The BBC Ignores Pearl Harbor Anniversary

December 7, 1941: a day that will live in infamy. And completely ignored by the BBC’s US & Canada page.

Not even a quick, here’s one we made earlier, news brief on it? Can’t Mardell or Katty tweet something? I realize the BBC journalists and editors are too busy sitting shiva for their secular saint to bother sending someone to notice that the President has made an official “Presidential Proclamation” that today is National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day or, heaven forbid, take a photo at the memorial in Washington, DC, but come on. Come to think of it, as the memorial is open again, the BBC missed a good opportunity there to sneer at the Republicans for the government shutdown. After all, if the President hadn’t saved the day from the evil intransigent “party of ‘no'”, that memorial would have been closed and veterans wouldn’t be able to honor their fallen brothers in arms, right, BBC?

Coincidentally, there’s actually one of those “bespoke” video magazine pieces on the main US & Canada page done by a BBC journalist sent to Japan to visit a US warship at our base there. This was posted two days ago, and surely the amazing contrast between what happened 72 years ago and the current close relationship between the US and Japan is worth a comment today, no? Particularly since the BBC report was prompted by the military noise from China and the US and Japan working together in response.

Get off your biased ass, Daniel Nasaw. You all knew this day was coming up, and something could easily have been prepared in advance for the weekend crew to post for you. No need for someone to work during the seven days of mourning. Is the BBC staff working in the US that detached from the nation’s history? Their fellow travelers at the HuffPo had something ready, and the rest of the US media spent two seconds to mention it as well. Salon even tried to make the case that Pearl Harbor was all about oil. Surely that’s a cause the BBC can get behind.

Sometimes, it’s the little things that get you. This was an easy one, and the BBC blew it.

Double Standards And Leaders

Spot the missing President in this BBC report about the latest violent attacks by Guantanamo Bay inmates on their guards. We hear about the military not being able to decide what to do, as well as Congressional “restrictions” (translation: Congressmen simply don’t want to deal with the ensuing political mess if any of the POWTs are given a civil trial in their constituency), and we hear about how the hunger strike and violence is in protest of the fact that all these people are being held without charge or trial indefinitely. We even learn that one of the reasons the prisoners aren’t being released all over the place is concerns that they might be harmed if they go back home. Isn’t that nice? The other worry, of course, is that many of them go right back to the battlefield, which is the reason POW camps exist in the first place.

But no mention at all of the President of the United States. It’s a glaring omission, not only because He authorized military tribunals to start up again two years ago. After, of course, the fairly messy result of the civilian attempt the year before. Does He bear no responsibility? Another reason this is an unacceptable omission on the BBC’s part is that the President can simply release them all without sending them back to a dangerous homeland (if that is in fact even a real concern for many of them). There is precedent (e.g. the Uighurs, and everyone’s favorite “Briton”, Binyam Mohammed, who was later, after the BBC received complaints from both sides, demoted to “UK/British resident”) and it’s not impossible for someone capable of diplomacy and deal-making.

George Bush actually released, or transferred to custody in other countries, about 500 detainees during the six years he was in office after the establishment of the prison. Human Rights Watch, a trusted source for the BBC, puts the figure at 532. According to this New York Times interactive feature, there were 242 being held when Bush left office. There are currently 166 detainees, which means that the Nobel Peace Laureate-in-Chief, on the other hand, has released or transferred a mere 76 people in five years. His track record is not good, yet the BBC doesn’t even mention Him in the report about them protesting at what is essentially His failure.

Are there serious obstacles to releasing or transferring all of them? Sure. So why can’t the BBC mention that in His defense? It wouldn’t be biased, so long as they didn’t attempt to shift blame away entirely. The article as it stands does that.

Of course, the BBC is well aware of the President’s failure on this issue, which is why they casually put a link in the sidebar to Andrew Marr’s gently critical special report from before the last election. But is that good enough? It is for the BBC.

Barack Obama’s presidency: Why hope shrivelled

Marr covered a lot of ground in his report, but I’ll keep to a couple relevant and timely points. First, the failure on Guantanamo.

Marr did mention that the President’s early promises to shut down the prison failed.

But Obama’s early promises to close Guantanamo Bay and bring about a new era of trust between the US and the Muslim world have turned to dust. He over-promised.

That’s a fair assessment in its own way. Of course, all politicians over-promise on a regular basis, so that’s hardly a scathing critique.  Matt Frei (ex-BBC, former Washington correspondent and anchor of BBC World News America) was still hopeful and positive even a few months after He was elected and it was clear that not everything was going according to plan:

With a flick of a pen he declared the intention to close down Guantanamo Bay. He reached out to staunch enemies like Iran without sounding craven. He began to talk to the Muslim world rather than at it.

Frei and the rest of the BBC just ran with His promise, never questioning whether or not it was possible or wise. Justin Webb even enthused after that video kiss He blew to Iran early on:

The point is that Mr Obama understands that case himself – the case that says: “Come off it, America IS better, and has a decent case to put before the court of world opinion.”

But he also understands that there may be advantages to not making it, indeed to making the opposite case (to the extent that he did in that al Arabiya interview).

In fact, I wonder whether he really disagrees with the Krauthammer position.

George W Bush said what he thought. The new man is capable of sophistry in the matter of confusing his enemies…

(A cynic might ask who really are His enemies….)

At the time, Frei and Webb were the two top Beeboids in the US, the two highly experienced, world-class journalists the BBC expected you to trust. And they got it wrong. But the BBC is aware now. It’s just not really His fault, you see. Which brings me to the timely points which aren’t strictly relevant to the Guantanamo story.

Marr wheels out a couple of major falsehoods in his attempts to shift blame for the President’s failure to achieve absolutely all our dreams. One of them is a canard we hear a lot from the BBC:

It is quite true that in Congress, the Republicans waged a brutal and remorseless campaign to frustrate him.

In actual fact, the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress for the first two years of His reign. They rammed through ObamaCare and spending bills without governing by consensus, without reaching across the aisle. The Republicans could do nothing to stop it. Mark Mardell even once referred to that as a “Golden Age”. So it’s absolutely false to claim that Republicans have blocked Him the entire time.Yet it’s so entrenched in the BBC mindset that even the US-born ex-Guardianista Daniel Nasaw peddles the Narrative. No need for a conspiracy or memos or editorial directives for this kind of Corporation-wide groupthink if they all think the same way anyway. The bias occurs naturally. They don’t even realize they’re doing it.

The very next sentence takes it further.

The level of vituperation and abuse Obama took at the hands of insurgent Tea Party activists went far beyond civilised disagreement.

And civilians protesting stopped Him how, exactly? But never mind the how: consider what Marr’s said there. “Far beyond” civilized disagreement? Really? We all know the BBC and the Left-wing media loved to tar the entire movement, millions of people, with the actions of a few. It was all part of the Narrative that there is no legitimate opposition to the President’s policies. In stark contrast, the BBC praised the Occupy Wall St. movement. At no time did they ever focus on the violence and criminal activity, or declare that the movement itself was tainted because of all the vandalism, rapes, deaths (here’s just a small sample, all of which the BBC refused to cover), or even when Occupiers were arrested for trying to blow up a bridge. In fact, the BBC censored the news of the plotters’ Occupy bona fides. None of this even remotely happened with any Tea Party groups or protests. But that clearly hasn’t stopped the BBC from their smear job. Actually, they were doing it from day one. I challenge anyone to demonstrate how the BBC treated the Occupy movement with similar negativity.

In the very first BBC report, Kevin Connolly insulted all of them with a sexual innuendo. Is this civilized, BBC? It hasn’t gotten any better since.

But let’s focus on “civilized disagreement”. Several BBC programmes in fact relish in over-the top stuff. The first incident which comes to mind is Eddie Mair calling Boris Johnson “a nasty piece of work”. Far beyond civilized disagreement, or merely a robust interview? Question Time is usually a good source of ugly statements which go far beyond civilized disagreement. We recently saw a Labour activist call a UKIP candidate a “disgusting” woman. Far worse is the week-long celebration over Margaret Thatcher’s death. Andrew Marr and Mark Mardell and all the rest of the Beeboids can frown and scold and defame the Tea Party movement and its participants, but they have refused to similarly cast the harsh light on opposition to Thatcher. Will the BBC similarly condemn the unions and Labour and apparently the vast majority of Northern England for going far beyond civilized disagreement in their opposition to the Iron Lady? Or is only The Obamessiah deserving of such special protection?

Is making “Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead” a chart-topper out of hatred for someone far beyond civilized disagreement? How about if a BBC Digital Media Executive tweets that he’s put it on his playlist? What about burning poppies? What about the violence and vandalism during those “student” protests? What about all the BBC employees who tweeted vicious and vulgar things about Mitt Romney or Republicans or Sarah Palin (see the “In Their Own Tweets” page on this site)? All just the isolated acts of a few, no reason to tar the entire BBC, or all opponents of Thatcher’s policies, or all opponents of UKIP, or all opponents of tuition fees or all opponents of budget cuts? Okay, but then we must also condemn Marr and the rest of the BBC for smearing millions over the acts of a few.

The reason I bring that up is because it’s clear that Marr was trying to shift blame away from the President. While he realized that it was never possible to fulfill all those promises, he doesn’t really blame Him for any of the failures. It’s always someone else’s fault. So even when the BBC links to his report as a subtle way to admit the President has failed on Guantanamo, there’s plenty of blame-shifting to be found both in the Guantanamo article and Marr’s feature.

They just can’t help themselves. But the double standards are clear.

Muslim Brotherhood Calls For Violence – Jeremy Bowen Unavailable For Comment

Thank goodness somebody at the US Embassy in Cairo has a pair:

It was in reply to this, as pointed out by Douglas Murray in the Spectator:

(Screengrab of the US tweet can be seen here. I’ll get to why this is necessary in a minute.)

Isn’t that sweet? One of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Arabic tweets, to which the US Embassy tweet was referring said:

Egyptians rising up in support of the Prophet in front of the American embassy

That’s the caption to the photo of a raging mob from this article on the MB’s official website, Ikwhanonline.  The article itself is a description of the incident, not really an incitement to violence or anything, but it’s revealing of the MB’s real attitude towards the violence nonetheless. I’m sure defenders of the indefensible who are media professional can explain to me how this casual description of violence jibes with their official declaration of sympathy with the US. There was no condemnation until somebody called them on it.

Any offending tweets have been deleted, of course, just like certain Beeboid tweets after they got caught. Notice that, while the MB’s social media staff seem to beavering away most days, sending out tweets practically every hour, sometimes even more often than that, there’s a huge gap of silence between 1:28pm and 11:23pm. Curious. Similarly, there’s an anomalous twelve hour gap of silence on Sept. 12 in the Twitter feed of the MB’s official website. According to Bloomberg, the MB cheekily played innocent when responding to the US Embassy.

CBS News seems to be taking the MB’s side on this one, claiming that, while the US Embassy deleted their tweet, the MB’s own tweets can still be found on their feed. This is obviously not true. But it’s pretty uncool that the US Embassy staff was forced to delete their tweets. This is the same US Embassy which tweeted an apology for the film before the attacks. What a disaster. There’s groveling dhimmitude at the highest levels of the US Government, it seems. The Leftosphere, naturally, is criticizing the US Embassy staff for being childish. I have no idea why nobody else seems to be wondering why there’s a huge gap in the MB’s twitter feed, since the US Embassy in Cairo must have been responding to something a little stronger.

However, MEMRI highlights this article from Aug. 27 by an MB member directly calling for jihad against the usual stock villains, descendents of pigs and dogs, and the US:

Praising The Traits Of The Jihad Fighter

“Fasting [during Ramadan] is one of the most powerful means to educate the human spirit for jihad. Fasting involves a spiritual effort to act in a way contrary to what is accepted, and to completely abandon desires… It also schools the Muslim in patience, resilience, endurance, and sacrifice, which are all traits of the jihad fighter…

Plus there’s a call to liberate Jerusalem. They’re not so innocent as Jeremy Bowen, award-winning BBC Middle East editor, once claimed. Bowen described the Muslim Brotherhood as being “conservative, moderate and non-violent”. Until, that is, he got caught and quickly deleted the word “moderate”. Unfortunately, though, the “non-violent” modifier is still there. This should be enough to cause his removal, but the BBC still views him as their most trusted go-to man on Middle East issues. And they expect you to trust someone who describes the Muslim Brotherhood as moderate and non-violent.

Bowen’s colleague, John Leyne, suggests that this violence could lead to better relations between the US and Egypt. No, seriously.

The filmmaker was removed from his home yesterday – voluntarily, yeah, surrounded by police – for “questioning”. Whatever his real name is, the guy is apparently on probation for a conviction for bank fraud. One requirement of his probation is that he can’t use the internet, or get someone to do something on the internet for him. That’s why the FBI had him brought in. In other words, somebody uploading that trailer to YouTube on his behalf is enough for the President of the US to have somebody investigated and brought in. The man has since been released, which pretty much tells you all you need to know about the people who run US law enforcement right now.

The BBC, which spent a huge amount of energy recently trying to figure out who made this film, has for some bizarre reason censored both the news about this incident, and the news about the twitter stuff. I wonder why?

Again, I fully expect our defenders of the indefensible who are media professional to explain this all to me in detail.

BBC Censorship: Occupiers Arrested In Plot To Blow Up Bridge Edition

UPDATE: The BBC just posted a news brief about it after all. But the association of the criminals with the Occupy Movement is censored. Instead, they quote a DoJ mouthpiece saying the plot had nothing to do with the anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s death. LOL! We all know what this was going to celebrate, and the BBC won’t admit it.

Today is May Day, a prominent day in Communist history. Some non-Left blogs last year started calling this “Victims of Communism Day”, in remembrance of the tens of millions of victims of Communists in pursuit of their goals.

Today the BBC has done a quick hype of their darling Occupiers, who are using May Day to cause violence and disrupt civilized society. Of course, that’s not how the BBC tells it. The news brief is full of hype and positive vibes about these people.

Censored by the BBC:

Terror Plot Suspects Appear In Court

Federal authorities on Tuesday morning announced that five people were arrested in Cleveland for allegedly conspiring to use explosives to blow up a local bridge.

Steven M. Dettelbach, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, and Stephen D. Anthony, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Cleveland office, discussed the arrests and subsequent charges related to what they referred to as a “national security case.”

A news conference was held Tuesday morning at the Cleveland FBI headquarters at 1501 Lakeside Avenue.

Fox 8′s Stacey Frey reports that the suspects have been identified as Brandon Baxter, 20; Anthony Hayne, 35; Joshua Stafford, 23; Connor Stevens, 20; and Douglas Wright, 26. Baxter, Hayne and Wright were arrested Monday night by members of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force on charges of conspiracy and attempted use of explosive materials to damage physical property affecting interstate commerce.

A criminal complaint filed Tuesday morning states that Baxter, Hayne and Wright are self-proclaimed anarchists who formed a small group that considered a series of plots over several months.

Self-proclaimed anarchists? Try self-proclaimed Occupiers.

Brandon Baxter: Occupy Cleveland organizer

Occupy Cleveland May Day festivities cancelled because five of them were arrested

FBI met the at OWS event

Screenshots of all their Facebook pages

This must be more of that love for humanity and sense of civic duty Katty Kay was telling us about, and which Paul Mason is celebrating on Newsnight. I pretty much saw this coming after spending a few hours among these darlings of the BBC.

What I mean is that these people can keep doing this for a very long time. And eventually, they’re going to realize that it isn’t working.  Will they fess up and become a ready-made cadre of Obamessiah activists?  I don’t know. If not, the emotions will have driven many of them into a frenzied state over time. Fighting the man, speaking truth to power, getting arrested over and over again, and watching a seemingly endless stream of video clips of their comrades fighting with police, getting pepper-sprayed and bundled into police vans will not yield a happy result.  Like we heard from a couple people, they all seriously think that obstructing traffic and infringing on other people’s space and property is their right. Freedom of speech and right to peaceable assembly and all that. What they tragically fail to understand is that, unlike many blacks in the South before the Civil Rights movement, they can exercise their right to vote without fear, and all this glorious civil disobedience is unnecessary extremist nonsense.  The Tea Party movement has proven that they don’t need to do any of this. I found only a couple of people who even remotely grasped this point.  So I think the violent confrontation – always started by the nasty fascist police infringing on their rights, bien sur – will become a kind of ouroburossian (if that’s not a word, it is now) reality. They’ll continuously create situations which they’ll interpret as justifying their cause, projecting onto it false equivalences with everything from Wat Tyler to the German Peasant Rebellion to Gandhi to MLK and the Civil Rights movement. That’s when you’ll really start to see the stuff the BBC told you would never happen over here.

 

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY….REDACTED


I listened to the BBC “What the Papers say” on Today this morning. The Miliband speech was given due prominence but for some reason The Guardian coverage was omitted. I wonder why? Meanwhile, Red Ed turned up in the prime 8.10am slot on Today and despite the softballs lobbed his way by Naughtie, it was a car crash. Miliband will set up a body to determine which are “good” and “bad” business models, for example, a sort of star chamber to determine the wickedness of the Corporation. This is a real tough one for the BBC – they so want Labour back but in Miliband we have a Michael Foot in a smarter suit – and he comes across REALLY badly.

ALL A MATTER OF SUBJECTIVITY?

Here’s an interesting letter of complaint from one of our readers to the BBC;

“Hello, like many of your readers/contributors, I listened to the surreal experience that was the Today programme last saturday (20.08.11) which studiously avoided any mention of fridays arrest of an officer involved in Operation Weeting. This prompted me to make a first time complaint to the bbc as follows.

‘Dear sirs, given the importance the BBC and radio 4s Today programme has placed on coverage of phone hacking over the past few weeks, I listened to the whole of the Today programme on 20th August to find out more about the arrest of one of the police officers involved in Operation Weeting for allegedly leaking information to the press. I was very surprised to discover it did not warrant any mention whatsoever. Perhaps you could explain the reason for this.’

Here is the reply I received today:

Dear Mr XXXXXXX,

Reference CAS-947408-F931RG

Thank you for contacting us regarding ‘Today’, broadcast on 20 August.

I understand you were disappointed with the content of this programme.

Choosing the stories to include in our bulletins and the length of time devoted to them is a subjective matter and one which we know not every listener will feel we get right every time. Factors such as whether it is news that has just come in and needs immediate coverage, how unusual the story is and how much national interest there is in the subject matter will all play a part in deciding the level of coverage and where it falls within a bulletin.

Essentially this is a judgement call rather than an exact science but BBC News does appreciate the feedback when listeners feel we may have overlooked or neglected a story. To this end, I can assure you that I’ve registered your comments on our audience log.

This is a daily internal report of audience feedback which is made available to all BBC programme makers and commissioning executives, including their senior management. It ensures that your concerns are considered across the BBC.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.

Kind Regards

Jamie Patterson
BBC Complaints
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

NB This is sent from an outgoing account only which is not monitored. You cannot reply to this email address but if necessary please contact us via our webform quoting any case number we provided.

So that’s alright then?

MISSING WORDS…

Been busy hence lack of posts! Anyway, catch up time. First this…with regard to Cleveland Police Authority.

“I wonder why the BBC neglects to mention the party affiliation of the Chairmanin its report here: Google the Councillor’s name and bingo!, the answer is clear.”

Gotta love their guile.

Understandable Silence

It’s understandable that the BBC has chosen to wait for the grand finale before reporting any news about the forthcoming Gaza flotilla, even if the build-up has caused a stir elsewhere.So far they have had nothing to say about the elaborate preparations currently taking place in 12 European countries and various other far-flung locations. I’ve been searching the BBC news pages each day to find a reference, but the website only comes up with stories concerning the fiasco which created nine martyrs last year. This year’s extensive preparations by pro Palestinian Peace activists haven’t made the cut. Normally one might just think that’s fine and dandy, after all, ‘if it doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t lead’. But as this stunt is deliberately designed to provoke Israel, and the peaceful protesters are evidently hoping it will lead to another violent confrontation ending in bloodshed, Israel’s supporters would say background information is essential. That is, if there were to be any hope of fair reporting, if and when the anticipated drama unfolds.

I find several reports about this more newsworthy than the BBC does. Apparently, the fashion for using ‘Lawfare’ as a weapon against Israel has been adopted by the Israelis and redirected at the flotillistas, with knobs on. Melanie P explains on her blog that warnings concerning potential accountability for Hamas’s future acts of terrorism are causing suppliers and maritime insurers to pull out. Various other delays and impediments to the preparations have taken yet more of the wind out of their sails.
A number of the recruits on stand-by are elderly, which means that their value as human shields all but equals that of babies and toddlers. Some of us might interpret this as the cynical exploitation of expendable useful idiots, while others will see pensioners’ participation as endearingly brave and selfless.
Ha’artetz has run some stories about preparatory workshops designed to whip up an atmosphere of defiance mixed with fear, creating amongst the passengers such an expectancy of violence that it is very likely to be self-fulfilling. That will provide the requisite anti Israel message for the media.
There have been reports that they intend to kill IDF soldiers, but having seen that this wouldn’t fit the agenda, they are hastily backtracking on that.
The BBC hasn’t reported any of the above, but the Guardian has, putting the case for the flotillistas. The Guardian is not under any obligation to be impartial, so it’s understandable that, as Just Journalism points out, they’re not bothering to report that Israel has promised that after an inspection of the cargo, which must be carried out as per the conditions of the blockade, they will deliver all the humanitarian aid on board, safely and lovingly to Gaza. Similarly, the Guardian hasn’t reflected on the fact that ‘there doesn’t seem to be a practical reason to send the aid.’ But, again that is understandable, since the media’s orchestrated campaign to delegitimise Israel is a given, and the Guardian is not constrained by a charter which limits their freedom of expression. Unlike the BBC whose motto might be
‘if you can’t say something bad, say nothing.’
So the BBC has been silent, in strict, officious accordance with the genetic impartiality it’s so proud of.

BBC Censorship: Spot The Missing President Edition

One today’s ‘B’ stories is about all the Gulf Coast fisherman complaining that BP isn’t dealing fairly with them, isn’t paying enough compensation, won’t let them into meetings for a negotiation. Nasty old BP, oil destroys communities, etc. There’s also a round of Spot The Missing Word.

The News Channel just let a Louisiana oysterman have a three-minute rant about how evil BP is. Beeboid Emma let him go on uninterrupted, and only after he was finished did she close with one sentence about how BP created a $20 billion fund for this.
Did you spot the missing word?

The Obamessiah made this deal with BP behind closed doors. There is no room for the fishermen to negotiate, or increase the money of the fund, or anything else. Unsurprisingly, He was the top recipient of campaign cash from BP.

The BBC doesn’t want you to know any of that, and has censored all mention of His involvement from all reports today about this issue.

Honours For Horrors

The recent escalation of rocket attacks from Gaza is of little interest to the BBC. Scanty reporting treats Israelis impersonally, while Palestinian individuals are likely to be given names and ages.
Reporters know that subtly empathetic wording will have one effect, just as distancing, dehumanising phrasing will have another. Why should the BBC use these tactics at all, let alone apply them to one side and not the other?
Because they think we are stupid? Luckily for them, many of us are.
For example the Jerusalem Post gave a brief account of an attack. Nothing melodramatic, just giving a few names; painting a picture, as you would if you were concerned.
Here’s a report which calls a terrorist a terrorist. It’s pro Israel, but it doesn’t shy away from quoting speech from the Al-Qassam Brigades. More accurate because it’s not crippled by political correctness.

We know which side the BBC is on. Not only do they apply journalistic tactics such as distancing or empathy to substantive incidents like rocket attacks which they are obliged to report, but if they can get away with it they omit huge swathes of subtle material altogether, skewing the picture heavily against Israel.
When the BBC reported the Fogel family murders they used the term “a Jewish settler family” under the headline “Palestinian kills five Israelis in West Bank.” No details, only inverted commas, inserted first in one place, then altered, making an already awkwardly-phrased sentence look more absurd in their efforts to dehumanise an horrific act.

While the BBC is obsessed with blaming only Israel’s construction work in ‘settlements-illgal-under-international-law’ for obstructing the peace process, an erroneous theory repeated so often that it is embedded in the collective Brains of Britain, they are silent on the real, fundamental, immovable obstacles to peace. The most obvious goes unnoticed. Hamas doesn’t want peace at all, and Fatah wants it as an interim measure only, for neither can ever renounce violence or recognise Israel. Why not? Because they have indoctrinated the people so thoroughly that they’d never get away with it. Not only their people. The Guardian and its cronies espouse such an enthusiastic pro Palestinian militancy that when they thought PaliLeaks revealed that concessions were being discussed, they were mortified by what they saw as a betrayal by craven Palestinian negotiators.

The glorification of terrorism is newsworthy because it is a massive obstacle to peace, second only to the antisemitism inherent in the Koran that makes the Arab World’s acceptance of Israel so inconceivable. If there’s ever to be peace, glorification of martyrdom and terrorists must stop and education must start.
If the BBC paid half as much attention to these crippling practices as they do to empathising with the Palestinians, even people who haven’t heard of Barry Rubin would have a chance to see reason.

The BBC influences people who make the decisions that affect us all. Even if individual MPs look beyond the BBC for information, education and entertainment, public opinion exerts pressure on our leaders just as the man in the mosque exerts pressure over his political and religious masters. Just as we beg the Muslim media to re-educate their public, we equally beseech our BBC to do likewise unto ours.