Covering Gaza
| 11:45 UK time, Thursday, 15 January 2009
Three weeks after Israel's military operations began, the BBC along with other international broadcasters is still being prevented from sending independent reporters into Gaza.
For 20 days, my colleagues Rushdi Abualouf and Hamada Abuqammar have dodged bullets and missiles to report on the situation in the city. This morning one finds himself pinned down in his home, caught in the cross-fire between Hamas and the Israeli Defence Force - the other is unable to return to his home because of IDF operations en-route. Meanwhile their friends from our Jerusalem bureau can only watch from a hill in Israel as smoke rises above Gaza.
True, the BBC did manage a short trip into Gaza last week; a BBC cameraman was taken in to Northern Gaza by the IDF to witness their operations. Embedding with the military is a useful piece of the jigsaw - whether in Gaza, Afghanistan or Iraq - but it is not substitute for independent, eyewitness reporting.
That is why the BBC has kept bureaux in Baghdad and Kabul to ensure that we can report the story outside the military bubble in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is why the bureau in Baghdad has never been inside the protected international or "green" zone. It is why journalists from the BBC and other organisations need to be given access to Gaza.
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No-one makes the case better than the Israeli Prime Minister's spokesman, Mark Regev. On "Today" this morning, he said he thought allowing international journalists into Gaza would allow a "balanced picture" of what's going on to be reported, and that whenever international journalists went into Gaza it was "good" for Israel. It's certainly good for our audiences.
However, the Israelis say the situation is too dangerous for them to allow international journalists access to Gaza - they claim to do so would put the Israeli staff needed to process them at risk of attack. In the meantime, independent reporting is just one of the many casualties of the conflict in Gaza.
• Your comments on the BBC's reporting are welcome below; for general comments about the Middle East and its politics, please use this Have Your Say discussion.
Jon Williams is the BBC's world news editor.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~31~RS~)
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If it were Russia or another official enemy enforcing these press restrictions, the BBC would make much more of it.
Take for example this report on Chechnya.
"Media coverage of the recent conflict is also far more restricted. That means the Russian military is free to act with much greater brutality."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1292799.stm
Would the BBC dare to say that Israeli restrictions are for a similar purpose? I think not.
It is interesting to contrast BBC reporting on the Gaza conflict with its reporting on the Georgia conflict. With the Georgia conflict, the tone was very much against Russia.
For example, the presenter of Newsnight said of a Russian government announcement "it's the kind of Newspeak that would make George Orwell proud".
I do not recall the BBC refering to any Israeli government announcements Orwellian Newspeak.
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As usual, the BBC are controlled in their reporting of actual facts - just like the United Nations.
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I wonder how long it will be before the BBC not only start to aim some heartfelt and incisive criticism at the Israelis, but also begin to point out to them that they must have many things to hide and why. Instead we will probably have to endure more pointless moderation of this blog just as it happened with the earlier blog.
If we start with the premise that both ordinary Israeli people and the Palestinians caught up in the carnage in Gaza have much in common we get to the point that both the IDF and Hamas are causing a lot of unnecessary death, pain and suffering. At least Hamas have made clear their aims and objectives and it is a pity that, in preventing access to the area, Israel is not doing the same. If it were simply the intention to "stop the rockets" then why did Israel inflame Hamas in December?
There is much in this conflict between two radical bodies that we are not being told, and it is a pity that the BBC have not told us the more controversial elements of this ongoing saga. We know there are risks in upsetting the vested interests in both the US and the UK but, in seeking balance, there are many things that must be said if the mutual hatred is to be ended.
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Whether Israel allows your reporters into Gaza is a matter for Israel, not you to decide. From reading this article, I get the impression that you are more concerned with reporting directly from Gaza than you are for the welfare of your journalists. I'm so glad I don't work for you. If this is the BBCs attitude, the BBC is very irresponsible. Isn't it illegal to endanger the safety of your employees?
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Personally I think media in war situations do more harm than good. I believe media is now a war instrument as much as bombs and bullets, and that modern terrorism is a product of this. The terrorists have their own propaganda wings, probably even their own media contacts such is the interest in tv terrrorism. There is not truth in war, only bloodshed and misery, no right and wrong, so why report it? Why, to inflame more muslims, to upset more Jews, to show the west how not to live.
I am actually supportive of less press access than more to Gaza!
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wns 195... No It is not a matter for Israel to decide whether press are allowed in. They is compelling evidence that they have flouted almost every aspect of the Geneva conventions and in any event, Palestine is a sovereign nation and Israels complete surrounding of them by siege tactics by land, sea and air is criminal. If one country completely cuts another country off from the world, then that country has a right to do what it takes to allow the free movement of its' people.
Isreal in 2002 was carrying out agression against Palestine...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4395561,00.html
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Has the BBC considered using footage from Al Jazeera in Gaza?
If it’s free for me to watch and re-use, licensed CC-BY, you should be able to air it!
See http://cc.aljazeera.net/
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I'm sorry why should the BBC help/aid Hamas in this battle? Can you justify giving material support to a Terrorist Organization banned by the EU?
Because as has been noted in many places, Hamas is trying to "win" by portraying themselves as victims. They are intent on using the media to show a false view of their actions. They want to flood the media with "palestinian victims" and for the BBC to ignore the thousands of rockets that they have launched. Yes that war crime that the BBC tends to ignore, those rockets deliberately launched at Israeli civilians. Funny how lopsided your middle East reporting is on the history of this conflict. And the media gladly goes along with it (yes even the BBC). You allow remarks of "genocide" and "holocaust" to go unchallenged by Hamas leaders. You interview Israeli Arabs who are muslim, but fail to point out that their existence as citizens of Israels belies HAMAS' accusation of genocide. Or do you believe that somehow they are no longer palestinians.
So if you do go in and report as you have in the past, can the US try the reporters for "material support" of a terrorist organization. Factually that is what you would be doing.
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Doesn't the BBC already have a proper Gaza correspondent, Aleem Maqbool? Can the BBC please explain what he was doing traversing the West Bank on a donkey at the same time as the Gaza ceasefire was coming to an end?
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I would like to know why is the BBC (and the other TV stations) more concerned about what is going on in Gaza than in Afghanistan, were there are many British Forces personnel and civilians involved in humitarian operations, risking their lives every day?
We practically know the inside leg measurement of every Israeli soldier and HAMAS militant but are only informed of a tragic death of a soldier in Afghanistan.
This is not acceptable and the BBc should lead from the front and provide us with more information as to what is currently going on over there. As someone who has done a tour of duty over there, there is a heck of lot of good things as well as bad unfortunately that does not get publicised.
Let us not turn this into a British Vietnam. We should all be proud of what we are currently trying to achieve and what we have already out there. Thank God for Help for Heroes!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!
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From where I sit, the Israelis appear to be acting in an incredibly accomodating manner to people who seem to be dedicated to enabling their defeat and humiliation.
A case in point is the recent article posted by the BBC accusing IDF troops--without anything approaching credible independent substantiation--of firing on fleeing civilians waving white flags. This is the kind of overt blood libel that I have sadly come to expect these days from what I once considered the world's finest source for international news, and indeed what once was my sole source for said.
For tripe like the aforementioned article, which will undoubtedly inspire more violence and murderous behaviour on the part of people already inclined to unthinking antisemitism, I myself would have ejected the BBC from Israel and the Occupied Territories altogether until they could come up with a concrete plan to make their middle east bureaux more impartial. But since Israel, as you well know, is a liberal democracy, they won't do this and you can continue slandering them with an impunity your people would NOT enjoy should they ever try employing this tactic against Palestinians in Hamas, or even Fatah, controlled territory.
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One of the problems with your reporting of this conflict is that you exercise the right level of cynicism when dealing with what the Israelis say, but accept what Hamas, its supporters, and those in areas it controls as fact.
Hamas has every reason in the world to lie, and has been caught doing it. That is something you've failed so far to report, why? As only a few years ago Hamas murdered all those in Gaza who opposed it it is unlikely that many inside The Strip will feel free to criticise them.
Also I've noticed the hyperbole is already flowing from your reporters for example Huw Edwards called it an 'endless' conflict today. Less than a month is hardly 'endless'.
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European and American non-Network news facilities are showing a war that Israel has activated unilaterally and is getting out their own spin of what they say the Palestinians are doing. However, they refuse to back up these claims with photo/video examples and the UN did not see anything to back up Israel's claims during their time in Gaza, other than the rockets. Where is all the damage from the rockets in Israel? Have not heard of 800+ women and children massacred in southern Israel near Gaza. Collateral Damage does not mean the slaughter of children by any country.
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Jon, I fear that you are being overly harsh on the Israelis, it must be extremely difficult to not allow personal views impede on a journalists impartiality in reporting the news, however I would suggest that having two muslim journalist broadcast the 'facts' would have many people doubting the BBC's 'factual' reporting of the conflict.
The BBC also leaves itself open to claims of bias by reporting unconfirmed allegations against the Israelis, normally allegations that have quickly been proving incorrect.
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The BBC 's reporting of this conflict, particularly on the World Service, is putrid. I have not heard one report on the World Service that does not begin with the plight of the civilians on Gaza and then dwell on that at the expense of other aspects of the fighting. Yes, it is important to inform people of the civilian casualties and it is shocking and tragic that so many have been killed and injured but the BBC gives us no context for these events, particularly Hamas' use of human shields.
Since you have journalists in Gaza you should get them to do their job. And if they can't do their job through fear of Hamas then you should let the public know that is the case.
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If we are to get true reporting of the atrocities of this war against the people of palestine. The BBC should also report on the context, i.e Isreal's continued occupation of the palestinian land against all UN resolutions. Resolutions which have never been enforced infact Isreal has continued to place new settlements on this land. History tells us that any people forced to live under occupation will fight back and defend themselves through whatever means they have (sticks and stones in comparison to the latest weapons of destruction used by isreal). People gave their lives to fight the German occupation in WW11 for freedom and the right to live without fear and oppression. The people of palestine deserve NO less. If you need evidence of the context of this conflict then look at zaynab's story on YouTube.
It shows what it means to live under occupation and the desperate daily struggle to survive.
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I totally agree with StevenJMUK comment.
I lost my trust for BBC news coverage. It’s not objective or impartial and often misleading.
The Russian response to Georgian aggression was labelled as disproportionate and excessive by the BBC.
And yet the Russian tanks in Gori didn’t fire a single shot! Neither did they bomb densely populated areas, Hospitals or schools. But still, the BBC were full of condemnations and very reluctant to report Georgian atrocities towards the South Ossetian population. On 7 August Georgian forces attacked Tshinvali and killed 900 civilians and 18 Russian peacekeepers and the BBC were completely silent about this fact!
Just imagine if Russians bombed the UN compound with Phosphorous shells or the Media centre in Georgia? Massive outrage and condemnations would be guaranteed.
But somehow Israel’s atrocities and Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe presented by the BBC as unimportant news! It’s highly hypocritical and dishonest.
I would rather pay my TV licence to the Channel 4 as they provide more objective coverage for public. The BBC looks as if it is Public Broadcast for the Israeli government's propaganda.
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I and many others I know are heartily sick of the BBC's endless, shameless bias in reporting the Israeli massacre in Gaza. Your reporters have access to the internet like the rest of us. They have researchers to dig out the story behind the propaganda. Yet the BBC's standard view – echoing the world's political leaders – is that Hamas started it all, and Israel is acting in self defence. Rubbish. Look at the documented history. Zionist policy has from the start been quite explicit: get rid of the Arabs by whatever means and take over their land. Israel planned this invasion of Gaza even before the ceasefire started. They broke all the conditions of the ceasefire. Of course Palestinians retaliated. Yes, in a sad, pointless, desperate way, attacking Israeli civilians rather thaan military, because that's all they had the ability to do. But they didn't start the aggression. Israel did, with a deliberate provocation. Israelis are not stupid and they know very well how to achieve what they want. Gaza has vast natural gas reserves; and it has Palestinians. How to remove one and steal the other? Provoke a war and massacre the inhabitants, with support from 'The Quartet'. You can find these facts, BBC. It's your job. We pay the licence to get factual, unbiased reporting. Not media lies and distortion.
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Thanks Jon. For being so open. No, only joking! When will I ever read a BBC editor telling it clearly? Today...?
Are you telling us here that the BBC has been indulging the Israeli military propaganda programme, and that the price was worth it ("It's certainly good for our audiences")?
You say, "Three weeks after Israel's military operations began, the BBC along with other international broadcasters is still being prevented from sending independent reporters into Gaza"; 'independent' being the key word, as we then find out: "a BBC cameraman was taken in to Northern Gaza by the IDF to witness their operations" embedded with the Israeli military.
You try to salvage some honour by appealing for the "need to be given access to Gaza", but the comment about the 'audiences' condemns you irreparably, as we learn that the 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' is part of BBC ethics. I mean who cares whether it provides a fair and balanced view, right? As long as we get the audiences. Perhaps I'm being too harsh? No, I don't think so. If the cap fits wear it.
It was interesting to learn however, that even if they did allow 'independent' journalists into Gaza it "would put the Israeli staff needed to process them at risk of attack".
Sorry? How would they be put at risk? Are you saying that they would allow 'independent' journalists who would have to be accompanied by 'staff needed to process them'?
Are you being deliberately vague or is it just that you are having difficulty expressing yourself? Or have I got that wrong?
What does that sentence mean Jon? What does 'process' mean? Unless I'm very mistaken you're saying:'independent' journalists would have to be accompanied by an Israeli minder with unknown powers! And that the danger would actually be to the Israeli and not the journalist? If that is so, why can't you say so clearly and loudly? Oh, of course, because he wouldn't really be independent, right?
You end well but, disappointingly, back away at the moment of truth: "In the meantime, independent reporting is just one of the many casualties of the conflict in Gaza."
'In the meantime'? Only 'is'?
Surely a more honest version would have been: "independent reporting is, was and always will be one of the casualties in Gaza?"
No, I'm pretty sure now that I won't find any straight´talking from a BBC editor tonight...
Sincerely,
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• Your comments on the BBC's reporting are welcome below;
Wow, what an opportunity.
The BBC have adopted the "rocket fire" excuse as their official position it seems. News desk anchors use it, correspondents use it, and they are fond of repeating it when Israeli spokespeople use it, its even been used as a soundbite, repeatedly.
Anyone would think there was no occupation, no illegal settlements, no ongoing Israeli crimes in the West Bank and Gaza. That this wasnt between The Occupied and The Occupier, and that Hamas wasnt born out of occupation.
And the worst thing is, for the BBC, Hamas held their rocket fire, held it for four months and actively prevented other groups firing theirs, until Israeli missiles murdered several Hamas members. And then Hamas still offered to renew the ceasefire.
It took More4 news to tell the truth of it, to a stunned ex Israeli foreign minister, but that was a bit late in the day, over two weeks into the assualt on Gaza. The BBC have swallowed the Israeli propaganda line hook line and sinker, and are still swallowing.
Its an utter disgrace.
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Jon:
I think that the BBC is been covering the Gaza story in a very fair and accurate way, even with the [current] restrictions of not being allowed to bring in correspondents....
~Dennis Junior~
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Dont get me wrong Jon, the rocket fire is happening, it is a crime, a murderous crime.
But the crime comitted by The Occupied ough not to be used, or even seem to be used, as a justification for the ongoing crimes of The Occupier - as seems to be the case with BBC reporting.
In fact, if the BBC were to stop following the Israeli propaganda line, as it does when it pretends to know that Israeli forces are battling only Hamas fighters (see latest online articles). Then apart from mentioning all the other potential resistance groups, the BBC could simply adopt "Resistance" and "Occupation" as terms of reference for the two forces. This in turn could help remind BBC staff that there is indeed an ongoing occupation.
Of course Israel has the right to defend itself, another position seemingly adopted by BBC news anchors. About the same right as Germany had when it occupied Poland and created the Warsaw Ghetto.
Though with Israel threatening to "lockdown" the West Bank on Friday, there is a chance the BBC might actually mention the ongoing murderous occupation. Perhaps a chance to mention the rejectionist position of the Israeli state?
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I haven't watched Newsnight in a while. I would have thought the BBC would be able to wheel out Jeremy Paxman to interview every Israeli, and every Palestinian spokesperson. Not just Newsnight, but BBC News 24 too.
There is a professional who does not pander to the delicate, political world of political spin. We don't want polite interviewing of people involved in war. We want them to be held to account and explain themselves properly. An interviewer who permits the usage of spin, isn't an interviewer. They are doing the job of Parkinson, in the wrong circumstances, in the wrong place, and with the wrong people.
The mere fact that the Israelis have taken it upon themselves to dictate who can and can not go into Palestine tells you everything you need to know. One country, isolating another from the outside world does so for one reason and one reason only. They are breaking all international laws and do not want credible witnesses.
Has anyone realised those working for the press are doing such a good job, the Israeli army has decided to target the press buldings? How blatant do they need to be. Shall we wait until they spell it out for us?
There is no spin in the world to hide what is going on.
Never, ever trust any army or any country who deny free access to the independant and free press.
The UN has insisted the Israelis stop their bloody activities. They haven't. The UN has now been bombed in Gaza, an utterly despicable act, amongst many others. This is a dangerous time not only for the region, but for all of us.
Have the investigative lawyers been employed to prepare the legal case at the Haig yet? And if not, why not? Perhaps Jeremy could insist someone answer that question too?
John Ging, Rushdi Abualouf and Hamada Abuqammar are doing amazing work. Well done.
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It is doubtful that the BBC will soon renounce its bias against Israel. I know some who hate Israel and Jews despair that Israel is not demonized more by the BBC, but it is demonized quite enough.
One clear example of bias is BBC's implying that Palestinian sources are credible, while Israeli statements are somehow questionable. Take any day's BBC articles and you'll notice phrasings like "Israel claims..." for Israeli statements, while "Israel killed" (implying facts), only at the end to be qualified by "according to Palestinian sources", when quoting the latter. Note also that Israel's statements are the ones always under scrutiny, while Palestinian ones are not, on grounds of "oh, we're not allowed to report from there". How about those times that you were? How about never making a correction to the antisemitism-inciting reporting the BBC first made about the "massacre in Jenin" and no apology made when its relying on Palestinian sources proved disgracefully not objective and inaccurate?
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Israel has undoubtedly a ferocious PR machine permeating all media and probably protected by Jewish Nationals in every country. In the past most people were not aware of this, now however its out in the open and will over time loose its credibility and potency.
Despite this, what an awful, stupid mistake invading Gaza actually is, especially after the world knows it inflicted a blockade against Gaza for some considerable time. What obvious action were the people of Gaza going to take?
The defence argued "To stop the rockets" and "there is no humantarian crisis in Gaza". is ludicrous. Phosphorus shells used to retaliate against homemade rockets.
Stories of soldiers shooting grandmothers holding children and waving a white flag and shooting little girls in the back are the worst I can think of coming from a civilised country. When a hospital gets fired on - actually how many Hamas gunmen are being engaged? Is the obvious number of civilian casualties and deaths this action incurred and, probably only against a handful of men, morally right?
Last night a picture of a little child by his dead Muslim Mother was shown. It was immediately claimed as propoganda manipulation why? -because it had been taken during Israel's war on Lebanon. I will never forget the anger and deep sadness I felt watching that war. This war is yet another massacre, a repeat
If ever a country wanted to turn world opinion against itself this is exactly how. Especially when it is now inferred on numerous tv channels that attacking Gaza was planned well in advance.
What is so dispicable is that this massacre can never be referred to as a 'blunder' it is a deliberate campaign.
There is no turning back from Israel's actions these will serve to both stimulate and galvanize hatred and will create our future world. The tragedy of this is that I expect the vast majority of people in Israel and Gaza are completely univolved - just living their lives and would have preferred their political parties to have acted very differently. It does highlight a simple fact that governments around the world are so far apart from their public.
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Mr Williams - I feel the BBC's coverage of the events in Gaza has been fair and from what I've heard from my UN colleagues in the Middle East, accurate as to what is happening on the ground.
Working in a field related to providing humanitarian aid, it is difficult for me not to be partial to the people in Gaza. Viewers will make their own judgements and read what they will into the reports they come across - be they from the BBC, al-Jazeerah, CNN or wherever. Regardless, the fact remains that many innocent people are left destitute because of this conflict.
I was forwarded a beautiful Gaza haiku verse published on the Wonkie cartoon blog which for me was more insightful into the nature of the conflict than much of the commentary covering the rationalisations of war from either side. In the end, reporting is about the people that are affected by the conflict, not about who is right and who is wrong.
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Considering the BBC's record on "impartial"reporting on the Israeli Arab conflicts over the years, it is no wonder that Israel does not want BBC correspondents inside Gaza. Hamas and it's sister organisations have a long history of using the media, especially the British media, as it's propaganda machine.
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Despite being denied access to Gaza, it should be straightforward to report an accurate sequence of events.
Also, use of pejorative terms and military speak (e.g. 'collateral damage') should either be reworded or in quotes.
From June to 4th November not a single Israeli was killed by a rocket from Gaza, yet the narrative was that Hamas broke the cease fire despite offering a renewed cease fire if the blockade was lifted.
Also, I'd like to point out that Hamas' political wing isn't banned in the UK and that as Jeremy Greenstock explained on the Today programme, they are a grievance based organisation.
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There are several people who blog of the "lopsided" reporting of Gaza but none seem to conclude that it would be better for the media to have access to the area. We have claims of inaccurate reporting of the history of the region and yet there are "conflict timelines" going back a long way on countless outlets including the BBC.
It is well recognised that it takes a very shrewd commentator to accurately portray the detail of conflicts of this order but it takes much less effort to report on attacks that can be visually confirmed. By restricting access it would seem that Israel is quite happy to have uneven or "lopsided" reports since it makes it easier to put down reports as "inaccurate".
Politicians cannot have it both ways, much as they may like it to be so. If you open the door then you in a much stronger position to criticise inaccuracy, but, in the absence of a welcome mat you are in no position to castigate people for forming whatever opinion they wish.
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What is stopping your reporters from entering Gaza from the Egyptian side. Surely BBC journalists are resourceful enough to find someone to guide them through a tunnel into Gaza usually used for food, weapons, etc.?
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I find the BBC coverage fair and balanced and I am not particularly partial to either party.
EnjoyingLifeInUSA (44) - I think you're reading too much into semantics - extract what you need from the reports stripping away what you see as subjective and draw your conclusions like the rest of us.
Sizwe (an African blogger
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latest online article -
Dont mention the occupation!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7832406.stm
"[i]The Israeli army has closed all access to the West Bank for the next two days following a call by Hamas for all Palestinians to observe what it called a day of wrath, by staging anti-Israeli protests at Friday prayers.
The Palestinian Authority issued a similar call to action to followers of Fatah, a rival Palestinian faction to Hamas.[/i]"
Plus there's three quotes from Israeli spokespoeple along with further reiteration of the israeli position (as if it were the BBCs own position), one mention of rejection from Hamas.
Utterly disgusting as you've no doubt come to expect.
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Well, well, well. The ICRC has confirmed that Israel is NOT using white phosphorus munitions illegally, according to an Associated Press report. And to my complete non-surprise, there is no mention of this on the BBC's website, but there are several articles repeating this modern blood libel over and over again. Hitler would be proud of the quislings infesting your Jerusalem bureau... And hey, so would his then-ally, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Guess not much changes, what?
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SizweMahlala, semantics are extremely important, because antisemites use them in order to pretend objectivity. Israel is lynched in today's media the same way Jews were lynched in "Mein Kampf".
During the war in Lebanon the BBC presented many false accusations against Israel in its news stories. Qualifying them as accurate based on the fact they were taken from established Arab media was and still is the BBC's modus operandi.
Of course the Arab media would present false information, but the BBC should not condone it.
What is interesting is that the BBC does publish the narrative of the Palestinian side based on its two Arab associates who are in Gaza. What anybody with independent thought would ask is why these associates have no stories about how Hamas operates in its fight against Israeli troops, while at the same time claiming Hamas fighters are ubiquitous.
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I find the BBC coverage biased against Israel. I am hopeing since CNN is now in Gaza their will be more balanced than the BBC ever would be.
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"58. At 2:51pm on 16 Jan 2009, jpetrisor wrote:
Well, well, well. The ICRC has confirmed that Israel is NOT using white phosphorus munitions illegally, according to an Associated Press report."
No, your comprehension skills, along with those of who titled the article, are seriously lacking. ICRC said no such thing in the article, it says it has no evidence but points out that evidence is still limited because of the difficulties of gaining access to Gaza.
So your whole argument against the BBC falls flat, not least because the BBC has not reported that Israel HAS used it illegally. Its hardly worth the BBC's effort to report that evidence is limited because Israeli is blocking access.
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I heard the report from your correspondent Christian Fraser on the radio NewsHour this morning.
It's is truly amazing that in his lengthy story he did not manage to mention any of the 15,000 heavily armed Hamas members who are currently engaged in deadly combat with the IDF.
Why do you think he did not see them?
If he did, why did he not report it?
Could this have anything to do with BBC editorial policy concerning Israel?
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How anyone could say that the BBC "defends" Israel, is totally beyond me.
The BBC is obviously biased against Israel, focusing all the time on the unfortunate victims who are being used as human shields by the cynical and amoral Hamas terrorists, while ignoring the reasons the Israelis are having to do what they are doing.
It is little wonder that the BBC is stopped from entering Gaza.
In any case , as other posters here have said, what is the problem in the BBC entering from the border with Egypt, or flying in from Cyprus?
Some posters here have a problem with logic and facts:
"The UN has now been bombed in Gaza, an utterly despicable act, amongst many others. "
Well if the UN, that particularly useless waste of space of an organisation, are going to allow Hamas terrorists to use the premises to attack Israeli troops, what do you expect?
"Anyone would think there was no occupation, no illegal settlements, no ongoing Israeli crimes in the West Bank and Gaza." Well someone has been reading the Grauniad haven't they?
Occupation?
Israel was created in 1948 by international agreement and since then has had to fight and win four wars against Arabs who instigated every one of them. As for illegal settlements, I distinctly remember seeing on TV Israeli troops forcibly removing Israeli settlers from their homes on disputed territory.
Why is there no condemnation by the BBC of Hamas, which is an EU declared terrorist organisation?
Anyway, CNN are now in Gaza, maybe that shows they are more balanced in their reporting of the situation.
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Hi Jon.
I notice you haven't replied to anyone's comments. Your privilege of course.
You were extremely coy in the article above about naming the journalist' and the brigade he was embedded with.
I have now seen the clip and must say I am outraged. Regardless of whether the actual film was reviewed by a military censor, you have allowed claims made by one soldier that Hamas had 'wired' a school to go unchallenged. My earlier post has been proved correct, you have allowed the BBC to be used as a propaganda outlet by the IDF and this is unacceptable.
The other disturbing element is exactly where your journalist was embedded: the Givati Brigade.
This was the unit whose soldiers were found guilty of repeatedly beating up two handcuffed Palestinian children, one of whom died.
This was the unit whose soldiers mortally wounded a 13-year-old Palestinian girl in the southern Gaza Strip in October 2004, and whose commander at the site fired an entire magazine of automatic fire at her prone body.
As I said this is unacceptable and I am waiting for an apology for using taxpayers money to further the propaganda of a foreign army - a foreign army that kills indisciminately and the has the nerve to blame it on others.
Thank, however, for giving me the chance to espress myself here, and I look forward to reading your reply.
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From the comments above it is obvious that Israel's supporters and opponents want different things from your coverage.
Israel's supporters are concerned with the accuracy of your reporting first and with your objectivity second (though also important).
Israel's opponents claim you are not objective because you do not draw harsher conclusions about Israel's actions and you don't call Israelis (or Jews for that matter) devils.
Without accuracy you can't even talk about objectivity. When presenting Palestinian accusations - like that of shooting at civilians with a white flag - as facts, you are inciting antisemitism. It is not Israel's actions encouraging antisemitism, as you always suggest, but the fact that you publicize many lies and then you bury your retractions somewhere where only those of us who keep on searching for them might find them.
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Now Mr. Bowen's "objectivity" is really worth commenting on:
"It would be wrong to suggest that the experience of Israeli civilians in the areas that can be hit by rockets has been the same.
It is very frightening to be close to a rocket when it explodes, and people have been killed or injured. But the casualty figures, and the level of destruction in Gaza, tell their own story. "
My relatives in Sedorot had to run for their lives pretty much every day for the last four years, sometimes several times a day. That's more bombing incidents than anywhere, anytime in known history. Shame on you for dismissing it and what it has done to all the young kids of Sedorot (irreparable psychological damage).
Second, the Israeli army was not shooting at Gaza from Sedorot's civilian areas, schools, synagogues, or clinic, like Hamas does. Assigning the Israeli army the responsibility for all the Palestinian civillian deaths is disingenuous.
Please post this reply as an ultimate example of BBC's valuing Jewish life less than that of others!
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Unfortunately, the BBC seems to have learned nothing.
If anything, your articles and columns continue to become more biased, rather than less, over time.
"The people of Gaza have been suffering terrible pain. When this is over, there is bound to be a proper investigation of some of the actions that Israel has carried out," writes your editor, Jeremy Bowen. But should there be no investigation of the atrocities committed by Hamas, both against Israelis and against its own people?
"But there are plenty of bomb sites where there is extensive collateral damage. It is no wonder there have been so many civilian casualties," writes Christian Fraser. But the number of civilian casualties is less than the number killed by the British air force in a few days in Falujah. There were more civilian casualties in the Black Hawk Down rescue in Somalia. The civilian casualties in Gaza exist because (1) Hamas leaders choose to keep their extended families around them and send their kids up onto rooftops to deflect bombs, and (2) Hamas chooses to store tons of explosives in civilian buildings, and (3) Hamas chooses to continue fighting in crowded areas SIMPLY FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF CONTINUING TO SMUGGLE IN ROCKETS TO SHOOT AT ISRAEL. But you ignore all of this and blame Israel, exclusively, emphatically and without a shadow of a doubt, for every single thing that happens in the Strip.
Meanwhile, Jon Williams continues to be fixated with Israel's refusal to allow reporters to go wandering around in whole neighborhoods that have been booby trapped with explosives by Hamas (talk about collateral damage) or to allow reporters to embed with Hamas terrorists whom it intends to bomb, for fear that it will kill them.
I have NO objection to articles that criticize Israel if it does things that go beyond what other countries (such as the UK) do in warfare. I have a VERY strong objection to your incredible hypocrisy, and having watched your descent from general bias and dehumanization of Israelis into outright blood libel, I find myself far more disgusted with the BBC today than I am with Fox or al Jazeerah. And that took real effort on your part.
You, sirs, are fanning the flames of hatred with your severely biased and deeply unprofessional "journalism." And the flames of hatred are indeed growing, and many of the resulting deaths on all sides of this conflict should be laid at the door of your institution. Would hatred exist anyway? Yes, in some quarters. But how many of your readers/listeners are raging at Hamas for committing war crimes, storing weapons in buildings with babies and shooting rockets from schools? Almost nobody. Why? Because you whitewash the crimes of Hamas, and people believe you. You clearly don't want them to understand the reality behind your glib statistics and your horrible images.
Get off your high horse. You've lost any of the moral authority that you ever had.
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"67. At 00:38am on 17 Jan 2009, yah_shamar wrote:
I am neither Jewish nor Arab. I regret seeing the devastation in Gaza. Why is it so hard to say, Stop the rockets from Gaza and the bombs from Isreal will stop. Why Do the people in Gaza NOT see the cause and effect?"
The people of Gaza no doubt know, just like the Israeli government do, that Hamas held the ceasefire until the 4th of November when Israel broke the ceasefire by killing 6 Hamas members. They know Hamas held the ceasefire and yet they got nothing back from Israel but more blockade and more killing. They also know Hamas worked to prevent other rouge groups from firing missiles.
See this clip http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SILJxPTqjAM
and this one http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KntmpoRXFX4
and this one http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pcOtHHMIVdI&eurl=http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1231809048.html
Note the confirmation of events from the israeli government.
Also note that the BBC has failed to report this important context - presumably they thought it too controversial, or likey to lead to cries of being anti Israeli?
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So it is now Saturday, the BBC has failed to retract it's claim that the IDF used phosphorus on civilians, even though CNN are reporting that this claim is false.
The BBC is a disgrace, and if as the BBC claims, that it's charter is to represent the entire country, why is is it that the 90% of the population who do not support HAMAS are not allowed to have their views hard on BBC news shows?.
Balen report anyone?.
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A couple of questions for those that would accuse the BBC of anti-israeli bias.
1) When have you ever heard BBC staff say that Palestinians have the right to defend themselves from Israeli attacks?
Of course you can compare that with the number of times the BBC has said that Israel has the right of selfdefense. I dont mean having someone on tv who said it, but actually said by the BBC staff themselves.
2) When have you ever heard BBC staff mention the settlements in the West Bank as a grievance of the Palestinians? (i see one online article posted yesterday).
Of course you can compare that with the number of times 'rocket fire' has been mentioned by BBC staff.
It seems to me that Israeli grievances coupled with Israel's right to self defense have been internally adopted by BBC staff.
Maybe i'm wrong here, show me when the BBC staff voice Palestinian grievances and mention the Palestinians right to self defense.
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"77. At 09:22am on 17 Jan 2009, Rustigjongens wrote:
So it is now Saturday, the BBC has failed to retract it's claim that the IDF used phosphorus on civilians,"
How can the BBC retract a claim it never made.
Point to where you think the BBC made the claim.
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"Your comments on the BBC's reporting are welcome"
Many thanks for this, although in The Editors blogs we seem to no longer have responses by the BBC writers themselves to useful comments made.
So, two comments on Gaza reporting :
1) Reporters frequently give numbers of deaths within Gaza from the Israeli action and within Israel from Hamas. But these figures are reported as if they are quite normal: the very stark disparity in human impact, the customary Israeli lack of concern for loss of Arab life, is treated as unremarkable.
2) The Israeli action is often placed, correctly, in the context of Israel's wish to see an end of rocket attacks over the border. But viewers are not reminded why Israel is taking action at this time: I haven't heard the forthcoming election in Israel mentioned at all since the action began a month ago.
The BBC is misleading viewers if it fails to mention the election asit is surely the key reason why the invasion has taken place at this particular time (that or the need to get it done before Bush leaves town)
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The BBC (and other networks as well) should pay attention to the fact that their sense of mission is not being abused by the Palestinians.
To me it seems that the Hamas is using the reporters as guns, in which they are loading their dead civilians in order to shoot back at Israel, and therefore are eager to manufacture more and more ammunition for that purpose.
Although the right to report, the media needs to show some responsibility, and be aware of the fact that it is now playing a role of a “dangerous weapon” that increases the number of casualties in conflicts and wars.
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That it should not cotradict the regulations of this forum.
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Here's a picture of white phosphorus use.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45385000/jpg/_45385334_afp_school226.jpg
Take a look and tell me what you see.
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I can find no mention in any Israel/Gaza conflict reports concerning gas.
What gas?
In 2000 several energy companies, including British Gas, announced the discovery of significant deposits of natural gas off the Israeli coast.
Estimated at 100 billion cubic meters of proven reserves, these discoveries potentially offer enough gas to meet Israel's goal of supplying 25% of its energy needs for more than 20 years. The discovery has also raised realistic expectations of locating oil deposits beneath the gas fields.
Unfortunately for Israel, 60% of these reserves are in waters controlled by the Palestinian Authority, which has signed a 25-year contract with British Gas for further exploration in the area.
Would Israel allow the Palestinian Authority, let alone Hamas, reap the benefits of the Gazan gas fields dou you think?
Despite British Gas's commitments to Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, the company has announced that it is willing to enter into a deal with Israel.
Either BBC has very limited resources or else BBC chooses not to mention gas.
Why not mention it? Because of British involvement in behind-the-scenes deals with Iseal, maybe?
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It seems that the site doesn't like my links so I've removed them. Trying again:
78. whateverfor wrote:
"Maybe i'm wrong here, show me when the BBC staff voice Palestinian grievances and mention the Palestinians right to self defense."
You can't be exposed to much of the BBC output if you genuinely believe the BBC is not on the side of the Palestinians.
Just last night Gavin Essler on 'Newsnight' asked the Israeli government spokesman if he was "proud" of Palestinian deaths in Gaza:
Contrast that with the easy ride he gave the Palestinian spokesman.
And in a recent World Service interview with the Czech foreign minister, Owen Bennet Jones indignantly asked him whether he conceded that Hamas also has a right to self defence:
"But perhaps the worst interview of all was with the Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic who dared to suggest that every country has a right to defend its citizens, that Hamas had walked away from negotiations, that they had resumed firing rockets into Israel unprovoked, and that Israel's actions are therefore defensive and not offensive. The ire and vitriol of the BBC interviewer was extraordinary. Paxman and Humphreys are pussy cats in comparison. The Czech minister sounded shell shocked. And so was I."
From 'conservative.home.blogs'
There is no greater friend of Hamas today among the Western media than the BBC. And they have been defending Hamas for years.
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Cheers, I most surely agree that the common kolks on the earth deserve to be truthfully informed in all matters, and I surely wish it would always be so, yes bravo to the journalists who are willing to be in places of dangerous conflict at their personal risk of life, however, maybe not so in the UK, but it seems to me that here in US that all information truthfully appears to be "filtered or bias" to the powers to be that promote it to give the readers that which the powers want revealed, usually to their own benefit or manipulation, "What am I on about?" well concerning wars anywhere it seems to me, they say it is because of this reason or that reason... however friends it appears to me that wars or most of the time about selfish greed of a certain few that seek power for theirselves to manipulate the majority of the masses in whatever nation it may be "usually in the name of "God" or in the name of "Justice" or they say "for the good of the people"??? I think that quite honestly that our(the whole world, every nation, every person) would maybe just maybe be alot better off economically and socially if we would just seek to be for the prosperity of all people and not just a minisculle few.
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Thank you for your coverage of the Gaza conflict. In particular, the visual map and timeline were very informative.
However, I was curious about the timeline start date. Some parts of the US press claim there might have been rockets fired from Gaza at some point before your timeline start date. Given that I am unclear on whether to believe the US press, could you either confirm that rockets were fired (and about how many and about how often, if good & reliable date exists) or that the US press is being led astray / leading us astray? The "story line," of course, is whether there were or were not "provocations," and whether the "provocations" were incidental or serious.
At this point, I feel like I am blind and still grasping at some part of the elephant without sensing the whole picture. I do undertand why the BBC has put correspondents there (lots of news!!), but I do not understand why don't Gazans leave? Are there any countries where Gaza refuges are welcomed to become full citizens if they wish to escape this mess? Or is it that they are irreconcilably stuck there?
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The BBC believes all that the UNWRA tells them, in spite of the fact that 99% of the people working for them in Gaza are Palestinians and the Secretary General of the organisation is an American woman who lectured in political science and Islamic studies at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, and at Juba University in southern Sudan.
She earned her B.Sc. at DePauw University in Indiana and her M.A. in Islamic Studies at McGill University in Canada.
She is married to a Sudanese professor and has two children.
Of course the employees and boss of UNWRA can't be biased, can they?
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heres a better picture of white phosphorus use
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/08/middle_east_enl_1232192717/img/1.jpg
***
Dear TrueToo, thanks for the heads up on the recent World Service interview with the Czech foreign minister, i'll look it up. Why do you think someone was shocked that the question was asked about Hamas's right to defend themselves?
The thing about the example you gave is that Hamas was open for negotiation, and had stopped rockets until Israel murdered six of its members.
Why do people still believe that Hamas broke the ceasefire when Israel has admitted they did?
See this clip http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SILJxPTqjAM
and this one http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KntmpoRXFX4
and this one http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pcOtHHMIVdI & http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1231809048.html
Note the confirmation of events from the israeli government.
Also note that the BBC has failed to report this important context.
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'REFUGEES LEFT TO FATE' Writes The Daily Telegraph, Saturday, 17th January 2009. 'The Thai military has been accused of towing hundreds of Burmese 'boat people' out to sea and abandoning them to die with their hands tied and without food, water or an engine on their boat.' Where's the outcry? Why aren't people besieging the Thai Embassy? Last week the Sudanese began bombing Darfur again, while at the same time the Janjaweed have continued with their raping and pillaging. Hundreds of thousands have been killed. Where's the outcry? In the Democratic Republic of Congo people are being burned alive. In Zimbabwe, thousands have died because of government aided cholera and others of starvation. Where's the outcry? Where's the UN? Where's the BBC? Only Israel receives disproportionate scrutiny. Only Israel is vilified by the BBC. The BBC is actively fanning the flames of anti-Semitism in its misreporting and blatant lies. The onus is on the BBC for an abhorrent lack of independence. So far as the BBC is concerned, Hamas bears NO blame for anything. Not for using civilians as human shields and mosques, schools, UN buildings and hospitals to house their terrorists and to shoot from. Then the BBC employs its journalists based in Gaza to mis-inform and lie to the public that everything is Israel's fault and Israel's fault entirely. The BBC is a shameful organisation.
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BBC has done a good job in reporting the raw picture of the distress in Myanmar just after cyclone Nargis .Without their help the world might have not known the extent of the damage . I think BBC correspondents are missing the golden opportunity to highlight the first hand distress for a greater appeal to the international community in this Gaza warfare. Going after a week of a peace will only help in extending the damage and by then much of the memories of the wounded might have down .
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Mr whatever, this is the last time I will beat this horse [to death], as you seem to not be following BBC's main stories as much as I do. You wrote:
"Any "problem" in logic on the first point has been your tendency to invent things.
The accusation against Israel has been made, but not by the BBC (I think it was an American guy from HRW that first accused Isreal of using WP illegally, but he has been denied access to Gaza)."
Take a look at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7831424.stm - "UN accuses Israel over phosphorus. It is exactly as I said: the UN made accusations and the BBC reported them without checking for accuracy. Later, the UN basically admitted they should not have made the accusation, as they still don't have any proof. What more proof do you need (that the BBC frequently carries accusations against Israel when made by those who hate Israel - John Ging in this case, without checking the truth of the accusation made - blood leibel in this case)?
As for my making a logical mistake, I don't think so:
"See if you can spot the logical flaw in your own argument -
There is no proof God exists.
There is no proof fairies exist.
The onus of scientific proof is on those who claim it does exist."
As an atheist and scientist I am firmly convinced that my statements are coherent.
Someone with an open mind could have deduced that I am an atheist, but that requires one's being capable of seeing the other one's point of view.
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Jeremy Bowen, in his latest blog, somehow sidesteps the strident pledges of Hamas to keep fighting in spite of the Israeli cease fire.
Instead he switches the subject to the UN spokesperson (who turns out to be an ex-BBC pal of Jeremy's!!!) who makes claims of war crimes against Israel ('We have emails!').
So, as Bowen's mumblings about Hamas having issues slowly get buried beneath the seven paragraphs of war crimes accusations from his old BBC buddy, we lose sight of Hamas' determination to fight until the last Gazan is dead or injured.
Bowen has not changed his biased reporting in years, unlike Alan Johnston, who is now sounding a lot more objective since his 'friends' among the Islamic extremists kidnapped him and held him captive for a while.
The BBC's role in inciting anti-Israel hatreds should not go unrecognized.
Perhaps the BBC will finally change its editorial policies when the jihadist terrorism of 7/7 is repeated a few more times outside their windows.
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Such a presumption as this by the BBC, is surely outside its code of practice.
"Israel has begun a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza, three weeks after launching a full-scale assault against Hamas." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7835794.stm
Firstly, the "assault against Hamas" claim is a claim made by Israel and should not be internalised by the BBC as a fact. It ought to be reported as 'Israeli say', especially so considering the casualty lists and damage done. Not to mention that Hamas were not the only group to be firing rockets from Gaza into Israel.
I know that Israelis repeat ad nauseum that this is all about Hamas, but that does not excuse the BBC internalising this claim as if it were fact. For all the BBC knows this was intended as an assualt on the people of Gaza in order to end their support for Hamas, which is what Israelis said about the blockade. It could be other reasons not expressed. But the simple fact is that a lot more than Hamas has been hit, and that it is not the job of the BBC to speak on behalf of Israel or promote Israeli propaganda.
A simple change to "assault on Gaza" would suffice.
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What politicians say and what they do are more often than not totally unlinked activities. Claims are made and then actions belie the claims. At home journalists are quick to spot the differences unless they are cronies of the party making the claims.
Hence, in Gaza, we have an offensive that is designed to "stop the rockets" and yet, between June and November 2008 there were no rockets. The BBC is quick to pick up on the "stop the rockets" so that it mitigates the atrocities committed by the occupying force. Then there is the "hearsay" which is the deliberate mechanism of the politician to discredit any reporting of what a third party may claim against the occupier. "We are there; we KNOW what is happening" is the retort. Media manipulation of this kind is sophisticated and unpleasant and is much more relevant to BBC condemnation. Hamas is not stopping independent coverage - Israel is. That is the starting point for all the news of Gaza, not the presence of "rocket attacks" as an irrelevant excuse for brutality, murder, and worse.
The BBC seems running scared of the truth of this conflict because it is failing to use its absence from Gaza as a means to report much more deeply on the true motives for this conflict from the side of the oppressor. No fight between factions is ever "rabble causing a stir" as much as politicians may like us to believe it. There is always a point where one side or the other oversteps the mark.
How long is it necessary to maintain an over sensitive regard for what has passed into history and start reporting on what is happening in the same way that it would be covered were this anywhere else in the world?
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After noticing that the only support they had left was Osama bin Laden and The Aryan Nation, Hamas decides to stop shooting.
It BBC will probably immediately switch over to full time atrocity stories, leaving behind the fact that the Israelis will be exiting Gaza if Hamas indeed stops firing rockets and that most of the casualties were from among the 15,000 heavily armed Hamas soldiers whose faces never quite made it to th4e BBC reports.
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@ suttoncase
Do you advocate paying compensation to the 800,000 Jews who fled to Israel from persecution, rioting and death threats in Arab lands in 1948?
They left behind all their land, houses and whatever wealth they had.
The BBC persists in not countering the myths of Israel being a country settled by European Jews, when instead at least 50% of the Jewish population is from Arab lands and 20% of the population are indeed Arabs.
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Mr phantomphiddler, there are serious lapses in your narrative about Israel's coming into existence and I don't blame you, as the BBC does not provide enough background. Where the BBC has to show historical data it avoids drawing any conclusion which would support the Jewish right of a country in their ancestral land. I will make corrections to what I see as your errors, in the order you wrote them:
1. The history of modern date Israel is born as a result of Zionism, which predates the Holocaust;
2. The English government first created several Arab states and opposed Israel's creation until the US strongly supported it;
3. The oldest existing indigenous population are the Jews, who lived there thousands of years before the Arabs and were always a considerable minority. In fact, Israel as a proportion of the mandate for Palestine represents just about the same percentage as the minimum percentage Jews represented in the total population of Palestine (about 16%), at any time in history (see BBC census data); in Jerusalem, the Jews had always been a majority, with the exception of several decades during the Crusades and between 1948-1967, when Jerusalem was "ethnically cleansed" of its Jews;
4. The democratic rights of the Arabs had been already supported when Jordan was created on 80% of Palestine and the rest was to be split into a Jewish and [yet another] Arab state;
The last country in the region had been the Jewish kingdom of Judah, followed by the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, The Arab Empire[s], the Ottoman Empire, and then the British Mandate for Palestine. "Palestina" is a name given by Romans to the Jewish kingdom they conquered (600 years before the Arabs arrived), reference probably to the Philistines. The latter are Greeks who left the area around Santorini after a massive eruption in 1623? BC, according to most historians. In other words, the name "Palestinian" relates to the Arabs like "Australian Natives" relates to the European colonizers of Australia (weakly and more recently).
Last, but not least, look at the low total population numbers (less than 50,000) living in Palestine before diaspora Jews started arriving in late 19th century. They are so low compared with later numbers, because most of today's "Palestinians" are descendants of Syrian and mostly Egyptian Arabs who were drawn in by what they perceived as economic opportunities brought by the Jews' arrival. As a matter of fact, while curtailing Jewish immigration (some say at the cost of hundreds of thousands during the Holocaust), the British authorities supported and encouraged Arab immigration - more Arabs were allowed into Palestine before 1943 than Jews.
I hope the BBC will allow what I believe to be relevant information which is always ignored. It might help the majority who oppose Israel's existence to understand there is more to the relationship of people to the land.
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I think that the BBC coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is very poor.
We are constantly bombarded with the propaganda of Israel’s spokesmen and none of the BBC presenters has the guts to challenge them.
The BBC claim to be impartial and objective but at the same time, when it comes to Israel policy, it's full of hypocrisy and the double standards, five in particular:
Hypocrisy no1:"Israel has the right to self-defence".
Don't Palestinians have the same right? Can you commit mass murder in self defence? Can the use of banned weapons such as cluster bombs and phosphorous shells be justified?
No2:" What country can tolerate rocket barrage?"
What country can tolerate 60 years of brutal occupation, or siege or inhumane treatment?
No 3: "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East."
Is it democratic to ban all Arab parties from participating in coming elections?
Livni openly said that she sees the future for the Israeli Arabs as being outside the state of Israel (this point was completely ignored by the BBC!).
The Zionist idea of a pure Jewish State is based on racism and ethnic cleansing. It's no different to Hitler's theory of "the Aryan Nation " and " The Third Reich".
Israeli policy from the start has been quite explicit: to get rid of the Arabs by whatever means and take over their land. Israel was never seriously interested in a two state solution.
No 4: "Hamas don't recognize Israel's right to exist."
Does Israel recognize Hamas or the right of the Palestinians to have their own state?
Are primitive home-made rockets a real threat to Israel’s existence?
On the other hand Israel possesses a huge arsenal of WOMD, including nuclear weapons.
Israel not only threatens its neighbours but is actively attacking them- only two years ago they waged war on Lebanon.
Just recently Israel asked permission from Bush to bomb Iran. Can any country in the MidEast region feel safe with such an aggressive neighbour?
No 5." Hamas using people as a human shield."
Evidence on the ground from UN and Red Cross staff suggests otherwise- Israel is targeting civilians indiscriminately. Nowhere is safe, including UN compounds, schools, hospitals and homes.
I would understand this sheepish attitude towards Israel if the BBC were sponsored by Jewish Lobbies (like 90% of the mainstream media in America) but so far to my knowledge the BBC is paid by British taxpayers' money and is supposed to be a British Public Broadcaster.
Finally : The cost of WW2 was 60 million lives. 27 million Russians were killed by the Nazis. We created the UN so that one nation would never be able to dominate another and humanity would never again face holocaust or genocide. Did we learn anything?
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There are two sets of comments here. One block is from the scarily tunnel-visioned Jewish or pro-Israeli block, whose basic mind-set is that Israeli is always right and can NEVER admit that jews can kill, torture, murder and bomb indiscriminately even after seeing pictures of obliterated houses, villages, blocks of flats. Jews are different. they don't do such things. Oh, and anyone who criticises Israel is automatically anit-semitic. The other block of people, me included, are constantly appalled at the said Israeli blitzes, cluster bombing, assassination, mass murder (traffic police for goodness sake!) and equally appalled at the shallow collusive level of so-called reporting by the media. How mant times have I heard the BBC say "Israel says..." this and Israel says that, while the evil Hamas (always in the wrong) don't say much, if anything. As someone said, the BBC went into hysterical anti-Russian mode over Georgia. Of course, for block 1, for the BBC to even show pictures of dead Palestinians is tantamount to anti-semitism.
You have all lost any credibility with thinking people who know anything at all about the conflict. We all know that this is a US/UN/Israeli mission to obliterate Hamas in order to restore to power the nice Mr Abbas who will do anything the Israelis tell him to do. There are a thousand inconvenient questions never asked by the BBC such as why on earth should these peole be firing rockets at Israel in the first place? Could it be that they are resisting a military occupation. Could there be a better response from Israel, like, em, giving Palestinians their land back and also their freedom. Really, it's reporting beneath contempt.
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Here is a very interesting article about media coverage of the war.
http://www.inewsit.com/articles/entry/The-War-in-Gaza-and-the-problem-of-sources
This is on a citizen news website which has been covering this crisis quite extensively.
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A very important recent event seems to have been under-reported by the BBC and other western news media:
Turkey, a long-standing friend of Israel, officially stated that Isreal should be banned from the UN based on its non-compliance with the binding resolution to immediately cease fire several days ago and its history of ignoring countless other UN resolutions. Is it not significant that Israel's recent actions have had such an effect on its former allies?
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BBC is the best!!
Keep up your good work.
It felt like the media in North America are almost afraid of something (not very hard to guess!)
I'm from a country where media have limited freedom in what/how to report, and now, having lived in North America for a few months, I've realised that free media like those in North America may not really be that free/objective. At least I now can compare the reports on difference media, which is good.
BBC is the best! There will always be groups of people of different interests and agendas who want to control/influence media in order to form particular public opinions in their favor.
BBC, Don't let the world down!
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RGBviews (see 114) wrote:
**A very important recent event seems to have been under-reported by the BBC and other western news media:
Turkey, a long-standing friend of Israel, officially stated that Isreal should be banned from the UN based on its non-compliance with the binding resolution to immediately cease fire several days ago and its history of ignoring countless other UN resolutions. Is it not significant that Israel's recent actions have had such an effect on its former allies?**
I agree that it is an important event, but do you mean that it would be great to use this to beat up more on Israel?
Do you recall Turkey's incursions in Northern Irak last year, when we had reports that three villages were shelled and that was it?
Can you contrast that reporting to the reporting on the Gaza war? Do you even recall the range of casualties? Do you recall whether the Kurdish fighters were hidden in villages populated by civilians? Do you recall how many civilians died? Do you know whether the "Kurdish terrorists" were killed because of attacks on Turkish military or civilians?
This is where the BBC's and the world's anti-Israel bias lies - Israel's actions are criticized more than anybody else's. The only time the media takes a break from reporting is when Israel is sitting and taking attacks without responding. My firm conviction is that if you were to be informed every time there is an attempt to kill made by Israelis or Palestinians you would notice that attacks against Israelis in general and Israeli civilians in special are the most common. If you followed the BBC, you'd see that most of Israel's strikes before this war (probably more than 90%) hit armed Palestinians on their way or after they shot at Israelis.
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To EnjoyingLifeInUSA:
Please stay on topic. I'm talking about under-reporting of current events, and questioning how the BBC and western media managed to miss (or conveniently avoid) the statements by the Turkish leaders. Actually the press in Israel reported it, but I was unable to find a trace in the western media. I find this quite disturbing.
Why should banning Israel from the UN be a taboo subject? It seems logical to me that any country violating the UN Charter by repeatedly ignoring binding resolutions should be suspended indefinitely.
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RGBviews, now that I read your post again, I realize that Turkey could not have made such a call, as the UN's cease-fire resolution was not binding, as you claim. No wonder it is missing from the Western media (it can not exist).
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Hamas callously goads Israel into the evil destruction of its own Palestinian people, knowing that Israel knows no other option but to defend its own and suffer terrible mass guilt.
These children's lives have been given as a sacrificial offering, in a Jihad, to annihilate all Jews.
The media BBC included are used as a propaganda offensive [google Pallywood] in the ancient art of Jew scapegoating. Google Balen Report
When will humans start accepting those who are in any way different?
Buffer zone, now!
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I continue to think your reporting of this was much improved compared to coverage a few years back.
You told me two sides and let me make my own mind up - not campaigned to convince me of the evil of one side and the suffering of the other.
Just one issue....the child issue.
Video from gaza continually showed children. But not a single Hamas fighter. Either on the streets or in the hospitals, based on the video you showed a viewer would think that every single person hurt in gaza was a child and hamas had no soldiers.
Frankly I don't find it credible that all the casualties are children and not a single hamas fighter was hurt or could been seen on the streets.
Surely the video you use should either be a bit more representative or (if you can't do that) it should be prefaced by a warning 'this is video supplied by hamas and may not be representative of conditions inside Gaza...'
Likewise claims of 40% of the casualties being children. Is that credible? C4 says 100 hamas were killed in one strike alone. At the very least figures like this should be prefaced with a statement like 'unconfirmed figures from hamas state...'
To me it's pretty obvious that hamas media management was pushing the child thing ruthlessly, but I don't think the news should uncritically act as a conduit for anyones propaganda.
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People are looking at the situation quite wrongly if they believe BBC should not put their staff in danger or it is Israel's responsibility. Well wouldn't it be nice during second world war to have reporters around Nazi Germany so wwthey could have covered the massacres earlier and accurately? I think there should be lagality of this and not BBC but Israel should ensure their security. Becasue in the past Israel killed journalists they can do it anytime again anywhere. This is just to hide the truth. Yes there is danger but Hamas would not kill reporters because they need coverage though they would possibly won't hesistate to kidnap them. But Israel thinks their army which is far more secure and have far too many staff giving an excuse that they can not snsure security. The problem was there was an unbalanced response and everything was manic, that's why. Israel can not and should not stop reporters. But I do believe mmedia and reporting can be used politically which many times were used, like in Armenian siituation in Turkey none of the massacred Turks were reported in Western media apart from a couple independent researchers. Turkish media was not strong enough to put the truth in line....
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One visitor comment read:
"Whether Israel allows your reporters into Gaza is a matter for Israel, not you to decide."
NO, the media blockade was imposed despite the court order from the supreme court, so it is illegal.
This begs the question, why if journalists being allowed into gaza would only work in 'favour' of israel (i mean, then we could see hamas gunmen playing 'peek-a-boo' behind 2-month old babies, and rockets being assembled under school desks, and hospitals hiding gunmen under their hosital beds, etc.), why then are they being bocked off by the very same israel?
As for 'danger to journalists', journalists have experienced a new safety under hamas authority in gaza - the only danger they faced (and are facing today) is from indiscriminate israli shells, missiles and bullets. Just imagine how the Israeli 'Hasbara' PR battle would go if BBC and CNN reporters were filmed getting killed by the IDF! In fact, reporters from non-western stations who are already in gaza have already come uder fire, with 3 already killed by Israeli fire.
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And as for 'legality' of sending journalists in, then the media bloackade is illegal firstly.
Secondly, journalists can sign a legal document to get in out of their own choice.
Thirdly, if journalists shouldnt be allowed in due to 'legal' reasons, why then are people justifying the killings of over 500 children and women just as 'collateral damage'? When they do not even have the opportunity to go anywhere safe be it schools or hospitals? When their passage to the outside world has been blocked by a assive wall and prison gates?
And yet we are ready to use the 'legal argument' of journalist safety to keep them out?
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I failed to see this Reuters story from this morning on the BBC web site.
Why is that?
GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas vowed Monday to rearm in defiance of any Israeli and international efforts to prevent the Islamist militant group from replenishing its arsenal of rockets and other weapons after the Gaza war.
"Do whatever you want. Manufacturing the holy weapons is our mission and we know how to acquire weapons," Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, told a news conference.
--------
This is not one of those cute 'voices of the people' the BBC loves so much.
This is an official statement from the Hamas combatants. The BBC has totally ignored it.
You call this professionalism? The BBC must lay off the propaganda and start reporting the real news.
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Well done, BBC! You're finally starting to tell the Palestinian stories which the West did not get so far, those of the Gazans afraid of Hamas:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7837356.stm
Like in the communist country I grew up in, with Hams in power there is order and consensus. Read the story to see what happens if you make a joke about those maintaining the "consensus".
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There is only one reason the Israelis don't let jounalists into Gaza (despite their own Supreme Court ruling that they should) and that is they don't want any independent witnesses providing proof of the atrocities and war crimes that they have been comitting.
The BBC does appear to be biased towards the Israelis, the constant reference to Hamas as terrorists ( they are the elected representatives of the Palestinians in Gaza).
The constant reptition that the Israelis have the right to defend themselves, the Palestinians can't defend themselves, and if they try they are labelled terrorist.
The World Have Your Say program had three pro israeli representatives and a single palestinian student to defend the Palestinians.
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I have just seen that Channel 4 Dispatches is going to do a programme on the Israeli control of journalists entering Gaza during their assault. I think it is equally important that a news service with the reputation of the BBC also seriously address this question.
We were kept from a great deal of on the spot news and much of what there was was sanitised. Whatever the frustration of your actual journalists your news management went along with this Israeli suppression of the truth. I have no doubt that there was a lot more recorded by individuals within Gaza. The BBC's failure along with most other Western news agencies to have anyone within Gaza becuase of Israeli actions should now be rectified and countered by having a programme devoted to those terrible weeks of constant bombardment. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the coverage at the time this postwar coverage is morally imperative.
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When is the BBC going to deliver value for money and stop short-changing the licence payer?
We pay you to provide the public with unbiased, probing news coverage.
We expect you to abide by your charter which requires the above obligation.
For example:
1.Why do you never mention that Israel is the illegal occupier of Gaza i.e. Palestinian territory; and together with the blockade it is breaking international law according to the UN.?
2.Why do you never mention the fact that Israel Secret Services killed 6 Palestinians in November 2008 and that is what provoked the breach of the ceasefire?
3.Why do you promote the Israel point of view through their ambassadors while scarcely ever asking Palestinian ambassadors for their point of view?
4.Why do you allow politicians generally, at home and abroad, to be so evasive under questioning?
5.Why don't you ever ask the question: Who really controls the main political parties everywhere and de facto, global society and the economy
I could go on but I would be more than happy if you could address these 5 points in future coverage.
I only feel such anger and utter disrespect for the BBC because of your manifest inability or wilful incompetence to record the whole truth to viewers.
I realise that some of your coverage of everyday affairs is acceptably neutral and I will always concede this where I think it deserves recognition.
However, overall I think your performance is pitifully inadequate.
Garth W. Carthy
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In complete contrast to much of the above comment I suggest that the BBC should remember that there is other newsworthy items during any period such as this. Not only are we bombarded with acres of reports which are almost identical but we also are shown the same pictures over and over.
Given that the BBC, and other broadcasters, have teams of reporters and cameramen on the spot I have to ask "What for?" They must be able to show different pictures and if they have nothing new to report then why, why are we subjected to the same menu? What happens to all the other news? Surely it should be sufficient at times just to say that the position has not changed and then move on to other news.
The same thing will happen at Obama's inaurguration. We will be unable to discover anything else except what goes on in Washington. That's all right the first time around; but not when we need to learn other news. Perhaps a change to News24 is needed. After the full report then that and any follow ups should only be available on another channel and the internet, leaving the main programme to provide all the new news.
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The BBC has taken to attaching the 'Hamas' tag to all that happens in Gaza. Some early reporting had "assualt on Gaza", and "Palestinian fighters", but all that changed over time.
The BBC describes battles as simply between Hamas fighters and Israeli forces. Claiming it was a Hamas ceasefire when the ceasefire was from "Palestinian resistance factions" (i meanm, they didnt call the Israeli ceasefire annoucement the Kadima ceaasefire). And there's Paul Wood's description of the Customs building near a crossing as he walked in as a Hamas customs building. I doubt Hamas members ever stepped foot in the building with it being so close to the border, and it wasnt refered to as a Fatah customs building before that.
Add that to the repeating of Israeli grievances, ie rocket fire, at the expense of Palestinian grievances, be they the occupation or blockade.
Two things that ought to make it in to Balen Report Mk 2.
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Heres a few examples of BBC's improper Hamas tagging.
Taking a look at the latest short article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7839075.stm
BBC: "A fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants is holding, allowing many Palestinians to return home to assess the damage."
There is no ceasefire between them, and the ceasefire from the Palestinian side is from the "Palestinian resistance factions" as per the text that appears on the BBC website.
BBC: "Hamas has said it will hold fire for a week to give Israel time to withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip."
Hamas didnt say it anymore than Kadima said it. "Palestinian resistance factions" said it.
BBC: "Israel launched its offensive on 27 December to stop Hamas militants firing rockets into Israel."
Israel may have launched its offensive that killed thousands of civilains, destroyed tens of thousands of homes and made tens or even hundreds of thousands homeless to stop Palestinians from ever being able to fire rockets from Gaza. But it was not to stop only the Hamas rockets firing, leaving other Palestinian resistance factions to fire theirs. It may well have been a murderous punishment beating to deter Palestinians from daring to vote Hamas into power again. But it is mere conjecture form the BBC to presume to know why Israel launched its offensive that brought such death and destruction to Palestinian civilians. At least the claim from the BBC should be amended to include the required 'Israeli say' element.
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When will Hamas's Western apologists wake up to the fact that Hamas is a fanatical jihadist organisation that wants to impose Sharia throughout the Middle East and beyond. The vast majority of educated arabs want nothing to do with them. But by the unenlightened, narrow-minded reporting by the Western press and Hamas's other "useful idiots", the majority of arabs are being delivered wholesale into Sharia's black hole.
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Is it me? Hamas has agreed to a ceasfire and will stop firing its rockets into southern Israel on the basis that Israel withdraws its troops and that they allow the borders to be opened. Wasn't this the situation that existed before Hamas started firing missiles?
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yes the jews can call me a nazi, however, i disagree on what they did, and shouldn't of ever start a little war against the palestinians, what have they done, it was there land from the begining, and at the end of the day we , us Brits should of gone to war with them, they went against the UN's law, Its like when Hitler went and invaded Poland, but we went straight to war with the nazi germanians. they was wrong and i will stick to my opinion untill the war is over for good but it aint so i'll keep disagreeing with what they are doing until they get stopped. the cease fire won't last for long.
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BBC's latest improper 'Hamas' tagging
"Israel called a ceasefire on Saturday, saying it had met its war aims. Hamas later declared its own truce, with one of its leaders claiming a "great victory" over Israel." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7839863.stm
THe BBC ought to be explaining to its readers that the ceasefire announcement from the Palestinian side of things was from the "Palestinian resistance factions" and not simply from Hamas (The BBC has the facts, and the text of the ceasefire from the Palestinians does not mention Hamas but instead reads "Palestinian resistance factions"). I mean, the BBC didnt say the Kadima party called a ceasefire when talking about Israel, so why single out Hamas?
[Also notice in the report that the Israeli Navy has shelled Gaza, and a mortar shell has been fired at Israel. Both since the two ceasefire announcements]
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Also notice in the latest BBC article, the report that
"Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said any further opening of the border depended on the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been held by Palestinian militants since June 2006." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7839863.stm
Whilst neglecting to remind readers that Israel holds ten thousand or more Palestinian prisoners, some are children, some without charge.
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I think a sizeable portion of the contributors should perhaps study the history of the Near East and the Levant over the past 2000 years before criticising any group in particular. "Ownership" of this area is the one thing that has never, ever been static. When you have competing groups of god-botherers, both anointed with the oil of righteousness, you will never have any peace.
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#64 liberiusmax - Israel was NOT created in 1948 by international agreement. Britain declared that it could no longer enforce the Mandate of Palestine and said the mandate qould lapse on 15 May 1948. The UN approved a Partition Plan for 2 separate states, but this was never implemented 10 because it couldn't agree on some of the wording and 2) because Israel declared itself an independant state on May14 1948. The subsequent 1948 Arab-Israeli war exanded Israels borders beyond those outlined in the UN's Partition Plan. There was never an international agreement for Israels borders to be as they are today and the UN PLan included a clear statement of principle "that Jew shall not dominate Arab and Arab shall not dominate Jew in Palestine" It is precisely because Israel declared itself a state by force of arms that no borders for Israel have ever been agreed. Coupled with the "Law of return" which grants all Jews and those of Jewish lineage rights to Israeli citizenship, you can see where the pressure is coming from for an expanding Israeli state. Make no mistake this war is about land, nothing else.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7841288.stm
The following is incorrect -
"Yet how much impact did he have on Israel's decision to announce a ceasefire, swiftly followed by Hamas?" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7841288.stm
The ceasefire announcement from the Palestinian side may have been read out by a Hamas member, just like a Kadima party member, Olmert, announced the Israeli ceasefire. But the Palestinian ceasefire was by and from the "Palestinian resistance factions" (you'll find those words in the text of the actual ceasefire announcement somewhere on the BBC website), at no point did it mention Hamas, just as the ceasefire from Israel did not mention the Kadima party. Hamas is to the Palestinians as Kadima is to the Israelis. So please, refer to the two ceasefire announcements equally - Israeli and Palestinian.
Please stop this incorrect and misleading tagging of everything as 'Hamas'. Its not big, its not clever, and certainly isnt funny.
But that is not all, the BBC appears to insist on posting mere conjecture as if it were fact, again using the 'Hamas' tagging in the same article (infact this example is an outright fabrication on the part of the BBC) -
"UN schools were damaged, and on one occasion 43 people outside a UN school died, as Israel tried to target Hamas leaders."
Even Israel never claimed it was targeting Hamas leaders when it hit that school, and the different excuses Israel made cast doubt on its version of events. The BBC has no access to Israeli targetting so any such claims by the BBC are mere conjecture masquerading as fact. Please refrain from such outlandish and improper reporting, it does the BBC's reputation no good at all.
For goodness sake do something about it
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Latest example of BBC incorrectly tagging everything as Hamas.
The following is incorrect -
"Yet how much impact did he have on Israel's decision to announce a ceasefire, swiftly followed by Hamas?" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7841288.stm
The ceasefire announcement from the Palestinian side may have been read out by a Hamas member, just like a Kadima party member, Olmert, announced the Israeli ceasefire. But the Palestinian ceasefire was by and from the "Palestinian resistance factions" (you'll find those words in the text of the actual ceasefire announcement somewhere on the BBC website), at no point did it mention Hamas, just as the ceasefire from Israel did not mention the Kadima party.
But that's not all, the BBC appears to insist on posting mere conjecture as if it were fact, again using the 'Hamas' tagging in the same article (infact this example is an outright fabrication on the part of the BBC) -
"UN schools were damaged, and on one occasion 43 people outside a UN school died, as Israel tried to target Hamas leaders."
Israel never claimed it was targeting Hamas leaders when it hit that school, and the different excuses Israel made cast doubt on its version of events. The BBC has no access to Israeli targetting so any such claims by the BBC are mere conjecture masquerading as fact. Such outlandish and improper reporting does the BBC's reputation no good at all.
[btw, the report of mortar fire from Gaza was a false alarm - though the Israeli Navy shelling of Gaza has been confirmed]
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I think it was too dangerous for the Israelis to allow journalists to enter Gaza during the fighting. You neve know when one of them might be kidnapped by the Palestinians and held as a hostage. In theory, that can happen.
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this is the true picture of the so called war in Gaza.
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
why won't the western press show these scenes?
i am no muslim but this is shocking
the israelis should be tried for war crimes!!!
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I have received some pictures of the devastation and casualties - it is not being shown anywhere in the western media. I would like to share the pictures with you and your readers, where can I upload it or email it to.
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I for one think its disgraceful what israel has done. The timing of the attack - to coincide with a time when america is preparing for a new president (and pulling out just before mr Obama takes power) surely is a massive indication of their worry that they know they are doing wrong. I believe mr Obama would take a dim view on them making further attacks.
Many of my friends have the opinion that the Israelis have the right to do this.. they have been persecuted in the past. Why does this give them the right to go and kill thousands of people and use illegal weapons though? They are just as bad, if not worse than the 'terrorists' they seek. Hamas is democratically elected and i do not believe for a second that they are responsible for all of the occasional rocket attacks into Israel. Israel is fighting the factions.. but destroying a whole regions infastructure and hope. Israel banned foreign journalists from entering Gaza - Why else would this be done except to cover up their atrocities and prevent the full picture of their military power from being shown to the world.
Israel should be punished for their barbarism, sanctions set up and immediate aid sent to gaza, no matter what the Israelis say can and cannot go into Gaza. What power do they have to say hundreds of thousands of people cannot receive food and clean water? If anyone is committing the atrocities and war crimes.. it is Israel.. and the western world turns a blind eye to it
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#148 pandatank
The Partition plans were never implemeted because although the pre-Israel leadership accepted them - including earlier variations that were far more favourable to the Arab side, the Arabs rejected them all. It was due to this impasse that the British Government washed its hands of the situation.
When the state of Israel was declared, Arab armies and irregular forces attacked. Had they not done so and declared an Arab Palestinian state within the partition 'borders', a two state solution would have been possible, with some inevitable negotiations over precise borders and the status of Jerusalem.
The Isreali borders following that 1948 war, as well and those following 1967 etc, are all armistice lines. With the exception of Egypt and Jordan, no other Arab country accepts even the pre-'67 borders, although these are cited in the Saudi peace plan of 2002.
If Israel were interested only is expansion, as you believe, then it would not have returned Sinai to Egypt. Gaza was offered as part of that agreement, but Egypt declined partly because, like Jordan, they wanted Gaza and the West Bank to form a future soveriegn Palestinan state but mainly because they didn't need the headache.
In the years between 1948 and 1967, a Palestinian state could have been declared in all of the current West Bank, Gaza and East Jersusalem. That it was not, was due not to Israel but to the surrounding Arab states - Egypt and Jordan, who administered those areas (Jordan annexed the West Bank) and by Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia etc etc, and wanted to keep the Palestinian people in squalid camps as refugees and displaced persons in order to divert domestic gaze avway from internal problems and onto the 'evil' Zionists. Had the Palestinian peolpe had their own political leaders at the time, rather than the para-militaries that make up Fatah, then the situation now could have been so much different.
If and when all sides can agree to live in peace, then Israel's borders and, by extension , those of Palestine, will be fixed, although not necessarily along the precise pre-67 'borders'. As it stands, Gaza is not viable, even if joined by road or rail to the West Bank. Additional land, ceded by both Israel and Egypt, would go a long way to altering the situation on the ground although this could prove to be the most unpopular course of action both in Israel, Egypt and the wider Arab world.
Israeli leaders talk about making pianful compromises and concession for peace. The Palestinians must be prepared to do the same. However, the opportunity may well have passed, at least for a few years.
If Netanyahu and Likud win the upcominmg Israeli elections - the prospect of which might have had some bearing on the timing of the recent conflict - then the region looks set for more of the same, only much worse.
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Why is it just the Isrealis who should not have rockets fired into their land? Surely, the international community should also state that the Palestinian people should be allowed to live in peace, without the never ending threat of Isreali aggression.
It was ISRAEL who broke the ceasefire on November 4th, so why should the Palestinians be expected to renew a ceasefire that the Isrealis had no respect for?
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It has been caught on film and on captured Hamas diagrams that Hamas has been booby-trapping its caches of arms with leads to detonations that blow up other buildings including petrol stations. This is done specifically to create as much devastation as possible to other buildings and people. Why are the BBC unaware or worse, not reporting these war crimes?
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celinajanina I hardly think anyone would be so stupid as to blow up their own fuel supplies or other buildings when they are being shelled and bombed anyway. It's not like Israel is short on fuel and fancies an elaborate petrol robbery. I'd like to see where you got that information from? Also (on the off small chance that this could be true) since when is planting explosives on your own supplies a war crime? That is like saying planting a claymore to cover a retreat is a war crime, in which case please go and arrest American and British military personnel (among many others).
The only war crimes being commited here are by Israel which has breached many of the Geneva convention laws on military conflict. White Phosphorus for example.. opening fire on civilians (holding white flags).. withholding aid from innocent civilians etc etc..
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BBC's latest Hamas tagging -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7841902.stm
Quite how the BBC can describe the many thousands of civilians killed and wounded, the 21,000 residential apartment buildings in need of repair or rebuilding, forcing 100,000 Palestinians into refugeedom once again. The 80 per cent of all agricultural infrastructure and crops destroyed, mosques, universities, most government buildings, the courts, 25 schools, 20 ambulances and several hospitals, as well as bridges, roads, 10 electricity generating stations, sewage lines, and 1,500 factories, workshops and shops damaged or destroyed - as simply an "assault against militants from the Hamas group", is beyond me.
The following quote from the aticle in question needs to be changed to reflect the reality of the situation on the ground.
"following a three-week assault against militants from the Hamas group."
The BBC needs to describe it as they see it, or include the 'Israeli say' element when claiming it was just an assault on militants, even if it was a whole group of them.
No one in their right mind would look at all that death, damage and destruction and say; 'that looks like an assault on militants that does'.
Change it!
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Th moral argument should be; is Isreal not putting herself in the same category with terrorists and terrorist states when they kill 80% civilians? Israel have suffered terrorism and the people who blew school busses were called terrorists and many wars were waged for this. Now if Israel uses the same tactics as retaliation they simply accept that this is not terrorism but a military tactic. They loose their moral ground immediately and not just that even religiously as they accuse Muslims fighting a jihad against them they simply go back to the Old Testament where God is seen killing innocent children and revenging a simple sin with total destruction....
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Even the BBC reporting on the reactions of the British license paying public has been extraordinary.
I have been to every rally held in central London, and have found the BBC's estimates for attendance to these occasions quite contradictory. For example, at the first rally held at Trafalgar Square on Saturday 3rd January 2009, BBC reported that only 12.000 people attended, while the police estimate that in fact 55.00 people were in attendance. Again, at the following rally held at Hyde Park, the BBC reported that only a mere 20,000 people were in attendance. However, all estimates show that there were in fact upwards of 100,000 people in attendance to lend their support to the people of Gaza,
At the pro Israeli protest also held at Trafalgar square, the BBC reported that there were 15,000 people in attendance, whilst police estimates show there to have been a mere 4,000.
I would be interested to know how the BBC arrive at these figures for such occasions as these.
The Israeli propaganda machine has been working over time, with the ‘weeping while we’re killing’ stance. In the age of so much choice for intellectual viewers, finding news via the many satellite and internet sources, with a heavy heart I have a message for the BBC that they are now becoming the Fox TV of Britain, and I will no longer be turning to them for any news as an authority.
And just one more point the Human shields augment is sickening for any of your commentators who think that Arabs do not cry for the loss of their own children and people, should come along to a demo where you will witness for the 4th time in 5 years men and women in tears over the senseless killing of men, women, children and babies who look like them.
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Why did the BBC and other western media under-report the declarations by the Turkish leaders that Israel should be banned from the UN based on Israel's ignoring the Security Council's immediate ceasefire resolution and countless other former UN resolutions?
The UN Charter, Article 25 reads:
"The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter."
This in my book is BIG news.
Official condemnations of Israel seem to have been suppressed in the western media. Surprised?
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when will the BBC and Sky start reporting the truth about Israel and Gaza
why are we subject to biased news defending what the Israelis are doing.
go to David Ickes website and see the truth for your self. there are plenty of un-biased reports showing what is really happening around the world.
Come on BBC!!! start giving the license payers the whole picture!!!!
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Jayhood,
You seem to like to draw the picture of a an earthquake using pink pastels. You seem to say that Palestine had many chances to establish itself as a nation. But you are wrong. I will give you an example and when I give examples they tend to block it saying this post is irrelevant but I think it is very relevant what happened in Cyprus. When Turks landed on Cyprus in 1974 and stand against the Greek forces who wanted to annex the island, they were simply following the UN resolution that any guarantor country has the right to interfere if others try to annex the island. Well Turks offered after peace that they want to go back to the power share as it was before untill then they will stay on the island. That power share never happened Cyprus was undemocratic etc. Well Cyprus as half went into EU. The problem was the invitation came from the occupying force and they should make decision no? Well it didn't happen like that. So f Israel offered a solution to Palestine it could not be accepted because they were the occupying force but unlike Turkey they were not embargoed. So you see, Israel had no moral ground to come to a solution which could not be accepted by the Arabs who thought Israel is built upon terrorism. Refugees was created by Israel not Arabs. And later refugees was massacred under control of Israel too in Lebanon by Christians. So your hi-story doesn't really tell much about the real story.
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As a Jew deeply concerned that there should be a just solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, I have often criticised Radio 4 for apparently buying into the partisan Israeli view, but this evening I must say you deserve compliments for some serious investigation of two issues.
First you aired a clear exposition by Janet Symes of Christian Aid of the reasons why Israel should not be granted favourable status under the EU-Israel Association Agreement until it abides by the human rights clauses which it continues to infringe as long as it illegally occupies Palestinian territory.
Then your fascinating exploration of the contested history of Ashdod aired the grievances of Palestinians whose families were expelled from the area when Israel was created in 1948. It was particularly gratifying to hear from Zochrot, the Israeli organisation that wages an uphill struggle to persuade other Israelis to face up to the suffering their state has inflicted upon Palestinians. It is very important for the outside world to understand that there is growing Israeli opposition to the decades-long denial of Palestinian rights, of which the assauilt on Gaza was only the latest and most vicious manifestation.
In both cases you let us hear voices on both sides of the debate in such a way that each spoke for themselves.
Thank you, and please give us more of this sort of genuinely information coverage.
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it is the same everywhere, the dictators do not want their deeds to been publicized. Darkness does not like the light. This was true during the USA Bush years. They dislike transparency. Don't take either side, just work for justice and truth. Hope Obama can help those on both side who want peace in all the Middle East.
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BBC's broadcast seen on United States Public Television tonight was outrageous and a blatant attempt to incite Americans against Israel. The alleged murder of two little girls in the Jubalya refugee camp in Gaza and the crippling of a third now in a hospital in Egypt was not only unproven, without any evidence except the claims by locals but BBC did not even wait for an investigation by the IDF of the allegations. Often such stories have proven to be either in part or in whole fabricated, only part of the story or taken entirely out of context. But even if eventially proven true, BBC never 1) broadcast anything comparable in the aftermath of countless brutal deliberate attacks on civilians in Israel by Arabs and B) did not put the story in any historical context or perspective. That historical perspective is crucial to a fair understanding by an audience. This is because even if true, the attitudes behind what would clearly be a heinous atrocity and criminal act is the result of 61 years of comparable atrocities on the other side, a normal expected reaction to the kind of brutalization that Arabs have perpetrated on Israelis for over six decades. Let us not forget that these are the same people who call such attacks on Israeli civilians "legitimate armed resistance" and "legitimate armed struggle" and consider the criminals who perpetrate such crimes as their national heroes. They are among the same people who rejoiced at the murder of over 3000 Americans on 9-11-01 by Arab terrorists. This hatred may have finally taken its toll among a segment of the Israeli population who no longer regards the value of human life as significant if it is Palestinian. A tragic but expected reaction given the history.
This is not journalism by any stretch of the imagination but unabashed unashamed propaganda in the service of BBC's own political agenda of inciting hatred for Israel reportedly exposed in the Balen Report which BBC has been desperate to keep from public disclosure at any cost, even that of the public paying the legal fees to sustain that concealment.
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There is a massacre occurring right now. Hamas is taking out its revenge on Fateh in Gaza. They are rounding up people, calling them spies, killing many, shooting many more in the legs.
Ihab Ghissin, the official spokesman for the interior ministry of Hamas confirmed many arrests while Marzouk, from Syria, confirmed the execution of 'collaborators."
This news has been reported widely throughout the world but it seems as though it does not fit into the BBC's narrative because this news describes the undemocratic nature of Hamas. Its citizens are not free to believe what they want and differences of beliefs are not tolerated. This is a newsworthy story.
Thank you.
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Amazing how the comments above describe the BBC as being both pro-Israel and pro-Hamas.
I'll say it again: they must be doing something right.
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More BBC 'Hamas' tagging http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7836277.stm
Unless the BBC has evidence to the contrary, the ceasefire announcement was not from Hamas but from the "Palestinian resistance factions" [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7836277.stm]. Unless the BBC can prove otherwise then it must stick to the facts of the matter and report it as a Palestinian ceasefire announcement.
Here's the offending sentence that needs changing -
"Hamas also declared its own week-long ceasefire which ends on Sunday."
Hamas did not declare its "own" ceasefire, it was an announcment of the "Palestinian resistance factions", read out by a Hamas members just as the Israeli one was read out by a Kadima member (Olmert).
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Dear BBC
Another error i'm sure the BBC will be keen to correct, is the emphasis it puts on the events in June 2007 in Gaza rather than than on the election in Jan 2006 -
"Israel has blockaded the Palestinian enclave since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007."
I'm sure the BBC is well aware that the Israeli blockade began after elections there in Jan 2006. Israel merely tightened the blockade in June 2007 after the failed US supported coup attempt.
It took me no more than a few seconds to find links saying the blockade began in 2006, from the Jewish library to a letter from Human Rights Watch.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
The spin: Israel is defending itself against bloodthirsty terrorists who seek the destruction of the Jewish nation.
The truth: Israel is a brutal, expansionist power which seeks the permanent impoverishment of Palestinians and deliberately murders civilians as a military tactic.
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I am considering a formal complaint to the FCC. As BBC is broadcast over the public airwaves in the United States under a government granted license, and their contracts are subsidized by American taxpayer dollars, they are subject to standards of fairness in broadcasting all other broadcasters are subject to in the here. Based on the above, I don't think they have met those standards. They can say whatever they like on cable television but on the public frequencies used under FCC license it's an entirely different story. I think an investigation by the FCC including a subpoena to produce the Balen Report is long overdue. Should BBC be shown to flagrantly and repeatedly have violated American broadcast standards, they should be thrown off the public airwaves once and for all with a warning to NPR and PBS.
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Weighed against the murder of 400 children, your "standards of fairness" sound pretty hollow, MarcusAurelius. Perhaps you should take a cue from your namesake and remain sanguine in the face of such injustice!
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marcusaureliusII - I have never heard so much drivell in my life. the BBC is a BRITISH BROADCASTER. That means the USA has no say over what we can and cannot say. When i watch an American news report i always get the feeling that the views held on it are pro Israeli. Please shut down all your stations for impartiality. However much the USA thinks it runs this world.. you do not. Britain is not a state of America! The BBC is also (supposed to be) impartial. From my views they are acting pro Israeli so how you manage to come to the conclusion that they are being biased towards the Palestinians is beyond me.
You are going on about how the things reported are 'unfounded' or 'unproven'. How do you tell when things are true.. please tell me. I do not believe half the things about Iraq, Afghanistan or the Middle east conflicts that i see on TV. The media machine is controlled.. and if America went and bombed 100 innocent people do you really think they would plaster it on their news channels (because lets face it it would make news anywhere else). I have a lot more faith in the regional news reports and individual renowned journalist reports than the spoon fed 'facts' off the news which you revel in.
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176. Krister86 wrote:
The BBC is also (supposed to be) impartial. From my views they are acting pro Israeli so how you manage to come to the conclusion that they are being biased towards the Palestinians is beyond me.
It's simple. The BBC carefully tiptoes around any report that will reveal Hamas' despicable tactics during the fighting:
*The booby-trapping of civilians' houses without their knowledge
*The use of civilians, including children, as human shields
*The firing of rockets from schools and UN facilities, thus drawing Israeli fire on these facilities
*The use of children to fetch rocket launchers
*The discarding of uniforms while retaining weapons and melting into the civilian population
And so on and so forth.
The BBC's bias in this case is by omission. And it is a pro-Hamas bias of immense proportions.
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Krister86, I don't care what BBC broadcasts on cable television, the internet, on short wave radio, or on TV and radio stations around the world. But when it is broadcast over the public airwaves in the United States under the auspices of a licensed radio or television station, it must conform to FCC rules otherwise the offending station can be fined, or it can have its license suspended or revoked. That is American law.
I don't trust most of what I hear and see on BBC. Not only is it deliberately biased, IMO it mixes editorializing and commentary so inseparably with reporting that as journalism it stinks. The "presenter" is constantly what iffing and hypothesizing about the news as he reports it. That may be what you are accostomed to in the UK and acceptable to you but not here. Editorials are allowed but must be distinct from reporting and clearly indicated as opinion, not fact. BBC never does this. Frankly, they did something similar in Gaza tonight. I really think it should be pulled from the public airways. I'm still considering a formal complaint to the FCC.
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MarcusAurelius: Would this be the same impartiality which saw the US media uncritically hoover up the garbage about Iraqi WMD, uranium from Niger and the link between Saddam and al-qaida? Sometimes the truth of an event is so obvious and overpowering — like the murder of 400 children — that the concept of being fair to both sides verges on complicity.
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Poor old BBC! You have made her so sensitive to charges of bias she now refuses to air the DEC charity appeal material for fear of compromising her objectivity.
I would love to know who exactly made that decision and how but I guess there are limits to transparency.
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The biggest problems with BBC's reporting have been definitely pointed on this thread:
1. Inaccuracy in reporting (it often reports "news" later proven to be false, because over and over again it gives carte-blanche to partisan Palestinian accounts without verifying the story);
2. Editorializing, by repeatedly characterizing and giving the names it desires to various groups and events. In its demonizing of Israel the BBC is the principal voice of antisemitism in the Western world, because it acts under the banner of objectivity. Part of this antisemitism are repeated articles by the BBC which challenge Israel's right to exist. No other country in the world is subjected to such an attack, including countries where colonists who never had a connection to the land now form the majority population, after decimating the original inhabitants - see Australia, for example;
3. Twisting of reality through discriminate repetition - those "vile" acts by the Israelis, be they true or fabricated, are repeated over and over, but anything like the true evil nature of Hamas's Islamic Fundamentalism is virtually not mentioned. For example, if the readers were to hear every day Hamas's declarations that it will destroy Israel, hunt and kill all Jews in the world, and be leaders in the fight to create a united Islamic Empire from Indonesia to Nigeria (all frequently boasted by Hamas), it would finally sink in with the audience what Israel is fighting against. Let's not forget the the Palestinians voted for this Hamas, that Hams is an offshoot of Muslim Brotherhood, that it is armed by Iran and Syria, that its killing of Jewish civilians is financed by Saudi Arabia and Muslims across the world, but also by the UN, a host of "charitable" Muslim organizations you may be contributing to, and unfortunately by Israel's money, as well (because of the peace process agreements).
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Vipertongue wrote (see 161):
"At the pro Israeli protest also held at Trafalgar square, the BBC reported that there were 15,000 people in attendance, whilst police estimates show there to have been a mere 4,000.
I would be interested to know how the BBC arrive at these figures for such occasions as these.
The Israeli propaganda machine has been working over time, with the ?weeping while we?re killing? stance."
I believe antisemitism's propaganda machine is working a lot better. For you the essence is how many demonstrators participated. There is no doubt there is large street support for (and from) the Arabs, but that is not what an impartial observer should take from it. The essence of those demonstrations is that the "pro-Israeli" demonstration called for all sides to end firing and risking civilian lives, while the much larger pro-Palestinian demonstration did not call for an end to Hamas's attacks against civilians and held banners with "kill the Jews", the same scribbling found later on on many walls in London. The essence is thus that the pro-Arab crowd had a message of hate, while the pro-Israeli crowd had a message of peace. Does anyone on the pro-Arab side see the grotesque of your asking Israel to open Gaza's border unconditionally while at the same time you say in your demonstrations killing Jews (one of the main declared aims of Hamas) is OK?
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MarcusAureliusII - You make me laugh. You're trying to say that the BBC is more biased than US news networks?? The only reason you're not hearing these things on your own news networks is that they are too afraid to report them (and be labelled anti semetic) or are censored.
I think one of the main factors here why nobody wants to challenge Israel over their barbaric and completely illegal war is simply that. They don't want to be tagged as sympathetic towards Hamas (labelled as terrorists yet democratically elected... just like they do in your perfect America) or to be called anti semetic. I am neither, but looking at this from a neutral perspective it seems very plain to me who the major aggression and illegal activity is coming from.. along with the breaking of many geneva convention laws.
TrueToo - do you really think the factions there have any other choice? Imagine this: New york is invaded by an aggressor, they cut off all routes in and out of the city and prevent anyone to leave or enter. How do you think remaining troops would fight? In plain view out in the streets... agree to meet for a firefight in Central park? No. They would take cover in buildings - no matter what perpous they previously served - and fire from them.
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183. Krister86,
If these really were guerrilla factions, as your comparison indicates, they would do their best to get their own civilians out of the way. They do the opposite, relying on Israeli reluctance to fire at civilians and the media and others with an agenda itching to demonise Israel when IDF fire does in fact hit civilians, and jumping to the conclusion that it is always the Israelis causing the death of Palestinian civilians and never Hamas explosives or misfired rockets.
The fundamental difference between the two sides is that while the Israelis go out of their way to avoid harming civilians, Palestinian terrorists go out of their way to inflict harm on civilians.
Any analysis of the conflict without taking this into account will always be worthless.
Note that when Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades fire their rockets they are firing them into undisputed territory - i.e. Israel according to the 1949 Armistice lines. Those are the pre-1967 boundaries that everyone is urging Israel to withdraw to in the interests of "peace." Israel did precisely that more than three years ago by withdrawing from Gaza and was met with an immediate resumption of rocket fire from Gaza. In fact, the rocket launchers were set up in the very areas from which Israel had just withdrawn.
I'm not sure how much more proof anyone needs that Hamas and company do not want peace with Israel but rather Israel's destruction. They do not hide this intention and it is high time that people started to believe what they are saying.
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Enjoyinglifeinusa (see 182)
You have lost me at anti-Semitism USA that call is getting weaker by the day.
If you know so much about the protests in the London then you would know that a least a third are made up of the Jews for Justice group and the orthodox Jews against Zionism so are they anti seismic? The reason that there is such a ground swell of public support is because the public know right from wrong just the same as when 1 million people marched in London to try and stop the war against Iraq.
We in the UK have the luxury of gathering our information from lots of difference sources not just relying on FOX for the right or CNN for the left to spoon feed us are opinions, by the way can you get Al Jazeera or Press TV yet ?
NOBODY I repeat NOBODY has been chanting “Kill the Jews” how do I know this because I lead the chants and we are far more intellectual in the good ole UK.
So now the “Pro Arab marches to stop the Slaughter of babies and children (sorry male babies and children don’t count because there obviously members of the democratically elected Hamas) is a message of hate”
And of course America is the beacon of democracy you just have to remember the Bush elections “Fair and Balanced”
Wow that’s as deep as a puddle
One last thing don’t you see the grotesqueness of one country controlling the boarders of another?
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Johndebaton (see 180)
I’m stunned; I have spent many a morning and evening at a London train station shaking buckets for a DEC appeal. The British public are the best in the world for giving generously.
This is the first time in the 48 years of similar national appeals for humanitarian aid that a broadcast has been refused.
You would like to know who made the decision? I would like to know why it had to be a unanimous decision across all the broadcasters? Isn’t the BBC trying to stop Channel4 from getting any license payers money for public programmes ?
I also find it very hard to believe that the BBC haven’t had many complaints regarding coverage of the Gaza crisis and I would be interested to know how many people have telephoned and written to complain about the not so ‘fair and balanced’ reporting on this issue, as we so often have to hear about the many complaints they have received regarding the BBCs petty scandals during the past recent months.
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Krister, your scenario is not comparable because it omits aspects that are essential:
"Imagine this: New york is invaded by an aggressor, they cut off all routes in and out of the city and prevent anyone to leave or enter. How do you think remaining troops would fight? In plain view out in the streets... agree to meet for a firefight in Central park? No. They would take cover in buildings - no matter what perpous they previously served - and fire from them."
If New Yorkers start shooting rockets at the aggressor from their apartments, those apartment buildings are fair game. Especially if those rackets do indeed terrorize the aggressor's civilian population and more than that kill, maim, and create considerable damage that New Yorkers are bailed out from ever taking responsibility for.
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vipertongue3 wrote: "You have lost me at anti-Semitism USA that call is getting weaker by the day."
First of all, Orthodox Jews against Zionism are as extremist as the Orthodox Jews who want Israel to extend to the old borders of the Jewish kingdom (occasionaly vigilantes who take revenge on Palestinian civilians), as nuts as the Hamas extremists. If the public at the demonstration knew indeed right from wrong, it would have gathered a year ago for an anti-Hamas demonstration. By that time Hamas had shot more than four thousand rockets at the town of Sedorot. The "kill the Jews" chants have been mentioned in Israeli media, because they translated the chants from Arabic, which the BBC did not do, though the BBC did print a picture of "kill the Jews" grafitti: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7831897.stm
The pro-Arab marches are a message of hate as long as they condemn Israel's existence by pretending that Hamas has any justification in its actions. Read my post (181) about what Hamas openly declares and my conviction that the BBC's not reporting it every time it says Hamas is misleading people into labeling them "freedom fighters" instead of "terrorists". Everybody in Israel wanted and wished that there were no Palestinian civilian casualties (as you can see, the only one gaining from that is Hamas, who used them as shields). At the same time, the IDF did not want the promise that "Gaza will be IDF's graveyard", to be fulfilled, so it often fired at those firing on them, regardless of where the latter were hiding. Again, if Israel wanted to kill Palestinian civilians it would have simply dropped large bombs on Hamas neighborhoods, without risking its soldiers' life.
If a democratically elected government of Scotland, let's say, starts shooting Qassam rockets at Newcastle from Edinborough, after how many rockets or civilian deaths would England be justified to try to stop the rockets? How would it proceed if Scots shot from their apartment buildings, without invading Scotland? What if Scots say that all English should be killed all around the world because of centuries of oppression, and the UN and the world is financing them? Supporting Hamas is antisemitic because it openly vows to kill Jews all over the world, not just to destroy Israel. BTW, for all the talk about Israel's territorial ambitions, only Hamas speaks of an Empire, an Islamic one.
You said: "One last thing don?t you see the grotesqueness of one country controlling the boarders of another?"
I recall how the Arabs locked in Israel, when Gaza was part of Egypt and the West Bank of Jordan. Israel at the time was boycotted by many companies at Arabs' request, disallowed passage through the Suez, denied membership in most UN organizations - like the Red Cross, for example - and left without any external help in the face of threats of destruction. Israel did not receive in 19 years from the Arabs 1/100 of how much it allowed to flow into Gaza in the last four years.
My belief is that Israel should give most of the land it captured in 1967 to the Palestinians and also give them land from 1948 Israel for those Jerusalem neighborhoods which would require displacement of 400,000 Jews otherwise (they equal about the total number of Palestinians displaced in 1948). I think economic cooperation with the people of a Palestinian state should afterward be a priority, given the fact that Israel did little during the years of occupation. At the same time, you can not negotiate this with radicals who vow they will exterminate you and unfortunately corruption diminished the role a mature PLO could have played. How many times does Israel have to take civilian casualties from new group after new group vowing to destroy it? To those who don't see a solution to the violence I say try this: stop all attacks on Israel for a few months and you will see that Israel commits no gratuitous violence. Herein lies the difference: Palestinian attacks come from vengeance created by hate, while Israel's attacks come when they see it necessary to stop indiscriminate killing of Jewish civilians, as justice for civilians killed on purpose.
Lastly, if you believe that Obama's other decisions show intelligence and independent thinking, why would you believe that he errs when he declares Israel has a right to defend itself and Hamas is a terrorist group [elected to lead its people]?
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All BBC members!! You should be made aware of just how much concern BBC has for Gaza and the Palestinians and I strongly recommend you read the Guardian article the link of which I'm supplying below:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/22/gaza-charity-appeal
In brief the "compassionate" BBC has refused to air the Disasters Emergancy Committee or DEC an umbrella group of 13 aid agencies appeal for funds. And other broadcasters are emulating the BBC, in short the DEC Chief Executive Brendan Gormley expects that Gaza will miss out on emergancy aid in the millions.
Please read the article dear friends and I suggest that if you continue to listen to the BBC for your coverage of the Isaeli/Palestinian conflict you balance your views by choosing to listen to another source of which you will find many.
As far as I'm concerned the BBC humanitarian assistance to Gaza is well appreciated. I for one have learned a valuable lesson from this refusal. I used to look at the BBC as the best news outlet in the world, I never for a single minute assumed it was at the beck and call of Zionists.
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#188
You have stated your beliefs very clearly; you are an excellent example of a propaganda victim.
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I can only imagine the reasons for the continual tacit support for the Israeli bombardment of Gaza by both UK and USA governments , but I cannot for the life of me follow the reasoning of the heads of the BBC( I also include all the other major media organisations) not allowing a perfectly acceptable humanitarian appeal for the people of that land to be promoted ...It concerns me that this nation of ours is becoming more and more a spineless , country where we are more concerned with appeasing than we are in standing up for justice and liberty , for all who are suffering and it should not matter that we offend anyone in that role , not to do so is disgraceful
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In my opinion the BBC's coverage of the conflict was far from impartial. I watched News 24 day-after-day.
The BBC's correspondents were shown, in flak jackets, 2-3 miles from the border, with what might have been Gaza in the distance behind them. It was impossible to see the massive concrete wall Israel has built to wall the Gazans in. No reference was made to the fact that the BBC's correspondents were denied access to Gaza by Israel.
Then, occasionally we listened to a Gazan paid by the BBC to describe what was happening over a phone line. It was difficult to understand what was said because of the poor quality connection and the accent. From what I was able to hear we were told simple details of what had been bombed or shelled in factual/descriptive/unemotive terms.
On each broadcast the BBC then cut to Jerusalem with a tv link to either a female IDF spokesperson whose statements, largely propaganda, went entirely unchallenged, or to an Israeli diplomat, with similar fluency in English.
It was appalling. Hamas was accused of not renewing the ceasefire and of the rocket attacks, but no mention was made of the Israeli attacks in November killing Hamas leaders and several civilians, a clear breah of the ceasefire. No mention either of the continued expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. No mentio of the fact that the Gazans have no army, navy or air force, no means of defence against the fourth largest military force in the world.
Phosphorous shells were seen bursting over Gaza in the first days of the attack. I remember telling my partner "Look, those are phosphous shells", when I saw them on tv, and I'm no military expert. Yet the BBC said nothing about that, until independently verified reports eventually came from Gaza.
Particularly galling is the BBC's refusal to air the DEC's Gaza Appeal, because of the immense humanitarian crisis there. That the BBC has bowed to pressure from the Israelis is disgusting. Even the UK Government, itself no friend of the Palestinians, thinks the BBC is mistaken and has called on it to change its decision.
I really object to paying a licence fee to such an organisation. Come Monday I will be telephoning the BBC to express my disgust.
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(192) wrote: "It was appalling. Hamas was accused of not renewing the ceasefire and of the rocket attacks, but no mention was made of the Israeli attacks in November killing Hamas leaders and several civilians, a clear breah of the ceasefire."
Once again, it is clear that editorializing obscured the facts. In November Israel entered 100m inside Gaza to blow the end of a tunnel. Four Hamas members (no civilians) were killed. At that time they were in the process of setting up 500kg of explosives under the checkpoint between Gaza and Israel. When everybody speaks of this as a break of the ceasefire it just shows how much the notion that Hamas should be allowed to kill Jews at will has sunk in with you - you're blaming Israel for defending itself in the face of an obvious attack (Hams confirmed that was what its casualties were trying to do).
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I think its disgraceful not to show the DEC appeal on the BBC because of some pathetic arguement about balanced reporting. People are suffering it doesn't matter why and it wasn't their fault. If it upsets the Israelis or Israeli supporters then tough!
Incidentally anyone who wants to know how to do hyperlinks on here see below.
<a href="http://www.dec.org.uk/">DEC</a>
the Href= is the website
the bit inbetween is the text shown in this case DEC. and it is ended with </a>
Just type that in and a hyperlink will connect to whatever website(if decent acceptable) you link to.
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81
Fascinating to hear Caroline Thompsons’ surreal and evasive justification for the BBC’s refusal to broadcast the DEC’s Gaza Appeal, particularly in contrast to Douglas Alexanders’ measured, all too tolerant, but humane plea
for reconsideration.
When she expresses concern that ‘some people’ in the audience might be given cause to doubt the BBC’s impartiality by such an appeal, one wonders who Ms Thompson could possibly be thinking of, or indeed what planet she is on! One struggles to see what charity broadcast would pass such an obscure, not to say absurd, test.
As a member of that audience let me assure Ms Thompson that the BBC’s decision and her extraordinary and callous defence of it leaves me with an overwhelming sense of outrage and disgust that the purported standard bearer of our national media turned its back on this urgent charitable appeal.
The indelible images of the suffering innocents carried by the BBC and the telling reports from its journalists contast with Ms Thompsons’ weasel words and gives the lie to this wicked decision.
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The shameful story of the BBC and the Gaza appeal has been unravelling all day. Aunty is left exposed and (almost) friendless. She has been deserted by her fellow broadcasters, criticised by left and right, demonstrated against, appealed to and blogged at and, right now, she stands a fair chance of alienating that base of reasonable license-payers who still value the notion of public broadcasting. Dangerous times.
Lets hear it for the Thompson twins.
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Why does the BBC DG Mark Thompson think its impartiality would be more questionable after broadcasting a humanitarian appeal, rather than after refusing to broadcast it? It looks to me as though some people's confidence matters more to senior BBC figures than others.
As for Caroline Thomson saying that "the most important thing is to retain the trust of the audience" - in my view refusing to show this DEC appeal is a clear breach of that trust. I can only assume that the BBC were afraid of pro-Israeli pressure groups attacking them: when such fears trump compassion and truth then what basis is there for trust?
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Regarding Thompson and Thomson's decision not to broadcast the DEC appeal, I'd like to pose a scenario, and see how they would respond to it.
An organisation detonates a bomb. The only people injured in the blast are family members of Thompson and Thomson. I witness this event and now have a dilemma: to call for the ambulances or not. Intuitively, I want to call. However, I'm aware that doing so would compromise my impartiality and imply bias against the organisation that detonated the bomb. I'm also unsure that the ambulances will get through anyway. In the minds of Thompson and Thomson those considerations, clearly, would be of greater importance than saving the lives of their family members.
T and T are two pathetic individuals in a pathetic organisation that, individually and collectively, displays the spine of an invertebrate.
Jonathon Ross got suspended for three months for a few tasteless phone calls. T and T ought to be out of the BBC for good first thing on Monday morning.
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#193 EnjoyingLifeinUSA wrote:
"...it just shows how much the notion that Hamas should be allowed to kill Jews at will has sunk in with you - you're blaming Israel for defending itself in the face of an obvious attack"
Israel killed 1300 people, including 418 children and 110 women in Gaza in three weeks, with F16 aircraft, naval warships, tanks, and field artillery. It used phosphorous shells, some of which hit schools and hospitals, in direct violation of international law.
You might well be enjoying life in the USA, but it was your tax dollars which paid for and Israel's armaments and your countrymen who manufactured the F16 aircraft. In my opinion the USA must share the guilt for the atrocities perpetrated by Israel's state-sponsored terrorism against a defenceless people. The Gazans live in a ghetto totally controlled by Israel. They have been starved and deprived of medical supplies for over 18 months.
Israel has a duty of care for those civilians in territories under its occupation. Its settlers have stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and intimidated and even killed civilians there, and they continue to do so.
In 1948-49 during the first war, Israel ethnically-cleansed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the territory which it unilaterally claimed. They refused to allow them to return, whilst by law allowing any Jew from anywhere in the world the right to live in territory which once belonged to the Palestinians. It has for over 40 years wilfully flouted every international convention on warfare, and every UN resolution. Your country, and your former President, vetoed every UN resolution critical of Israel.
Israel claims to be a democratic state. If it had allowed Palestinian refugees to return, there would not have been a Jewish majority there, hence the need for ethnic cleansing and massacres of Palestinians in Deir Yassin and elsewhere in order for the Jewish state to exist. Arab residents of Israel are treated as second-class citizens. I believe that Israel is essentially a racist state, and deserves to be treated as a pariah, as was apartheid South Africa.
Essentially the Gazans are defenceless against Israel's military might, which is fully supported by the USA. If my land had been taken and occupied and I was treated as sub-human, I'd want to retaliate, as I'm sure you would. The US is very quick to retaliate when threatened.
Channels 4 & 5 have realised that there is a huge humanitarian crisis in Gaza right now, and it needs to be addressed by the world community.
If it were up to me, I'd make the US and Israel pay for all the damage they've done, and to compensate those who have suffered - where that's possible. Four hundred and eighteen children dead. Its monstrous.
I reiterate that the BBC and its DG should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Never in all my years have I been so disgusted with the BBC.
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# 199
# 193
brynt41,
An excellent and very articulate post. All I'd add is that Gaza is essentially a huge ghetto, one that dwarfs those created in places like Warsaw by the Nazis. If you go through the indignities and injustices suffered by the Palestinians since 1948, and you compare it to the actions of the Nazi party in Germany (eg seizure of property, denial of citizenship, ethnic cleansing etc), you won't find much difference. So, I agree that Israel can rightly be compared to South Africa. However, I also think Nazi Germany is a legitimate comparison as well.
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So, where do we sign the petition calling for a war crimes investigation into the Israeli 'murder' of Gaza citizens.. and of course, piracy, use of chemical weapons etc etc
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It didn’t come as a surprise for the Muslims in Britain when BBC refused to run a charity appeal for Gaza because it was clear from the very first day of this conflict that BBC is not playing an impartial role in covering the offensives in Gaza.
Everybody who watched BBC knows the dirty tactics BBC used in covering the Israeli’s offensives e.g. showing the same video clips again and again so that the people loose their interest and every report was followed by an interview from the Israeli’s side to justify their offensives. Have they had nobody to tell the other side of the story and what about the protests that were happening all over the world? Were BBC reporters unaware of them or did they not just think it’s important to show it to the British people?
BBC News still might think that it’s the most watched channel in UK but it’s forgetting that there are some other channels like euro news that are more reliable and are truly IMPARTIAL
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If the BBC think they have covered Gaza impartially them God help them. The BBC has done a great job for the Zionist movement. They have no hesitation in telling viewers how bad Mugabe is so why do then refrain from telling us how bad the Israel Government is.
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Sorry there is something I do not understand. There are people accusing the BBC of pro-Hamas bias and that the BBC should check its facts. But that is the whole point. How can the BBC check its facts when it is not allowed into Gaza.
Let the press in and then the facts can be checked, until then people may conclude that Israel obviously has something to hide.
On the subject of war crimes, it is not journalists who really need to go into Gaza but police. That way the crimes of both sides can be investigated and punished.
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JayPee28bpr in (200.) makes the same allegations seen in other posts and I hope this time my response will be posted:
1. Re: "seizure of property"
Israel rarely seizes property and that happens to those who attacked or planned attacks against the Israelis or when there are building code violations which apply both to Jewish or Arab structures. In contrast, by Nazi law, all Jews lost most of their property;
2. Re: "denial of citizenship"
This is incorrect. Israel never officially annexed the occupied territories, in accordance with all UN resolutions vs. Israel. As such, Israel is not allowed to give citizenship to Gazans or Arabs from the West Bank. Conversely, every Arab living in Israel is an Israeli citizen.
3. Re: "ethnic cleansing"
There is no reported instance of forceful removal or deportation of Arab civilians from Israel or the territories. In 1948 similar number of Jews and Arabs became refugees - between 400,000 and 500,000. Jews were ordered to leave Arab lands. Palestinians left because they were frightened by several massacres committed against them during the 1948 war (Jews were also massacred by Arabs in various kibutzes and villages during that war). They also left because they were asked specifically by invading Arab armies to "clear the way" so that they are not massacred together with the Jews who were going to be thrown int the sea. The recordings of those calls through Arab radio still exist. Today there are 20% Arabs in Israel and 0 Jews in the Arab world.
4. Comparison with the Nazis and the Varsaw Ghetto:
Jews were gathered in the Ghetto in order to be exterminated and they were. Half the Jewish world population was in fact exterminated, while all along Jews were not killing German civilians (not even in retaliation). The Palestinians are supported by the UN and other donors to the tune of billions of dollars annually, while the Jews received no such help. More than 4,000 Jews were killed daily, in average, during the three years period 1942-1944, about 100 times as many as the Gaza victims for the same period of time (talking about the much quoted "disproportion"). There was no offer from the German side except for extermination. In the Varsaw Ghetto thousands died of malnutrition. Last, but most important, Palestinians voted for Government a military organization which vows to kill all Jews, destroy Israel, and establish a Moslem Empire. Why would any peace loving, not antisemitic person in this world give any sympathy, or even worse, give support to any group advocating publicly a new Holocaust? That is the question that begs most for an answer.
There are many other essential differences, but try to digest even these few, in a logical manner.
As for the BBC's not wanting to participate in the appeal, I think it's ridiculous and probably a controversy created by the BBC exactly because it is ridiculous. Gazans do need that help and if Israel could take hundreds of Gazans in its hospitals, surely the BBC can ask for donations for the victims. More important is that the BBC follows up and reports on how all that money will be actually spent (if it reaches all Palestinian victims). By uncovering the truth, like the reports of Hamas' having killed dozens of Palestinians since the ceasefire, the BBC could maintain an image of integrity.
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(199.) brynt41 wrote:
"You might well be enjoying life in the USA, but it was your tax dollars which paid for and Israel's armaments and your countrymen who manufactured the F16 aircraft. In my opinion the USA must share the guilt for the atrocities perpetrated by Israel's state-sponsored terrorism against a defenseless people."
I stand by the US because European antisemitism had its way with Jews once and it learned nothing. The US is the only country which applied pressure on Israel and the Arabs equally. It gives the Arabs annually several billion dollars more than to Israel and significant quantities of armament. It is the only country which does not challenge Israel's right to exist as a country where Jews can govern themselves, in their ancestral homeland, while the UN is a lynching mob pandering to Arab oil.
Your narrative is very one sided and loses its credibility as much as European countries do because you don't even mention terrorism against Israelis, as if did not exist. It fails completely because 6,000 rockets shot at Israel's civilian population are not an act of retaliation, but of terrorism out of vengeance and hate, which would be called anywhere terrorism except for when Jews are killed, it seems. Gazans are not defenseless against Israeli might. Just like between 1948 and 1967, when Gaza was part of Egypt, Gazans would have nothing to fear if they stopped attacking Israeli civilians.
As for your 418 children dead figure, as expected, it diminishes by the day - today Palestinians lowered it to less than 300. It just shows once again how BBC's presenting everything the Palestinian side claims, without verification, is creating a distorted image. More than that, there is no doubt to me that some of the Palestinian civilians died in explosions planted by Hamas. Many were shot by Hamas as "collaborators" (probably for being political enemies). You just watch and see how by the end of it, when facts are dug out, it will become clear that most of those killed by Israel were in fact fighters from Hamas and other groups.
One more fact: the most important UN resolutions, those during or immediately after Israeli-Arab wars require something of all sides, not just Israel. Jordan is the only one to have fulfilled its part vs. Israel, as Israel did vs. Jordan. Egypt is turning a blind eye to gun smugglers, in contravention of its peace treaty with Israel. Everybody else failed at giving Israel peace in return for land (Israel gave back more land than what it has now; that land had been conquered in wars in which Arab armies wanted to eradicate Israel; yet where is the peace?). All other resolutions require similar things - just look at how the war in Lebanon ended, with an agreement that Israel will stop in return for European guarantees that Hezballah will not rearm and no rockets will be shot at Israel. Guess what? Israel stopped, Hezballah rearmed, and rockets were fired at Israel the other day. Same value of European commitment when they guaranteed that they would monitor Gaza's border with Egypt and forbid gun smuggling - when Hamas said it will do what it wants, Europeans broke their promise to Israel and left the border crossing.
Not all of Israel's actions are defendable, but justifying terrorist actions by an organization vowing to kill all Jews has no logical or moral base for anyone who loves peace and is not an antisemite.
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#207 EnjoyingLifeInUSA wrote:
"The US is the only country which applied pressure on Israel and the Arabs equally."
If you believe that then you live in cloud cuckoo land. Cite examples of the US being even-handed in the dispute. It created Israel in 1948, by legitimising a regime which unilaterally and illegally took land belonging to others. The UN Partition Plan of 1948 was just that, a plan to put to both sides. If both agreed then it could a basis for negotiation and implementation. The US leaned heavily on many small states to vote for the Plan. The Palestinians rejected it because it meant that they would lose half their country. The Zionists unilaterally declared the State of Israel and 11 minutes later it was recognised by the US President. The UN did not have land then or now to give to anyone.
"It (the US) gives the Arabs annually several billion dollars more than to Israel and significant quantities of armament."
True. The US bribes weaker Arab nations to bend to its will. Egypt, a dictatorship, is a prime example of US aid. It is why Egypt has closed the border with Gaza. It also fears US economic and military reprisals if it does not comply.
Now we come to 'armaments'. Israel's entire war machine is either paid for or supplied by the US, although the UK soils its hands in a similar way.
The US develops weapons and methods of killing people more efficiently, such as some of the new bombs used in Gaza, the blast from which shatters bones into fragments and buries them in flesh, making surgery or repair virtually impossible. Many children in Gaza were killed or maimed by these weapons. The US supplies them at discount to the Israelis where they are first tried out, then they are sold at a premium, when showed to be effective, to other states, including corrupt regimes such as that in Saudia Arabia.
The US armaments industry is the largest in the world, and earns vast sums of money for the US Treasury and economy... out of the misery of hundreds of millions of people. Is it surprising that so many of the world's inhabitants have an extreme dislike of your country and its governments? Perhaps you are enjoying your life in the US at their expense.
"Gazans are not defenseless against Israeli might"
Israel has the fourth largest military capability on this planet, and it is backed by the US, by far the most powerful. Gaza is seven miles wide, it contains 1.5 million people, in the most densely packed place on earth. Israel controls its borders and its air space. They are walled-in by Israel, lietrally, with a massive 30 foot high concrete monstrosity. Gazans have no army, navy or air force, or powerful weapons. They have a few home-made primitive rockets, which they fire at Israel for all the misery caused to them over the last 60 years, including a blockade lasting 18 months where food, fuel oil, and medical supplies were denied them. I don't condone anyone attacking civilians, but it doesn't surprise me that the Gazans retaliate in the circumstances.
"there is no doubt to me that some of the Palestinian civilians died in explosions planted by Hamas. Many were shot by Hamas as "collaborators" (probably for being political enemies)."
You have no evidence whatsover for such claims. None have been reported in the media.
"Israel gave back more land than what it has now".
In 1948 the Zionists had no land. Now they have virtually all of the ancient Kingdom of David ... dating from 3,000 years ago. Palestinian land has been diminishing steadily from Israeli encroachments until they are reduced to living on small 'islands' in the West Bank, surrounded by Israeli hilltop settlements and Israeli controlled raods and chekpoints from which they are threatened, intimidated and attacked. Israel has taken control of most of their water supplies, and has walled them in, separating farmers from their fields, and children from their schools. There is no longer enough land for a viable Palestinian state, only enough for a South African style 'bantustan' surrounded and controlled by Israel. The USA has colluded with Israel's theft of land for decades.
"...just look at how the war in Lebanon ended.."
Let's instead look at how it started. Two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped. Israel bombed, shelled and invaded Lebanon in retaliation. The country and its infrastructure was devastated. There were 1300 deaths, including 300 children. That is how Israel operates. It is a cardinal principle of interational laws governing the conduct of warfare that acts must be proportional, and that there must not be collective punishment. Can anyone argue that Israel is not guilty on both these counts?
".... anyone who loves peace and is not an antisemite."
It isn't long before any critic of Israel is labelled 'anti-Semitic'. My criticism of Israel is not racially motivated. I have friends from several ethnic minorities, and race is never an issue. My opposition to Israel and Zionism is based on the fundamental injustice perpetrated against a wholly innocent people, the Palestinians, who lived a century ago peacefully in their land harming no-one. Since then they have had their land stolen, they have been made into refugees, and treated as sub-human. The western world has turned its back on them.
Some countries are more culpable than others. A small group of eastern European Jews called Zionists conceived the idea, Britain saw to its gestation, and the USA gave it birth and sustained it. The world in my opinion has not been a better place as a result.
What's the solution... ? I really don't know, but I can't be silent when I see such injustice. Politicians should give much more thought before opening a Pandora's Box.
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(210.) brynt41 wrote:
"Cite examples of the US being even-handed in the dispute. It created Israel in 1948, by legitimising a regime which unilaterally and illegally took land belonging to others."
See my post (104.) - It is antisemitic to criticize the existence of a Jewish state in a land where Jews always lived, without interruption, for thousands of years before the Arabs arrived as an Empire. Colonists of that Empire have become today's "Palestinians", 700 years after the land was first named "Palestina" by the Romans who destroyed the Jewish kingdom. Denying Jews the rights you believe everybody else should have is antisemitic.
"The US armaments industry is the largest in the world, and earns vast sums of money for the US Treasury and economy... out of the misery of hundreds of millions of people."
Oh, great - don't you wish you could say that in German, from a "work sets you free" camp?
"Gaza is seven miles wide, it contains 1.5 million people, in the most densely packed place on earth. Israel controls its borders and its air space."
That is incorrect. You borrowed this from BBC's old articles but forgot to keep up with the news. If you'd ask BBC they could tell you they gave this mantra up because since Israel evacuated Gaza the Jews of Tel Aviv and its suburbs have become the ones to live in even more crowded conditions.
"They are walled-in by Israel, lietrally, with a massive 30 foot high concrete monstrosity."
I was in Israel and I clearly saw how the Wall took away the angle so that Israelis could not be shot in their apartments whenever a Palestinian felt like it, like it happened in the past. Bummer!
"They have a few home-made primitive rockets, which they fire at Israel for all the misery caused to them over the last 60 years, including a blockade lasting 18 months where food, fuel oil, and medical supplies were denied them. I don't condone anyone attacking civilians, but it doesn't surprise me that the Gazans retaliate in the circumstances."
Oh, please, you got cause and effect mixed up. Israelis were recipients of more attacks than any people in the last 61 years and Palestinians have had civilians as their declared and "achieved" targets. Productive farms US Jews paid 46 million so that Israel handed them intact to the Palestinians, as a good will gesture, were answered by terror against Israel's South. Israel always said that border restrictions would ease gradually as long as there were no terrorist attacks and did start with that. It reverses the tightening of borders as terror attacks reoccur. Why didn't the Palestinians give a chance to border opening? The fact that you complain about Israel's strength and its actions simply shows you believe Jews should just sit and take it because the Arabs believe Jews should not have their own country in their ancestral land.
Re: Hamas' killing collaborators: "you have no evidence whatsover for such claims. None have been reported in the media."
Actually, there are such reports in the Israeli press, but the BBC is very cautious to print them (is it because the Israeli press gets it right just about every time?), while printing immediately any Palestinian accusation against Israel, without verification (though so many of them later prove to be baseless or exaggeration). Once in a while something filters through though - tell me what you think about the first reported story on Hamas' shooting a Palestinain - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7837356.stm
"Now they have virtually all of the ancient Kingdom of David ... dating from 3,000 years ago."
That is incorrect - David's Kingdom was significantly larger (not that I or most Israelis would want to return to that - they just want peace).
"...Israeli hilltop settlements and Israeli controlled raods and chekpoints from which they are threatened, intimidated and attacked."
Here I agree with you. This has to end. Israel had been using this for a long time as a bargaining tool which actually brought it no benefits (in terms of achieving peace). Now try to also place yourself in the shoes of a Palestinian who sneaked into some settlement and stabbed infants in their cribs. How much hate is there? This happened over and over and long before the settlers started to become physical aggressors, as well. By the way, this is indeed disgusting, regardless of what threats the settlers would be under. As an atheist I believe that the small minority of religious extremists is nuts and those from the "moderate majority" who give them understanding are complicit. The same goes for those killing in the name of Islam and the "moderate majority" which is actually not silent, but takes over the streets to advocate the extremists' "just right" to kill civilians.
The vast Jerusalem neighborhood housing 300,000 Jews should be kept by Israel and Israel should give the Palestinians some of its 1948 land in return. Every major city in the world had expanded during the last 61 years and Jerusalem still uses building codes established by the British, which limit upwards expansion.
"Two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped. Israel bombed, shelled and invaded Lebanon in retaliation..."
Read what you wrote, again. Ever wonder what would have happened if those soldiers were not kidnapped? If Israel is so evil when provoked, why would worthy of sympathy victims poke at it over and over? There can't be any rational reason for this, especially when the correlation is that periods of relative calm are always followed by Israel's easing restrictions.
"acts must be proportional, and that there must not be collective punishment. Can anyone argue that Israel is not guilty on both these counts?"
It may be, as long as you can indeed provide an alternative. Kneeling to be killed is what denying Israel's right to exist and its right to defend itself represents. Unless you believe Israel should give Qassam-equivalent rockets to civilians of Sedorot and let them fire them into Gaza one for each incoming one. Talking about proportionality, accusations of Genocide, Holocaust, or racism against Israel are extreme distortions of the definitions for those words, yet they are extremely frequent, even in this thread.
"It isn't long before any critic of Israel is labelled 'anti-Semitic'. My criticism of Israel is not racially motivated. I have friends from several ethnic minorities, and race is never an issue. My opposition to Israel and Zionism is based on the fundamental injustice perpetrated against a wholly innocent people, the Palestinians, who lived a century ago peacefully in their land harming no-one. Since then they have had their land stolen, they have been made into refugees, and treated as sub-human. The western world has turned its back on them."
That is incorrect. Denying the oldest surviving [continuous] inhabitants of that land the right of national determination while decrying the absence of yet another Arab state to rule over those Jews is antisemitic. The "harming no-one" picture is simply a propaganda piece. Jews had been harmed there for centuries and their small numbers there were a result of their being persecuted under various rulers, including the Arabs.
Zionists saw a nation with an equal right to speak for itself [as other nations] as the only solution against persecution and the land of Israel as the natural place for displaced Jews to return to. Jews fought to build a country, the smallest in the region aside from Lebanon (carved from Syria in order to create a Christian country in the region). If Israel could absorb more than 400,000 Jews "ethnically cleansed" from Arab countries immediately, why couldn't Egypt and Jordan in 19 years give human conditions of living and even better integrate the less than 500,000 Arabs of Gaza and the West Bank with whom they were intimately related racially, in terms of religion, and culture? Take a map of the Arab countries and Israel and see that as a percentage of the total Jewish population in the Arab world Jews represented in 1948 much more than what Israel represents by comparison to the land of Arab countries. Why shouldn't Jews have a country of their own in those lands Jews always inhabited?
"What's the solution... ? I really don't know, but I can't be silent when I see such injustice."
According to what you wrote, justice for Palestinians should be high on the totem pole, but justice for Jews shouldn't be on the totem pole at all. You seem to imply that while half a million Palestinian refugees were a tragedy, 4 million Jewish refugees would be perfectly reasonable today. Or maybe you think those 4 million should just integrate in the new, just, Hamas-led Islamic Empire?
The solution is to pick up a book on how antisemitism is related to criticism of Israel (the issue had been thoroughly researched by many academics). Reading about the other point of view can broaden understanding. On my part I do not deny that Palestinians suffered injustice from Jews (and many still do). It is antisemitic though to ask Israel to drop dead or for Jews to leave themselves at the mercy of Islam or Europeans again. If you'd try to put a Jewish hat on, you'd see how for Jews the last 61 years have been just another set of attacks aiming at their annihilation, a continuation of what had happened since Roman times. Maybe the abused has taken traits from its abusers, but is the solution more abuse against the Jews? Isn't it time the world tried the opposite?
The solution is that of two states living in peace, Palestinians building a permanent country protected from invasion, economic cooperation, reparations from Israel, reparations from Arab countries to the Jews whose property they confiscated, and protection against the evils of "a Moslem Empire from Indonesia to Nigeria" proponents.
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Dear Mr Williams
You have quoted Israeli spokespersons with 3 points they make.....
1) ..." he said he thought allowing international journalists into Gaza would allow a "balanced picture"...
2) ..."Whenever international journalists went into Gaza it was "good" for Israel."...
3) ..."the Israelis say the situation is too dangerous for them to allow international journalists access to Gaza " ...
So why wouldn't Israel allow international journalists into Gaza in October and November BEFORE the hostilities commenced?
You have given 3 good examples of Israeli propaganda.
.
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(210.) brynt41 wrote:
"The US bribes weaker Arab nations to bend to its will. Egypt, a dictatorship, is a prime example of US aid. It is why Egypt has closed the border with Gaza. It also fears US economic and military reprisals if it does not comply."
This is actually a good example of how the US is in fact the only honest broker in the region. In terms of men power and military equipment Egypt was at least par with Israel (though less in military training). However, Europe could come up only with pressure on Israel throughout the decades the two countries were at war, the same solution it has today. In the interest of peace the US applied "stick and carrot" diplomacy with both, which eventually resulted in a peace treaty and probably tens of thousands of lives saved since then.
As for Egyptian fears of the US, that implies that Egypt is not sincere about peace with Israel. That may be the case, as it did turn a blind eye to gun smuggling by Hamas. Israeli press pointed out that the Egyptians clearly saw the movement of earth dug out of the tunnels, thus knowing exactly where they are [on the Egyptian side], yet they did not monitor what goes through them despite having assumed that responsibility when it took over the border crossing.
Europe can become an honest broker when it boycotts the Arab countries which fund and support terrorism against Israel the same way it boycotted and excluded Israel so far.
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#211 EnjoyingLifeInUSA wrote:
"I was in Israel.... "
Why don't you tell us what you were doing there and what your connection with Israel is?
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Don't you think Alan Johnston would like to go back to Gaza to find out what became of his "friends?" I'll bet they are just fine and dandy having holed up in the deepest safest tunnel in all of Gaza while less fortunate citizens were left to face the Israelis on the surface. I wonder if he went back if they'd still be able to offer him whatever food he wanted, free lodgings, and a radio. Can't imagine they'd want for a radio and the food will flow in whatever form is needed once the tunnels are repaired. For Johnston, it would be like an alumni reunion in the school of life :-)
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I'm sure posting #216 will be censored. It mentions someone whose name is taboo at BBC in connection with this story.
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In (215.) brynt41 decided that instead of the topic at hand it is more important to talk about me. It's disappointing that I receive no answer to what I believe were legitimate questions. I'm used to that though - when I ask my 2 year old why she hit her brother she would keep repeating something like "daddy, I want my water".
I visited many countries as a tourist and Israel was part of a Mediterranean trip starting in Venice, going through Croatia, Slovenia, back in Italy, then Israel, and from there to Egypt.
I hope you get to read this quickly, before someone decides it has nothing to do with BBC's coverage of Gaza.
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Things are getting a bit more clearer while reports on casualties are getting a little more fuzzy.
At http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7812136.stm , without a date, BBC quotes Palestinian sources telling about 1,010 dead, while at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7846625.stm on Friday Jan 23 Palestinian sources tell about more than 1300 killed.
It is OK for the BBC to repeat that Israel created disproportionate damage, but it should also repeat the correct conclusion that Israel did not target civilians. Israel says its soldiers killed mostly fighters and even Palestinian sources tell of less [or sometimes much less] than 1,000 civilian deaths. We were also always told about the fighting having occurred in densely populated areas.
Now here's the crucial statistic the BBC posts at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7846625.stm : Israel destroyed more than 4,000 buildings and 20,000 severely damaged. Judging by Palestinian sources and including the 40 civilians who died at the UN compound still gives one civilian death for each 20 to 40 buildings severely damaged. Can anybody recall such few civilian casualties per number of buildings destroyed in any short war like this one? Isn't that proof enough of the extent to which Israel went to avoid civilian casualties? If one uses Israel's estimates, we would wind up with 1 civilian for about 100 severely damaged buildings.
Now here's my 2c from across the ocean: judging by the results of the Lebanon campaign Israel calculated that a tsunami-category hit on Gaza, while eroding international support (oh, I forget, we in the US are the only ones who believe Israel should exist, in safety), will also send the same message that was sent to the Lebanese, namely that for keeping hundreds of thousands of Israelis under the daily terror of strikes, years in a row, Israel will not hesitate to create what is indeed disproportionate damage. This puts clearly the onus on organizations like Hezballah and Hamas. It basically says that those who bring to rule the terrorist organizations should be prepared to pay an astronomical collective price if those they brought to power start terror again. Maybe the BBC should ask Gaza's civilian population whether they understand this war the same way.
It is no doubt collective punishment, but isn't keeping 700,000 under the daily terror of rockets for years in a row also collective punishment?
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EnjoyingLifeInUSA
I think Gerald Kaufmann had people like you in mind when he said the following:
"Labour MP Gerald Kaufman claimed the BBC was worrying [in respect of broadcasting the DEC appeal] about what he called the "nasty pressure" from some pro-Israeli lobbyists.
...This... very active and not very pleasant Israeli diplomatic representation in Britain.""
I know you're not in the UK, but GK's sentiment is equally valid in respect of the USA.
The full BBC article carrying the above quote is at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7850407.stm
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(220.) JayPee28bpr, look at my last paragraph in post (206.) and see how it contradicts your allegation about the DEC appeal. Also, I never spent any money on any politician or lobbyist, nor have requested any political action of anybody. I am writing my opinions and it is kind of sad that in looking down at us (US folks) the resort is not to rational arguments, but to unfounded allegations and ad hominem attacks.
Given the public blackmail by OPEC when it comes to the West's ME policies, it is ridiculous to even bring up the "'nasty pressure' from some pro-Israeli lobbyists". Can you please make me understand how bringing pro-Israel arguments in a forum like this one is "lobbying"? Do you think the anti-Israel arguments are also "lobbying" [against Israel]?
My theory presented in (219.) seems to get more support - see BBC's article http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/default.stm . At least the EU understands that there is another cost if terrorism is not stopped. Aside from the loss of civilian lives (Arab and Jewish), Israel seems to warn that EU's pockets will also hurt. Does anyone else see this as the message? More importantly, do the Palestinians and the other financial supporters of Hamas understand the same thing? I tend to believe that in a time of recession even Iran might have to second guess its "making donations" to Hamas.
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What was the cause of the humanitarian disaster in Gaza Hurricane ? Draught ? Tsunami ? Flood ? No it deliberate and will full act by Israel. How cab the world loook on and allow this to happen. The Israeli govt chose this moment ahead of Barrack Obama being sworn and to garner support within Israel before the elections.
400 hundred children slaughtered and over 1,800 wounded so that Olmert can win an election.
Can there be any doubt that Israel is guitly of war crimes.
SABRA, SHATILA and now GAZA
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Perhaps the editor can explain why a BBC reporter in delivering the story about the ambushing of an IDF patrol this morning mention not once, but twice that the explosive involved may have been an old one from sometime before the present conflict.
There was absolutely no basis for saying that at all. NONE. Yet it did not stop him from repeateing it.
He also passed on the palestinian story of 'a farmer being killed in retaliation'.
At the end of his fairy tale, your BBC reporter said he was nowhere near any of these incidents.
Do you call this professional journalism?
The BBC pose of impartiality is a sham.
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If the BBC is impartial, as you forcefully claim, why has so much airtime been given in respect of interviews with Isreali spokespeople when compared to airtime given to the Palestian side?
And now in this blog another one sided praising of Mark Regev's very partial viewpoint.
The BBC has been extremely partial in their coverage of this humanitarian outrage, which even the UN has condemned.
This is not what we expect from Auntie!
Outrageous!
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Now here's another example of semantics meant to promote BBC's pro-Palestinian bias:
In the past, when Egypt or Saudi Arabia would criticize Israel, BBC would use the phrase "even moderate Arab countries" while today, when Egypt and Saudi Arabia are criticizing Hamas they become the "so-called moderate countries" - see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7852300.stm .
There are so many examples of brainwashing BBC's audience to buy into the anti-Israel story. However, collecting the adjectives used in BBC's editorializing the news are the most telling. I'm still looking for any adjective with positive connotation or sympathy-inducing at the address of Israel. If you've been calling Israelis 'devils' for so long, how can you expect your audience to understand the Israeli point of view?
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#225 EnjoyingLifeInUSA wrote:
"There are so many examples of brainwashing BBC's audience to buy into the anti-Israel story."
Why don't you stick to watching the completely balanced and unbiased coverage of Fox News?
If you lived here and actually watched BBC News coverage day after day, you wouldn't dream of making that allegation.
For the past three years, under the leadership of Mark Thompson, the BBC has been pro-Israeli to the extent that it disgusts a large number of people who pay its compulsory and extortionate licence fee.
In 2005, Thompson, according to a report in The Independent by Guy Sherman (29 November 2005) visited Israel to meet with Ariel Sharon, (a former terrorist member of Haganah) the most right-wing and hard-line Israeli PM in its history. The purpose of the visit was for the BBC to 'build bridges with Israel'. (For example, read about Sharon's involvement in the Qibya, and Sabra and Shatila massacres in Wikipedia).
Since then the BBC has consistently failed to put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in context, as dramatically illustrated with Gaza recently. BBC news coverage accepted without challenge the Israeli version of events, that it was purely a response to rocket attacks, omitting Israeli attacks on Gaza killing civilians during the term of the ceasefire, and the complete blockade and virtual starvation of 1.5 million people.
The BBC consistently fails to explain why the Gazans and the Palestinians in general are so aggrieved with Israel and the United States for being in the abject state they are in.
The population of the UK, many of whom have a scant knowledge of history, depend on the BBC to provide that background knowledge on which they can base their judgement and opinions. That is what we pay the BBC to do as a public service broadcaster.
I'm sure that the BBC's decision not to screen the DEC Gaza appeal will rebound to the Corporation's detriment, as it has seriously dented the confidence that a vast number of people here have in its impartiality. It would serve it right if it lost its privileged position.
It has shown that it is no longer independent, by bowing to Israeli pressure.
The BBC will not allow publication in these blogs of certain facts which might throw light on the recent refusal to screen the Appeal. Discerning readers will do some research of their own about the personalities at the top of the BBC and the BBC Trust, which supported the DG's decision.
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The timing of the destruction of Gaza is important here, I think. One of its purposes would have been to test the "loyalty" of the incoming Obama: if the man won't say diddly about the slaughter of 400 children, then maybe he can be relied up to "do the right thing" for the next four years. Operation Cast Lead would also have been designed to stoke up a lot of hatred (as if more were needed) towards the US/Israel axis and, by their silence, most of the developed world as well. Any blowback will require a response and, thus, reinforce the "us and them" narrative which certain nefarious interests are keen to develop.
The destruction of infrastructure also helps keep Gaza utterly dependent on the largesse of the outside world, which pushes their dreams of having a functioning state further into the future. All round, a job well done.
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#225 EnjoyingLifeInUSA wrote:
"There are so many examples of brainwashing BBC's audience to buy into the anti-Israel story."
Why don't you stick to watching the completely balanced and unbiased coverage of Fox News?
If you lived here and actually watched BBC News coverage day after day, you wouldn't dream of making that allegation.
For the past three years, under the leadership of Mark Thompson, the BBC has been pro-Israeli to the extent that it disgusts a large number of people who pay the compulsory and extortionate licence fee.
In 2005, Thompson, according to a report by Guy Sherman in The Independent of 29 November 2005, visited Israel and held a face-to-face meeting with Ariel Sharon, the most right-wing and hard-line Israeli PM in its history. Thompson’s visit was not publicised in the UK. Sherman says that it was 'the first visit of its kind by any serving director general, so it's clearly a significant development', and that 'it has been seized upon in Israel as evidence that Thompson, who took office in 2004, intends to build bridges with the country's political class'. Sherman also quotes sources at the BBC as saying, 'Not many people know this, but Mark is actually a deeply religious man. He's a Catholic, but his wife is Jewish, and he has a far greater regard for the Israeli cause than some of his predecessors.' During the visit to Israel Thompson also met with the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas. (Ariel Sharon was a member of the Jewish terrorist group, Haganah. Read about his involvement in the Qibya, and Sabra and Shatila massacres in Wikipedia).
Since then the BBC has in my opinion consistently failed to put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in context, as dramatically illustrated by Gaza recently. BBC news coverage accepted without challenge the Israeli version of events, that it was purely a response to rocket attacks, omitting Israeli attacks on Gaza killing civilians during the term of the ceasefire, and the complete blockade and virtual starvation of 1.5 million people.
It has consistently fails to explain why the Gazans and the Palestinians in general are so aggrieved with Israel and the United States for being in the abject state they are in.
The population of the UK, many of whom have a scant knowledge of history, depend on the BBC to provide that background knowledge on which they can base their judgement and opinions. That is what we pay the BBC to do as a public service broadcaster.
I'm sure that the BBC's decision not to screen the DEC Gaza appeal will rebound to the Corporation's detriment, as it has seriously dented the confidence that a vast number of people here have in its impartiality. It would serve it right if it lost its privileged position.
It has shown that it is no longer independent, by bowing to Israeli pressure.
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I am very disappointed in the BBC. This used to be the one place where the news was impartial, but some partiality in favour of Israel is showing in places. Not as bad as the US media, but some.
For example, the BBC is reporting the same half-truth as in the US, that anti-Israel protests are taking place 'in Muslim countries'. What of the anti-Israel protests in London itself? Not to mention Dublin and Cork in Ireland and New York, Houston, New Orleans and Philadelphia in the USA. Are the UK, Ireland and the USA now 'Muslim countries'? Does the huge unpopularity in the West of Israel's illegal actions need to be hidden?
That's leaving aside the refusal to show the appeal, which I know is a separate thread.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
The BBC coverage this morning concerning Sri Lanka this morning stands in stark contrast with the Gaza coverage.
There are no tear-filled handkerchief wringing BBC correspondents bewailing the civilians injured in the conflict.
There are dry descriptions of convoys of injured being held up by Tiger and Govenrment troops and 'statements of concern' by UN offcials.
No war crimes accusations, no cries of 'disproportionate' response, no evil Nazi storm troopers causing the casualites.
....and yet, the real conflict situation is very close to that in Gaza.
I think this parallel conflict throws the anti-Israel/Anti-Jewish, highly biased coverage of the BBC into sharp relief.
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#231 SteveGNyc wrote:
"I think this parallel conflict throws the anti-Israel/Anti-Jewish, highly biased coverage of the BBC into sharp relief."
Living in NYC you should be an expert on biased coverage of Arab-Israeli and Middle Eastern issues in the US media.
I notice that your first comment in these blogs was on 19 January 2009. I conclude that for decades you have been fed on the pro-Israeli propaganda spewed out by stations such as Fox News.
If you had been watching BBC News and current affairs coverage over the last four years or so you would have detected a very pro-Israeli bias since Mark Thompson became its Director General. It has culminated in his taking the decision not to air the DEC Appeal. I don't know if the fact that his wife is Jewish has anything to do with his views or his decisions - see Guy Sherman's report in The Independent, 29 November, 2005.
The vast majority of people in the UK disagree with Thompson's decision - read their comments on this blog - and they are the ones who pay the compulsory licence fee which funds the BBC (currently about $200 a year) and which one has to have over here in order to watch any TV broadcasts. There are large fines for anyone caught tuning in without a licence.
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"Isn't keeping 700 000 under threat of rockets collective punishment."
Less than 50 people have died in those attacks that mostly land in fields in 8 years.
more die per month in traffic accidents.
The point is Both are collective punishment.
Both sides. But you ask only that Hamas be disarmed.
That hamas stop .
That hamas be put under siege.
That hamas leaders are allowed to be targeted and blown up and the collateral damage is OK.
that Hamas say they recognise Israel
Never the other way round.
Never Israel.
That is being Bias.
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231. At 3:24pm on 29 Jan 2009, SteveGNyc wrote:
some nice stuff we should all pay attention to.
the bit about people suffering in Sri Lanka.
But then he also forgets that every country has suffered because of this conflict in the middle east.
that towers were flown in to that nations have been invaded , because of this situation.
It has to be admitted that wmd would have only hit Israel, so we attacked.
on their behalf.
The worlds economy is doing down because the guy running the biggest show in town was preoccupied with saving Israel .
That was who the Iraq war was going to prevent being nuked.
Not the USA. Not the UK.
same with the Quartets envoy of shame Tony.
there to protect Israel it seems.
And as a result of that war and the lack of attention on the economy(just fine) or the environment(just fine) we are ALL in a pickle.
Bring them all down with you.
What a joke these outraged zionist are.
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(226.) brynt41 wrote:
#225 EnjoyingLifeInUSA wrote:
"There are so many examples of brainwashing BBC's audience to buy into the anti-Israel story."
"Why don't you stick to watching the completely balanced and unbiased coverage of Fox News?"
FOX News is biased in favor of Israel and Al Jazzera in favor of the Arabs. I have no gripes with those two news stations because no sane person could trust either one. On the other hand, the BBC claims objectivity, so it will dupe all of you who follow it regularly if only through the labels it repeats over and over or with never calling Hamas a terrorist organization with a charter calling for killing all Jews and destroying Israel.
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#235 EnjoyingLifeInUSA wrote:
"FOX News is biased in favor of Israel and Al Jazzera (sic) in favor of the Arabs."
Al Jazera - the English language TV station - is remarkably well-balanced on issues to do with Israel and the Palestinians. I mean that seriously. It continually surprises me that it is so unbiased editorially. Several prominent broadcasters and journalists from the UK, like David Frost, have worked for them or are working for them.
I readily admit my pro-Palestinian bias, but that accusation shouldn't be made against Al Jazera, it isn't warranted.
Being pro-Palestinian does not make me an apologist for all the actions of individuals or groups among them, or for regimes in the Middle East or elsewhere, which either treat their own people inhumanely or attack their neighbours. My feelings for the Palestinians are based entirely on the great injustice which they as a people have suffered at the hands of the West and its creation, Israel.
My natural instincts, from my Judeo-Christian upbringing, is to feel sympathy and an accord with Jewish people, who have endured centuries of unimaginable persecution.
However, their suffering cannot be an excuse or a reason for perpetrating even more suffering on a people who are essentially an innocent party to what happened in Europe between 1933-45.
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Absolutely disgraceful biased coverage.
I am ashamed of the BBC for not standing up and being a voice of impartiality in these terrible times.
It seems that as time goes on the BBC just gets worse. Thankfully we have the internet and other more respectable news networks to get the real story from. It seems as though we are on a course to become like the US where every news network just spouts propaganda.
Its a shame that you couldnt provide a service for us that is honest and impartial. You would receive so much respect around the world and would improve the image of our country abroad.
your biased coverage will only fuel more terrorist attacks in our country as it will seem to those abroad - those family members of the slaughtered in Gaza that we in the UK do not care for civilians - that we have no morality.
Thank you very much BBC for putting us in EVEN MORE DANGER!!!!
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(236.) brynt41 wrote: "My natural instincts, from my Judeo-Christian upbringing, is to feel sympathy and an accord with Jewish people, who have endured centuries of unimaginable persecution."
"My feelings for the Palestinians are based entirely on the great injustice which they as a people have suffered at the hands of the West and its creation, Israel."
Your two statements are incompatible. The BBC provides the data in its time lines, but never helps you draws the correct conclusion: the same way that in the first part of the 20th century Arab states were created in places where they ruled over millions of other minorities or they completely eradicated or absorbed the indigenous population, the Jewish population was entitled to achieve national determination through the creation of Israel on an infinitesimal area of land. Your solution that everywhere Arabs live in the middle east and Africa there should be only Arab states is flawed because it is racist (i.e. "only Arabs should be allowed national determination in [many and large] countries of their own, not the Jews"). If you are incapable of supporting the Jews right for self-determination in a place where they continuously lived for longer than anyone else, you are falsely claiming an understanding for Jewish suffering.
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(237.) ryanmstokes wrote:
"your biased coverage will only fuel more terrorist attacks in our country as it will seem to those abroad - those family members of the slaughtered in Gaza that we in the UK do not care for civilians - that we have no morality.
Thank you very much BBC for putting us in EVEN MORE DANGER!!!!"
Excellent post! It is the best example for the truism that the same thing you let happen to the Jews (allowing and supporting terror against them under the guise of a fight for liberation, denying the Jews the right to live safely in a country where they have self-determination) will come to haunt all of us. The BBC and other media, together with the EU, were reluctant to call terrorists those who kill civilians in order to further their political aims. It is that attitude which gave the terrorists legitimacy and thus support. When terror will happen in our own yard and our own family members are maimed or killed, I expect you [and the BBC] will be able to "comment objectively on how justified and noble the actions of the 'freedom fighters' are".
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The other day on its third page the BBC posts something like http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7855070.stm . It is its only article with some insight into investigating the numbers of Palestinians killed (armed vs. civilian). About two weeks ago Israel was forced to declare a ceasefire based on calls rallying everybody around the "disproportionate number of Palestinians killed" and on claims that "Israel is indiscriminately killing civilians", so casualties were presented as the key to understanding the three weeks war.
At that time the BBC was protesting that Israel's denying entry to its reporters forced them (the BBC) to use only numbers given by the Palestinians. What happened since then? How comes that in today's articles the same figures given by Hamas -controlled persons are quoted, without even mentioning their source anymore? Is the BBC giving credibility to those numbers without having conducted its own investigations? Could it be using the logic: Palestinians claimed them, the UN reported them based on those Palestinian sources, so now the BBC has two "independent" sources to corroborate it? Or is it that just by repeating them at least five time each day the BBC reporters themselves came to believe what they see in print over and over? If those figures are substantially different (smaller), how will the BBC act to dissipate all the hate it created by publishing these numbers so far?
How comes the BBC could not do the same thing as the Italian reporter - go to hospitals and notice that injured children and women are a much lesser proportion of the total injured hospitalized than that given for fatalities? Did the BBC even attempt talking to Palestinian doctors not affiliated with Hamas?
Accepting the [Hamas - given] Palestinian numbers and versions of events, now that the BBC can make its own investigations, is the most obvious example of anti-Israel bias. The BBC rallied anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment by primarily underscoring a purported high absolute number and percentage of Palestinian civilians killed and injured. Now that it has access to Gaza's hospitals, why isn't the BBC investigating the obvious discrepancy: they reported them as crowded throughout the conflict, we were hearing about patients who had to be kept in beds in the courtyard, yet the very first day after arriving in Gaza the BBC could notice that hospitals were not crowded, but to this day avoids commenting on it.
The same way it editorializes routinely about graffiti, feces, and other anti-Israel slander, could the BBC attempt a rational inference about Israel's targeting or avoiding Palestinian civilians, even based Palestinian figures? Those sources claim at most 1,000 civilians (Israel's estimates are much less) for 20,000 buildings severely damaged, in a war zone where Hamas was shooting from apartment buildings which housed civilians at that time. Is that a sign of targeting civilians? Isn't that and the known fact of advance warning by Israel a clear sign that Israel's intention was to avoid civilian casualties?
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#239 EnjoyingLifeinUSA wrote:
"The BBC and other media, together with the EU, were reluctant to call terrorists those who kill civilians in order to further their political aims."
That would be Israel, which killed 1200 innocent civilians, including 300 children, in Lebanon in 2006 and a similar number in Gaza recently.
The BBC's coverage needs to be unbiased and impartial. Often the BBC's correspondents are denied access to places which Israel controls and which it doesn't want to witness the atrocities it commits using white phosphorous air-burst bombs and dense inert metal explosive (DIME) shells which reduce flesh and bone to pulp and which cause cancer, even if the victims survive, which they rarely do. Israel has the fourth largest military force in the world, ranged against the Palestinians who have no air, sea or land forces. Israel has tanks, field artillery, F-16 fighter-bombers, helicopter gunships, pilotless drones with missiles, warships, and nuclear weapons. The Palestinians have none of these things. The conflict has never been anywhere near equal. To portray them as such, as the BBC has done so often is a travesty. The BBC has consistently failed to deliver an unbiased history of Palestine. It always refers to the present.
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(241.) , as everywhere, brynt41, you pick and choose out of context, you asked questions which I answered, yet refuse to answer a single one of mine. The most important one is about how anti-Israel stances from BBC's version of the conflict have brainwashed you into denying Jews the same right you advocate for Palestinians and you advocate exclusively for Arabs (complete ownership of lands where other cultures have lived even for longer times), in a purely antisemitic fashion.
I made many specific points about the BBC's coverage of Gaza (accuracy and objectivity), yet you reply to none of those and chose to pick on a point I made about language. Regarding that, you avoid acknowledging that the terrorist label belongs to Hamas because it targets civilians and it boasts publicly that it does so and try to perversely apply it to Israel because of collateral civilian casualties during a war [between armed armies], many if not most of which had been used as shields by the same Hamas. Who is to blame for the casualties and the extent of the casualties are still highly debatable.
You show no understanding for the national situation of the Jews, as you claim, but prefer to wage a verbal Crusade against them, in line with the BBC's. At this point I can't continue a dishonest dialogue where I am the only one answering questions.
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(241.) brynt41 wrote:
"The conflict has never been anywhere near equal. To portray them as such, as the BBC has done so often is a travesty. The BBC has consistently failed to deliver an unbiased history of Palestine. It always refers to the present."
At (104.) I actually mentioned facts the BBC omits from its narrative and they don't support the Arab side. You always ask for the BBC to give a verdict, a decision, or a score (against Israel) and have not presented any actual facts missing from BBC's coverage. Your concern is just labeling the Jews devils because they want self-determination and the Palestinians angels while they target civilians with the declared goal of ethnical cleansing of the Jewish population.
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I'm still not seeing the patented screaming crying BBC coverage of the children being massacred in Sri Lanka.
By this time with the Gaza circus, you had Jeremy Bowen, Palestinian objective cameramen, choruses of UN spokespeople and 'concerned humanitarians' lined up out the door to denounce Israel. (Not to mention 2 or 3 updating HYS's.)
Since there seem to be no Jews involved, the Sri Lankan child slaughter (a real one) is shuffled off to the back pages of the BBC.
That is what I indicated in previous posts as blatant BBC bias in how stories are reported.
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Oh, the ever diminishing numbers!
In http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7864652.stm BBC reports a third of 1,300 victims were civilians. BTW, the Palestinian organizations all claim less than 1,300 deaths.
So, two thirds of that number were fighters? Why is that in itself not a top story after mobilizing antisemitism through quoting Arab claims of 1,000 dead civilians and having no story on how Israeli soldiers killed hundreds of armed fighters?
Why doesn't the BBC place this in its accurate perspective? For instance, this is about the same number of civilians as that of Jewish civilians killed in a series of bombings by Hamas in the mid-90s. Hamas was specifically targeting Jewish civilians, in civilian areas of Israel which were not used by the Israeli military for operations. There was no medical help from the international community for the thousands of injured Jewish civilians and there were no drives in the UK to collect money for the tens of millions in property damage. There were no angry anti-Arab demonstrations in London. Does anybody see the difference? The international community values Jewish life less than that of the Arabs.
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Al jazeera today carried an astonishing speech by Zionist uber-hawk Benyamin Netanyahu. He says that if he wins the Israeli election he will "topple Hamas" and will deal with the Iranian threat by 'harnessing the US administration" if necessary. Is the US administration HIS to harness?
I also notice that the BBC carried not a whisper of Bibi's speech...
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After the relish with which the BBC covered the purported attack by Israel on a Gaza school during the recent fighting, the UN has now confirmed that now such attack took place on the school and blamed the false report on a "clerical error".
Now that the UN has publically retracted the flase accusations, the very least the BBC can do is to publicise the correct facts to avoid further distortion of the true position.
Furthermore, does the BBC intend to cover the appalling robbery of aid supplies by Hamas from a UN Gaza warehouse?
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If one added up all the complaints of unfair reporting made on this page one would be forced to conclude that the BBC has incited hatred and irrevocably damaged its reputation by its simultaneous bias against toward both sides.
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