Bowen's Biased BBC World

[Teddy Bear]

The latest offering from Honest Reporting UK which is self-explanatory.

Bowen's World

Times columnist Stephen Pollard, has acquired a leaked e-mail (republished in full below) from BBC Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen to BBC staff. We think Pollard more than adequately sums up Bowen's slanted analysis and predictions for the year ahead in Israel and the Mideast:

It’s all too predictable. The "fragmentation" of Palestinian society has, in Mr Bowen's view, nothing to do with the Palestinians and everything to do with Israel ("the death of hope, caused by a cocktail of Israel's military activities, land expropriation and settlement building - and the financial sanctions imposed on the Hamas led government"). Indeed, Israel is to blame for almost everything. The Palestinians are not responsible for anything; Israel is the culpable party.

He has contempt for every Israeli politician he mentions; Ehud Barak, for instance, is described as having killed "various Palestinians", written as if he did so for the sake of it.

If this is what passes for high-level analysis at the BBC, is it any wonder its reporting is so poisonous?

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Bowen
To: Editorial Board; Newsg World-Bureaux-Eds; Newsg World Asseds; News Leadership Group; Mark Byford & PA; Simon Wilson-NEWS; Jerusalem Bureau;
Newsg World-Affairs-Unit
Sent: Fri Jan 05 15:16:16 2007
Subject: FW: Mini briefing on the Israeli and Palestinians

2007 has started as unpromisingly as 2006 ended. The outlook is bleak because of fundamental instabilities and weaknesses on both sides.

Israel's major military incursion into Ramallah on Thursday, killing four Palestinians after a botched arrest operation, was a reminder of the non stop pressures of the Israeli occupation.

What is new in the last year, and will be one of the big stories in the coming twelve months, is the way that Palestinian society, which used to draw strength from resistance to the occupation, is now fragmenting.

The reason is the death of hope, caused by a cocktail of Israel's military activities, land expropriation and settlement building – and the financial sanctions imposed on the Hamas led government which are destroying Palestinian institutions that were anyway flawed and fragile.

The result is that internecine violence between Hamas and Fatah is getting worse. On Thursday six people were killed in clashes between them in Gaza. The death of a major figure on either side would spark something much more serious.

In Israel the political turmoil that followed the inconclusive war with Hezbollah last summer continues unabated.

There are signs that PM Ehud Olmert is trying to set up his coalition partner Amir Peretz as a scapegoat for Israel's problems during the war and since, by ousting him from the defence ministry. Olmert may be hoping he'll get away with it because Peretz's position as Labour leader is already under attack from within his own party. Peretz's people say
that if Olmert tries it, the government will fall.

Even if does manage to demote Peretz, he probably won't improve his parlous position in the polls. It is exactly a year since Ariel Sharon's stroke, so Israelis are comparing their lost leader with the one they have now, and finding him wanting. An air of incompetence hangs around Olmert when it comes to military matters. Typical was the timing of the
raid in Ramallah, which ruined yesterday's summit with Mubarak which was supposed to bring closer the release of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Olmert wants to replace Peretz at the defence ministry with Ehud Barak, the former Prime Minister. Barak is a retired general, former head of the Israeli army and its most decorated soldier. (Among his many exploits was disguising himself as a woman during a raid in Beirut to kill various Palestinians). The feeling in Israel is that 2007 will be a year of wars, so aside from coalition politics Olmert wants to have a warrior next to him when they make the tough decisions. The intray could include whether or not to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.

Another serious problem for Olmert is that yet another corruption scandal is lapping close to him. This time the head of the PM's office in Jerusalem is under house arrest for her alleged role in corruption in Israel's tax authority. Olmert is not yet implicated, though he's already been under investigation over separate allegations.

The political crises in Israel - and violent political disintegration among the Palestinians - are not just internal matters. They make it impossible for the Israelis and the Palestinians to engage in a meaningful political dialogue, assuming that their protestations that they want one are true. (The one meeting that Olmert has had with Mahmoud Abbas can hardly be called a process.)

Only strong Israeli and Palestinian leaders would be able to make the tough choices necessary to relieve the serious pressures that are building up in the holy land. To persuade their people to make the necessary concessions, they would need a strong political base, which neither Olmert nor Abbas possess.

Because they are weak - many would say lame ducks - don't expect any progress. And since an uneasy status quo cannot hold, no political progress will equal more violence.

-----------------------
So it looks like the BBC intends to continue in 2007 where it left off previously. Watch this space.

[Teddy Bear]

From The Times in their Comment section about the above

My old barber is as biased as the BBC
Daniel Finkelstein



I used to have an angry barber. How’s that for an enticing piece of information? Anyway, every time I went to have a haircut, the man with the scissors was seething. It was the situation in Cyprus that had got him going and he was sure to tell me all about it. I was constantly reminded of Enoch Powell, who, when asked how he would like his hair cut, replied “in complete silence”.
After a few cuts my barber realised that I worked in politics and kept trying to enlist my help. But there was a problem. I am sure that on my first visit he had told me, but I remained unclear whether he was a Turkish Cypriot or a Greek one.



It was too late to ask, so I tried to pick it up from his angry diatribes. Unfortunately, my grasp of the intricacies was insufficient. All I could do was offer mumbled sympathy at what I hoped were the right places in his polemics. Eventually I found somewhere else to get a haircut.

There are few things more difficult to fathom than someone else’s passionate political dispute. For years I’ve been relating my barber story to Jewish audiences. I explain that for most people the dispute between the Israelis and the Palestinians is like that between the Cypriots. It’s a complicated row between two sets of foreigners making competing claims that are hard for anyone except an expert or a participant to evaluate.

For years that didn’t matter much. A few overexcited people (mark me down as one) arguing about a country the size of a pocket handkerchief somewhere miles away. Israel, Shmisrael. Who cares?

But now things are different. A few days after 9/11 I watched a television reporter wandering through a street in the Israeli capital. He was telling viewers: “I am here in Jerusalem where it all began and where it will all have to end.” That remark, hotly though I might dispute it (9/11 did not start there and won’t end there), has become the consensus — the road to peace in the world runs through Jerusalem.

And for that reason all those obscure little arguments, all those tit-or-tat arguments between indistinguishable groups that used to seem so boring, are now of first-rate political importance. It really matters whether people understand enough to form a view of their own.

Which brings me to the BBC. Unlike a lot of columnists, I like the BBC. I think its reporting is generally excellent, its news programmes are of high quality and its foreign correspondents are usually both brave and illuminating. Although the corporation can be high-handed in dealing with complaints (the theory that if both sides complain they must be getting something right is absurd) I think its staff does genuinely wish to be politically unbiased.

If only they always knew how. For on Israel, they (not everyone, of course, but too many reporters and too often) sadly get it wrong over and over again. They mistake reporting equal numbers of deaths from both sides with giving people a complete appreciation of the arguments involved. They tell you how, when, who and how many. All this is balanced. As to why, you are often left with a very one-sided view.

Let me provide an eloquent example. One of the biggest stories in the Middle East is the civil disorder in Gaza. Last week on his website, the journalist Stephen Pollard reproduced an internal memo from the BBC’s Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, to his colleagues. It contained a passage in which Bowen explains “the way that Palestinian society, which used to draw strength from resistance to the occupation, is now fragmenting.

“The reason is the death of hope, caused by a cocktail of Israel’s military activities, land expropriation and settlement building — and the financial sanctions imposed on the Hamas-led Government which are destroying Palestinian institutions that were anyway flawed and fragile.”

Now this is certainly one explanation of the reason why members of Fatah and Hamas are killing each other. No one can object that this argument is put before the BBC’s audience. But for the BBC’s Middle East editor to believe that it constitutes the sole explanation and to offer it up alone to his colleagues? Now that’s a different matter.

Here are a few alternatives to Bowen’s offering. Some of us argue that instead of the tough Israeli security measures causing Hamas and Fatah militants to kill people and each other, the killing of people by Hamas and Fatah militants causes the tough security measures. Hamas in particular is a dangerous, intolerant, murderous organisation that threatens the lives of innocent people and needs to be resisted.

And what about this? Fatah and Hamas are engaged in a power struggle and an ideological dispute. Fatah claims that its rivals have been plotting to assassinate President Mahmoud Abbas because the President supports the so-called Prisoners’ Document. This document proposes a unified resistance to Israel, but Hamas is suspicious of the terms of such unity and believes that its vague language could mean recognition of Israel.

Or this? In a superb column last week in the Financial Times, Christopher Caldwell pointed out that are there are 67 countries in the world where 15 to 29-year-olds make up more than 30 per cent of the population and 60 of them are undergoing some sort of civil war or mass killing. Gaza has just such a youth bulge. Perhaps the violence has no political cause; it is just, well, boys being boys.

I know, I know. You may regard these alternatives as absurd, even offensive. I don’t, but that’s not my point. If you want to report the Middle East in an unbiased fashion, then these arguments must be put before the BBC audience. And how can they be if the Middle East editor doesn’t even acknowledge them? People rely on the BBC. They can’t just get another hairdresser.

[Teddy Bear]

Honest Reporting reports an update on this story:
BBC's Selective Voices

BBC Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen's recently leaked e-mail caused much disquiet over his slanted analysis and predictions for the year ahead in Israel and the Mideast. Right on cue, Bowen broadcast a report on the 19 January Radio 4 Today Programme. (Click on the graphic to listen - you will need RealPlayer, which is downloadable for free here.)

Bowen reports from Israel and the Palestinian territories, questioning whether a two-state solution is still a realistic prospect. Failing to acknowledge Israeli security concerns, Palestinian suicide bombers or the current intra-Palestinian violence and chaos, Bowen discusses restrictions on Palestinian movement and the security barrier near Bethlehem, as well as "illegal" Israeli settlement in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank.

While making generalisations about Israeli opinion, Bowen interviews a Palestinian taxi driver in Bethlehem, a Palestinian woman in eastern Jerusalem and a Bethlehem resident who runs a project monitoring occupation. Even an Israeli voice is that of a human rights lawyer accusing Israel of employing an "apartheid" system. This, a standard BBC trick of claiming "balance" by including Israelis who are in no way representative of Israeli public opinion.

In fact, out of a report totalling 6 minutes 9 seconds, an official Israeli response from Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev only lasts some 17 seconds to rebut the allegations of the human rights lawyer. The BBC evidently likes nothing better than Israelis contradicting Israelis while promoting a single Palestinian message.

Is this Jeremy Bowen's idea of a balanced report? If you think it isn't, then send your considered comments to BBC Complaints and question the role of Bowen as the BBC's Mideast Editor - www.bbc.co.uk/complaints.

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Awareness of Bowen's bias as highlighted above has resulted in the UK Zionist Federation entering the fray and calling for his dismissal as BBC Middle-East editor.

From an Honest Reporting report today:

We recently highlighted the continuing bias of the BBC's Mideast editor Jeremy Bowen. Many of you copied us in on your complaints to the BBC concerning Bowen's leaked e-mail that called into question his supposed impartiality, and an unbalanced report on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Having maintained the pressure on Bowen and the BBC over the past few weeks, we are extremely pleased that the UK's Zionist Federation has taken up the baton, calling for Bowen's replacement as Mideast editor.

ZF chairman Andrew Balcombe has written to the chair of the BBC Trust, Dr Chitra Bharucha. Balcombe maintained that Bowen is a hugely experienced and accomplished journalist but suggested that an experience in 2000 has "coloured" Bowen's view of Israel.

"In May 2000, Bowen's driver Abd al-Rahman Taqqush was mistakenly killed by an Israeli tank shell during fighting in South Lebanon. Bowen was only several metres away and no matter his professionalism, this disturbing incident may have coloured Bowen's views about Israel ever since," Balcombe said.

"The BBC is rightly considered one of the world's most prominent news organizations and its Israel and Middle East coverage is viewed by millions. Therefore, it is urgent that you appoint a new Middle East Editor who can better direct the news coverage of this critical region."

(Read the full story in the Jerusalem Post.)

Speaking to HR UK, Balcombe referred to our criticism of the BBC's report on the Eilat suicide bombing, whose final paragraph stated:

"The last suicide attack was at a Tel Aviv restaurant, killing 10 people. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in that time, mainly in the Gaza Strip."

Balcombe told us that "This appalling reporting was the straw that broke the camel's back as far as the ZF was concerned. There was no context to explain what those Palestinians killed were doing, nor mention of the number of infiltration attempts into Israel to perpetrate suicide bombings; nor the hundreds of rockets fired on Israel. There is simply no balance in the BBC reporting."