Life's a piece of shit/When you look at it...

Some things in life are bad

They can really make you mad

Other things just make you swear and curse

When you're chewing on life's gristle

Don't grumble, give a whistle

And this'll help things turn out for the best...

And...

The guests on this morning's Broadcasting House press review focused on the brighter side of life, which, given all the depressing news there's been in the past couple of weeks or so, is pretty understandable. An entertaining romp through the Sunday papers ensued (more about which later). 

I'm guessing that some of you might just be feeling the same way too, so this post will laugh and smile and dance and sing, for as the song says...

When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle
- that's the thing.
And...

The Broadcaster Formerly Known as "Mark Tully in Dehli" presented a Something Understood on the theme of 'Translation' this morning. 

To the strains of John Coltrane, we heard a list Iowa State University's Department of Linguistics and Language which shows how easy it is to make mistakes, even in simple translations. Well, it made me laugh:

In a Copenhagen airline ticket office: We take your bags and send them in all directions.

In a Rhodes tailor's shop: Order your summer's suit because if there's a big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.

In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret you will be unbearable.

In a Zurich hotel: Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.

In a Paris hotel lift: Please leave your values at the front desk.

Detour sign in Kyushu, Japan: Stop. Drive sideways.

In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist: Teeth extracted by the latest methodists. 

On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.

On the menu of a Polish hotel: Salad of firm's own make. Limpid red beet soup. Cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger. Roasted duck let loose. Beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion. 

Mark Tully also read out part of the preface to the King James Bible, something so lovely that it needs passing on for those of you do not know it:

Translation it is that openeth the window, to let in the light; that breaketh the shell, that we may eat the kernel; that putteth aside the curtain, that we may look into the most Holy place; that removeth the cover of the well, that we may come by the water...

Talking of which....

This week's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue came from Worthing. Jack Dee introduced us to the place: 

Famous as a retirement destination for gentlefolk, Worthing has a population of just over 105,000 people. Or just under, if you're listening to the repeat.

This part of Sussex is famous for producing some of England's finest white wines. We were treated to a tasting earlier at a local branch of Lidl and tried a 2011 Chardonnay which had a fine nose. Just like the pork pie that came with it.

Oddly enough, that repeat of ISIHAC from Worthing (population, just under 105,000) was followed by an edition of the Food Programme on the subject of English wine - one of the smaller triumphs of English business in recent years, becoming ever more renowned for its quality and growing in quantity, despite the occasional bad harvest. (I'm sure I read James Delingpole somewhere putting it all down to global warming, but I could be wrong about that). 

We learned that homegrown wines account for less than 1% of sales here. In my household it's 0% of all wine purchases at the moment, though in my childhood we did make potato wine - illicit stills of the heady stuff stinking out our basement. Thank God Al Capone wasn't around in Morecambe at the time! (He apparently hated potato wine).  

The growth of the English wine industry is cheering news, and it's news I feel close too as there's even a small vineyard near Morecambe (yes, really). 

If Eric Morecambe had still been around I'd have asked him to wangle me a bottle of their finest sauv blanc. I suppose I could ask Gail from Coronation Street instead. (Yes, she's from Morecambe too. All the greats come from Morecambe).

One thing we don't have in Morecambe (AFAIAA) is pygmy boa constrictors (subject of today's The Living World), a cousin of the anaconda (to which they are proportionally identical) native to - and specific to - the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean. No house mouse could eat an anaconda - it's eyes would be truly bigger than its stomach if it tried - but a house mouse can, apparently, eat a pygmy boa constrictor. The p.b.c. (as I like to call it) is about 25cm long, "not more than half a little finger" according to presenter Tom Heap (though, from the looks of it, you'd have to have an abnormally long little finger!). What do they eat? Electrons? No, they eat things like new-born froglets, reef geckos and freshly-hatched lizards. Its main meal, however, is the Caicos Island round-toed gecko, whose Latin name, written down (according to local naturalist Bryan Naqqi Manco), is actually about twice as long as the lizard itself. 

Now back to ISIHAC, and some new dictionary definitions that tickled my fancy:

alter ego - a priest who's full of himself (Barry Cryer)
permits - cat-skin gloves (Graeme Garden)
tamper - what you take on a Yorkshire picnic (Barry Cryer)
shoddy - Big Ears' unkempt friend (Graeme Garden)
stifle - a home for a pig designed along the lines of a Paris landmark (Harry Hill)
gladiator - an unrepentant cannibal (Barry Cryer)
transcendental - to receive false teeth through the post from a drag act (Harry Hill)

Returning to Broadcasting House, and remembering why I don't actually hate the BBC (at least most of the time), Paddy O'Connell was in the New Forest and gave us one of those radio moments that radio listeners tend to treasure, however absurdly. The report was about some parliamentary-related fluff about the frivolous use of mobile phones, but Paddy was suddenly seized by a moment of beauty in the New Forest. 

To the entrancing accompaniment of many untalked-over recordings of the natural sounds he was hearing (running water, hoofs, ponies neighing), Paddy said (on location):

Four wild ponies are approaching the stream. The hoofs are crunching on the pebbles of this small stream, which is the colour of stewed tea. Four chestnut ponies, one, two, making their way through the stream. There's the third. They're all on the gravel now. The foal has a flash of white on his nose. It has one more to cross. Ears up, it's looking. Here we go. And there's a log across the stream and I'm going to try and cross it...scaring away two tiny fish...

He fell in. 

"The hoofs are crunching on the pebbles of this small stream, which is the colour of stewed tea." Now, that's good, isn't it? (Any passing English teachers, what would you grade that?)

BH also featured a profile of Vladimir Putin (featuring Ben Judah, European Stability Initiative; Sir Roderic Lyne, Chatham House; Lord Browne, former head of BP; and Angus Roxburgh, former PR advisor to the Russian government). It wasn't a particularly sympathetic portrait (to put it mildly), but we learned certain fascinating things about Bad Vlad (if true): 

• He always has cottage cheese for breakfast. 
• He once brought his dog, Connie, into a meeting with Angela Merkel, knowing that Frau Merkel is scared of dogs in order to intimidate her.
• He rarely uses computers and the internet, preferring paper. (Safer).
• Russian ministers have to wait for three to four hours to see him. No one dares to contradict him. 
• His daughters are a state secret, living far from Moscow, probably abroad. 
• He never forgets a slight, such as that by former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, who (because of his height) used to call him 'LiliPutin'. (It didn't end well for Georgia).
• When he stood next to much taller foreign leaders (like Tony Blair), he'd have the lecterns put far apart to avoid comparison.
• He's isolated, trapped.

As Mr Putin never forgets a slight (according to this profile), a polonium-tipped umbrella might well be wending its way to Broadcasting House as we speak. 

The paper review featured booted-out Radio 5 Live presenter Shelagh Fogarty, booted-out Tory MP Giles Brandreth and unbooted-out Artistic Director of the Petworth Arts Festival Stewart Collins. 

We heard about apps relaying WW1 poet Wilfred Owen's verses (the most famous being written in hospital whilst suffering from shell-shock), which prompted Giles to read some other poetry, concerning the 4/5 of couples apparently seeking financial contributions to their weddings:

Do come to our wedding bash.
Show your love in cheques and cash.

Just use the bank details at the end of this ditty,
And you can still contribute to our kitchen kitty.

Giles, in the event of the death of a pet poet, wrote his own verse - "the shortest poem in the history of world literature":

O,
Wet
Pet.

Stewart rejoindered with a short family grace before meals:

Heavenly Pa,
Ta.

Now, that's my kind of paper review!

Finally, before I down a late-evening salad full of rocket (freshly supplied by Hamas), some suggestions for titles of films like to prove popular with an audience of dog-lovers from the cast of ISIHAC:

Tales of King Arthur and his knights in 'Winalot' (Graeme Garden)
Hawaii Fi-Do (Barry Cryer)
When Harry Sniffed Sally (Tim Brooke-Taylor)
The Postman Always Tastes Nice (Barry Cryer)
Five Easy Faeces (Tim Brooke-Taylor)
Arselick and Old Lace (Barry Cryer)
Bring Me the Lead of Alfredo Garcia (Barry Cryer Graeme Garden)

Altogether now...

 

More Twitter folly from another BBC reporter

DB at Biased BBC has noted an intriguing change of header on BBC journalist Julie Macfarlane's Twitter feed. It now shows "gun-toting pro-Palestinian flag-wavers", says DB, quipping, "But she’s not trying to make a statement, honest. Just a coincidence".

Now, why would DB read anything into that change of header? Well, probably because he's been following her incredibly biased Twitter feed. 

Please read it for yourselves and see what you think. 

I think it shows a one-sided BBC journalist in action, albeit the kind of BBC journalist whose bias lies in her re-tweets rather than in blatant posts of her own - hence, her lack of quotability. Critics of Israel abound and supporters of Israel are absent in her re-tweets to a staggeringly disproportionate degree. 

I don't think I've ever read a Twitter feed quite as clearly biased yet so self-aware when it comes to avoiding blatant statements of (her own) opinion. 

She needs to tread very carefully from now on though. DB is watching.

"#Gaza politicians have no soul as they can be bought & sold by u know who.”

Well, we didn't have to wait told for another BBC journalist to open his big mouth on Twitter. This one looks particularly bad. 

According to the Sunday Times:

A BBC journalist has been reprimanded after appearing to suggest that western politicians had failed to intervene in the Middle East crisis because they had been “bought” by the Jews.

David Ward, the Liberal Democrat MP for Bradford East, was forced to apologise last week after saying he would “probably” fire rockets at Israel if he lived in Gaza.

The row prompted a Muslim producer at the BBC to leap to Ward’s defence on Twitter with what appeared to be a reference to a conspiracy theory about wealthy Jews owning and controlling everything in the world.

Anish Shaikh, who says on his online CV that he has worked at the BBC since 1995, tweeted:

“Attacking David Ward is a strategy to divert focus from real issue #Gaza politicians have no soul as they can be bought & sold by u know who.”

The producer, who has presented shows on the BBC Asian Network, including one devoted to Islamic music, refused to elaborate when repeatedly asked by other Twitter users to whom he was referring.

Shaikh was forced to delete his account after The Sunday Times approached the BBC and could face further disciplinary action.

The corporation said: “The BBC has clear social media guidelines which staff must adhere to, even when using personal accounts.

“We have spoken to Anish and reminded him of his responsibility to uphold our guidelines.

“He has deleted the account. We will meet him to discuss the matter further.”

Catholic child abuse, Christians in Iraq, Sikhs in WW1, Roman Britain, black participation, Gaza, and Twitter

This morning's Sunday was presented by Edward Stourton and pursued the subjects listed in the title of this post. Here's how it went, complete with quotes from the Sunday website (by way of introduction):

1. We review of the latest statistics from the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission and ask why there has been an increase in the number of parishes without a representative in place to monitor child safety.

This took the form of an interview with Danny Sullivan of the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission. According to their statistics, 52 Catholic priests in England and Wales have been defrocked since 2001 as a result of clerical abuse. Ed Stourton asked him if there'd been a spike in allegations as a result of the Jimmy Savile scandal. He said there hadn't. The figures show a rise in 2004, after the Nolan Report into abuse within the Church, and a rise in 2010, related to Pope Benedict meeting survivors during his visit to the UK. The number of parishes without a safeguarding representative grew between 2012 and 2013 from 88 to 126 - a rise that may be down to concerns over increased paperwork associated with the role. Danny Sullivan has been impressed, however, by Pope Francis' sincerity and determination to tackle the issue.

Sunday has covered the Catholic abuse scandal assiduously for many years. 

2. Christians in Iraq are facing increasing danger. Last week ISIS gave Christians in Mosul an ultimatum to leave, pay a tax or convert to Islam. BBC Correspondent Jiyar Gol is just back from Iraq and Archbishop Toma Dawod tells Edward why he is frustrated by the slow response to this crisis.

Edward began by mentioning "dhimma" in the Ottoman Empire, and said that it looks to be making a comeback in Iraq thanks to Isis (IS). Jiyar went with Kurdish security forces into the predominantly Christian district of Mosul from where he could see the black flags flying. He said that Christians told him that Isis had been kind to them after June 10, telling them they had nothing to fear, but that suddenly this fatwa came out demanding that they leave Mosul, convert to Islam, pay the dhimmi tax, or be beheaded. Isis have been going neighbour by neighbour, giving this warning. Monks have been expelled from ancient monasteries, some dating back to the 4th century, churches have been converted into mosques, and crosses and statues have been replaced by black Isis flags. We heard briefly from a couple of Christian women there who had been warned to leave, convert or be beheaded, and then forced out of city.

Then came an interview with the leader of Syrian Church in this country, Archbishop H.E. Mor Athanasius Toma Dawod. He's originally from Mosul and still has family there. The very old and disabled there, he said, will have to stay and convert. He says they have had no support from Western governments. He wants the UK to ban Isis [haven't we already done so?!?], to send humanitarian support and to help relocate Christian people. "It's very difficult to live with Muslims...with savage people", he said. "We would like to live in peace". The Christian presence predated Islam in the area, he added. Christians are indigenous. 

This was powerful testimony. Sunday has been good at tracking the plight of Christians in the region in the past couple of years - far more than many of the BBC's critics might think.

3. In a continuing series on the religious responses to WW1 Rahul Tandon reports on the thousands of Sikhs who went to fight and looks at how they are remembered today.

More than one million Indians took part in WW1, fighting for "their king", and more than a quarter were Sikhs - although they accounted for less than 2% of the population of British India at the time. The 14th Sikh regiment lost more than 80% of its strength on one day at Gallipoli. This didn't put them off, actually provoking a boost in Sikh recruitment in India. We heard how the British sent popular singers were sent to Sikh villages to help recruitment. They sang martial songs and said that "King George has invited you to come". Some went for money, some for employment, and some to help England in its hour of need - which they duly did. By all accounts, they played a pivotal role in saving the day, especially during the crucial early stages of the war. The younger generation in India are still surprised at the extent of Sikh involvement, and most Indians (as a whole) don't ever know about it.

It's not often that Sunday considers the Sikhs (unlike certain other faiths), and this was an interesting report from Rahul Tandon. 

4. Excavations at a Roman site in County Durham have revealed the 'Pompeii of the North' according to archaeologists. Dr David Petts explains what these findings show about Christianity in Roman Britain.

This was interesting too. Dr Petts says that they are being a bit cheeky in calling their find the 'Pompeii of the North', but it obviously hasn't harmed his team's publicity - hence his appearance on Sunday! 

His team has found extensive ruins at Binchester Roman Fort near Bishop Auckland in County Durham, including standing buildings complete with 7-8 ft high walls, windows and doors you can walk through. They also found a small silver ring with an engraving that features two fish dangling from an anchor, an early symbol of Christianity - only the second time it has cropped up in Britain. It dates from the 3rd century A.D., before Constantine the Great converted the Roman Empire to Christianity. The ring, Dr Petts believes, must have belonged to a fairly high status Roman British Christian, saying that early British Christianity was most common among higher status Roman Brits. They've also found a pair of altars in bath house, some small mother goddess figurines and cult pots, but they've only excavated 1-2% of the site so far. 

[If you're intrigued, you can read much more about it here].

5. There's a drive by African and Caribbean church leaders in the UK to encourage more black people to be politically and socially active. Bob Walker reports on why, for decades, this issue has proved such a struggle.

This is very much Sunday territory. It concerned a campaign to get more black peoples involved in politics, education and the police. A manifesto has been published to encourage this to happen. The problem? Only 4.2% of MPs are black and 96% of local councillors are white. Plus, it's estimated that in the 2010 election, 28% of African-Caribbeans were not registered to vote, compared to 7% of whites. The campaigners say that more black participation in elections could decide the results in many marginal seats [and I think we can guess in which directions.] Everyone interviewed in Bob Walker's report was behind the campaign.

6. As diplomatic efforts continue to negotiate a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza, Oliver McTernan, Director of Forward Thinking describes the mood of the discussions he has been conducting in the region.

As I was saying to Sue, I just knew they'd get Oliver McTernan on. He's been on Sunday several times before and was scheduled to appear a few weeks back, but didn't. Here he was though, inevitably. 

Ed Stourton introduced him as "a former Catholic priest" who has been "trying to encourage dialogue between Israel and Palestinians for many years". Readers of Harry's Place will have a very different take on him (see here, here, here and here). He and his organisation have been accused of being strongly pro-Hamas. (No hint of that from Edward).

Mr McTernan told us that he's been talking to political leaders in the area. He denounced the "collective paranoia" in Israel and said it's "almost impassible to have an objective conversation" with Israelis (including opposition politicians). He had nothing good to say about them. As for Hamas, well, he said that Hamas is just one of five or six "resistance groups" there, so it's hard to get consensus. They are agreed about one thing though, he said: "They feel this should be the end of the siege". "The siege of Gaza", he called it. He then blamed the international community for not talking to Hamas (or to certain unspecified Israelis [hardline 'peace activists' presumably]). "When you see what's happening it would be impossible not to be depressed by it", he said, adding that  the "lack of direct communication" (with Hamas) is "the problem". Talks shouldn't be conducted "through third parties". (This is standard Oliver McTernan stuff). 

Ed Stourton interviewed him in a friendly fashion.

When other Radio 4 staples (Today, The World at One, PM and The World Tonight) have been pretty careful to balance their guests over the past few weeks, it will be interesting to see if Sunday lives up to its reputation for bias and bucks the trend. If we don't get a pro-Israeli guest next week (or soon after), then we may infer bias with some confidence.

7. The Pope and the Dalai Lama have millions of Twitter followers leaving the Archbishop of Canterbury trailing with around 60,000. Vicky Beeching gives Edward some tips to help the Archbishop boost his online flock.

After 'online tsar' Martha Lane Fox gently chided Archbishop Justin in the House of Lords for not tweeting enough, TFTD speaker Vicky Beeching came on to say why Twitter is such a good forum, even for religious leaders. 

With 4.2 million followers, Pope Francis is "the most influential tweeter in the world", a survey recently shows. That's because of his re-tweet rate which is ten times higher than Barack Obama. The Pope sends "nuggets of moral advice", said Ed. Vicky said they sometimes read like "fortune cookies". Even Pope Francis can't beat the Dalai Lama, who has 9.4 million followers. Still, they both put the poor AB of C in the shade. Archbishop Justin has just 60,000 followers. He's "so anxious to be balanced they [his tweets] risk being a little dull", said the ever-so-balanced and exciting Ed. Vicky defended him, however, saying that - unlike Pope Francis - Justin Welby writes all his own tweets. 

********

As Ed Stourton always says, enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Irresponsible reporting

The first shot from the BBC was fired on the Today programme, when for no obvious reason we were treated to the staggering information that Mira Bar-Hillel. “Is never going to go back to Israel.” 

“What a calamity” is what I don’t think many Israelis will be saying.

Paul Adams began an episode of From Our Own Correspondent by painting an emotive picture. His impression of leaving Gaza was reminiscent of a mawkish article by the unequivocally pro Palestinian Jon Snow. A piece of sentimental propaganda so flagrant that it prompted Harry’s Place’s excessively tolerant Sarah AB to make a complaint to Channel 4.

Adams uses poetic language to describe Gaza: “The same crowded impoverished streets, disintegrating slowly in the humid mediterranean heat.” 

In Adams’s Hades, Satan is Israel, a devilish entity that fails to send sufficiently generous truckloads of food, medicine and essentials into Gaza whilst Hamas’s head honchos concentrate on the pressing matter of misappropriating shedloads of cash and buying up real estate for their families.

“The same filth, the same dust, the same sense of claustrophobia”  Adams  continues lyrically. Shouldn’t he, though, be addressing that message to billionaires Meshaal and Haniya?

“Back then I remember meeting refugees who told me of their plight back in 1948, from what is now Israel.”

Yep.The same filth, the same dusty “Palestinian narrative”, the same sense of Judeophobia.

“Perhaps that’s why some of them are seized with such a furious desire to tunnel out and seek revenge.”  

‘perhaps that’s why”  looks like an outrageous justification of the kind of “revenge” that amounts to killing Jews. We know that’s why many of the tunnels had exits inside kibbutz dining rooms and kindergartens. 

“Gaza is a prison surrounded by walls, a watchtower and the most sophisticated military in the Middle East etc etc..... “they used to have an airport , which was bulldozed when the second intifada broke out”

That seems to imply that those pesky intifadas tend to ‘break out’ spontaneously and spoil everything.

   

“It would be wrong to think that this prison, 66 years in the making, is full only of the innocent. There are men of violence here,  men who will never ever accept Israel’s right to exist in the land they still regard as theirs. Men who will store weapons in Mosques and schools and take great pride in launching almost indiscriminate rockets in the midst of populated areas, hoping, in the name of resistance, to cause death and fear on the other side.”

“hoping, in the name of resistance, to cause death and fear” sounds distinctly like “terrorism”

No-one could have the heartlessness to assert that the Palestinians’ situation is not dire, appalling, that innocent people are not suffering and dying. Many would also accept that they were unknowingly sacrificing themselves and their children for the sole purpose of protecting Hamas officials, their weapons, and prosecuting their self-defeating Jihad. 

Is it really necessary for the BBC and the other MSM to keep emphasising, context-free, all this suffering and little else? It’s as if they know that showing death and misery often enough, describing it in the most graphic terms, using emotive, poetic language will make it more demonstrably, more undeniably, Israel’s fault because that’s where the Jew-haters want the fault to lie, so they can gratify their lust for brotherly loathing and wallow in the cosy enjoyment of blaming Israel.

Before the media went overboard with their morgue footage, some people had started to come to their senses. They suspected that Hamas was responsible for the situation. They reasoned, if Hamas stopped sending rockets, Israel would cease retaliating. They saw that the tunnels were not shelters for civilians, but for Jihad. Some people even suspected that exploiting civilians was a deliberate Hamas strategy, and saw that Hamas was clearly playing the Media, as they say, ‘like a violin’. 

This is something which Paul Adams all but admits. However, a few graphic images later and the media has successfully beckoned most of the audience back to square one. 

The antisemitic atmosphere is now palpable. I missed radio 4‘s Any Questions, but Any Answers was chaired by the woefully ill-prepared Anita Anand. She obviously knew less than the ill-informed Jew haters that phoned in to flaunt their antisemitism.

“Is criticism of Israel automatically antisemitic?” goes the loaded question. Well not automatically. Only when people who who have acquired the notoriously dangerous ‘a little knowledge’ spout a patently distorted, unfeasible perversion of history, then yes, criticism of Israel is antisemitic.  

It is antisemitic because people have decided to swallow, lock, stock and jackboot, the ahistorical theory that holocaust survivors in 1948 “illegally” drove 750,000 Palestinian Arabs from their homes, at gunpoint, ‘stole their land’ and moved into their houses. 

If this tale contains a grain of truth, it pales into insignificance when you remember that around 800,000 Jews from Arab and North African countries were divested of all their worldly possessions and thrown out, and with no material assets were absorbed into a then struggling Israel.   

There is no documentary evidence to support the alleged violent displacement of Arabs by Jews on any grand scale; that feat was achieved solely by the Arab leadership.   On the other hand there is documentary and anecdotal evidence attesting to the fact that in 1948 the Jews asked their Arab neighbours to stay put. Eyewitness accounts say Arab leaders told frightening stories about Jews and advised their gullible subjects to stand aside while they swiftly exterminated the Jews, after which they could return to their houses. 

The surrounding Arab armies attacked and unexpectedly lost. The Israelis won. The Arabs who stayed in Israel became Israelis and the Arabs who fled became perpetual refugees. Why? Because, as Paul Adams knows, the Islamic Arabs loathe Jews and will never accept their presence in the area they have decreed “Palestinian land”. 

The Palestinian refugees play a pivotal role in persuading the world that Islamic Arabs have a moral duty to dismantle the Jewish State and annihilate Jewish Israelis. 

The Palestinian refugees are kept permanently stateless and jobless by their Arab brothers, whose manufactured outrage purports to be in their name; meanwhile the Hamas leadership organises days of rage and directs the Jihad from the safety of luxury hotels in Qatar, syphoning off millions of dollars of aid-money to fund their lifestyle. 

The Palestinians demand the end of the blockade and an end to the occupation, and they say they want access to jobs and medical treatment. Can they have forgotten that they had all that before Hamas came and upset the apple cart? Has the world forgotten why the blockade and the occupation exist? Not really.  They just don’t want to know.

People who phoned in to Any Answers armed with little a bit of history will be quite aware that in parallel to the particular “narrative” they’ve grasped, there’s a counter narrative they’ve decided to ignore.  A choice of their own free will has led them to parrot the Arab/ Islam rejection of Israel’s presence in the imaginary Palestinian-only Land, and suddenly they find themselves defending the Mullahs of  Iran, the Assad-supporting Hezbollah and the Islamist Hamas. So, yes they are antisemitic.

British and European Muslims are parading, rioting and attacking, and the media’s grossly biased reporting is largely responsible.  No, make that irresponsible. 

BBC reporter says Gaza is "a giant prison" and Palestinians are subject to "collective punishment" from Israel

Following on from the previous post, there was a From Our Own Correspondent report today from Paul Adams, leaving Gaza after a week's reporting there on the present conflict. 

Though a radio piece, it contained just the kind of imagery that Brendan O'Neill and Hadar Sela were talking about - graphic descriptions of the dead in Gaza - that will have left quite a few listeners Radio 4 listeners gasping (or retching). 

Now, Paul Adams is a very experienced BBC reporter. He added some careful nods towards the Israeli perspective, but he buried them up to their necks in imagery of death, dirt, depression, and Israeli unkindness, giving precisely the kind of one-sided, loaded potted history (as 'context') that those pro-Palestinian, anti-BBC protestors have been demanding [and that Jeremy Bowen & Co. have been giving them for years].

Of course, you could say that Paul Adams was only reporting what he sees - if he sees dirt and dismembered corpses, he sees dirt and dismembered corpses - but he was not only doing that. He was also guiding his listeners towards a point a view - and doing so with a breathtaking disregard for neutrality.

What follows may be the sort of thing you would expect to hear from deeply biased people like Jenny Tonge or Ben White (or someone at Electronic Intifada) - i.e. the sort of people who say that Gaza is "a giant prison" or that Palestinians are "being collectively punished" - but these are actual quotes from the BBC's Paul Adams today on FOOC: 

Generations [of Gazans] have experienced nothing but occupation, embargo, blockade, war and death. It's had a slow brutalising effect. Perhaps that's why some of them are seized by such a furious desire to tunnel out and seek revenge. For Gaza is a giant prison, surrounding by a wall, watchtowers and the most sophisticated military in the Middle East. 

But when so many of those dismembered and burned by Israeli rockets and shells are not the fighters but women, old people and, especially, children, then it's really, really hard not to conclude that the Palestinians are being collectively punished. 

Entirely from the heart it may be, but if that's impartial reporting then I'm Jeremy Bowen.

Helping Hamas?

The Israel-bashing Independent columnist Mira Bar-Hillel has been gloating this weekend:

...a YouGov poll this week found that only 15 per cent of Britons support Israel’s actions in Gaza. The credit for that goes to brilliant, brave reporters who have brought graphic images of the Gaza atrocities to our newspapers and television screens.

Mira forgets to mention that those those YouGov results show even less support for Hamas' rocket attacks on Israel (with 7% taking the David Ward line) and that more British people blame Hamas than Israel for the civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip.

Mira B-H, presumably, has the likes of Jeremy Bowen, Paul Adams, Yolande Knell, (etc) in mind when praising those "brilliant, brave reporters" for helping to turn the British public against Israel here.

If so, I think she's spot on. Their reporting, including their use of distressing images, must surely have had a - and, probably, the - major impact on the British public's apparent lack of support for Israel's actions, given that the British public still tends to see the news through their eyes.

On their use of graphic images and distressing stories, are they actually doing more harm than good though?

Spiked's Brendan O'Neill certainly thinks so:

The message that all this morally pornographic promotion of images and reports of Palestinian death sends to Hamas is this: victimhood works. The feverish Western marshalling of emotive imagery of Palestinian corpses to the political end of seeking sanctions against Israel or greater international protection for the Palestinian territories surely has the effect of encouraging Hamas to try to provide more of the same, more ‘telegenically dead’ Palestinians. There is a logic to Hamas’s alleged encouragement of great risk among the Gazan civilian population and certainly to its ‘parading’ of dead bodies before the press: it’s a response to the grotesque Western fashion for looking at, sharing and using as political tools images of dead Palestinians. Hamas is best seen as a kind of drug pusher to those in the West who have developed a very ugly habit of exploiting images of brutalised Palestinians both for their own needs (to advertise their emotional awareness) and for political purposes (to exert pressure on our leaders to condemn Israel).

And so does BBC Watch's Hadar Sela.

She appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live's Breakfast Show this morning (from about 1hr 51m in):  

I think one of the most significant factors has actually been what we aren't seeing. There's been dozens of Western reporters in the Gaza Strip for the last two weeks and more now, and yet we haven't seen one picture...I haven't seen one picture...of armed terrorists. I haven't seen one picture of terrorists shooting up RPGs, anti-tank missiles or mortars. 2,300 missiles fired. We haven't seen one picture of that in action in the Western media. Around 10-15% of those missiles fall short and actually land in the Gaza Strip and often, unfortunately, injure civilians there. We've seen no pictures of that. We've seen no pictures of injuries caused by shortfall missiles. There's been at least four summary executions taken place by Hamas in the Gaza Strip in the last week or two. We've seen no pictures of that. We've seen no pictures of Hamas people at all, even at the Shifa Hospital where they hide out, and yet we've seen journalists attending news conferences there, but nobody's actually talking about why these people are hiding and what's going on...

At which point the presenter, Rachel Burden, interrupted, putting the BBC/Mira Bar-Hillel point :

I suppose the story really is though the story of the 700+ people in Gaza, most of them civilians, many of them children, who've lost their lives and some of those pictures of children some people will find uncomfortable, others will find distasteful, others will say "That's very powerful and those are pictures that have to be brought to the world".

Hadar replied,

They are certainly very powerful pictures, and they're obviously very tragic and very sad pictures. I think there's a question here as well, you know...we've seen a lot of..as you say..a lot of pictures of dead people, dead children, injured people. We've seen at least one BBC crew actually filming in a morgue! Now, one of the things that struck me is, would the BBC go and film in a morgue in the UK? I'm not sure they would. Would they show pictures of blood on the floor in a morgue in the UK? I'm not sure they would, and so you have to ask yourself, why the different standard and what does that actually say about the journalism?

Now, as you quite rightly said in the beginning, at lot of these pictures are actually intended to influence world opinion, and this is a very big factor in this conflict because Hamas and terrorist organisations know they can't win this war militarily...they just can't...so they seek to win it on the public opinion field - and on what we call the 'lawfare' field - and so pictures like this obviously, beyond the fact that they are obviously a terrible documentation of what is happening, but they also serve a purpose and...

And which point Rachel Burden interrupted again and brought Hadar's short but important appearance to an abrupt halt in order to talk to a Palestinian journalist.

This is a genuine moral dilemma, isn't it, though? Do you not show such powerful images in your reports and, therefore, risk being accused of censorship (and bias), or do you show them and help a terrorist organisation like Hamas win the battle for public opinion by putting their own people in harm's way? 

Shoots leaves and tweets

Disproportionality.

Fashionably attired Rushanara Ali, M.P. (female, Muslim, Labour)  debating with Douglas Murray on Daily Politics 22nd July. Jo Coburn in the chair, Trevor Phillips was also there. 

“Israel has shown complete disregard for humanitarian issues, [...] its reaction is disproportionate and we need the European Union  and the British government to speak up and work towards resuming peace negotiations, which seem to have been completely elusive over recent years.

“Israel needs to respect international and humanitarian law.........

That cavalier misuse of the word ‘disproportionate’ with regard to the internationally accepted definition of proportionality in war typifies a popular misconception.  People assert, and don’t we just know it, that if one side (Israel) sustains substantially fewer casualties than the other, the battle must stop immediately, because that’s a war crime.

 Ugly expressions of anti-Zionism and antisemitism that are erupting through out Europe,

“Jewish people are being attacked and abused on the streets of Germany as though the country were back in the Nazi era, political and religious leaders warned yesterday.Escalating violence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has prompted a disturbing rise in anti-Semitism in Europe in the last few days.Murderous slogans dating back to the days of Hitler have been chanted at pro-Palestinian rallies in Germany. Jewish-owned shops were attacked and burned in riots in France at the weekend.The Israeli ambassador to Germany, Yakov Hadas-Handelsman, said: ‘They pursue the Jews in the streets of Berlin… as if we were in 1938.’”

Apart from this, as far as I can see the total sum of the case against Israel is ‘disproportionality’. The obvious question is side-stepped. “Do you think war can only be legal if there are an exactly equal number of casualties?” The reply? Judicious return to the numbers. Logic has been dumped.

Human Shields.

Col. Richard Kemp says the laws of armed conflict do not permit military forces to embed their weapon systems and fighters inside the civilian population, and that if they do then their enemies are permitted under international law to carry out attacks.

We know Hamas stashes weapons and establishes Hamas headquarters and ‘safe places’ beneath and inside hospitals and schools, but Israel is blamed when civilians are killed, which is exactly what Hamas intended. Yet Israel is accused of War Crimes

Apologists for Hamas, there are a fair few, say that we need to get to the root of the trouble. The well-fed Qatar based Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said the group wants a truce as soon as possible, but with a genuine guarantee to lift the eight-year long siege. 

Meshaal set out his conditions for a ceasefire in an edition of HardTalk with Stephen Sackur: 

End the blockade and the occupation. (The term “occupation” sometimes alludes to the West Bank, sometimes erroneously to Gaza, sometimes to the whole of Israel.)  However, we rarely hear from the pro-Palestinians, the BBC or much of the press why the blockade has to exist. When we do, the BBC includes the qualifier,  “Israel says”. 

To clarify, the root of the trouble is religious fanaticism including Islam’s inherent feelings of revulsion towards Jews and its entitlement to superiority over Jews,  coupled with stupidity and intransigence. That is why Hamas requests a hudna, rather than entertaining the faintest idea of ever recognising Israel. That’s it. (I had to take my hat off to this proud announcement, from Tweeter "Gaza Writes Back": "Alqassam targeted milinary targets. We attacked their best unit." A fascinator, probably.)

In their aroused state, inflamed by the hysterical press coverage, people have ignored, forgotten or chosen not to mind that Hamas is a hard-line Islamist group. Israeli PM Netanyahu compares it to ISIS and the other groups that are causing mayhem wherever they can.  People still behave as if Hamas is rational, even as they see them behaving like lunatics.

Stephen Games writes in Haaretz about an edition of Feedback, where Roger Bolton talks to World editor of BBC News, Andrew Roy.

What did emerge from the interview is the unintended damage caused by the BBC’s ostensible policy of even-handedness. Because it cannot be seen as editorialising, the BBC bends over backwards to maintain a policy of “show-don’t-tell”. Thus, the only truths about Gaza that BBC reporters can convey are those that a camera can point at. Never has a BBC reporter broken a story from Gaza, interviewed a Hamas commander about splits in the ranks, examined the Palestinian justice and detention system, exposed the climate of fear that Gazans are subject to, shown missile stockpiling or residential defensive positions, or challenged the brainwashing of children in schools.

Hamas glorifies martyrdom, and has persuaded civilians to sacrifice themselves for Allah. 

Too many innocent lives are indeed being lost for the sake that deception. Far too many children and their parents obviously don’t know that they’re being used as sacrificial lambs for the likes of Khaled Mashaal and Ismail Haniya who are fattening themselves up far away from the battlefield. 

Whose fault is this? We’re told it’s Israel’s fault.

Ceasefire.

Hamas has announced their conditions for ceasefire. We know that part of the tunnel system is designed especially for Hamas killers to infiltrate into Israel proper for the express purpose of killing civilians, yet we calmly consider Hamas’s demand that Israel opens the borders with Gaza so that Gazans can come and go as they please. He expects Israel to make it easier for them to kill civilians above ground without the bother of those high maintenance tunnels. 

Hamas had apparently been preparing a murderous assault on Israeli civilian targets for the coming Jewish New Year Holiday, Rosh Hashanah, which begins on September 24, according anonymous sources in the Israeli security services, as reported today by the Israeli daily Maariv.

The Hamas plan consisted of what was to be a surprise attack in which 200 fighters would be dispatched through each of dozens of tunnels dug by Hamas under the border from Gaza to Israel, and seize kibbutzim and other communities while killing and kidnapping Israeli civilians.

Hamas, now partners with Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, openly calls for the elimination of Israel, yet as soon as Hamas’s human shield strategy achieves the intended effect, and the world obediently condemns Israel on the grounds that the number of Palestinian deaths is ‘disproportionate’, everyone clamours for Israel to obediently lay down its arms.

All Hamas, or any other aggrieved movement, needs to do, is simply place children between them and their foe, and hey presto; they’ve won

A new decree is announced by Isis. All girls and women of child-bearing age are to be subjected to Female Genital Mutilation. The world is horrified. The BBC is outraged. 

Why do we believe Islamist Hamas and  disbelieve Israelis?  Why?

  

"One child has been killed every hour" the media announces helpfully. In the same way they sometimes like to measure things in terms of football pitches to help people visualise the scale of something, that announcement is designed to help people imagine how many children will be killed in the hours to come, just so we understand how disproportionate things are and can assess the magnitude of the war crime Israel has already committed and will commit in the hours and days to come.

On Woman’s Hour they're examining the ins and outs of fasting for Ramadan. Has the BBC officially committed to the caliphate? I must have missed the announcement. Is it on iPlayer? 

Proportionality

Isn’t it ironic that people feel they should apologise for Tweeting or posting emotive pictures of “Gaza” when they turn out to be from Syria or Iraq? Shouldn’t they really be apologising for NOT Tweeting pictures of atrocities in Iraq or Syria?

We’ve heard little else from people railing against Israel or “What Israel is doing in Gaza”  than the cry  “It’s disproportionate!” 

What’s really disproportionate is the media’s, and consequently the audience’s, obsessive focus on this particular conflict and its (so far) comparatively limited number of dead, injured and displaced, when thousands upon thousands of fatalities, injuries and homeless, stateless refugees have arisen from the Islam-fueled wars and Islam-fueled violence currently raging right on the doorstep of the one and only conflict that has to do with Jews. Only if there’s Jews it’s news.

If the BBC and the other image-based news outlets hadn’t sent legions of film crews, people with cameras and reporters with deliberate or inadvertent antisemitic agendas, to idealise the Palestinians and dehumanise the Israelis, then most of the baying mobs they’ve whipped up would be as knowledgable or  passionate about atrocities perpetrated by ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Shabab as they are over Gaza; and they’d be about as “angry”. That is, not very much.

Simcha Jacobovici is a Canadian-Israeli filmmaker and journalist.

I write this as a member of the press. I’m proud to be a journalist and a documentary filmmaker. I’m a member of the Foreign Press Association in Israel, and the co-recipient of this year’s Edward R. Murrow Award from the American Overseas Press Club. I say this off the top because I’m not an outsider pointing my finger at the media. Every year, journalists sacrifice their lives in war zones so as to keep us informed and protect freedom of the press, a cornerstone of democracy.
But the fact is that when it comes to Israel, the media has acted irresponsibly. Good journalism has been replaced by politically correct misreporting, and one of the net results is that Palestinian civilians, including children, are paying with their lives. How so? There is no group that can be more evil, in the narrowest sense of the word, than the rulers of the Gaza strip, Hamas. They are openly anti-democratic, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, anti-gay, anti-women, anti-Israel, anti-American and anti-Western. The list continues. These are the people who distributed candies, danced in the street and openly celebrated after 9/11.

So media and BBC, if you do ever feel a little uncomfortable about whipping up masses of enraged anti-Jew mobs in London, Paris, and throughout Europe and the Western world, how about a bit of proportionality. 

Just dispatch a few hundred film crews over to Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Sudan and Tweet, Tweet Tweet.

Jon Donnison returns

He's back, along with his own special brand of BBC impartiality [sic]:

Back in the holyland. Not feeling too holy right now.
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 25, 2014

More than 700 lives now been lost in latest #israel #gaza war. 700 greaving families. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters. Pointless.
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 23, 2014

700 plus dead in #gaza #israel war. And when it eventually ends nothing will have been achieved but the status quo.
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 23, 2014

Jeremy Bowen's Gaza notebook: "I saw no evidence of Hamas using Palestinians as human shields"

The BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen has written a 'Gaza notebook' for the New Statesman. (Well, did you really think it would be for the Spectator or the Jewish Chronicle?). It is strikingly opinionated, even by his standards.

He uses it to dispute Benjamin Netanhayu's claims that Hamas uses civilians as human shields; indeed, even going so far as to paint Hamas in a rather protective-sounding light:

I saw Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, giving an interview to the BBC after Israel had killed more than 60 people in the Gaza district of Shejaiya. He said he regretted the civilian casualties in Gaza but they were the fault of Hamas. Netanyahu said Israel had warned people to get out. Some had taken the advice; others had been prevented from leaving by Hamas.

I was back in London for my son’s 11th birthday party by the time all those people were killed in Shejaiya. But my impression of Hamas is different from Netanyahu’s. I saw no evidence during my week in Gaza of Israel’s accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields. I saw men from Hamas on street corners, keeping an eye on what was happening. They were local people and everyone knew them, even the young boys.

This comes despite Hamas publicly advocating the use of civilians as human shields (something Jeremy Bowen fails to acknowledge). The Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, was caught (by MEMRI) speaking on a local station recently, saying: 

This attests to the character of our noble, jihad-loving people – who defend their rights and their homes with their bare chests and their blood.

The policy of people confronting the Israeli warplanes with their bare chests in order to protect their homes has proven effective against the occupation… we in Hamas call upon our people to adopt this policy in order to protect the Palestinian homes.

And yet Jeremy Bowen dismisses it all, even after UNRWA found Hamas rockets in two of its Gazan schools, and despite credible reports that some civilians are deliberating ignoring Israel's warnings and that groups of civilians have actually gathered at targeted buildings in order to serve as human shields [see Channel 4's FactCheck blog]. 

A week in Gaza, and yet Jeremy Bowen "saw no evidence...of Israel’s accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields". 

Presumably, the blinkers he was wearing at the time didn't help.

UPDATE: BBC journalist: "Whenever I see Netanyahu I remember what happened to ex-PM Sharon! There's GOD wooo!"

Further to an earlier post...

DB at Biased BBC has followed up his spotting of a particularly biased tweet from a BBC journalist with the self-same journalist's apology:

I sincerely apologised for making partisan comments on the situation in #Gaza - it was against my employer's guidelines. Lessons learned!

— Naziru Mikail (@nazirumikailu) July 23, 2014

(He probably meant "I sincerely apologise" rather than "I sincerely apologised"). 

On previous occasions, DB's catches have resulted in the Head of BBC News, whether it be Helen Boaden or Mary Hockaday, sending out emails to BBC staff reminding them that they shouldn't compromise the BBC's reputation for impartiality by sounding off on social media:

Helen Boaden (2010):
Dear All,
We have had some occasions recently of BBC News staff using social networking sites to share with the world their somewhat controversial opinions on matters of public policy and the future of the BBC. Unsurprisingly, these have been picked up by the wider web and used to discredit the BBC and its impartiality. We have Editorial Guidelines which cover the personal use of the internet …which everyone should observe. We also have brains and judgement which I suggest people fully engage before rushing to communicate. Hx

Mary Hockaday (2014):
Social media is now a vital part of our work, allowing us to get our journalism to new audiences, connect with people, and gather news as it happens.
But the guidance is clear when it comes to personal activity: 'As a BBC member of staff – and especially as someone who works in News – there are particular considerations to bear in mind. They can all be summarised as: 'Don't do anything stupid.'
"I'd also specifically draw your attention to the following section: 'You shouldn't state your political preferences or say anything that compromises your impartiality. Don't sound off about things in an openly partisan way. Don't be seduced by the informality of social media into bringing the BBC into disrepute.'

The last time this happened, I wrote, "I rather suspect that DB will have many more scoops, thanks to the 'rush to communicate' without 'brains' or 'judgement' of so many incautious BBC tweeters." And, indeed, here we are again. 

Will Mary Hockaday be re-sending that email out now?

Anti-farmer bias at the BBC?

In other BBC bias-related news, according to the Western Daily Press:

BBC is accused of bias over livestock farming coverage

The paper quotes former farmers' leader Richard Haddock accusing the BBC of showing "anti-farmer bias" with a report suggesting beef production is 10 times more damaging to the environment than any other form of livestock production. Mr Haddock's beef? That "the [BBC] report is based on studies carried out in America, where production methods are vastly different from British – but fails to make this sufficiently clear."

But he says few farmers will be surprised by it since the BBC's programming agenda now has a distinctly anti-livestock farmer slant. 

Mr Haddock said,: "How they raise beef in the US and how we raise grass-fed beef here are as different as chalk and cheese. We don't raise cattle on giant feed lots and grass-fed cattle have a natural diet. They are not fed on soybeans – one of the feedstuffs the report quotes."

As for the BBC's report, well, he thinks it's bullshit: 

The report quotes unnamed 'other researchers' as saying the conclusions of the new study are applicable in Europe.

Mr Haddock said: "That could only be asserted by someone with not a shred of knowledge about grass-fed beef production as practised across the South West.

"The only common factors relate to waste products. In fact, beef rearing here has a tremendous environmental benefit since cattle-rearing areas are some of the most well cared-for and attractive landscapes we have and far more attractive to wildlife than cereal or arable farms.

"They also act as a magnet for tourists: studies have shown it's the quality of landscapes in the South West that motivates more than two-thirds of holiday visits.

"No-one would want to visit an American feed lot, but unfortunately these days if the BBC gets a whiff of an anti-livestock farmer story, tiny details such as these are conveniently swept aside."

The report in question comes from BBC environment correspondent Matt McGrath. He seems to have taken over from Richard Black as the BBC's chief red-rag-to-a-bull correspondent for those critical of the BBC's environmental reporting (especially over climate science).

The Moral Maze

Tonight's The Moral Maze was quite something. 

To do justice to the thoughts it provoked would demand a post that took longer to read than it actually took to listen to the programme (and no one wants that), so I will simply sketch my initial impressions of it.

The panel contained two strongly pro-Israeli speakers, namely Melanie Phillips and Jill Kirby (making her debut), and one strongly pro-Palestinian speaker, Giles Fraser. The final speaker, Matthew Taylor, was happier to sit on the fence but dangled his feet on the Palestinian side.

The 'witnesses' were Colonel Richard Kemp and Dr Hugo Slim on the Israeli side, and Mehdi Hasan and Ted Honderich on the Palestinian side. 

Michael Buerk gave a characteristically fine introduction (firm but fair). 

Then came the first witness, Mehdi Hasan. 

Mehdi (characteristically) was very canny in making repeated denunciations of Hamas, saying that they too had committed war crimes. Of course, that concession allowed him to repeatedly make his main point - that Israel is committing war crimes and that Israel is worse than Hamas because of its superior military strength and because it is 'the occupier'. 

His argument didn't convince me but I can well imagine, unfortunately, that his fluency might have struck home with many a Radio 4 listener. 

Melanie's repeated attempts to talk him down, and both her and Jill's attempts to get him to condone Hamas rather misfired. He was perfectly happy to condemn Hamas (#Taqiyya?) in order to make his condemnation of Israel tell, thus (in the process) somewhat taking the wind out of their sails.

Next came Colonel Richard Kemp. 

He was very persuasive, making Israel's case with considerable reasonableness (as opposed to Mehdi's excitability). I suspect (and hope) that Radio 4 listeners will have responded well to his arguments. 

Both Matthew Taylor and Giles Fraser gave him space to make his arguments and seemed rather hard-placed to argue with them. Giles, characteristically, was passionate but also seemed somewhat disarmed by Col. Kemp's quietly-made points. It was a clear win for Col. Kemp.

Then came Ted Honderich. 

Prof. Honderich is a philosopher. [I own an encyclopedia of philosophy edited by him]. He sought to make a philosophical case in defence of Hamas. Yes, really.

I suspect (like me) that most Radio 4 listeners will have failed to make much sense of his arguments. All I took from his contribution is that he thinks Hamas is good and that Israel is bad, and that he thinks that Hamas is justified in deliberately seeking to kill Israeli civilians. Philosophically-speaking.

I almost wish that Michael Buerk hadn't cut him off so curtly from making his initial argument as I suspect that Radio 4 listeners would have been even more put off by the result. (Michael clearly didn't like Ted Honderich). Partly as a result, Prof. Honderich made very little headway here. 

His remarkable (and reprehensible) appearance was dominated by his spiteful encounter with Melanie Phillips. Insults flew in both directions. 

Finally came Dr Hugo Slim, who put the case for Israel well, but who was also willing to give his hands a good wringing in the process. Giles Fraser tried to wax passionate against him but seemed to find him too likable (too liberal) to get into a proper fistfight with, and Matthew Taylor appeared to reach a meeting of minds with him. 

The final panel discussion was lively. Giles Fraser came out (extraordinarily) as being sympathetic to Ted Honderich's pro-Hamas points (well, he is a Guardian editorial writer these days). Melanie Phillips tried to talk him down (and everyone else - until Jill Kirby made a good, pro-Israel point). Jill Kirby floundered somewhat, though she made some good points (first day nerves?). Michael Buerk had a dig at Giles for seeming to back up Prof. Honderich, and Matthew Taylor sat on the fence. 

All in all, a fiercely balanced programme. 

I did note that some people on Twitter denounced it as biased, though I couldn't work out in what direction they meant (and was deeply unwilling to check their Twitter feeds).