Nazi Grand Mufti, Amin al-Husseini - remarks that have brought down a huge amount on bile on the Israeli prime minister.

According to Dateline's account, Mr Netanyahu's original remarks seemed to suggest that Hitler was merely thinking of expelling the Jews from Europe until the Palestinian leader met him and told him to 'burn' them instead. In other words, the Holocaust was provoked by the Palestinian Grand Mufti.

All the Dateline guests (Yasmin Alibhai Brown, Stephanie Baker, Thomas Kielinger, Diane Wei Liang) piled in to criticise the Israeli PM, accusing him of all manner of wickedness. Presenter Gavin Esler didn't just not counter them, he actively joined them in their tut-tutting, not once playing 'devil's advocate' in Bibi's defence.

(Please watch it and you'll see for yourself that I'm not exaggerating much).

Now I'm no expert in this field (to put it mildly), but I've read quite a bit about this over the past few days. I've read plenty of articles, blogposts and comments denouncing Benjamin Netanyahu. I've also read some articles, blogposts and comments defending Benjamin Netanyahu. I've been torn between them. Some of the condemnation has come from surprising places (places I trust) and some of the defences have seemed rather too slippery. As a result I've arrived at my own conclusions, not favourable (in this instance) to the Israeli prime minister.

However, Dateline viewers would have no such opportunity to form their own opinions. Only one opinion was on offer. No defender of Mr Netanyahu was on hand. Everyone damned him.

I think that's a shame, and I can't see how that conforms to BBC notions of impartiality. (I don't even think the rare absence of Abdel Bari Atwan helped here.)

The one completely surprising thing was that Yasmin AB, halfway through her usual drivel, said:

A lot of Palestinians, a lot of Arabs are indeed anti-Semitic. I know because they even tell me. 

That's quite something from Yasmin (who can occasionally surprise the viewer).

Can you guess what her next word was though? I bet you can. (Clue: It starts with the letter 'B' and rhymes with 'gut'). 

Sir Eric Pickles, anti-Israel bias and the BBC

It's not the done thing to lift an entire article from another site, but I hope they won't mind in this case...

Former Communities Secretary Sir Eric Pickles has plenty of pertinent things to say over at Jewish News, and they are well worth sharing:

Selecting someone for an attack or death on the basis of their religion of race is pure evil. Whether a person is Jewish, Muslim, or Christian, hate crime should receive universal condemnation – but apparently not universal reporting. 

Israel has been shaken to its core in recent weeks. Israelis are being attacked for little other reason than because they are Jewish. As the attacks have escalated in number and severity, the relative silence of the international media has been deafening. The little coverage that there has been is all too often inexcusably one-sided. Let’s look at two examples, one from broadcast the other the press, to speak for the many. 

The BBC – legally obligated to display total impartiality – set a very low standards in its reporting. On Sunday, 11 October, correspondent Orla Guerin produced an extraordinary report on the recent wave of attacks that claimed “there’s no sign of involvement by militant groups”, before immediately showing footage of Palestinian Islamic Jihad banners at the home of a 19-year-old terrorist who carried out a deadly knife attack at Lions Gate in Jerusalem on 3 October. 

The BBC’s original coverage of this attack also attracted controversy, with a headline being amended four times from its misleading original version that read: ‘Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attacks kills two’. 

On the same day, The Independent ran a story online under the headline: ‘Israel kills pregnant Palestinian mother and her baby in revenge attacks’. A dreadful human tragedy that is truly heartbreaking, but the mother and her child were not selected for murder as a calculated reprisal by the Israeli Defence Force as this newspaper implied. 

This Palestinian family was tragically killed due to their proximity to a Hamas weapons facility targeted by Israel’s Air Force in response to rocket fire towards Israel’s civilian population by Gaza-based terrorists. Israel did not set out to kill innocent civilians. 

No one objects to robust reporting, and reporters must follow through on incidences of violence, even if it makes for uncomfortable reading in Tel Aviv, London or Washington, but readers are entitled to balance and fairness so that they can make their own mind up. 

No doubt the BBC will seek to rebut these claims about bias, but it would be helpful if they published the much anticipated Balen Report into the impartiality of its reporting of the Israel-Palestinian issue. 

Events in the Middle East affect all our lives. We deserve better reporting.

For FOOC's sake!

Today's From Our Own Correspondent began with events in Israel. 

Being FOOC on this subject, impartiality largely went out of the window - especially as the featured correspondent was Yolande Knell.

Here's how Kate Adie introduced the report [with annotations in italics from me]:

The Israeli army has been deploying hundreds of troops across the country to try to combat the worst surge in violence there in months. Yesterday police in Jerusalem shot dead two Palestinians who they say tried to stab Israelis in separate incidents. [Note the ordering of this, placing the emphasis on killings by the Israeli, when the story ought to have focused on the killing of Israeli in horrific terrorist attacks. Note also the emphasis - and it was Kate Adie's emphasis - on "they say" (meaning the Israelis), casting doubt on what the Israelis are saying]. So far this month seven Israelis have been killed in attacks and at least 30 Palestinians have died [the BBC's ghoulish body count returns], including alleged [there's nothing "alleged" about most of them] assailants and several children. The Palestinian Authority president Mahmood Abbas accused Israel of "executing Palestinian children in cold blood" [referring to a false claim by Abbas that a 13-year-old boy had been executed by Israel - even though the boy is still alive] - a remark denounced as "lies" [well, it certainly wasn't true!] and "incitement" by the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yolande Knell says the violence is fuelling a sense of panic in Israel and raising fears of a new Palestinian intifada or uprising. 

I could go on to transcribe Yolande Knell's extraordinarily biased report, which was much worse, but you can hear it for yourselves just as easily - and you'd be better doing so to get the full effect. 

Just to give you an idea of how bad this was, let me quote two positive tweets about it: 

When you check out their Twitter feed you discover that both Alison and Hugh are obsessive pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel social media activists. 

So if they find Yolande Knell's piece "unbiased" and "balanced" then you'll probably get a sense of just how strongly biased against Israel it actually was.


PS Yolande's new 'explainer' on the significance of the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif  receives a fine fisking here (from Nota Sheep). Well worth a read.

I probably should have fisked her FOOC piece, but transcribing it and fisking it would have taken hours. Maybe tomorrow.

Another BBC apology

Noru Tsalic, Times of Israel blogger

The Jewish Chronicle reports another BBC apology...

...this time over a Radio 4 report in early August which inaccurately asserted that 'administrative detention' (detention without trial) "has previously been used only against Palestinian militant suspects".

That's inaccurate for the simple reason that it's untrue. 

The apology - sent in the form of an email - came about because the complainant, blogger Noru Tsalic, persisted in his complaint. The BBC's complaints department originally rejected his complaint (as is their way).

The BBC spokesman, overturning this rejection, wrote:

“We have discussed the matter with senior editorial staff at the radio newsroom and they see your point.
“The script shouldn’t have referred to administrative detention only being used against Palestinian militant suspects.
“We are sorry for this.”

The patience and persistence required to bring about such an apology is admirable. 

Quite what results from it by way of a wider apology on Radio 4 isn't at all clear to me though. Will a public apology ever be given?

And, oddly, BBC Watch - spotting a written form of the same inaccuracy on the same day - complained to the BBC and achieved an immediate correction (posting about it the following day). You can read the corrected article here, and here is the message the BBC placed beneath that article:

Correction: This story has been amended to make clear that administrative detention has previously been used against Jewish suspects.

So complaining to the BBC can work. 

Given BBC Watch's instant result on exactly the same point, why then did the BBC put Mr Tsalic through all that? 

I'm at a complete loss to explain that.

Wonder which BBC online journalist pulled this stunt?

First, a comment on Twitter:

And here's a screengrab of the relevant BBC page:

Finally, here's a flavour of the discussion about it on Twitter:

Just for the record...

Alan at Biased BBC notes that it is the impartial duty of BBC bloggers like us to record that there was an anti-BBC protest yesterday, here in the UK, organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission to mark the Khomenei-inspired "Al Quds Day". 

They were protesting about the BBC's "support for Israel", dontcha know. 

The first comment beneath Alan's post reads:

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you….

....er, excuse me for one moment please while I swallow my medication, but...

...That said, wow!, the IHRC surely have a point...

...whoa! that medicine is powerful stuff!!!!...

....From Orla Guerin to Jon Donnison, from Jeremy Bowen to Fergal Keane, from this giant rabbit I see before me to that possibly gay pink elephant (where's an Iranian crane when you need one?), the BBC are obviously Zionist shills to a man (and woman).

Death to America! Death to Israel! Death to the BBC!

"From the decrepit heart of a half-destroyed city in a besieged and blockaded enclave..."

Today's From Our Own Correspondent featured another report from Gaza. 

This one came courtesy of the BBC's Roger Hearing.

Katie Adie's introduction ran as follows: 

It's nearly a year now since Israeli forces launched air and ground attacks on Gaza, in response, they said, to a series a rocket attacks launched from inside the Palestinian territory. More than 2,000 people were killed in the conflict and many homes and business properties in Gaza were damaged or destroyed. Rebuilding started some after a ceasefire was announced last August but progress has been slow. A blockade on the territory, imposed by Israel, has delayed the arrival of construction materials. Roger Hearing has been to see how one business has carried on, despite the difficulties.

We were introduced to a plucky Gazan businessman, Ashraf, who (in Roger Hearing's account) brings joy to the children of Gaza with his wonderful ice creams.

These are giggling children who play amid "the apocalyptic destruction you do see in parts of [Gaza City] from last year's war", children who don't know the kind of "safe normality" usually associated with long beaches and ice creams. 

Ashraf is proud of his shiny Italian gelato machines, but the suspicious Israelis made it hard for him when he tried to import them, thinking they might have "some other more threatening purpose". [Given the amount of weaponry that gets smuggled into Gaza from Iran and other places, who can blame them? - well, Roger Hearing, it seems.]

Some of the parts from those machines probably came through tunnels:

It's likely at least some of the machines were hauled through the tunnels under the border with Egypt, until that smuggling operation was closed down a few months back. Now that's a strange image: young men in pitch darkness sweating to drag huge boxes through rickety holes in the sand, and all so that Gazans could eat fine ice cream.

[If those tunnels had any sinister connotations - Hamas terror attacks, smuggling of missile parts, etc, Roger certainly wasn't saying].

Ashraf's 1950s American-style cafe looks colourful and bright, and he's right to be proud of it, said Roger [jauntily] "but [changing to a much less jaunty voice] grey and grim reality is never far away":

Almost directly opposite, across the road, is the wreckage of an apartment block demolished by an Israeli missile last August.

It took out all the cafe's windows, but [jaunty voice fully resumed] plucky Ashraf's cafe was soon re-opened.

And what about Hamas, "the hardline Islamists who run the Gaza Strip"? Well [jaunty voice continuing], they may ban men from wearing low-slung jeans [how nasty is that?], said Roger, but Ghazi Hamad, deputy foreign minister for Hamas, says Ashraf's American-style ice creams are "very nice" [which makes Ghazi Hamad sound rather nice].

All of this was building toward Roger Hearing's grand peroration, delivered with all the theatricality of a BBC reporter/presenter:

And I have to say - and this is one of the oddest things:  From the decrepit heart of a half-destroyed city in a besieged and blockaded enclave, sometimes described as the biggest open air prison in the world, comes the best ice cream I've ever tasted!

This report was almost a self-caricature of a biased BBC report from Gaza, wasn't it?

Is the BBC Trust biased in favour of anti-Israel complainants?

Moving onto the latest batch of Editorial Standards Findings (every complaint and appeal being, as usual, "not upheld")...

Among the published rulings, there's one attacking the BBC for being pro-Israel (p.38) and another for being anti-Israel (p.25) - just the way the BBC seems to like it so they can claim to be 'getting it about right'.

The BBC has thrown both complaints out, but there's a notable difference between their rulings:

The one criticising Jeremy Bowen's reporting (the one where he said “After the attack on the centre for the disabled it is clear that the Israelis have some serious questions to answer”) is firmly rejected, while the one quibbling about how Douglas Murray was introduced on Newsnight includes the following emollient passage:

In considering the appeal the Trustees had some sympathy with the complainant’s view. While not agreeing with the complainant that the Henry Jackson Society should have been described as “an extreme pro-Israel organisation”, and considering it to be an organisation which expresses views on a variety of issues, Trustees felt that it was unfortunate that the introduction to the discussion had not included more detail and were not persuaded that most viewers would have been familiar with the work of the Henry Jackson Society. However, they did not consider that this would amount to a breach of editorial standards. Mr Murray’s viewpoint was clear in the interview and so the Guidelines had been complied with. 

I've been reading a fair few of these complaints in recent months and a proper study of the BBC's rulings is needed. (When time permits, I'll put it together). It's my strong impression that the BBC gives more ground - even to the extent of upholding some complaints - to the anti-Israel side. 

Hadar's dogged work at BBC Watch must have detailed scores and scores of examples of the BBC not giving "more detail" about anti-Israel organisations that "most viewers wouldn't have been familiar with" (and some with very dodgy links to extremist organisations). 

Complaints doubtless go into the BBC based on them. I've not seen a single one receive "some sympathy" from the BBC Trustees yet.

Is the BBC Trust biased in favour of anti-Israel complainants?