Hamas hardliner?

When I saw this BBC report on Hamas's new leader, some things stuck out like sore thumbs.

'The Palestinian militant group Hamas has elected a hardline commander of its armed wing as the movement's overall leader in the Gaza Strip.

Yehiya Sinwar replaces Ismail Haniyeh, a former prime minister in the territory's Hamas-run government.

Mr Sinwar was jailed in Israel for murder but freed under a deal when Hamas released an Israeli in 2011.

Hamas rejects Israel's right to exist and Mr Sinwar is known to oppose any compromise with the Jewish state.

Some Hamas leaders have suggested a long truce with Israel if it completely withdraws to pre-1967 ceasefire lines and lifts its blockade of Gaza.

The movement's charter, however, calls for Israel's destruction and it is designated a terrorist group by Israel, the US, EU and other world powers.'

The use of the word 'hardline' I thought was interesting. a quick google of Yehiya Sinwar reveals that he's not just hardline:

'Fears are growing of an escalation in conflict in the Middle East after Hamas in Gaza elected a new leader who wants to improve links between the group and Isis.

Yahya Sinwar, 55, who will succeed Ismail Haniyeh, 54, has also argued for prioritising links with Iran ahead of more moderate allies such as Egypt and the Gulf states.'

I've been arguing for some time that Hamas is no better than ISIS when it comes to being an Islamist  terrorist organisation. Now it seems that the link might be more than theoretical. Of course many in the Labour Party see Hamas as 'friends' and proudly scream "we are all Hamas now" at anti-Israel protests, which makes it hard for the pro Labour Party/institutionally anti-Israel BBC to take a contrary view. So the BBC opt for ignoring the inconvenient fact that Hamas may be linking up with ISIS.


Later in the article I read something that I don't remember the BBC stating so clearly before, maybe my complaints have had an effect after all:

'Israel and Egypt maintain a blockade around Gaza aimed at preventing attacks by militants there, though the measure has been condemned by rights groups as a form of collective punishment.'

 The BBC acknowledging that Egypt also blockades Gaza, we make progress. However the BBC also push the idea that this blockade is a form of 'collective punishment' when it's not and is a legitimate counter terrorism act, one step forward...


Unfortunately the BBC are back on the anti-Israel propaganda bandwagon immediately afterwards:

'Yehiya Sinwar was jailed for four life terms by Israel in 1989 for a series of offences, including murder and kidnapping.'

 Shall we put some meat on those bare bones?

Here's the Times of Israel reporting on Yehiya Sinwar's conviction:

“Sinwar, sentenced to life in 1989 for murdering Palestinian collaborators with Israel, spent 22 years in Israeli prisons before being released in the 2011 prisoner exchange deal for IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.”

And:

“He [Sinwar] has boasted more than once of the manner in which he executed collaborators. At one point he became known as “The Man of the Twelve” for the twelve Palestinians, suspected collaborators, whom he murdered with his own hands. The number has gone up since then.

Sinwar is the man who established the Al-Majd intelligence unit, which operated against collaborators from the start of the first intifada. In a report written by Amit Cohen, a reporter for Ma’ariv at the time, Sinwar recalled how Hamas’s spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin granted him a fatwa allowing him to execute anyone who confessed to collaborating. Wonder of wonders, they all confessed.”

I wonder why the BBC want to minimise the descriptions of the crimes that Yehiya Sinwar was convicted for. Maybe the new Hamas leader deserves a second chance, after all he only killed those who collaborated with Israel.


The BBC's institutional anti-Israel coverage is incessant, I wonder what the Balen Report really said about it.

Israel 'approves 464 settlement homes in West Bank' -per BBC News

This BBC report http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37235922 is interesting as it has sat on the BBC news front page since yesterday. People are dying in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and elsewhere. In North Korea millions live in fear of their own government, senior politicians are executed by being shot by anti aircraft guns, so being shredded to death. There's a low scale war between Russia and the Ukraine. China is expanding its presence in South East Asia etc etc etc. 

Yet the BBC prefer to headline that the world's only majority Jewish state is daring to build some houses. That the BBC is institutionally anti Israel has been clear for years, presumably that was the conclusion of the Balen Report and so why the BBC have been so desperate to keep that report secret.

The BBC's obsession with denigrating Israel does seem borderline anti Semitic.

Jeremy Bowen's written a book on The Six Day War

It seems that Jeremy Bowen wrote a book on the Six Day War. Reviews are as you'd expect, here's a few:

'1.0 out of 5 starsJeremy's prejudices, masquerading as history, surrounded by a false halo of "respected BBC ME correspondent".

ByMr. Roger Edenon 30 July 2015

Format: Kindle Edition

If you want the facts read history Professor Oren's book. Jeremy wasn't there, yet is able to quote Israeli Generals verbatim in the heat of battle. Of course if you believe, as does Jeremy, that Nasser consistent threatening to wipe out Israel since 1948, (apparently, according to Nasser himself, humiliating forced retreat from a position of great strength in 1948), his blockade of Eilat,(Suez was always closed to Israeli ships), his amassing multiple armies on Israel's Border, his joint military agreements with Syria and Jordan, a very nasty 6 months of radio propaganda towards Israel and provocation of sniping and artillery into Israel by all three countries, was nothing more than empty rhetoric. (Probably the Israelis didn't see it that way, you wonder why?). Therefore, in Jeremy's view, this was not a preemptive strike by Israel but a War of Aggression, then this book is for you, for those who want real facts, read Oren.

 

 

If you hate Israel you will love this book

Byukreaderon 15 July 2015

Format: Paperback

If you hate Israel you will love this book. It makes no pretence of being history, right from the first page. Why Simon and Shuster agreed to publish this re-writing of history is a mystery. Did they even read it, or did they assume it was clean because the author is a BBC correspondent? It tells a fantastic story of a mighty Israel attacking its pathetic Arab neighbours to conquer their territory, and weaves little bits of fact with very imaginative fiction. If you had no knowledge of the truth, it would be easy to believe this propagandist book is factual and, as I said, if you are looking for a justification to support your anti-Zionism this is it. I assume most of those who have reviewed the book favourably here are simply people who hate Israel and therefore love the book because it justifies their hatred, or part of the Muslim supremacist campaign against Israel who have not even read it.

 

 

Typical BBC pro-Palestinian propaganda

Byschlockhorroron 13 January 2009

Format: Paperback

Jeremy Bowen isn't known as al-Bowen around the 'net for nothing. This disgraceful book is simply an extended piece of apologia for the Arab cause. To give just two examples, Bowen dismisses Nasser's bloodthirsty threats against Israel as just Arab rhetoric. This you know how, Jeremy? By the fact that they weren't executed?

He also fulminates against Israel's bombing of an anti-aircraft position in a civilian area and hints darkly that this was a war crime. Here he has his case exactly wrong - the war crime, if any, consists in siting the gun battery there in the first place. If someone does so then the other side is quite entitled to attack it. Bowen hates Israel however and so this side of things never gets an airing.

Finally, you will struggle to find any mention of Islamofascist terrorism in this book. Bowen thinks Hamas and their ilk are freedom-fighting, peace loving victims of Israeli oppression.

A book so malignant it verges on being evil.

 

 

 

Profoundly tendentious

ByCharles Soperon 5 June 2007

Format: Paperback

Bowen is convinced the Arabs weren't out to destroy Israel, that the Israelis knew they would wipe the floor with their Arab antagonists. This hardly explains the Israeli chief of staff's (Rabin) nervous breakdown, or the then PM's (Ben Gurion) white hot fury with him for what he perceived as an existential danger.

Oren's book is far more extensively sourced from Arab, Hebrew, Russian documents as well as English one - and unlike Bowen evidently strives for precision and balance. The comparison between the two is highly illuminating.

 

 

Rife with anti-israel bias

ByJonathan Turneron 10 January 2007

Format: Paperback

The book is superficial, derivative and rife with standard anti-Israel prejudice, namely, the portrayal of Israel as the source of the Middle-East conflict and the whitewashing of Arab-Palestinian rejection of Israel's legitimacy and decades of relentless violence against the Jewish state.

 

 

Problems With Credibility

ByA customeron 22 May 2004

Format: Hardcover

After Michael Oren's excellent history of the same war ("Six Days of War"), this book turned out to be a disappointment. Like so much of the reporting from the region (Bowen was a BBC journalist), it is unscholarly and superficial. One can't help suspecting that Bowen's main motivation might be something other than just an interest in history. Oren's book was highly praised so Bowen, by choosing an almost identical title, may have seen a chance to make a quick buck. But mostly he probably wanted to give his own version of events -- he is famous for his strong anti-Israel bias and his tendentious "reporting" for the BBC. Don't bother with this book; it's not a serious history. For now, Oren's book remains the definitive work on this war.'

 

I could carry on with the one star reviews. 

 

I could also post some favourable reviews to make this a fair and balanced article on Jeremy Bowen's book but if he's not unbiased about Israel why should I be unbiased about him? Also I'm not a BBC employee

I do wonder what the Balen Report said about Jeremy Bowen, don't you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freedom of Information is very important to the BBC

This BBC article bemoans the way that the government doesn't comply with Freedom of Information requests, it's an interesting article and worth a read. However I'd take Michael Buchanan, BBC Social Affairs Correspondent more seriously were he not working for an organisation that routinely refuses to divulge information when in receipt of an FOI request. 

There are numerous examples of this culture of secrecy at the BBC but possibly the most disgusting is their refusal to release the Balen Report. If you don't know what the Balen Report is, then here's Wikipedia:

'The Balen Report is a 20,000 word document written by the senior broadcasting journalist Malcolm Balen in 2004 after examining thousands of hours of the BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The report was commissioned by former BBC Director of News, Richard Sambrook, following persistent complaints from the public and the Israeli government of allegations of anti-Israel bias.

It is a legal obligation for the Corporation to be impartial which is why this Report is so important. Well-known examples of purported bias are: BBC's correspondent in Jerusalem 2004, Barbara Plett who broadcast Yasser Arafat's exit to hospital "When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound I started to cry ...".

Eventually one year later Helen Boaden, Head of BBC News admitted this was "an editorial misjudgment". There have been similar issues since the report. In 2006 Middle-East correspondent Orla Guerin claimed the Town of Bint Jbeil had been 'wiped out' by the Israelis and showed footage to support this. It had not in fact been wiped out and Channel 4's Alex Thomson, the same day, reported ( from the same street) that the town was "pretty much untouched by the Israeli attack". In fact when the two new's reports were compared it became clear Guerin had completely misled the public. in 2005 The Israeli government accused Ms Guerin of being 'anti-Semitic' in her reporting of a would-be suicide bomber.'

 It is estimated that the BBC has spent over £200,000 of licence payers money on keeping the Balen Report secret.

Just how damning must the Balen Report have been for the BBC to be so desperate to keep it under wraps?

The "Disproportionate focus" on Israel

The BBC have a disproportionate focus on Israel, the Balen Report would no doubt reveal why.

An interesting claim re The Balen Report from Kais aka @revthe banker on Twitter

Yes this Twitter anti-Israel individual claims to know the Balen Report's summary. Oddly he refuses to tell me what it said.

So either he is one of the few people to have read the Balen Report or he's a liar, which do you think?

Media Bias Against Israel Exposed

Including, of course, the institutionally anti Israel BBC. #BalenReport

Some background on Orla Guerin

'In 2002, Guerin claimed she had been targeted by Israeli soldiers who, she said, deliberately shot at her during a demonstration in Bethlehem. A year later Israel boycotted the BBC after accusing her of "deep-seated bias" in her reports. Then, in 2006, during the war in Lebanon she was accused of misreporting when she claimed a town near the Israel border had been "wiped out" by Israeli forces. "I haven't seen a single building that isn't damaged in some way," she said.

But Alex Thomson, filing for Channel 4 from the same town, Bint Jbeil, on the same day, presented a different perspective. He reported that the suburbs of the town "are pretty much untouched by the Israeli attack".'

And people wonder why the BBC have kept the Balen Report secret, what did that report reveal?

More here http://www.standard.co.uk/news/the-secret-report-at-heart-of-bbc-s-gaza-paranoia-6870301.html but not in the BBC where the likes of Jeremy Bowen, Orla Guerin Yolande Knell and Lyse Doucett are given free reign.

OPINION - Sir Eric Pickles: ‘We deserve better reporting of these evil attacks’ per Jewish News

'... On Sunday, 11 October, correspondent Orla Guerin produced an extraordinary report on the recent wave of attacks that claimed "there's no sign of involvement by militant groups", before immediately showing footage of Palestinian Islamic Jihad banners at the home of a 19-year-old terrorist who carried out a deadly knife attack at Lions Gate in Jerusalem on 3 October.'

More good sense here at the Jewish News

More anti Israel bile here at the anti_Israel BBC.

 

Release the #BalenReport

John Whittingdale: BBC to lose power to address claims of political bias per The Guardian

The Guardian, the closest thing there is to a BBC house newspaper, reports that:

'John Whittingdale, the UK culture secretary, has confirmed that the BBC will be stripped of its power to adjudicate on allegations of political bias in its coverage.

Speaking at the Conservative party conference in Manchester, he said the public should have confidence that complaints are examined independently and carefully. He said it must no longer be the case "that if you make a complaint against the BBC, the decision on whether it is justified is taken by the BBC".'

As someone who has had a couple or more complaints of BBC bias dismissed by the BBC Trust, I welcome this step in the right direction. I'm fed-up with being told that the BBC got it about right and that's the end of it. 

Hopefully a properly independent body would be willing to find against the BBC and require the BBC to make an apology that is equally prominent as the original story.

However two things strike me, first that the original bias will have had its effect long before the BBC is found to have been biased and so a stinging financial penalty is needed to ensure that the BBC doesn't just carry on with its biased reporting. I suggest a sliding scale of fines, from 1% of the licence fee upwards, depending upon the seriousness of the bias. These fines to be deducted from the next year's licence fee or paid to the BBC's rivals. That should concentrate the BBC to avoid any bias in their reporting.

The second thing is to define political bias. This has to include tackling the BBC's institutional anti Israel bias that is helping to create the rise in anti Semitism in the UK. Maybe a future complaint to the new body of BBC anti Israel bias could result in the publication of the Balen Report which the BBC has been so desperate to keep secret for so long. 

More from The Guardian here http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/05/john-whittingdale-bbc-allegations-political-bias-coverage-tory-conference but nothing so far on the BBC.

So how damming must the Balen Report have been about the BBC's anti Israel bias?

This from Biased BBC caught my eye:

'In 2005, an independent report commissioned by the BBC's board of governors found that the corporation was guilty of "cultural and unintentional bias" in coverage of Europe.'

If that report into the BBC's coverage of Europe was OK to be released, can you imagine how damming the Balen Report into the BBC's coverage of Israel and the Middle East must have been for the BBC to fight tooth and nail to keep it secret?

BBC News ignores missile attack from Gaza but BBC Arabic reports response per BBC Watch

BBC Watch http://bbcwatch.org/2015/06/05/bbc-news-ignores-missile-attack-from-gaza-but-bbc-arabic-reports-response/ asks a question at the end of another report of the BBC reporting Israel's response to attack but not the original attack by Palestinians. The question asked is:

'This is the sixth missile attack since the ceasefire came into effect at the end of August 2014 and users of the BBC News website have not been informed about any of those attacks at the time of their occurrence.

It is time for the BBC's funding public to be told why that is the case.'

There's a simple answer, it's because the BBC is institutionally anti Israel. I believe that's part of what the Balen Report concluded and that is why the BBC are so desperate to keep the Balen Report secret.

Possibly the funniest Tweets ever

I've been in a Twitter dialogue with a Moroccan on Twitter, well it makes a change from that vile Algerian earlier this year. But what's really funny is that this one actually thinks he's intelligent. Just read these tweets, can you spot the problem?

 

So this genius thinks the Balen Report was released to the public in 2009, and apparently I 'need to be schooled gurl'. Hmm I think he's about to be seriously embarrassed...

It's so funny, I'll be chuckling for the rest of the day...

PS: For some reason the 2/2 Tweet showed on my mobile but not on my PC...

UK Jews: BBC biased against Israel - Israel Culture, Ynetnews

'Online poll finds nearly four of five Jews believe British network is unfriendly towards Jewish state'

More here http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4370127,00.html


Maybe the BBC should release the Balen Report to try and reassure British Jews that the BBC is not biased against Israel... Unless the Balen Report showed that the BBC was biased against Israel!

Interesting how the BBC choose when to report with 'context'

The BBC's reluctant report  includes this piece of context at the end:

'The UN report concluded that at least 169 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks during the offensive.

It said more than 100 were civilians, including 33 children and 13 women. The report said six Israelis were killed by Palestinians attacks, including four civilians.'

Even if we accept the Palestinian sourced split between civilians and military, and work on the minimum figure of 101 civilians out of 169 deaths, that makes a ratio of approximately 1.69:1 civilians:military. This sounds terrible, after all surely more military should be killed than civilians.

Now for some context:
According the International Committee of the Red Cross, the civilian-to-soldier death ratio in wars fought since the mid-20th century has been 10:1, meaning ten civilian deaths for every soldier death. The source for this is Greenberg Research, Inc., The People on War Report, International Committee of the Red Cross, 1999, iii."The fundamental shift in the character of war is illustrated by a stark statistic: in World War I, nine soldiers were killed for every civilian life lost. In today’s wars, it is estimated that 10 civilians die for every soldier or fighter killed in battle."

During the Israel/Palestinian conflict of 2006-2007 approximately 810 Palestinians were killed in Gaza of which approximately 200 were civilians - a ratio of approximately 1:3. During the period leading up to the conflict 1,010 Israelis were killed by Palestinian terrorist attacks of which 773 were civilians - a ratio of approximately 5:1.

Testifying before the United Nations, Col. Richard Kemp, a British commander, stated that:

'Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare. Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population... The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.

Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes...

More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.'

Now that's some context that the BBC don't report. I contend this is because the BBC is institutionally biased against Israel, that the Balen Report showed this and that is why the BBC is so desperate to keep that report secret.

The BBC's sensitive about mentions of the Balen Report

I have just realised that I never did post the BBC's Stephanie Harris's latest response to my complaint about Jeremy Bowen's choice of one of the two holiest days in the Jewish calendar to hold a Twitter Q&A. Here is is, my response will follow later.

Stephanie Harris 10 Dec Dear Sir/Madam Thank you for your further email. With regard to publication of the Balen report, the BBC did not wish to publish this internal report and fought against its disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, as you are aware. The reason for this was that we regarded it as a crucial point of principle to protect our journalism. The BBC maintained that the report was held for the purpose of journalism and was therefore not disclosable under the Act. Repeated court rulings agreed with this position which was endorsed by the Supreme Court. We were forced to defend our position because free and impartial journalism is vital to viewers and listeners. If we are not able to pursue our journalism freely and have honest debate and analysis over how we are covering important issues, then our ability to serve the public effectively will be diminished. This was one of the reasons that Parliament enacted the "journalism" designation for Public Service Broadcasters in the first place. I hope this explanation is helpful. Meanwhile, I will await the outcome of the Trust’s deliberations in relation to your substantive appeal. Yours sincerely Stephanie Harris Head of Editorial Compliance & Accountability, BBC News

Don't mention the Balen Report

I have received a response to my last email to BBC re Jeremy Bowen's choice of Rosh Hashanah for a Twitter q & a. I dared to mention the Balen Report and Stephanie Harris has sent me a fascinating response.
I will fisk it properly when I have time.
A complaint to the BBC Trust will be sent over the Christmas period anyway.

World double standards

The BBC are still obsessed by Israel daring to build in and around its capital city. They are less interested in the deaths of 29 children in a Syrian school today and all the other deaths that are happening in Syria every day.

Why?

The only explanation that I can think of is that the BBC are institutionally biased against Israel. I presume that is what the Balen Report concluded and that is why the BBC have fought so hard to keep it secret.

Reporting on Israel and Syria

From watching or listening to the BBC you would think that Israel was conducting a genoicidal war on the Palestinians.

Here's some facts:

• The total number of Arabs killed by Israel since 1948, including in three major wars (1948, 1967 & 1973) as well as the two Lebanese wars (1982 & 2006) amount to some 85,00 people.
• If you exclude these wars then the number killed is around 15,000. 
• If you exclude the 1956 Sinai campaign and the ongoing war of attrition betyween 1967 and 1970 then the total reduces to just around 7,000.
• The total number of Syrians killed in the current Syrian civil war alone (some 21 months) is over 50,000.

To the BBC & the other anti-Israel media outlets, transnational organisations such as the United Nations and many world governments it seems that genoicide is 15,000 people killed over 68 years (approx 235 a year), but 50,000 over 21 months (approx 28,500 a year) is hardly worthy of mention.

Why the disparity in news coverage? Is the BBC really institutionally anti-Israel? If only an in-depth investigation into the BBC's Middle East coverage had been carried out... Release the Balen Report, or are its findings that damning?

BBC Middle East specialists past and present

My views about the BBC's Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen are well documented. I think it fairly clear that he is biased against Israel. So I was intrigued to read Richard Millett's piece that reports the anti-Israel and worse sentiments of former BBC Middle East correspondent Tim Llewellyn.

It would seem that such sentiments are de rigeur in the BBC Middle East department, and indeed beyond. I presume that is why the BBC are so keen and have spent so much licence payers money  on keeping the Balen Report secret.