An open letter to the Culture Secretary

Adam B.

Excellent letter, thank you!

The situation at the BBC is unacceptable, and must change.

Jonathan

Excellent letter. Thank you for writing it. I wish I had some hope that it might be effective.

Lucashyde

Excellent Melanie.
Could you perhaps organise a petition for us all to sign to send to the Culture Minister? This BBC bias must stop.

Les.w

Melanie,
I hope there will be some way in which those who, like me, have complained to the BBC on this issue, only to be fobbed off in the usual condescending BBC manner, can add our names to this, or support it in some way. I'm sure there will be many wanting to join you in this.

Graeme Thompson

Humdinging as ever Melanie, but the Rt Hon Mr Hunt will just go into waffle mode at best, if he pays any heed to your letter at all.

All three main parties have bought in lock, stock and barrel to cultural Marxism. The only thing that will save our great country from the moral calamity our midwich cuckoo historical parties are leading us to is for an independent democratic party to emerge drawn together the conservative strands that exist across the British political spectrum.

Jonathan, Truro

Good luck on this one, regrettably you've little chance of getting anywhere on this one. Last week Hamas launched a new laser guided missile at a school bus. Not considered newsworthy by the BBC world News station, only the Israeli retaliation, which didn't even mention the bus attack which preceded it. Never mind, the Sudanese Muslim employee at our Tel Aviv hotel who risked his life to travel through Egypt, dodging their lethal border police, in order to find freedom in the Jewish State says more wonderful things about that country than the morally bankrupt BBC could in ten years.

gary ashton

i'd be very surprised if they took any significant notice, the anti israel machine is in full swing and to admit any bias would just be a confession of complicity in the swindle of delegitimisation but it's a great letter melanie and it's good to know there are people out there like yourself and robin shepard who are speaking up on all our behalfs, as we feel we don't have a voice anymore.

Brian Moshe

Melanie, you are a true light in the descending dark.

daniel maris

As far as I am concerned, East Jerusalem isn't part of Israel, but your whole plaint is based on the assumption (not accepted by the UN or the UK) that East Jerusalem is part of Israel.

I really do wonder that you bother expending time on this. It's true Israel has been demonised at times, but you set back the Israeli cause by this pretence that East Jerusalem is part of Israel.

It was annexed, and it is clear that if there is ever to be peace part of it is going to have to be returned to the Arabs.

Archaeology has never been a non-political exercise in that part of the world. For every Jewish artefact you could find a thousand Christian ones, but the Christian claim to Jerusalem (which the UN recognised through its international zone proposal in 1947) gets written out of the story. I think part of the peace settlement should be reinserting that recognition of Jerusalem's Christian dimension as well.

Roy

Well done Melanie. Especially when there is a chronic ganging up of countries willing to participate in an armed collaboration with the Palestinians. The tipping point could easily be the blind bias of the BBC.

Ric

Well said, Melanie! Once again you've nailed the BBC squarely. Anyone who gets their news exclusively from BBC Radio 4, the Guardian and Channel 4, as many intelligent Britons do, is fed an insidious diet of anti-Israel and ultimately antisemitic propaganda.

Hysteria

nice letter , but as they say over here "good luck with that....."

RoMo

An excellent letter Melanie but you and I know that nothing will change. Now, were Israel to discover oil...

Meira

As a Jewish resident of Jerusalem, peacefully co-existing with Arab professionals, being served by Arab staff in many supermarkets, and queueing behind them in our local Post Office, I know that peaceful co-existence is mostly fact. I heard the recent bomb explosion from my home, but nobody went out to attack any of the numerous Arab passersby in retaliation. BBC has a pro-PLO agenda, which gets more pronounced every year and as Ms Phillips points out, is negatively influencing World public against the legitimate State of Israel, helps the increasing attacks on Jewish people overseas, and fuels the foolish attempts to boycott our universities etc.

Robbo

I shall wait with bated breath for Mr. Hunt to positively respond. I have absolutely no faith in him doing so.

Andre

Only this morning the BBC is arguing for the reversal of cuts to its funding of overseas services - I believe the foreign office pays for this - in view of the unrest in the Arab world. Nothing could be less wise. Cut BBC funding altogether. Let it trade as a commercial organisation, sure, but it is not objective on a whole range of issues but reflects the view point of the soggy secular left that has seized control of our universities, social services and legislative bodies.
Meira Thanks for a wonderful post and for a ray of optimism in all this. I have fond memories of Jerusalem. Many people in Britain are not fooled by the misreporting of the BBC. Thousands of us have worked on moshavim and kibbutzim as youngsters and have walked the streets and alleys of Jerusalem. It is a wonderful city, capital of wonderful and generous country.

MArk2

The BBC is said to pride iteself on its objectivity and commitmetn to public service. If it commissions a report into how well it does on that front, whether it is about the Middle East or anything else, I simply fail to understand how it can justify not publishing it.

Cameron

Thanks for that Melanie. If a petition does commence I will sign first!

RCE

This will get nowhere - it's too specific to one programme. Those of us more accustomed to battling BBC bias know how easily they swat away complaints like this, and Hunt will do the same (let's face it, if he had any intention of standing up to the BBC he would have done so before now, he's had plenty of justification).

Derek Pasquill

Jeremy Hunt and the Coalition Government are part of the problem not the solution.

Expect prevarication, embarrassed silence, equivocation. Nothing will happen as the Tory party fears to its very marrow the power of the liberal left establishment - so much so that it has entered into a coalition with it. But who are the Tory party's supporters now? They must be a steadily dwindling breed.

Truthtriumphs

This needs to be an on-line petition,and to be publicised far and wide.
The government must be embarrassed into action....difficult with the lib dem component.
The Tories also have plenty of grounds for complaint against the BBC.

Richard Collumbell

I think its also worth pointing out however, that Jane Corbin has also been accused by some of being a producer of "first class Zionist propganda"

http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/09/jane-corbin-bbcs-prostitute-of-airwaves.html

But having said that, its worth highlighting this ominous passage from his open letter..

"It is up to you Jane, make no mistake, there are insiders within the BBC who are so disgusted with what you have done, they are making their moves from within the BBC because the benefits of prostituting themselves has finally reached its breaking point."

There are insiders at the BBC????

Raymond Douglas

Did anyone watch that "Buried secrets of the Bible"? This bit of propaganda posing as historical archaeology was disgusting.Typically BBC, it was presented by some shapely female atheist "academic", whose brief seemed to be to further de-legitimise the Bible and Israel.Posing by the barrier built in jerusalem, she cast doubt on the existence of King David and just about everything else ! Still, we got some nice photogenic shots of said Academic in a little black number eating in a restaurant whilst further casting more doubts ! Typical BBC

sheila

The fact that Ms Phillips has chosen amongst her multitude of tasks to spend both time and thought in penning this letter , is an indication of how relentless is the anti Israel propanda pumped out by the BBC.

A petition based on this letter is a most excellent idea.

They may slaughter the people of Israel both physically and ideologically . However they only exterminate the physical body. The subtle body-the thoughts, impulses , the traits , the talents of the people of Israel will never die . The history of Israel's people over the past two thousand years bear witness to this fact. And it is a fact.

Peter T

Excelent letter as to be expected but I fear, also to be expected, that no satisfactory explanation will be forthcoming. The question I have is - are the guidelines legally enforceable and can the BBC Trust be taken to court to explain why these guidelines have ben ignored?

Pot Head

Avidgor Lieberman conducts radio interview from the bog and then flushes it live on air.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4055422,00.html

You wouldn't get that on the Beeb

dominic lennon

Absolutely spot on Ms Phillips as always.

Ted

Good letter. I wouldn't expect anything much from Jeremy Hunt though.

Jeremy Hunt is going down in history as the man who nodded Murdoch's BSkyB deal through just as the pustule of the phone hacking scandal pops and we all watch the pus pour over all the dramatis personae: Andy Coulson, his friend, David Cameron and so on. Hunt is just another dud in a government that’s full of them.

What’s the point of this government?

Sandra in Accounts

Succinctly put Melanie.

My protest against BBC bias is now in its 4th year - I stopped paying the TV Tax in disgust at the blatant bias at the BBC.

Something has to chnage - I am afraid letters wont do it - starving the BBC of the TV Tax will.

Join me - its easy & makes you feel good to know you are not funding that monster.

Terry in Oz

Good letter that had to be written (maybe extended to the Foreign Office too).

Bottom line is that it won't make any difference. Jew hatred is Jew hatred. The bbc won't alter.

Best we can hope for is that it loses its licence fee subsidy and is forced to compete in the media market.

logdon

I was one such complainant.

Here's the reply

-----Original Message-----
From: Trust Enquiries <trust.enquiries@bbc.co.uk>
Sent: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 9:42
Subject: CAMERA Video

Dear email correspondent
Your email is one of a number we have received from people who have written to us following viewing or hearing about a video available on the website of CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Reporting in America) entitled, “BBC Ethics Unveiled: Lies about Jerusalem, Lies about Guidelines”.
This video comments on the finding of the BBC Trust of January 2011 that a Panorama programme first broadcast in January 2010 entitled “A Walk in the Park” did not breach the BBC’s Editorial Standards as set out in the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines. The appeal had been lodged by CAMERA.
I have read your email and watched the video on the CAMERA website.
The reply we are sending to all correspondents on this issue is in the same terms.
I should explain that the role of the BBC Trust is distinct from that of the BBC’s management and it has no role in day to day editorial matters, which are the responsibility of the Director General.
The Trust, as the sovereign body within the BBC, is responsible for setting and upholding the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines, which set out the standards all BBC output should meet. There is a three stage process in place to deal with instances where audiences feel there has been a breach of the Guidelines. This requires that complaints must be dealt with in the first instance by the BBC’s management; the Trust’s role in this process is to consider appeals from complainants should they be dissatisfied with the response that they have received from the BBC’s management.
In cases where the Trust has decided that an appeal does qualify for consideration, we employ an independent editorial adviser to investigate the facts of the case and analyse the evidence from both sides in the appeal - in the appeal about “A Walk in the Park”, the adviser therefore analysed evidence from the BBC and CAMERA. The independent adviser’s report is then provided to the complainant and to the BBC for comment on such matters as errors of fact. Any comments plus the original report prepared by the independent editorial adviser and a copy of the programme then go to the Editorial Standards Committee of the BBC Trust for decision.
Ensuring the impartiality and accuracy of BBC journalism is a key priority for the Trust; it is essential to its independence that the BBC retains the public’s trust as an impartial purveyor of news and programming. Considering appeals about the BBC’s journalism is one of the ways the Trust fulfils its responsibility to ensure editorial standards are upheld.

The decision of the BBC Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee on this appeal can be viewed here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/appeals/esc_bulletins/2010/dec.pdf
I am aware that CAMERA is dissatisfied with the outcome of this appeal and that many of the correspondents who wrote to the Trust as result of viewing the CAMERA video share that disappointment. However the decision of the BBC Trustees is final. I would like to assure you that the Trust took the complaint made by CAMERA in 2010 about this edition of Panorama extremely seriously and treated it in the same way as any other complaint we receive. The Trust approaches each complaint independently and impartially.
Yours sincerely

Francesca O’Brien
Head of Editorial Standards, BBC Trust

Neil Craig

The BBC Charter says they have a legal duty to show "due balance". Yet on virtually no subject do they even attempt top do so. They have admitted lying and censoring to promote "catastrophic warming"; they never allow anything unsupportive of the EU; they have censored reporting of genocide, organlegging etc in Kosovo under our government authority; they give hundreds of times more coverage to the Greens than UKIP despite the fact that 4 times as many people voted for the latter. I could go on ad nauseam.

Breaching their Charter means they have no legal right to our licence fee. Beyond tha they are a very serious threat to freedom. Remeber that Orwell's Ministry of Truth was based on his experience at the BBC and they have become even less interested in honesty since.

EDDIE

Surely it must be possible to take the BBC to court for,say, a judicial revue?

Tony Allwright

Brava, Melanie!

EDDIE

As a fully paid up member of the tax paying classes I would be interested to know how the commercial part of the BBC, which I believe permits advertising in the foreign transmission, deals with all their profit?. Are these profits refunded to the government or does the BBC pocket this extra income for their champaign fund?

Merlyn

i wrote to my MP about the Fogel outrage.
He agreed about the BBC bias and suggested that there might be an opening for removing financial support to them.

Please keep badgering your MPs, and lets ALSO have a petition.

Judy

Well, given that Jeremy Hunt is the man who has appointed Chris Patten to be the new Chairman of the BBC, despite the fact that he has a well established record of making intensely dismissive and hostile comments about Israel's policies and actions, and has only just resigned from being President of Medical Aid for Palestinians, the chance of your letter being given anything other than a brush-off are virtually zero.

Jeremy Hunt acclaimed Patten as "head and shoulders above the other candidates".

In his hearing before the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, Patten talked about what a great reporting institution the BBC is and said he was not prepared to agree it is institutionally biased.

Medical Aid for Palestinians publishes on its web site maps of Israel and the Palestinian territories in which it labels Gaza, which Israel left in 2006, and which has been run by the Hamas terrorist regime in a coup since 2008 as "Occupied by israel".

Presumably Patten has been happy with that.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Letter? Did a letter ever stop that Minister of Culture and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels?

Davieboy

Thank you Melanie!

John Edwards

East Jerusalem is part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories as confirmed by the judgesat the International Court of Justice 15-0.

I assume the "Arabs" referred to in Melanie's letter are actually the Palestinians. As usual she pretends they don't exist as a national group.

It is true that the Arab armies only arrived in Palestine in the seventh century but it is mistaken to assume that this late arrival applies to the indigenous inhabitants now speaking Arabic. There was a change in ruling elite rather than a transfer of population.

There has been a city on the site of Al Quds/Jerusalem for over 5,000 years.

moise pippic

Why are there no lawyers willing and able to take the BBC to court and repeatedly, on any one of several charges.
Eg
That the BBC is failing to fulfil its statutory obligations under its Charter to report even-handedly and without bias Israel/Palestinian news.
That the BBC by the bias shown in its reporting of events pertaining to Israel incites and encourages intercommunal violence and prevents the ability of British Jews to peacefully go about their daily life without the threat of violence to themselves and their families.
etc etc.
One can be sure that if the BBC reported Palestinian Arab news in the same biased manner that it does towards Israel then the Islamic community in Britain would be aflame and the BBC would be paralysed by law suites.

moise pippic

Why are there no lawyers willing and able to repeatedly take the BBC to court, on any one of several charges.
Eg
That the BBC is failing to fulfil its statutory obligations under its Charter to report even-handedly and without bias Israel/Palestinian news.
That the BBC by the bias shown in its reporting of events pertaining to Israel incites and encourages intercommunal violence and prevents British Jews to peacefully go about their daily life without the threat of violence to themselves and their families.
etc etc.
One can be sure that if the BBC reported Palestinian Arab news in the same manner that it does that of Israel then the Islamic community in Britain would be aflame and the BBC would be paralysed by law suites.

jon dee

Your brilliant letter will get widespread support from many who despair at the BBC's biased propaganda, and disregard for balanced reporting.

It's hatred of all things Israel has indeed reached a dangerous level, and could act as an encouragement to the most base in our society, to cause further harm to it's people and reputation.

What is the reason behind the BBC's lies and distortions ?

Could racism be involved ?

Is the government now so scared of the BBC that we must all surrender to it's vile bias, despite the fact we fund it ?

I hope your courageous efforts are rewarded.Many of us will be watching.

David Cravit

You should consider building a worldwide audience of people who declare that they are boycotting BBC entertainment products. A few hundred letters to the producers of BBC entertainment programming - which does a huge business in the sale of DVDs - might create more urgency than trying to get a politician to do anything. Appealing to the BBC on rational grounds is a waste of time. Creating a few unpleasant consequences is likely to be much more successful. (How about a Boycott the BBC group on Facebook?) In the meantime, I am forwarding your column to all my friends, and urging them to write to the BBC and say they will no longer purchase BBC products. I'm not sure how much business the BBC does here in Canada, but I am confident we can get their attention.

David

I am glad you got to watch the video Melanie....its hard to watch because of the amount of lies told by the bbc within it. But your letter kicks ass.

Okey

East, South and North Jerusalem were under illegal Arab occupation between 1947-67.
In 1948 Arab forces had seized these parts of the city, killed most of its Jews, imprisoned the few survivors, then systematically (and typically) destroyed every synagogue there.
In June 1967 Israeli forces heroically liberated the city, and also liberated its Arab inhabitants from the tyrannical regime of King Hussein, then Israel extended to them all the benefits which the liberal, democratic, enlightened State of Israel extends to all its citizens- freedom of expression, health care and other social welfare entitlements, educational and employment opportunities and so forth.
Even those Arabs of Jerusalem who opted out of Israeli citizenship enjoy most of these benefits. The greatest tragedy that could befall these Arab people would be to come under the rule of an Arab regime, or worse still...the rule of people like the anti-Zionists who post on this site.

Miranda Rose Smith

Hysteria
April 13th, 2011 4:18am
nice letter , but as they say over here "good luck with that....."
Dear Hysteria: In America, we say "Don't hold your breath."

Reuven

Just how much, I would like to know, can the BBC be in denial that they are telling lie after lie after lie about Israel. Hard to believe there is no conscience whatsoever at the once so-famed BBC, which at present has become infamous in the eyes of people bearing a standard of truth.

Derek BLADES

@ Meira

You tell us that you stand in line behind Arabs in your local post office. But why would you not do so? And why do you think it worth mentioning?

DougS

"...the BBC itself commissioned an inquiry by Malcolm Balen into whether the BBC’s coverage had fallen short of the necessary standards of objectivity and truthfulness. The BBC has not only chosen to keep Balen’s report secret, but has even spent thousands of pounds of licence-fee payers’ money on court actions to ensure that this document, paid for out of the public purse and on a matter of public interest, remains hidden from public view..."

This is an outrageous state of affairs. As representatives of taxpayers, the government should be enforcing disclosure of this document.

There is, presumably, only one reason why the BBC would resort to this course of action - they don't like what they've read!

Ted

Chris Patten!

Yes, I'd forgotten about him.

Jeremy Hunt puts his faith in Rupert Murdoch and Chris Patten.

Shouldn't that be enough to disqualify him from public office?

Adam B.

John Edwards, let's get this straight. According to you, the Jewish Quiarter of Jerusalem, which holds the most holy site to Jews in the world, is "occupied" by the Jewish state, and should immediately be given to the palestinian Arabs, even though it has never been part of a Palestinina Arab entity.

If it is "occupied", from whom is it occupied? Jordan grabbed it in 1948, and ethnically cleansed every last Jew from it, whilst systematically dynamiting all the ancient synagogues, and desecrating the Mount of Olives ancient Jewish cemetery. No Jew was allowed to pray at Judaism's holy sites. It was so important to the wider Arab world, that in the 20 years of Jordanian occupation, not one single Arab leader went to visit it.

So again, I ask you, from whom is it occupied?

Edward in the USA

I propose a BDS of the BBC until it ends the mandatory licese fee for its "experimental wireless project" and opens the book on its biased reporting.

Michael

hahahahah

Adam B.

Chris Patten - the same man, whilst unelected EU commissar who refused to investigate the disappearance of large sums of EU taxpayers' money into the Swiss bank accounts of several leading Palestinian Fatah officials. He said "We need an investigation like a hole in the head".

So what can be expected from him?

Hexhamgeezer

The BBC must have breached the terms of their Charter enough times now, and served up enough instances of their instituional bias, to allow everyone who wishes to to withhold the licence fee.

There must be a legal case now for doing so.

Stephen Rothbart

Daniel Maris, I am not going to get drawn into another endless debate about legitimacy of Israel but just to your point.

Jewish presence in Jerusalem pre-dates Christianity and Islam. After the war in 1948 all Jews living in east Jerusalem were kicked out by the Jordanians who destroyed all Jewish places of worship.

After. the war in 1967 Israel won all Jerusalem back from Jordan, there being no Palestine.

Jordan then ceded control of Jerusalem.

Under Israeli rule Jerusalem is a place of open worship for all faiths.

If anyone deserves to rule Jerusalem as an open non-apartheid City it is Israel.

Santorum

Perhaps Melanie will stop taking cash from the BBC by way of protest?

Tim W.

Melanie,

Excellent work, thank you for advancing this discussion

Jack Thompson

Melanie Phillips always fails to acknowledge the view that criticism of the actions and policies of this particular Israeli government is not criticism of Israel as such, of its people or of its right to exist. Nor is it anti-Semitic. If you parade yourself as a parliamentary democracy, you must accept that criticism is part and parcel of that system. And, incidentally, to maintain that the number of demolitions of Arab residences has decreased simply ignores the argument that they should never have been demolished in the first place! As a former BBC Cairo correspondent, I can assure Ms Phillips that in my reports in the 1980s I reflected as much criticism of Arab regimes as I did of the then Israeli government.

C.Gee

“You appear to think you have addressed the argument by identifying its source.”
“It is foolish to act as if you have rebutted them simply by mentioning their names and calling them anti-Zionist.”

No. I was not addressing the arguments at all - nor rebutting them. Had I wished to do so, I would have brought in an historian who is not engaged in “redressing the balance” against Israel.

The point of my comment was to note that the story being offered so earnestly for Israel’s aggression in the Six Day War was, in fact, a well-established one. As such, it has not gone unanswered by equally well-established arguments on the other side. I might have chosen to find counter-arguments from pro-Zionists to cite, as I have done in the past, but in this instance I thought that the shallowness of the Quigley argument was its own rebuttal.
There are several assumptions made by those who put forth anti-Zionist history here: (a) that these views are not known and read by Melanie or pro-Israel commenters on this site ; (b) that, therefore, they need to be “aired” here; (c) that upon exposure to these views, the blinkers will fall away and we will all agree that Israel is whatever (uncited) Quigley, Segev, Shlaim, Chomsky, Finkelstein, Pappe etc. paint it to be.

You need to disabuse yourselves of these assumptions.

Stephen Rothbart

Oh Derek, Derek, Derek.... always so to the point. Have you never heard of a figure of speech?

THIS was your contribution to the fact - yes, FACT - that there is institutional racism in the BBC?

I suppose that you felt you had to say something, but the truth is hard to deny, despite the nonsense spouted by the HES at the BBC Trust, and so that this was the only argument you could come up with.

Incidentally, I caught a bus yesterday. It was too heavy though, so I had to put it down.

Adam B.

Jack Thompson, your post is a clear demonstration of everything wrong with the BBC's collective mindset. It is a failure to recognize that we are not talking about a criticism of this or that policy, but the delegitimization and reflexive hostilty towards Israel which is now the norm at the BBC. Indeed, the BBC is obsessed with Israel, and spends more time on its TV news covering Israel than either the genocide in Darfur, or the mass killings in places like the DRC (I have never seen a single BBC news report on the issue). Even more than the entire South American continent. Don't you realize how absurd this is?

And how nice that you were "just as critical" of every despotic police state surrounding Israel as with this liberal democracy. Good to see you exercise such moral equivalency so shamelessly. And incidentally, there isn't as much criticism of such regimes from the BBC anyway.

TGF UKIP

Don't hold your breath folks. An anti Israel bias is deep in the DNA of One Continent Tories like Cameron & co just as is a bias against GOP America. They are instinctively pro Araba and pro Democrat, hence all the slavering over Obama.

Michael Lumish

Melanie,

I'm glad that you are pointing this problem out to your government, but why do I get the distinct impression that they do not care?

http://karmafishies.blogspot.com/

Gareth

Time to organize a mass boycott of the TV Licence. If the BBC is violating its charter, it is not entitled to the money.

J Alan Jones

The World service of the BBC needs to be a separate organisation to the BBC UK broadcasting. Separate offices and separate financing. Then the UK broadcasting only should be financed by a licence fee. World service government finance.

J Alan Jones

The ignorance of many matters at the BBC has been obvious for years. Unfortunately it gets watched because it is free of advertising; except of course the gross infantile socialist bias it has.

!. S.

great article.....thanks

Santorum

J Allan Jones

The World Service is in a separate building, has a different management structure and is Goverment funded.

Peter Thomas

Santorum

'Perhaps Melanie will stop taking cash from the BBC by way of protest?'

What would that achieve? All the pro-Palestinian journalists and presenters on the BBC get paid for spreading their uninformed bile. Melanie is to be commended for managing to remain on the payroll - virtually the only voice of truth and justice standing against the rest. Sadly, the more effective she is on national media, the greater risk she runs in our 'diverse heaven'.

And it isn't just the journalists - I have heard both travel and literature programs hosting Palestinians and allowing them to make unopposed political statements, in one case with the presenter making supportive comments.

Dai of Edinburgh

Reporters such as gullible Corbin are the base output of twisted, liberal indoctrination while at university.

Stephen Rothbart

Living as I do, outside the UK, I rely on BBC World and CNN for much of the English spoken news.

In case some of you are unaware, BBC World has commmercial breaks, and much of the advertising is from the Middle Eastern states.

They also have the Doha discussions, where about two hundred Arabs and their friends fill a studio while discussions about matters affecting the Middle Eastern events du jour are discussed and voted upon.

They do have some Israelis on from time to time, but they are mostly Haaretz type readers, so as not to offend.

Anyway, given their concerns about funding, it is hard to imagine editorial content inside the BBC "biting the hand that feeds them" so I welcome the airing of this story, but there are not enough Jews to change the Guardianistas' minds, nor that of the new Chairman Lord Patten, always supposing he has a mind.

I am sure the appalling level of reporting on the Middle East is therefor financially motivated.

Withdrawing licencing fees would not be successful, there are not enough of us who care about reporting on Israel.

Better to raise money to finance a test case in the Courts that BBC reporting on Israel is prejudicial to the nation and to Jews and that therefore the BBC is acting as an agent for racial incitement.

We may not win the case but by pursuing the Beeb through the Courts and then appealing the probable loss through to the House of Lords, we may be able to name and shame those that ignore the problem and at the same time keep the public awareness going.

Augustus

John Edwards - I can find references to Tibetans, Kurds, or the Berber people, for example, in terms of history, culture, language etc., but no such reference to a
'Palestinian' people, and certainly not as a
'national group'. The title of Palestinians,
for a national entity which never existed,
but is in truth simply an Arab sub-species,
has been deviously made to look as if they always existed. This new species of national entity had to be created in order to not only trample on Jewish rights, but also to create a reason for claiming autonomous territorial rights. Before the day that these Palestinians suddenly came into being the Jews themselves were known
worldwide as Palestinians. So 'Arabs' is the correct term. See?

Truthtriumphs

John Edwards
April 13th, 2011 1:18pm

"East Jerusalem is part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories as confirmed by the judgesat the International Court of Justice 15-0".

The ICJ is the (non-binding) court of the UN.
The UN incorporated the "Mandate from Palestine" document into Article 80 of its charter, which designated the area west of the Jordan as the future Jewish national homeland, and called for its "close settlement" by Jews.
Therefore, any such ruling which contradicts the above, is a nonsense.

"I assume the "Arabs" referred to in Melanie's letter are actually the Palestinians. As usual she pretends they don't exist as a national group".

They have come into existence as a national group, very recently, in the 1960s.
Before 1948, the Jews of Palestine were known as the Palestinians.
The founder of the PlO, Ahmad Shukeiri's (its first chairman), let the cat out of the bag, when he said that there was no such place as Palestine--- "every one knows it is nothing more than southern Syria". He admitted that the invention of the "Palestinians" was a tactic to get rid of the Jews.

"It is true that the Arab armies only arrived in Palestine in the seventh century but it is mistaken to assume that this late arrival applies to the indigenous inhabitants now speaking Arabic. There was a change in ruling elite rather than a transfer of population".

All the evidence suggests otherwise.
The vast majority of Arabs living there are immigrants, largely from Eypt and Syria, in the 20th.C.

"There has been a city on the site of Al Quds/Jerusalem for over 5,000 years".

It was founded by the Jewish King David, four thousand years ago...his son, Solomon built the first temple there, destroyed by the Babylonians.
This was some 2,000 years before Islam was even thought of.
The name of "Al Quds", is an attempt to hijack it as an Islamic holy place, and to deny the continuous Jewish connection to it for 4,000 years.
btw, if East Jerusalem is in "occupied territory" how come that Judaism's oldest and holiest cemetery, 3,000 years old, is on the Mount of Olives?

Portland

Raymond Douglas asks if anyone watched the recent three-part archaeological series “Buried secrets of the Bible" on BBC 4.

I did, and saw a thoroughly absorbing and informative documentary. It’s recommended to all, if ever repeated.

The presenter Francesca Stavrakopoulou, described by Douglas as:
a shapely female atheist "academic",

is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Theology and Religion at Exeter University. Readers may judge from her web page how undeserved these quotes are.

Douglas complains that she cast doubt on the existence of King David. She did no such thing. True, she didn’t take the account of David’s reign in 2 Samuel at face value, but should she have?

The only common ground I have with Douglas is that the presenter is an attractive woman. Does this diminish her arguments? Should I stop watching documentaries presented by Bettany Hughes?

Thomas

C.Gee
April 13th, 2011 6:34pm

I came upon this. I take it to be a response principally to my efforts on the previous thread. I answer below:

Dear Mr. Gee,
I know there are those here who consider you “venerable” for your intellect and perspicuity - but this really will not do.

If you know of historians “not engaged in redressing the balance” who will serve your turn, then you have nothing to lose by citing them. You have already expended more energy in declining to than you would in citing them. (Your imputation betrays an apparent ignorance. An historian engaged in redressing the balance is not thereby any less of an historian. Indeed, it is a normal and necessary part of the study of history that historians do just that.)

You tell me that there are well-established counter-arguments. You tell me that you have in the past been known to cite them (really?). You tell me you do not feel like citing them now, because “the shallowness of the Quigley argument was its own rebuttal” (a quick comparison with the slogans I have objected to - and you have to laugh!). Again, you have expended a surprising amount of energy in avoiding delivering these putative killer arguments - arguments that are ever threatened, but never materialise.

I think it likely that many of the ultras here do indeed sustain their convictions by avoiding counter-argument or evidence. I would be surprised if you were one of them – which only makes it the more surprising that along with them you toe the party line (in this instance, what such as Fernando and Truthtriumphs have offered up). It can do no harm to interrupt the loud unanimity of the hasbara chanting. I would not expect the blinkers to fall. I would expect you to do better than this, if better were possible. If you do not do better, despite the expense of time and energy, then the inference is clear.

aelle

C.Gee

After so much painstaking exegesis of the Balfour Declaration, the League of Nations Mandate,the United Nations Resolutions - not to mention the Old Testament - in search of justification and legitimacy for the establishment of the State of Israel in the land of Palestine, it is refreshingly frank and honest of you to acknowledge the truth that none other than David Grun, later Ben-Gurion, expressed in these words :

" Why should the Arabs make peace?
If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure,God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been antisemitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see only one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations time, but for the moment there is no chance.
So it's simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army. Our whole policy is there. Otherwise the Arabs will wipe us out,"

Quoted in The Jewish Paradox: A personal Memoir. 1978. by Nahum Goldman.

Throughout recorded history peoples have laid claim to territory on the basis of immigration, settlement and conquest. It is unfortunate for Israel that only in the last Century or so has this process come to attract censure from the international community.

But once again Ben-Gurion told it as it was:
" It doesn't matter what the world says about Israel... the only thing that matters is that we can exist here on the land of our forefathers. And unless we show the Arabs that there is a high price to pay for murdering Jews, we won't survive."

Quoted by Ariel Sharon.

The founders of the State of Israel, it seems, had not only the courage to create their nation state in the face of opposition, but also the integrity to tell the truth about what happened.

Perhaps those of us who are smeared with the convenient label of Ati-Semitism, are more concerned with recognising truth and reality than inventing a spurious fig leaf of retrospective justification for the forcible displacement of a people who have no greater but no less right to our sympathy than those who prevailed by a combination of economic and military might.

G. Fränkl

Brilliant Melanie Phillips! Perfect, spotless letter that eloquently highlights the BBC's vicious distortions. Please do NOT let up and keep pounding the BBC! Thnx.

Truthtriumphs

daniel maris
April 13th, 2011 2:46am

" As far as I am concerned, East Jerusalem isn't part of Israel, but your whole plaint is based on the assumption (not accepted by the UN or the UK) that East Jerusalem is part of Israel".

Fortunately, your concerns are of no consequence.

bernard.

I used to go to the BBC for news once, not anymore. It is a no go area for adults these days. The corporation has been infested with anti-semites - lets cut to the chase here fot that is what they are. Such a shame to see the BBC going down this road because of the actions of a few. A shame also for many of the fine, objective journalists working there.

Truthtriumphs

Thomas@ 10.43pm.

"I think it likely that many of the ultras here do indeed sustain their convictions by avoiding counter-argument or evidence. I would be surprised if you were one of them – which only makes it the more surprising that along with them you toe the party line (in this instance, what such as Fernando and Truthtriumphs have offered up."

What are you talking about?

Mrs Ann Sprowell

How long, can these distorsions of the facts continue? What can we do to expose the B.B.C for it's manipulation of the truth?

Truthtriumphs

aelle
April 13th, 2011 10:51pm
C.Gee

"After so much painstaking exegesis of the Balfour Declaration, the League of Nations Mandate,the United Nations Resolutions - not to mention the Old Testament - in search of justification and legitimacy for the establishment of the State of Israel in the land of Palestine, it is refreshingly frank and honest of you to acknowledge the truth that none other than David Grun, later Ben-Gurion, expressed in these words" :

Anyone can play with quotes, take them out of context, and make them mean the exact opposite of their intended meaning.
Quote the exact page.

"Perhaps those of us who are smeared with the convenient label of Anti-Semitism, are more concerned with recognising truth and reality than inventing a spurious fig leaf of retrospective justification for the forcible displacement of a people who have no greater but no less right to our sympathy than those who prevailed by a combination of economic and military might".

Martin Luther King had the timeless answer for people such as yourself:--

Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend.
"... You declare, my friend; that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely 'anti-Zionist'. And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of G-D's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews -- this is G-D's own truth.
Anti-Semitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind. In this we are in full agreement. So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently anti-Semitic, and ever will be so".

He had the measure of people such as yourself, didn't he?

As for "forced displacement of people", half of Israel's Jews are made up of those who were forcibly displaced, penniless, from their land and homes in Arab countries, like Egypt, Iraq, Syria etc where they had lived for close on 2,000 years, and given refuge and sanctuary in tiny little Israel.

And another thing, I can supply many quotes to expose your historical revisionism, but this one will do for a start:--

"Let me state this plainly and clearly: the Jews in Israel took no-one's land".
Joseph Farah, Arab-American journalist. 23/4/02.
And he should know!

The 51 members of the League of Nations recognised the unbroken connection of the Jewish people to the Holy land, even if you do not. That is why they spoke of RECONSTITUTING the Jewish homeland. There has been a continuous Jewish presence there since the Roman expulsion, when there were no Arabs in the region... indeed, the only time that there were no Jews in Jerusalem in 2,000 years was when the Jordanians ethnically cleansed them from there in 1948 until 1967, destroying all 58 synagogues in the Old city, and defiling the holiest shrine in Judaism, the Western Wall of the Holy temple.
As you have been told many times, the vast majority of the present day Palestinians are economic migrants from the surrounding Arab states, and their descendants.
As you are so fond of quotes, here's one you might enjoy, especially for people such as you:--

"So far from persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population".

Winston Churchill, 1939.

As you have described your charming abode in NW London (and btw, I live not far away from you)as "occupied territory", an occupation that you say parallels that of the Holy land, perhaps you should
enlighten us as to where you think world Jewry should take up residence.... the North Pole perhaps?

Stephen Rothbart

Aelle, you seem to have got terribly excited by the fact that several Israeli leaders recognised that the return to their ancestral home would not be welcomed by the Arab populations, and that they would have a fight on their hands to survive.

This had been telegraphed well in advance by Arab reactions to Jews living in the area even before Israel existed and during the Holocaust, which their spiritual leader supported.

Now tell me. What happens if you substitute the word Israel with..oh let's say Britain, and "Arab" with German?

Then take Ben Gurion and make him Churchill, and take Sharon and make him Montgomery.

They would probably have said the same thing about WW2.

Sorry, Aelle,but it is no biggie. Just two enemies sizing themselves up.

Shall I quote you some of the things the other side were saying about the Jews?

Take too long, and then Derek Blades would be complaining again about the length of my comments!

But you see, you made the same mistake as the Beeb. Only told one side of the story to substantiate your bias.

jzsnake

Thank you Melanie for taking the time to write such a thoughtful and truthful letter.

C.Gee

aelle:

I am flattered to have inspired - where ? - such an eloquent comment.

Your last paragraph astonishes me: I had no idea that there was a right to sympathy in those who prevail by a combination of economic and military might in forcibly displacing others. I had even less idea that this right to sympathy was exactly equal to the right of sympathy in those forcibly displaced due to lack of economic and military might.

Anyone meeting these descriptions who claims a right to my sympathy, will obtain it in full measure, during business hours.

Have you been smeared as an antisemite for being concerned with truth and reality? Sometimes people confuse convenient labels with spurious fig leaves and put them in the wrong places.

As for forcible displacements - war was and is the only justification I countenance. No retrospective fig leaves, I assure you.

F. Baker

Melanie, thank you for your passionate plea to the Secretary of State. The series, called The Promise, is another misrepresentation of Israel. Could you please address this BBC soap opera as well?

Derek BLADES

The BBCs answer to the CAMERA complaint can be seen at http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/index.shtml. It is a detailed, objective and carefully- written repudiation of the bias charge made by CAMERA. Several hours of expensive executive time must have been used putting it together.

What those paying the licence fee should be asking is this. Do they want their money spent on answering frivolous complaints of anti-Israeli bias that are being orchestrated by the pro-Israeli lobby in the United States? Personally, I would rather see the licence fee spent on making more of the excellent documentary programmes that have made the BBC the global gold-standard for objective and balanced reporting.

laurent

Melanie our light in a tunnel that seems to grow ever darker,thank you .i hope our future generations will have the same bright beacon to challenge the darkness.

Jack Thompson

Adam B.
Don't talk to me about "moral equivalency" when Israel can produce a politician like Liebermann. And since I retired from the BBC in 1995 I am not part of its "collective mindset" whatever that may be. In any case, you'd be astonished at the range of opinions in a BBC newsroom about everything under the sun. BBC News brings you "the news" - which happens when it happens and this Israeli government, willingly or not, produces a lot of it. In addition, you haven't done your research if you think BBC News has ignored the DRC and Latin America. For a start consult the news website. Lastly, I don't hide behind a nom de plume!!

Herzen

Truthtriumphs
April 13th, 2011 9:54pm
You know, because you have been told and provided with the proof, that this is not what the Mandate said.

You say it was the Jews (of Palestine or the immigrants?) who were known as Palestinians and there were no Palestinians but them. Quiz question: was the Filastin a Zionist newspaper?

You have also been told, and provided with authoritative evidence, that there was a community long established in Palestine before WW1. The fact of population growth and immigration in the 20th century does not alter this fact. It is bizarre that a propnent of Zionism should consider immigration a bar to residence rights.

I see you have again produced your favourite quotes for another contributor. Martin Luther King is there! But where is Mark Twain?

Tilly

Stephen Rothbart (plus moise pippic and EDDIE) -

Taking the BBC to court for "racial incitement" is a brilliant idea. As you point out, the Beeb will almost certainly win - all the way to the House of Lords! - but what the hell...

The real beauty of this idea is that it will cost the BBC hundreds of thousands of pounds defending itself, and we can then blame it for wasting licence-payers' money!

Now where have I heard that one before? Oh yes, Steven Sugar's brilliantly executed strategy over the Balen Report.

Despite losing at every stage (apart from at one tribunal subsequently ruled to have wrongly interpreted the Freedom of Information Act), Mr Sugar just kept plugging valiantly on and on ... and on.

So really it was he who cost us licence-payers 200,000 quid, but thanks to the fantastic topsy-turvey hasbara approach (to everything), the Balen saga could be firmly planted in the public mind as "suppression" by the BBC.

Tell a big enough lie and repeat it often enough and the public will believe it, somebody said. How very astute that was.

By the way: in an earlier thread mention was made of an Independent Panel Report commissioned by the BBC into its Middle East coverage which WAS published (2006, external panel chaired by Sir Quentin Thomas).

No-one from the "kill the messenger" camp seemed interested in looking this up - or maybe they just didn't "like" the findings. So, for the record: the panel found there were some individual shortcomings over fairness, balance, etc, but although the BBC's coverage "implicitly" favoured the Israeli side (yes, that's right, I'm afraid) there was little to suggest "deliberate or systemic" bias.

Never mind. It's "racial incitement" you're suggesting this time. Should keep the lawyers rubbing their hands in glee for many years to come.

Another Joshua

If there is no news to report from Israel, the BBC finds a way to make the news. The mere mention of the words Palestine/Israel acts like an incendiary device as a pretext to regurgitate "history" , according to the BBC, to foment hatred. It's not interested in REPORTING news , but being part pof the News. It creates its own News.

I have spoken with friends who have taken this accusation initially as something I migh be exaggerating, but suddenly out of the blue they call me to pologise having now seen for themselves how manipulative the BBC has become - and not only in this story, but others. They have started to count the seconds of timegiven to one point of view and comparing air time to the other point of view, if indeed there is mention of another point of view. They even have started to question the "questions", which are loaded with bias.

Well done Melanie for keeping this issue and the truth alive. I am with you all the way.

Andy

Well done Mel keep the pressure on. I contacted the BBC by e-mail about the stle of their reporting on acts of violence by HAMAS compared to the response by Israel. No mention of the slaughter of the young Fogel family by HAMAS terrorists.

Truthtriumphs

Jack Thompson
April 14th, 2011 9:22am
Adam B.

"Don't talk to me about "moral equivalency" when Israel can produce a politician like Liebermann. And since I retired from the BBC in 1995 I am not part of its "collective mindset" whatever that may be".

Sorry, but the account by Peter Sissons accords perectly with what we have observed at the BBC. It has the unmistakeable ring of truth about it.
What would his motive be.... he could have rubbished the BBC on any number of other subjects?

And what particular thing has Liebermann said that would warrant your remark?
Or do you prefer the system under Hamas....you know... throwing dissenters of the rooftops of high buildings, hands and feet tied together, inter alia?
I know it's hard for you to understand, but Israel is a vibrant democracy, in a sea of despotism.
BTW, there is a very good reason for "hiding" behind a nom de plume.
I used to post under my own name, but was once threatened with libel action in this country by a bully who didn't like what I said in a comment below the line in a foreign newspaper.
He was sent packing, metaphorically speaking, I'm pleased to say, but it required lawyers to do it.

FG

Tilly, long on drivel, short on substance. So why on earth the BBC DO suppress the Balen Report, then??? All your long screed serves the only purpose to make people sleep with it, without trying to give one rational answer to the charges!

Celato

Another open letter to the Culture Secretary:

Dear Secretary of State,

I would like to add my pennyworth to Melanie Phillips' comments regarding BBC bias, and in particular the disgraceful reporting of Jane Corbin.

I refer you to a remarkable video presentation (featured on The Paradise Post website) by the writer Tony Lawson entitled "The Blatant Bias of the BBC".

Mr Lawson examines a Panorama programme made by Ms Corbin - "Death in the Med" - which was broadcast in August 2010, just seven months after her "Walk in the Park" effort. (Is there no stopping this deranged woman?)

Corbin's August report concluded that the Gaza flotilla was "aimed more at turning public opinion against Israel than providing aid for Palestinians", but as Mr Lawson systematically documents, she presented the issues entirely from the perspective of Israel, so no wonder...

According to Mr Lawson, Israeli allegations were accepted without challenge, while the Palestinians were presented in the worst possible light. If you look at the video, you will see how riddled the programme was with falsehoods and distortions - quite astounding really.

The BBC, of course, carried out its usual useless inquiry following a barrage of complaints and (naturally) cleared itself and Corbin of any wrongdoing: the reporter was "respected for her dedicated, impartial and balanced work", blah, blah, blah - all complaints rejected.

I must urge you to look into this matter yourself, preferably in tandem with "Walk in the Park", because what particularly worries me is the amount of crude propaganda spewing forth over the BBC's reporting on the Middle East.

You will be quite horrified, I am sure, by the mileage certain Zionists tried to make from "Death on the Med", for example.

Michael Weiss of Just Journalism said of this appalling documentary: "I can scarcely think of a better piece of journalism ... than Jane Corbin's in-depth investigation, which drew from eyewitness testimony from both passengers and commandos."

The Zionist Federation "commended" the programme and encouraged its supporters to write to Panorama editors to "thank them for their fair coverage".

The Jewish Chronicle, too, was unstinting in its praise for the BBC and Ms Corbin.

These people seem to have no idea what constitutes fair and balanced reporting and are now going ballistic over an EARLIER Panorama which suggests to me that their memory spans are either very short or seriously impaired.

Imperative action is most definitely needed.

Yours etc,

Celato

Richard

Stephen Rothbart
April 14th, 2011 1:33am
A more accurate comparison is surely, not Britain and Germany, but the Europeans and Native Americans - just a war between two enemies. (And assuming the Zionists uniquely can claim a right for Jews everywhere to return to the land of the ancient Israelites does not change how it looks to their victims, who must wonder why the Zionists uniquely have this right to displace them.)

Herzen

An Open Letter by the Members of the Goldstone Commission on its Misrepresentation in pro-Israeli Circles.

In recent days some articles and comments appearing in the press with respect to the report of the United Nations (UN) fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict of 2008-2009 have misrepresented facts in an attempt to delegitimise the findings of this report and to cast doubts on its credibility.

The mission that comprised four members, including Justice Richard Goldstone as its chair, came to an end when it presented its report to the UN human rights council in September 2009. The report of the mission is now an official UN document and all actions taken pursuant to its findings and recommendations fall solely within the purview of the United Nations general assembly which, along with the human rights council, reviewed and endorsed it at the end of 2009.

Aspersions cast on the findings of the report, nevertheless, cannot be left unchallenged. Members of the mission, signatories to this statement, find it necessary to dispel any impression that subsequent developments have rendered any part of the mission's report unsubstantiated, erroneous or inaccurate.

We concur in our view that there is no justification for any demand or expectation for reconsideration of the report as nothing of substance has appeared that would in any way change the context, findings or conclusions of that report with respect to any of the parties to the Gaza conflict. Indeed, there is no UN procedure or precedent to that effect.

The report of the fact-finding mission contains the conclusions made after diligent, independent and objective consideration of the information related to the events within our mandate, and careful assessment of its reliability and credibility. We firmly stand by these conclusions.

Also, it is the prerogative of the UN to take cognisance of any evidence subsequently gathered under domestic procedures that it finds credible and in accordance with international standards. Over 18 months after publication of the report, however, we are very far from reaching that point.

The mandate of the mission did not require it to conduct a judicial or even a quasi-judicial investigation. The mission and the report are part of a truth-seeking process that could lead to effective judicial processes. Like all reports of similar missions of the UN, it provided the basis for parties to conduct investigations for gathering of evidence, as required by international law, and, if so warranted, prosecution of individuals who ordered, planned or carried out international crimes.

In the case of the Gaza conflict, we believe that both parties held responsible in this respect, have yet to establish a convincing basis for any claims that contradict the findings of the mission's report.

The report recommended that proper investigations and judicial processes should ideally be carried out first of all at the domestic level, with monitoring by the UN. If these proved inadequate, it laid down a roadmap for the continuation of such processes at the international level. In line with these recommendations, the UN human rights council appointed a committee of independent experts to monitor the independence, effectiveness and genuineness of any domestic proceedings carried out to investigate crimes and violations of international law pointed out in the mission's report.

Many of those calling for the nullification of our report imply that the final report by the follow-up committee's two members, Judge Mary McGowan Davis and Judge Lennart Aspergren, presented to the human rights council in March 2011, somehow contradicts the fact-finding mission's report or invalidates it.

In the light of the observations of this committee such claims are completely misplaced, and a clear distortion of their findings. The committee's report states that, according to available information, Israel has conducted some 400 command investigations into allegations by the fact-finding mission and other organisations. Command investigations are operational, not legal, inquiries and are conducted by personnel from the same command structure as those under investigation. Out of these, the committee reports that 52 criminal investigations into allegations of wrongdoings have been opened. Of these, three have been submitted for prosecution, with two of them resulting in convictions (one for theft of a credit card, resulting in a sentence of seven months' imprisonment, and another for using a Palestinian child as a human shield, which resulted in a suspended sentence of three months). The third case, related to allegations of deliberate targeting of an individual waving a white flag, is still ongoing.

The committee has expressed serious concerns about the late start and slow pace of the proceedings, their insufficient transparency and the participation of victims and witnesses. Out of the 36 incidents relating to Gaza described in the fact-finding mission report, more than one third remain unresolved or without a clear status over two years after the conflict. The committee concluded that the slow progress could seriously impair the effectiveness of the investigations and prospects of achieving justice and accountability. Therefore, the mechanisms that are being used by the Israeli authorities to investigate the incidents are proving inadequate to genuinely ascertain the facts and any ensuing legal responsibility.

In addition, with regard to the issue of the policies guiding Operation Cast Lead, the committee states that there is "no indication that Israel has opened investigations into the actions of those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw Operation Cast Lead". In other words, one of the most serious allegations about the conduct of Israel's military operations remains completely unaddressed.

We regret that no domestic investigations at all have been started into any of the allegations of international crimes committed by members of Palestinian armed groups in Gaza which have fired thousands of rockets into southern Israel. The committee observes the same in its report.

We consider that calls to reconsider or even retract the report, as well as attempts at misrepresenting its nature and purpose, disregard the right of victims, Palestinian and Israeli, to truth and justice. They also ignore the responsibility of the relevant parties under international law to conduct prompt, thorough, effective and independent investigations. We regret the personal attacks and the extraordinary pressure placed on members of the fact-finding mission since we began our work in May 2009. This campaign has been clearly aimed at undermining the integrity of the report and its authors. Had we given in to pressures from any quarter to sanitise our conclusions, we would be doing a serious injustice to the hundreds of innocent civilians killed during the Gaza conflict, the thousands injured, and the hundreds of thousands whose lives continue to be deeply affected by the conflict and the blockade.

The report has triggered a process that is still under way and should continue until justice is done and respect for international human rights and humanitarian law by everyone is ensured.

Adam B.

Jack Thompson, hit a nerve, haven't I? Forgive me if I take your opinions about the "wide diversity" of views with a pinch of salt, given that you just gave the game away by attacking an elected Israeli politician, drawing an equivalency between him and the torturers and despots of the goverments surrounding Israel. Indeed, you have just implied that Israel is the same as its neighbours (yet you spend your time attacking Israel - not the tyrannies).

It is ridiculous that you claim as much TV time on the DRC as Israel. I have not seen one TV report on the DRC on the BBC - compare this to literally hundreds on Israel. What a sick joke.

Adam B.

Richard, more Jews were displaced from Arab countries than Arabs displaced from the one Jewish country.

Did you know that? Do you care?

Jill

"...and at the extreme, even more hatred and violence towards the Jewish people, already running at record levels, will occur."

Well, yes, Melanie. That's why they do it.
The BBC must be busting a nut over the violence they help to stir...
passive aggressive little bastards.

Raymond in DC

John Edwards writes, "There has been a city on the site of Al Quds/Jerusalem for over 5,000 years."

Yes, and that city has been majority JEWISH since at least 1860 - that, according to a census at the time. It still maintains a Jewish majority today who want it to remain united under Israeli control. Indeed, if one asked them and got an honest answer, most of its ARAB residents want to remain under Israeli control.

No part of Jerusalem has EVER served as the capital of any state or country except that of the Jews. And it is ONLY under Israeli control that the sacred sites of ALL faiths have been protected and made accessible.

Tilly

FG -

Since you seem to have the attention span of a gnat, there's probably no point in referring you to the very full explanations I gave on an earlier thread, but here goes anyway:

In the blog headlined "An MP speaks out against the BBC on Israel" (March 24th) I posted relevant comments on March 25th, 7.24pm; March 26th, 11.44am; and March 27th, 3.19pm.

They are unfortunately rather long because the Balen Report issues were complex, but I'm sure you'll find a way of summarising them and riposting intelligently in 50 words or less. Can't wait ...

Truthtriumphs

Herzen
April 14th, 2011 1:20pm
An Open Letter by the Members of the Goldstone Commission on its Misrepresentation in pro-Israeli Circles.

Now there's a surprise!
Each one of them is a hardened anti-Zionist with a proven track record.
But the fact remains that Goldstone himself, who headed the commission, has explicitly back-tracked on its main finding, namely that Israel deliberately targeted civilians.

Carry on dissembling....no-one's paying attention.

Truthtriumphs

Tilly, Celato, Blades et al.

Just one simple question

What has the BBC to hide?
What is it that so shames it that it will not publish Balen?

A simple answer will do.

John Thomas

"Did anyone watch that "Buried secrets of the Bible"? This bit of propaganda posing as historical archaeology ..." (Raymond Douglas, here). I never watch any BBC programme with "Bible" in the title, as I know in advance what I'll be getting. My advice to Raymond Douglas and others: switch off.

Truthtriumphs

Herzen
April 14th, 2011 9:53am
Truthtriumphs
April 13th, 2011 9:54pm

"You know, because you have been told and provided with the proof, that this is not what the Mandate said."

Can you read?

You say it was the Jews (of Palestine or the immigrants?) who were known as Palestinians.

Correct.

"You have also been told, and provided with authoritative evidence, that there was a community long established in Palestine before WW1"

So there was.... a Jewish one.
Glad we agree about something.

Allan

The British government has always been anti-semitic. They refused Jews entry to Palestine and sent them back to a certain death in Europe. The British army were also the first to invent concentration camps. During WWII not one single allied bomb was directed towards destroying the death camp apparatus in Germany - despite the full knowledge of what was going on in them. The only fault of the Israelis is that they don't have any oil.

Stephen Rothbart

No, Richard, that is not a more accurate comparison. The Europeans came over to the Americas and settled in certain small colonies, and then when they ran out of space took over more and more, shooting and killing the Native Americans - or Incas without any declaration of war by either side.

The region of post-Ottoman Palestine was a British protectorate, and was settled by Jews legally under the Partition plan.

Then one side attacked the other unilaterally and lost even more territory in war.

This is more the equivalent of Germany launching wars in 1914 and 1918 and losing territory as a result of their losing the wars.

So, like the Germans, who found Poles and Frenchmen and Czechs living in places where they used to live, so the Palestinian Arabs and I am not aware of why it makes them "victims." They and their fellow Arab states attacked Israel and lost. Israel did not attack them.

The Israelis do not have a right to displace anyone.

The British and French defeated the Turks and ended up creating a series of mini states in this region (none of them called Palestine - incidentally) and imposed their own friendly tribal kingdoms in them, that were friendly to their cause, and for whih we are now seeing the final outcome, all over the Middle East.

They also mandated a Jewish home in the region (again not called Palestine, but the Jews that fought with the 8th Army against Hitler were called Palestinians), which brought about a series of deadly skirmshes between the two sides which resulted in Britain, caught in the middle, deciding to quit their Mandate in favur of a quiet life.

Israel applied for self-determination and a Jewish State which the UN ratified.

Still no call for a Palestinian State by the other side (not until 1967/8 did that happen), so still no Palestine.

So who exactly did Israel steal land from?

If land was owned, they paid for it. If it was not owned, they settled on it.

This would be the same the world over.

Only Arabs can say "only Arabs can live here" and not be accused of apartheid it seems.

Only "Zionists" can win wars and still have to give up every piece of land won without the other side doing anything to make peace.

The only thing unique about the Zionists is that between people holding the same views as you, and the venerable Beeb, everything is an Alice through the Looking Glass world.

Israel was officially approved by the UN as a legal entity but is hounded for stealing, and expanded its borders through defensive wars. While pretty much every other nation on Earth just came into being through self-determination, evolution, with nomadic settlement defining its nature, in the Middle East, the only way you can evolve or be nomadic is if you follow Islam.

Well that is racist, apartheid and just plain illegal.

You can repeat this canard about Palestinian victims having their land stolen as often as you like, but it does not make it true.

Margita S.

Let's start a petition! I'm fed up with having to pay for something so unfair and disgusting being continuously produced by the BBC!!!

Raymond d

Portland. I stand corrected. But said Academic DID deny the united kingdom under King David. She also made some very partisan political points regarding the current state of Israel. Also, the cameraman seemed VERY interested in getting lots of shots of our girl at any and every location !

Ruth

Thank you for exposing the obscene bias of the BBC. As an Israeli I have learnt to just ignore the most important media centre in the world but I cannot understand how the British public accepts such bias and untruthful reporting on so many issues connected with Israel. Who is actually running the BBC anyway - British officials or oil money?

Many thanks Melanie!

Adam B.

Let's look at the people who rush to the BBC's defence - Blades, Tilly, Celato etc - in other words, all the people who are relentlessly and reflexively anti-Israel.

They then turn around try to convince us that the BBC is impartial.

Says it all.

Richard

Stephen Rothbart
April 14th, 2011 3:33pm
Jewish immigrants did indeed settle in Palestine legally. (It is a small point, but so, by their own lights, did the settlers in America.)

The states recognized by the League of Nations did indeed include Palestine.

Palestine was not a protectorate.

The League did indeed mandate a Jewish National Home in Palestine.

The Mandate Power was under an obligation both to administer Palestine as trustee for its inhabitants and to facilitate a Jewish National Home for immigrants.

The partition proposed by Britain in 1947 and recommended by the UN General Assembly was shelved because the majority population rejected it. To impose it against their will would go against their right to self-determination.

Civil war broke out between the Palestinian Arabs, who did not want their homeland carved up and the best of it given away, and the Zionist immigrants who wanted the land partitioned as a first step to a Jewish state in the whole of Palestine.

In a belated effort to curb the violence, the Security council was working on a temporary UN Trusteeship when Israel declared its independence unilaterally.

In the course of the civil war, Israel advanced some way towards its ultimate goal by taking territory not allocated to it under the defunct partition. It cleansed the conquered territories of Palestinian Arabs to facilitate the establishment of a state with a Jewish majority. (Jews had been a minority in all districts of Palestine.)

The neighbouring Arab states, who had threatened to use force to stop partition and the founding of a Zionist state, intervened to defend the Palestinian Arab population (or in the case of the Jordanians to annexe the West Bank). They intervened in areas allocated to the Palestinain Arabs in the defunct partition.

Israel defeated them comprehensively and completed the conquest of Palestine. (It was dissuaded from pursuing its plans for Sinai, South Lebanon, Golan and the West Bank by various factors.)

Israel came into being by a combination of a unilateral declaration and military conquest. The dubious legality of the former and outright illegality of the latter were overlooked as the USSR and USA recognized the new state.

Israel, like the US and many other states, was founded on the dispossession of its previous inhabitants.

Godfrey Davies

It is shown that the BBC stands for the Brainless Broadcasting corporation, and their bias against Israel is calculated to discerdit the legitamcy of Israel, and the persons resposible should be terminated from their roll.

Richard

Truthtriumphs,
Can I thank you for your contributions to this thread and to that of the 7th - unintentionally enlightening, but also very funny. You fulfil the same function as Adam B., but with more style and better quotations.

Fran

I have placed an online petition here.

www.petitiononline.co.uk/petition/bbc-coverage-of-the-middle-east-conflict/2697

Adam B.

Richard, more Jews were dispossed from Arab states than Arabs dispossessed from the one Jewish state.

Celato

Adam B:

Let's look instead at the people who rush to attack the BBC - yourself, Truthtriumphs, Stephen Rothbart, etc - in other words, all the people who are relentlessly and reflexively anti-Palestinian.

They then turn around and try to convince us that the BBC is biased against Israel.

THAT says it all, Adam.

GaryL

Richard

There are no rules for creation of sovereign states. Every state or country established during the last century since the breakup of the grand old empires after World War 1 has a different story. There is nothing in common between the forming of Czechoslovakia, Poland, New Guinea, Tanzania, or the recent invention of East Timor, ... or any others. Imported peoples are nothing new, whether voluntary or forced - Indians were moved to Fiji, Africans to West Indies, Muslims and Hindus were exchanged between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh... as a few for instances. All the states formed under the Leage of Nations mandate system were artificial including peoples within their borders who still today fight over traditional conflicts.

Jews established Israel and the UN accepted it as a legitimate member state. All the rest is just sophstry, special pleading on one side or the other, or imaginary "international legality". To date there has never been an Arab ruled country co-inciding with either the pre-WW1 southern party of the Syrian province of the Ottoman Empire known in the west at the time as Palestine, or the areas of Judea & Samaria as they were traditionally called even when under occupation by the artificial state called Jordan, which was ripped out of the mandate earmarked by the League of Nations for Jewish statehood.

Truthtriumphs

aelle
April 13th, 2011 10:51pm

Well Aelle,

Still waiting for the page number for the Ben Gurion quote...can't wait to read it in context.

Does the Hampstead Garden Suburb have its very own branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, situated, as it is, in "occupied territory", and,if so, do you have coffee mornings there to raise funds?
If so, do let us know... I like mixing with the opposition.

Truthtriumphs

Celato
April 14th, 2011 6:52pm
Adam B:

"Let's look instead at the people who rush to attack the BBC - yourself, Truthtriumphs, Stephen Rothbart, etc - in other words, all the people who are relentlessly and reflexively anti-Palestinian"

Not reflexively, and not even anti-Palestinian.
The Palestinians have their state, on 77% of historic Palestine (Jordan), so its only fair that the Jews should have their state in their historic homeland, on a mere 23% of Palestine, is it not?

Stephen Rothbart

Richard, in 1947-8 the Jews living in Palestine had no army, no guns, no airforce and no big brother to help them.

Many of the Jews were orthodox hasids who would not fight even to defend themselves since they believed that only God could bring about the land of Israel, not people. For the rest, there were the survivors of the Holocaust and refugees from Europe, diposessed by their fellow citizens of their homes.

On the other side were well equipped but, thankfully, poorly led Arab armies, with tanks, modern weaponry and fighter and bomber planes.

It would take an enormous and suicidal leap of faith for this rag tag collection of Jews to start a war like that.

Yes, there were elements of the Palestinian Jews that agitated for revolt, Irgun and the Stern Gang come to mind, but they were a small band, like ETA or the IRA.

The war against the Arabs in 1948 was "a close run thing" and Israel just about survived.

But in winning the war they lost all of Jerusalem to Jordan, who as others have noted, razed all the Jewish sites and synagogues in the City, and it would be nearly 20 years before they got it back.

Now suddenly they are in "occupation" of the City they won in a war and which was signed over to them by King Hussein, on the understanding that the Hashemites could administer the Muslim sites.

All this is factual. There are always two or more sides to a story especially this one!

The point is that the BBC tells the story entirely from the Arab perspective, and thus, by implication, denigrates Jewish interests and Jewish behaviour.

This instills a perception among people with a short attention span, and a belief that if it is on TV that it must be true, that Arabs are the victims of a brutal regime of colonists.

The rise of anti-Semitism in Europe is coming from a platform of anti-Zionism, whereby certain media providers are misrepresenting history to suit their own biases and prejudices.

This influences violent behaviour towards Jews and Jewish property.

Therefore by being part of this misinformation, whether knowingly or by sheer lazy journalism, the BBC is an agent for racial incitement and guilty, in my opinion, of a hate crime.

Yes, I know it is a stretch, and frankly I am against the whole concept of supressing free speech.

However the law is on the Statue Books and somehow we, who are tired of the BBC's bias, should bring a test case to the Courts.

A test case means that no one would be fined or go to jail, but a legal principle is established.

I am fully aware that not all Jews in the time of the birth of Israel behaved well.

I am also aware that neither did their Arab adversaries, and these people continue to behave poorly, not only to Jews, but also to each other.

We have seen countless demonstrations of the way these people treat each other over the idea of their version of Islam and apostacy.

Can you really imagine these same people accepting another religion among them? Living in peace with it?

The only thing that stands between Israel's Jewish population and annihilation is their IDF and nuclear deterrent.

And now we see the uselessness of US and NATO and UN guarantees of protection. NATO cannot even protect the Libyans from a third rate army like Gaddafi's.

Make a peace with that lot and who guarantees it? Obama? Don't make me laugh.

This is something the BBC and others should be pointing out. But they don't. Everything the Arabs do is fine with them.

Their reporting techniques seem based upon the ease of their lifestyle rather than good hard journalism.

Life in Tel Aviv is good. Let's base ourselves there and report on Israel/Palestine.

Oh Egypt has great hotels and restaurants, let's report on the brave rebels fighting Mubarak.

Oh Syria....mmmm... forget it too dangerous. Yemen...are you kidding me? Iran? Er no thanks.

So we see the news this way and it stinks

Derek BLADES

Tuttitrumps asks me and others:

"What is it that so shames [the BBC] that it will not publish Balen?" We could as well ask Tuttifruti when did he stop beating his wife.

The Balen report is not subject to freedom of information legislation. It is an internal report intended for BBC management and I suppose they take the altogether reasonable view that twits like Tutu have no more right to see BBC management documents than he/she/it has the right to look at internal documents circulating within, say, British Airways or HSBC. Of course, it might be fun to see these documents but that is not the way the world works.

A word of advice Toots. Your fixation with Balen may be damaging your health. And it is making you more of a bore than usual.

Derek BLADES

Adam B. tells Richard that "more Jews were dispossed (sic) from Arab states than Arabs dispossessed from the one Jewish state."

I suppose that what Adam B. wants us to believe is that the Palestinians have no right to grumble about losing their homes and farms when Israel was founded because at about the same time even more Jews lost their properties in neighbouring Arab countries.

What Adam B. mean when he says that “Jews were dispossessed from Arab states"?

What actually happened is that some Jewish residents of neighbouring countries signed up to the Zionist enterprise and went voluntarily to join the new state. Others left because they feared reprisals from their Arab neighbours and some were compelled to leave by governments who saw them as potential fifth-columnists. In the 1950s few countries in the world allowed free movements of capital and many - not all - of the Jews who left neighbouring countries lost some of their capital in the form of financial and fixed assets.

This "dispossession" occurred as a direct result of the terror-based methods by which Israel was founded. The Zionist founders gave not a hoot for the impact of their actions on the Jewish populations who had hitherto lived peacefully alongside their Arab neighbours. If any compensation is due to Jews "dispossessed from Arab states" the Israeli government should stump up.

Lea de Lange

Melanie Phillips is of course totally right, regrettably right. The BBC has turned into a weapon against Israel, accusing that tiny country of horrible crimes and "cleaning" the Arab agressor of all guilt. The Arabs are never wrong and the Jews never right. The result is clear, is it not? We have seen it too often to not find the results predictable. The Jews will be attacked and if possibly erased from their country.
That this won't happen is not the "fault" of the BBC but a result of a force that is far beyond the comprehension of that infuriating broadcasting cy.

Bru

Yes Mel, we know.

The BBC wants to destroy Israel, hates Jew, loves Hamas, etc.

So tell us.

Why do you work for the BBC in exchange for money?

Adam B.

Blades displays a complete ignorance about the situation of Jews in Arab states.

These Jews lived as dhimmis, which is another word for living as second class citizens in an apartheid state. Jews had restrictions applied to them, covering all areas of life, incluidng what job a Jew could have, where a Jew could live, whilst the status of a Jew under the law was different to that of an Arab. Blades also ignores the mass antisemtism of the general populations at large, and the government sponsored pogroms which saw massacres of Jews.

Blades is highly sensitive to the plight of Arab refugees, but sees Jewish refugees as willing participants in their own ethnic cleansing.

Well, consider this. In living memory for some, Baghdad was up to 40% Jewish. Now, there is not one single Jew in the whole of Iraq. In Israel, 20% of the population is Arab, whilst the Arab population has continuously grown since 1948.

You tell me who is better at ethnic cleansing Blades.

Adam B.

Blades, British Airways and HSBC are private. The BBC is a public body. Do you understand the difference? If you do, it shoots down your entire thesis about the secrecy of the Balen report.

Adam B.

Celato, you never got back to me about this:

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/32/bbc_bias_is_a_national_disgrace_and_a_global_menace

Truthtriumphs

Drek BLADES
April 14th, 2011 9:29pm
Tuttitrumps asks me and others:

"What is it that so shames [the BBC] that it will not publish Balen?
A word of advice Toots. Your fixation with Balen may be damaging your health. And it is making you more of a bore than usual."

Many others here are equally "fixated" here by Balen, even though you would rather forget it.
And remember, one man's boredom is another's excitement, so no, I'll continue drilling it into that unreceptive skull of yours.

It's good fun annoying you, and exposing the vaccuousness of your so-called thought processes at the same time.

Truthtriumphs

Drek BLADES
April 14th, 2011 10:17pm

"Adam B. tells Richard that "more Jews were dispossed (sic) from Arab states than Arabs dispossessed from the one Jewish state."

What actually happened is that some Jewish residents of neighbouring countries signed up to the Zionist enterprise and went voluntarily to join the new state. Others left because they feared reprisals from their Arab neighbours and some were compelled to leave by governments who saw them as potential fifth-columnists. In the 1950s few countries in the world allowed free movements of capital and many - not all - of the Jews who left neighbouring countries lost some of their capital."

Blades, I hope you don't try to earn your living as a writer of fiction, because, clearly, you're not very good at it.
Your prose is leaden, and your fibs very unconvincing, not to mention repetitive.

Diz in Oz

I also would be most happy to sign a petition against the abominable reporting that is so typical of the BBC. Surely there must be some legal recourse if their reporting is incorrect and misleading.

mark luscombe

Interestinglink.
http://www.pacificfreepress.com/news/1/2523-the-bbc-bias-on-palestine.html

Seems to me that the BBC is attracting ire from both sides of the arguement. Which is as it should be.

Here's another where MS Corbin is accused of pro Israeli bias:

http://www.pacificfreepress.com/news/1/2523-the-bbc-bias-on-palestine.html

Natalie Wood

"As a Jewish resident of Jerusalem, peacefully co-existing with Arab professionals, being served by Arab staff in many supermarkets, and queueing behind them in our local Post Office, I know that peaceful co-existence is mostly fact...."

As a Jewish resident of Karmiel, Northern Israel I can write that 'Meira' is a 100% right. Furthermore, when we collected gasmasks from a P.O. outlet at the Cinemall shopping complex on the outskirts of Haifa a couple of months ago, a very nice Arab family waited patiently in the queue behind us for their own while we were served. Then there are our lovely new Arab friends from the village neighbouring Karmiel ... It's less a case of 'seeing is believing' than "living is knowing exactly how it is."

Celato

Adam B:

The reason I didn't respond to you about Robin Shepherd's article is that I'd already explained why I thought it was silly to take Peter Sissons' critique of BBC bias as gospel in a posting to Truthtriumphs. All Shepherd is doing is regurgitating Sissons.

The only thing I would add is this: Shepherd does provide a link to a review of Sissons' book written by Michael Buerk in "Standpoint" - and it's an excellent review (unlike Shepherd's, which quotes Buerk selectively). I suggest you read it.

And don't be put off by Buerk's observation that there are "times when [Sissons'] sweeping condemnation of those trying to run ... an extraordinarily complex and pressured organisation are desperately unfair". He also says some quite waspish things about BBC staff which will be more to your taste.

What it doesn't amount to, however, is a picture of a BBC which is a "national disgrace and global menace". Sorry if that disappoints you.

Buerk

The only thing

Celato

Truthtriumphs:

Yes, it is fair that Israel should (and does) have a state; so it is fair that people who perceive themselves to be distinctly "Palestinian" (rather than Jordanian) are entitled to separate statehood.

Leaving this aside, however: if you will show me a single thing you have ever written expressing empathy, support, or even mildly conciliatory opinions about the people who call themselves Palestinians, I will gladly retract what I said about your being "relentlessly and reflexively anti-Palestinian" in my parody of Adam B's post to those of us who criticise Israel.

You go first then ... and I will reciprocate by showing you plenty of examples where I (and others) have acknowledged Israeli rights and Palestinian wrongs.

Another Joshua

Richard says:"Israel, like the US and many other states, was founded on the dispossession of its previous inhabitants."

It depends how "previous" you intend to go with this, doesn't it? Disregarding the"cleansing" of Jews, by killing Jews in Hebron, for example in 1929 and the riots in the 1930s count for nowt, in your rather crude analysis. Further in 1947, around 50,000 Jews fled Palestine or moved to different parts for fear of reprisals and because of the troubles. Not regarding the reality of conditions, the belief by many Palestinians Arabs who left to would return, that some either settled in other parts of Palestine or were wealthy enough to settle outside during a restless violent period goes much further to explain the "dispossesion", in the light of the zero end game the Arabs were proposing. The first to run were the elite class of Arabs, leaving the Arabs leaderless, prompting many to follow suit. Yes there were atrocities dated around July 1948 and Arab villages were cleared. But there were also Arab atrocities and attempt to starve Jerusalem. And so on.None of this adds up to the meaning of "dispossessed" as you seem to try to imply.

The purpose of the the Mandate was to allow "reconstitution" of the land as a Jewish homeland, which clearly was a recognition of historic and cultural presence from ancient times. This also had the backing of Faisal who in turn sought the Zionist's support for Arab National status to Mesepotamia at the time before the creation of other Mandates.

Yes, the rights of "non-Jews", (which does not specify Arabs only) were also recognised, but these were not rights to sovereignty.

A very different reality faced the Jews and they did what they had to do to survive. Either that, or face anihilation. No human right trumps the right to survive.

Tilly

Truthtriumphs -

The answers you want on the Balen Report are not "simple" ones - but SIMPLISTIC. Big difference because that gives you an opportunity to riposte about how shallow/naive/simple-minded/unrealistic your respondents are.

As I pointed out to FG (April 14th, 2.34pm), the Balen issue is a complex one, requiring necessarily lengthy explanations. If you are genuinely interested (which I rather doubt), please look up the comments to which I referred FG.

In the meantime, you might consider this solitary point: the reason the BBC is exempted under the FoI Act from publishing documents intended to aid internal reviews is to protect it from undue pressure exerted by vested-interest groups to skew news coverage to suit their own agendas.

Whatever the Balen Report concluded (and none of us - you included) has the faintest idea), it would have provided "ammunition" for either Zionists or Palestinians, or both simultaneously, to demand journalistic changes to their partisan advantage - and almost certainly at the expense of what the wider public might want or need.

Try this for size:

1. Balen finds that the BBC has been meticulously impartial in its coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. What's your response/response of pro-Palestinian lobbyists?

Answer: Bombard the Beeb and politicians with complaints of a "whitewash", squawk how it all goes to prove "complacency" and an inability to monitor its own performance properly. Demand changes.

2. Balen concludes there is a small margin of bias in favour of Israel, but it is not systemic and could easily be solved by making a few minor changes to redress the balance. Response?

A: Zionists go ballistic; Palestinians say this is doesn't go nearly far enough. Flood of complaints/demands for action against BBC.

3. Balen finds small margin of of pro-Palestinian bias but not systemic, etc, etc. Response?

A: Palestinians go ballistic; Zionists say this doesn't go nearly far enough. Demands for action against BBC.

4. Balen concludes there is gross and persistent pro-Israel bias (or pro-Palestinian, just to save time here). Response?

A: All hell breaks loose!

Alternatively, the BBC can discuss Balen's findings internally, cause heads to roll or backs to be patted, make changes (or not), and rely on empirical research and regular similar internal reviews to ensure the most balanced service possible without being bullied into them by people with axes to grind.

Just as important: When appropriate, the BBC can also commission and publish inquiries and reports based on or arising from those internal discussions - which, in this particular case, it has done. Repeated reference has been made in these threads to the BBC's Independent Panel Report on Middle East coverage published in the wake of the Balen Report, but no-one in your camp seems to have taken the slightest notice. WHY NOT? I wonder...

If I haven't covered all the potential Balen findings, or have anticipated the responses incorrectly, I'd be delighted to hear your additions and/or amendments. Indeed, if you can think of any conclusions Balen might have drawn which WOULDN'T have subjected the BBC to a battering from one side or another, let me know.

It's not a matter of "hiding" anything, or "shame", Truthtriumphs - simply a matter of safeguarding journalistic integrity against persistently aggressive attempts to subvert it.

A:

I

Augustus

A further point about the 'Palestinians'.
A while back the Dutch Politician, Geert Wilders, said that 'Palestine in Jordan'. He
wasn't the first to say this. In 1981 King
Hussein of Jordan himself said: "The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan". And this can be seen in the Jordan of today. More than two thirds of the Jordanian populace is Palestinian, as is the Queen herself. And Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas himself and his sons were awarded Jordanian citizenship recently. So what is Palestinian citinzenship worth when even its President chooses rather to be a Jordanian? This must surely be in the interests of both parties. The end of a Palestinian pretense and a two state solution. Peace at a stroke! And who doesn't want that?

Stephen Rothbart

Celato @ 6.52.

I can not speak for those that you included in sharing my views, but I am not anti-Palestinian at all.

First of all, I suppose that when you speak of Palestinian, you mean the Arabs that live in the region of Palestine, as opposed to the states of Jordan, Syria and Israel that now occupy the region of Palestine, but that is of course a whole different argument.

But in answer to your assertion that I am anti-Palestinian in the same way that you are anti-Israel ould not be either true, nor even accurate.

I am against anyone, even Israelis, in fact especially Israelis, who are racist, mysognist, homophobic and who believe in religious supremacy and intolerance. I am for universal suffrage for everyone.

By and large, and with acknowledged exceptions, Israelis share those values.

By and large, and with acknowledged exceptions, the Muslim populations of the Middle East do not, and these are the people I am anti.

I am sure there are Palestinians that share my views on universal suffrage, and to be sure Israel contains its share of people who do not.

But the Israeli Constitution is what represents their government and their nation, and sadly, as we are so often informed by those that are "all Hamas now" the Palestinians of Gaza voted democratically, we are told, for Hamas, whose constitution represents all that I hate in a nation's make up, it being no different, in my view to Nazi doctrine, with a religious twist. In fact it is true to say that Hitler was greatly attracted to Islam, and especially the kind that is driving much of the Arab States' mentality right now.

And despite the claims otherwise, the West Bank Arabs by and large share the same values as their Gazan brothers, and would probably vote Hamas into power there, if only the West would allow an overdue election to take place.

This probably also explains why, at least fro the moment, Israeli Arabs are not rioting in the streets right now like their fellow Arabs all over the region. They know that whatever their status in Israel is, and I know it is not equal/equal, it is a lot better than they would get if Israel were not around anymore.

I have said before that I dislike the religious extremists tht make up much of the Settler movement, and given the choice over standing beside one of them or a moderate Palestinian Arab, who truly wanted to make peace with Israel, I would have no hesitation in standing with that Palestinian.

What appalls me about the way the BBC reports the Israeli/Arab conflict, is that a government funded body (paid for by taxpayers) is taking sides, not with the nation of equal rights and universal suffrage, but with the racists and bigots that oppose her.

In that way the BBC and its staff is supporting what I see as the antithesis of everything I believe in and what the BBC should stand for, and that is what I am against.

You have seen the reports. 90% of Egyptians hate Jews, Jordan abot the same and Syria too.

I do not hate Muslims or Arabs if they share my views and are not racist. They can object to Israel on any legal grounds they can establish, but not religious ones.

In a rcent report, Spain featured highest in Europe with people hating Jews (70%) and they are led by a Prime Minister who shares the same biases towards Israel apparantly, as the BBC.

So I will not be holidaying and spending my money in Spain, and my feelings towards the Spanish racists are more or less the same as I feel towards the racist Arabs and indeed the racist Israelis.

Hope that clears this up for you.

Tilly

Natalie Wood -

Your comments are most refreshing. I very much hope you'll keep in touch with this blog and issue pertinent reminders that Arabs aren't a collective of morally-depraved savages when such comments are (pretty routinely) made.

Stephen Rothbart

Augustus, I once said the same thing, but I was wrong.

Yes, most of Jordan occupies what was the Palestinain region, but Trans Jordan as a state imposed by the Allies after WW1 had a different tribe - the Hashemites - whose King was directly descended, they say, from Mohammed, and he was imposed on the people living there as the ruler of this state.

The Hussein family was therefore created as King of Jordan.

The Hashemites are different from most Palestinian Arabs.

They hate each other.

During the 80's Israel, while making peace with Jordan, started talking earnestly with Arafat about recognising a Palestinian State.

King Hussein was furious. He saw the creation of a Palstinian State as a direct threat to Jordan, which is why the Palestinians are still mostly living as second class citizens all across the Middle East, in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

The Arafat-led Palestinians tried to kill King Hussein and replace the Hashemites with his own cronies.

This resulted in the Jordanian Army killing thousands of Palestinians and kicking them out of Jordan.

Sadly, the ruling party in Jordan would never accept a Palestinian Jordan. It perfers to keep them in limbo, or force them into Israel.

We in the West, including myself, all have al failed to understand how completely divided and violently hostile many of the people in the Mddle East are towards each other still.

We do not understand the mosaic of divided loyalties, both tribal and religious that make these Arab states unstable, and only capable of being ruled by hard men and dictators.

Making Palestine a Jordan or Jordan the Palestinian state would distabalize the region, strengthen Syria and Hezbollah (this has happened before), and solve nothing.

Sadly, not only do our politicians have no understanding of the nature of the Middle East, but it is clear the journalists at the BBC and other new media have not bothered to find out either.

You can see it on the news every night. Some journalist in a flack jacket asks someone in an excitable crowd what they think about some incident.

The reply is then taken at face value and reported as representative of the views of the crowd.

No nuance, no background checking as to which tribe or religious cult the perosn may belong to, which may or may not colour the opinion given.

Lazy, inept jounalism.

We have all winced at the crass reporter who, faced with an interview with the widow or loved one of someone dead, comes up with question "how does it feel....."

Well this is the level of BBC journalism today. Lazy, biased even racist, and paid for by you!

M. Katz

The BBC which is the most influential TV Channel and paid for by the British public should be made to stick to honest reporting, not half truth or just one side of the story. Reporting news items should be the truth and not supplied by dodgy sources. Is the BBC in the pay of the Arabs and relying only on Arab sources?

Fran

Tilly Re Balen

You miss the point. License Fee payers funded this report and should have an absolute right to view its contents.

So what if the BBC has to fend off concerns that Balen raises? The report was produced in response to repeated audience concerns about biased BBC coverage of the Middle East, and audiences are capable of making up their own minds on the reports contents - and acting accordingly.

The BBC doesn't need protecting from its audience. Instead it should become more answerable to them.

Please sign the petition asking for the release of the Balen Report here

http://www.petitiononline.co.uk/petition/bbc-coverage-of-the-middle-east-conflict/2697

Derek BLADES

Adam B. wants me to “…. consider this. In living memory for some, Baghdad was up to 40% Jewish. Now, there is not one single Jew in the whole of Iraq.” Here are my two considerations:

First, it looks like Baghdad was a good place for Jews to live – a happy, prosperous and no doubt “vibrant” community! Please tell me what went wrong? Was it by any chance the Zionists’ terrorism against the Arabs that preceded the founding of Israel?

Second, Adam is of course quite wrong in saying there is not a “single Jew in the whole of Iraq”. The Meir Taweig Synagogue is still open for business in Baghdad and Jewish families have stayed on in the Kurdish parts of Iran and probably elsewhere. Not many I grant you but certainly more than a single one.

Stephen

Excellent letter. Has anyone thought of judicial review? I mean this is a clear breach of statutory responsibilities by the BBC trust. Maybe the balen report the BBC has so far refused to divulge could be called as a witness as to the institutional bias against Israel.

Augustus

Stephen Rothbart - Thank you. You are a star!

Adam B.

Blades, did you even read my post? The lengths you go to in order to deny the apartheid suffered by Jews in the Arab world, known as dhimmitude which was enshrined in racist laws, and the pogroms against Jews which predate Israel by decades, as well as the endemic antisemitism in Arab societies, is truly pathological.

Just to spell this out again - the Jews are not responsible for their own ethnic cleansing from the Arab world. The pogroms which happened throughout the Arab world, prior to Israel being re-established, is not the fault of the ews. That you can't bring yourself to say this says it all. But then again, you are someone who has blamed antisemitism at the door of its victims before - rather than its perpetrators.

Furthermore, it is you who is quite wrong. It was estimated that after the US led invasion, there were about 200 Jews left in Iraq, mostly elderly. Since then, and after several violent antisemitic attacks, they have left. It is now estimated that there are no Jews in Iraq at all.

Yet 1,300,000 Arabs remain in Israel, 20% of the country.
Now I'll ask you again - who has been more adept at ethnic cleansing?

Adrian

I was impressed with Jeremy Hunt's performance on Question Time a week or so ago. I hope he does not disappoint here.

Tilly

Fran -

As I stressed in my post to Truthtriumphs, this was just ONE reason I could see for not releasing the report. I won't recap the others having provided full link details, but will address the specific points you raise.

1. The Balen Report was not commissioned in response to complaints - an internal review was organised in response. The report's purpose was to aid discussion of the complaints among BBC staff.

2. The Freedom of Information Act (FoI) specifically exempts the BBC from releasing internal review documents "relating to journalism" because it recognises (among other things) the need to maintain journalistic independence from the pressure of lobby groups, politicians, commercial organisations, etc.

3. The BBC is accountable to its audience by being obliged to investigate complaints and, if appropriate, admit mistakes and take action to rectify them. It appears to me to have done so in this case. An EXTERNAL Independent Panel was appointed under the chairmanship of Sir Quentin Thomas to examine the accumulated evidence, its findings were published, and its criticisms accepted by the BBC. (This is, I think, my fourth reference to the panel. In a nutshell, it found the news coverage "implicitly favoured Israel" but little to suggest "deliberate or systemic bias" ... which is probably why no-one clamouring here for the Beeb's demise wants to talk about it.)

4. No, I won't sign your petition. Before becoming embroiled in these blogs, I had a good deal of sympathy for those wanting the FoI to increase its scope (and still think there should be more openness in certain spheres). But having seen how selectively and manipulatively complex issues such as "media bias" can be harnessed to serve the interests of political partisans (NOT the audience, note), my sympathies lie pretty squarely with the BBC - warts and all.

C.Gee

Stephen Rothbart:

Well said. And on the subject of treatment of Arabs - Israeli Arabs, despite the incitement of their MPs (when does Arab leadership ever not instigate conflict ?), know they are a great deal better off - in all ways, health, wealth, education and civil rights - as Israelis than as Jordanians, Eqyptians, Syrians, Saudi Arabians, Libyans, Iraqis...

On the same theme, Tilly:

“Natalie Wood -
Your comments are most refreshing. I very much hope you'll keep in touch with this blog and issue pertinent reminders that Arabs aren't a collective of morally-depraved savages when such comments are (pretty routinely) made.”

Good one. Glad to have an up-beat bulletin on your psychic health.

But you do understand, don’t you, that Natalie Wood and Meira are providing pertinent reminders that Israel is a civilized nation for all its people? For Jews and Arabs, whether the Jews are racist Zionists or the Arabs are racist anti-Zionists, or whether each is right or wrong in their perceptions of the other, or you are right or wrong in your perceptions of their perceptions. These reminders should indeed “refresh” you, if not actually cure you permanently of your moral hysteria.

Edward

The BBC should be investigated for this none stop maligning of Israel. They are using our money from the outdated license fee to pay for this biased ranting.

C.Gee

“Indeed, if you can think of any conclusions Balen might have drawn which WOULDN'T have subjected the BBC to a battering from one side or another, let me know.
It's not a matter of "hiding" anything, or "shame", Truthtriumphs - simply a matter of safeguarding journalistic integrity against persistently aggressive attempts to subvert it.”

The nature of the findings or conclusions of the Balen report should not in any way determine whether it is published. Even fear of street riots in reaction to it - from either side - should not be a factor in the decision. The BBC programs themselves are put out without fear of protest - (or are they? who know whether the slant is not taken out of fear of outraging one side, more likely the side that uses outraged mobs, threats of violence and actual killing to intimidate broadcasters and publishers) - so why withhold a study of the programs? Can a study of the programming bias be more likely to outrage than the bias of the programs themselves?
The BBC points to the outrage on both sides as proof that it is not biased on any one side, and that it is not intimidated by either. The two flank outrage is the foundation of the BBC’s claim of its neutrality, balance and fairness. This in itself, of course, is an arrogant, lazy and craven self-preserving rationale for carrying on with unaccountable business as usual.
It is a source of pride to the BBC that it is independent from government influence. It claims to work in the public interest, but is not accountable to public opinion. It knows best. It is a deeply paternalistic institution promulgating elitist ideals of demotic diversity, social justice, internationalism, equality, and the common man. The institution should be deeply ashamed to say that it is their fear of upsetting interest groups (especially groups they identify as powerful) that is keeping the Balen report under wraps. They would be calling their own hypocrisy.
And, in actual practice, the BBC has never been bothered by “persistently aggressive attempts” to “subvert journalistic integrity”. It ignores the “batterings” and justifies ignoring them on the grounds that they are aggressive attempts to subvert journalistic integrity. It is the judge of its own judgement, of the public’s judgement, of Balen’s judgement. It behaves like a soviet. In your judgement is that proper?

Patricia Hughes

Totally agree. In our local Timaru Herald, the same sort of bias is presented. The poor Palestinians are being fired on by the Israelies, but what about all the rockets etc. fired into Israel by the Palestinians??

daniel cohen

Bravo Melanie, the position of BBC is unacceptable. Go on.

Steve Mann

There are few who fight for the truth regarding the Israeli side of the equation. Melanie Phillips is one who stands out- Long may she continue.
I too have written to the BBC on many occasion asking them to publish the Balen report- Only ever received one answer- which said- "We know you would like us to publish it" !

Bickers

Spot on Melanie. And it's not just on the reporting of Israel that the BBC is institutionally biased.

Most jobs vacancies for BBC posts are advertised in the Guardian, which is a left leaning, liberal paper. Therefore it comes as no surprise that the majority of staff are of a liberal, left leaning nature and continued advertising in the Guardian is a self re-enforcing process

Tilly

C.Gee (plus attn. Fran) -

You seem to have no idea at all about the influence lobbyists and their PR machines have on news coverage and how this distorts our picture of the world.

The issue of Middle East coverage offers a perfect illustration of why it's so important for journalists to resist the pressure of vested-interest groups. Neither the Israeli nor Palestinian side is concerned about "balance" or "fairness" or even "accuracy". The word "impartiality" is, indeed, a dirty one to both.

The last thing you're after is conclusive, empirical analysis of the coverage - what you want is a body of research which best serves your cause. So (in your case) no matter how many studies show that Israel is given a fair crack of the whip, you will reject them all if the image presented still isn't to your liking. And you will continue to reject them, demanding inquiry after inquiry, complaining, threatening with court action, petitioning government, etc, until - finally, you hope - the one study of your own choosing is proclaimed "definitive" and coverage consequently tailored to your precise requirements.

What you are after - and so are Palestinian supporters - is PARTIALITY from the BBC. That is the whole aim of PR. If this were not the aim, we would call our PR specialists "journalists" ... and sack them on the spot!

So please stop trying to kid me (or yourself?) that your concern is that audiences aren't getting a "true" picture of the Middle East; it's that they are not getting a "positive enough" one of Israel.

Too bad.

Did it ever occur to you that Israel's media image might seem "negative" to you simply because some of the things it does just aren't a pretty sight?

As for the Balen Report - here's something else to chew on: When any research is conducted, the researcher is obliged to inform those he interviews, or whose work he draws upon, exactly to what purpose his research will be put. Will it be offered for publication or remain in the vaults of a university library? Will the findings be confidential or shared with the public at large? Depending on these factors, people can make informed decisions about whether to co-operate or not.

I don't of course know what the ground rules of Malcolm Balen's research were, but I can take an educated guess. He was commissioned to make his study for an INTERNAL REVIEW; thus the likely understanding was that journalists could freely explain their positions, problems, prejudices, and so forth to him on the basis that the only people who would see his report were journalistic colleagues and BBC executives.

To then publish the report would have been - and remains - grossly unethical.

For the fifth time now: A report WAS issued by the BBC on its Middle East coverage. It had the virtue of being the work of an independent panel. You (supposedly, but I don't believe it for one minute) have been asking for an "independent" opinion because you don't trust the BBC to regulate itself.

If you don't like the panel's findings, I guess you'll just have to keep on plugging for "independent review" after "independent review" until you're given the "independently" partisan result you're after.

Thanks, but no thanks from this member of the BBC audience.

Celato

Stephen Rothbart:

Thanks for a highly persuasive reply - I unreservedly remove you from my list!

All I hope now is that you will persuade Adam B to remove me from his...

I may not agree with you on the Israel-Palestine conflict but do now accept that your personal revulsion at racism and bigotry is as deep-rooted as my own. I have always made it clear that I am NOT "anti-Israel" - simply object to many of its government's policies/actions in the conflict. I do not give unswerving support to the Palestinian cause either and have frequently expressed my disgust at the targeting of civilians whether by them or Israelis.

Yet the debating "strategy" of so many participating in these blogs is to level accusations of anti-Semitism at anyone failing to declare wholesale support for Israel - a demand which includes either turning a blind eye or actively applauding individual Israelis (eg, the worst of the "settlers") whose racism is as sickening as any Islamist bigot.

I will continue to challenge the views you and others post where I disagree with what you have to say - and will do so with vigour when racist remarks are made about either Arabs or Jews. If certain contributors see this as treachery or "moral equivalence", so be it. Let's just say it's my Spanish protest...

Adam B.

Celato, the Israelis do not target civilians. The Palestinian terror groups of Fatah and Hamas do - and celebrate any innocent deaths. Your failure to understand the difference demonstrates your failure to understand the conflict, and what drives it.

BENSOUSSAN

Bravo! je n'ai rien à ajouter sinon que l'attitude des journalistes de la B.B.C. est indigne.

Stephen Rothbart

Celato, I am sorry, but I can't let you get off so easily!

Of course you must defend your opinion. If people all agreed with the pro-Zonists there would be no reason to continue to read and contribute to the debate.

However let me remind you what this article by Melanie was about; the bias of BBC reporting on matters pertaining to Israel.

Again, my objection to their reporting is that they give the same, and sometimes even preferential viewpoint on the actions of the Hamas led Gazans and the Fatah led West Bank Palestinians as they do to Israel.

Let me remind you that Israel pulled their settlers out of Gaza some years ago in a very difficult and painful operation.

After they left, the government of Gaza, elected by these same Palestinians that are constantly conveyed as victims, rained thousands of rockets down on Israeli towns.

They kidnapped and shot at Israeli soldiers patrolling their own side of the border.

In short, despite having their land back "Judenfrei," they continued to wage war on Israel, to the point where Israel had to respond, as any government would, to protect its own people.

Hamas was voted in by 70-80% of the people living in Gaza.

The Hamas charter is racist, its behaviour is totalitarian, its treatment of anyone that opposes it brutal and deadly.

It has been responsible for some terrible atrocities against civilian targets, both Jewish and Palestinian.

Fatah's leaders are not much different, but in fairness, Fatah are themselves a mess and have little credibility in the West Bank, as they are corrupt and deemed too weak in their dealings with the US and Israel.

Were the Western powers to allow an election in the West Bank in which Hamas was allowed to stand too, the West Bank Palestinians are expected to vote in Hamas there too.

So the make up of the Palestinian populations, as I also tried to show you from polls taken in Egypt, Syria and Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iran is violently anti-Semitic, not just annti-Israeli.

So yes, I am not anti-Palestinian. I am anti-racist.

Sadly most of the Palestinians are racist, as are their fellow Arabs, and their government, for whom they voted, is racist, homophobic and mysoginst.

There are Palestinians who are not like that at all, but as a famous Palestinian writer, now living in the US once said, most of the Palestinians that could make peace with Israel left the region long ago to make a better life for themselves elsewhere. What is left are bigots and religious nutcases who somehow think dresing 2 year old babies up as suicide bombers is cute.

These are the people I am definitely against and so should you be and so should the BBC, guardians (with a small G!) of the free press and democracy.

But you and they, still try to make a case for the appalling behaviour and rhetoric coming from these Palestinian regions, and comparing their behaviour, which is "offence," with Israel's which is "defence" and retaliatory.

I am sorry if this puts me back on your watch list, but I want to make clear that I am not against Palestinians and Muslims because of who they are.

I am against them for what they are.

I accept that your defence of these racists is not driven by any form of ant-Semitism, if you say so, but you are clearly at odds with your own beliefs if you abhor racism and intolerance.

In the opinion of myself and many others writing here, the BBC's attitude can only be explained as latent or overt anti-Semitism. They are obsessed with Israel above every other flashpoint in the world.

Its repeated failure to put Isael's predicament in context and to selectively report on only those items that put Israel in the worst light and the Palestinian cause in the best, is causing many people concern.

An example of this was the recet death, at the hands of West Bank Palestinians of an Arab-Israeli humanist, killed by Palestinians becasue he was trying to instill an understanding between Arab and Jewish children through music an art and literature. He taught Palestinians about the Holocaust. The Palstinians said that the matter of the Holocaust i a "political" act.

So add in Holocasut deniers to the shopping list.

This awful event was completely ignored, not only by the BBC but also by other news media.

It showed that Palestinian leaders are not really interesed in peace and that their means to stop it happening is by murder of those that try to bring it about.

Not a pretty picture of the Palestinin cause, and done without any provocative reaction by Israel to balance the report.

So best to ignore it. Would not want to sully the "Palestinian as victim" image would we?

If it's not anti-Semitism, then please explain what you think it is, and preferably without resorting to what happened 60 years ago!

Alex Lawrence

It is not just this, the BBC is similarly Orwellian (I love the symmetry since he used to work there in censorship) and overly politically correct, or plain and simple left wing and overly multi-cultural. To clarify this, I should point out that there was little to no reportage about Cameron's trip to Pakistan and his swearing at a journalist. Of interest to the British Taxpayer, precisely because he is pulling funding from British schools, policing and other framework pre-requisites. Quite apart from the issue of sharing sensitive and important defence technology - and more importantly, training - with Pakistan. Against a backdrop of closures, giving money to this basket case, corrupt country, means that the sweat and toil of those still left with a job in the UK is going to be financing terrorism, or bled off into pockets of the corrupt - with absolutely no indication that any aid to Pakistan (or any muslim or emerging market country) has ever made them think favourably of us. Nor is there any correlation from a scientific basis in terms of rewarding people to achieve any objective for that matter (latest New Scientist).

Then we come to immigration - and any discussion on race. The BBC is so incompetent on this matter it is sickening. Literally it strikes one dumb - where to begin on the obscenity of the incompetence on this issue. It is like logic, rationalism, objectivism, and the Enlightenment never happened. The BBC defends all other races and cultures over native British ones, in a distorted way and only in a superficial manner, which is usually to the detriment of the native British person. Its repellent submissionism to Islam, chief among all the supernatural beliefs is particularly disgusting.

The only BBC factual programme of any note these days is the nature or science programmes, which themselves are becoming dumbed down in their content in a most embarrassing manner.
Yours,
Alex Lawrence.

C.Gee

Tilly:

You accuse: “The last thing you're after is conclusive, empirical analysis of the coverage - what you want is a body of research which best serves your cause. So (in your case) no matter how many studies show that Israel is given a fair crack of the whip, you will reject them all if the image presented still isn't to your liking.....So please stop trying to kid me (or yourself?) that your concern is that audiences aren't getting a "true" picture of the Middle East; it's that they are not getting a "positive enough" one of Israel.”

Stop that. You impute to me wishes and concerns that I do not have. Far from wanting more and more investigations (internal or external) about the BBC’s impartiality, I would like an investigation of the entire institution, top to bottom, inside out. The investigation - by a board with investigative powers of the scope of a monopolies commission - should look at everything: internal reports, external reports, charter, policies, hiring and firing practices, editorial guidelines, expense accounts, pensions, board structure, purposes, uses, efficiency, funding - to decide whether the BBC should continue to exist at all. I would hope that such an investigation would result in the Beeb’s complete dismantling, or its becoming a for-profit corporation, stripped of all pretensions of being a public service.

My concern is not that audiences are not getting a “true” picture of the Middle East - or a positive enough view of Israel. There is enough information available from thousands of sources for any quester after knowledge to form any picture of anything. My concern is that the BBC is being allowed to claim - and to justify its existence upon the claim - that it is offering a true - or truthy - picture of the world to the public forced to fund it. My concern is that the audience is being sold a brand of news service on the strength of a warranty of fairness, balance and impartiality (hereinafter “fbi” ). But no institution can be fbi any more than any individual can. It fact, the more there are attempts by the BBC to institutionalize fbi by balancing procedures (see Herzen for this), editorial guidelines, editorial oversight for compliance with standards, mandated consistency of usage, approved terminology, the more the institutional imprimatur of fbi becomes fraudulent, because the diversity of individual points of view of program makers, which might offer a market of perspective and opinion, becomes uniform and institutionally correct. Far from being a warranty of fbi, “made by the BBC” means pre-judged, pre-packaged, health-and-safety inspected opinion for mass consumption. Quite frankly, I would prefer to watch Pallywood programs than Panorama. One-sided programs are less harmful as propaganda than artificial fbi.

Nothing illustrates my point better than Sir Quentin Thomas’ report and the BBC response undertaking to install institutional procedures to implement its suggestions. What a horrible spectacle of mutual back-scratching. The report may bill itself as what you would call “external”, but it is very much of the same mind as the institution it is investigating.

Sir Quentin and his fellow panelists recommended institutionally enshrining, in the name of fbi, reporting principles that ensures a BBC slant: the “two narratives” approach to the conflict; the essential “asymmetry” (Israel being more powerful and the occupier); and drawing on international law for usages (“occupied territory”). Therefore, any program or news report which does not place Israel as the stronger, occupying force is unbalanced. Every program is expected to have spokesmen for each narrative, providing for the accepted practice of offering Israeli voices which are critical of Israel, yet count as being on the Israeli side of the ledger for purposes of balance. ( Israelis are among the best promulgators of the Palestinian narrative). Every program must talk of settlers as if they have no right to be where they are, and Israelis, simply by being called “settlers”, will be regarded as trespassers. And thanks to the panel, even more programs on the everyday hardship of living “under occupation” must be shown for balance (under the asymmetry principle).

The following are quotes from the report:

“One important feature of this is the failure to convey adequately the disparity in the Israeli and Palestinian experience, reflecting the fact that one side is in control and the other lives under occupation. Although this asymmetry does not necessarily bear on the relative merits of the two sides, it is so marked and important that coverage should succeed in this if in nothing else.” Please note the first part of the second sentence, and the judiciously placed “necessarily”.

“...the BBC should continue to draw on international law and the United Nations Security Council in the choices it must inevitably make about the use of language and then be consistent in its use across its output. Though there will always be disagreement between the two sides about any such lexicon, certain usages (such as “occupied territories”) are well established.” Hence the BBC’s consistent use of “illegal settlements” and “Palestinian land”.

“...Third the gold standard by which our assessment has been made is that set by the BBC itself in programmes it has made, and continues to make, on this conflict, as on other matters.” In other words, the Panel’s views have probably been informed by the BBC, or it shared its political assumptions and values. The Beeb is an amplifier, reflector and echo-chamber for the zeitgeist, but also institutionalizes it.

Appendix E, written by human rights lawyer Noam Lubell is a masterpiece of zeitgeisterism, particularly on the “right of resistance” under international law.

Truthtriumphs

Tilly
April 15th, 2011 1:17pm
Truthtriumphs -

"The answers you want on the Balen Report are not "simple" ones - but SIMPLISTIC. Big difference because that gives you an opportunity to riposte about how shallow/naive/simple-minded/unrealistic your respondents are".

You don't pay attention to what people actually say.
I wrote that I have one simple question....what does the BBC have to hide.

In answer to your long-winded comment, Fran's excellent response hit the nail on the head.
Just to explain why you are wrong, consider the essence of the argument.
I am forced to pay a tax to the BBC if I choose to have a TV in my home, even if I never watch the BBC.
The beneficiaries of the tax I am forced to pay, in this case the BBC, have no accountability to me, or anyone else, and can behave as they please.
Accountability does NOT mean being answerable to those within the said organisation.
That is why there is a culture of arrogance within this organisation.
You may wish to consider that the government of the day is answerable to its taxpayers, (and non-taxpayers) in the form of elections, which must be held every 5 years. That way we can get rid of them, should their performance displease the electorate.
We cannot get rid of the BBC management by voting them out, yet we fund its activities.
Did you ever hear the old saying...no taxation without representation?
That is why the BBC is ethically duty bound to publish the contents of Balen....paid for by us.

Now do you get it?

Truthtriumphs

Stephen Rothbart
April 15th, 2011 1:33pm

"I have said before that I dislike the religious extremists that make up much of the Settler movement, and given the choice over standing beside one of them or a moderate Palestinian Arab, who truly wanted to make peace with Israel, I would have no hesitation in standing with that Palestinian".

What are you talking about?
It is profoundly disappointing and depressing that given your outlook, you should resort to repeating fashionable mantras that have no basis in fact.
First, there is no difference between the so-called settlers, and those Israeli citizens who live behind the Green line.
I know many "settlers", or should it be re-settlers, who are the most decent, normal, law abiding people one could hope to meet.
I suppose when you write "religious extremists", you mean orthodox or observant.
What do YOU mean by religious extremism?
Wasn't your comment intended to show what a reasonable, fair-minded sort of guy you are?
You should be more careful with language in future, because you might find that your words are wilfully distorted to mean what you never intended them to mean.

Truthtriumphs

Richard. April 14th.

"Civil war broke out between the Palestinian Arabs, who did not want their homeland carved up and the best of it given away, and the Zionist immigrants who wanted the land partitioned as a first step to a Jewish state in the whole of Palestine".

Why do you persist with this myth, in the face of clear historical evidence, that the Palestinian Arabs were indigenous to the region, and the Palestinian Jews were all Zionist immigrants?

It is a crass piece of historical revisionism, and you know it.

Truthtriumphs

Celato. April 15th.

"Leaving this aside, however: if you will show me a single thing you have ever written expressing empathy, support, or even mildly conciliatory opinions about the people who call themselves Palestinians, I will gladly retract what I said about your being "relentlessly and reflexively anti-Palestinian" in my parody of Adam B's post to those of us who criticise Israel".

In the belief that actions speak louder than words, I've done better than that.
I have held fund-raisers in my home that benefit jointly Jewish/Arab projects within Israel.
What have YOU ever done to benefit the Arabs you bang on about, other than to, well, bang on about them at your keyboard?

Truthtriumphs

Celato. April 16th.

"Yet the debating "strategy" of so many participating in these blogs is to level accusations of anti-Semitism at anyone failing to declare wholesale support for Israel - a demand which includes either turning a blind eye or actively applauding individual Israelis (eg, the worst of the "settlers") whose racism is as sickening as any Islamist bigot".

Re. your first point, very often that is what it is, such as the remark that the Hampstead garden Suburb is "occupied territory".

As to the second remark, the "worst of the settlers whose racism....", what exactly do you mean?
What proportion of the "settler" movement do your remarks intend to apply to?
Do you think the behaviour of a miniscule minority is sanctioned by the Israeli government, unlike the policy of the Palestine Authority, which is indisputably racist and antisemitic?

Lupescu

seulemnt la verité

Stephen Rothbart

Truthtriumphs, I think I made myself quite clear. I said there are some brutal and violent elements in the Settler movement and there are.

I did not brand the settlers as all being brutal and violent.

I remember watching, some years ago, a documentary film by an Israeli film company that showed an IDF unit that had to be on station defending a group of settlers way over the Israeli borders on the West Bank.

The langauge used by these settlers to describe the neighbouring Paalestinians was not far removed from the type of langauge used by Nazis and Hamas and Fatah to describe Jews.

The IDF soldiers were against their mission, against these people, and against this vile language. They hated having to defend them and their racist views.

And so should anyone who hates racism.

Does that describe all settlers? No. But it does describe a good many of them.

I also remember being in Israel
at the time of the first intifada. A bunch of Israeli policemen had driven their jeeps into a Palestinian village and started shooting it up. Not to kill anyone (I hope) but in a form of anger.

The Jerusalem Post reported the incident as obscene, and the policemen were fired from their jobs.

The reactions of the IDF to the settlers and the newspaper reports and subsequent firing of the policemen is why I support Israel, and why I find the people justifying Hamas and Fatah astonishing.

I am certainly not politically correct, and not trying to show myself as whatever it is you think is my motivation.

The reason that I can debate with the Derek Blades of this world with a clear conscience and criticize the BBC is because Israel is basically a nation of good people, able to tell the difference between right and wrong, and the people that their opponents seem to support unreservedly, are not.

If that ever changes with Israel, then so will my support.

I am a patriotic Brit and a Zionist. Right now I am less proud of British institutions and government, and still very proud of Israel, warts and all.

But it will never be "my country right or wrong."

Augustus

Not long after the recent murders of the Fogel family and the attack on the school bus, Arabs and Israelis conducted a poll in the West Bank and in Gaza. One third of those questioned agreed with or sanctioned these slaughters. So those who plead for an independent state for the Palestinians can be pretty sure that about a third of the inhabitants of such a state would also be in favour of the murder of innocent Jewish children. Not in order to reach any important goal, but just simply because the children would be Jewish. Muslim Arabs haven't gained anything from these murders.
The dead children weren't soldiers. They weren't killed in any crossfire or suffered
through collateral damage. Their deaths afforded no strategic value whatsoever. There was no reason to kill them other than
to want them dead. To deliberately kill such children can only have one aim, the ultitmate genocide of a whole populace.
And the desire for genocide cannot be appeased by territorial compromise. People who favour cutting the throat of a three month baby and stabbing the heart of a four-
year-old aren't bothered about an extra mile
here or there. The Nazis weren't satisfied with the annexation of the Sudetenland, and Muslims won't be satisfied with a part of East Jerusalem. They don't want East Jerusalem, they don't even just want the whole of Jerusalem, or even the whole of Israel. what they really want, really crave,
is a reason to go on killing.

Truthtriumphs

Truthtriumphs
April 17th, 2011 1:48am
Stephen Rothbart
April 15th, 2011 1:33pm

"I have said before that I dislike the religious extremists that make up much of the Settler movement.
Does that describe all settlers? No. But it does describe a good many of them."

There are some 500,000 Jews living beyond the Green line, in places such as Efrat and Maale Adumim.
You say that the "extremists" make up a good proportion of them.
First of all, unless you define the word "extremist", we cannot know of what you speak.
Do you base your assertions on any verifiable, quantifiable surveys, and if not, on what do you base them?
I put it to you that a good deal of the violence is aimed AT the settlers, rather than BY the settlers.
Some 15 years ago, the British son of friends of ours was murdered in a settlement.
It was an unprovoked attack, similar to that of the Fogel family.
An intruder entered the house at night, stabbed the 5 month pregnant wife of the young man, and slit his throat.
He died trying to save his wife, who survived, but miscarried. He was a civilised and gentle person...you couldn't meet a nicer type.
The inhabitants of the small settlement did not exact any revenge, but behaved in an exemplary manner.
If course there are rogue elements in the settler society, as there are in any society.
To accuse the majority of a body of half a million people of being violent extremists, is mendacious, mischievious and lazy in the extreme.
I, for one, am not interested in impressing the likes of Celato, Herzen et al and neither should you be.

Truthtriumphs

Augustus
April 17th, 2011 1:53pm

Well said.
It is obvious to me that the "two state solution" is for many people a euphemism for a "final solution", and with a nod and a wink from the EU, UN and others.
The future state of Palestine would be just 15 minutes drive from Tel Aviv.
As long as the Palestinian leadership openly continues to say that this would only be a first step to the acquisition of the whole of Palestine, such a state must never be allowed to come into existence.

Richard

Truthtriumphs
April 17th, 2011 2:01am
I know it makes no sense to respond to your habitual lies and ignorance. Nevertheless...

I have never said that the Jews of Palestine were all immigrants. Indeed, I have, like several others, reminded you of the estimates of how many were native in the late 19th and early 20th century. I suspect you know this, although you are certainly obtuse enough to believe otherwise despite repeated tellings.

"Why do you persist with this myth, in the face of clear historical evidence, that the Palestinian Arabs were indigenous to the region..." I admit I don't know how to respond to such deliberate and wilful ignorance in the cause of bigotry.

That the native population of Palestine was the native population of Palestine is not something that is open to debate. It is simply a fact you will have to come to grips with, if you are not to retain the role of the buffoon who simply can't keep up.

You have been referred to scholarship by American academics, and by British, and by Zionists. You have refused to consult any and all of them. I will challenge your prejudices further by recommending you read a book by a Palestinian Arab: "Rediscovering Palestine: the Merchants and Peasants of Jabal Nablus 1700-1990" by B. Doumani. Of course, you need not believe a word of it - if you can tell us what is wrong with his methodology or his sources.

To attempt, as you do, to defend your cause by deliberate ignorance is a strange way of going on.

Stephen Rothbart

Truthtriumphs. I am afraid to say I have my views and I don't care whether I appease Herzen and Celato or you by expressing them.

I said much of the settler movement. That means a sizeable portion, but certainly not a majority.

We both admire Israel for being a country where you can hold views different from each other without fear of persecution or imprisonment. Which is more than can be said for the Palestinian states.

So please allow me to hold my own views just because they are what I believe

Truthtriumphs

Stephen Rothbart
April 17th, 2011 8:52pm
Truthtriumphs.

"I said much of the settler movement. That means a sizeable portion, but certainly not a majority."

You actually said " the religious extremists who make up much of the settler movement".

That's too vague.
You haven't answered my questions..
what do you mean by "religious extremists" in this context?
On what do you base a"sizeable portion".
You have made serious allegations against a whole section of society--- back them up, or, if you cannot, withdraw them.

Truthtriumphs

Richard.

"That the native population of Palestine was the native population of Palestine is not something that is open to debate. It is simply a fact you will have to come to grips with, if you are not to retain the role of the buffoon who simply can't keep up".

I have proven to you countless times that the native population of Palestine was NOT in accordance with the revisionist rubbish you indefatigably promote.
I have quoted you the remarks of Winston Churchill, no less, James Finn, British Consul to Palestine, and may other respected explorers and historians from the 19th. and previous centuries.
Their testimony is in the public domain for all to avail themselves of. You choose to ignore it.
I have no interest in pursuing a polemic with a serial liar, but give you notice that every time you put forward your grotesque historical revisionism, I will slap you down with the truth".

gary ashton

Augustus, i concurr.

Tilly

Truthtrimphs -

Thanks for reminding me ...

You've now had over a month to respond to the evidence you demanded I produce regarding the bigoted utterances of Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira and the violence of his followers.

I produced chapter, verse, context, samples, references to other rabbis who endorsed Shapira, murders committed by a self-proclaimed follower, rocket attacks, arson and harassment by students at his settlement yeshiva, etc, etc, during the course of two threads:- "And still western 'liberals' support these people" (March 12th) and "Armchair barbarism" (March 13th).

Now you are demanding precisely the same information from other correspondents who point out that certain settlers are racists who behave abhorrently.

If you want to know what is "meant" by religious extremists, I suggest you return to those threads for an answer; if you're in any doubt that a measure of government support is given to such extremists, please note the matter of funding given to Shapira's yeshiva by the Ministry of Education - again to be found in those threads.

I would draw your attention in particular to the translation from Hebrew I provided (at your insistence) of Shapira's text on the various religious "justifications" there were for killing non-Jewish babies - March 15th, 8.17pm.

I will continue to remind you of your failure to address this from time to time because until you face up to reality you are in effect aligning yourself with people who no less deserve the "terrorist" label than do violent, bigoted Islamists.

Mrs Rosemary Saunders

I am appalled by the bias against Israel on the BBC. I would ask you to please address mine and many others' concerns

Brian W

Come off it Melanie. To treat camera as though it is a neutral objective media watchdog!
It has no credibility.It functions purely as a defender of Israel's actions as a visit to its website makes evident.I defy you to produce one example of it correcting media distortions aimed at Palestinians and their cause.

Richard

Truthtriumphs
April 18th, 2011 9:09am
There is something comical about relying on Winston Churchill for information on the demographics of Palestine, a man notroriously interested in acquiring accurate information about inferior races.

And why you refer to a particular British Consul, but reject British statistics...

And why you dismiss the careful work of academics, American, British, Israeli, and Palestinians Arab as "lies" without, I suspect, bothering to read them...

Why you prefer gobbets of propaganda from hasbara web-sites...

All your bluster cannot hide the shabbiness of this way of avoiding the facts.

I do detect one slight hint of shame, however - at least, on this occasion, you refrain from citing Mark Twain as one of your authorities.

Adam B.

Brian W, look at the substance of the complaint, not just at who is making the complaint.

Kermack

Tilly - You fail to mention that Rabbi Shapira has been arrested several times by the Israeli Police & the Shaback. His book 'Torah of the Kings' distasteful as it is makes no reference to Palestinians nor to Arabs. He not only does not represent Rabbis, but also not Settlers, Jews nor Israelis in general. More to the point I've yet to hear of one of his followers being arrested after sawing off the head of a three month old baby.....

Tilly

C.Gee -

Forgive me for failing to appreciate that your aim isn't merely to ensure fair BBC coverage of Israel's perspective but the dismantling of the entire corporation.

It's hard for me to judge whether this desire arises specifically from what you see as journalistic shortcomings in the Middle East sphere, or whether you disapprove of all its news coverage, or simply disapprove of any enterprise which isn't commercially driven. Perhaps you will enlighten me at some point.

In the meantime, let me just say that your post (April 16th, 12.24am) convinces me more than ever that the lobbying being conducted here requires active resistance - and particularly if your aim is shared by those supporting Melanie's "open letter" and Fran's petition.

What you are proposing is the destruction of an institution whose services go way beyond the dissemination of news.

The BBC provides a huge range of programmes - drama, comedy, music, sport, quiz shows, documentaries, education, etc - not just via TV but radio, too. The quality certainly matches that of commercial broadcasters and quite a few wouldn't be aired by the for-profit sector because they don't appeal to the sort of mass audiences which advertisers demand.

Your ultimate sticking-point is, perhaps, the licence fee? Do you seriously think you don't pay a "fee" for the commercial services? Every advert that appears adds to the price of goods - not just "luxuries" over which people have a choice, but essential services and staple foods; and this bill is met not just by those consumers opting to watch the ads, but by everyone. Nothing comes for free in this world - and neither should the BBC's diverse menu.

Diverse? Emphatically yes! You claim that all those "balancing procedures, editorial guidelines, compliance with standards", etc, militate against a "diversity of individual points of view ... which might offer a market of perspective and opinion". Do you not find it odd, then, that someone like Melanie Phillips - who makes no bones about her hatred of the Beeb - is given regular airings? Or that Jane Corbin, who is vilified here for her "Walk in the Park" documentary, was mysteriously given the BBC's full backing to make other programmes so unstintingly supportive of Israel that pro-Palestinian lobbyists screamed blue murder?

I'd suggest you read some of the statements quoted by Celato (April 14th, 12.57pm) regarding Corbin's "Death on the Med" documentary before being too sure that an institutionally "uniform" and "correct" perspective is sinisterly at work in the corridors of the BBC.

Final thing you might bear in mind: ALL television stations in the UK are obliged to comply with codes laying down journalistic standards of impartiality in their delivery of news. Would you like these scrapped too ...?

Augustus

In the Rubin Report, Barry Rubin said recently that 'much mass media coverage of
Israel-Palestinian issues is propaganda, not
journalism'. "So constant are the lies told in mass media coverage...that it is hardly worthwhile to critique individual articles anymore." He cites an example where AP had stated that, whereas the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade which was a mostly defunct Palestinian militant group had taken responsibility for the infant killings, it was not clear if they had been responsible
because it 'frequently takes credit for attacks it didn't commit in a bid to raise its profile'. In other words, Barry Rubin is saying, the media go out of their way to try and assure the public that an organization which is very much a part of
PA Fatah (a fact that they conveniently don't mention) is probably innocent.

Yes, the whole tsunami of propaganda stinks.
And these are people who think it perfectly reasonable for a state to be created where
not one Jew may live, or even set foot. A state where everything which Jews may have built there over many decades would just be
destroyed. Anyone who supports that must be
a racist bigot or an anti-Semite. But does it really matter who or what these terror organizations are, who preach death and destruction on the Jews and their nation?
Who cares if they're Hamas, PLO, Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa Brigades, or dozens more?
There is only one terror group which aims it's lance at Israel, and that is called Jihad, Holy War. The only thing standing in the way of Holy Peace is Holy War!

Adam B.

Richard, that's a bit rich coming from someone who has made a swathe of unsubstantiated allegations against Israel.

What are your "sources"? Ilan Pappe?

Alissa1989

Excellent letter, Melanie - clear and telling. It is sad to see how far the BBC has fallen from the objectivity and fairness it once had.

Richard

Adam B.
April 18th, 2011 4:52pm

Um.

You haven't actually bothered to follow Truthtriumphs' twists and turns over the days and weeks and months. He has been provided with several specific scholarly sources any one of which would quickly disabuse him.

Adam B.

Tily, there is no such thing as "impartial" news. It is an impossibility - and it is silly to pretend there is. The problem with the BBC is that it is highly partisan, and because it manages to utterly dominate the market through a compulsory tax on watching television, it can get away with almost anything, as politicians are afraid to confront it for fear of being accused of political interference, whilst it sits in judgment of itself.

It needs to become for transparent, (no more secret reports for which we pay like Balen), and more accountable.

It's just a matter of time.

Tilly

Adam B -

As you've now said at least three times (uncontradicted) impartiality is impossible. But please try exercising a modicum of common sense on this.

If you were assigned to report an Israeli election result, you'd find it very hard to prevent your personal opinions colouring the story you wrote; assign you to a country where you couldn't care less who won or lost, and you'd be far more likely simply to recount dry facts and figures. Sure, you would make value-judgements about which facts were more "interesting" than others, but there would still be a world of difference between the latter story and your one on Israel. And why? Because your "partiality" is extreme in some circumstances, moderate in others, and almost indiscernible in others.

All any news organisation striving for impartiality can do is put mechanisms in place to ensure as little partisanship AS POSSIBLE. An elementary study of how newsrooms operate and the codes of conduct/practice they espouse will enlighten you on the way this works.

Something else you should take on board: The latest figures I've found show the BBC's share of the UK audience to be around 28%, the other terrestrial channels - 21%, "other" - 44%.

Does this really suggest the BBC "utterly dominates" the market?

Adam B.

Richard, I've been following your twists and turns, and quick disappearances when confronted with facts.

Adam B.

Tilly, your figures are meaningless, because they don't cover the news market, which is what we're talking about here. I'm not talking about the latest adaptation of Jane Austen or a nature programme. Yes, it does utterly dominate the news market, especially when one figures in its online coverage with radio and TV. Which other news organization has that kind of reach?

Furthermore, you aren't talking about impartiality. You're talking about someone who is dispassionate about an event covering it. In any case, the BBC is not dispassionate about Israel, and indeed has an Israel obsession. It hates Israel (as do you).

C.Gee

Tilly,

“Final thing you might bear in mind: ALL television stations in the UK are obliged to comply with codes laying down journalistic standards of impartiality in their delivery of news. Would you like these scrapped too ...?”

I can switch off any program I do not like - for any reason - offered by for-profit TV corporations. A message gets through, equivalent to a vote. My choice counts. But in order to avail myself of the choice of TV programs, I have to pay a license fee for the TV box. The BBC is holding my TV viewing hostage, and I have no choice but to pay the ransom. Being told that the ransom is paying for programs for which my vote - public opinion - is irrelevant does not make the extortion legitimate or easier to accept. Some BBC programs might be excellent (fewer over the years as it panders to mass taste) - but I challenge you to name a single program that could not have seen the light of day through market-based funding. Intellectual programs, news and current affairs, pundits, nature, art, history, drama, education, weird hobbies, quizzes, reality TV, sport - all available to high standards from sources other than the BBC. It is a myth that the BBC is providing a service that would otherwise not be provided.

There is something sad in your loyalty to an elitist monopoly, whose founding genius - Reith - wanted independence for the purposes of pious snobbery. From the BBC’s - badly edited - story of its founder:

“Reith’s big fear was what he called 'the brute force of monopoly' might disappear and competition would force down standards. He believed in public service broadcasting. He did not invent the expression 'entertaining, informing and educating' – that was the American broadcasting pioneer David Sarnoff in 1922 – but he made it so central to the way he ran the BBC that his name became a byword for it: Reithian. Pure entertainment was a prostitution of broadcasting. Instead he saw it almost as an extension his father's pulpit. Without a broadcasting monopoly…

'…The Christian religion and the Sabbath might not have had the place and protection they had; the place and protection which it was right to give them…. One day in the week clear of jazz and variety and such like…Almost everything might have been different. The BBC might have had to play for safety; prosecute the obviously popular lines; count its clients; study and meet their reactions; curry favour; subordinate itself to the vote…'

Reith's passionate belief in public service broadcasting led him to propose an innovation to the running of the State. He put forward the idea of a public corporation, run at arm's length from the government, but supervised by a board of governors. The corporation would still be run day-to-day by its managers, but instead of representing a company's investors in the drive for profits , the governors would put the public interest first. It was a model later taken up by the post-Second World War Labour government in its nationalisation programme, but it still worked best at the BBC where Reith established its traditional independence.”

Nationalization - working best at the BBC !

Derek BLADES

The curiously named Truthtriumphs may want to consider why people calling themselves "settlers" choose to put their lives at risk by setting up home in armed encampments encircled by hostile neighbours.

There are two reasons I can think of. Some of them are religious fanatics and believe that they are fulfilling God's commandment. The rest of them see it as a chance to grab a piece of prime real estate at fire-sale prices. The first group are deluded and the second are despicable.

Seen in this light, Tuttifrutti and Rothbart are basically debating how many of the settlers are fools rather than scoundrels. They would do better to consider how Israel can be pressured into meaningful peace talks to abolish most of the settlements and return to the Palestinians the 40% or more of the occupied West Bank that is now under settler domination.

Derek BLADES

C.Gee challenges Tilly "to name a single program that could not have seen the light of day through market-based funding." and concludes that "It is a myth that the BBC is providing a service that would otherwise not be provided."

Not a myth at all, CGee. Without competition from the BBC the commercial channels would take the lazy way out and pander to the lowest common denomiator.

France, Germany and the United States are among the many civilised countries where public service televsion and radio are provided by bodies very like the BBC. Italy, on the other hand, follows C.Gee's preferred model. Ever glanced at Rai Uno recently?

Celato

Derek BLADES:

I think you'll find there is a significant difference between Stephen Rothbart and Truthtriumphs. One is capable of recognising and condemning wrongdoing and bigotry within the ranks of people he admires; the other is ... well ... to put it politely, "morally challenged" to a hopeless extent.

You know which person is which - and so do they. Why not acknowledge the difference? It's one that matters rather a lot.

Stephen Rothbart

"Seen in this light, Tuttifrutti and Rothbart are basically debating how many of the settlers are fools rather than scoundrels."

Although as usual, Derek Blades has entirely missed the point of what I was saying, probably due to his short attention span syndrome, I find myself almost agreeing with him, which is very uncomfortable!

I disagree that the settlers are either fools or scoundrels, but I agree that most of them do not belong where they are trying to live.

Personally, I have little patience for the Biblical Israel that most of the settlers aspire to, but I do not think, as Blades seems to imply, that money is the main motivation for them living there. Some of them live terribly hard and joyless lives trying to fulfill their religious calling. Money has nothing to do with it, despite the innuendo.

Truthtriumphs talks about 500,000 settlers. Of those, 200,000 live in Jerusalem and I do not consider Jerusalem as part of this discussion.

Under Israel, it has become an open city and for Arabs or Obama or the BBC to say Jews cannot live where they like if they buy the land or building, is racist.

For the rest of the 300,000 settlers, some live in legitmate settlements close to Jerusalem, but others have gone way out into the West Bank areas, and this is provocative, and based purely on religious grounds, which for me, and I can only speak for me, are worthless.

If you support their thinking and their logic, then it raises the whole question of whether Israel is legitimate.

The history shows that within its original borders, and those won in battle, it is legitimate.

But once you start down the slippery slope of religious dogma, it plays entirely into the hands of those who ignore history and facts, and selectively choose one aspect of Israeli society to brand the entire nation.

Israel had to fight to save itself and on occasions has ended up with territory lost in battle.

Without a true partner for peace, they kept the land, as any nation has been entitled to do after a war, even one that negotiated with the vanquished for terms.

Strategic settlement buildings to protect those living in vulnerable areas therefore are, to me, acceptable.

What is not acceptable is moving into non-strategic areas on the basis of religious idealogy, especially as it requires the State to have to protect them.

Thus young conscripted men and women of the IDF have to go out into these areas from time to time, either to rescue settlers from Palestinian agression, or to stop the settlers from their own agression, which has included, and is documented in the Israeli press, as poisoning wells, cutting trees and fire-bombing Palestinian homes and beating up Israeli policemen doing their jobs.

These are the settlers I am against, speaking for myself.

And, it seems, also for the 56% of Israelis who share my view, that the settler movement should be curtailed.

Let us not forget, Truthtriumphs, that 25,000 Israelis voted for Rabbi Kahane of the Chai party, who supported this kind of settlement building.

Kahane was a pretty disgusting man, in my opinion.

Every nation in the world, even England, has its share of bullies and racists and there is no point in pretending that Israel does not also have its fair share of them. Quite a few, and no, I don't know how many, seem to be represented by what I have seen and heard about the settlers who feel it is their divine mission to extend Israel into its biblical origins.

Not all, but enough.

However, the majority of Israelis and settlers know that, and they also know the difference between right and wrong.

Sadly Israel's enemies, its opponents and the media that support them, do not.

Adam B.

Blades, Judea and Samaria can't be "returned" to the Palestinians because it was never Palestinian Arab to begin with. What you are advocating is giving it to the Palestinian Arabs, as a reward for repeated attempts through several wars of aggression to commit genocide againt the Jews of Israel. Do you believe Germany should be given the entire western part of Poland (in this case it would genuinely be a case of "giving it back"?) If not, what is the difference?

Are you still contending that the Jews resident in Arab countries had a lovely life, despite the fact they lived as dhimmis (a feature you have never addressed) and that they have almost entirely been ethnically cleansed? Do you still blame their ethnic cleansing on themselves? Not surprising considering you write that antisemitism is brought about by Jews themselves (rather than its perpetrators).

Tilly

Adam B (and C.Gee) -

Specific figures for news audiences are very hard to come by because they vary considerably depending on what's happening in the world on any given day. (Prince William's wedding will, for eg, attract rather more viewers than a bus bomb in Jerusalem.)

The reach of the BBC compared to other news broadcasters is, I suggest, determined by one important factor if we leave the day-to-day variables aside: news is not as profitable as entertainment. It does not draw anything like the advertising that soap operas, movies, sport, etc, do and is expensively labour-intensive.

For this reason, the huge global corporations which dominate the mass media (significantly dwarfing the BBC) CHOOSE not to devote resources to news.

If what you want is less news provision, so be it. If you'd rather news was selected and presented on the basis of what pulls in most punters (tabloid-style celebritiy gossip, crime, and sport laced with provocative comment), by all means dismantle non-profit organisations like the BBC which - to some extent at least - "shame" or "spur" rival journalists into acknowledging that boring things like politics and foreign wars need to be recorded and those in positions of power held accountable by spotlighting their actions.

If, however, you'd like to see as much (maybe more?) news disseminated by a greater variety of providers, best to turn your guns on those which currently fail to meet this need in the interests of maintaining profit margins, rather than on those with a remit to do their bit.

....

PS, Adam - At the risk of leading you into the sort of wrangle you had over "sovereignty" and "independence" elsewhere, I'd be interested to know what distinctions you draw between "impartiality" and "dispassion" - to which you might add "neutrality" and "objectivity". (If no meaningful differences, it might save a lot of time in any future discussion.)

Tilly

C.Gee -

Here are just a few BBC programmes which I doubt would be countenanced by any profit-led broadcaster:

Radio 4's 'Today Programme' (talk, talk, talk for three solid hours).

'Today in Parliament' (rolling, snooze-making, endless debate)

'Songs of Praise' (oh, and how about 'Devotional Sounds - for Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs'?)

'GCSE Bitesize Revision' (latest offering, lord help us, 'Science - Physics')

Reason? Very difficult indeed to fit advertisements into these formats - and even if you could, the advertisers would want hefty discounts for "inadequate" audiences.

You'd also find that regional news was pretty badly hit, along with news coverage in general (see my earlier post to you and Adam B).

So forget Reith and the ancient history model of reasoning which dominates Middle East debate; the unique thing a public service broadcaster can provide is mass media outreach to those not constituting a "mass".

Adam B.

Tilly, I had no "wrangle" concerning "sovereignty". It is Richard who is struggling to understand what the term means. You cannot have sovereignty without self-governance.

We are talking news coverage here. So the rest of your post is simply irrelevant. The BBC has the widest reach of any news organization in the world. Your agenda in defending the BBC here is because its views concur with your own. You both hate Israel.

Tilly

Adam B -

1. My post at 12.O9pm can hardly have been "irrelevant" since it was ENTIRELY about the BBC's news reach.

2. Your remark about my views "concurring" with the BBC's is just plain idiotic. A wide range of opinion is expressed by the thousands of people who work for the BBC or are regularly given an airing by it, some of which I disagree with profoundly. (Melanie Phillips is a prime example!) I just don't threaten to annihilate the whole corporation every time something is said which angers me.

3. You can keep telling me I "hate Israel" as often as you like - and I STILL won't hate Israel.

C.Gee

Tilly,

Every one of those programs of yours has - or could have - competition from other broadcasters. None needs to emanate from the BBC. American TV and Radio have dozens of choices in each category. You like religion? They got religion. CSPAN covers congress. Education? Edification? All a button-press away. Where you are bored for three solid hours by talk on the BBC, you can be bored 24/7 by American broadcasters.

In America there are thousands of programs catering to tiny audiences, national and local. Every “demographic” is catered to. Advertising is not the only means of funding, and there are usually advertisers for any place and time. The cost of time/size of audience /target audience arithmetic is more flexible than your view of big business and mass audiences allows. Small, local businesses advertise on local TV. There are channels exclusively for local programming: watch the local poets’ society read their poems about cats.

It is time you caught up with the times. What you think you value does not need “BBC” branding. (Is it the “British” that has a grip on your heart?). Its talent can move elsewhere.

Actually, TV and Radio broadcasting will soon be old hat. Why not buy recordings of “Songs of Praise” for your I-phone?

Martineke

BBC = Biggest Bias Company?

Adam B.

But Tilly, you do.

You were talking about other media outlets which do not have news components. Consequently, your comparison between the BBC and these is faulty. Name one broadcaster whose news reach is wider than the BBC's. There isn't one on this planet Tilly.

Furthermore, the BBC does have an agenda. It manipulates its audience constantly through omission, use of biased language, and selection. It just so happens that these biases concur with yours when it comes to Israel.

Tilly, if you love the BBC so much, fine. You pay for it. I detest this disgusting hateful organization. Why should someone be forced to be a customer of something they don't want?

Tilly

C.Gee -

I stand corrected (half-way, at least). There are, indeed, thousands of programmes catering for the tastes of tiny audiences when single-theme broadcasters come into the equation.

However: what I was talking about were the sort of channels which have multi-dimensional menus and the option to include minority interest slots but don't; for these are the ones which have both the format and financial resources to rival the BBC's news provision but don't.

And the reason they don't, I still maintain, is because news
isn't as profitable as entertainment.

To complain that the BBC has an unfair edge in news provision because of its public service remit is therefore spurious. Remove the BBC, and you won't get more news but the same old menu from the rest. Sure, they will each pick up on slices of the BBC's lost news audience, but it will still be unprofitable - and, more important perhaps, purely a matter of default.

They could, after all, eclipse the BBC to your full satisfaction right now if the news services they offered were considered by the public to be vastly more "relevant" or "trustworthy" - but the BBC nonetheless remains a front-runner.

In other words, the BBC must be "getting something right" in its approach to news ... however much some sectors of the public (such as yourself) might beg to differ.

As you point out, there are alternatives available to BBC detractors; and these are just as accessible to everyone else.

Three other things you might like to take on board before expending further energy on clamouring for the Beeb's destruction:

1. The British licence fee's equivalent in many other countries is incorporated into the tax system. (In France, for eg, if you want access to TV, it's an element of the household rates.) The only real difference between the licence and a conventional tax is that it comes with a bonus - advertisement-free TV channels and radio stations. You don't have to access them, but they are there in the "package" if you do like their offerings.

2. The alternative is to pay fees solely to commercial providers such as BSkyB, Cable, etc. In my experience, these are not just costly but subject to arbitrary change. (I've had to pay for all sorts of extraneous rubbish in a commercial "package", only to find the two or three items I chose it for could be deleted - with no accompanying discount to me - because of some corporate failing or squabble.)

3. You can't have it both ways, C.Gee - either the BBC is a uniquely dangerous monolith or it is a dead-on-its-feet dinosaur. Why all the fuss if the latter ..?

Tilly

Adam B -

I made specific reference to "huge global corporations" in my April 19th 12.09 post. If you seriously think these "do not have news components" it's time you made a study of them. Then you might more intelligently ask yourself why they invest such a small proportion of the billions they command in that "component", allowing a relatively small player in the field (the BBC) so much leeway.

Here's a start in your education:

Ten corporations currently dominate the world's media, four of which not only own newspapers, TV channels and other news providers, but control the "gateways" to them. These are Viacom, Disney, AOL-Time Warner, and News Corp.

If you are a Brit, you will almost certainly be aware of News Corp, because it's Rupert Murdoch's empire which owns sizeable chunks of the UK media. It also owns Fox, one of the "big four" news outlets in the United States, whose services you can easily access through your satellite dish, very probably supplied to you by BSkyB, in which News Corp is a major stakeholder.

You can do your own homework in discovering which of the ten corporations either own outright or hold controlling shares in the other news programmes you watch or newspapers you read. Have fun also tracking down the part they play in enabling you access to the internet - oh, and while you're about it, you might be like to navigate through the maze of NON-media activities in which they engage.

Take Disney, for a kick-off. Not just jolly movies and cartoons; not just ownership of ABC - another of the "big four" news channels in America; but also the manufacturer and distributor of toys and clothes...some of them allegedly produced in Third World sweatshops. Might this have some bearing on "news priorities" in the Disney journalistic sphere? Betcha life it does!

As I said earlier, it's hard to assess news "reach" because it fluctuates. But you might consider the following figures in deciding where the BBC stands in the global pecking-order:

News Corp's revenue is over 30 billion dollars; Disney's 36 billion; BBC - 7.52 billion.

Now if the Beeb has, as you claim, the widest news reach of them all (and please don't ignore the other corporate media giants), you might like to consider what I said at the outset of this argument - it's because the Beeb's competitors CHOOSE to downgrade news in favour of more profitable spheres, and not because they are UNABLE to compete.

Adam B.

Tilly, this is entirely irrelevant to the discussion. The BBC is profoundly biased, and has its own agenda. It is also a PUBLIC body - unlike the others you mention, and consequently is meant to be accountable ina different way (in reality it is not accountable and does what it wants).

Its reach, through channels like the World Service, and its massive online activities, are second to none.

As I said, you like this hateful garbage? Fine. You pay for it. Don't volunteer other people to support an organization which is antithetical to what they hold dear.

Herzen

Those here criticising the BBC appear to trust corporations more than the governments that serve them. Public service broadcasters like the BBC are subject to slightly more public scrutiny than corporations. And they represent corporate interests at one remove. So they tend to reflect the spectrum of accepted opinion within ruling circles and not just the interests of any one particular lobby (so, for example, they allow climate change to be discussed other than in terms of "there is no conclusive evidence of any causal link between smoking and cancer").

They also appear comfortable with the idea that the market forces that may provide for every taste in entertainment can also be relied on to provide information and a forum for debate, despite the fact that corporations have spent the last century perfecting the arts of propaganda and persuasion and have a direct interest in the outcome of elections and in the domestic and foreign policies of governments around the world.

They also have faith in "free markets" even when they are manifestly free only in the sense that there is nothing that stops them serving the interests of highly concentrated oligopolies. There is nothing in the logic of free markets that says they must necessarily serve the narrow interests of the few, nor that they can be applied, in a way that is neutral as to political, social or moral values, and with benefits in efficiency, to every social transaction or interaction.

They have not shown a public service broadcaster to be a bad idea, nor have they shown the BBC in particular to be biased against Israel (quite the contrary).

Stephen Rothbart

Herzen everything you wrote would be true if engagement of staff and editorial selection were on a level playing field.

We now have evidence from someone who has worked in the newsroom of the BBC, Peter Sissons, who has described the old boys and girls club culture that exists.

The fact that unless you hold certain, shall we say Guardianista views, you cannot advance your career is totally unacceptable, especially in publicly funded organisation.

This is not just about Israel, which is a symptom of the malaise at the BBC, but the whole rotten culture of the place.

Adam B.

Herzen - the key difference is that one is not forced to be a customer of a corporation.

Don't you believe people should have the right to choose?

sleeping dolls

I have written to the BBC myself, asking that complaints from foreign based pressure groups that have a history of distorting evidence in an effort to influence news coverage, be thrown straight in the bin. It is simply a waste of British license fee payer's hard earned money to do anything else.

Herzen

Stephen Rothbart
April 20th, 2011 5:55pm
Every institution ends up run by an old boys network of some sort (and it is STILL mostly boys). The BBC is no exception. Peter Sissons is, to be blunt, a boring old fart, who has managed to get a publishing deal to retell the tale to a whole new audience (probably a very very small audience, outside the readership of the Mail) of how boring an old fart he was on TV. There are no great insights or revelations to be expected from what was until retirement a loyalist, a company man, a man in grey suit.

Adam B.

sleeping dolls

Can you give one example of "evidence being distorted"?

That's usually the BBC's domain.

Adam B.

sleeping dolls

If the BBc doesn't want international comment, it can stop spreading its bile on the web. Oh, and it could stop broadcasting its rubbish on BBC America.

You can't have it both ways.

Steve

Herzen,

"...So they tend to reflect the spectrum of accepted opinion within ruling circles..."

And who exctly decides what is an "acceptable" opinion? Is it the mostly private school educated wealthy middle-classed employees of this tax payer funded monopoly? NO. They are obliged to reflect ALL reasonable views. The problem is, of course, who decides what is a 'reasonable' view. Most people would accept that the views of paedophile and terrorist groups (except Hamas, of course as it has been sterilized by the BBC etc.) are not acceptable but what about those that question AGW or the British builder concerned that his wages are being driven down by cheap Polish labour? The first is nearly always treated as a crank, the second automatically assumed to be racist.
Unfortuntely at the BBC they have made their own left-wing judgement about what is acceptable, whence the 5 Live presenter Richard Bacon, who is promoted and extolled as a balanced interviewer can, without rebuke, live on air, demand of a Daily Telegraph journalist "Do you really stand by those editorials that appear in your newspaper" (No specific Telegraph editorial you understand, all Telegraph editorials). If you can show me a single incident of a Guardian or Independent journalist being treated in this way you might have a point.

Mr Melrose

Lovely Augustus, 13 April 9:45pm

I see you refer to the Palestinians as an 'Arab Sub-Species'

Sums this site up really.

Perhaps you were trying to be ironic in a blog about supposed bias?

Celato

Sleeping Dolls:

Good for you. I shall follow suit in contacting the BBC. I will also write to Jeremy Hunt, drawing his attention to the pro-Israel bias being demanded of the BBC by its detractors and urging him to consider their petition in this light.

Tilly

Adam B -

I am aware that a proportion of my BBC licence goes towards paying fees to people whose views I find objectionable. (Melanie Phillips is a case in point.) But much as I'd like a fraction of a penny to be deducted for each abhorrent appearance, I remind myself that rather wider principles are at stake than my personal likes and dislikes - not least of which is free speech.

I can always switch to another channel if I feel deeply offended. And so should you. Meanwhile just be grateful that the 4p per day you spend on the licence gives you unlimited access to ALL terrestrial TV, which in many other countries you'd have to pay for in tax.

Herzen

Adam B.
April 20th, 2011 6:06pm
Where on the spectrum do you think information lies: with the latest fashion accessories at one end, or with policing and defence at the other? I am saying that information has some of the attributes of a public good. I am saying that the supply of information is an example where a mixed economy has a better chance of providing this public good than either government monopoly or corporate oligopoly. A public service broadcaster, independent of government and subject to stringent accountability: corporations at liberty to supply whatever maximises profits, including propaganda that furthers profit maximisation: and a fringe that can publish at will as long as the donations keep coming in.

As I think I said, the BBC is too comfortable perpetuating the consensus among the British establishment. This does not excuse relentless campaigns against it by such as CAMERA intended to browbeat its journalists and managers, to make it prohibitively expensive to air views or versions of events that CAMERA doesn't like. This is not democratic accountability. This is bullying a broadcaster into line.

Stephen Rothbart

Herzen, you and I may be polls apart on our views, but your last email was not up to your usual high standards of debate.

You dismiss the assertion of Peter Sissons about the political bias in the taxpayer funded BBC as the rantings of a boring old fart with a book to sell.

I have no way of knowing if Mr. Sissons is or is not a boring old fart, but he made a statement which you just dismissed because, well, the author of it has an ulterior motive.

That motive is presumably to make money.

The staff at the BBC though, none of whom are boring old farts apparently, and not at all interested in furthering their careers and thus making money, are thus blameless and pure in spirit, and therefore their word must be taken over Mr. Sissons.

That is not an argument. That is a personality judgement befitting someone with a closed mind and a political bias.

Perhaps you too work for the Guardian,Independent or BBC, I don't know, but you have to do better than to blame the character of the messenger to refute their point.

I am personally fine if the BBC controllers want to present a profile by someone with a view on Israel that paints her as a racist nation of baby killers, human organ collectors, and Nazis (probably a Baroness Ashton of the EU interview would do it, as long as there is a balance where someone can show Hamas, PLA, Hezbollah, Syrian an Iranian opponents to be a bit nasty too.

Sadly this never happens.

If anything is reported that shows some Israelis to be victims, it is always qualified by some activity that must have provoked the action, so that it is never the fault of the Arabs, because they are the perpetual victim.

This default position of the Palestinian Arab being the victim of a Jewish/Zionist conspiracy that allowe Jews to steal all their land is almost certainly what drives this mindset, so it is logical that this colours the reporting and editorials.

On every discussion panel now you see the same two or three Arab journalists giving their opinions on anything and everything. How often do you get someone from Israel?

Maybe a Haaretz guy every once in a blue moon, but that is my point. Even the Jews are from the Left, like Simon Schama who loves Obama so much, it's almost embarrassingly homoerotic.

A public broadcasting system should represent all colours of the political spectrum, not just one. If it can't be bothered to try, it should seek funding from its own resources, and if that includes advertising to replace people who feel cheated in paying for something that they feel offers no value, then that is what should happen.

Covering your ears, Herzen, and going "lalalalala" is not a proper response to a very serious issue.

Wilhemina Bothwell

Thank you Melanie - you provide the rest of us with an informed, sane, unequivocal voice. The dangers created by the BBC (and the Guardian)are little short of terrifying. I see a whirl wind coming.

COHEN HENRI

Thank you

Celato

Stephen Rothbart:

On the matter of Peter Sissons: Please see Adam B's post to me on April 14th, 11.34pm, and my reply to him on April 15th, 10.02am.

sleeping dolls

Adam B:

A very good example of distortion is revealed on this very site, and concerning the very point of Melanie's post, in case you hadn't noticed:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6883243/through-a-different-camera-the-source-of-melanie-phillips-discontent.thtml

Truly staggering distortion of a kind that the BBC, for all its many faults, would never stoop to.

Herzen

Stephen Rothbart
April 21st, 2011 3:25pm
I can call on decades of time wasted on British newspapers and broadcast news. (It would be too painful to address the obvious question, Why?) My comments on Mr. Sisson were not thoughtless abuse, but a considered judgement based on decades of evidence from his work with Channel 4 and with the BBC. "Boring" - he never once deviated into sense but invariably stuck to the bland and pappy script. "Old fart" - he spent a career playing the game and once safely in retirement suddenly discovered some opinions of his own, some pretext for pomposity about the state of the world (a sudden access of self-knowledge there, but I'll leave it in anyway - you could say it takes one...). If this grousing on his part is anything other than a delayed example of water-cooler disgruntlement over office politics, he should have done something about it when he could possibly have done more than attempt to boost (marginally) his somewhat disappointing sales.

As for this bias against Israel:

There are now, I believe, microscopes so powerful that they allow us to see atoms. There are accelerators allow physicists to detect the constituent particles of the constituent parts of atoms. If you applied one of these microscopes to the BBC, or scanned the computer readings from billions of collisions between BBC reporting and the facts, you would fail to detect one single example of bias against Israel in its reporting. Even opinion pieces by such as Jeremy Bowen, tucked away in one of the hidden dimensions of the BBC's output, fail to register anything other than the much-vaunted "balance" that frames every story in the terms the victors prefer.

It is fine to snort derisively at the television screen or remonstrate with editors you think have failed in their duties. It is another thing to encourage a campaign of intimidation such as CAMERA et al. (and even contributors to The Spectator) engage in to manage the output of the BBC.

This allegation of "bias" at the BBC is a tool of hasbara.

I grew up with BBC reporting on the Middle East. I grew up believing the Israeli narrative. So did many others, to my certain knowledge. It is only if you look elsewhere that you find the bits of history that have fallen into the official memory-hole.

The UK, like the US, is a staunch ally of Israel. Its official media reflect the "national interest".

Stephen Rothbart

Celato, yes, thanks for the reminder and be sure I have never thought the BBC to be a "national disgrace and global menace" either.

However, I do find its news services and current afffairs programs very one dimensional on certain issues, these being Israel v Arabs, Climate change and US politics.

This follows a certain "party" line that is clearly "to the Left."

On Israel, perhaps you do not notice it so much because your views on Israel and the Palestinian question are pretty much the same as theirs.

But to people like me, aware that anti-Zionism is being used as a justification for some pretty foul, racist behaviour right across Europe, there is a worry that this obsession with Israel by the world's media and the way it is always presented, especially on the BBC, is a clear and present danger to us.

In a sense we are paying for an organisation that is persecuting us, and that is the feeling of Jews I have met around the world, not just UK ones.

For example, vile anti-Semitic cartoons depicting hook nosed Jews are all over the press in the Middle East, some owned by western investors, and reminiscent of the Nazis propaganda, over the now discredited Goldstone report.

In the meantime this important retraction by the Judge who lent his name to a malicious stitch up job by the UN has hardly been given a mention.

The Guardian still quotes from it whenever it can, and they are the BBC's principal source of recruitment.

So Peter Sissons is merely confirming what many of us believe.

We know that when the crowds in Tahir Square against Mubarak attacked his supporters, they were chanting "Jew!" at them, and many of the "brave" anti-Gaddafi rebels accused him of being a Jew!

Do you not think this was worth reporting? I mean, it shows that the Arab "street" is pretty much anti-Semitic all over the Middle East. It does paint a picture that complicates the onus put on Israel to make peace with such people, and I think if people understood this, they might have a better understanding of why Israelis shy away from peace initiatives.

Do you know what happened to the Israeli Embassy in Cairo since Mubarak fell? Or to its diplomatic staff? That the brave new Egyptian 'democrats" are burning the Israeli flag outside it and calling for the border with Gaza to be re-opened?

I do, and the outlook for war in the Middle East between Arab states and Israel has never looked more ominous. So why the silence about this from the BBC?

Their reporters must know it is going on.

And while several European Union states, including Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, joined the United States and others in opposing the Goldstone report from the beginning, we have yet to hear an apology from the governments of France and Britain which – disgracefully – joined the likes of the regimes in Libya, Iran, Syria and Burma in voting for the Goldstone report at the U.N. General Assembly and still have not called for a retraction in the UN.

None of this has this featured on the BBC just endless reports on Arab uprisings, even in Yemen continue to clog the news channels with the rebels all being cast in the role of democratic liberals looking for a better life.

Photoshopped and airbrushed!

Something is certainly rotten in the State of Denmark!

sleeping dolls

Adam B:

I wonder if you can give me an example of a news organization whose output you consider "fair and balanced"? One that isn't subject to Israeli "military censorship", preferably.

Adam B.

Tilly, fine. You are happy with that situation. You pay for it. But demanding everyone else has to have your view on the matter, and should cough up in an outmoded tax on watching TV, is absurd - and arrogant.

Adam B.

sleeping dolls - so you can't actually point to an inaccuracy in Camera's report?

And as to your last question - there isn't one. It's high time the BBC stopped the masquerade that there is such a thing as impartial news, and that they represent it.

It's also high time that people are given the choice about whether to fund such hateful garbage.

Isn't it interesting how criticismof the BBC sends the Israel bashers into a complete tizzy?

C.Gee

A person - call him Tilly, or Herzen, or whatever - has just come home from a shopping trip to Tesco, after a day’s work at Siemens, where he found time: to issue instructions to his stockbroker to invest in Exxon; to read his newspaper for updates on world news, for a favorite columnist’s opinion on national debt, and for quick shufti at the ads for used cars; to visit various sites on the internet while listening to “Songs of Praise” on his i-phone. He enjoys a G and T (zowee, that new brand he saw offered on TV at a discount carries a kick.) Ah. Time to relax. Kick off the Nike trainers. He rummages for the remote control between the sofa cushions and switches on the telly, to the British Broadcasting Channel.

From that moment on, he becomes a privileged member of the BBC public. As into a temple, he enters a space untainted by commercial interest. Now and for as long as he watches BBC, he is no longer a consumer, employee, stock-holder, buyer, seller, or owner. No, he is free from profit-making corporations, free from their influence, free from their grasping tentacles, free from the market-place. For as long as he is watching the BBC he consumes a product that is created free from the pressures of corporate sponsors, and is unsullied by interruption by corporate messages. He is cleansed. Watching the BBC does for humanity what eating a locally grown organic carrot does for the planet.

While he watches the BBC news, although it is much the same in political slant as CNN or MSNBC, both big corporation, 24/7 news outlets, and although it is almost identical to all network news presentations the world over - whizzing graphics, blaring music, attractive crumpet with cleavage, reporters standing in foreign parts with hair blowing, interviews with pundits and pols, vox pop, etc. - and covers the same stories as all the other network and cable news programs, while he watches, as I was saying, the BBC news and current affairs programs, although they are pretty much the same universally - portentous music, snappy intercuts, close-ups on ethnic faces, lugubrious voice-overs, mostly produced for the benefit of enhancing the fame of the presenter - yes, while he watches the BBC news, current affairs and entertainment - say Dr. Who with its endless re-enactments of parables of galactic multicultural tolerance and equality, just like all sci-fi programs - he is in a state of grace, a bubble of worthiness. He knows that the BBC, without fear or favor of Siemens, or Exxon, Nike, or Sony (the manufacturer of his telly), is taking care of the interests of those who want to watch the programs he finds boring, and other minorities, who are as privileged as he is to be untainted by corporate greed, for those few precious minutes while a-watching of the BBC. Actually, seconds. That is usually enough to reassure him that his License Fee is being used properly used to offer humanity respite from commerce. Then he can turn to Al Jazeera - mostly commercial free and the go-to place for news by Hillary Clinton - for the latest science news from Islamic clerics. And then, a quick gander at PBS’s pledge-break and the latest in corporate matching funds, and then to the Mac for an update on elctronicintafada for the truth about Palestine, and a supper of Khubbeizeh salad.

sleeping dolls

Have any of you noticed the following in the daily Mail?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1379008/A-deep-rooted-hatred-British-How-Israelis-armed-junta-Falklands-conflict.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

(Items also in the Telegraph, Haaretz, YNet news etc etc)

This is a disgrace. A so called friend of Britain conspiring to help kill our boys.

Yet the BBC has not even mentioned it once. What outrageous bias! I do hope you all mention this in your complaints.

Or is this an example of other news outlets "inciting hatred against Israel by presenting its actions entirely falsely as malevolently aggressive".

I look forward to an official apology from the Government of Israel.

sleeping dolls

Adam B: "so you can't actually point to an inaccuracy in Camera's report?"

I referred you to a link on this site which did that in spades. Perhaps you didn't want to read it.

At least you're prepared to admit that it's not just the BBC who fail to live up to your ridiculous expectations. Why don't you now go one step further and admit you don't want a free press, you want a propoganda service.

Rick

The naivety of C. Gee's faith in the noe-con that is neo-liberalism is touching.

And the smug self-complacency of his satire is, as ever, more entertaining than the satire itself.

Unfortunately, touching faith and smugness have obscured what it is he is meant to be responding to - the suggestion that a mixed economy might provide a better outcome than either state control or the neo-con (although that is in some respects a false dichotomy, since the neo-con is all about state control in the interests of corporate profit). To be clear, a mixed economy includes a private sector (Tesco, Siemens, Exxon, Nike...). I would hate to think the mighty Gee had simply missed the point.

(As ever, when he gets carried away, there are odd moments, very odd moments - "close-ups on ethnic faces" - ?)

aelle

The BBC might just for once reasonably escape censure for failing to cover a story suggesting that the erstwhile militant Zionist leader of the Irgun nurtured ' a deep-seated hatred of the British '.

It is after all supposed to report ' news '.

Celato

Stephen Rothbart:

I recall reading a piece of research which discovered that more serial killers were "turned on" by the Book of Revelations than any other source. What the author stressed, however, was that removing Revelations from the Bible and banning its circulation would not prevent serial killers from hyping themselves up for murder - they would simply feel compelled to find alternative sources of "inspiration".

Same goes, I think, where racism is concerned. Journalistic coverage of the Middle East doesn't TURN people into anti-Semites; bigoted people would continue to bitterly hate Jews even if a global ban were placed on reporting Israel's military activities in the conflict, or if every BBC story painted the country in glowing colours.

That's not to say news coverage doesn't influence public OPINION - and by this I
mean the essentially rational perceptions people have of world affairs. (Racism and all the other "isms" and phobias I count as irrational.) If we can at least agree on these terms of reference, there is some mileage in submitting the BBC's performance to the microscope; for rational perceptions can be modified by the supply of alternative information and, in particular, by evidence that certain hitherto-supplied information is erroneous or in some other way misleading.

My quarrel with most of the BBC-bashers here is that they are not actually interested in what information is "true" or "open to question" or "false" - only with the supposed influence it has on people's feelings about Israel. So no matter how accurately an event may be reported, no matter how valid its inclusion in the chain of information, the condemnation is deafening if that event's coverage doesn't enhance Israel's public image.

To my mind this is nothing less than a propaganda exercise. Whether consciously or not, it closely follows the "Hasbara" formula - to appeal to people on an emotional level rather than engage them in reasoned argument. By playing on emotions you're a gnat's whisker away from playing on prejudices ... and down THAT slope lies the sort of ugly manipulation you complain of when spotlighting vicious cartoons and so forth in the Palestinian camp.

The BBC I'd suggest is in no way comparable to such dangerous machinations. Its "impartiality" remit may be imperfect but it does place journalists under notice that if they employ propaganda techniques such as the one I've described there will be serious repercussions, not only for them but the institution in general. The fact that racist members of the audience may nonetheless "fuel" their prejudices by watching BBC news is no more preventable than the fuelling of murderous thoughts via the Book of Revelations.

Finally: Do take another (?) look at that CAMERA video; see what Melanie makes of it; then read the piece by Panorama editor Tom Giles in the Spectator's Coffee Break menu (April 20th - "Through a different camera ..."). Whose version really is the most reliable at the end of the day? Who is appealing to emotion, and who to the rational mind?

Ian Kemp

Excellent letter by Melanie Phillips .The BBC is a law unto itself and is on a par with Al Jezeera for it's total bigotry towards Israel. The UK public should NEVER be compelled to pay under law for such a despicable organization

gareth

Well said

Adam B.

sleeping dolls - why don't you point to an inaccuracy? You referred me to something which apparently "proves" it. It does not. Why not be specific yourself?

As for "ridiculous expectations", I expect not to have to pay for a bradcaster I do not want - a broadcaster which is one of the worst offenders for consistent bias and agenda pushing. You see, it is me who believes in a free press, with the power of the public to choose. You want a state monopoly which tells us what to think - and which we have to fund, whether we wish to or not.

Adam B.

sleeping dolls - last time I looked, Britain and Argentina weren't at war. I'll tell you who is killing our boys - the jihadists in Afghanistan. Where do their arms come from? Take a guess (clue: it isn't Israel).

By the way, ate you aware of Britain's arms exports to countries which are indeed technically at war with Israel - none of which are democratic or free?

I think it is the UK government who should be apologising.

Tilly

Sleeping dolls -

Good grief, I see what you mean about that Daily Mail story! - Israel's supply of arms to the Argentinians during the Falklands' crisis "because Begin hated the British".

And as for the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz leaping on it too ... Melanie's sure going to have her hands full dealing with those treacherous Israel-haters when she returns from her break.

sleeping dolls

Adam B: I pointed you to "A very good example of distortion". Perhaps you didn't read my post properly, or have forgotten.

Who exactly is Israel "technically at war with" - apart from the Palestinians?

From your tone, I'd guess we agree on one thing: there is no special bond of friendship between Israel and Britain. Just self interest. We should therefore treat Israel no differently than - for example - Palestine. Which is what we do, and I supect, what bothers you.

Since you failed to give one example of a news organization you believed to be "fair and balanced" I really don't understand your point. How can someone like you make a choice if everyone is wrong? Presumably you would soon be cancelling your subscription to Sky in protest of bias on their channels. The point is you're going to have to pay someone if you want to watch TV. And if you watch TV you're going to see and hear things you don't agree with. Why don't you get used to it?

As for the BBC being a state monopoly - last time I looked there was plenty of competition. But, as you say, you don't agree with the competition either. Must be very difficult for you belonging to a minority interest group.

Adam B.

sleeping dolls and Tilly

Firstly, your allegations about the weapons. This is from a book, and, as far as I can see, has been unsubstantiated. I see mistakes in the article itself, alleging that France supplied the Exocets during the war. They did not - they were supplied long before hostilities broke out. Likewise, Israel had supplied Kfir aircraft before the war, and it is unclear whether any weapons were indeed supplied during the war. All this, of course, is rank hypocrisy. During the ethnic cleaning of Jews from Jersualem in 1948, the Arab Legion responsible of the Jordanian Army was officered by the British. The Arab Legion also dynamited the synagogues of Jerusalem - soem adting back two thousand years. Israel is technically at war with Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states - all of whom are routinely supplied with state of the art weapons by the UK (indeed, Saudi is our biggest customer).

And sleeping dolls, can you give a specific example of your allegation against camera?

Adam B.

sleeping dolls, this isn't complicated. I don't want to pay for something I don't want. (I believe the BBC is amongst the worst offenders for bias). Why don't you understand this?

C.Gee

Re: Tom Giles’ defense of his Panorama show Jane Corbin’s “A Walk in the Park”.

His defense is that CAMERA’s video edits out portions of the show in order to show that it is biased against Israel, that once those portions of the show are put back in, there is no bias. The Panorama show, if viewed as whole, he is saying, is fair, accurate and impartial.

I have looked at the portions that Tom Giles points to as redeeming the bias.
He quotes CAMERA quoting the show, and then quotes from the show the items - often following immediately on from the CAMERA quote - that purport to balance the CAMERA quote. Upon examination of these balance quotes provided by Giles, they are either non-sequiturs (do not follow on from the point highlighted by CAMERA - the non-sequitur is an aspect of documentary technique); or are pro-Palestinian, or anti-Israel, in themselves, or evidence anti-Israel assumptions. An example:

CAMERA: quotes Corbin: ““they are accused of undermining the Palestinians both by digging under their houses and emphasising that it is Jews who have lived here for thousands of years…”
Giles says the program “goes on to hear from Elad, the settler group which runs the archaeological site, who explain why it is so holy to Jews: “… you walk through this place with the Bible and literally see people from the Bible jumping out at you”.

So there we are: a Palestinian accusation against the Jews is quoted by CAMERA to give a flavor of the bias, and Giles says no bias, because the accusation is defended by “settlers” who are religiously motivated and deluded. Result of reinstating the Giles balance? More bias against Israel. Settlers running an archeological site? How scientific can that be?

Every one of Giles’ balance defenses follows the same pattern. Without seeming to know what he is doing, he is bringing in more inculpatory evidence against the show - which the prosecution should gladly accept. (His obliviousness to what he is doing is evidence in itself that he has bought the anti-Israel story.) It is CAMERA’s accusation that the whole Panorama show was biased that must be answered, not Panorama’s accusation that the CAMERA video showed the incomplete show in order to make its case against Panorama.

Eddy Salmon

It is a well-known fact that the BBC is biased against Israel, so this is no revelation

sleeping dolls

Adam B: What a strange answer. Are you saying that you don't believe it happened? Or are you arguing that because of Israel's deep seated (and in your view justified) hatred of the British it's OK to help kill our soldiers?

Perhaps you feel Israel is "technically at war" with Britain too?

As for the BBC, if you don't want to pay the license fee, don't, and face the consequences. As you say, it's not complicated. Just be a man and stop whingeing about it, for God's sake.

Nitza Sarner

The BBC consistently misrepesent Isrel in report on the Middle East affairs. It deliberately ignor or refuse to give Israeli representative 'voice' on important issues. Often one hears only the Palestinian side which is not always objective.
The report that the BBC comissioned has been burried - is because it justified Israel's suspicion that it is a deliberate policy? Let us see the report and act on it to comply with BBC own's guidlines.

C.Gee

In medias res (continued)...

After a bad night’s sleep - his NHS sleeping pills have run out - our TV License payer awakens to news on the radio/alarm that British boys are being sent to defend the Libyan rebels. He recalls an on-line video of rebels beheading a man - one rebel doing the hacking, a whole crowd egging hem on and capturing the information on their cell-phones. He hopes the BBC and all networks will not show the video out of respect for their publics’ sensitivity. He hears his cell-phone buzz. Text message: Seen this? ““BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, is to use aggressive marketing techniques to try to tempt children between seven and 12 to buy merchandise related to a new BBC1 series called 'Ace Lightning'.” No shocka. Public interest anti-corporate corporations can have profit-making arms; General Electric can have a loss-making public interest arm in the anti-corporate (anti Fox) MSNBC; government can use taxes for corporate welfare and corporations can use government subsidies to make profit and pay taxes - or avoid them. He tweets to his followers, Celato, sleeping dolls and Rick: “Mixed economy working 4U, U working 4 mixed economy. Public and Private bff. Symbiosis.”

sleeping dolls

CGee:
No, in fact it is your support of Melanie's claim of non bias in a biased claim of non bias for a biased Camera report about an unbiased report on Panorama (whose subsequent unbiased accusation regarding Camera's bias that you consider to be biased) that needs to be examined for bias. I think that's clear isn't it?

Adam B.

sleeping dolls, nice try, but you have completely ducked the issues I raised.

Firstly, I am still waiting for you to give a specific example about Camera's report. You made much fanfare about dismissing it, but when called to give an example, you can't.

Secondly, if you wish to make the UK and Israel enemies, fine. Ignore the intelligence co-operation between the countries. Ignore the UK's real enemies, the ones killing British troops today in Afghanistan. I don't know if this story is true. Neither do you - your only source is a book (or rather an article about a book), which has not been substantiated elsewhere. I pointed out inaccuracies in the article about the book. You have ignored these. This is all a transparent ruse on your part to drive a wedge between the Uk and Israel. One wonders what motivates this phony self-righteous bluster.

Thirdly, I pointed out the rank hypocrisy of your position. British companies, with the approval of the British government, routinely supply arms to despotic nations which are at war with Israel. If you want to be historic (as you are being with the Falklands), let's look at British officers commanding an army engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Jerusalem.

As for the BBC, it is revealing that every Israel hater on these blogs has leapt to its defence. You say "stop whining". This is the best you can do? Put up and shut up - just take what you're given? Maybe you like to go through life that way, being told by others what's best for you. I don't - I like to make my own decisions - and I will continue to protest the BBC's bias and its hateful agenda.

Stephen Rothbartr

Here we go again. Every country, especially the UK sells arms to whoever they can. The UK has spent years developing Arab markets.

This just proves our point. Israel is the only country in the world that is judged to different standards.

I am sure the BBC will find a way to exploit this.

It is truly a pathetic red herring by the anti-Zionists but not really surprising.

Rick

In his eagerness to promote the neo-con (and to hug himself coz he is SO darn' clever) C. Gee has forgotten what started him off - the suggestion that the dissemination of information essential to democracy might be more likely to occur in a mixed economy with corporate suppliers of news, fringe outfits, and a public service broadcaster, independent of government, the corporate sector, or any other particular interest group. (The propensity to insitutional bias and the need for accountability has been acknowledged.)

We have had enough product placement for an airport novel. What about some thought.

Tilly

Adam B and Stephen Rothbart -

You both miss the point about the arms to Argentina story.

What's significant (to me, don't know about sleeping dolls) is that not a squeak has come from you about the DAILY MAIL'S splashing of it.

Had this story appeared in such a sensationalist form in either the Guardian or BBC, you'd be frothing at the mouth and citing as an example of "Jew hatred".

Indeed, Stephen, all you can offer to gnaw at is the possibility - oh, and what a relief this would be - that the BBC might "exploit" it.

Maybe you're unsure how to react without Melanie's leadership? Well, never mind, chaps, she'll doubtless have plenty to say about her erstwhile ideologically-sound chums in a few days' time.

Tilly

Adam B -

I'm puzzled. You never fail to remind us what "hateful garbage" the BBC is, yet seem to spend an inordinate amount of time watching it.

In a post you sent to Jack Thompson (April 14th, 1.48pm) you stated: "I have not seen one TV report on the DRC", which can only mean you've been pretty well glued to the Beeb for several years. (Either that, or you were telling Jack a bit of a porkie, naughty boy!)

Anyway, good job your licence fee is all paid up, eh?

sleeping dolls

Adam B:

"Israel is technically at war with Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states - all of whom are routinely supplied with state of the art weapons by the UK (indeed, Saudi is our biggest customer)."

Is this an example of the high journalistic standards of research, veracity and balance that you require from the BBC?

I'm particularly interested in the UK's "routine arms sales" to Syria and Lebanon. When was the last such routine sale?

And as for Israel being at war with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, when exactly did that occur?

No wonder you don't like watching the news.

I'd just stick to the Camera website from now on. It's obviously serving you with the distorted reality you enjoy.

And Stephen Rothbart: "Israel is the only country in the world that is judged to different standards."

I think, if halfway through the last lebanon war for example, the british had sold material to the lebanese that helped them to kill Israelis there would have been some judgement. Israel is not being treated differently. It is being exposed for disgraceful behaviour, akin to what Gaddaffi was doing for the IRA. perhaps you would justify that in the same way: "Well everyone's at it, Guv, so why not?"

sleeping dolls

Tilly: you make an excellent point far better than I could. And not just the Daily Mail, but The Jerusalem Post?

I do hope letters of complaint will be flying out to these worthy organs soon.

Celato

C.Gee:

Your soap opera about BBC-watching folks is highly entertaining and I hope it runs and runs. But maybe it could do with pepping up by introducing a few more characters...

Might I suggest a comic pair living in a street nearby whose names are Truthtriumphs and Adam B? (They also have several buddies you could enlist; and even YOU could take a cameo role!)

Here's how I see it: Just like the Lefty family, the Righties come home from their day jobs in search of relaxation in front of the telly. All stressed out by signs of anti-Semitism in the street, workplace, pub, and traffic jam ("That bloke who hooted was obviously a Hamas supporter disguised as an OAP," snarls Truthie), they decide to let off steam by watching their favourite programme - the BBC's 6-o-clock news.

Luckily, they have a TV licence framed on the wall (so they can spit at it ritualistically before switching on) and joy of joys, the lead item is about Israel. It's a "complete garbage non-story" (so says Adam delightedly) concerning Israel's gentle remonstration of Gaza by dropping a few precisely-targeted bombs.

Stopwatch in hand, Truthie measures exactly who says what, while Adam counts the number of ludicrously sensationalised pictures broadcast and tries to keep track of the storyline. But oh, it's so hard to concentrate when steam is rushing out of your nose and ears so relievingly!

By the time the report turns to a balancing item ("Pah! Yuk! Moral equivalence!" snorts Truthie) about Palestinian rocket damage inflicted on a muddy field which provoked the bombing, they are both exhausted and adjourn to the kitchen to make coffee.

"Feeling better, dear?" asks Adam solicitously.

"Just let me write a quick 10,000-year history of the Middle East for the Melanie Phillips blog and I'll be right as rain," he/she/it replies. "Why don't you fire off a few pertinent insults and waspish questions in the meantime?"

Five hours later: Laptops still standing by in case of sneaky newsflashes requiring instant response, they decide to check out the rest of the night's TV offerings.

Naturally they have a satellite dish, so there are trillions of channels to choose from. But after a long, long trawl decide it's all a "load of garbage" (Yes, that's Adam again!) and the best of a bad job is a repeat of a Jane Austen drama on BBC2.

"Don't forget to spit at the licence fee," reminds Truthie as they settle down once more.

....

Can't wait for the next thrilling installment from you, C.Gee. But got to sign off for now while I go indoctrinate the dog with some Stalinism...

sleeping dolls

Tilly and Celato: you both make an excellent point.

Is there not something of the "secret porn addict" psychology at work with these people? They know it's filth, but they can't tear themselves away from it. Oh the shame, and the guilt ... no wonder they write in such an onanistic style.

Adam B.

Tilly and sleeping dolls

Nice try again - but you haven't responded to the points put to you. Namely,

1. Can you point to one specific instance of "distortion" in the Camera report, to back your allegation?

2. I pointed out to you that the article to which you refer (you have not read the book, and consequently do not know what sources, if any, have been used, nor their trustworthiness) contains inaccuracies, which you have ignored. As for the rank hypocrisy of your faux "outrage", you have not addressed the role of British officers in the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Judea and Samaria and Jersualem, nor the British armed Jordanian army in the 1948 and 1967 and 1973 wars. As for the countries Israel is at war with, you have been caught out. Realizing your mistake, you now pretend that it doesn't matter that the UK sells arms to these countries. You will find, sleeping dolls, that Saudi indeed sent troops to attack Israel in the Yom Kippur War, and has consistently funded the terror groups which attack and murder Israeli civilians (as do several of our good customers in the dictatorships in Gulf states). Granted, the arms sales to Syria and Lebanon are dwarfed by our sales to the Gulf and Saudi, but nonetheless we supply ammunition (perhaps being used to gun down protestors in Syria as we have this little exchange) and body armour. So, sleeping dolls, as usual, you are factually incorrect. It may help you to do some research before making such bold statements.

Tilly, as for your silly comments about the BBC, I do watch it. I watch it in order to monitor its propaganda and hatred. I also watch several other news outlets, read newspapers, and read a lot online. In other words, I rely on several sources to get the best picture possible. It is a pity you have been indoctrinated by a reflexive Israel bashing agenda as exemplified by the BBC.

Adam B.

C. Gee, Celato turns to infantile mockery to cover the lack of any substance, with his cheerleaders Tilly (the self-declared "as a Jew" Israel basher) and sleeping dolls, who has over the months shown that he is viscerally hostile to the Jewish state.

For what it's worth, I don't think anyone can compete with your erudition and perception.

That's why they try mockery.

patrice wolff

Dear Sir
I am a regular follower of the BBC shows, which I greatly appreciate. Therefore I am really saddened to hear or read biased analysis carried by some of the reporters of the BBC. I trust this letter will favour a re-examination of the BBC platform.

sleeping dolls

Adam B: two primary Sources are in the article in the JP.

Perhaps you missed them, or refuse to believe the hate filled bilge of the Jersualem Post.

I'm still perplexed by the long list of countries you think Israel is at war with. To my knoweledge, unless I have missed an item on a news channel only known to yourself, Israel is not at war with saudi or any of the Gulf States, indeed there are ongoing strategic discussions concerning mutual interests regarding Iran. As far as Syria goes, which is "technically at war" with Israel, UK arms sales (although wrong in my opinion) are neither routine or a threat to Israel. I think even you will note a qualitative difference between small arms ammunition and (from the JP):

"radar alert systems, air-to-air missiles, fuel tanks for fighter jets and even French-built Mirage fighter jets ..."

The article goes on:

"The Jewish state was not only willing to supply the government of [Argentinean president] Leopoldo Galtieri in everything it needed but was also proactive in advising and conveying their experiences in combat.”

You presumably would be happy to provide the same defence you use for this despicable Israeli act for the equally despicable arming of the IRA by Gaddaffi, Yes?

Keith Gammon

Well done Melanie. Let's hope that the BBC and government take notice. I totally agree about the response to rocket attacks. I feel saddened that licence fee payers receive such shoddy treatment - Release the report!

Herzen

Adam B.
April 23rd, 2011 3:45pm
"C. Gee, Celato turns to infantile mockery to cover the lack of any substance..."

One thing we all must understand is that Adam B. does not do irony. Like so much else, it passes him by.

celato

C.Gee:

Please accept my abject apologies. As Adam B points out, I engaged in "mockery" when riposting to your "In medias res" posts. This was, I now accept, an entirely inappropriate response. Thanks to Adam's acute critical powers, I am forced to acknowledge that your posts were masterpieces of "erudition and perception", containing no element of mockery whatsoever.

Again, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Rick

In addition to his perception and erudition, C. Gee has had on display his superfine skill in moral accountancy.

The BBC is to show the grotesque crimes of jihadis to teach us who are the goodies and who the baddies.

The BBC is to maintain a discreet lack of interest in the dismemberment of men, women and children by youths playing computer games in the Mid-West (it is allowed to mention in passing perhaps one in twenty incidents involving their comrades in the air and on the ground - killing children gathering firewood or shooting up civilians or visiting death and destruction on wedding parties).

To pay too much attention to the thousands of civilians we kill would be to commit the sin of "moral equivalency" i.e. the moral error of assuming that the standards we apply to others we should apply to ourselves as well.

Jihadis are evil. Our chaps kill children in a Good Cause and in any case were not really aiming at them anyway.

Jihadis have no right to be fighting, the barbarians. We have every right to intervene in other peoples's civil wars, in Afghanistan as in Libya, or simply to invade other people's countries, in Iraq as in Vietnam, or to pay or train other people to kill pesky peasants, in Central America, or Indonesia, or...

So jihadi atrocities are to be reported as pure evil, barbarism without reason. Our violence is to be reported as a proportionate response (always a response) in defence of Freedom.

And the BBC must report every atrocity by Palestinian terrorists and none by Israel (they're not technically atrocities anyway - when Israel uses fleschettes, DIME bombs, cluster bombs, uranium-tipped munitions, white phosphorus etc. etc. in built-up areas where hundreds of thousands of civilians live, it is aiming at combatants, and the death of civilians always comes as a surprise, unforeseen in the plans of the high command.)

To report Israel's actions other than as the most moral application of indiscriminate force in defence of Freedom would be bias of the worst sort (it would certainly be fairly unique in the annals of British broadcasting).

And if we do not understand this moral accountancy we are aiding and abetting pure evil.

We are probably Stalinists.

Certainly anti-semites.

...meanwhile, in the real world...

Adam B.

sleeping dolls, the Jerusalem Post reports nothing of the kind. It reports that a book is making such claims. The Jerusalem Post is not. Do you understand the difference? One can almsot feel your eagerness for the story to be true. Why would that be?

At this stage, neither you nor I know whether the claims in this book are true. In case you hand't noticed, books on the Middle East have made all sorts of bogus and silly claims in the past. The book claims that Begin did not forgive the British for the hanging of Jewish fighters, and the British occupation. For my part, although I regard British actions during this period as nothing short of disgusting, if the story is true, there can be no justification whatsoever for selling arms to a fascistic military junta - especially when such a junta is at war with a liberal democracy. It is a pity that the UK government does this all the time, selling weapons to enemies of Israel. The countries I list may "perplex" you, but there really isn't much I can do to help your confusion. I gave examples of the hostility these countries, who are technically at war with Israel (and which promote antisemitism through funding of antisemitic organizations, including here in the UK - even in schools).

As I said, your "outrage" is amazingly selective. It is clearly motivated by the hatred you have displayed towards Israel on numerous occasions. In short, your self-righteous indignation has nothing to do with this story, (whether true or not), and everything to do with your pre-existing stance on the Jewish state.

Yet again, can you provide an example of "distortion" from Camera? Or do you retract that allegation?

Adam B.

Celato, another infantile post, devoid of substance.

Herzen, irony? Have you redefined the term?

sleeping dolls

Adam B:
You say "if the story is true, there can be no justification whatsoever for selling arms to a fascistic military junta - especially when such a junta is at war with a liberal democracy."

Then you criticize my indignation!

By the way, I'm no hater of Israel, which in many ways is a country one cannot fail to admire. I just find apologists for its medieval mindset and predisposition to self destructive extremism irksome.

I have no doubt that, should they set their minds to it, Israeli expertise could land a man on Mars. Yet with all this intelligence and energy at their disposal they still will not make peace with their neighbours. And don't go whining about the palestinians wanting to annihilate Israel. Israel is the Superpower here. It has a responsibility to the world to promote stability, rather than, as in the case of supplying arms to Galtieri, and in my opinion some of its recent actions against palestine, pursuing revenge or punishment regardless of cost.

Herzen

Adam B.
April 23rd, 2011 11:16pm

The "British occupation"?

sencar

There has been an academic analysis of BBC News coverage of a key period in the Israel/Palestine saga (the second intifada starting September 2000). It showed a consistant bias towards Israel both in news content and in the impressions of the conflict gained by viewers. See: "Bad News from Israel" by Philo and Berry

Tilly

Adam B -

The BBC will doubtless take note of your helpful comment (April 23rd, 11.16pm) regarding the Jerusalem Post's coverage of the Argentine arms affair.

As I understand your position: So long as a BBC programme makes it clear that it is reporting the claims of a Hamas spokesman (for example) rather than making those claims itself, that's perfectly acceptable journalism and should not trigger a barrage of complaints.

I, personally, am also grateful for the leeway you seem to grant for engaging in "moral equivalence". You write: "...there can be no justification whatsoever for [Israel] selling arms to a fascistic junta ... It is a pity the UK does this all the time."

Please confirm that it is now quite okay for me to write: "... there is no justification whatsoever for Palestinian militants to fire missiles at civilian centres ... It is a pity that Israel's IDF does this too."

Once clear on these points, I'm sure we will be able to correspond much more amicably in the future.

Maybe

Leonard Fineberg

Dear Secretery of State,
I support this letter from Melanie Phillips. As a person who came through WW2 from childhood and later to serve in HM Forces, my parents and I trusted the BBC to give accurate and honest reports, then on the radio and now by television. Unfortunately this trust in the BBC has now become totally unreliable when reporting on Israel. Its anti- Israel bias is most disturbing that I have to turn to other news media programmes to hear/see news items as to events as they occur.
I should be pleased to hear from your goodself as to what action you are taking with the BBC to correct this situation.

sencar

The same Jane Corbin, working for the same BBC Panorama, made a programme about the Gaza flotilla, relying mainly on Israeli evidence. Many people thought it was biased towards the Israeli view. The Zionist Federation "commended" the programme and encouraged supporters to write to Panorama editors "to thank them for their fair coverage". Funny isn't it?

Stephen Rothbart

Tilly thanks for proving our point. You say that you can equate the fact that Hamas fires on civilian targets with the remark that this is true also of the IDF.

The fact that very little coverage of Goldstone's retraction of his infamous report for the UN was given by the media, and to my knowledge not at all by the TV versions of BBC's news broadcasts has led people like you to come up with that sort of statement.

So since the BBC has not informed you, allow me to do so.

Palestinians fired an anti-tank missile at a bright yellow school bus and fired 6000 rockets at civilian targets. Also they blew up buses and shops and wedding parties and sawed off the head of a baby.

The IDF did not.

Hope you got that, Tilly.

If you can not make the distinction between those actions, then you are long past the point of reasoned debate.

Gabi Lawrence

Melanie is a very brave woman. It is indeed shocking how the BBC twists the truth and I very rarely watch anything from the BBC knowing one canot trust what they say and wright. I wonder how much the Arabs pay the BBC!!!

Rick

Stephen Rothbart
April 25th, 2011 2:21pm
I think you should read the Goldstone Report. I think you should read what Goldstone actually said in his "retraction" and clarifications thereof. I think you should read what the other members of the team that wrote that Goldstone Report had to say about Goldstone's retraction (it was even reproduced here for you). I think you should stop pretending that the tactics of the IDF (as of the US Army and its underlings like the British Army in their attacks on lesser races) are anything else than indiscriminate in their effect (and if we are to believe senior Israeli generals and politicians, that is the intention).

Tilly

Stephen Rothbart -

It is you who are not engaging in "reasoned debate" here. I worded my post very carefully, knowing full well how any reference to civilian deaths arising from IDF action instantly elicits the response, "We don't target civilians, only Palestinians do".

I therefore avoided the emotive words "target" and "civilians". My exact words were: "there is no justification whatsoever for Palestinian militants to FIRE MISSILES AT CIVILIAN CENTRES - it is a pity that Israel's IDF does this too." (Capitals added for emphasis.)

Yet you trot out the same old formula - randomly listing Palestinian civilian targets and winding up with now-obligatory reference to a sawed-off baby's head.

Denial of equivalent motivation is one thing, Stephen, but the denial of historical fact is ... well, we both know what that entails.

The IDF most certainly have fired missiles at civilian centres. (What else would you call Gaza City? How else do you account for the accompanying deaths of Palestinian children?) If even this is an "unmentionable", it explains rather a lot about hasbara-led analysis of the BBC and an attitude to news reporting which smells very suspicious indeed.

michaela y.

forced to pay for a licence so should not we be told the truth about Israel bbc

Adam B.

sleeping dolls, I attack your faux "outrage" because that is waht it is - completely false and hypocritical. No outrage from you about Britain's past role regarding Israel, and its current arming of antisemitic regimes which are at war with Israel. And your past posts (and even this last offering) lay all the blame for the conflict at Israel's door. You studiously ignore the genocidal and antisemitic impulse of her enemies - which is what drivces this conflict. Israel has been willing to make peace since it was reborn - and made great concessions to this end. I response, she has faced Arab rejectionism every time.

In addition, you STILL haven't been able to provide a sinle instance of inaccuracy in Camera's report - you haven't given one specific instance.

sleeping dolls, you aren't debating in good faith. Something else drives your agenda - and you know it.

Adam B.

Furthermore sleeping dolls, calling Israel "medieval" - is just silly. If Israel, the most progressive and modern country in the Middle East, is "medieval", what the heck are its Arab neighbours?

Adam B.

No Tilly, such moral equivalency is not acceptable. One statement is true, one statemnent is not.

There is such a thing as truth you know.

Stephen Rothbar

Tilly even Palestinians have admitted that Hamas use mosques, schools and "
civic" locations from which to fire their rockets in the hope of convincing gullible people that Israel deliberately targets civilians. And happily for Hamas the political bias of the BBC and the lazy curiousity of those who like their prejudices confirmed.

I am sure that Hamas operatives thought there was a tank cb behind the bus. That would be the only way your observation could make any sense, which of course, it does not.

JT

The real message behind this letter:

Israel must NOT be criticised at ANY cost.

Stephen Rothbart

Rick, because it is not in the interests of the BBC and many of the newspapers (who are not publicly funded and therefore can publish what they like, as far as I am concerned) not to do a disservice to their anti-Israeli bias, I myself will answer your points about the Goldstone report's other judges that should have been presented as news, but were not.

There were four members of the panel: A Pakistani woman (Pakistan is of course a great friend of Israel), formerly Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Human Rights Defenders (foormer Chair - Libya); an Irishman, who was formerly a Colonel in the Irish Defense Forces; a British woman,who is a professor at the London School of Economics (funded by Libya at the time); and a South African man, the
former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former
Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Judge Goldstone, who is now a confirmed fool, even by his own admission.

The Pakistani member of the Mission, Hina Jilani, signed a letter (along with two other
Mission members) BEFORE even being appointed, stating that “The events in Gaza have
shocked us to the core.” After the report was completed, she made statements indicating that victims must not only be listened to, but that it would be “very cruel to not
give credence to their voices.”

She did not mention that the “voices” of the Gaza
witnesses were monitored and controlled by Hamas, since their testimony was televised,
and that much of it was demonstrably false and contradicted by hard evidence.

The Irish member of the Mission, Col. Desmond Travers, refused to believe evidence that
undercut Hamas’ position even when it was on videotape and utterly uncontradicted.

This is what he said about weapons being stored in Gaza mosques: “We also found no
evidence that mosques were used to store munitions. Those charges reflect Western
perceptions in some quarters that Islam is a violent religion….If I were a Hamas
operative the last place I’d store munitions would be in a mosque. It’s not secure, is very
visible, and would probably be pre-targeted by Israeli surveillance. There are many better places to store munitions.”

Not only was there physical evidence that conclusively proved that mosques are a favorite place to store rockets and other weapons,but Hamas leaders often boast of it.

The British member, Christine Chinkin, said in a letter that bore her signature written BEFORE she was even appointed to the Mission: “The rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas deplorable as they are, do not, in terms of scale and effect amount to an armed attack entitling Israel to rely on self-defence…. The killing of almost 800 Palestinians, mostly civilians (now proven wrong and admitted by Hamas as wrong), and more than 3,000 injuries, accompanied by the destruction of schools, mosques, houses, UN
compounds and government buildings, which Israel has a responsibility to protect under
the Fourth Geneva Convention, is not commensurate to the deaths caused by Hamas
rocket fire….Israel’s actions amount to aggression, not self-defence, not least because its
assault on Gaza was unnecessary…. As things stand, its invasion and bombardment of
Gaza amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s 1.5m inhabitants contrary to
international humanitarian and human rights law…. The manner and scale of its [Israel’s] operations in Gaza amount to an act of aggression and is contrary to international law, notwithstanding the rocket attacks by Hamas.”

So Rick, this is your Goldstone report. A fool and three judges who should have recused themselves for having already pre-judged the situation in writing before being asked to join the panel.

A panel of anti-Zionists, who had already made up their minds before they even sat down to hear the evidence, and then dismissed any evidence that did not suit their mindset.

Their fig-leaf was Goldstone, who as a Jewish judge, was the kind of cover they needed to "legitimize" their kangeroo court proceedings.

Goldstone has since retracted the report made in his own name, and now under pressure has retracted his retractions a bit, but all he has done is expose his own stupidity and once he is gone, the sheer malicious nature of the whole enterprise is exposed.

This story alone should have been a newsworthy item. The UN gets public funding. It should not be corrupt and politically biased and motivated. The BBC gets public funding, it should be balanced in its reporting.

When Hamas says that the IDF bombed a school, any fool can report that as news.

A proper journalist would ask questions. Did it happen? Why did it happen? Is it corroborated? By who?

But like you, sleeping dolls, Blades and Tilly, who prefer your prejudices to be unchallenged, the BBC just chooses "amateur night" reporting.

And while we can stop watching and paying for news media that we don't like, with the BBC we have to go on paying for their
hacks to go on ...well, hacking and their editors to go on misleading and distorting, just like the Goldstone judges.

Herzen

Sleeping dolls

"In addition, you STILL haven't been able to provide a single instance of inaccuracy in Camera's report - you haven't given one specific instance."

Can I advise you against spending any more effort on this. Adam B. is often reduced to this little gambit. He thinks it keeps him in countenance. He never accepts that he has been told. Even when he is given the reference or has the answer quoted. Even when his own comments reveal that he himself understands that he has been told - he will still come back and say, You still haven'e answered my question. Trust me, it isn't worth it.

Adam B.

No JT, the real message behind this letter is that this is not criticism, but demonisation. Israel is being systematically demonised and vilified as a whole. If you looked at the BBC's output over several years, you would know this to be true. This is not about "criticism".

And since when was it the role of the BBC to editorialize and air its views? Isn't it simply meant to report the news?

Rick

Stephen Rothbart
April 26th, 2011 10:31am
Judge Goldstone did not retract the report (and, as his colleagues pointed out, is in no position to retract it).

The information the report contains cannot be wished away.

It is difficult to read international law as saying anything other than what Prof. Chinkin has said. I invite you to show your casuistical prowess, in the faint hope that it will prove greater than your ability to provide the balanced reporting you require of others.

Stephen Rothbart

Rick, just two comments: one is"the law is an ass" and while I don't know anything about law created by the imbeciles that elected Libya as Chairman of the Human Rights Commission, in the kind of law that was started by civilised countries, like yours and those of the United States, as opposed to Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Russia and China, for example, a judge that shows that they have written a firm opinion about a case that has not even got to trial, would normally recuse themselves or leave the losers of a case with a very strong case for either a mistrial or at the very least, an appeal.

Sadly in the make believe world of the UN, where the Queen of Hearts rules and her pronouncements are taken seriously by people like you, logic, truth and sheer common sense are thrown away in favourof whatever justice you think came out of a panel that consisted of known pro-Hamas supporters, and a man who can't even make up his mind if he was a fool to go along with the charade in the first place, or a fool for not realising that when he tried to retract, he would only manage to make himself untrustworthy to both the pro and anti-Israeli crowd.

If that is the best you can do satisfy yourself that the Goldstone report is worth the paper it was written on, then go ahead! Enjoy!

The rest of us, in the real world, will draw our own conclusions.

Paulo

BBC is the enemy.
Hamas, Hezbollah or any other terrorist organization is not so dangerous as BBC is to the west.
BBC is the enemy within. Period.

Micha

Great article

C.Gee

Rick (Richard?):

You appear to believe that what should be addressed is “the suggestion that the dissemination of information essential to democracy might be more likely to occur in a mixed economy with corporate suppliers of news, fringe outfits, and a public service broadcaster, independent of government, the corporate sector, or any other particular interest group.”

I have no idea what this means. Neither do you, I suspect.

What is information “essential to democracy”? Dictators think along those lines. Most autocrats and dictators know what information is essential for the public in their “democracies”. They know what the people need to know. They control the content and the means of production and dissemination of the information. This would be the logical end-point of treating information as a “public good”. Happily, modern technology is making state information monopolies more difficult.

As for the dissemination of that “essential information” - whatever it is - being “more likely to occur” because government privileges a single broadcaster, this is absurd. The nonsense sounds plausible because it chimes with the new mysticism.

The new mysticism - the dogma of the zietgeist - is the new faith in a just and merciful government and adjunct institutions, may peace be upon them, and hallowed be their name, for theirs is the kingdom, the power and the glory, to provide daily bread for the people, to save them from temptation and each other. It inherits something of gnostic dualism: good and evil bestride a cosmic see-saw.

The mysticism’s core belief is that the middle-way between one thing and its destroyer (not merely its opposite) is the sweet spot wherein mankind is morally perfected. Somewhere between free markets and state monopolies is the correct “mixed” economy. Somewhere between the fire and the firefighter is impartiality; between fiction and fact is the truth; between lies and truth is accuracy; between compassion and skepticism is fairness; between tolerance and intolerance is compromise; between rationality and irrationality is wisdom. So, somewhere between uncontrolled diversity of sources information communicating information in many different forms, via many different means of dissemination to be consumed by individuals as they choose, and a single-source of information, communicating controlled information through controlled means of dissemination to a collective - the “public” - compelled to consume it, the new faith requires....yes, that’s right ...wait for it...the BBC! Ta-dah.

The Beeb. A totem of the zeitgeist. The medium for the spirits of moral equivalency and antinomianism. The temple for the priesthood of the middle-way - the Choice Architects - to point out the middle-way to salvation. Does the public have to watch the programs (fair, accurate and impartial - even the quizzes, dramas, nature programs etc.) to be protected by its magic? Not by actually switching them on. All BBC programs are presumed to be watched all the time by all, through the collective third - middle - eye.

sleeping dolls

Rothbart:
I see your point.

It's obviously fairer, and more just, to allow the accused themselves to conduct an interminable, private investigation.

sleeping dolls

CGee:
I haven't read such incomprehensible drivel since I was forced to study sociology in 6th form. Did you make it up yourself?

Rick

Stephen Rothbart
April 26th, 2011 5:09pm
The law I refer to is the law Israel purports to have signed up to in joining the UN.

"Hamas supporter"?

Judge Goldstone is a staunch Zionist. He would otherwise be less susceptible to the vilification and ostracism.

A Pakistani expressed concern at what happened in Gaza, so should "recuse" herself?

A former soldier in the Irish army was a former soldier in the Irish army, so ...should recuse himself?

A British professor rashly summarized international law as it applies to Israel's assault on Gaza. She probably should have recused herself - the question was still open at the time (well, not really) whether international law is to apply to Israel or not (the answer is, Not).

...You claim to inhabit the "real world" - presumably where people do not bother to read the Goldstone report and do not bother to read what he said in his article, before deciding it is all Hamas propaganda and he has disowned it all.

Rick

C.Gee
April 26th, 2011 6:54pm
On the one (and only) part of what I wrote you showed any sign of comprehending, and the one (and only) part of your response remotely comprehensible: yes, Rick is a short form of Richard.

Herzen

Mr. Rothbart,
You are under a misapprehension about the nature of the Goldstone Report. You need not be - a clarification has been cited even on this very thread:

"The mandate of the mission did not require it to conduct a judicial or even a quasi-judicial investigation. The mission and the report are part of a truth-seeking process that could lead to effective judicial processes. Like all reports of similar missions of the UN, it provided the basis for parties to conduct investigations for gathering of evidence, as required by international law, and, if so warranted, prosecution of individuals who ordered, planned or carried out international crimes.

"In the case of the Gaza conflict, we believe that both parties held responsible in this respect, have yet to establish a convincing basis for any claims that contradict the findings of the mission's report.

"The report recommended that proper investigations and judicial processes should ideally be carried out first of all at the domestic level, with monitoring by the UN. If these proved inadequate, it laid down a roadmap for the continuation of such processes at the international level."

Adam B.

Herzen - may I suggest to you that your "little gambit" consists of making relentless allegations against Israel, and when called to account for them, you fail to do so. I can well understand your empathy for others who engage in the same tactics as you.

sleeping dolls made an allegation against Camera. He has refused to give a specific instance of this allegation. He then went on to claim that the Jerusalem Post reported something, which in fact it didn't. Finally, he has failed to engage with the points put to him, regarding Britain's role in arming Israel's enemies and various antisemitic despotic regimes. He made the claim that such countries weren't at war with Israel. Them realizing his mistake, claimed that it didn't matter that they were at war with Israel - and we should just go on bashing Israel anyway.

Yes Herzen, I can see your point.

Adam B.

Anyone who considers the Goldstone report as a credible document, in light of Goldstone's own retraction, and the self-declared prejudices against Israel of some of his co-authors before the "investigation" even began, plus the omission of the testimony of the victims of Palestinian rocket attacks on Sderot and Ashkelon - is simply a fantasist clinging desperately to a libellous document, because they just hate Israel anyway. This has nothing to do with truth, and everything to do with unstinting bigotry.

Herzen

Oh, look.

"Adam B.
April 26th, 2011 11:07pm
sleeping dolls made an allegation against Camera. He has refused to give a specific instance of this allegation."

The "You still haven't answered my question" gambit, usually wheeled out after the question has been answered more than once.

sleeping dolls

Adam B:

"the Jerusalem Post reports ... that a book is making such claims. The Jerusalem Post is not. Do you understand the difference?"

So when the BBC reports, for example, Hamas is making a claim, the BBC is not. Do you understand the difference?

Where was the balance in the JP article? Where was the Israeli Government spokesman putting the other point of view? Where were all the examples of journalistic good practice you demand of the BBC?

And for the last time, hopefully, Israel is NOT at war with Saudi or the Gulf States. Why do you keep saying it is?

And if you cannot find evidence of Camera distortion in the link I gave, well done you!

On a positive note, I have learned a new word this week: hasbara. It explains a lot.

Celato

C. Gee:

Your talents are utterly wasted on this blog. I seem to be alone in understanding the divinely-inspired post you addressed to Rick (April 26th, 6.54pm).

What could be clearer? You have returned from the mountain to find your people cavorting - just as they did in Biblical days - around the Golden Seesaw (wickedly mistranslated as "Calf" by profit-hating socialist scholars, natch) and wish to restore them to the unbalanced condition so eloquently ordained via the Burning George W. Bush.

Oh, the horror of it! All sitting around holding "talks", babbling away in morally equivalent tongues, when they should be speaking freely with one warlike voice!

Do they not know that freedom is only won in a framework of unshakable moral laws? Right is right, left is wrong; love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage; money makes the world go round; this land is my land, your land is my land, and so forth...

The BBC is quite obviously Baal turned upside down in your epic, C.Gee, for they both bear the Number of the Beast. Yes, it's that letter "b" which is the giveaway - a "6" in handwriting to anyone who can but see it, and sure enough BBC, Baal, Beast makes "666".

(Just thought I'd add that bit, since you forgot to.)

Please don't be put off by the sneers of sleeping dolls and Rick. I for one am seesawing (whoops, sorry, rocketing) strongly in your favour.

Adam B.

sleeping dolls, yet again, let me explain this to you. Whilst there is not an land war currently being fought between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Saudi has, in the past, sento troops, armed with British wepaons, against Israel. It also funds terror groups who target and muyrder Israeli civilians. It does so now. This is an act of war. Saudi also promotes jihad and antisemitism in schools funded by it, including here in the UK. Yet the UK keeps supplying weapons to it and other countries which are hostile, and who, indeed, are technically at war with Israel. This is contrary to your claim that they aren't. I also note that you can't bring yourself to address the the role of British officers in the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria by British officered Jordanian forces in 1948. You just keep banging on about Israel instead. That is rank hypocrisy, sleeping dolls.

Furthermore, your attempt at an analogy with the BBC doesn't really work. The JP reported that a book has made various claims (claims which, in your eagerness to believe, remain unsubstantaited - a clear case of declaring Israel "guilty" before you even know any details). That is not the same as colouring a report with manipulative language, omission and downright lies.

See the difference? And incidentally, I recently became acquainted with the word "hasbara" as well. I didn't know it beforehand. If by hasbara you mean countering baseless allegations, reflexive hostility and agenda driven "outrage" such as that displayed by you, then I am most definitelt guilty of it. And proudly so.

Adam B,

Herzen - or when the question hasn't been answered at all. Still waiting for one on the other blog.

Much easier to simply accuse Israel, isn't it?

Herzen

Adam B,
April 27th, 2011 2:20pm

"And you still haven't answered my question. Still waiting."

Oh, joy. You are a treasure.

C.Gee

Celato:

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I seem to inspire you to agitate your keyboard into answering me in kind.

Agitate away! One day you will pound out something recognizable by your trainers as an idea.

To encourage you, I leave you with this thought: “Baby in my drink” - Washoe, 1974.

Washoe died, sadly, before she was able to take up an appointment as Secretary of Culture.

Rick

C.Gee
April 27th, 2011 5:46pm
You won't have considered conceit may cloud your judgement: not imitation, but parody.

Stephen Rothbart

Rick, what is it about you guys that are anti-Israel?

You pick up on a person's reponse by addressing only the points that help make your case, and thus totally miss the whole point of the argument.

I know you have a closed mind to this issue, and would prefer to believe what you believe, but you have focused only on the nationalities of the panel, and not on their actions, both before, during and after the whole Goldstone report was discredited.

In addition, you say the law you refer to is the law Israel purports to have signed up to in joining the UN. Yes, but do you know that Israel, which practices human rights better than any other country in the Middle East was barred from the HR Commission, outvoted by the Muslim states now in it? There are many countries that signed up to international law, including Iran and Syria. How many HR Commissions have castigated those states as often as they do Israel?

Judge Goldstone is neither a staunch Zionist or an anti-Zionist. He is just a Jewish judge who thought he could earn some brownie points working on this enquiry which was given his name. As it turns out, he admits it was a mistake and that the whole thing was a set up.

Yes, a Pakistani expressed concern at what happened in Gaza, so should "recuse" herself. She did not express concern at what Hamas did, just Israel, and Pakistan is a virulent opponent of Israel, which even barred Israel's rescue teams from helping vitims of earthquakes from entering Pakistan, but it was her self-expressed views not her nationality that I was referring to.

"A former soldier in the Irish army was a former soldier in the Irish army, so ...should recuse himself?" Yes, because of his pre-stated views, and also because during the evidential process, he refused to listen to the facts, preferring to judge based on his own views, and not the evidence before him, not because he is Irish. No Judge in a true Court would get away with that.

"A British professor rashly summarized international law as it applies to Israel's assault on Gaza." They all did, except Goldtone. That was my point. "She probably should have recused herself."

Good, we agree on something, but if it applies to her, it applies to the other two as well.

Do you think people outside a small band of intellectuals and politicians actually read the Goldstone Report?

Do you think the Arabs in the Middle East pored over the words expressed in the report?

All they saw was that the UN, BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera reported that the Goldstone Report found that Israel deliberately targeted civilians in an unprovoked aggressive attack on Palestinians in Gaza.

That was what the UN wanted, that was what Hamas wanted and that was what people in the BBC wanted, and that is what you wanted.

The retraction and regrets that Goldstone has now expressed are mere footnotes, consigned to back pages and small paragraphs.

The damage was done. More people will die because of it, on both sides there will be innocent casualties.

But the Arab world does not care for their "martyrs" dying.

They care only for all Jewish and Christian presence in the Middle East to be extinguished.

So Rick, as I said, enjoy your Phyrric and hollow victory over the Jewish State.

You all got what you wanted from the Goldstone report, and after all, the UN agreed with you. So it can't be wrong.

Rick

Stephen Rothbart
April 28th, 2011 10:39am

"Do you think people outside a small band of intellectuals and politicians actually read the Goldstone Report?"

I am bemused that you can feel able to dismiss the evidence of the Goldstone Report without actually reading it (and, I suspect, without reading the purported rebuttals from Israel).

This indicates a truly closed mind.

You do know that it will not do to say that Israel signed up to the law but breaks it, but so do others, so do not blame Israel. To sign up to the law is to undertake to obey it. I do not know of any Arab state (however criminal in its behaviour towards its own citizens) that currently occupies territories it has no claim on (you may be able to put me right).

Judge Goldstone is a professed Zionist and has been staunch in his support of Israel - which is what makes the evidence he and his colleagues gathered less easy to dismiss as an anti-Israeli conspiracy (hence the venom and frenzy of the hasbara brigade).

(I picked up on precisely what you said in your attempts to discredit the report by attempting to discredit its members.)

Read the report.

Stephen Rothbart

Rick, I have not got a closed mind. I simply do not start from your default position that Israel is an occupying force, and I am certainly not going to debate you on it, as it has been debated until the cows come home by far better people than I.

As to Arab countries occupying other people's land, well Jordan's Hashemites occupy far more of what you call Palestine than Israel does.

The Kurds and Turkmen perhaps would have different views on Iraq and Turkey than you have, and the self-declared Syrian nation also comprises tribes that Assad's family business tried to eliminate, so I am not sure what you would call that.

Then of course we have the north African coastal belt, formerly home to the Berbers until the Arabs swept up from the Arabian Peninsular and took it for themselves.

Just par for the course for you, if Arabs and Iranians and Turks kill each other.

Just not "cricket" if the Jews do anything, even in self-defense.

As to the Goldstone Report, I have read extracts from it, from both sides of the political agenda, much as you would, perhaps read something like Mein Kampf. Or an agenda fom the BNF.

But frankly, if you are going to read a piece of political hatemongering by the kind of people that (once again, Rick) elected Gadaffi's mob as chairman of the Human Right Commission and based on the kind of panel that was appointed, then you must live a very sad life. Most of it was fiction, and even moderate Palestinians have admitted it to be so.

Much of it was written by Hamas, they were suprised to be asked to account for themselves, and did not.

Israel did. Boo hoo.

One is a civilized, properly constituted state, and the others are religious nutters with a death wish. Pity you chose them to take sides with.

Ziggy

Well done Melanie for supporting the truth.

Jill Hubbard

Melanie Phillips deserves a medal. It seems she is fighting this battle single-handedly. When will the BBC stop their anti-semitic, unbalanced, unfair and prejudiced reporting about Israel and actually start telling the truth about what is going on in the middle -east?

James Morrison

A great letter Melanie.

After watching the Camera video, I did a search on YouTube and found this video:

http://youtu.be/afBr10f38TI

An "interesting" take on the Mavi Marmara report (also by Jane Corbin) on Panorama, alleging BBC bias from "the other side".

Would be interested in (anyone's) thoughts of this...

Chris Whittome

Melanie,
this is an essential letter, thank you!

The attitude of the BBC is unacceptable, why does it see fit to mask the facts?