If you’ve been paying attention you’ll know I hardly ever watch the BBC these days. I keep mentioning that to account for my prolonged silences interspersed with off-topic observations..
However I have to comment on the reappearance of Abdel Bari Atwan, whose services I thought had been quietlydispensed with by the BBC.I was wrong. He was on Dateline again on 19th August, following the attack on Salman Rushdie.
The BBC, of course, has no intention of reprimanding or silencing Atwan as they think he represents legitimate views, and letting him air them is an expression of the BBC’s even-handedness.
The problem is, however, that along with the rest of the left the BBC genuinely thinks it is indeed upholding balance, fairness and objectivity. It believes that it represents the political centre ground. That’s why it views its critics axiomatically as extremists who can safely be disregarded.
To be fair to Bari, as we like to call him on ITBB, he did imply that carrying out the actual fatwain it’s original form (death to Rushdie the blasphemer) was a tad beyond its sell-by date, but he defended the principle that such blasphemy as Rushdie’s was “very, very cruel when he talked about the Prophet Mohammed and his wives” which was also “very, very dangerous”. He added: “About 90 per cent of the people of the Muslim world believe that freedom of expression [is] practised only to insult Muslims”.
I’m not sure if Dateline itself isn’t about to be axed. I read it somewhere. Maybe they’ve realised that it’s a tiny bit politically biased.
Melanie Phillips doesn’t stop there. In her criticisms of the BBC, as well as Atwan’s other offensive remarks, she mentions the infamous Balen report about the BBC’s bias against Israel.It has never seen the light of day, and its ongoing secrecy has been defended to the tune ofaround £300,000 (of licence fee-payers dosh) in legal fees. She refers to her own appearances as the token right-winger who is
“almost never given the opportunity to address the lies told about Israel.”
Q; Is Tim Davie still there? I understood that the remit - the principal raison d’être for installing a fresh DGwas to address, (and rectify) the BBC’s bias. Or the public’s perception of the BBC’s bias.
Oh, I think I’ve answered my own question.
A; The public doesn’t have much of a perception of the BBC’s bias because where certain topics are concerned (e.g., Middle East politics) the ‘perception’ in question is largely gleaned via (Through the lens of) the BBC. A self-fulfilling, circular chicken-and-egg scenario.
(Sorry for all the parentheses.) (It’s because ofthe heat)
Now, let’s begin with our old friend (Well, the BBC’s old friend) Abdel Bari Atwan. (On Dateline they like to call him ‘Barry’ - a sign of affection. (For some reason)
He was temporarily cancelled (allegedly) for saying some pretty nasty things while accidentally using English rather than Arabic, the language in which he expresses his real feelings about the Jews.
As Craig mentioned, I’ve speculated about this temporary absence already.
“Oh yes, and has anyone noted the recent absence of the BBC’s most ubiquitous guest on Dateline London recently? One of his rants has apparently been removed from YouTube but does anyone know if his recent (semi) withdrawal from our BBC screens is a coincidence or part of Tim Davie’s nascent decontamination project? Yes, I’m talking about “Barry Atwan or ‘arry Batwan.
Haven’t seen Mr Atwan lately. Did he creep away quietly, or was there a showdown? (Asking for a few million friends.)"
This is getting just like that post all over again. I seem to have just regurgitated (from the same post) the following:
This is almost unbelievable when you consider that Tim Davie was supposed to be addressing the bias. I understood that the BBC’s entire raison d’être for co-opting Tim Davie to the maelstrom— bringing him aboard - was to iron out the bias once and for all! But when? This year, next year, sometime never?
Never mind. We are as repetitive as needs be. And it seems my speculation was nowt but wishful thinking. Barry hasn’t been cancelled.
Neither has our old friend (Well, the BBC’s old friend) Jeremy Bowen. One might also call him ‘friend of this blog’ in the sense that typing Jezza’s name into our search box brings up pages and pages of content.
Nothing changes. Nothing is ever properly “addressed”.
Jeremy Bowen is widely known for his pro-Palestinian take on everything connected with the topic. His well-documented grudge against Israel after the killing of his Palestinian driver, which came about largely because of Bowen’s recklessness. (Are there echoes of a similar recklessness in Shireen Abu Ackleh’s “wrong place at the wrong time” shooting?)
It was probably wishful thinking on my part that gave Bowen’s transfer to Ukraine a benefit-of-the doubt-like passing fancy, namely that he’s been whisked away from one (metaphorical) potential danger zone (sullying the BBC’s reputation with his dreadful bias against Israel) to another (physical) one. A fresh start with a comparatively clean slate.
But no. He’s back, yet again in the same old danger zone, stirring up antisemitism for all he’s worth.Tim Davie, what are you thinking?
Ostensibly covering Joe Biden’s visit to the region, Bowen’s communiqué shamelessly manipulates language while sidestepping the actual news (The Jerusalem U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Joint Declaration) to reiterate what -in his own words- “has all been said before”.
Here we are. Blatantly biased images, highly selective and misleading film clips, and the same old distortions - they’re all back - with a vengeance!
Tim Davie, are you there? Wake up!
Of course, writing this is a complete waste of time. Take the killing of Shireen Abu Ackleh, who is fast turning into the new Mohammad al-Dura. Even the Guardian’s forced retraction, following the same breach of the Editors’ Code of Practice (importance of distinguishing between fact and opinion), couldn’t deter Bowen from boldly repeating the same violation.
He’s becoming increasingly audacious because he knows he can get away with it. The public (new generation) 'doesn’t know any better, and it’s not hard to see the BBC’s cavalier 'free pass' to disinformation as a contributing factor to the news that antisemitism is on the rise.
I wanted to make a nod to Harry’s Place. I don’t think many (any) of the regulars over there are aware of this blog, but we’re aware of theirs. (Nods)
It goes to show that you can't keep a not-so-good man down...
Back in April, Sue wondered whatever happened to Dateline London favourite Abdel Bari Atwan, the Palestinian journalist with a very, very deep hatred of Israel?
We dared to hope but, alas, he was back on Dateline London today, being invited to talk about Israel.
He's back in the BBC fold then.
He was on his best behaviour though. No praising terrorism, or wild ranting, and laughs and sweetness and light with Shaun and 'Abdel Bari'.
His comeback tour won't last long though as the show's being cancelled by the BBC.
Israel today is in a state of confusion, in a state of panic. They know very well that what happened in Kabul Airport will repeat itself at Ben Gurion Airport. But Ben Gurion Airport will be closed, there will be no planes in it…. Israelis should listen to the advice of [Hezbollah leader] Hassan Nasrallah and start learning how to swim, because their only option will be Cyprus, their only option will be the Mediterranean Sea.
Abdel Bari Atwan, Lebanese television station Mayadeen TV, 18/8
Well, he's a Palestinian leftist journalist based in the UK who sports a fulsome Saddam moustache and loathes Israel and is/was a favoured BBC go-to voice.
My main encounter with him was via watching the BBC's foreign flagship Dateline London and counting the number of appearances of each and every panellist on every episode over several years, and regularly posting an ongoing tally and analysis.
Every single year, without fail, Abdel Bari Atwan - came top of the tree as the most-invited panellist on the Dateline London panellist charts.
He was the programme's most regular guest, frequently ranting away like an ill-informed maniac on most subjects yet being treated, on matters Middle Eastern, as if he were the expert's expert.
It was weird.
The main Dateline presenter throughout most of that time, Gavin Esler, called him 'Bari' and even hosted Bari's book launch. He wanted his friend on the programme, he said, because he was ''subversive''.
And Bari was always a highly controversial figure, having made statements openly rejoicing in terrorist attacks against Israel and fantasising about dancing ''with delight'' in Trafalgar Square if the Iranians attacked Israel - something Gavin Esler and the BBC knew, yet evidently let pass.
Has he been finally dropped? I've searched via various methods and not found him on Dateline Londonrecently.
He's evidently not been quiet though. As ever, he's been ranting away, away from UK television, recently expressing his hope that what happened at Kabul Airport will repeat itself at Ben Gurion Airport, and that Israelis should learn to swim like “rats fleeing a sinking ship".
To sum up: The man who the BBC made their MOST-frequent guest on their flagship foreign affairs panel programme over the course of several years - and treated with love and kid gloves - was an Israel-hating zealot, and the BBC knew this and kept him on, continually inviting him on more than anyone else.
The Jewish Chronicle has a leader column this week which surely ought to make the BBC sit up and take notice:
BBC Arabic’s anti-Israel bias is a problem for the region
What is the purpose of the BBC’s Arabic service? The answer might seem obvious — to bring the BBC’s editorial standards to coverage of Arab countries in their own languages. But its output reveals what seems to be a very different purpose: to promote a view of the Middle East with which we are all wearily familiar, in which Israel is the wicked enemy and those who fight it are heroes. That includes news coverage in which Jerusalem is called “the occupied city”, the Israeli army the “Israeli Occupation Forces” and the PLO “the Palestinian Resistance”. The anti-Israel bias of BBC news in general has long been an issue, but the specific failings relating to its Arabic service are of a different order of magnitude. As our investigation reveals, the BBC has itself admitted to 25 mistakes in its Arabic coverage in just over two years. But that figure barely scratches the surface of the problem.
In this week’s JC Essay, David Patrikarakos shows how polling in parts of the Arab world show a move towards a more favourable view of Israel; a slow move, but a move nonetheless. One of the blocks to progress is the BBC’s Arabic service. Instead of being given the facts, impartially and without bias, viewers are often given barely more than anti-Israel propaganda. This matters because it means the BBC is itself part of the problem in the Middle East. Last year, the BBC published new impartiality guidelines, supposedly to be enforced by a senior executive. Ken MacQuarrie, the man appointed to the role, is paid £325,000 a year. We would suggest that he might now start earning it by turning his attention to BBC Arabic.
There's a lot of damning detail in Jonathan Sacerdoti and Gary O'Shea's JC accompanying investigation into BBC Arabic's "anti-Israel bias and inaccuracies" and it's quite something to learn that the BBC has been compelled to admit 25 "mistakes" in its Arabic coverage of Israel in just over two years, "issuing on average nearly one correction every month". It suggests at best that standards at the BBC's Arabic Service aren't what they ought to be.
The BBC has been given "a detailed dossier of apparent breaches" this week.
As well as listing the inaccuracies and the forced apologies, the dossier accuses the BBC of "systematically downplaying terror attacks on Israelis; repeatedly using Hamas-inspired language; showcasing extreme views without challenge; and publishing a map in which Israel was erased".
According to the piece, the BBC has apologised in recent years, among other things concerning BBC Arabic, for:
A "fawning" portrait of a Hamas terrorist.
Describing Jerusalem as “the occupied city”.
Calling the Israeli army the “Israeli Occupation Forces”.
Describing the PLO as “the Palestinian Resistance”.
Referring to nine victims of a terrorist attack as “nine Jewish settlers”, though four weren't Jewish and none was a settler.
Also detailed is the fact that BBC Arabic repeatedly calls the West Bank, Gaza and even Israel “Palestine”, despite its own style guide outlawing the term.
Strikingly, the JC notes the service's employment (one as a correspondent, another as an editor) of two journalists who previously worked at the Hezbollah-owned TV station Al-Manar (a channel designated a “Terrorist Entity” by the US).
BBC Arabic are also accused of "regularly giving a platform" to blog favourite, Abdel Bari Atwan - though the BBC News Channel has been indulging his extreme views on Dateline London for well over a decade now. At least on Dateline, he was sometimes challenged. Apparently, BBC Arabic hasn't provided “appropriate challenge and / or other context”.
One I'd not heard of came last May: BBC Arabic "showcased social media comments which celebrated a sci-fi drama that envisioned the destruction of the Jewish state".
The article also says:
The corporation has also appeared to depart from editorial standards in its Arabic output with respect to reporting terror attacks.
According to the BBC style guide, journalists must “report acts of terror quickly, accurately, fully and responsibly”.
But while the BBC reported in English on 34 fatal terror attacks on Israeli civilians between 2015 and 2020, its Arabic service covered just 25 of these, analysts said, seriously downplaying the extent of Palestinian brutality.
A BBC spokesperson has responded already: “BBC Arabic shares exactly the same principles of accuracy and impartiality as BBC News in English, and we strongly reject the suggestion that its impartiality is compromised.”
Instead of the usual kneejerk dismissal, however, the BBC would do better to thank the people behind the study for their efforts, and then go away and think about all that they've been presented with here.
They've a really big problem if they don't see that there could be a big problem with the BBC Arabic service here that needs careful consideration and maybe serious action.
A beautiful noise rang out last week in the wake of the news that the government is considering Charles Moore to become the new chairman of the BBC and Paul Dacre to be the head of the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom. The noise was the sound of the British left wailing that toys they thought were theirs alone might now (under a Conservative government) finally go to identifiable conservatives.
The former editor of the Guardian Alan Rusbridger shrieked that ‘this is what an oligarchy looks like’. This and similar tweets were presumably sent from the lodgings of the Oxford college that Rusbridger was made principal of five years ago. Others who screamed themselves sick included BBC employees who briefed that Moore’s appointment ‘would shatter morale. People will leave.’ For there can be no greater way to refute accusations of institutional leftism in the BBC than for the corporation’s employees to threaten to resign en masse in response to a conservative appointment. Elsewhere, Have I Got News For You tweeted that this would be the end for the BBC. Which is as funny a joke as that show has mustered in the present century.
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In case you missed it, Abdel Bari Atwan, the BBC’s favourite political pundit and popular guest on Dateline London offers the Arab world some wise advice on the best strategy for ’victory’: “Terrorism”.
Senior Palestinian-British Journalist: The Taliban Showed That Terror Attacks Are The Way To Defeat The West; The Israel-Bahrain-UAE Agreements May Turn The Palestinians Back To This Path
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On the bright side, I have noticed a sea change within the centre-right media/blogosphere or whatever you like to call it.
Not so long ago any Israel-related opinion piece would attract a heavy proportion of negative comments - anti-Israel bordering on antisemitic. But in recent times - probably only a few months, there has been a swing. Now I sense a supportive majority. At last, people have started to get it.
While I’m aware that this topic represents something of a minority interest and many visitors to sites like this will scroll past as soon as they see what it’s about - I still feel that, well, someone’s gotta do it and it might as well be me.
And I haven't forgotten the reason I started writing about bias against Israel (and/or antisemitism) in the first place, and why I chose to do so on a general ‘BBC bias’ platform, rather than below the line on a dedicated “Zionist” blog, like, say, Elder of Ziyon or Harry’s Place.
I know that this specific issue isn’t necessarily at the top of every bias-watcher’s agenda, but such people aren’t likely to visit ‘Jewy’ blogs at all, so in the hope that I might catch the eye of someone who might otherwise avoid listening to me, I keep soldiering on.
I’m not apologising in any way. I’ve said this many times before. I’m not religious. I’m secular through and through. I don’t belong to any association, group or community. But I do feel compelled to make a fuss about a massive injustice that has been going on forever and seems to be getting worse the more ludicrous it gets.
Yesterday I just scraped the surface of it, but the piece grew a bit too long and unwieldy for a blog post. Brevity is a virtue - I wish I knew how to achieve that.
So let me recap.
I began by asking myself whether singling out the BBC’s undue respect for someone with such unpleasant “political views” as John Ashton was justified when it was really nothing out of the ordinary. The BBC routinely promotes virulently antisemitic individuals without so much as a whisper that their views might be in any way controversial.
The people who immediately came to mind (Chris Gunness, Richard Horton, Abdel Bari Atwan, etc) were but the tip of a giant iceberg. And that’s before we got to the long and terrifying list of (mainly Labour) MPs. Lo and behold, David Collier came up with just such a list, and all the more sinister for the fact that these individuals were ‘democratically elected’ and their ferocious anti-Israel activities are regarded as ‘political choices’.
One of these people - Sarah Champion (MP for Rotherham) is routinely lauded as a “champion” for the victims of the Pakistani grooming gangs and the MP who selflessly sacrificed a front-bench position for the cause.
However, calling her courageous for naming the perpetrators as “Pakistani men” in a Sun newspaper article is ‘benefit of the doubt too far’. Because, well, this crime was being perpetrated for quite a while before she ‘spoke out’ and she was by no means the first MP to do so.
As we have pointed out before, Sarah Champion has long been pandering to the virulently antisemitic ‘political choices’ of her constituents, and as Collier points out:
"How many times did she critically mention Israel? – and how many times did she critically reference the world’s serial human rights abusers? Israel: 60 Syria: 7 Iran: 5 N Korea: 2 Pakistan: 1 DRC: 0
That’s dealt with section one.
Next, there’s the mountain of a communication problem to overcome regarding those wretched “annexations” which the BBC and its international ilk are determined to misrepresent in their default “It’s all settled” manner - i.e., as yet another of greedy Israel’s characteristic land-grabs.
As I said yesterday, legally, the land is already Israel’s, and here is another easy-to-read and a particularly accessible piece which I enjoyed, despite my own recently acquired short attention span syndrome.
“The Palestinians have adopted a paradigm of the conflict in which Israel is entirely at fault. Justice, they say, requires that we vacate “their” land – in fact, if you asked them, they would say that this includes everything from the river to the sea; they believe they are being generous by just asking for Judea and Samaria (at least, for now). But this paradigm is wrong. In fact, we are the ones who have been excessively generous in repeatedly offering them large parts of the land, offers that were rejected because they did not provide a clear enough path to an Arab state in all of the land.
Lastly, I’d like to expand on the final section of yesterday’s post. Matthew Sweet’s piece in UnHerd. Anti-Semitism runs deep in Britain.
Antisemitism is not exclusively ‘on the left’. I read some interesting comments generated by this article on Harry’s Place. Commenter Fritz Wunderlich linked to several detailed and extremely lengthy historical accounts of Britain’s role in the establishment of Israel in 1948 and I’m afraid it doesn’t look good for Blighty.
Two conclusions can be drawn from research into these documents, which are relevant to the role of British intelligence in the war in Palestine.
The first is that, in the 1940s, Britain conducted a two-track policy in the Middle East: one, a well-documented, official policy defined by Whitehall under both the Conservative and Labour parties; the second was informal and secretive, which can be termed “regional,” implemented by “agents in the field,” which left few traces in British archives.
It was perpetrated by a small, influential group of Arabist secret agents who manipulated the cabinet in London and implemented their own policies, which deviated from the official position. These agents enjoyed a unique status as intermediaries between Whitehall and local Arab leaders. Either intentionally, or because of deep-seated personal beliefs, they provided biased assessments.
They did not merely gather and interpret information and recommend policy, but controlled the flow of information and implemented their own policies while keeping the London decision makers in the dark. They joined forces with Arab rulers, whom they portrayed as voicing the Arab view, in order to mislead their government. Their tactics, which were backed by senior military officers in Cairo, gathered momentum under the post-WWII Labour government and during the crisis in Palestine in 1947-48.
The second conclusion is that the British secret agents succeeded in implementing their policies due largely to their use of indirect control over local “agents of influence.” They employed undercover political operations, clandestine diplomacy and covert propaganda to manipulate Arab leaders and public opinion – methods widely used in the Middle East during World War II.
British Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin
Britain’s antisemitism runs deep indeed. It looks like our covertly (right-wing) Arabist agenda and our arrogant meddling planted the seeds of an increasingly intractable conflict. So the ongoing situation in the Middle East is our fault? Not entirely, though. The religiously-based hatred of Jews emanating from the religion of peace probably had something to do with it as well.
“By Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight if the Iranian missile hits Israel.”
So bragged Abdel Bari Atwan, the most frequently invited panellist on BBC Dateline London.
This video of a conversation about the media’s bias against Israel between “Elder” (from EoZ) and Adam Levick (from UK Media Watch) reminded me of Atwan’s infamous statement - which should surely be regarded by any genuinely anti-racist organisation as a damning, career-undermining boast - yet there he often is on our Saturday morning BBC TV screens chatting away animatedly with his trademark flailing arms and bulging eyes while Carrie Gracie or Shaun Lay look on benevolently.
I suppose we must make allowances for the fact that the Trafalgar Square pledge dates back to 2010 and his dancing days may be over.
Another topic that came up in the EoZ video was a fanciful headline in a recent edition of the Mail online. Prince Harry Faces Backlash ….
It seems that Prince Harry invited injured IDF soldiers to participate in the Invictus Games, and when ‘Bari’, as the BBC affectionately calls him, raised an objection on the basis of his deeply antisemitic sensibilities, the Mail online chose to upgrade this solitary, one-man ‘objection’ to the status of ‘backlash’.
This is uncharacteristic of the Mail, but I’m not sure if it’s primarily motivated by Harry-bashing or Israel-bashing.
I found the technically challenged EoZ video in question worth watching because both speakers are equally ‘well aware of’ and ‘baffled by’ the inexplicable blindspot that persists in much of the western media; a tacit refusal to acknowledge the antisemitic pandemic that is rife in the Arab world, particularly within Palestinian culture. No matter how many studies reveal staggeringly high percentages of unadulterated, religiously rooted Jew-hate (not Zionist-hate) - shocking figures are consistently found in survey after survey - the largely atheist western media will obstinately insist that their much venerated Palestinians are ‘just like us’.
It was odd hearing two Americans pontificating over the current state of the British Labour Party, and deciding whether Keir Starmer was a good guy. Better than Corbs, that’s for sure.
A question that still troubles me is who on earth put that shelf up?
If you've been reading this blog since the start you'll doubtless recall that I used to incessantly count the number of appearances of each guest on the BBC News Channel'sDateline London to show that the programme's panels were massively stacked against people with right-leaning views.
I did that for years - so much so that one contributor would email me to ask me for the latest stats to see if he was getting more or less invites than other guests.
And then, finally, I gave up counting.
Apologies to my Dateline friend - though, fear not, our Alex is still doing splendidly, and making the Sky papers scintillate alongside the delightful Polly MacKenzie, and brightening up Twitter, and much, much else besides - but years of proving a programme to have a very heavy inbuilt political bias left me thinking that I'd flogged that particular equine to death. Especially as I had proved it.
(I'm squeamish about The Grand National, so I'm all for not flogging equines to death).
Plus, I'd like to think that when the programme began to balance its panels better that my shaming stats had helped make that so.
As could have been predicted from his biased behaviour and comments as presenter - a bias somewhat disguised by his mild-mannered 'nice guy' TV persona - he went off and tried to get elected in the European elections last year, standing for the pro-EU Change UK in London. I'm sure he thought he'd win, but he lost. The tone of his public pronouncements, especially on Twitter, was a million kilometres away from his 'nice guy' TV persona. He turned into a sort of less pleasant version of Alastair Campbell. He even made his former Newsnight colleague Paul Mason sound gentle, kind and reasonable in comparison. He's now Chancellor of the University of Kent.
His replacement, Carrie Gracie, is much better - a consummate professional. (I do hope she's paid more than he was.) I like her.
*******
But, as noted on an earlier thread, it looks as if I might need to start counting again. (It would be no hardship.) Today's panel used to be typical. But, maybe since I've stopped chronicling it (a pathetic fallacy on my part?), it's slipped back again because today's panel was a violent throwback to Classic Era Dateline.
Every single member of today's panel - Michael Goldfarb, Yasmin Alibhai Brown, Abdel Bari Atwan and Eunice Goes - comes from the left side of the usual political spectrum. There wasn't a right-leaning guest in sight. A clean sweep.
For those not overly familiar with the programme, Palestinian 'journalist' Abdel Bari Atwan was the most regular guest every year, for years, despite being an extreme Saddamite loather of Israel with a record of highly incendiary remarks hoping for the end of Israel and lots of deaths in Israel - a very controversial man.
Gavin Esler was his friend and used to help promote his books.
Despite Gavin going, the indefatigable Bari is still clearly in with the BBC. Him and that other flame-thrower Yasmin can shout away at each other to their hearts content forever for a licence-fee-funded fee no doubt - unless something is done about it.
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Recommendations to BBC? First, one they'll like: Send in David Dimbleby to play all three monkeys, maybe?
Second, one they ought to like: Think! If you have a panel of four left-wingers people might think you're biased and want to punish you by taking away your public funding or abolishing you. So balance your panels!
For once the inclusion on the Dateline panel of our favourite mad Arab, Abdel Bari Atwan (aka ‘Arry Batwan) was fully justified. He was as impassioned as ever, waving his arms around frantically as he searched for those elusive words. He’s lived here for 40 years?
However, the dramatic elimination of The Big Daddy of Isis did touch upon his area of expertise. Looking more preternatural than ever, he informed the viewers about the new leader of Isis - “more brutal even that BagDaddy”, and at some length, he decried the volatility of the Middle East. Who knew?
I thought Carrie Gracie was rather good as the host of this programme. In fact, she has risen in my estimation and she seems to be growing into her role on the Beeb - she did seem shaky when she first returned from China, embroiled in all that equal pay malarky. Now she looks like a pair of safe hands.
I wonder what Craig thought of that episode. Dateline is usually his territory. He knows all the contributors by name and can even tell the difference between them.
President Trump’s childish boasting about dead dogs was indeed regrettable but I’m not sure if it eclipsed the ‘success’ of the actual incident quite as much as the first speaker, John Fisher Burns asserted. Trump managed to “grab defeat from the jaws of victory”, he said. Somewhat of an exaggeration and a relatively petty argument if you ask me.
The worry that Trump’s withdrawal of troops from the area will do far-reaching damage and cause widespread instability was agreed by all, and the proposal that however many leaders are bumped off, there will be more to take their place.
Bari was upset that the US has decided to bury its corpses at sea, rather than ‘show us the evidence’. He seemed to think that he needed proof that they were really dead, otherwise they might not be. Adam Raphael said that displaying corpses’ heads on sticks was ‘not our way’, a none-too-subtle put-down, delivered with a slight smirk.
When they had exhausted that topic, having decided that we shouldn’t abdicate responsibility for our own jihadi prisoners, but take them back, Britain and Europe, that is, they turned to the 'generalection'. The worrying conclusion was that Boris has taken a risk too far and that we are very likely facing a Marxist takeover.
Today's Dateline Londongave us a double treat today - both Abdel Bari Atwan and Yasmin Alibhai Brown. (It still amazes me that they can rant so outlandishly without literally frothing at the mouth.) Adel Darwish, for one, wasn't impressed. He sums it up very well:
Waste of licence money, Dateline London (BBC News Channel), an entire anti-British panel, the only difference is the degree of anti-British & anti-American fanaticism among them. Presenter? Not challenging their idiocy that Iran's terrorism & piracy was Donald Trump & UK's fault!
