BBC Distortion on Israel Retaliation on Gaza

[Teddy Bear]

I have just been reading the latest bulletin from the Hamas Propaganda Bureau – sorry, I mean of course the BBC

Thus begins Rev Dr. Peter Mullen, a priest of the Church of England, one of the few 'men of the cloth', that exhibits any real understanding of Mid-East events, and is not afraid to speak his mind.

He recently wrote in this article:
Can we just get rid of the BBC, please?
The BBC displays incompetence, partisanship and self-satisfaction in equal measure. Perhaps there was a time when it deserved our respect and even our affection, but that time is long past. These days it is a decadent institution failing in all the ways in which it is possible to fail. Let us take the opportunity presented by the latest scandals and address the Corporation in the words Oliver Cromwell used when he dismissed the Rump Parliament:
“You have sat here too long for any good you have been doing lately. Depart, I say and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

Israel has every right to take action against the relentless terror meted out to its civilian population
By Peter Mullen World Last updated: November 15th, 2012

I have just been reading the latest bulletin from the Hamas Propaganda Bureau – sorry, I mean of course the BBC – who inform us that Israeli forces have killed “ … eleven Palestinians, mainly militants, but also children.” The general tone of the report makes it sound as if the Israel Defence Force set out wantonly to begin a new massacre of the innocents. Regrettably, children will be killed if they have to share their schools with rockets and stashes of high explosives. The truth is that Israel’s military strikes were belated retaliation for the Hamas bombardment by 800 rockets this year and 120 during the last week.

The entire population of southern Israel lives in constant terror. And if we’re talking about the suffering of children, imagine what it’s like to be a little boy or girl in small southern towns and villages such as Sderot, where they have half a minute’s warning to sprint to the air-raid shelters, and where the schools are closed for weeks at a time. I haven’t been to southern Israel, but I have visited the north, near the border with Lebanon, on days when Hizbollah were firing Katyusha rockets at the civilian population. To have to live under such a threat is to know the meaning of terror.

The recent increase in violence was provoked by the Israelis’ killing of Ahmed Said Khalil Jabari, military leader of Hamas: a man complicit in the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier Shalit and responsible for most of the terrorist acts launched from Gaza over the last 10 years. He himself once boasted that the men under his control were responsible for the deaths of 569 Israeli civilians. Yesterday this dead terrorist was praised by the leaders of Hizbollah and declared a martyr by representatives of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

These recent eruptions of violence are of course only the latest in a long war of attrition which has been going on since the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948. The country is surrounded by its enemies. Four times since 1948 these enemies have made war on Israel.

No doubt the Palestinians have legitimate grievances coupled with territorial aspirations. Israel has generally understood these grievances, and time and again tried to meet its opponents halfway. For instance, I remember the talks between Yasser Arafat and the Israeli prime minister brokered by the US in which the sides came close to a two-state solution to the problem. Arafat smiled agreeably, got on the plane back to the Middle East and immediately declared a second intifada, a violent uprising against Israel.

To be sure, this is a labyrinthine mess, but beyond the ceaseless argy-bargy there is one real and pressing question: wouldn’t any sovereign state take strong action in response to the relentless terror meted out to its civilian population?

[Teddy Bear]

Dan Hodges at The Telegraph is one of the few Labourites that seems prepared to look at reality from a true perspective, rather than a propaganda piece intended to 'sound good' to the ignorant.

'Would Britain react like Israel has to a few rockets?' Yes we would. And we have before
By Dan Hodges

The furious debate surrounding Israel’s ongoing military operation in Gaza was given a surreal twist this morning when Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks ambushed himself on the Today programme. Having concluded his rather mundane Thought for the Day, Sacks was asked the presenter Evan Davis whether he had any views on the violence. Clearly believing he was off air, Sacks began by wearily responding “I think it’s got to do with Iran, actually”, before he was suddenly made aware his words were being broadcast live, and hurriedly fell back on the more pious “a continued prayer for peace”. Cue much frothing and excitement on Twitter.

But then Twitter hardly needs much encouragement where Israel and the Palestinians are concerned. Watching this centuries old conflict played out in 140 characters isn’t the most edifying experience. But a couple of interventions did catch my eye yesterday, primarily because they were advancing a case that is gaining wide currency. I didn’t save any copies, but the gist was essentially: “If the IRA were firing a few rockets or mortars at us, would we start bombing the Falls Road?”

It’s one I’ve heard before, and provides quite a compelling frame for the proposition that Israel’s response is wholly – some would say murderously – disproportionate. Except there’s one small flaw in the argument. If London and mainland Britain were facing the sort of assault Tel Aviv and Israel are currently facing then we would be bombing the Falls Road, and several other parts of Northern, and southern, Ireland as well.

According to the Israeli government, since January, 563 missiles and rockets, and 204 mortars have been fired into Israel. By my rough calculation that’s more than two random attacks every day. Now, imagine if such a bombardment was currently being launched at London. Two or three times each day, as we were all going about our business, an air raid siren would sound. Most of the time nothing would happen; the incoming barrage would fall harmlessly into an empty field in Surrey or Kent; perhaps disturbing some livestock, but doing minimal damage. But every so often one would find its mark. A rocket would detonate in Leicester Square. Regent’s Street. The grounds of St Thomas's Hospital. The playground of your child’s school.

What would our reaction be? Would we just sit back, shrug, and say “Well, there’s nothing we can really do. Remember, international law and all that”?
I’m not sure we would. In fact, I know I wouldn’t. I would be frantically tapping away on here, demanding an urgent, massive – and if necessary – disproportionate response. And I suspect I wouldn’t be alone.

But we don’t need to look into the crystal ball. We can just look back at what our reaction actually was, when we were the subject of our own, much more limited, assault from Irish Republican and Loyalist terrorism.
We didn’t give our military response a cool – if sinister – name like Operation Cast Lead, the last major Israeli incursion into Gaza. Ours was the more prosaic Operation Banner. Operation Banner lasted 38 years, and represented the longest unbroken deployment in the history of the British Army. At its peak 21,000 troops were on active service, including the Army, Navy Air Force, special forces and intelligence services.

Over 700 British military personnel lost their lives during the course of the operation. 150 civilians were also killed.

Britain’s proportionate response to the terrorist threat also involved the introduction of internment, the suspension of trial by jury, exclusion of UK citizens from the British mainland, unprecedented broadcasting restrictions, alleged collusion between the military and civilian authorities and paramilitary death squads, and several well documented miscarriages of justice.

And that was when Britain was confronted with terrorists whose relatively limited aim was a united – or divided – Ireland. Imagine if the daily rocket and mortar attacks we faced were from, say, Abu Qatada and his friends. Fanatics, whose objective wasn’t just a separate state for themselves, but our total annihilation. What if their rocket attacks were backed up by suicide attacks, and the threat of dirty bombs and indiscriminate casualties on an unimaginable scale?

Well again, we have no need of the crystal ball. When our close ally, the United States, was subject to just such an attack on 9/11, our response was swift. We launched a full scale invasion of Afghanistan. Thousands of troops. The RAF Tornado force. A Royal Navy carrier task force.

Britain and her allies lost over 3,000 service personnel, with a further 20,000 wounded. Over 14,000 civilians were killed. That was our proportionate response to the threat realised by 9/11. And that was an attack perpetrated by guys armed with box cutters, boarding passes and a few hours on a flight simulator.

Israel is currently under attack from Qassam rockets, which can propel a 20lb warhead up to 11 miles. Katyusha rockets, which can deliver a 35lb warhead over a distance of 13 miles. And the upgraded Grad rocket, which carries a 100lb warhead, and has a range of almost 30 miles.
I remember being told Britain was potentially in range of weapons like that. Actually, it wasn’t Britain itself, but “British interests”.

On 24 September, 2002, Tony Blair’s government published a dossier “Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government” which asserted Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime had “constructed a new engine test stand for the development of missiles capable of reaching the UK Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus”. Our proportionate response to that rocket threat was the invasion of Iraq, resulting in the deaths of almost 5,000 US and British troops, over 100,000 Iraqi civilians and the destabilisation of the entire region.

Some may debate the wisdom of Israel’s response; others the legality. But please, let’s not get all self-righteous and pretend that if it was British cities currently under rocket bombardment our own response would be a virtuous turn of the other cheek.

“If the IRA were firing a few rockets or mortars at us, would we start bombing the Falls Road?” Yes. We would.

[Teddy Bear]

Robin Shepherd at The Commentator gives his view on BBC coverage of the conflict.

More absurd anti-Israel bias from BBC MidEast editor
On and on it goes, as the BBC's top Middle East journalist blames Israel for responding to Hamas aggression

by Robin Shepherd

It just goes on, and on, and on, and the BBC's Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen still keeps his job. Even British Prime Minister David Cameron has said that Hamas "bears the principal responsibility" for the current round of hostilities.

But here, right now on the BBC website, is how the notoriously anti-Israel BBC MidEast editor Jeremy Bowen is quoted in a keynote sidebar to a story on rocket attacks on Tel Aviv:

"The danger of the kind of operation Israel has started is that rising casualties on both sides cause a violent escalation that neither side can control. If that happens it could cause a much bigger crisis across the Middle East." (My italics)

"Israel started"? And please, don't even tell me that that weasel word "operation" is some sort of get out clause so he can say he was only referring to the strategic, operational response to Hamas's rocket attacks.

His comments can only be read by casual readers as blaming Israel for the hostilities, which, of course were started by dozens upon dozens of unprovoked rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.

If he wanted to provide an honest appraisal combined with a warning to readers that the situation could escalate, why did he not offer a quotation like this:

"The danger of the kind of unprovoked terror attacks on Israeli civilians launched recently by Hamas is that Israel, like any democracy under fire, has now been forced to respond. Unless Hamas agrees to desist, this could all lead to a much bigger crisis in the Middle East".

Really, how hard would it have been to have said that, or something like it? Well, impossible it seems if you are Jeremy Bowen who in 2009 was even upbraided by the BBC itself for failing in his duty to impartiality over Israel.

And yet, he keeps his job. How long can this be allowed to go on? Why not write to the BBC and ask them?

In the meantime, take a look at these excellent pieces on the shameless bias against Israel by the BBC over this latest conflict. See here, and here.

[Teddy Bear]

Douglas Murray in The Spectator presents the facts and perspective that people should be considering. Somehow the likes of the BBC repeating the same slant day in and day out seems to have convinced much of the public to accept the view they present without question.

Brainwashing?

Some questions for the apologists of Hamas
Douglas Murray

Hamas does not believe that the state of Israel should exist. Image: Getty

The latest offensive between Israel and Hamas may only just have begun. But already a set of the usual lies have entered the British coverage. Let me pose a few questions to the people who are propagating them.

1) Why are Hamas firing into undisputed Israeli territory?

The territory that Hamas are firing rockets into is not disputed territory. They are firing into Israel proper – that is, into land which absolutely everyone except for Israel’s annihilationist enemies recognises is the land of Israel.

Is this Hamas’s way of calling for a two-state solution? Is it their way of trying to persuade Israel to sit down with Hamas’s enemies in the PA? Of course not. The reason Hamas are firing into the heart of Israeli territory is because they do not believe that there is any such thing as Israel. They do not accept that it is there. They do not believe it should be there. They want to do everything they can to ensure that it is not there. The reason Hamas are firing into the heart of Israel is because they do not believe that Israel should exist anywhere at all. Hamas are not quibbling over the 1967 borders, or the Oslo parameters. They are showing that they do not accept the 1948 borders. Hamas do not accept Israel. They say so and, by actions like these, they demonstrate it.

2) What is a proportionate response to Hamas aggression?

Already some people have focussed on the issue of ‘proportionality’. Now that three Israelis have been killed by a Hamas rocket fired towards Tel Aviv these people are presumably a lot more content.

In its most popular version the recently invented concept of ‘proportionality’ seems to assume that there is an obviously acceptable manner in which to respond to Hamas attacks, but that this is not it. Israel’s response is deemed to be proportionate only when Israel does nothing in response to Hamas attacks. Everything beyond ‘doing nothing’ is deemed ‘disproportionate’. The concept is based on a wild, or more often wilful, misunderstanding.

Hamas fires projectiles into Israeli population centres in the hope of hitting any target. Sometimes, as with the apparent block South of Tel Aviv hit yesterday, they succeed. Hamas does not target military installations. They fire into Israeli population centres in the hope that they will cause as many casualties as possible. The ‘proportionate’ response to Hamas would be for Israel to respond to each rocket sent by the terror group by sending their own unguided and random missiles into the population centres of Gaza. This they do not do.

Israel’s choice – when pushed – is to respond to random and untargeted attacks with highly specific and targeted attacks. An example of this was the assassination of the Hamas military commander Ahmed al-Jaabari in his car in Gaza earlier this week. Israel’s targets in the Gaza are specific individuals and specific sites. The latter include sites where Hamas store their rockets and rocket-launchers.

Do innocent people sometimes get killed in this situation? Yes, tragically and inevitably they do. As they do on the Israeli side. But unlike Hamas, the killing of innocent civilians is not Israel’s war aim. Everything possible is done, from using the highest precision missile technology to warning Gazan civilians by mobile phone where and where not to go at specific times. As British army Colonel Richard Kemp observed during a previous round of this conflict, no army in history has taken such care to avoid harming civilians living in the same area as that in which an enemy is operating.

It is not only in Israel’s strategic interests to limit the suffering of innocent Palestinians in Gaza, it is in their moral interest. And here we come to what is perhaps the key difference between the two sides.

3) Is Israel targeting civilians?

You are a Hamas militant in Gaza. You are dedicated to the annihilation of Israel. Your neighbours are all Palestinians. Some support Hamas, some support Fatah and some are doubtless done with politics altogether. Nevertheless, when you launch missiles against Israel you know that the Israelis often locate – and swiftly – the sites from which these rockets are launched, and often respond with immediate force against the spot where the launch occurred.

Knowing that, where do you choose to launch your rockets? Do you settle for an area of Gaza where there is nobody about? Some waste-ground, for instance? At least if you do then you know that this is about you and your enemy facing off. No innocent Palestinian needs to be brought into your quarrel.

Sadly, this is not what Hamas do. On the contrary, Hamas knows from experience that Israel is infinitely more careful with Palestinian lives than Hamas are. Hamas know that there are targets which Israeli forces are not only reluctant, but unwilling, to hit. These are therefore the places from which Hamas launches its rockets: schools, hospitals and other civilian targets. There are enough videos of this now, enough independent corroboration to establish this beyond doubt.

When Hamas launch rockets from beside a pram with a baby in it – as they do – they know that the Israelis have two options: they must either allow the rocket-launcher to remain in place to fire more rockets into Israel, or they must hit the site and risk killing the baby. For Israel these are two terrible options. For Hamas it is a win-win. If the Israelis do not strike then Hamas can fire more rockets at Israel. If they do hit then Hamas have another dead child they can hold up for the cameras and weep fake tears for. Hamas know that these pictures will travel round the globe and bring the anger of much of the civilised world against Israel. For Hamas, the child is worth it, for the child is a tool of their war.

If any of the current defenders of Hamas – open and discreet – would like to answer these questions themselves I would be very interested to read their answers.

[Teddy Bear]

2 articles in The Telegraph today focus on the unambiguous bias emanating from the BBC on a continual basis.

The first is from the Rev. Dr. Peter Mullen, and the second from Dan Hodges, who as an acknowledged Blairite, shows that being left wing doesn't mean losing the moral and ethical compass.

Finally, the BBC's pro-Palestinian propaganda machine has swung into action

By Peter Mullen

The BBC has been slipping up recently. No – I don’t mean to refer to unpleasant recollections of Savilegate and McAlpinegate. Let us just leave them conveniently on the Corporation’s CV. Instead I am wondering why it took the BBC so long to get into its full propaganda mode in its reporting of the war between Israel and Hamas. I don’t say there was ever anything distantly approaching even-handedness. You never get that with an ideological pressure group as committed to its own unassailable self-righteousness as the BBC. But at least for the first few days of the war there was the pretence of objectivity.

But true colours will inevitably show themselves and, sure enough, over the weekend the Corporation began to screen its horrific and heart-breaking accounts (with pictures, of course) of the Gazan children slaughtered by the nasty Israelis. What is never explained – because propaganda aims not to explain but to seduce – is the fact that Hamas stores its rockets and high explosives in schools and hospitals, and those leaders who are not so far up the pay scale that they are allotted their personal bunkers are obliged to live in their own houses with their families. And even the most meticulously targeted airstrike cannot distinguish between a terrorist and his three-year-old son when they are sitting in the same front room.

The BBC loves to announce the casualty figures which invariably show that Palestinians have suffered many more deaths and injuries than the Israelis. This is entirely a matter of chance – but a distinction needs to be made. The Israeli forces do not target non-combatants or children. In fact they go to great pains to avoid killing innocent bystanders. By contrast, Hamas deliberately targets innocent women and children in Israel. That is the sole purpose of their rocket attacks. Let me spell it out: what terrorists do is propagate terror. It is simply a matter of good fortune, aided by the Iron Dome defence system, that more Israeli civilians have not been killed. More than 750 rockets have been fired into Israel over the last six days, including long-distance projectiles made in Iran.

Now the conflict is entering a new and much more dangerous phase. The attacks from Gaza may be subdued, but other threats are rapidly emerging. To the east, Jordan is unstable, the crowds demonstrating for the sacking of the government and their own version of the Arab Spring. To the west, post-Mubarak Egypt is not the steadying influence on the region that it was for so long. But the most terrifying scenario is the prospect from the north, from the terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon who are even now waiting eagerly for the ragbag rebel Syrian army to take possession of Assad’s copious stores of chemical weapons. There is an extreme likelihood that these would be used against the civilian population in Israel.

I learned of this real and present danger from Sky, by the way, not from the BBC.

And from Dan Hodges:

For once, there is no ambiguity: the Today programme's report on Gaza this morning was totally and utterly biased

By Dan Hodges

I don’t have a balanced view of the current situation in Israel and Gaza. To me, the Israelis have been subjected to repeated attacks from Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation, and they are exercising their legitimate right to self-defence.

Others have a different perspective. They argue Israel is an illegal occupying power, that it is the Palestinians who are exercising their right of self-defence, and that, at the very least, the current Israeli response is disproportionate.

All of which is fair enough. I don’t agree with the latter view. But I respect people’s right to hold it.

That is unless they are producing the news on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. This morning, at the top of the 08.00 bulletin, I heard the following report:

There’s been no let-up of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, as diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire gather pace. Air strikes and shelling from Israeli warships have continued throughout the night. Hamas says 18 Palestinians were killed, bring the total to 86 over the past six days. Three Israelis were killed last week. An Israeli newspaper says an air strike that killed 10 members of the same family in Gaza yesterday may have hit the wrong house. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has called for an immediate end to the violence.

Debates about news bias are invariably fruitless. One side argues their point of view hasn’t been put across accurately, or with sufficient prominence. The broadcaster invariably counters that their report was robust, and both points of view were featured, though possibly with differing weight or emphasis.

This morning there was no such ambiguity. No room for argument, or debate. The top of the BBC bulletin was totally and utterly biased.

The current conflict involves Israeli forces bombarding Gaza. But it also involves Hamas fighters bombarding Israel. That is a simple fact. The IDF confirms it is engaged in what it would describe as military operations against targets in Gaza. Hamas confirms it is engaged in what it would describe as military operations against targets in Israel.

Yet in the 08.00 bulletin the BBC chose not to report the Hamas attacks at all. Not one word. "There has been no let-up of Israel's bombardment of Gaza". That was it.

How can that, from any objective viewpoint, represent balanced reporting? Israeli media outlets are reporting that this morning four more rockets have been fired from Gaza at Israeli territory. Three were intercepted by the Iron Dome defence system. A fourth landed in a school car park. There may not have been any let up in IDF attacks. But there clearly hasn’t been any let up in the Hamas attacks either.

Yesterday, 120 rockets were reported to have been fired at Israel, the most intensive bombardment since the sudden upsurge in hostilities. Surely that is relevant to coverage of the conflict?

Well, apparently not. According to the BBC, all you needed to know at 08.00 was "There has been no let-up of Israel's bombardment of Gaza."

In fairness, later introductions were more balanced, as were the reports that followed. By 09.00 the BBC was finally informing its listeners that “Palestinian fighters have returned fire with rockets.”

But that’s not the point. How can the BBC’s flagship radio news and current affairs programme introduce its prime time news bulletin with a report on the situation in Israel and Gaza, without even mentioning Israel is under attack from Gaza?

Actually, I think I know. The BBC has form on this. Earlier this year then BBC director general Mark Thompson apologised for the BBC’s failure to cover the 2011 murder of the Israeli Fogel family by Palestinians in the West Bank settlement of Itamar. BBC News’s Helen Boaden also sent a letter of apology to Conservative MP Louise Mensch, who had complained about the coverage. On that occasion Radio 4 had actually reported the incident, but most other BBC news outlets had ignored it.

I’m going to continue to retain my unbalanced view of the ongoing events in Israel and Gaza. Hamas are the aggressors; Israel is engaged in a legitimate act of self defence. Many people reading this will violently disagree. But if they’re working for the BBC, perhaps they could manage to keep their views to themselves.

[Teddy Bear]

We've all seen how the BBC love to show emotive photos from the conflict, like dead or wounded(Palestinian) babies, destroyed Palestinian ‘homes’, even when some of these photos are later found to bogus.

So one wonders why they skipped the opportunity to show this one:



They do mention this incident, at least the shooting of the 6 men, not the final ‘ride around town’ for one of them though.

Separately, Hamas fighters summarily executed six people on Tuesday afternoon, accusing them of being Israeli informers.

One eyewitness told AFP news agency: “Gunmen in a minibus pulled up in the neighbourhood, pushed six men out and shot them without leaving the vehicle.”

I guess the BBC doesn’t want to emote the public seeing Hamas as the barbarians they are.

Here's what AP tells us about the goings on:


Witnesses say masked gunmen have publicly killed six suspected collaborators with Israel at a busy Gaza City intersection.

The Hamas military wing claimed responsibility.

Witnesses said the six men were pulled out of a van Tuesday, forced to lie face down on the street and then shot dead.

Five bodies lay in a pile as a mob stomped and spit on them. A sixth body was tied to a motorcycle and dragged through the streets as people screamed, “Spy! Spy!”

Hamas posted a sign on an electricity pole, naming the six alleged informers.

Way too much information for the BBC

[Teddy Bear]

BBC Watch is a website specifically monitoring BBC output for their anti-Israel bias. They really do such an excellent and comprehensive job that I think I will simply link their findings on this thread as pertains to the present Gaza conflict.

BBC website promotes Guardian’s Milne

Here is a screenshot of the BBC News website’s live updates page in its Middle East section from Tuesday evening (November 20th).



As you see, the BBC informs readers that:

“The Guardian’s Seamus Milne says in a new article that looking at the timeline of events, Israel is responsible for the military escalation that led to the current conflict.”

Well, seeing as the BBC has been pushing that theme incessantly for the past week at least, it is hardly surprising that it would promote the same kind of selective vision from a fellow bird of a feather. Not surprisingly, Milne’s screed also promotes another favourite BBC trope: ‘it’s all because of the elections’.

But that is not all that Milne’s BBC-endorsed article says. It also condones rocket attacks and other forms of violence against Israeli civilians, glorifies terror and even calls for the further arming of Palestinian militias.

See commentary on Milne’s article here and here.

Did the BBC employee who decided to promote Milne’s article actually read those parts? Did he or she consider that an appropriate message to promote and circulate to the millions of readers of the BBC website?

It would be very interesting to hear what Steve Herrmann – Editor of the BBC News website – has to say. He surely would not invoke the wriggle-out clause “ The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites“.

Ofcom Broadcasting Code – Section 2 – Harm and Offence.

BBC Editorial Guidelines – Section 5 - Harm and Offence.

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[Teddy Bear]

Here is a further selection of items added today from BBC Watch

Terror in Tel Aviv: scare quotes at the BBC.

Here is the BBC’s report on the terrorist bombing of a number 142 Dan bus in central Tel Aviv on Wednesday lunchtime, November 21st:

BBC’s Kevin Connolly: Hamas missiles are “antiquated”

If readers would like to hear a compilation of the themes which BBC coverage of Operation ‘Pillar of Cloud’ has been furiously promoting, then the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 on Monday, November 19th had it all condensed into a few minutes. It can be heard here for a limited period of time.

Start with the news-reader who declares that “More than 90 Palestinians are believed to have died since Israel began its bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday” – without stating how many of those were terrorists.

Upcoming on BBC Radio 4: ‘Moral Maze’ on Gaza

Here is a programme of which readers might like prior notice.

Described on its webpage as “combative, provocative and engaging live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week’s news and engaging live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week’s news stories”, this week’s edition of BBC Radio 4's ‘Moral Maze’– to be broadcast on Wednesday, November 21st at 20:00 GMT – will relate to the subject of what it describes as “the current conflict in Gaza” (apparently not having noticed that there is also conflict going on over the border, with 3.5 million Israelis under attack from over a thousand military-grade missiles in the past week alone).

BBC gives one-dimensional view of shortages in Gaza hospitals

The BBC has taken it upon itself to promote the theme of shortages in hospitals in the Gaza Strip – with little or no context.

For older articles, go on to their site

[Teddy Bear]

Another excellent offering from BBC Watch

BBC’s Wyre Davies lies about rocket fire and the blockade

As is well documented, the first rocket attack carried out by terrorists from the Gaza Strip took place on January 30th, 2001 when the village of Netzarim was targeted. For the next couple of months, it was Israeli villages inside the Gaza Strip which bore the brunt of attacks with this new weapon, but in March 2001 the first rocket was fired over the ‘green line’ at Kibbutz Nachal Oz. In the almost twelve years since then, the capabilities of the rockets have extended and the numbers fired now run into the tens of thousands.

In June 2007, after the violent coup which led to the internationally-recognised terrorist organisation Hamas taking over control of the Gaza Strip and the abrupt end of the influence there of the Palestinian Authority (the body recognised by Israel and the world as representing the Palestinian people), the partial blockade on the Gaza Strip was brought into effect to prevent, in as far as possible, the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip for use by terrorists.

Now we have laid out the simple chronological facts already known to most people, let’s hear what the BBC Jerusalem Bureau’s Wyre Davies has to say in this report from November 21st which appears on the BBC News website and was broadcast on television.



First, note this sentence in the report’s synopsis – once again marred by binge scare-quoting:

“Dozens of people were injured and three required surgery following an explosion on a bus in Israel’s commercial capital, Tel Aviv, in what one Israeli official described as a “terrorist attack”.”

Then one can hear Davies making the most of what may well be his final opportunity to re-promote some of the themes the BBC has been pushing over the last week such as the notion that it was the targeted killing of Ahmed Jabari which started the latest round of escalation, the charge that Israel has been targeting the media and the citing of unverified casualty figures with suspect civilian to combatant ratios.

Next, at 01:03, we hear Davies telling us: [emphasis added]

“If there’s to be a lasting truce, this destructive cycle has to be broken. At the end of a conflict, Gaza is allowed to rebuild its institutions and infrastructure but – increasingly frustrated with the Israeli blockade and all of its restrictions – Palestinian militants fire more and more rockets into Israel. Then there’s an overwhelming Israeli military response and much of what has been built up is destroyed.”

In other words, Davies is telling viewers that the rockets are a result of the blockade, rather than citing the historical facts which prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that the rockets began to be used by Hamas and its affiliates as a means of terrorizing the Israeli civilian population a whole six and a half years before the blockade came into being.

Once again, sloppy agenda-driven reporting trumps the BBC’s obligation to accuracy.

[Teddy Bear]

It appears to be human nature among those involved in committing a scam, the longer they get away with it, the more contempt they show to their public for any honesty, let alone 'fair and balance', in their reporting. So their bias gets more and more blatant. Since the general public in this country are basically 'at the mercy' of how the BBC spins this conflict, they are especially contemptuous.

First today highlighting this is this piece from Melanie Phillips:

More (real) news again

Once again, here’s yet more information about the war between Hamas and Israel that unaccountably you may not have come across in today’s UK mainstream media.

Peace in our time!

On BBC Radio’s Today programme this morning, I heard a correspondent say that most Israelis were ‘relieved’ by the ceasefire in Gaza. I also heard a news bulletin which said the truce had ‘largely held’ overnight. 'Largely held'? That’s not what they thought in the south of Israel, as they dived for shelter throughout the evening during which between 12 and 20 rockets were fired at them from Gaza. Can you imagine what the BBC would have said had Israel launched just one unprovoked air-strike after the cease-fire deadline! But when it’s the Palestinians breaching the cease-fire, this is airbrushed out of the BBC picture.

Yes, Israeli families are immensely relieved that their children will not now have to go into Gaza in house-to-house battles that would have claimed many of their lives. And of course people are relieved to have some respite from the rockets, however short that may prove to be.

But some 70 per cent of Israelis, according to polling figures, were against the ceasefire -- sorry, according to Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, ‘document of understandings’. They are also now anxious that, with the Hamas having only agreed to stop rocket fire, human bomb attacks will now return to Israel’s buses and cafes. Because one way or another, Israel remains under daily threat from the Palestinians who do indeed target civilians, and even more particularly young Israelis, for mass murder.

Israelis are battle-hardened, stoical and realistic. Most believe that any military action in Gaza, on the ground or not, can only ever gain a period of respite by destroying so much of its terrorist infrastructure that it takes time to rebuild it. Those who were against the cease-fire thought that only through a ground invasion could enough damage be done to that infrastructure at the very least to achieve a reasonable respite.

But now many are deeply uneasy, not merely that this was not achieved and that in a few weeks or months Israel may once again be massing on the Gaza border with the rockets flying, and now with Hamas much stronger and with Israel’s own credibility greatly weakened. Look at what a Palestinian Authority official told Ha’aretz (£) :

‘Hamas has no regrets over the destruction in Gaza. On the contrary, Hamas gets a great deal of economic and political benefit from the terrible destruction because of the large donations that will come from the world and the political image of the organization that stands on the front line against Israel.’

Many Israelis are also aghast and incredulous that, through this ceasefire, Obama has given the Muslim Brotherhood – of which Hamas is its terrorist wing – the task of guaranteeing Israel’s security against not just rocket fire but the smuggling of weapons. Egypt’s President Morsi is not just a Muslim Brother but is also in cahoots with Iran – the principal source of the rockets and ammunition to Gaza, which have been smuggled in through ...Egypt. The fox is now in charge of the hen-coop.

Indeed, it is likely that the Obama administration’s main concern here was not to help secure the safety of Israel but to help bolster its protégé Morsi in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood in the region – because heaven help us all, the Obama administration regards the Brotherhood (whose goal is the Islamisation of the west) as ‘moderate’ and thus a suitable buffer against the west’s Islamist foes. Go figure. Accordingly, it is reaching out to them at home as well as in the Middle East (but that’s another, no less terrifying, story.)

In this Spectator article, Douglas Murray points out how the Brotherhood is now spreading its tentacles across the region, with terrifying long-term consequences for the west from this longest game in the world.

True, Morsi is presiding over a country at risk of starvation and is thus unlikely to do anything to jeopardise America’s annual $3 billion aid package to Egypt. But that didn’t stop him turning a blind eye to the weapons being transported from Iran to Gaza through Sinai; nor the jihadis flowing through Sinai to help their brothers in Gaza murder more Israelis. As is the Brotherhood’s hallmark, Morsi is a canny operator who proceeds not in a straight line but by zigzagging to achieve his goals. So he surely reckons he can hang onto his US aid and fool the Americans into believing that he is holding the line against the Hamas. And since the Obama administration will pretend that that is what he is doing, the Brothers will tighten the pincer on Israel, the brave but besieged and now almost totally surrounded chicken in the coop.

Blood libel against the most moral army in the world

The most startling fact about Israel’s performance in the eight days’ war in Gaza is the one about which the most egregious lie is being told by western commentators. This is the astoundingly low proportion of Palestinian civilian casualties.

According to the IDF spokesman last evening, 177 Palestinians were killed in Operation Pillar of Defence, of whom 120 were ‘engaged in terrorist activity’.

That total is a tiny number of deaths from 1500 air strikes. It also means 57 civilians were killed along with the 120 terrorists. That is a ratio of more than two terrorists for every civilian killed. When you consider that in Afghanistan the ratio was three civilians for every one combatant killed, and in Iraq it was four civilians for every one combatant killed, you can see just what a staggering feat of precision the Israelis achieved. This is even more astonishing given that the Hamas situated their rockets and ammunitions in the middle of civilian areas.

This precision was acknowledged yesterday by American journalist Anderson Cooper, who was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer of CNN after Cooper arrived in Israel from Gaza. Acknowledging that some people would disagree, Cooper said that it was very clear that the IDF clearly knew exactly what it was targeting. Palestinians knew it, too, he said: some of them would go outside to watch and even photograph the attacks, because they knew they were not either the targets or the object of indiscriminate fire. The bottom line was that the Israelis were making clear efforts to hit only military targets.

And the reason for that was that they were trying as hard as they possibly could to avoid hitting civilians. No other army in the world goes to such lengths to avoid civilian casualties. Yet no other army in the world is accused by western commentators, as is the IDF, of targeting not just civilians but babies and children – or at the very least, exhibiting a total indifference to the fact that their air-strikes are killing them.

Reliable figures for the number of children killed do not yet appear to have been published (and such figures are in any event problematic, since the Palestinians use teenagers for terrorist activities). However, UNICEF (no friend of Israel) says that 22 children were killed in the Israeli air strikes. That’s 22 too many – but it’s still 22 out of 177. Given that more than half of Gaza’s population are children, this again underscores the fact that the Israelis were going to great lengths to avoid hitting them. Yet western commentators have grotesquely smeared the Israelis as child-killers.

Amongst those who credulously believe what they see and hear reported about Gaza – in the UK on the BBC, Sky and Channel Four News in particular -- this modern blood-libel not surprisingly rouses them to passionate hatred of Israel. The broadcasters have played a particularly appalling role in this because, notwithstanding the tiny number of child casualties relative to the huge number of air-strikes and the preponderance of terrorists on the casualty list, the BBC, Sky and Channel Four News have been dwelling on distressing footage of the children who were killed. They have thus given the entirely false impression that the number of children killed was very large, and that the Israelis are heartless brutes.

Given that from past experience inflammatory media coverage of Israel’s wars produces a leap in Jew-hatred in Britain and physical attacks on Jews, it seems to me that such dishonest coverage is not just a gross abuse of broadcasters’ responsibility but also constitutes indirect incitement to racial hatred. I believe therefore that this should be raised in Parliament as a matter of urgency.

Today’s entrant into the Hall of Shame

A propos the above, just look at what Wyre Davies said today on the BBC News website:

‘What has shocked me most over the last eight days - during which I have reported exclusively from Gaza, with BBC colleagues complementing in Israel - is the appallingly high number of children killed and injured.’

‘Appallingly high’. That’s 22 out of 177. He went on:

‘If the events of the last week (and 2006 and 2008-9) are not to be repeated, a lasting ceasefire is paramount and a permanent solution to improving the daily lives of more the one and a half million Gazans must be put into place.

‘It is a destructive cycle. After previous conflicts, it went something like this: Gaza would be allowed to rebuild its institutions and infrastructure; but, with time, as people became increasingly frustrated with the Israeli blockade, Palestinian militants would fire more and more rockets into Israel; Israel would respond with overwhelming military force, and much of what had been built up was destroyed.’

So for this BBC correspondent, the ‘destructive cycle’ is of course Israel’s fault. The Hamas attacks are caused by ‘frustration with the blockade’. But of course the blockade is only there because of the murderous attacks by Hamas. There is no cycle. There is Hamas aggression and Israeli defence.

And as for this Israeli ‘blockade’ – what blockade? Israel restricts certain goods from coming in, for sure, but only on security grounds; it actually allows in a huge amount of humanitarian supplies as well as goods for trade. It is Egypt which tends to keep its border with Gaza sealed; yet mysteriously the Hamas isn’t firing rockets at Cairo.

Duh! Why are such BBC journalists incapable of seeing that what they write about Israel makes so little sense? And such reporting can have lethal consequences.

The collusion by the west in Hamas aggression

Col Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, has told the Algemeiner:

‘There is a very effective anti-Israel propaganda machine and there has been for some time. It’s partly from the Palestinians, partly from other Arab states and many people in the West—from Europe in particular but also the United States—see Hamas as the underdog and Israel as the bully and their natural inclination is to side with the underdog; but it’s to misunderstand the reality: Hamas is not a small group of lone freedom fighters. Hamas is a terrorist organization supported, financed and directed by Iran. Israel on the other hand is not a bully. It has shown amazing restraint—far more restraint than most other countries would show in the face of this sort of provocation.

‘I think some of the governments, diplomats and international NGOs now circling around this issue should shoulder some of the blame for this current conflict. They ignored year after year terrorist missile attacks and they’ve not made any effort to restrain Hamas. So yes, there’s certainly a culpability far wider than just in the immediate region.’

Absolutely.

[Teddy Bear]

Today's offerings from BBC Watch continue the highlight of BBC contempt for what should be a fair appraisal.

Not enough Israelis killed by “home-made contraptions” for BBC’s Mishal Husain

Here is BBC World News presenter Mishal Hussein interviewing Gil Hoffman of the Jerusalem Post on November 20th 2012.



At 1:20 Husain says:

“OK, you say that Israelis have been running for their lives ..erm…from rockets from Gaza, so tell me then; until this current confrontation, how many Israelis have been killed by these rockets from Gaza this year?”

Believe it or not, from there, it goes downhill.

This is yet another example of the “not enough dead Israelis to count” syndrome so prevalent across the board at the BBC and which we have seen touted repeatedly over the past week.

Can we really imagine citizens of any other country in the world being aggressively badgered by BBC presenters because their compatriots have not been murdered in large enough numbers by terrorist organisations?

Sixty seven British nationals were murdered in the 9/11 terror attacks. In relative terms, that is around six people in Israel. The United Kingdom saw that as justification for the invasion of Afghanistan – several thousand miles away – less than one month later.

But apparently according to Husain, Israel is not justified, after almost twelve years of terror attacks by missile fire, in acting against terrorists located literally meters away from its civilian population because not enough Israelis have died this year – or at all.

Some might call that a double standard.

We might also call to mind the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines:

“Presenters, reporters and correspondents are the public face and voice of the BBC – they can have a significant impact on perceptions of whether due impartiality has been achieved. Our audiences should not be able to tell from BBC output the personal prejudices of our journalists or news and current affairs presenters on matters of public policy, political or industrial controversy, or on ‘controversial subjects’ in any other area.”

For more commentary on the subject, see here.

Other articles from today

The BBC’s muddy ‘Moral Maze’

BBC’s Jon Donnison: “Ceasefire holds”

It does not get much more surreal than this.

Schools are still closed in southern Israel on Thursday morning. During the two hours following the announcement of the ceasefire, 13 missiles were fired into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip, of which 10 fell short. Thirteen hours after the ceasefire began, the sirens wailed once more in the Eshkol region – located right on the border – but that rocket too fell short. The BBC’s Jon Donnison, however, tried to pass that off as a ‘false alarm’ on Twitter.

It is notable that despite having numerous reporters in the Gaza Strip during the past eight days, the BBC has made no effort whatsoever to investigate the subject of 152 known shortfalls (not including those fired since the ceasefire came into effect) of rockets fired by Palestinian terrorists and how many of the reported deaths in the Gaza Strip are as a result of those.

BBC’s Donnison & Davies duo bark up the wrong tree

[Teddy Bear]

BBC Watch have a piece about Lyse Doucet reporting in a video-link a few days about a road bridge in Gaza that was destroyed by an Israeli air-strike.
Gaza separated by destroyed bridge
According to her:

“We’ve come to the main coastal road in the Gaza Strip to try to find some of the evidence of last night’s intensive shelling and bombardment by the Israeli forces and look what we found. This main bridge connecting north and central Gaza with the south…. is completely destroyed and that means that people who live on the southern edge, towards the Egyptian border in refugee camps or in major towns such as Khan Yunis, are effectively cut off from the rest of the Gaza Strip.

People have been arriving here talking on their telephones to people on the other side, saying “I simply have no way to get to you” ‘cos look, look what’s left – this pile of rubble – after last night’s blistering attack.

And Gazans have seen this before. During the last Israeli invasion of 2008 and 9, the Gaza Strip was effectively cut into three and bridges like this were also destroyed then.

BBC Watch mention the lack of context in her report, but knowing the dishonesty prevalent in BBC reporting, I wanted to see if it's possible to locate that particular bridge, that according to her almost tearful report - 'cuts off North from South Gaza', and see if it's true. At the beginning of the video clip one can see a small river outlet to the sea which the bridge went over.

So I bring up Google Maps, locate the coastal road in Gaza and find the only part of the road that fits this description. If you put in co-ordinates 31.463934,34.376269 into Google Map search it will take you directly there.



Now do you see the track that i highlighted around that bridge? It makes the journey a few minutes longer by foot or bike, and if you're driving you can see quite an easy route to go round this bridge.

But she wants you to think it's cut-off. The only thing that should be cut off is the BBC - from the public purse.

[Teddy Bear]

Other contributions today from BBC Watch:

BBC’s Donnison suggests rioters may be farmers… or scrap metal collectors

(links on site)

It shows some of a group of around 300 Palestinians involved in creating a disturbance along the border fence, including stone-throwing, causing damage to the fence and attempts to breach the border. One man did get into Israel and was later returned to Gaza. Another man was shot and killed after ignoring warning shots into the air.

Footage from the other side of the fence can be seen in Jon Donnison’s report on the incident (also apparently broadcast on BBC television news) here.

Both in the voice-over to the video and in the text below the report, Donnison repeats unsubstantiated Palestinian claims that the mob were actually “farmers trying to get into their land”. The written article also has an additional version to the story:

”Eyewitnesses said the group were farmers, while Gaza health official Adnan Abu Salmia said they had been trying to retrieve parts from a damaged Israeli jeep inside the off-limits area.”

In his commentary Donnison states that: [emphasis added]

“I should say that before this big escalation in the last eight days or so, people getting shot on the Palestinian side around the border was a pretty regular occurrence. Erm..Israel says it has imposed a unilaterally declared exclusion zone 300 meters from the fence. It regularly opens fire for what it calls security reasons. Palestinians will say this is stealing their land and that they often fire beyond that 300 meter distance.”

Donnison also reported the events on Twitter, including promotion of a previous article of his which, whilst having nothing to do with the day’s events, reinforces the theme he tries to advance in the commentary to the video.

BBC Radio 4 gives Durban architect Mary Robinson free rein

BBC pictorial feature on ‘suffering’

[Teddy Bear]

With the current ceasefire in effect, it looks like this thread has run it's course, though I'm sure there will be plenty more examples of BBC bias against Israel to come.

So how does the BBC draw a curtain on these recent events?

It decides to have a picture gallery encapsulating them. It's almost surreal, that anybody knowing how biased the BBC is on the subject, could predict what the composition of these pictures would be.

Try it for yourself. Imagine first what pictures you'd expect to see Iran running on their TV screens about this conflict, and then see if the ones the BBC has decided to run with match it.

Here's what BBC Watch has to say about it.

BBC pictorial portrayals of conflict in Israel and Gaza

On November 23rd 2012 an “In Pictures” photo essay entitled “Ceasefire” appeared on the homepage of the Middle East section of the BBC News website.

The photo essay features thirteen photographs, of which nine depict Gaza and four are taken in Israel.

Four of the pictures from Gaza depict scenes of destruction of buildings, with interesting repeated – if transparent – use of bursts of colour against a largely grey background . One shows mourning women. Four other pictures depict Hamas leaders and operatives (finally available for photo-ops after eight days of being in hiding), with three of those pictures notably captioned as having been taken at funerals or mourning events, thus adding a ‘human touch’.

Of the pictures taken in Israel, none depict any kind of destruction or mourning.

One shows Israelis demonstrating against the ceasefire in Kiryat Malachi, where three people were killed as the result of a direct hit by a missile on an apartment block.

The remaining three pictures all have a military theme, with any civilians pictured looking relaxed and happy. Two of the three once again suggest a linkage between the Israeli army and religion.

In the three photo essays we have covered here recently (see here and here), a total of 35 pictures supposedly documenting the conflict have been presented. Twenty of those pictures were taken in Gaza (and one in Hebron), with only two of those images showing Hamas terrorists, both at funerals. Fourteen of the 35 pictures were taken in Israel.

Of the total 35 pictures, damage to homes, buildings or property was depicted in 12 of the pictures from the Gaza Strip and in four of the pictures from Israel. Images related to injury or death of civilians were depicted in seven of the photographs taken in Gaza, but in none of the photographs from Israel.

From the fourteen pictures taken in Israel, eleven show images of soldiers or other security forces. Four of those eleven pictures try to make a clear linkage between the Israeli army and the Jewish religion.

If the BBC’s Picture Editor Phil Coomes would like to expand on the editorial decisions behind these photo essays, we would be very happy to publish his explanations here.

[charmbrights]

Nov 24, 2012 21:29:05 GMT Teddy Bear said:

With the current ceasefire in effect, it looks like this thread has run it's course, though I'm sure there will be plenty more examples of BBC bias against Israel to come. ...

Of course. Please can anyone tell me of any occasion when the BBC referred to Hamas as "terrorists"? Perhaps I missed it, but then they never called the IRA "terrorists" either. Perhaps their legal department advised against the use of that word as being libellous?

[Teddy Bear]

The BBC themselves never call Hamas, or their ilk, terrorists, but when quoting Israel using that term against Hamas, they will put it as 'terrorists' or "terrorists". Like for example in this article describing the incident of a bomb placed on an Israeli bus, they have:- in what one Israeli official described as a "terrorist attack".
Which I agree, coming from a supposed civilised organisation, representing a supposed civilised society, is insidiously reprehensible.

I don't think it's anything to do with what their legal department told them, but more out of fear not to antagonize the very groups in the areas they want to report from. Fortunately we don't need the BBC to explain what a terrorist is, most of us can judge for ourselves.

[Teddy Bear]

One justification used by the BBC in arguing that they have the balance on their reporting about Israel 'just about right', is the claim that they receive as many accusations or complaints of pro-Israel bias as they do anti-Israel. Having read enough ludicrous comments on various websites to give me an idea of what a complaint of pro-Israel bias would entail, it is clear that the BBC don't use reason or logic to give more substance to one or the other. It is enough that they received a complaint on one side to make it equal to the other, and this 'balances' it out.

Now it appears that when they receive a complaint specifically accusing one of their show hosts of an anti-Israel bias, they have responded to it as though they were accused of a pro-Israel bias. So it looks like they don't even need ludicrous complaints of pro-Israel bias to make sure the figures come out equal, they'll ensure they do.

BBC Watch has more on this, and it's worth going on their site to read the comments left by readers, giving further perspectives of the implications involved.

The strange story of a complaint to the BBC

Readers no doubt remember the report carried here at BBC Watch about an edition of the BBC Radio 5 programme ’5 live Drive’ from November 14th in which host Peter Allen said:

“We’re all aware of the arguments that a lot of rockets have been fired at Israel and that the retaliation was both necessary and just, but from the outside it just looks like part of this never-ending cycle of violence. It won’t stop anything, this, will it?”

“Yeah – but it’s not just this man [Jabari] who’s been killed. There’s a lot of innocent people getting killed at the same time.”

“Yeah – but nevertheless, if you count it up – the casualties – it’s those inside Gaza who are suffering rather than those inside Israel.”

“Yeah. You can count up the casualties. I’m sorry, you know, but the outside world would count up the casualties and see – you know – that Israel always wreaks its revenge and the revenge it takes is greater than the original – erm – suffering in this war. It does it all the time.”

One member of the license-fee paying public decided to complain to the BBC about that programme and also had the presence of mind to save a screenshot of his complaint.



After having received the following reply to his complaint, that member of the public contacted BBC Watch and gave us permission to reproduce it here. [emphasis added]

Dear Mr XXXX

Thank you for contacting us regarding BBC News’ coverage of the recent escalation of violence in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

We understand you feel our coverage has shown bias in favour of Israel’s actions in Gaza. We have received a wide range of feedback about our coverage of this upsurge in violence. Bearing in mind the pressure on resources, the response below strives to address the majority of concerns raised but we apologise in advance if not all of the specific points you have mentioned have been answered in the manner you prefer.

BBC News strives to report in an impartial, accurate and fair manner and we believe this has been the case with our coverage of the recent violence in Gaza and Israel.

Since Israel launched ‘Operation Pillar of Defense’ on November 14 2012, our correspondents on the ground in Gaza – Jon Donnison, Wyre Davies and Chief of the BBC News Jerusalem Bureau Paul Danahar, have detailed the level of destruction caused by Israeli strikes from air and sea on the area. Our main news bulletins on BBC One and Radio 4 have focused on the loss of life in Gaza. For example, the first story during the BBC One bulletin at 2200 on 18 November read as follows:

“International pressure for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is mounting after the deadliest day of violence in the region so far. Reports say 26 people were killed in Gaza by Israeli airstrikes – and more rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel – including two shot down over Tel Aviv by Israel’s “iron dome” defence system.”

Reports from Gaza have also explained the level of Palestinian civilian casualties, in particular the deaths of women and children. Jon Donnison’s report during the News at Ten on 14 November explained that:

“For the people of Gaza tonight it looked like war. And as in most wars, civilians, caught up in the violence.”

He went on to add:

“Gaza’s hospitals are expected to face a busy night, with more casualties this evening, among them children and at least one baby.”

We have seen reports which looked at Israel’s tactic of deploying strikes in a heavily overpopulated urban setting, Wyre Davies’ report for the News at Six on 19 November said:

“This was a clear message from Israel that anything or anyone associated with the militants is a legitimate target. Israel has, though, struggled to explain this huge bombing yesterday. Military sources told an Israeli newspaper the house was hit by mistake. Israel now says the bombing was deliberate, but their target, a senior Hamas commander, may not have been there, but at least ten people, including four children, were there and were killed. Israel justifies these attacks in urban areas because it says the militants hide among civilian populations, and the problem with such a policy is that civilians are always at risk.”

Our main news bulletins have also heard live accounts from presenters Lyse Doucet, with further analysis from Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen. Such analysis has looked at the wider political context of the conflict, including the impending election in Israel, the relationship with a new Egypt and the effects of Israel’s blockade on Gaza. We have continued to follow diplomatic efforts to reach a truce, featuring live press conferences on the BBC News Channel from interlocutors such as the Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt and the Arab League.

We have also heard from a wide range of Palestinian and Arab commentators on the BBC News Channel and during flagship programmes such as radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme. This has included Jihad Haddad, adviser to President Morsi, Abdel al-Bari Atwan, the editor in chief of Al-Quds Al Arabi, Adel Darwish -commentator on Middle East affairs and Dr Omar Ashour from the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter University

In hearing from these voices and from our own correspondents, we believe we have explored the political, military and humanitarian aspects of this recent conflict. We will continue to strive to report on the story in an impartial manner.

We’d also like to assure you we’ve registered your complaint on our audience log. This is an internal report of audience feedback which we compile daily and is available for viewing by all our staff. This includes all news editors and reporters, along with our senior management. It ensures that your points, along with all other comments we receive, are considered across the BBC.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.

Kind Regards

BBC Complaints

Beyond the fact that absolutely no attempt was made to address the substance of the complaint and the obviously bizarre ‘Through the Looking Glass’-style inversion of a complaint about Peter Allen’s expression of anti-Israel bias into a complaint about pro-Israel bias (with some interesting responses), this section of the reply is notable:

“We’d also like to assure you we’ve registered your complaint on our audience log.”

One cannot but wonder how many other complaints are being registered by the BBC as the exact opposite of what they actually are and how that influences the reliability of the BBC’s complaints statistics and the resulting appraisals of its own performance.

Yet again we see the problematic nature of self-monitoring by the BBC and an overly complicated and obviously inefficient complaints process – which apparently even BBC staff have trouble navigating.

[Teddy Bear]

Honest Reporting have surveyed world media reports on the recent conflict in Gaza, and came up with the Top10 Media Fails of the Gaza War

Unsurprisingly the BBC take the top 2 spots for this 'honour'.
First with this: 1. Jon Donnison, BBC which we covered here..

And in second place from the same thread. It's worthwhile noting that CNN, who are no particular friends of Israel, at least made the effort to verify the footage in question, and when found dubious, removed it with an apology, unlike the BBC as you can read below.

2. BBC News
December 3, 2012 15:54 by Alex Margolin

Almost as soon as Israel launched Operation Pillar of Defense, the Pallywood machine cranked into gear, creating fake images of Palestinians being evacuated after an Israeli strike. The footage appeared on BBC and CNN reports on the fighting.

CNN took steps after the fact to verify the footage with Reuters, which distributed it. And after failing to get a satisfactory answer, removed the footage and issued an apology.

The BBC, however, stood by the footage, claiming that the footage it ran was an edit from a longer reel. The footage that appeared on the site, however, bore all of trademarks of similar attempts to fake footage on the day of the Mohammed al-Dura incident.

[Teddy Bear]

Although this round of the conflict between Gaza and Israel is simply that - between rounds, the BBC is maximising distortions for all its worth. I posted the Newsnight account, and BBC Watch has also been doing an excellent job of monitoring the continued misinformation and deception emanating.

I felt this offering by them especially worthy of insertion here.
(links available on their website)

BBC promotes same inaccuracy for a third time

The BBC News website’s Middle East page is currently featuring a section dedicated to what it terms the ‘Arab uprisings’.


The lower ‘Special Reports’ section leads to this page, which at its head features the same item as the ‘Features & Analysis’ section at the right side of the homepage.



The item is about Jeremy Bowen’s selected “10 most important moments” in the past two years across the Arab world. As may be expected, the report features events such as the flight of Ben Ali from Tunisia and the fall of Mubarak and Ghaddafi. But “moment” number ten may come as something as a surprise because, apparently, one of the Arab world’s most important moments in the last 24 months during which tens of thousands of people have been killed by their compatriots is none other than the “Israel-Gaza conflict”.

The section begins by claiming:

“Israel launched its latest offensive against Hamas in Gaza on 14 November.”

This interpretation of events of course ignores the fact that – contrary to the implication – Israel did not suddenly wake up in a grumpy mood on November 14th and decide to launch “its latest offensive”. Prior to that date, a serious escalation of security incidents including rocket fire from the Gaza Strip took place with 105 rockets and 12 mortars hitting Israeli territory in the week October 24th to 29th, three Israeli soldiers wounded by an IED on November 6th, another incident involving an IED and an explosion in a tunnel on November 8th, an anti-tank missile fired at a jeep on the Israeli side of the border on November 10th and 121 rockets landing in Israel between November 10th and 13th alone.

As this site stated on November 11th:

“If and when a substantial Israeli response comes, however, the BBC’s audience will have little idea of its context.”

Notably, the BBC continues to ensure that is the case.

Bowen’s article continues:

“It was the first flare-up between Israel and the Palestinians since the Arab uprisings started to change the Middle East.”

The accuracy of that statement depends upon one’s interpretation of the definition of a “flare-up”. Apparently the BBC’s Middle East Editor does not consider the 975 rockets fired at Israeli civilians between the beginning of 2011 and the start of Operation ‘Pillar of Cloud’ to come into that category.

bbcwatchdot.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/rocket-fire-since-
2011.png?w=371&h=304

[/img]

Neither, apparently, do other forms of terror attacks on Israelis, such as the one which took place near Eilat on August 18th 2011, count as a “flare-up”: that description only enters the BBC lexicon when Israel responds to Palestinian acts.

Bowen continues:

“It showed just how much the constellation of forces in the region had shifted. Hamas celebrated the public backing of Turkey, Egypt and other Arab states.”

Hamas also had that same “public backing” during Operation Cast Lead in 2008/9, but as was the case then, there is still a big difference between predictable rhetoric which often plays primarily to a home crowd and concrete, practical support. With the exception of Iran, Hamas does not manage to rally the latter, even from its closest friends in the Arab and Islamic world.

Bowen then claims that:

“Israel once again enjoyed Western support, and showed its military strength, but it found its freedom to act cramped by the new political realities of the Middle East.”

Seeing as it can be assumed with some degree of certainty that the BBC’s Middle East Editor was not privy to the deliberations regarding a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip either in the Israeli Cabinet or the IDF’s higher echelons, one can perhaps best categorise that particular piece of ‘analysis’ as wishful thinking on Bowen’s part.

Accompanying Bowen’s ‘analysis’ is film footage which will be familiar to BBC Watch readers. It is that historically incorrect report by Wyre Davies which was first broadcast on November 21st and then subsequently upgraded to the category of analysis a few days later, in which Davies promotes the trope that terrorists fire rockets into Israel because of “frustration” with the partial blockade on the Gaza Strip.

“If there’s to be a lasting truce, this destructive cycle has to be broken. At the end of a conflict, Gaza is allowed to rebuild its institutions and infrastructure but – increasingly frustrated with the Israeli blockade and all of its restrictions – Palestinian militants fire more and more rockets into Israel. Then there’s an overwhelming Israeli military response and much of what has been built up is destroyed.”

As we wrote when this report was first aired:

“In other words, Davies is telling viewers that the rockets are a result of the blockade, rather than citing the historical facts which prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that the rockets began to be used by Hamas and its affiliates as a means of terrorizing the Israeli civilian population a whole six and a half years before the blockade came into being.”

The repetition of an inaccuracy over and over again does not render it any less inaccurate.
[/size][/quote]

[charmbrights]

The repetition of an inaccuracy over and over again does not render it any less inaccurate.

But remember this mantra of all spin doctors:

64,000 repetitions make one truth.
Aldous Huxley Brave New World

[Teddy Bear]

Well then if it's repeated once a day it would take over 175 years for it to become a truth, and I don't think the BBC have even half that time. Besides, Huxley didn't know about the internet to counter the false repetitions
Sigh of relief

[Teddy Bear]

An incident in Syria today, and the way the BBC reported it, struck me as a strange contrast to the way they report it if it had been Israel.

First take into account that an estimated 40,000 people have been killed in Syria in the past 18 months.
Where really is the outcry, either from the Muslim world, the Christian world, or the secular world?
Is it because it's Muslim against Muslim, each vying for power, that nobody really is bothered by it? Better they kill each other?
Yet the whole of the Muslim world seems united when it comes to their Palestinian 'brothers', at least where Israel is concerned.

The incident today involved the apparent attack by Syrian jets on a mosque in a Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus. It is reported that at least 25 Palestinians were killed.

Here's how the BBC reported it in their headline:
Syria crisis: Damascus al-Yarmouk camp 'attacked'

Does that mean anything to you? When you think that every time a Palestinian is killed by Israeli troops, this fact is made very clear in the headline. It also usually omits any wrongdoing by that Palestinian at the time to warrant being killed. The most recent from a few days ago is this one;
Hebron fake gun teenager killed by Israeli border guard
You almost get the impression that troops had just killed this boy for playing innocently with a toy gun. BBC Watch has more on this story for those interested.

I wonder how many Britains would be able to identify al-Yarmouk as a Palestinian refugee camp? Very few I imagine, so who is this headline for?
Seems to me it can only be to conceal the Palestinian element of the story. After all, if this is what the Arab world is doing to Palestinians, how mcuh are they really bothered about what Israel does?

Just to contrast, here's how Reuters ran the headline for this story:
Syrian jets rocket Palestinian camp in Damascus

It's not rocket science, which is why I'm certain there's a reason the BBC didn't run it that way.

[Teddy Bear]

I covered this particular story on our Pallywood thread when it first emerged. It concerned the image circulated by the media that a 4 year old child had died as a result of an Israeli air strike while the visiting Egyptian PM was in a hospital with the Hamas leader in Gaza.



Though the BBC didn't show the picture above they did report this part to it:



Because Israel denied launching any strikes at the time there was some suspicion about the nature of the child's death, and it was believed that the death was actually due to a misfired terrorist rocket from Gaza.

It now turns out to be the case, and even Human Rights Watch themselves, no particular friends to Israel, have confirmed this as the cause of its death.

Human Rights Watch has acknowledged that terrorists killed civilians in Gaza during Operation Pillar of Defense when rockets being fired into Israel fell short.

“Rockets that fell short of their intended targets in Israel apparently killed at least two Palestinians in Gaza and wounded others,” Human Rights Watch said.

The specific case mentioned in the report involves the four year-old boy used as a political tool by Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil during his visit to Gaza.

It's common for the BBC to report quotes from any organisation whose name conveys some air of respectability, whether deserved or not, when they are critical of Israel, I have strong doubts whether this HRW report will be made public by the BBC however, nor will they be amending their previous reports which allowed the Palestinian 'official' claim to continue to 'be the truth'.

So just let's see in detail the elements that the BBC allow to run as fact surrounding this incident, just from the part I highlighted in their article above.

'Israel had said it would pause the offensive during Mr Qandil's visit, if militants refrained from firing rockets.'

As the HRW report shows, the militants did NOT refrain from firing rockets, and it was one of these which killed this child.

'But shortly after the prime minister arrived, Israeli and Palestinian officials accused each other of violating the temporary truce.'

Fact is it was the Palestinians which breached this truce.

'While Mr Qandil was at the hospital in Gaza, medical workers brought in the bodies of a man and a boy who officials said had been killed in an Israeli air strike moments earlier.'

So not only do Palestinians hide the fact that they broke the truce, and continued to fire rockets towards Israel, still claiming that Israel was violating the truce, but one of their own rockets killed a child, and they were still prepared to use this child's body as a publicity stunt intended to vilify Israel. Note too that Palestinian officials claimed that the child was killed by an Israeli strike, which should make an ethical media service reluctant to trust their claims again, or certainly to make the reader aware of their 'inconsistencies', or lies for a better word.

Think the BBC will?

I'll bet they don't!