Negative Reports Bring Negative Results. Yet, “Impartiality – something that interests me greatly” says the BBC’s Middle East editor!

A member of an Israeli medical team in Sri Lanka

The BBC World Service asked people in 27 countries their opinion of 16 nations: “Please tell me if you think each of the following countries is having a mainly positive or mainly negative influence in the world?”

The 27 countries from which answers came were: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States.

The 16 nations selected for appraisal naturally included the one that’s subject to Al Beeb’s scrutiny night and day, year-in, year-out, and here, in descending order of popularity, are the results: Germany, UK, Japan, Canada, France, USA, Brazil, China, South Africa, India, South Korea, Russia, Israel, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran.

To quote the pollsters: “While overall views of Israel have not moved substantially over the past year, there have been significant increases in negative views of the country among Americans (negatives rising from 31% to 41%) and Britons (from 50%  to 66%)” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/05_03_11_bbcws_country_poll.pdf

Yep, folks, the demonization of Israel in which the BBC is a master, both at home and abroad, is doing its nefarious work.

Imagine how different things could be – if the BBC (and other influential media outlets) would carry reports on the technological and medical breakthroughs that happen in Israel, and on the humanitarian initiatives that the world so rarely gets to see. There are no lack of videos in the latter area alone: http://www.youtube.com/user/IsraelMFA#g/c/DC43001A3FBF67DA

Meanwhile, a video has recently surfaced, in which Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen, whose slanted reports and biased commentaries on the BBC News website (where they can, of course, be read all over the world) have undoubtedly had an impact on the public attitudes leading to the poll results –  has expressed his interest in impartiality, to which as a BBC reporter he has "to cleave" (but doesn't)!

I venture to suggest that Jezza has not half as much interest in "impartiality" as do hapless BBC licence-payers, who wonder how it is that Al Beeb’s Middle East editor can get away with flouting impartiality rules again and again, and how it is that he (and Al Beeb’s College of Journalism cronies) are permitted by their employer to regularly appear before the Frontline Club, a brazenly leftist journalistic outfit.

In this video Jezza interviews the execrable anti-Israel, anti-Western reporter Robert Fisk, of The Independent newspaper, to whom he makes the above comment. He also tells Fisk that he considers him “a great reporter of what goes on there” ( the Middle East). Fortunately, these comments – the one so risible, the other so partisan – occur towards the beginning of the video, which contains much wind-baggery from Fisk (who's plugging a book he wrote) and Fisk's inevitable mockery of the roles of Britain and the United States in the Middle East as well as his equally inevitable denunciations of Israel. 

And if you’re in masochistic mood and would like to see an interview with Jezza himself at the Frontline Club, you’re in luck: http://www.bbc.co.uk/journalism/blog/2009/09/reflections-with-jeremy-bowen.shtml