Biased BBC

Just a quick post to update any of you who are missing your daily read of the Biased BBC blog, which has been experiencing some technical difficulties in recent days....It is now up-and-running again. You will find it, however, at a new address:

http://biasedbbc.org

The link on the 'Blog List' here at Is? has been updated and will carry you straight there. Bon voyage!

Whose side are they on?

An article from May 2011 on the blog of the BBC's College of Journalism by Stuart Hughes, BBC World Affairs producer, entitled Whose side are we on?, examines the thorny old question of impartiality. The article is linked to from the main page of the College's section on the topic and is well worth a read.

Talking specifically about the 'Arab Spring', Stuart uses his piece to advance the point of view of those who believe that impartiality doesn't mean that reporters must always refrain from taking sides:

Esra Dogramaci from Al Jazeera explained that she and her colleagues were seeking to "amplify" the conversation taking place in the social media sphere. Al Jazeera, she said, was seeking to give a "voice to the voiceless" by distributing Flip video cameras to members of the audience and by educating people about how to use social media.

As protestors demand change and topple regimes across the Middle East and North Africa, Esra Dogramaci aligned Al Jazeera very clearly with those taking to the streets in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere.

"If you're asking what side Al Jazeera is on... it's on the side of the people," she said.

Of course, the belief that journalists should not always sit on the fence isn't new. Martin Bell advocated the need for a "journalism of attachment" with a moral obligation to distinguish between "good" and "evil". But if we choose to take the side of "the people" are we journalists, activists or both? 

Al Jazeera is an interesting choice of news organisation and I think that Stuart might have been somewhat naive in taking Esra's line (however sincerely she meant it) at face value. 

Reading beyond the BBC, it appears that the Qatari-based-and-backed station's standpoint - as stated by Esra Dogramaci - was and is remarkably close to that of its own government (which it is not known for criticising). Qatar was highly active in the 'Arab Spring', helping  overthrow Colonel Gaddafi, for example, and is now engaged in the attempted overthrow of Bashar al-Assad of Syria. It is also opening bankrolling the various Muslim Brotherhood-related forces now dominating much of the political landscape in the Middle East, including the terrorist organisation Hamas in Gaza. If you are asking what side Qatar is on....it's on the side of the people too. Well, OK, it actually seems to be on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood, but Muslim Brotherhood...the people...same difference in their eyes, it appears. The Muslim Brotherhood dissolved itself in Qatar years ago, claiming the government there is just fine, and there are said to be all manner of ties between Qatar and prominent figures in various Muslim Brotherhood-style movements - and between Al Jazeera and prominent figures in various Muslim Brotherhood-style movements. 

Whether Stuart Hughes is or isn't himself advocating the correctness of 'taking the people's side' in the 'Arab Spring,' it certainly felt to many of us (on what might be called the Arabspringosceptic side of the argument) that his organisation, the BBC, most assuredly was also 'taking the people's side' during the 'Arab Spring'; indeed, some would argue that it is still doing so, especially with regards to the civil war in Syria. The BBC's coverage of the Tahrir Square protests at the time of the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak seemed to some of us to be little short of enthusiastic. The Muslim Brotherhood and, especially, their kindred spirits in the likes of Tunisia were repeatedly described as 'moderate'. Ah, bliss it was to be alive and in Cairo at that time, eh?! (Please read this article by the BBC's online Middle East editor Tarik Kafala for a flavour of the reporting back then). 

Were the BBC adopting the journalism of attachment, behaving like activists, taking the side of "the people" during the 'Arab Spring'? Did they regard the toppled Western-backed autocrats as the "evil" against whom "good" people were fighting? Were they, as a result, failing to see what they should have seen - seeing, hearing and speaking no evil about the Muslim Brotherhood? It certainly seemed like that to me at the time. And it still does. 

Understanding Arabs

The other day I described a complaint about a BBC radio 5 live Drive programme that was transmitted on 14/11/12. The BBC mistakenly assumed the complainant was upset about pro-Israel material in the broadcast, and as such the complaint was answered promptly and extensively by the BBC’s complaints handler, with a detailed explanation of how the BBC wasn’t at all pro-Israel, and had made it a policy to show as many images of injured or killed children as possible, from Gaza. (Or anywhere.)  

In fact, the complaint was that offending section contained bias against Israel, but somehow the BBC had got the wrong end of the stick, inadvertently exposing its own less than impartial attitude towards Israel. It turned out to be a kind of gotcha.

Not only was the response ingratiating, and almost apologetic about having to maintain a veneer of impartiality, it was also dealt with uncannily speedily. 

Here’s another uncharacteristically speedy reply to a complaint on behalf of the anti-Israel lobby, written by Chris Doyle of the Council for Advancing  Arab British Understanding, (or as some of us prefer to think of it, Misunderstanding) aka CAABU.

Doyle complained that a video report broadcast on Newsround on 21st November did not reflect the Palestinian historical narrative. He demanded that the report be taken down and a revised version rebroadcast and an apology issued.

The BBC hastened to reply, quickly amended the item and apologised for the factual inaccuracies. 

In her defence, I will say that Owenna Griffiths didn’t concede all 12 of his points, and she insisted that despite the ‘errors’, the original report was not biased. In this respect the tone of her reply is pretty much the same as the stock-in-trade letter the BBC issues in response to complaints of bias against Israel. They always plead scrupulous impartiality, but rarely concede anything. It’s the speed of the responses in both these “unfair to the Arabs” accusations, which seems oddly out of sync with the tardy responses granted to what is all too often perceived as the diabolical Jewish Lobby.    

The organisation Caabu is well known for shmoozing as many British MPs as it can tempt. They are taken on guided tours of Palestine and shown hardship, suffering and other Palestinian grievances so that they can come home with the news that they now know all about the Israel/Palestine situation, with their shiny new Arab Understanding. Notably Nick Clegg, who seems to be alarmingly, nay, hopelessly devoted to the cause.

Despite a rather unlikely-sounding  shortage of funds, Caabu appears disproportionately influential, with several MPs and one BBC correspondent on the executive committee That’s Jonathan Fryer, described on CAABu’s website thus:

”A familiar voice from the BBC’s ‘From Our Own Correspondent’, Jonathan has spent over 30 years reporting worldwide, including making radio documentaries on the West Bank and Oman. An occasional contributor to the Guardian and other publications, he has written a dozen books, the latest being a history of the Kuwait Oil Company. He teaches part-time at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and travels frequently to the Middle East and North Africa. Formerly Mauritania’s Honorary Consul in Britain, he is currently Chairman of the Liberal International British Group and sits on the Liberal Democrats’ International Relations Committee.”

Chris Doyle, whose expertise the BBC calls upon regarding Syria and other M.E. matters, is married to glamorous Syrian born astrophysicist Rim Turkmani, whose opinions are also valued by the BBC . The couple’s close relationship with Bashar alAssad and his father-in-law, came to an abrupt end when they realised that they were backing a sinking ship  - and jumped.

Peter Oborne’s  obsession with the Jewish Lobby hasn’t really got a leg to stand on. Has it? Really? He’s looking increasingly paranoid. Poor thing.

At least the Telegraph published a few letters disagreeing with Oborne, Nevertheless, things really do start to look bleak.

People like myself rail against the BBC’s reflexive dismissal of Israel as evil, a pariah state, a rogue state, or if not that, at the very least expansionist, greedy, disproportionately aggressive, powerful and untrustworthy. 

Why, we wonder, does no-one refute these allegations and insinuations whenever they are made, when the evidence is there, for all who cares  to look, to prove that they can be easily  refuted. 

Why, one might wonder, would I not rail against a similar, blanket-like dismissal of Syria, when I know how easily these blanket-like assumptions can take hold and replace rational thought. Well, this is how I differentiate between the cases of Syria and Israel; their vilification.

Well, to be glib, one is a democracy, and the other is a tyranny. In a democracy, the people hold the government to account, or, if certain groups become too powerful, to ransom. Democracy tells the government if the people don’t like you, you’re out. So the government is dependent on the intellectual and material contentment of the voter. Interest groups, including trade unions, religious groups, big business, the press and media, and popular culture inevitably hold sway. So, not perfect. 

Civilised society must be shepherded into compliance by many means. The illusion of personal freedom, helped along by booze, popular culture and the assorted aspirations of individual persons.

However, the feasibility of tyrannies like Syria, Saddam’s Iraq, Gaddafi’s Libya and all the rest, is entirely dependent on suppression of the people, by means of a combination of the ever-present terror of government-instigated brute force and fear of the almighty. The intellectual and material well-being of the people is the last thing on the minds of tyrants and despots. The more educated they may be, the more discontented they will become. Along comes social media, and the corks pop. With no governmental brute force to keep the lid on it, the fear of the almighty stands alone.  Deposing tyrants and despots is not the answer, much as the BBC liked to think it would be.

I remember reading the powerful essays about life in Syria by ‘Davem’ on Harry’s Place. In Bashar’s regime, everyone was terrified. It must have been the same in Libya and Iraq. Secret police, government informers and spies, people taken away never to be seen again. All discontent and frustration channeled into the one unifying hatred - of the Jews.

So that is why I automatically condemn the ‘Arab lobby’ in the shape of people like Chris Doyle and his lovely wife for seducing our government and our National broadcaster into applying moral equivalence to the democracies of Israel, Britain and America and the regimes of both the tyrannical pre and the chaotic post Arab-uprising Islamic majority states.

Shilling against shale?

There were many complaints on various right-leaning blogs on Thursday (13 December) that the BBC was promoting an anti-fracking (hydraulic fracturing) agenda. There have been plenty of such complaints before. Fraser Nelson's Spectator column is fairly typical:

There was something odd about George Osborne offering tax breaks for fracking when it was still banned by another part of his government. The ban has been lifted and exploration can begin again in Lancashire, in what could be the most important piece of economic good news since the discovery of North Sea oil.

But listening to the BBC reports this morning, it’s striking how the corporation already seems to be against it. Fracking has begun, it says. And the two things is listeners need to know about fracking? That it has been accused of polluting water in America and causing earth tremors. The upside, especially for Blackpool and its environs, was not mentioned.

Over at Biased BBC you can read comments like:

Excellent article in The Spectator showing just how little regard the BBC has for the country and society in the pursuit of its own agenda. I’m just glad the government finally had the guts to start developing this form of energy. It could solve more than one problem in the world. 
and
Today I learned the BBC is worried about Fracking and the fact that there will be in one experts opinion no major impact on gas supplies even though we sit on hugh amounts of of shale gas.
and
Beeboids increase their devious anti-fracking campaigning. Beeboids are determined to stop, by fair means or foul apparently, the development of shale gas in Britain.
and
Yes, but, uncle beeb hates “fracking” and is totally against it being done in the UK 

Was Fraser Nelson basing this criticism on watching the BBC News Channel that morning? Or from listening to Today on Radio 4? I didn't watch the News Channel that day and there's no 'listen again' facility to check if the BBC's reporting did come across as being against fracking. What, though, of Today? That can be listened to again. Did it strike an anti-fracking stance? And what of the rest of the day's reporting? It's time to check it out and judge for myself.

Before I begin, I'll lay my own cards on the table. I'm pro-fracking. I hold high hopes for it. We, as a country, need it to be a success.

Having so confessed, I will now try to put my own biases on the issue to one side and see what happens. This post will be through-composed, so Lord knows where it will lead me conclusions-wise. 

Today, 13 December

Listening through Today's coverage just now has been quite eye-opening. The second and third hours of the programme began with segments on the issue. The second hour got under way with a John Humphrys interview with Alastair Fraser, Professor of Petroleum Geoscience at Imperial College, London. You can hear it at the 7.09 slot here. 

It was a good-natured and interesting interview, but what was so interesting (from a bias-hunter's perspective) was the questioning by John H. For all the world, it sounded to me as if he was actively steering Prof. Fraser in a pro-fracking direction - the exact opposite of what many in favour of fracking are alleging against the BBC. 

John Humphrys began the interview by asking, "Professor Fraser, just deal with  the safety bit first. When we talk about earthquakes, they are really tiny?"

Prof. Fraser agreed that they were "very small". "Micro-earthquakes" called them. 

"It's like a bus driving past?", John asked.

"Absolutely", replied Prof. Fraser. 

"Right, shouldn't worry about that," said John decisively. "What about polluting the water?"

Prof. Fraser said we can worry a little bit more about that, but it's down to good or bad drilling practice. A good regulatory framework is required. The UK has been regulating oil and gas for some 60 years...

"Without any big problems," John interrupted. 

"Without any major problems," agreed the professor. There was Piper Alpha though...

"No, no, but I mean in terms of polluting water...", John interrupted again.

"No major problems there", Prof. Fraser agreed. 

"So, again, that's controllable?", John asked.

"Yes," Prof. Fraser replied. 

They then talked about the amount of gas we could have in the UK. Prof. Fraser said that it was hard to be sure but it seems that onshore gas could a fifth or a quarter of what we've had offshore....

"But still very significant?," John asked/stated.

"Yes, absolutely", agreed Prof. Fraser. It won't dramatically effort our export markets but it will have an effect on the energy that comes into our homes. It may not lower the price but it will stop us having to rely on imported gas and give us more control over the price in that case...

"And that is very important?", John asked/stated. 

"I think it's important. I hope your listeners feel it's important as well."

"Right, but what we won't have is what they've had in the United States, where the gas price has dropped like a stone?", said John. 

"My goodness, it's incredible..", began Prof. Fraser. 

John sounded as if he shared his guest's amazement. "Wow!" he said soon after. 

Please listen to the interview to judge for yourself, but you can surely see from all this that John Humphrys could not, in any way, shape or form, be fairly or accurately accused of asking questions from an anti-fracking stance. Quite the reverse, in fact. It sounded much more as if he was actually promoting fracking rather than criticising it. His questions were framed almost entirely from a similar standpoint to that of, say, Fraser Nelson. 

Now, this could just be good old-fashioned devil's advocate questioning of the kind BBC interviewers might well put to an anti-fracking guest. Questioning from a pro-fracking stance would be entirely justified in such circumstances. Except that Professor Fraser clearly isn't against fracking. 

How John Humphrys conducted the interviews during the 8.10 segment should clarify the matter then.

Sequel to a Sequel

Further to our last couple of posts, it was revealing that Tuesday night's Newsnight held a discussion of the findings of the 2011 census, with emphasis on those demographic changes. What was so revealing is that it was a discussion that sounded unlike any discussion I've ever heard outside of a BBC studio - the sort of discussion which has been going on in BBC studios for many, many years.

Three of the four guests (Bonnie Greer, Daniel Knowles of The Economist and A.C. Grayling) were enthusiastic about the changes that have come about as a result of the massive influx of new immigrants over the past ten years and only one guest (Douglas Murray) raising the caveats and concerns which vast swathes of the general public share. 

In no way representative of public opinion, it was just the sort of thing guaranteed to have set reactionary panicmongers everywhere rolling their eyes. Understandably.

Who got it right - the sequel

Further to Craig’s level-headed article, here’s a contribution on behalf of reactionary panicmongers everywhere.  

It was refreshing that the news about the census showing the sharp rise in immigration was headlined on the BBC all day yesterday. Headlined! 

One might think the BBC would play it down, but one would be wrong. Not completely, though.  They didn’t play it down, but they did pass it through the BBC’s particular prism and it came out the other side all gift wrapped and pretty, with something distinctly elephant-sized missing. 

Okay, so the sharp increase in the number of immigrants is ‘changing the demographics’, as they like to put it, but political correctness means that the most significant ways in which the demographics are changing are the ones we’re not allowed to mention. The census is out, it’s ‘news’, therefore the BBC must report it. What to do? 

If they can’t discuss the unmentionable thing that is occupying the minds of the politically incorrect, they must stick to naming, and if necessary blaming and shaming the ones they can. In a politically correct collusion with politicians of all persuasion, they make the most of directing all negative analysis at the group they feel they can justify complaining about - not the ones who don’t work, but the ones that do. Not the ones who demand massive supremacist religious buildings, but the ones whose presence is marked by a few extra specialist grocery stores.   

They had to include something about religion, because it was in the census, so the fact that Christianity is in decline took top spot. The massive rise in the population of Tower Hamlets was noted, but about you-know-what there was not a lot.

The BBC, for some reason, thinks it’s okay to talk about the Poles, but it’s nasty and racist to talk about the Muslims. Why?

On the BBC’s review of the papers this morning, Jonathan Freedland was quoted because he has written something favourable about diversity, citing a guardsman with a turban instead of a bearskin. Yippee. “The panicmongers on the reactionary right will compare that to the rise in the number of British Muslims to 2.7m – from 3% of the total population in 2001 to 5% now – and warn that Christianity will one day be outstripped by Islam.”

I am a panicmonger, and you have not allayed my panic by simply shouting ‘Don’t Panic!!” 

There’s undoubtedly something joyous about ‘colourful’ and ‘cosmopolitan’ and ‘rainbow nation’. There’s also something colourless about insular, bigoted, parochial and unimaginative. But this isn’t about that. The relatively small proportion of Muslims in the UK and Europe are disproportionately disruptive, and the way the world is turning against Israel and by extension all Jews bar the ones in the chorus, should  set alarm bells ringing in the ears of Jonathan Freedland.

P.S. I’d just like to mention this in Dominic Casciani’s piece.

“Thirdly, if the UK's population becomes more highly skilled and educated, there will be more and more jobs that people do not want to do.”

For a start, it’s a big ‘If’, judging by the way our education standards are slipping down the world’s league tables, but as for these hypothetical skilled people not wanting to do unskilled jobs - well, does that mean the immigrants do want to do them? Or do they have to because necessity is the mother of invention.   Because they and their dependents are not cushioned by welfare, whereas our own unskilled and uneducated are, because they are driven by a work ethic, whereas our own unskilled and uneducated are not. Because  they have little alternative and because our own unskilled and uneducated have. 

Who got it right - Migration Watch or the BBC?

BBC Home affairs correspondent Dominic Casciani has an analysis of the demographic changes to the United Kingdom over the last ten years on the BBC News website. It comes in the wake of the latest census results, as revealed today by the ONS:

What the census shows beyond any doubt is that the UK is in the midst of an astonishing era of demographic shift - and like the experience of many of its international peers, it is being driven by globalisation.

Ten years ago, there were some 4.3 million people in the UK who told the census that they had been born abroad. Almost all areas had been touched by changes from immigration - although in some areas the numbers were so small that it clearly amounted to little more than a family moving in or out - the phenomenon of a single Indian restaurant in a village, for instance. 

In 2011, there were 7.5 million people born abroad living in England and Wales - up almost three million and taking their proportion of the population to 13%.

The UK is experiencing such rapid flows and movements of people from so many parts of the world, that parts of it can lay claim to being "super-diverse" - the idea that an area is home to so many people it's almost impossible to describe it in simple terms, such as home to one community or another. 

The BBC has repeatedly been charged with playing down the extent of the wave of immigration that broke on Britain's shores during the years of the New Labour government and of being an advocate for large-scale immigration throughout that period. 

A small part of the truth of that was admitted just over a year ago by the last-but-one Director General of the BBC, Mark Thompson:

"For example, I think there were some years when the BBC, like the rest of the UK media, was very reticent about talking about immigration. There was an anxiety whether or not you might be playing into a political agenda if you did items about immigration."

As an instance, though, of just how bad BBC reporting could be on the subject ten years ago, here's another piece by Dominic Casciani:

Monday, 5 August, 2002, 12:42 GMT 13:42 UK

Immigration: Fact or hype?
The white cliffs of Dover: Destination UK

By Dominic Casciani BBC News Online community affairs reporter

What are the facts about immigration? BBC News Online looks at the current debate.
Figures from Migration Watch UK, a new group led by a former diplomat and an Oxford University demographer, predict more than two million people will arrive in the UK every 10 years for the foreseeable future.
Not surprisingly, the figures have dominated headlines amid the continuing debate over asylum, immigration and race relations in the UK.
According to the government's own figures, the UK has the "third largest foreign population and labour force in the European Union", around 2.2m people.
No one disputes that immigration to the UK has been increasing since the late 1990s. The problem is it's almost impossible to agree by how much. So how does Migration Watch UK reach its conclusions?

We start from the belief that the scale of net inward migration is now so great as to be contrary to the interests of all sections of our community

Migration Watch UK

The most up-to-date official statistics reveal that 125,000 people settled in the UK in 2000.
Groups such as the Immigration Advisory Service say that sounds a lot, but it represents less than a third of one percent of the UK's population.
Migration Watch UK then adds a further 60,000 to this figure to account for asylum seekers who enter the UK but "disappear".
The group then makes a number of further assumptions. Firstly, it estimates that there could be some 35,000 more people from outside the European Union who come on a visitor's visa and then never leave.
It then calculates that there are at least another 25,000 who arrive at these shores "clandestinely", for instance by hiding in a lorry crossing the English Channel.
Whether this is a double-counting of asylum seekers is not clear.
Official predictions The government's own figures are completely different to those of Migration Watch UK.
It says that there are no figures for undetected migration so predictions and calculations are impossible to make.
Its prediction for net migration to the UK from 2003 onwards is 135,000 a year. It does indeed agree that there will be an extra two million arrivals - but only by 2021.
The Home Office says that Migration Watch UK's figures should be treated with "considerable caution".
For its part, the Immigration Advisory Service, the main expert body dealing with the issue on a day-to-day basis, says today's predictions are little more than "idle speculation".
Economic arguments So this then brings us to the question of absorption. Migration Watch UK says that there is "no economic case for large scale inward migration".
This is something that numerous academics and the government reject.
The UK's population is getting older, meaning that more working age people are needed to prop up the world's fourth largest industrial economy.
Secondly, there is a current shortage of highly-skilled people in key sectors such as the NHS, public services and the IT industry.
Thirdly, if the UK's population becomes more highly skilled and educated, there will be more and more jobs that people do not want to do. All of these factors have come together to create immigration demands.
One study by the University of Swansea predicts that we need to increase immigration by a fifth to protect prevent a population decline and subsequent economic crisis.
Some of this thinking is already filtering down to government which is changing the entry rules to meet the needs of the job market.
Which brings us to the final question about Migration Research UK's predictions: Irrespective of the exact figures, how will it go down with the British public?
In May BBC News Online published a major survey of public attitudes on race and immigration issues in the UK.
Asked whether they believed that immigrants found it easy or difficult to integrate in the UK, some 61% of all respondents said difficult. The figure remained largely consistent across all ethnic groups.
But on the question of whether or not immigration was a good thing, the numbers differed quite dramatically.
Some 47% of white respondents said that immigration had damaged Britain with a quarter saying they did not know. Approximately a third of black respondents and Asian respondents also said they did not know - indicating the uncertain nature of the current debate on immigration to the UK. 

The article begins with a question about Migration Watch's prediction that "more than two million people will arrive in the UK every ten years for the foreseeable future": Is it fact or is it hype? It's clear from the tenor and the structure of the article that Dominic intended his readers to believe the answer to be that it was "hype."

As we now know, not only were Migration Watch's predictions not hype then were in fact a significant underestimate of the correct figure of nearly three million people arriving over the ten years from 2001-2011. 

The next stage of Dominic's article seeks to undermine Migration Watch's figures by casting doubt on their counting methods and on the possibility of ever reaching an agreed figure. Criticism of their figures from the Home Office and the Immigration Advisory Service, the main "expert body", is used to overwhelm them. 

Looking back, knowing what we now now, the Home Office prediction cited here is staggering in its sheer wrongness!:

Its prediction for net migration to the UK from 2003 onwards is 135,000 a year. It does indeed agree that there will be an extra two million arrivals - but only by 2021. 

So much for the trustworthiness of the Home Office under the last Labour government then! 

Oh Douglas!

What a speech!

I saw this on Biased-BBC. (Thanks very much by the way)

Update.

Below it, B-BBC’s midnight commenter Dez (Hope he’ll forgive me for borrowing it) says:

dez says:

December 10, 2012 at 3:23 am

Hell yeah! It’s great when you only have to listen to one side of an argument.

I recently came across the following. I wonder if you agree:

“What, then, is the East End like under the sway of the immigrant, and what is its future to be if it is to remain an asylum open to all without condition or restriction?

Many English people living in the neighbourhood have summed up the situation to me in a phrase : ‘We are living in a foreign country.’

East of Aldgate one walks into a foreign town. In the by-streets north and south of the main thoroughfares it is an exception to hear the English language spoken…

…The English working man asks, with un-deniable justice, why he should be turned out of the most convenient neighbourhood to make room for a foreign population, and why his rent should be raised from 50 to 100 per cent, in consequence of the demand for house accommodation which foreigners have created.”

Sound familiar?

Would it change your opinion if you knew it was written in 1903 and the subject of the author’s complaint was Jews?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Since this blog is eerily silent I’m taking it up here, on “Is”, rather than on a somewhat congested B-BBC to show that we do listen to the other side of the argument - if that is what Dez’s comment actually represents.

Here Dez is ‘turning the tables’, a test one should always carefully try out before opining on sensitive matters such as racism. 

Well Dez, it might surprise you to know that some of us routinely do test our arguments in this  ‘Muslims are the new Jews’ type of way.  

Dez is right, these are indeed the things that people say about immigration, and yes, in the early 20th c people were suspicious of Jews - just as they are to this day - but then people were openly racist through fear of the unknown right up till events during WWll showed them where this sort of ill-informed narrow-minded thinking could lead.  

But is there a parallel?  Is there moral equivalence between the  hard-working Jewish immigrants who fled from pogroms in Eastern Europe to Britain and America, who were determined to assimilate and integrate, who made no demands of their hosts and were well disposed towards the counties that gave them refuge?

Dez is trying to say, look, these two groups are “other”. Look how they misunderstood the Jews then, therefore -  accordingly, you’re misunderstanding the Muslims now.

But no. There is little or no similarity. Muslims, as a collective, are not the new Jews. They’re not even the old Jews.

 They are, as a collective, (and with individual exceptions) demanding, separatist, hostile, unreasonable, Judeophobic, misogynistic, homophobic, destructive, repressive, belligerent, confrontational, supremacist, disputatious and quarrelsome.

There you are. I’m saying something racist, something which mustn’t even be thought, let alone said out loud. 

When I use the term ‘Muslims’, I am of course referring in general terms to an ideology that is proud of the very things I am disparaging.  They believe these things are righteous and they aspire to them. They are not ashamed of any of them because they sincerely believe they are morally desirable, and they hold the hypothetical afterlife in higher regard than the actual material life.

The religion of peace?  One interpretation of ‘peace’ is the vision of the glorious time when all opposition has been extinguished. 

So turn the tables if you must, but who really wants to sit at an upturned table?

This is not a rant against immigration by the way, unlike some commenters on B-BBC whose little Englander views tend to validate your point rather than mine. 

It’s worth pointing out that in the early 1900s the number of Jews in the UK was about 150,000. Even now there are only around 250,000, whereas the figures for Muslims in the UK presently appear to be up to five million, many of whom are financially dependent on the state. 

Death of a Supergiant

Sad news. Sir Patrick Moore, shining star of the BBC's The Sky at Night, has just died.

I grew up watching his wonderful programme and, on and off, have continued to do so. Sir Patrick ensured that, however fun the programme could be at times, it never spoke down to its audience.

It always pleased me that the BBC stuck with him, especially in recent years. It's the sort of thing that makes you sentimental about the BBC, in spite of everything.

Like Sir Patrick, I have always been biased in favour of astronomy. Another bias we share is a love for the music of Gustav Holst. I remember him extolling the beauty of Holst's strange late song Betelgeuse. Sadly, I'm unable to link to that in tribute, so please remember Sir Patrick Moore and have a listen to The Planets instead. There's a part for the xylophone in there too.

Hopefully, he'll be floating in serene happiness somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse now. 

Broadcasting Grouse

On an old blog of mine, some time ago, when I was younger and less grey-haired, I used to post almost weekly assaults on what I then regarded as the strong left-wing bias being pumped out by Paddy O'Connell's Sunday morning show on Radio 4, Broadcasting House. (You can read all my old pieces - from 2009 and 2010 - here). I dipped into it from time to time thereafter but, by not listening week in and week out, lost my focus and then pretty much gave up. 

Has the programme changed? 

Well, I listened last week and enjoyed the programme. They were navel-gazing somewhat, marking the programme's departure - along with all the other main Radio 4 current affairs staples - from their old studio in Broadcasting House. John Humprhys gave us his reflections on that interview with George Entwistle and Jim Naughtie shared his memories of that slip-of-the-tongue/Freudian slip over the name of the last Hulture Secretary...er..sorry, Culture Secretary. All interesting stuff. 

The only bit that struck me as offering evidence of bias came during the paper review when Paddy brought the discussion with his three guests to a temporary halt to bring us some 'breaking news' - the Hacked Off petition calling for the government to implement the recommendations of the Leveson Report in full had passed a particular landmark total of signatures (around 850,000, if I recall correctly). This struck me at the time as being an unusual thing for a BBC presenter to do, especially as the running total had already been updated in the programme's news bulletin earlier. 

I wonder if Peter Hitchens heard that intervention too, as he writes:

Plugging this petition is proof of BBC bias

Last weekend, almost every BBC radio bulletin I listened to, over several days, mentioned a petition calling for full implementation of the Leveson Report into the press, and said that the number of signatures was rising.

Unless they can show that they have ever  done this with any other comparable petition,  I believe this is objective evidence of BBC bias on a matter of public controversy. Will the BBC  Trust act?

Have they ever done this with any other comparable petition? Dunno.

Time perhaps to start re-checking what Broadcasting House is up to these days in earnest again, albeit in my new spirit of openness to the danger of falling into the trap of confirmation bias. (Watch me fall, folks!)

The programme's first interview was with Conservative MP Nick Herbert - one of those Conservative MPs who have just launched a group campaigning for a change in the law to allow gay marriage in places of worship (when those places of worship want it). There was no balancing MP against the proposal, but the questioning was unobjectionable. The questions with the strongest flavour were:

Flag riots in Northern Ireland, triple dip risks, the prime minister of Italy's just resigned...What are you all up to?

OK, so you're going to have a sort-of pick-and-mix situation where churches that don't want to have a gay marriage in their hallowed precincts do not...will not be forced by the state to do so?

Yes, there sounded to be a measure of sarcasm in that "in their hallowed precincts", perhaps suggesting where our Paddy's sympathies lie (for understandable if not excusable reasons). 

One of the things I used to complain about regarding Broadcasting House was the way that, over the course of the nine or so months that I monitored it very closely, there were several audio essay-type features on topical issues and most of them where from left-wingers (sometimes far-left-wingers) without the balance of any such pieces from right-wingers. My eyes, therefore, rolled anew when the next topic came up...I'm sure you'll be able to see why.

Paddy's introduction to this item, laden with irony [and some added comments from yours truly], ran as follows:

"Not for the first time the Matt cartoon on the front of today's Sunday Telegraph captures a row of the week. It shows two Starbucks executives clutching mugs of coffee. One says to the other, "I have to be very careful with tax. Too much makes me feel shaky and panicky." We'll predict the next tax target for the public [doesn't he mean "for campaigners"?] now after Starbucks said it would cough up £20 million [here comes the sarcasm!] discovered down the back of a sofa. The coffee company acted in the teeth of those protests, which continued this weekend.  

Standing by live for B.H. is Margaret Hodge, who'll tell us if this is down to a more muscular public mood and if she'll be lifting her own personal [Oooh, is he going to ask her about the tax affairs of her own family company, Stemcor?] boycott? First to the barricades with this people power manifesto from [and if you read my Background Checks post from yesterday prepare to be gobsmacked by what comes next...] Prem Sikka, Professor of Accountancy at the University of Essex."

Yes, really! Prem Sikka, senior advisor to the left-wing campaign group, the Tax Justice Network, himself! Note, again, that his involvement with this influential pressure group was not mentioned. Once more, he was merely a "Professor of Accountancy". However (perhaps naively refusing to underestimate peoples' intelligence), as he gave - as Paddy promised - his "people power manifesto" against the multi-nationals and their shareholders (deeper crisis of British and Western capitalism, short-termism, speculators, robbing the public purse, etc) listeners would surely have been able to put two and two together and work out that he was no mere disinterested academic. 

Still, it's as if I've never taken a break from Broadcasting House. Still the same old thing going on. Alas.

Now, when Margaret Hodge (who it was presumed listeners would know was a Labour MP - given that Paddy didn't mention that fact) appeared, she did have Patrick Stevens, President of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, for company and he provided the necessary counter-balance to her position (which lies close to Dr. Sikka's). Yes, the balance had already been sharply tilted to one side by having Prem Sikka give his Marxist manifesto in advance (and, yes, he really is a Marxist), but at least there was a view from the other side being heard on the programme. That's something, I suppose.

All that was required now was for Paddy O'Connell to be a fair, neutral umpire during the discussion between Mrs. Hodge and Mr. Stevens. The Paddy-Of-Old would probably not have been. He would most likely have seemed partial to Mrs. Hodge's (multinational-bashing) side of the argument. What about the 2012 upgraded version of Paddy O'Connell?

After some preliminary joking about what she was drinking, and a few questions about whether Margaret Hodge is giving up her boycott or not, the discussion got down to business, with both guests putting across their contrasting points with force and clarity. The test for Paddy is to see whether he took sides in the kind of questions he put and whether he asked equivalent types of questions. Here they are (in order of asking). Please take a look at them and see what you think:

To Margaret Hodge: "Margaret Hodge, are you going to drop your boycott, can I ask you straight away?"
"So you were going to stop going to Starbucks? Are you going...?
"But they've given you 20 million quid!"
"No, they're going to give it to George Osborne"
"All right, fine."

To Patrick Stevens: "Patrick, do you support what Margaret Hodge has done? She's trying to shame the corporations, not really using the tax code, using a sort of public muscle."
"I take your tax man and I raise you, Patrick Stevens...Here's The Observer talking about the top tax expert at the OECD. This is bigger even than you. He says, "Guest what? The location of economic activities is in higher tax jurisdictions but the location of the profits is in lower tax jurisdictions". They're moving them around, these corporations, like pieces on the chess-board, whether or not we know the full amount. We know what they're up to. It smells bad and it doesn't smell like coffee."
[interrupting Mr. Stevens, forcefully] "This is the law! These..." [producing a lot of yellow books, apparently]
[quickly interrupting Mr. Stevens again] "1,2,3,4...[counting the yellow books, apparently] please do!" [the last bit answering a request from Margaret Hodge to "come in"].

[Mrs. Hodge talks, then Mr. Stevens responds, criticising Mrs. Hodge and her fellow MPs]

To Patrick Stevens: [interrupting Mr. Stevens again] "Right now...can I just?...Let's not go into much more of this...in terms of the tax policy. Can I just bring it back to the public? Do you agree, Patrick, there is a more muscular mood and that, ultimately, morality as much as this tax code that I've bored you to death with here, that is going to become a story on the radio. We're going to hear more about it?"

To Margaret Hodge: "And, Margaret Hodge, are you...will you concede Patrick's point that it's a bit hypocritical to have a law in parliament which is being followed and then complain that it isn't good enough? You should change the law."

As far as I'm concerned, that quite clearly shows Paddy O'Connell taking the side of Margaret Hodge and Prem Sikka. He seems to me to have acted as the third man in the debate against Patrick Stevens and his point of view. Oh Paddy!!

Does it seem as blatantly biased to you as it seems to me?

Anyhow, an interview with historian Christopher Lee followed where he was encouraged to re-imagine the history of England from the premise that first-born girls had always been allowed to accede to the throne (the proposal to allow which is now making its doubtless slow progress towards fruition). I do like counter-factual history and this segment was both entertaining and interesting.

The winter vomiting bug was up next, generalised into the question of how you should ward off winter ailments. A pair of microbiologists gave us their advice. Another interesting segment, with a slight difference of emphasis from both guests.

From a man who gave every impression (to me) of being greatly enthused by the Arab Spring and, later, went on to try (by Twitter and on B.H.) to spread the meme 'Financial Spring' (he may even have created the term himself) to describe the then-growing Occupy movement, Paddy was never averse to using the phrase 'Arab Spring' without its now common "so-called" prefix. So it's telling that even he appears to have completely lost faith now:

"Use of the term 'Arab Spring' has died out as we approach the end of 2012. In its place has come a harsh winter. Egypt, as we've just heard, is mired by the competing claims of democracy and theocracy....."

The famous Jeremy Bowen then turned up to talk about Syria and give us a potted history lesson of the Assad regime. There were clips of Jeremy at old Hafaz's funeral. Apparently, fears that the dynastic nature of Syria's regime was about to be replicated in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia was a significant factor in their uprisings. That was argued by the BBC's Middle East editorialiser.

Paddy, as BBC interviewers/reporters tend to do, tried to implicate "the West" in the Assad regime - even though I always thought the Assads were much more in the Russian/Iranian/Chinese camp:

"When he took over, Bashar al-Assad, the Western leaders - including our own - flocked to meet him and would say how optimistic they felt."

A clip of Jeremy (unchallengingly) interviewing Baby Assad then followed. I remember that interview. Tough it wasn't.

Plenty of people genuinely believed in Bashar when the uprising started, according to Jeremy - even those who disliked his regime. If Bashar had agreed with the criticisms at the start, he'd have been OK. He didn't. He took "the old Assad way" and..."the rest is history."  Such a shame, eh, Jeremy?

The paper review featured a Conservative peer, Baroness Buscombe (former 'chair' of the Press Complaints Council); Colm Tóibín, Irish novelist; and Absolute Radio presenter Geoff Lloyd. It was an apolitical affair. They discussed the Prank Call story, the possibility of Anna Wintour of Vogue becoming the U.S. ambassador to the U.K., beards, Wilbur Smith. binge drinking and Rupert Murdoch's mum. Paddy rightly kept his opinions to himself (except for coming to the defence of Wilbur Smith!).

The programme ended with a bit of jazz. Is jazz dying out? A couple of keen jazzers said 'no way, man!' This feature was prompted by the death of the much-appreciated Dave 'Take Five' Brubeck.

I enjoyed listening to this edition of Broadcasting House, even though my heckles were raised by the open bias I felt was displayed during the tax section.

Back to it then. I know either Paddy or someone on his team at Broadcasting House used to read my less-than-supportive posts. Cheers to them then! Here's to this time!!

You’ll be sorry.

With regard to Israel, the BBC has abandoned all pretence of impartiality.

After the UN symbolically approved the Palestinian bid for non-member observer status,  the BBC seems to believe it has a mandate to unleash the gates of broadcasting hell upon Israel and its supporters. The Israeli government’s announcement of planning permission for 3,000 “homes for Jews’ on land which an emboldened BBC now calls ‘Palestine’, has provided the longed-for hook upon which to hang its in-your-face no-holds-barred denigration and ostrasization of Israel.  

As if  it wasn’t already poised and straining to pounce, the vilifiCATion has been well and truly set amongst the pigeons. Never mind that the Palestinian Authority unilaterally subverted the stagnant peace process that they themselves had already thwarted by issuing preconditions before even deigning to come to the table, thereby deliberately prolonging the stalemate of a status quo, which elicits animosity towards Israel from the rest of the world, not to mention copious amounts of aid and sympathy. The prevarication is intended to mask the fact that neither Hamas nor the PA have any intention of making peace with Israel, and never will. What’s more, the whole charade is unnecessary because, even though the genocidal aspirations of both Hamas and Fatah have been openly proclaimed by them again and again, and despite the rise of Islamism and turmoil throughout the Arab world, the BBC refuses to acknowledge the truth, and as long as nothing cataclysmic happens, they never will.

   

All Israel’s spokespersons and supporters are now automatically treated to an openly adversarial interviewing style, much more interrogation than interview. Anchorpersons interrupt, goad and sneer, and producers deliberately pitch multiple anti-Israel advocates against solo pro-Israel spokespersons. They misleadingly introduce anti-Israel activists as ‘Middle East experts’ which carries the implication that their opinions are impartial.   

A few years ago Eddie Mair left us in no doubt as to where his sympathies lie when he ran an ongoing story-of-outrage about a Palestinian student who was unable to leave Gaza to resume his UK business-studies course. (oh! the injustice)  On December 3rd Mair was openly rude to Israel’s Ambassador to the EU, David Walzer. Now confident that at last the zeitgeist confers permission upon him, on behalf of the BBC, to dump context, reason and logic altogether, and he conducted what passed as an interview in full-on, emotional, total outrage mode.  

From its initiation, the website BBC Watch has meticulously explained the other side of the story. If one were naive enough to rely on the BBC one wouldn’t even realise that there was such a thing as another side. 

Now the BBC has evidently decided to distance itself from the Western world’s categorisation of Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organisations. They now say “Israel, the US and the EU consider Hamas a terrorist organisation” and “Hezbollah is a powerful political and military Shia Muslim organisation in Lebanon. Regarded by some in the West as a terrorist organisation, it is currently part of Lebanon's government.”

In using that particular turn of phrase the BBC seems quite happy to unilaterally absolve Hamas and Hezbolla from a categorisation which is widely accepted everywhere but the ‘Islamic World’, something that is also apparent in their officially sanctioned refusal to use the word terrorist to describe a terrorist, unless it can be used to describe an Israeli settler.  Terry Waite has forgiven Hezbollah. Assuming he speaks for the BBC as well as himself, it  is still extremely presumptuous of him.

The recent so-called victory celebrations in Gaza were reported by the BBC with Arab-Spring-like rapture. Khaled Masha’al’s genocidal proclamations were conspicuously glossed over or ignored. Yolande Knell used the inclusive ‘we’ in her description of the joyous occasion. In this toxic atmosphere, Melanie Phillips writes:

“This disgusting and surreal state of affairs has arisen from what can only be described as the madness that has all but consumed the British intelligentsia and media, which portray Israel - the target and victim of Jew-hating extermination - in the deranged propaganda terms set out by its Arab and Muslim attackers. The result is rampant Israel-hatred, Judeophobia and Jew-baiting which is either tolerated or actively promulgated by a so-called educated class - including broadcasters and many mainstream politicians -- which on this issue is in fact totally impervious to evidence or reason.”

One can only wonder what has to happen before the BBC sees the error of its ways? 

There is an awful parallel with the story of nurse Saldanha, whose humiliation was prolonged, relished and savoured by the media until her suicide prompted a sanctimonious and hypocritical about-turn - (now they’re doing just about the same thing to the hapless presenters who are in danger of harming themselves in a never ending cycle of ‘then-you’ll-be-sorries’ ) Does the world really have to wait for the Islamist beast to do its worst before bringing about the mother of all sanctimonious, hypocritical about-turns?

Disgraceful

Sometimes you can really see why some people dislike The Daily Mail so much.

Their online site is currently screaming this headline:

Australian radio station boss refuses to sack Royal prank DJs and claims THEY are the victims

Reading that, I wanted to string the insensitive brute of a radio station boss up by his unmentionables. Claiming the DJs are the victims and not poor Jacintha and her family is unbelievably outrageous.

And "unbelievably" is the word. 

Read on and the article reveals the exact opposite of the second half of that intentionally rabble-rousing headline:

"Rhys Holleran, the chief executive of Southern Cross Austereo, which owns the station, said the presenters were 'completely shattered' and had been offered counselling.

Mr Holleran told a press conference in Melbourne that the primary concern was for the family of Jacintha Saldanha, whose body was found yards from the King Edward VII Hospital yesterday.

He said: 'I spoke to both presenters early this morning and it's fair to say they are completely shattered.

'These people aren't machines, they're human beings. What happened is incredibly tragic and we’re deeply saddened and we’re incredibly affected by that.’

He added: 'I think prank calls as a craft in radio have been going for decades and decades and are not just part of one radio station or network or country.

'No-one could have reasonably foreseen what ended up being an incredibly tragic day.'

Mr Holleran declined to reveal who had dreamed up the prank call but said: ‘These things are often done collaboratively.'"

A very sensitive statement from Mr. Holleran in response to a story that has touched so many people. It's a shame the headline writer at Mail Online didn't refrain from indulging his or her baser journalistic instincts.

Settling the issue of bias?

A couple of weeks ago, we at Is the BBC biased? (me and Sue!) laid out evidence for why we think that BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight has been biased towards the Palestinian side in its coverage of the latest conflict between Israel and Gaza. (You can review that evidence and form your own judgements here.) How has the programme faired in its coverage of Israel in the two weeks that have passed since?

Well, last night's edition featured an interview (beginning about 32 minutes in) between presenter Robin Lustig and Professor Beverley Milton-Edwards, "a specialist in Middle Eastern and Islamic politics at Queen's University, Belfast" (as Robin described her). Interpreting tone of voice is a deeply subjective thing, of course, but Prof. Milton-Edwards sounded (to me) as if she was rather gloating at Netanyahu's "mortification" at the hands of "conquering hero" Meshaal and at the "popular ascendence" of Hamas. When asked whether Israel could ever "do business" with Meshaal, she drew parallels between Meshaal and peace-maker Gerry Adams and between Netanyahu and Ian Paisley, placing equal blame between the Israeli government and Hamas for their "mutual intransigence". She clearly believes in negotiations with Hamas and in the need for outside forces to push the hand of both sides to move things on. 

Who is Professor Beverley Milton-Edwards (pictured below)? Well, we know she's "a specialist in Middle Eastern and Islamic politics at Queen's University, Belfast", because Robin told us she was. Anything else? Yes, she's a prolific author. That's one of her books above - the one with the little old Palestinian lady standing in front of a stern, armed Israeli soldier (with two other Israeli soldiers looking on), subtitled "A People's War". She has co-written books and articles with Alastair Crooke, the former MI6 man who sparked controversy by advocating negotiations with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. 

Wikispooks tells us, "In June 2007, Melanie Phillips accused the BBC's Newsnight and Radio 4 of relying on pro-Hamas interviewees, citing Crooke, Azzam Tamimi, William Sieghart of Forward Thinking and Professor Beverley Milton Edwards." (Sadly there's no working link to Mel's post.) Bev's testimony also played a major part in Abu Qatada's victory over the government during his latest appeal against deportation to Jordan. I think we can safely mark her invitation to comment on yesterday's The World Tonight as another notch on the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel side of the account sheet then. 

We step back five days from there to Monday's edition for discussion of Israel's settlement plans in the E1 area of Jerusalem and the West Bank following last week's U.N. vote in favour of greater recognition for the Palestinians. First BBC Middle East correspondent Wyre Davies went to have a look at the E1 district. It's "what Palestinians and the international community regard as occupied Palestinian land. This is the occupied West Bank," he said. "For a Palestinian perspective", Ritula Shah then talked to Sabri Saidam, deputy speaker of the Fatah Council. He was critical of Israel, as you might expect ("act of piracy", "act of revenge", "overkill"). Then Ritula talked to one of Israel's strongest defenders in the U.S., Alan Dershowitz. Evidence of balance? Indeed. However, it's not as simple as that. Here's how Ritula introduced Mr. Dershowitz: 

"Alan Dershowitz is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and he's also the author of a book called The Case For Israel. He was highly critical of the Palestinians' decision to ask for recognition at the U.N. and might have been expected to support Israel's building plans, but he too believes the moves will make hopes for a two-state solution more difficult."

For starters there, unlike with Prof. Milton-Edwards above, Prof. Dershowitz's standpoint is made crystal clear in advance by the BBC presenter. Listeners were forewarned that he's a pro-Israeli advocate (in more senses than one). Secondly - and at the risk of sounding like a typical BBC-hating conspiracy theorist -, I am entertaining the suspicion that Prof. Dershowitz's invitation may have been sent by The World Tonight precisely because he too is critical of the Israeli government's actions over the proposed area E1 settlements. So, yes, the programme balanced a pro-Palestinian advocate with a pro-Israel advocated, but the pro-Israel advocate was on the programme being critical of the Israel government and no-one was invited on to defend the Israeli plans (unless the team at The World Tonight were taken by surprise at Prof. Dershowitz's critical position as their pre-recorded interview with him unfolded?) 

Back on the Thursday 29 November edition, the programme discussed the Palestinians' successful bid for greater recognition at the U.N. with Carne Ross, a former U.K. diplomat who resigned from the service in protest at the Blair government's support for the Iraq, went on to found  the advisory group Independent Diplomat role, is a campaigner for a U.N. parliament (modelled on the European parliament) and a member of the Occupy Wall Street Working Group on Alternative Banking. (That list of beliefs will raise may a right-leaning critic of the BBC's eyes sharply towards heaven!) Mr. Ross doesn't think the vote has helped the Palestinian cause. As he wrote elsewhere:

All a bit depressing and familiar.  In my humble opinion, this illustrates an eternal truth of the Israel/Palestine dispute at the UN.  The UN is not the place where this will get sorted out, but there is a  more subtle truth too.  Thanks to the huge mountain of UN resolutions denouncing the occupation and demanding a just resolution, from 242 and 338 onwards, the impression has been created that it is here that the Palestinians will find justice, and perhaps progress to liberation.  This is a grotesque illusion.  If I were a Palestinian in Gaza or Hebron (which I am not, and am thus ill-placed to judge), I would forget the UN, and instead start a non-violent uprising.  The lessons of the Arab Spring could not be clearer: this is the way to create political change, not pettifogging negotiation over words, commas and procedures in corridors at the UN.

From Mr. Ross's commentary here (and elsewhere), it is clear that he is sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, though not of the course they are presently pursuing, and critical of the "obdurate" Benjamin Netanyahu. He is no Beverley Milton-Edwards though, describing Hamas's path as "the dead end of violence". In the above passage, is he advocating a non-violent uprising by the Palestinians or is he disinterestedly pointing out that such a course of action would be a better way to get what they want? 

His appearance on this edition of The World Tonight didn't make this any clearer (which isn't a bad thing in a diplomat, of course!). He said that his "Palestinian contacts" were telling him that Abbas had "talked himself into a corner", poured more cold water on the bid, thinking it wasn't "much of a step forward" (as only other states can recognise states), pointed out that Israel and the U.S. were "by no means isolated" in opposing the bid and he said that "Nobody in the international community really accepts Hamas as being the international voice of the Palestinians. Most countries do not deal with Hamas in any case." 

From all this, I'm feeling confident that the evidence continues to support my contention that The World Tonight reflects a pro-Palestinian bias on the BBC's part. The tilt against Israel continues.