BBC ATROCITIES

Another day and the continued BBC onslaught against Israel shows no sign of abating. During this morning’s Cormac Murphy O’Connor produced programme (Featuring Thought for the day by Jerome Murphy O’Connor – keep it in the family, eh?) there was a truly wretched item just after the 8am news which started with the UN special rapporteur, and noted anti-Israeli activist Richard Falk whinging on about the “daily atrocities” that Israel is committing. This set up things for Jeremy Al Bowen who rose to the challenge once again asserting that he believed Israel’s military strategy could not succeed as well as being politically non-sustainable. Next we segued into Richard Haas, the current president of the US Council on Foreign Relations. Haas gave a modest defence of Israel, though he is a keen advocate of the “Two State Solution” and shills for the PA. Since when did holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas come to represent moderation? He also suggested that the current Middle East situation could take a few lessons from Northern Ireland where the IRA were told they could not bomb and shoot their way into government. (This somewhat surprised me since I have lived through three decades of IRA bombing and shooting and now they are in government! Go figure.) The BBC has moved into full-on support for Hamas and I will be damned if this is not documented here on a daily basis. Israel fights to defend it’s people from Hamas Islamic savagery, the BBC seeks to undermine this at every junction.What is it that drives such vicious anti-Israel feeling at the BBC?

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107 Responses to BBC ATROCITIES

  1. joe bonanno says:

    Yes, today’s radio two ‘news’ bulletins are currently finishing with something like ‘…with 360 Palestinian deaths. In that time 9 Israelis have been killed…’.

    They don’t finish off the bulletin with ‘…and it’s so unfair isn’t it’. But they might as well.

    Nothing you can complain about to The Untrust but subtle as a mallet.

    Pace Homer Simpson, I would say it is very ‘weaselly’ but that would be unfair on weasels.

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  2. Battersea says:

    ‘What is it that drives such vicious anti-Israel feeling at the BBC?’

    Simple. Anger towards a country that simply refuses to turn the other cheek and stoically accept its fate. Hatred of a country and a people who refuse to accept the ‘historical inevitablity’ of Islamic domination of the Middle East.

    And perhaps some latent anitsemitism?

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  3. Battersea says:

    Sorry…antisemitism.

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  4. Robin Horbury says:

    The answer, David, is the same anti-semitism that underpinned German ideology of the Nazi era. I’m re-reading at present Hitler’s Willing Executioners, a must-read for anyone seeking to understand how collective thoughts of hate can be “rationalised” to justify political actions.

    The international community, led by the EU, and Muslim loving Obama, have now polarised their views of “oppressed” Palestine and “aggressive” Israel, and the Hamas hate-machine is feeding their frenzy with pictures of “atrocities” committed by Israel. But as Melanie Phillips notes in her excellent blog posting on this topic, where were these film crews taking pictures of the “atrocities” when 6,000 Hamas rockets rained down at random on Israelis? They weren’t there and didn’t report most of the daily terror.

    The BBC is slavishly following the Obama-EU line and will continue to do so. It is filled with Jew-haters.

    Strong language, but the circumstances warrant it; they are condoning an attempted ghenocide.

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  5. Trifecta says:

    David:

    Very eloquently put and I have posted your piece above on KUMB in an attempt to shine a little light.

    Apologies for not obtaining prior permission.

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  6. George R says:

    The BBC does not oppose Islamic jihad on principle, and in practice it condones the Islamic jihad organisation, Hamas.

    As the conflict in Gaza continues, the BBC’s political alignment with Hamas, and against Israel becomes more apparent.

    In terms of this ‘Jerusalem Post’ editorial on international attitudes towards Israel, the BBC seems to be in category 1.) below:
    1.)’knee-jerk condemnation’ category now, rather than
    2.)’ low-key even handedness’ category;
    By no stretch of the imagination could the BBC be put in the
    3.) pre-Obama White House, ‘Hamas as thugs and terrorists’ category:

    ‘Jerusalem Post’ –

    ‘Gaza portrayed’:

    “With the exception of the White House – which reacted to Israel’s Gaza operation by labeling Hamas leaders ‘nothing but thugs’ and blaming the ‘terrorists’ for igniting the violence – international political and media reaction has, by and large, fallen into two broad categories: low-key evenhandedness and knee-jerk condemnation.”

    http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230456503793&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

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  7. hippiepooter says:

    ‘What is it that drives such vicious anti-Israel feeling at the BBC?’

    Straightforward anti-semitism.

    It is possible to be anti-Zionist and support the destruction of Israel by legitimate military means without being anti-semitic, but when you support the heirs of Adolf Hitler against the Jewish State you are an agent of evil. At the very best the most stupendous of useful idiots.

    I put the latter because I know of a good number of otherwise decent people who are utterly brainwashed by the Goebbels like propaganda of the BBC and its media cohorts.

    I just hope Israel sees this through, unlike the botched job against Hizbollah. Israel, your light is shining, for the sake of humanity, dont let it go out this time round.

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  8. hippiepooter says:

    ‘This set up things for Jeremy Al Bowen who rose to the challenge once again asserting that he believed Israel’s military strategy could not succeed’

    Always reassuring when rank anti-semites like Bowen come out with this sort of thing. You know for certain that they are terrified that if the Israelis keep going they will score a tremendous victory against terrorism.

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  9. Anat (Israel) says:

    Sorry to tell you people, but the vicious anti-Israel feeling at the BBC (and, for that matter, the British Foreign Office) is traditional. Do you realize that precisely when the British Mandate of Palestine was implemented, in 1920, the following happened in England:

    In a single year 1920, five editions of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion sold out in England. That same year in the United States, Henry Ford sponsored the printing of 500,000 copies, … In 1934, an anonymous editor expanded the compilation with “Text and Commentary” (pages 136•141). … It consists of substantial liftings of excerpts of articles from Ford’s antisemitic periodical The Dearborn Independent. … The “Text and Commentary” concludes with a comment on Haim Weizman’s October 6, 1920 remark at a banquet: “A beneficent protection which God has instituted in the life of the Jew is that He has dispersed him all over the world”. Marsden [the English translator of the Protocols], who was dead by then, is credited with the following assertion: “It proves that the Learned Elders exist. It proves that Dr. Weizmann knows all about them. It proves that the desire for a “National Home” in Palestine is only camouflage and an infinitesimal part of the Jew’s real object. It proves that the Jews of the world have no intention of settling in Palestine or any separate country, and that their annual prayer that they may all meet “Next Year in Jerusalem” is merely a piece of their characteristic make-believe. It also demonstrates that the Jews are now a world menace, and that the Aryan races will have to domicile them permanently out of Europe.”[42]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elders_of_Zion#English_language_publication

    This was the propagnada background to which the British were exposed, precisely when charged with implementing the League of Nations directives for the institution of a National Home for the Jewish People in Palestine. History proves that some were immune to this propaganda, but but no means all.
    .

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  10. ajukdd says:

    Pure and simple Anti-semitism, along with an infiltration of Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas/Hizbullah operatives into the BBC Middle East bureau, plus the BBC paying protection money in terms of painting Israel as the aggressor and Muslims as the victims so BBC journalists can operate without getting kidnapped too often, unless of course it can be done to make Hamas look good…

    I have a bad feeling about this being another Olmert messup and just done to give them a chance at the next election…

    As far as I can see if every Jew in Israel was massacred the BBC would be happy.

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  11. Grant says:

    What is it with the BBC ? Simple, they hate Jews and love Muslims.

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  12. Derek W. Buxton says:

    The BBC loves every terrorist and dictator and hates to see democracy and freedom. DV is correct about the IRA, from bombs to government, aided by the BBC of course.

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  13. Pete says:

    Only an idiot or a lazy junk TV addict would use BBC news for information about anything related to the middle east given the BBC’s track record in this area, tears about Mr Arafat and all.

    When do we get to read that report into the BBC’s middle east reporting? We paid for it so why can’t we read it.

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  14. Grant says:

    Robin 9:37

    It is some years since I read Daniel Goldhagan’s book, but I rather feel that there was nothing particular about the Germans which led to the Holocaust. Under the right conditions something similar could happen anywhere at any time.
    What makes my blood boil is that there are many people in democratic countries who would be quite happy if the enemies of the Israelis carried out a successful Genocide against them as they have threatened to do.
    I wonder how the BBC would report that ?

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  15. frankos says:

    The fact is that Hamas fire rockets from built up areas of Palestine into less densely peopled Jewish settlements intentionally to get a violent and “disproportionate” response from Israel on the Palestinian people.
    They are waging a media war against Israel which the BBC are willingly cooperating with, portraying themselves as the victims of aggression.
    Hamas is hoping to win consessions from both the UN and the Obama US administration,even though they are a terrorist organisation.
    The peace process capitulation in NI has led terrorists to believe that armed struggle can produce results

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  16. Battersea says:

    I wonder why photos of Palestinian casualties are given such prominence on the BBC’s webpages, but Israeli victims are hardly ever seen. Why is coverage of Israeli victims so clinical? Why this ‘disproportionate’ coverage?

    What on earth could be the reason?

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  17. NotaSheep says:

    Having discussed the time constraints on Israel’s action in Gaza, the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen confidently asserts that “Hamas is a less conventional organisation.”. Do you think so Mr Bowen? Do you think so? Unconventional? Like the terrorists who killed hundreds in Bombay were audacious?

    Jeremy Bowen then goes on to describe the events of 9/11 thus:

    “the devastating blow delivered by the small group of hijackers who flew airliners into the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September, 2001.”

    Oh they were hijackers were they? Just hijackers, not murdering terrorists who used planes to kill, maim and destroy?

    Do read the rest of Jeremy Bowen’s article and then get of your butt and complain to the BBC.

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  18. George R says:

    “Damed if they do – but Israel’s dead if they don’t” (Ralph Peters)

    ‘New York Post’:

    [Extract]

    “Was it a crime to hand Gaza back to Palestinian authorities, to give peace a chance? Look what Israel received in return for trading land for peace.

    “Let us never forget the fundamental truth that, while Israel longs to live in peace with its neighbors, those neighbors openly profess the desire to eliminate Israel and exterminate its people.

    “Indeed, Arab and regional jealousy toward Israel is so all-consuming, so necessary to excuse the Arab art of failure, that even these judicious airstrikes will hardly make a dent in the terrorist threat. ”

    http://www.nypost.com/seven/12292008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/damned_if_they_do_146263.htm?page=2

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  19. 1327 says:

    I know I’m going a little off topic here but the official historian to the US army has released a report on the Israeli war with Hezbollah in 2006 based on interviews with IDF officers. It can be read in full here ..

    Click to access PUB882.pdf

    There is some interesting stuff in there on Hezbollah dressing in Israeli uniforms and operating in civilian areas but its pretty even handed. Sadly I doubt any of it will make it onto the BBC unless anyone is prepared to summarize it in a paragraph so a Beeb reporterette can understand it.

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  20. xjboy says:

    israel has no choice but to defend its territory and i wish them well in ending this !

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  21. David Vance says:

    Trifecta,

    Have you a link to the site please? Many thanks.

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  22. Ricky Martin says:

    In the many excellent postings received on B-BBC about the Gaza incursion, there are a mass of excellent facts and information for any serious researcher or writer to clearly demonstrate BBC bias against Israel.

    Compared to other news outlets the BBC’s irresponsible reportage is quite dangerous and extremely serious.

    Perhaps a Not The Balen Report? Step up Mr Vance?

    All of us really do need to organise an official protest. Sounding off on B-BBC is great but it’s whistling in the dark. The BBC simply doesn’t care what any of us think.

    All complaints are policed by the BBC themselves by compliant lefties on short term contracts or a BBC Trust that nobody trusts.

    They are much more likely to take note of the 200 plus Respect Party rentamob agitators outside the Israeli Embassy than the many, many thousands of British people that find their agitprop agenda facile and sinister and who now do not trust a once much admired news service.

    In 1943, the Red Army broke through Rumanian lines at Stalingrad and found to their amazement an Arab SS panzer division in full Nazi regalia. They were mainly made up of Palestinians. The Palestinian Caliph of Jerusalem spent the entire war as the guest of Adolf Hitler. Today, Mein Kampf is required reading by all Hamas militia, supported by Holocaust denier and Christmas messenger, the King of Iran. So no change there.

    Yesterday, the distinguished historian Michael Burleigh, wrote that Hamas was not just anti-Israel but antisemitic in it’s ideology. Every time the BBC absorbs and accepts their propaganda they, themselves are promoting the Hamas covenant and vision and are acting as a conduit for an openly racist organisation.

    We ALL need to write to Ofcom, the Culture & Media Department and develop a letter writing campaign to the press and competitor channels.

    Without concerted action, nothing will change.

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  23. bill says:

    Here you go David.

    http://www.kumb.com/

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  24. AndrewSouthLondon says:

    So “right” is judged by how inaccurately you shooot?
    I love the “symetrical and proportionate” meme. 9 vs 360 or whatever. Foreget who started it. BBC is suggesting no doubt “home made rockets” are just the Pally version of “throwing a shoe at Israel”. The intellectual limbo-dancing of the left never ceases to amaze. Do you think that if they had accurate rockets in Gaza they would deliberately miss Israelis? The fact they are bad shots vindicates them firing rockets?

    I see the HYS is still up with the same question. Hoping the one anti-Israel comment that has made it to first page recommended will eventually climb to the top.

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  25. InterestedParty says:

    The thing that gets me about the BBC is their apparent unsophisticated view of any minority as always being purely childlike in its capacity, I think this stems from their innate elitist desire to feel a patronising control over these entities, so therefore the BBC position on the Palestinians sometimes seems to me as if they think of them merely as children.

    This means that they then only expect behaviour that conforms to this idea, such as petulance, irrationality, viciousness, stupidity, naivete and outright deception, all of these attributes are accepted and forgiven. Whereas a mature state as Israel is supposed to look at them in the same way as in the BBCs eyes, and are condemned for responding to them as adults.

    The only allowed intellectual position coming from the Palestinian side seems to be in the form of any academic that fully conforms to this infantile view of the Palestinian nation, this condemns us to a situation that any potential rational leader of the Palestinians may never be allowed to appear, because this hypothetical rational leader will be inevitiably shouted down by Hamas, and the BBC will follow the Hamas line because it appeals to their thinking of what is, in the BBCs eyes, the pure heart of being a Palestinian, and in their turn Hamas knows this, and plays up to this media position.

    The BBC is not alone in this media attitude, but because it has manoeuvred itself into such a huge powerful prime position in the world media, one day, I think, it will have to reckon for its indirect influence on this situation.
    I’m sure they comfort themselves that their only influence is to support the most vulnerable side against a stronger oppressor, and so they can always feel they can pat themselves on the back.

    But I think a more mature historical reflection will one day realise that a lot of conflict and death was probably exacerbated by this unsophisticated elitist view of the Palestinian position.

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  26. Greencoat says:

    Ricky Martin: ‘In 1943, the Red Army broke through Rumanian lines at Stalingrad and found to their amazement an Arab SS panzer division in full Nazi regalia.’

    I don’t think this story is true.
    The similarities between Hamas and the Nazis are beyond doubt but I don’t think we should get carried off into tabloid land.

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  27. Ricky Martin says:

    Greencoat

    Thank you for your comments.

    The detail comes from a number of official biographies in the Russian archives, including Zhukov and Russossofsky – both Field Marshals at the Stalingrad break out.

    Take a look at this:

    http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HfLvP2jTVq8

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  28. DB says:

    R5L Midday News – Aasmah Mir has just conducted a lengthy interview with Richard Falk, the Israel-hating UN special rapporteur on human rights. Falk spouted his usual venomous bile while Mir treated him to the gentlest of questions (which is of course standard practice at the BBC when interviewing UN representatives.) The BBC never offers any background about the UN Human Rights Council; listeners who rely on the Beeb for their news will be blissfully unaware that the UNHRC is a depraved organisation whose primary role is to quash criticism of Islamic and communist human rights abuse by focusing as much attention as possible on “evil” Israel. Falk was chosen to represent this fucked up group because he’s a loony left useful idiot who could be relied upon to say the right things. Falk even believes that “American elites” were behind the 9/11 attacks, and yet just because he has “UN” and “human rights” in his title BBC etiquette demands that he is treated with kid gloves and butt-licking reverence.

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  29. Anat (Israel) says:

    I don’t think this story is true.
    The similarities between Hamas and the Nazis are beyond doubt but I don’t think we should get carried off into tabloid land.
    Greencoat | 30.12.08 – 12:35 pm | #

    Although I never heard that story about the Russian Army, the essence of the story is most certainly historical fact. The Arabs of Palestine were certainly Nazi allies during the war, both in Europe and in Palestine. Start here:
    http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/national-socialism-and-anti-semitism-in-the-arab-world
    .

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  30. Robert says:

    Notasheep: that’s appalling, even by Abu-Bowen’s so-called standards. The hijackers “flew airliners into the World Trade Center”? Note the careful avoidance of any mention at all of the fact that there were one or two innocent human beings involved as well – typical BBC newspeak. As for Hamas being ‘unconventional’ – I suppose that’s one way to describe a governing party that has genocide, mass-murder and racism written into its charter (the BBC way, naturally)

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  31. Paul says:

    I think this issue is more complex than many other here seem to think.

    I can well understand why the BBC, the ‘international community’, politicians of all parties, clerics and churchmen of many denominations are all saying that Israel is acting ‘disproportionately’ in Gaza.

    Gaza poses no existential threat to Israel. The rockets it fires at Sderot and other towns have killed fewer than 20 people in 7 years. One hundred and seventy five times as many Israelis have been killed in traffic accidents in the same period.

    Israelis know this • that’s why they worry more about traffic than terrorism (see Jerusalem Post article below).

    To kill more Palestinians in three days than would be killed by Pally missiles in a hundred years, that certainly looks disproportionate.

    The only way it can make sense is if you see destroying Hamas as a crucial part of defeating global jihad.

    And even then it will only make sense morally if Israel follows through and thoroughly extirpates the jihadis.

    If Israeli politicians are just grandstanding for election purposes, that’s downright criminal.

    If they just kill a lot of innocents without finishing off Hamas, then the whole project seems to me morally indefensible.

    I hope they will sort out Hamas once and for all. Until it becomes clear that they have reneged on this noble aim, I’ll back them. But if they just kill lots of more or less random Palestinians and then pull out, talking about having ‘sent a message’, then they will deserve the world’s censure.

    From the Jerusalem Post:

    Israelis are more concerned about car accidents than about terror according to a survey presented Tuesday at a press conference organized by Or Yarok (green light), the association founded eight years ago to change Israel’s driving culture. According to data provided by Or Yarok, 500 Israelis are killed every year in car accidents and an additional 3,500 Israelis are gravely injured and are unable to resume normal lives.

    http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P1-116530331.html

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  32. Anat (Israel) says:

    Paul, you are something.

    Practically every country in the Western World has currently more people killed in road accidents than in war. They still don’t allow regular bombardment of their towns and villages from across the border.

    The number of casualties does not reflect the severty of the assault but only the protective measrues provided by the country assaulted. When Israel is assaulted, civilians go in bunkers and soldiers overground. Civilian life in bunkers over years is not acceptable, not in Israel, not in Britain, not anywhere.

    In Hamastan and Hizbolistan it is the other way around. When war breaks out, the terrorists go in bunkers and the civilians go overground. This is a war crime, of course. Where are the BBC Human Rights champions on this?
    .

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  33. DB says:

    Victor Davis Hanson offers some Moderate Proposals:
    1) Request that 50% of Israel’s air-to-ground missiles be duds to ensure greater proportionality.
    2) Allow Hamas another 1,000 free rocket launches to see if they can catch up with the body count.
    3) Have Israeli soldiers congregate in border barracks so that Hamas’s random rockets have a better chance of killing military personnel, to ensure it can claim at least a few military targets.
    4) Redefine “holocaust” to refer to deaths of terrorists in numbers under 400 to give greater credence to Hamas’s current claims.
    5) In the interest of fairness, allow Hamas to establish both the date that war is supposed to begin and the date when it must end.
    6) Send Israeli military advisers to Hamas to improve the accuracy of their missiles.
    7) Take down the barriers to return to Hamas a fair chance of getting suicide bombers back inside Israel.

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  34. pounce says:

    The bBC speaks and its message reeks
    Allah Ackba Bowen cries from the bBC minaret’s.
    “Israeli generals always assume that two clocks start when they go into action. The first shows the time they need to achieve their military objectives. The second shows the amount of time left before international pressure for a ceasefire becomes impossible to resist. The diplomatic clock speeds up with the number of deaths, of civilians especially. With so many Palestinians dead already, the clock is ticking loudly.”
    “Hamas is a less conventional organisation. Israel’s actions have prompted protests around the world Its leaders realise that their reputation rests on their ideology of resistance.”
    What the bBC promotes here is that the Jews are nasty evil bastards who love murdering civilians and that Hamas is actually the victim here.
    Allah Ackba Bowen cries from the bBC minaret’s.
    Even so, the leadership of Hamas is shrewd. It might accept a deal that leaves it with more international recognition, and gives a respite to its forces. But for now Israel is still executing its plan. It is trying to control events.
    And it is getting protection from the Bush administration, still riding diplomatic shotgun in its final month, saying that a ceasefire is desirable, but only when Hamas stops firing.
    And the bBC message here. Hamas has to be strong what with America defending the Jews and actually asking that Hamas stops launching attacks in the first place. How dare they.
    Allah Ackba Bowen cries from the bBC minaret’s.
    The war in Gaza, like so many conflicts in the world today, is a fight between the strong and the weak.
    Abu cries for the deaths of those who started this fight.
    Allah Ackba Bowen cries from the bBC minaret’s.
    Large numbers of civilians, including children, have been killed. The police recruits Israel killed at their passing out parade will have included many young men who joined up simply to get a decent job, which is a rarity in Gaza.
    Please think of the children.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7804113.stm
    The bBC speaks and its message reeks

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  35. DB says:

    BBC’s anti-Israeli coverage criticised… at the Huffington Post!

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  36. deegee says:

    ‘What is it that drives such vicious anti-Israel feeling at the BBC?’

    Anti-semitism? Maybe but I’ve generally found that the BBC is version more the the Jews are OK so long as they can be relegated to recipes or helpless victim in WWII status. Thankfully we keep them (mostly) out of our clubs.

    Baksheesh? Unless you call cushy jobs at Al Jazeera a bribe it is hard to prove that the Arabs are greasing the wheel. Paraphrasing: BBC jo
    urnalists are often so vile there is no need for bribery.

    Traditional Foreign Office attitudes? Sixty years after ’48 and the 1956 Sinai Campaign? The British have lost all real influence in the Arab World. The US, despite Israel, Iraq/Afghanistan and George Bush still have much more clout.

    Post Modernism in the universities? Given that the BBC hires such a large proportion of Arts graduates indoctrinated by their professors for four years into a general leftist stance not limited to anti Israel this is not surprising.

    I suspect the intellectual collapse of the Left is more relevant. With the collapse of the Soviet Union the only thing that keeps the Trade Union Left, anticolonial Left and green Left together is a mutual enemy to replace South Africa.

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  37. Owl of Minerva says:

    Ricky Martin | 30.12.08 – 11:58 am

    In 1943, the Red Army broke through Rumanian lines at Stalingrad and found to their amazement an Arab SS panzer division in full Nazi regalia.

    There was a Muslim SS Division, the Handschar (Scimitar) Division.

    But it was a mountain infantry unit, not a panzer division.

    And it didn’t yet exist at the time of the battle of Stalingrad. (The Soviet breakthrough of Rumanian lines at Stalingrad took place in November/December 1942, the battle ended completely in February 1943).

    The idea of having a Muslim SS Division was approved in principle by Hitler on 10th February 1943. The Division recruited through the Spring and early Summer of 1943 and was then sent to France, where it remained until November 1943.

    They were mainly made up of Palestinians.

    There were no Palestinians in the Division. It was mainly made up of Muslims from Bosnian/Herzogovina.

    The Palestinian Caliph of Jerusalem spent the entire war as the guest of Adolf Hitler.

    He was a Grand Mufti, not a Caliph.

    The detail comes from a number of official biographies in the Russian archives, including Zhukov and Russossofsky –

    They must have been at the vodka.

    There were Bosnian Muslim troops at Stalingrad. But only in battalion strength as one of three battalions making up the 369th Croatian Reinforced Infantry Regiment. That wasn’t a panzer unit either and it wasn’t SS badged.

    By the time Zhukov or Russossofsky would have seen them, the 369th Croat Regiment had been reduced to 5 officers and around 100 men.

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  38. hippiepooter says:

    Paul | 30.12.08 – 1:03 pm |

    Paul, you think the Israeli action to stop rocket attacks is “disproportionate” but you “hope they do sort Hamas out”.

    I have my suspicions about your contradictory positions, but for now I’ll keep them to myself.

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  39. deegee says:

    Abu Bowen is trite and predictable.

    With so many Palestinians dead already, the clock is ticking loudly.
    The big surprise to Hamas is how little real support they are receiving. Not even from Hizbullah who could open a new front. A quiet, ‘they had it coming’ seems to be the typical response.

    Winning the media battle in a world of non-stop, instant communication is a big part of winning the war.
    Without a doubt but the BBC is already on the side of the angels – as always.

    The most extreme example of that is the devastating blow delivered by the small group of hijackers who flew airliners into the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September, 2001.
    Was it devastating? Shocking certainly. Would the 9/11 hijackers have done it if they realised it would lead directly to the fall of Afghanistan and Iraq? How much did it really hurt America compared with say Pearl Harbour? I suspect JB will drop that line when he realises it only adds sympathy for Israel.

    Hamas will want to hit Israel as hard as possible, and has threatened to use suicide bombers as well as rockets.
    So what is new here?

    Large numbers of civilians, including children, have been killed.
    Actually surprising few relative to the ferocity of the attack.

    The police recruits Israel killed at their passing out parade will have included many young men who joined up simply to get a decent job, which is a rarity in Gaza.
    Is he suggesting armed, uniformed police are civilians? Could Israel perhaps drop a survey before the bombs.
    Are you carrying weapons because,
    a) You want to kill Jews,
    b) You only wanted a job,
    c) The chicks really dig a man in a uniform.

    The Israelis call that restoring the army’s deterrent power. That means they want any would-be enemies to be very scared about what they are prepared to do.

    AMEN

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  40. hippiepooter says:

    Anat (Israel) | 30.12.08 – 1:31 pm |

    Its not often I see someone put things better than Melanie Phillips!

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  41. Tom says:

    hippiepooter | 30.12.08 – 2:13 pm

    Paul, you think the Israeli action to stop rocket attacks is “disproportionate” but you “hope they do sort Hamas out”.

    I think Paul’s point is that it does seem disproportionate to kill, say, 300 innocent people (not that that’s necessarily the case in this instance) in order to save 20 other innocent people, who just might be killed by rockets in the future.

    But in the context of a global war in which islamists threaten the whole world, and defeating Hamas would set them back to square one, then maybe it’s all worth it.

    I don’t find that ‘suspicious’. Makes quite a lot of sense.

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  42. Robert says:

    Tom: not even the BBC have claimed that as many of the 300 dead are “innocent people”. The vast majority are rocket-launchers and para-military police – as even Hamas admit.

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  43. David Vance says:

    Ricky Martin,

    Thanks for your comments and I fully take on board your comments. I start the B-BBC book in a few days time and I hope that can be a catalyst to take this argument way beyond the parameters of this blog.

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  44. jimbob says:

    the “disporoportionate” argument is dreamed up by hamas apologists.

    look at what the russians did to grozny in 99/00.

    20 days of artillery/ fuel air explosives / multiple rocket launchers /air attacks. up to 4000 shells per hour on an urban area. estimated 24,000 dead.

    i didn’t hear much from abu bowen or the meeja about proportionality then.

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  45. Garden Trash says:

    “And perhaps some latent antisemitism?”

    How dare you? There is nothing “latent” about the BBC.

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  46. Anat (Israel) says:

    The “disporoportionate” argument is bollocks. All those UN and EU experts who use it know full well that by the Geneva Convensions a response to aggression should be no greater than needed to stop the aggressor. That is, you are allowed to bomb the aggressors to oblivion, wherever they are, and if they hide behind civilians the war-crime is theirs, not yours. You are not allowed, however, to use the opportunity to expand your military action for other objectives. That would be disproportionate, but Israel does not do it.

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  47. Battersea says:

    From HYS:

    http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=5857&edition=1&ttl=20081230154139

    ‘Krishna V’ from Mumbai at 15:17 sticks it to Hamas and its fellow travellers in the West.

    Having seen at close hand what Islamists did in Mumbai recently I would say that Krishna could teach Al-Bowen something or two about the menace that fanatic Islamists pose to the world.

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  48. David H says:

    You can sign an Anti Defamation League petition supporting Israel at:-
    http://www.adl.org/
    Good luck to Israel in its attempts to defeat Hamas – they are in the front line for the rest of us in the war against Islamic world domination.
    As ever, Al Beeb is predictable in its treatment of the situation there.

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  49. Anat (Israel) says:

    ‘Krishna V’ from Mumbai at 15:17 sticks it to Hamas and its fellow travellers in the West.
    Battersea | 30.12.08 – 3:52 pm | #

    Yes, this is excellent. What’s more, Mr ‘Krishna V’ only registered last week and this is his first comment.
    http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/profile.jspa?userID=14195671&edition=1&ttl=20081230154139
    Our side is growing.
    .

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  50. InterestedParty says:

    I just read that Bowen piece mntioned above, it purports to be an in depth exploration of the situation whilst not quite being an out and out opinion piece, I don’t know what this kind of reporting is called (a noun for this?) but it seems to be a type of reporting that BBC journalists seem to have all to themselves, whatever it is, it always seems to hide the fact that the Observer (BBC) is the most important thing.

    When Bowen says

    “Israeli generals always assume that two clock starts when they go into action.”

    He is giving us an unsupported declaration as if it is a fact, I suspect the Israeli generals pay more attention to their political leaders rather than looking over their shoulders to any “international pressure” that may be applied.
    I don’t think I’m being too cynical when I say that “international pressure” in Bowens mind is really an equivalent to “what the media reports”, and when you talk about the media you must really think about the BBC.
    When this becomes clear then Bowen is therefore really talking about himself and his colleagues, it then becomes clear that in his mind his job is to speed up the ticking of the second clock,.
    His cynical appraisal of the Israeli position would be acceptable if anything like it was ever applied to the position of Hamas, but instead we only hear:

    “Hamas is a less conventional organisation.”

    The most critical assessment of Hamas’s position we hear is that the leadership of Hamas is “shrewd”, this tends to support my feeling that the BBC only sees Hamas (and maybe all Palestinians) as a pitiably childlike, I am almost surprised he didn’t say “surprisingly shrewd”, this all comes back to my personal thesis that whilst the BBC may think it has only the best intentions of the world at heart, it may be doing more harm in the long term standards of any real analysis. Its one-sided critical stance may comfort the contemporary people in London today, however it may really annoy their grandchildren in hindsigh:)

    Bowen talks about winning the media battle without once appraising his own stance in this battle at all, it is a clear omission, however he then shamelessly talks about Israeli spokespeople sticking to some very consistent lines. Whilst there may be some truth in the Israelis not wanting to make the same mistakes of 2006, just couching this whole situation as if it were some trite appeal to a ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ type viewer voting audience may suit Bowen’s BBC, but I think it doesn’t reflect any deep reality.

    Whilst a lot of people may think the BBC has an overtly insidious agenda, I personally really see it as a bloated self regarding intellectual wasteland, it somehow monolithically manages to assiduosly avoid following any lines of reasoning that may cause it any discomfort, quite creepy really.

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