I'm Ha'aretz. Fly Me.

What a despicable rag Ha'aretz is, giving aid and comfort to Israel's enemies the world over.

The rag might have a derisory circulation in Israel, but it's read enthusiastically by Israel's enemies, including the anti-Zionist propagandists, whose ranks comprise a nasty little bunch of renegade Jews, who gleefully link to its articles on social media.

 And it's clearly the newspaper of choice of BBC correspondents including the oh-so-prejudiced-against-Israel Jeremy Bowen, Paul Danahar, and Jon Donnison, who not infrequently cite it and link to it in posts and tweets.

The Guardian, Al Beeb's ideological twin, is equally besotted with it.

Regarding this cartoon in Ha'aretz yesterday, retired USN officer J.E  Dyer's blog tells why it's an obscenity.

Read her relevant post here

From Iran's Press TV:

 And:

See what I mean?

"The Palestinian Syndrome": Pat Condell on the anti-Israel mindset of the Guardian and the BBC (video)

He's at his best in this passionate indictment of the illiberal "liberalism" , hypocrisy, and Israel-bashing of the Guardian and the BBC, mincing no words regarding the antisemitism that infuses the former:

 

The Antisemitic Israel-Delegitimising Guardian & Its BBC-Type Leftist Hypocrites (video)

The leftist war on Israel.  The leftist war against the Jews.  The leftist excoriation of "Islamophobia".  The leftist love affair with Hamas.  The Islamist attitude to a Jewish State in the Middle East. Using a number of memorable phrases, Pat Condell tells it like it is:

 Hat tip: reader Shirlee

Two Of A Kind

While, on its notoriously anti-Israel "Comment is Free" section, the left-liberal Guardian has been indulging the opinions of a no less a personage than Ismail Haniyeh from Hamas, an outfit known for its decidedly non-liberal credentials and its visceral Jew-hatred, that newspaper's ideological twin the BBC has been pimping a report from Amnesty International that excoriates Israel.

Robin Shepherd has an incisive critique of the former development here, and asks whether the Guardian, which he describes as wallowing in the sewer (I won't disagree!),  is now "the most bigoted newspaper in Britain".

Meanwhile, Gidon Shaviv has an excellent analysis here of Amnesty International's unreliability as a credible source regarding Israel.  (Jeremy Bowen, Jon Donnison, Yolande Knell and Co., please note.)

See also here

Melbourne Zionist Uproots Sherwood's Forest Of Stones

The Age once carried this cartoon ...

Harriet Sherwood, Jerusalem correspondent of the notoriously anti-Israel Guardian, frequently features on the Guardian-monitoring website CiF Watch, and with good reason.  The Melbourne Age, one of the worst offenders in Australia as far as bias against Israel is concerned, recently published an article of hers entitled "No Stone Left Unpunished".

Emily Gian, Israel Advocacy Analyst at the Zionist Council of Victoria and a doctoral candidate in Israeli literature at the University of Melbourne, has issued a riposte, carried in the latest J-Wire:

Writes Emily Gian:

'An article appeared in last Thursday’s Melbourne Age entitled "No stone left unpunished". Penned by Harriet Sherwood of The Guardian, it told the story of Palestinian children detained by Israeli authorities for committing crimes such as "throwing stones at soldiers or settlers… flinging petrol bombs… [or] more serious offenses such as links to militant organisations or using weapons".

I couldn’t help but sense from the way Sherwood dismissed such activities as stone throwing and flinging petrol bombs as not being serious, that the writer was preparing to unleash what is now becoming stock standard fare from this publication on matters relating to Israel. Plenty of one-sided accusations without context and a token response from the Israeli side usually derided or sneered at by the author in the next paragraph or somewhere further down the line.

In its original incarnation in the Guardian, it was a termed a “special report” but, to its credit, the Age avoided the embarrassment and described it more correctly as an “opinion piece”. Perhaps “propaganda” might have even been more apt.

Dealing with children involved in conflict is a serious issue that needs to be handled responsibly. So does reporting on their treatment and, in this case, allegations of their mistreatment. Sherwood’s piece is problematic on three levels.

In the first place, there is the matter of the veracity of the claims made against the Israelis. Both Honest Reporting and CiF Watch have comprehensively refuted many of the article’s allegations so I will not repeat too much of what they say. However, what is of interest is how little time Sherwood dedicates to the Israeli response to the claims made and the inadequacy of her fact checking. It seems as though she simply wishes the allegations to be true and leaves it at that hoping that nobody (and certainly not the editors at the Guardian or the Age) will detect or care about the shoddiness of her work.

The Israel Security Agency (ISA) responded directly on the claims to the Guardian before the article went to print but the response was never fully published. The ISA states that “the claims that Palestinian minors were subject to interrogation techniques that include beatings, prolonged periods in handcuffs, threats, kicks, verbal abuse, humiliation, isolation and prevention of sleep are utterly baseless”.

The full ISA statement explains how all employees act within accordance of Israeli law and that those detained receive the full rights for which they are eligible. The statement also provided a categorical denial of “all claims with regard to the interrogation of minors. In fact, the complete opposite is true – the ISA guidelines grant minors special protections needed because of their age”.

Sherwood simply chose to ignore much of this statement, and instead used information provided to her by an organisation called the Defence for Children International. The DCI is a BDS supporter that calls for the full Right of Return of Palestinian refugees and previously lobbied for the now discredited Goldstone Report to be endorsed. Given its commitment to causes aimed at deligitimising the Jewish State and ultimately destroying it (a fact not disclosed in the article), the DCI is hardly an objective observer. Interestingly, one of its board members is Shawan Jabarin, a member of the terrorist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. CiF Watch notes that his position on the board of a group that purports to protect children is strange “for someone involved with an organisation with such obvious disregard for the lives of either terror victims or the brainwashed teenagers sent to perpetrate terror attacks”.

It goes without saying that Sherwood also brushes over the crimes committed by some of the children. Her emotive piece attempts to paint a picture of harmless little pebbles being tossed at Israeli soldiers carrying guns – the old David and Goliath image. Never mind that such attacks have had fatal results such as the instances of Asher Palmer and his infant son Yonatan, who were killed when a rock hit the car in which they were travelling last September.

We see occasional instances of people throwing rocks at cars on Australian roads which have also caused serious injury but there is no reason to make light of such behaviour (see more) let alone of the throwing of petrol bombs which Sherwood doesn’t apparently consider too seriously when those attacked happen to be Israeli.

The second matter is one of  timing. The initial Guardian piece appeared on Sunday 22 January. Honest Reporting and CiF Watch both published their rebuttals on Tuesday 24 January reprinting the Israeli response, which had already been ignored by the Guardian. The Age decided to republish the Sherwood article on Thursday 26 January, days after all of the information was available.

One expects that Age editor Paul Ramadge, Foreign Editor Carolyn Jones and Foreign Desk News Editor Maher Mughrabi are intelligent, well-read people, who would have seen the ISA response to the Guardian piece, and yet somehow, it appeared in its original form days later. Unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened (see more here and here).

Thirdly, and to their everlasting shame, it seems that neither the journalist nor any of the agencies mentioned in the article appear to have the slightest interest in coming up with a solution to the problem of children becoming embroiled in the violence of the conflict. That their usefulness is measured only as a propaganda tool for those with more sinister motives leaves a stench far greater than that which offended Sherwood so much when she visited Cell 36, deep within Al Jalame prison in northern Israel.'

What A Piece Of Work! The Guardian's sinister mistranslation of Abbas's words regarding the Shalit deal

The sometimes quite unscrupulous anti-Israel reportage of the leftist-"intellectual" British newspaper The Guardian is, of course, notorious, and not only to Israel's friends in the UK. Sydney lawyer David Singer, a founder member of the International Analysts Network, has drawn attention to a recent instance in the following article via the antipodean J-Wire service.  It's entitled "Palestine – Abbas Gets Lost In The Translation"

Writes David Singer:

'PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has been often criticised for making statements in English that are contradicted by other statements made by him in Arabic. Abbas has continued this art of doublespeak first perfected by his predecessor Yasser Arafat -  tailoring his views to the audience that he is addressing.

What is equally as sinister – and indeed should perhaps be regarded with even more alarm – is the apparent attempt by some sections of the media to put Abbas in a favorable light by deliberately mistranslating into English what he says in Arabic.This is illustrated by considering two differing versions of remarks made by Abbas – when greeting some of the convicted terrorists released in exchange for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

The Guardian reported Mr Abbas as saying:
"Your efforts have not been in vain,” he told a crowd of thousands, which included 133 of the freed prisoners. “You have sacrificed, fought and paid the price."

This identical quote was  also carried by such media outlets as UTV News and NewsRack

Sky News however reported Mr Abbas’s speech in different terms:

"Your sacrifices and your efforts and your work has not been in vain. You have sacrificed and fought"

This version was also carried by Lebanon News and The Australian newspaper.

The discrepancy between both reports is glaring .

The omission of "your work" in the Guardian story cannot be described as  "nitpicking" or "inconsequential".  Such omission could not have been purely accidental or due to the Guardian’s translator having less of a grasp of Arabic than the Sky News translator. 

If Abbas was to be seen in Western eyes as openly and publicly condoning and praising the “work” of these released terrorists, it could well have an adverse affect on Abbas’s image as a peace-seeking diplomat presently touring world capitals to enlist support for the PLO‘s application for recognition of the State of Palestine and its admission as a member of the United Nations.

In the absence of a satisfactory explanation as to why he chose to use these clearly inflammatory words – or to deny he ever used them – member States of the United Nations would be entitled to take a strong view against acceding to his request to join them in the United Nations as head of a fellow peace-loving state.
Mr Abbas has signed and made the following Declaration to the United Nations as President of the State of Palestine and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation organization:

"In connection with the application of the State of Palestine for admission to membership in the United Nations, I have the honour, in my capacity as the President of the State of Palestine and  as the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, to solemnly declare that the State of Palestine is a peace-loving nation and that it accepts the obligations contained in the Charter of the United Nations and solemnly undertakes to fulfill them."

Can Mr Abbas’s peace loving declaration have any meaning  when one considers his praise of the "work" these returning terrorists had done and that he told them had not been in vain – and which remarks the Guardian seems to have been so concerned to conceal from its readers ?

The "work" performed by these terrorists included:.

1. Amna Muna – a young woman – who had lured a lovestruck Israeli teenage boy by the name of Ophir Nahum to a Palestinian city over the Internet, only to have him killed by waiting terrorists.
2.  Ahlam Tamimi  another woman now aged 31 – who was sentenced to 16 consecutive life terms in jail for her involvement in the terrorist attack on the Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem in August 2001 that claimed the lives of 16 innocent victims, amongst them many Jewish children. Tamimi has never expressed remorse and told reporters in 2006: "I’m not sorry for what I did. I will get out of prison and I refuse to recognize Israel’s existence. Discussions will only take place after Israel recognizes that this is Islamic land." Accepting her statement at face value – it appears clear that Tamimi intends continuing to resume her "work"in the future.3.  Abdel Hadi Ghneim – the surviving perpetrator of the Tel Aviv Jerusalem bus 405 suicide attack that killed 16 civilians after he drove the bus down a ravine.
   4.  Abd al-Aziz Yussuf Mustafa Salehi – photographed in 2000 displaying his blood-soaked hands to a jubilant Palestinian mob after lynching an Israeli soldier and beating him to death

Praising this kind of "work" can be expected from Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh -  not from Abbas.

Abbas’s statement is the very antithesis of seeking peace and reconciliation and makes his declaration to the
United Nations a mockery.

Article 9 of the PLO Charter still remains Mr Abbas’s real intention – as his praise of the work done by these terrorists makes clear:

Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm     resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it . They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it. 

Murdering innocent civilians and lynching a captured Israeli soldier are still seen by Abbas as not only justifiable – but worthy of praise and commendation.

His peace-loving declaration to the United Nations is not worth the paper it is written on.

Neither is the Guardian’s inaccurate report of what he supposedly said.

The History Men: Truth versus Falsehood

Historical revisionism is becoming a lethal weapon of the Palestinian Authority.  You may recall that the map on the PA's London Embassy website shows the whole of Israel as "Palestine".   http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/05/paint-it-black-and-green-and-red-that.html

Pro-Palestinian groups in the West enthusiastically aid and abet historical revisionism, and what was conceived as the national liberation movement of the Jewish People is routinely presented as an ugly and unacceptable manifestation of European colonialism.

As with this poster, Israel's ill-wishers even stoop to appropriating travel posters designed for the Yishuv by refugee from Hitlerism Franz Krausz, as if those posters were the work of Arabs and in order to advance the notion that "Palestine" (incorporating all of Eretz Israel) was, and should again be, an autonomous Arab land.

Earlier this year, Bibi Netanyahu gave a trademark impressive speech in Jerusalem to a visiting contingent of European Friends of Israel.

As proves so often the case, he manifested his obviously deep and genuine feel for history.

In the course of his address, he noted:

"Now people say, well, you don't really have an attachment to this land.  We are new interlopers.  We are neo-crusaders.... [F]rom the place next to the Temple wall, the Western Wall from around the time of the Jewish kings, they found a signet ring, a seal of a Jewish official from 2700 years ago, and it has a name on it in Hebrew.  You know what that name is? Netanyahu.  Now, that's my last name.

 My first name, Benjamin, goes back a thousand years earlier to Benjamin the son of Jacob who with his brothers roamed these very hills.  So we have some connection with this land but we recognize that others live in it too.  We want to make peace with them but we have this basic millenial connection to this land. 

 Part of the campaign against Israel is the attempt to distort not only modern history, but also ancient history.  There was no Jewish Temple - did you hear that one?

Well, I'd like to know where were those tables that
Jesus overturned? Were they in Tibet? There's an attempt to rewrite
history - ancient and modern and to deprive the Jewish people of their
connection to their ancestral homeland ..."

Mahmoud Abbas is not averse to distorting history - as witness that despicable doctoral dissertation of his, completed in the Soviet Union in 1982 and published in book form a couple of years later as The Other Side of the Secret Relationship Between Zionism and Nazism.  Not only does it allege that Zionists, eager for as many victims of genocide as possible in order to advance their aims, were in cahoots with the Nazis, it suggests that the actual number of Jews who perished in the Shoah was perhaps less than one million.

 Disturbingly, this dissertation, with its obscene tissue of lies, has enjoyed wide circulation in the Palestinian Authority, forming the basis of Holocaust studies there.  See http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/143752

In Gaza on "Nakba Day," a fiery representative of Abbas deliversed the latter's speech that stated, with forked tongue: 

"National reconciliation [between Hamas and Fatah] is required in order to face Israel and Netanyahu. We say to him [Netanyahu], when he claims - that they [Jews] have a historical right dating back to 3000 years BCE - we say that the nation of Palestine upon the land of Canaan had a 7000 year history BCE. This is the truth, which must be understood and we have to note it, in order to say: 'Netanyahu, you are incidental in history. We are the people of history. We are the owners of history.'"

Comments Elad Benari:

"The Palestinian Authority leadership, while telling the world it supports peace talks with Israel, continues to say otherwise when talking to its people through its own television channels....

The canard that Palestinians are Canaanites was claimed by Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi tens of years ago in National Geographic and received with amusement. The Canaanites, as well as the other peoples mentioned in the Bible as living in the parts of the land of Israel, disappeared as distinguishable nations thousands of years ago. Except for the Jewish people, they are untraceable today.

... Abbas’ so-called history is a brazen distortion of known facts. Judean and Israeli history in the Land of Israel, says the report, dates back thousands of years and is documented by ancient Jewish and non-Jewish sources.

"Palestinians", however, is a term that has only recently begun to be used to identify Arabs in the region ...

There is no reference to a Palestinian-Arab nation in antiquity as Abbas claims. ... Islamic sources as well do not refer to Palestinians. In fact, the holy Muslim book, the Quran, refers to the people of Israel and to the destruction of their Temple in Jerusalem.'

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/144470

Read more: http://cifwatch.com/2011/05/29/the-myth-of-historically-arab-east-jerusalem/

Meanwhile, correspondents from that terrible twosome, The Guardian and Al Beeb, just happen to have been taking tours of the abandoned Arab village of Lifta [pictured], west of Jerusalem, with the same Arab guide, Yacoub Odeh, and - quelle surprise! - have slanted their reports accordingly.

As Simon Plosker observes:

'Both media outlets seem determined to bring the focus of the Arab-Israeli conflict back to the events of 1947/8 – a tactic employed by the Palestinians to present Israel as being “born in sin” and responsible for the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians and the creation of the refugee problem. [My emphasis]

The fact that one Yacoub Odeh is the former Lifta resident guiding the BBC’s Wyre Davies and the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood separately would suggest that this “tour” was a well-organized effort offered to the international media and eagerly picked up by those outlets sympathetic to the Palestinian narrative from 1948.'

 Harriet Sherwood has made serious errors, points out Plosker:  She wrote:

"Out of sight of Lifta's ruins, but built on its former farmlands are the Knesset (Israel's parliament), the supreme court, the Hadassah hospital, the Hebrew University and [Jerusalem's] central bus station."

 In fact, the Knesset was built not on Arab farnland but on a plot leased from the Greek Orthodox Church, while the other institutions referred to are located some distance from Lifta.
Read more and view video:  http://honestreporting.com/backspin-blog/
See also:http://www.oyvagoy.com/2011/05/30/the-lifta-question/ 

Al Beeb's Yolande Knell, also milks the lachrymose Lifta angle:

'Its 3,000 residents were forced out or fled in fighting that erupted before the creation of Israel in 1948, which Palestinians view as the "nakba" or catastrophe. They were not allowed to move back....'

Her online article comes complete with a photo - a mutely accusatory piece of propaganda, by the seem of it - of Israelis enjoying a picnic in Lifta, where there are plans for "a luxury housing project".

Ms Knell concludes with the observation that "the most contentious points in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" are "the right of return and the struggle to control the historical narrative".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13373719

Like the Palestine Solidarty Campaign and similar bodies, as well as Al Grauniad, Al Beeb appears to be doing its best to ensure that the latter is a struggle that Israel loses.

"Forget the Jewish Thing": Assange's Alleged Conspiracy Theory!

Private Eye is a satirical British fortnightly magazine that has been around since the 1960s. It exposes secrets, follies, corruption and hypocrisy in public figures and public bodies, national and local. Despite what one might think, it is not biased to the Left, but writes about figures and institutions along the entire political spectrum. It frequently breaks stories that are not immediately picked up in the rest of the media, but are often proved true weeks, months, or even years later.

According to its new issue, of 1 March, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange phoned its editor complaining about a piece it had run on 16 February, and alleged that the piece was “an obvious attempt to deprive him and his organisation of Jewish support and donations” . Mr Assange then claimed that Private Eye was “part of a conspiracy led by the Guardian which includes journalist David Leigh, editor Alan Rusbridger, and John Kampfner from Index on Censorship.”  He allegedly described them all as Jewish.

When Private Eye’s editor pointed out that Rusbridger isn’t Jewish, Mr Assange allegedly said he’s “sort of Jewish” since he’s Leigh’s brother-in-law, before retracting: “Forget the Jewish thing”.

Ah! If only The Guardian, which is fixated on reporting and commenting about Israel from a negative perspective and allows antisemitism on its website, would “Forget the Israeli thing” and concentrate its fire and ire on real rogue regimes!

To read more about Mr Assange's alleged conversation: http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/03/01/assange-goes-off-deep-end-blaming-jews-and-guardian-in-private-eye/

Mad Dogs and Englishmen – UK Universities Give the Go-Ahead to Hate-Spewing Extremists on Campus

Islamic extremists spewing out hatred on UK campuses have become a grim  feature of life on many British campuses, especially in London. In addition to the implications for public safety generally, this situation has created an atmosphere of intimidation and fear for Jewish and pro-Israel students.

For such Islamists, it’s effectively a case of “Carry On Hate Speaking,” courtesy of the authorities who, despite expectations, have in a newly published report announced by Professor Malcolm Grant, Provost and President of University College London (UCL) ,signally failed to grapple meaningfully with this issue.

Professor Grant chaired the working group of the umbrella body of university chiefs, Universities UK, and can be seen in the video below. “Views expressed within universities ... may sometimes appear to be extreme or even offensive, “ he explains. “However, unless views can be expressed they cannot also be challenged.” Thus the report gives the go-ahead to universities to continue inviting extremists onto campuses in order to “engage” with them.

Not surprisingly, the Union of Jewish Students maintains that Universities UK has accordingly “failed to provide any clear, practical guidance to the sector on the issue of hate speech and extremism on campus. The report provides no answers whatsoever.”

The following is a cross-post on the subject by Jonathan Hoffman, co-vice-chair of the UK Zionist Federation, entitled “University Hate Speech Report: A Whitewash”. (It also appears at http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/university-hate-speech-report-a-whitewash):

After it was revealed that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab – who tried to blow up a plane on Christmas Day 2009 – had been President of Islamic Society at UCL, Universities UK – under pressure from the government – set up an Inquiry into Extremism on Campus. It was clear from the start that it was going to be a whitewash: http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/campus-extremism-university-heads-are-taki...

And so it ha proved. The members of the Inquiry – headed by Professor Malcolm Grant of UCL – very quickly changed its focus from "extremism" to "guaranteeing free speech” – a laughable inversion of what the Inquiry was supposed to be about.

Its Report has just been published:http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/Publications/Documents/FreedomOfSpeechOn...

There is no list of hate speakers and events which have caused offence. And the recommendations are a fudge. For example there is no mention of compulsory filming by university authorities of hate speech meetings.http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/29079/hate-war-campus-be-stamped-out

The universities have proved themselves abjectly incapable of setting their own house in order. The time is long overdue for David Willetts – the Universities Minister – to step in.

(See also: http://www.thejc.com/node/45437
http://www.thejc.com/node/44355
http://www.thejc.com/node/44348)

And as wise commenters on the Guardian's notorious Comment is Free website observe, in response to a typical "weaselly"Al Grauniad article on the subject:

'Hamza Andreas Tzortzis will address the University College London Islamic Society ...

Mr Tzortzis, ... was a trustee of Green Crescent, a British charity placed under investigation ... for links with Islamist terrorism.

Mr Tzortzis ... is a former researcher for the hardline Hittin Institute and chaired the launch event of iERA, an umbrella organisation hosting many well-known British Muslim extremists who preach opposition to democracy and hatred against homosexuals and Jews. He also has links to the extremist and separatist group Hizb ut Tahrir ....

At UCL's Islamic society's Islamic Awareness Week in February 2008 invited speakers included Abu Mujahid, who has incited Muslims to condemn homosexuals because Allah "hates" them.

Murtaza Khan, who was filmed in a television documentary delivering a diatribe against Jews, Christians and "filthy non-Muslim doctors", was invited to speak at the another event ... in December 2007.'

and

'Universities have a duty to protect students who come to study in them. If speakers speaking at the invitation of certain societies engage in hate speech or speech verging on hate speech - eg against Jews or non-Muslims, gays etc, then no University could justify inviting the speaker.

The same would go for extreme right-wingers who might aid in creating an atmosphere which was intimidating to ethnic students.

But somehow when extreme anti-liberal, racist, sexist, homophobic views are expressed by extreme Islamists, Universities - if this article is anything to go by - tend to excuse them in the name of "openness" in a way which would probably not apply to extreme right-wing speakers.

The idea that those views contribute to "openness" when they relate to closed-mindedness is very strange.'

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/feb/18/ucl-student-extremism-constructive-engagement)

“You’re a Filthy Tory Jew”

Here’s video footage of a student protest in Manchester on 29 January against the Coalition government’s policy on tuition fees , in which marchers hurl abuse at National Union of Students’ president Aaron Porter.

Notice how chants of “Aaron Porter, we know you, you’re a f*cking Tory too” quickly morph, amid laughter, into “You’re a filthy Tory Jew”.

The fact that Mr Porter is not, in fact, Jewish, and whether or not the marchers knew that, is immaterial.

The fact that such taunts are chanted on the streets of Britain today is deeply shameful, and shows the depths to which some extreme leftists – no less fascistic than the extreme right, be it remembered – are prepared to sink. 

I wonder how many of the raucous angry people screaming antisemitic abuse at Porter are also in the vanguard of the repulsive delegitimisation movement against the Jewish State.

I wonder, too, how many of them read that darling of the left, the increasingly judeophobic Guardian, about which Israel's ambassador to Britain, Ron Prosor, wrote so aptly this week – a must-read; he has the measure of the Guardian down pat: it's out-Hamasing Hamas!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ron-prosor/the-guardians-assault-on-_b_817701.html

In a “Mindset” Lustily – Al Beeb and “Inconvenient Truths”

“How do we put the war between the Jews and the Arabs into context? It takes far too long and with shorthand we risk leaving something out, so we don’t bother. And that’s what causes problems.” The writer is former BBC journalist Bernie Choudhury, suddenly raising that subject in a blog of his that’s been reposted for the benefit of students  – or should I say liberal left-propagandists-in-training?  – at Al Beeb’s College of Journalism (CoJo) headed “Inconvenient Truths”.

The main thrust of the blog concerns what Mr Choudhury considers an out-of-context report in The Times which showed that of 86 men convicted of grooming young British girls for sex, 83 were Muslims. What context he wants – whether he’d like to see more slanted truths from Al Beeb’s very own Jeremy Bowen – such as Jezza’s prejudice-flawed documentary “The Birth of Israel” http://honestreporting.com/the-bbcs-birthday-present-to-israel-2/  (the one that earned Jezza a ticking off from the BBC Trust, over which Jezza remains sore and defiant: "As Middle East editor for the BBC, I'm under pressure from lobbyists. I am recognised by my peers as also being able to stick to my guns” http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/10/jeremy-bowen-attacks-bbc-trust), is not enlarged upon.

It’s interesting, incidentally, that Mr Choudhury mentions that when, some years ago, he “reported on racial divisions in Oldham and how mainly Pakistani young men were trying to create no-go zones for white people,” he “was condemned by some BBC colleagues for playing into the hands of the BNP – and called other names too – even though in every conversation I put in the caveats that it was a minority and possible bravado.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/journalism/blog/2011/01/inconvenient-truths.shtml

Rather underlines what Peter Sissons recently revealed in the Daily Mail – that Al Beeb has a built-in liberal-leftie “mindset” – doesn’t it?

I thought of the “mindset” so well-delineated by Mr Sissons , and the BBC’s reliance for news analysis on the Guardian newpaper that he confirmed, when – as soon as Al Grauniad announced it was posting the “Palestine Papers” Al Beeb was slavering over Al Grauniad’s Middle East editor, Ian Black, for all the dirt.  (Al Beeb and Al Grauniad hand-in-glove?  You betcha!)

And in his BBC blog (25 January) on what the "Palestine Papers" reveal about the "refugee" issue, another of Al Beeb’s correspondents, Mark Urban, chose to quote Al Grauniad’s Jonathan Freedland regarding the Israeli government: "they didn't know how to take 'yes' for an answer".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/

The “mindset” is apparent in a blog (24 January) by BBC Radio 4 The World Tonight presenter Robin Lustig (pictured) suggesting how we might view the leaked “Palestine Papers”. That’s the same Radio 4, incidentally, which as that fine website Biased BBC has very recently demonstrated, shows in its religious programming a marked and quite outrageous preference for Muslim issues and for Muslim participants over any other creed or set of believers.

Anyway, Mr Lustig, on his BBC blog of 24 January (Sissons criticised this blogging mania on the part of Al Beeb’s staff, since it intrudes partisan commentary into what should be strictly objective reportage) he itemises ways in which we might view the “Palestine Papers” :

‘1. The Negotiators as Traitors: what right did the Palestinian negotiators have to offer so much to Israel in return for so little? Nearly all of east Jerusalem? Joint control of the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount, the third holiest place in Islam? No right to defend their own territory with their own armed forces? No right of return for Palestinian refugees? That's not negotiating ... that's surrendering.

2. The Negotiators as Statesmen: Look how far they were prepared to go. Look at the painful concessions they were prepared to make. How can the Israelis claim they have no "partner" to negotiate with when these papers show the exact opposite to be the case? How can anyone argue now that it's the Palestinians who are being unreasonable?

3. The Negotiations as Charade: Doesn't this just prove what a waste of time this whole so-called "peace process" is? Who do these negotiators represent, other than themselves? If their Fatah party were to be tested in elections, they'd be wiped out - and they know it. Besides, they don't even control the Gaza Strip, so nothing they supposedly "offer" will matter a damn. In any case, they still don't get it. Israel will give up not an inch of Jerusalem, and will never agree to anything that might threaten its existence.’

Well, there’s a fourth option that evidently didn’t penetrate the “mindset” that seems intent on exerting mind control – the option so well articulated by another Robin, the admirable Mr Shepherd, whose stalwart defence of Israel cost him his job at Chatham House:

‘Game over. No way back. An entire edifice of anti-Israeli demonisation definitively consigned to the scrap heap, never to be recycled again. This is the uncompromising message that comes out of yesterday’s revelations on Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. To the horror of a European political intelligentsia which has been steadfast to the point of fanatical in its opposition to Israeli “settlements” in east Jerusalem, the Palestinian leadership itself, we now know, has long accepted that the vast majority of Israeli settlements can be considered legitimate and would become part of Israel under any reasonable peace agreement.

This is utterly devastating since it simultaneously shows that everyone from the British Foreign Office and the BBC to the European Commission and the continent’s passionately anti-Israeli NGO community have been adopting a position which was significantly more uncompromising on “settlements” than the Palestinian leadership itself, and also that that same Palestinian leadership had accepted that the so called 1967 “borders” – the gold standard for practically every anti-Israeli polemic around – are irrelevant to the prospects of a lasting peace….

Privately and morally, senior Palestinians can see that there is nothing illegitimate or even especially problematic about most of the “settlements”, (as reasonable observers of the MidEast have been saying for years). This we know from the leaks themselves. But publicly and politically they cannot sell such concessions to their own people. This we know because they are currently trying to distance themselves from the leaks, and because they educate their own people in an implacable rejectionism which extends to the “moderate” Palestinian authority glorifying suicide bombers and other terrorists by naming streets and squares after them.

Logically and reasonably, the Israeli response is to see such “concessions” for what they are: well intentioned in so far as they go, but impossible to implement in practice. Quite apart from the question of Hamas-run Gaza, the Palestinians have been playing the same old game of saying one thing to one audience and something else to another. They are not a credible partner for peace, and the Israelis do not look remotely “churlish” for understanding this.

It will be interesting to see how this whole affair now plays out. But never again can the anti-Israel community play the settlement card and at the same time retain a single ounce of credibility.'

Robin Shepherd blasts the Guardian in this whole Palileaks affair as being “more hardline against Israel than the Palestinian leadership itself” and reminds us that the Palestinian Authority’s leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has denied the Holocaust. “The only conceivable way out of this for the anti-Israel community,” Shepherd goes on,

“ is to turn this all upside down and argue – as analysts, reporters (anyone they can get their hands on) have been doing on the BBC all day –  that what this really shows is the extent of Israeli “intransigence”: the Palestinians offer all these concessions, and still the Israelis say no! This was the line adopted by Paul Danahar, the BBC’s MidEast bureau chief, who quite casually averred that, “The Israelis look churlish for turning down major concessions”.’

http://www.robinshepherdonline.com/british-foreign-office-bbc-european-liberal-left-devastated-by-leaked-revelations-on-israeli-settlements-guardian-furious-at-%e2%80%9cweak%e2%80%9d-and-%e2%80%9ccraven%e2%80%9d-palestinian-leadersh/#more-3716

Pollard on Palileaks and Sacerdoti on Israel, the PA, and Current Middle East Developments

Full marks to Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard for his robust denunciation, in the 27 January issue of his paper, of the despicable way in which the Guardian spun the leaked memos by PA negotiators with Israel that comprise the so-called “Palestine Papers”.

‘The Guardian's behaviour this week, even by its own often disreputable standards over Israel, has been simply shocking,’ Mr Pollard writes, inter alia.

‘Not presented them so much as lobbed them, doused with petrol, into a tinderbox – and hoped for a result....

What is very wrong is the way the paper chose to present its story: the distortions, the bias, the agenda, the spin and the breathtaking arrogance of its handing down instructions to the Palestinians of how they should behave. Make no mistake: the Guardian's presentation was, as David Landau puts it, "intended to poison the Palestinians against their leaders". And to poison the world against Israel....The Guardian crossed a line this week. It has not practised journalism but rather hardcore political activism, playing with people's lives.’

See the entire editorial here: http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/guardians-shame

And here’s Jonathan Sacerdoti, executive director of the UK Zionist Federation, in a discussion with Guardian journalist Polly Toynbee, London-based Palestinian editor Abdel Bari Atwan, and others on BBC News 24's "Dateline London" programme today. 

(Hat tip: Jonathan Hoffman)

Mindset, He Wrote – a BBC newsreader confirms Al Beeb’s ideological love-in with The Guardian

We're all too familiar with the BBC's slanted anti-Israel reportage and commentary, courtesy of such incorrigible types as the unlamented Orla Guerin (now based outside the Middle East) and Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen and his acolytes.

Well, retired BBC newsreader Peter Sissons, who fell victim to the otherwise oh-so-politically-correct Al Beeb’s obsession with “yoof” and beauty and consequent compulsion to discard those on-air presenters (especially the female of the species) who refuse the hair tint and the Botox, has written his memoirs. Today’s Daily Mail gives a preview. (Hat tip: Brian of London)

In them, Mr Sissons – certainly one of the most respected and least prima donnarish of Al Beeb’s presenters – writes:

“For 20 years I was a front man at the BBC, anchoring news and current-affairs programmes, so I reckon nobody is better placed than me to answer the question that nags at many of its viewers — is the BBC biased?

In my view, ‘bias’ is too blunt a word to describe the subtleties of the pervading culture. The better word is a ‘mindset’. At the core of the BBC, in its very DNA, is a way of thinking that is firmly of the Left.

By far the most popular and widely read newspapers at the BBC are The Guardian and The Independent. Producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover. In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there’. [My emphasis]

....

I am in no doubt that the majority of BBC staff vote for political parties of the Left. But it’s impossible to do anything but guess at the numbers whose beliefs are on the Right or even Centre-Right. This is because the one thing guaranteed to damage your career prospects at the BBC is letting it be known that you are at odds with the prevailing and deep-rooted BBC attitude towards Life, the Universe, and Everything. [My emphasis]

At any given time there is a BBC line on everything of importance, a line usually adopted in the light of which way its senior echelons believe the political wind is blowing. This line is rarely spelled out explicitly, but percolates subtly throughout the organisation.

Whatever the United Nations is associated with is good – it is heresy to question any of its activities. The EU is also a good thing, but not quite as good as the UN. Soaking the rich is good, despite well-founded economic arguments that the more you tax, the less you get.  [My emphasis] And Government spending is a good thing, although most BBC people prefer to call it investment, in line with New Labour’s terminology.

All green and environmental groups are very good things. Al Gore is a saint. George Bush was a bad thing, and thick into the bargain. Obama was not just the Democratic Party’s candidate for the White House, he was the BBC’s. Blair was good, Brown bad, but the BBC has now lost interest in both.

Trade unions are mostly good things, especially when they are fighting BBC managers. Quangos are also mostly good, and the reports they produce are usually handled uncritically. The Royal Family is a bore. Islam must not be offended at any price, although Christians are fair game because they do nothing about it if they are offended. [My emphasis]

The increasing tendency for the BBC to interview its own reporters on air exacerbates this mindset. Instead of concentrating on interviewing the leading players in a story or spreading the net wide for a range of views, these days the BBC frequently chooses to use the time getting the thoughts of its own correspondents. It is a format intended to help clarify the facts, but which often invites the expression of opinion. When that happens, instead of hearing both sides of a story, the audience at home gets what is, in effect, the BBC’s view presented as fact.

And, inside the organisation, you challenge that collective view at your peril. In today’s BBC only those whose antennae are fully attuned to the corporation’s cultural mindset – or keep quiet about their true feelings – are going to make progress."

Read more:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1349506/Left-wing-bias-Its-written-BBCs-DNA-says-Peter-Sissons.html#ixzz1BnCrIdJB

Mr Sissons doesn’t mention Al Beeb’s hostility to Israel, but of course it's part and parcel of that mindset that he describes.

He doesn’t tell us what we hadn’t already worked out for ourselves. But it’s empowering to have confirmation from an insider.

And I guess we now know why even Al Beeb's Jewish journalists – at least some of whom are surely more sympathetic to Israel than their egregious employer is – don't challenge Al Beeb's  bias against Israel.  In that insecure environment, they have to look after Number One.

More fool Margaret Thatcher and the Tories, for not privatising Al Beeb when they had the chance.

The Left's Hypocrisy Over the Term "Blood Libel"

Sarah Palin's use of the term "blood libel" to describe the slanderous accusations of her enemies following the tragic shootings in Arizona didn't offend me.  Not one iota.  Not for one split second. I notice that in common with other enemies of what’s Right and right such as the Guardian and the Independent, Al Beeb has been milking the Sarah Palin-uses-the term-blood-libel story to undermine an attractive and engaging politician who also happens to be a friend of Israel. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12176503

How characteristically and predictably cynical and partisan of Al Beeb and those newspapers – anything to score points for their nakedly leftist, anti-Western agenda. On its website Al Beeb has cited the (equally predictable and partisan) indignation at Ms Palin’s comments of the press secretary and president of what they call “the progressive pro-Israel [sic] group J Street”.  That prince of pro-Israel bloggers, the esteemed Elder of Ziyon, made this excellent pictorial comment on J-Street's president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, a few days ago.

Wouldst that Al Beeb and the other anti-Palin stooges proved as enthusiastic in revealing Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’s favourable perception of Israel, but that’s undoubtedly too much to ask, because it sits uncomfortably with their own monstrous anti-Israel bias:

“My grandfather, Akiba Hornstein, was the son of a Lithuanian rabbi. My grandfather changed his name to Giff Giffords for reasons of anti-Semitism and moved to Southern Arizona from New York more than a half century ago. In the 1940s, he founded my family’s tire and automotive business, El Campo Tire, which grew into a successful and thriving business for 50 years, which I ran for several years before serving in the Arizona Legislature.

Growing up, my family’s Jewish roots and tradition played an important role in shaping my values. The women in my family served as strong role models for me as a girl. In my family, if you want to get something done, you take it to the women relatives! Like my grandmother, I am a lifetime member of Hadassah and now a member of Congregation Chaverim.

When I served in the State Senate in Arizona, I had the opportunity to visit Jerusalem . It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I had the opportunity to meet with the then-mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert, and I got to see firsthand the sacrifices that Israelis make in the name of security because of the dangerous state of affairs there.

I will always be a strong supporter of Israel . As the only functioning democracy in the Middle East, Israel is a vital strategic ally of the United States . I believe the United States must do everything possible to secure Israel ’s long-term security and achieve a lasting peace in the region....

Until the Palestinian leadership and other hostile regimes are willing to accept Israel ’s right to exist, it will be impossible to achieve peace....

As a woman and as a Jew, I will always work to insure that the United States stands with Israel to jointly ensure our mutual safety, security, and prosperity.' (Hat tip: Professor Barry Rubin)

Professor Barry Rubin refers in passing to the absurd furore over Ms Palin’s use of the term “blood libel”, in his new post, “Anti-Jewish Insanity in the Middle East Transcends All Previous Limits” (http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/01/anti-jewish-insanity-in-middle-east.html):

'After more than 30 years working professionally on Middle East history and politics, I can still be astonished by things that happen in the region. Yet, precisely as William Shakespeare wrote in his play about Cleopatra:

"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale/Her infinite variety:"

Well, not exactly "infinite variety." It's just more of the same, to an infinite extreme. Who would have thought, say 20 year ago, that the Arabic-speaking world's obsession with demonizing Jews might go even further than where it was at that time?

For one thing, in the 1990s, history seemed to be moving toward moderation; for another thing, who could believe it could become even more intense.

But just at the moment when for the first time in all of history Americans are told that (some) Jews object to the use of the term "blood libel" by someone falsely accused of murder, the same people are ignoring thousands of blood libels generated daily in the Middle East, many with fatal consequences.

And now this, as reported by MEMRI (http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/2740.htm.):

Wael Ramadhan: "The [Roman] war against Cleopatra was Jewish in essence, and history repeats itself. The Romans had no territorial aspirations in Egypt in those days, and this is ignored by history and by many historians. The Romans were at war with the Parthians and the remnants of the Persian Empire, but they had no intention of waging war against Egypt."

Ramadhan has just made a television series on the Romans and Cleopatra.

There is a humorous side to all of this, but hatred and demonization of Jews is also a mania poisoning the Arab world (not to mention Iran and some other Muslim-majority) and blocking progress in dealing with all of its problems.

This plague has reached epidemic proportions, it shapes policy, prevents peace, paralyzes research and education, and unhinges religion. While an absurd debate rages in America about whether a non-Jew is allowed to use the phrase "blood libel" (something that no Jew has ever hitherto objected to in world history), they are ignoring huge numbers of actual, serious, deadly blood libels.

A sea of blood libels.... And they will produce a sea of blood.”

Costume Dramas (Part One): Al Beeb and Al Grauniad discover some Old Time Religion

It’s not easy to perceive or to portray the well-integrated Jews of Britain as “The Other”. The expulsion of all the Jews in medieval England by King Edward I in 1290 meant that, in contrast to the European Continent, no compulsory gated ghettos with strictly imposed curfews developed in Britain. By the time Jews were formally readmitted in 1656 a Protestant Reformation had taken place which swept away the old “Papist” superstitions and doctrines that had proved so deleterious to Jews – the cult of Little St Hugh of Lincoln, for example, the child who was said to have been ritually murdered by Jews in 1255 and who was venerated as a martyr with a shrine at Lincoln Cathedral. No less than Cromwell, King Charles II, who came to the throne in 1660, valued Jews for their beneficial services to this country’s commerce, and permitted the little mercantile community, which at that time consisted entirely of Sephardim, to remain.

On the European Continent, Jews, very often  in distinctive garb, were widely perceived – and despised – as medieval people, relics of the Middle Ages and followers of an archaic religion. Owing to their long absence from this country, in Britain there were no compulsory ghettos, as there were on the Continent, and the “Jew badge” was a thing of the past. Jews were not obliged to dress differently from Christians, and there was little in outward appearance to distinguish them from Christians. There was no need for the kind of “Emancipation” which was played out (frequently in fits and starts) on the Continent during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and even early twentieth centuries. For Anglo-Jewry after 1656 “Emancipation” revolved centrally and almost exclusively around the struggle for the right of professing Jews to sit in Parliament, a campaign stepped up in the 1830s following the emancipation of Nonconformists and Roman Catholics, and finally proving victorious in 1858.

To be sure, there were exotically clad Jews in Georgian and Victorian Britain – new immigrants from North Africa and the occasional Chasid – but they were very much the exception. A spectacular example of swift integration is seen in the career of Abdullah Sassoon – pictured in the above photo with his father and brothers, Jews from Baghdad active in the India trade. Abdullah settled in Britain in connection with the family business; discarding eastern attire, he was quickly accepted into High Society, became a friend of the future King Edward VII, and in 1890 was made a baronet as Sir Albert (he’s shown here in this “Spy” cartoon, which appeared in the magazine Vanity Fair in 1879). Under the leadership of the Chief Rabbinate and the United Synagogue (an umbrella organisation founded in the 1870s) acculturation was expected and encouraged. The rival Federation of Synagogues, established in 1887 by Sir Samuel Montagu for the benefit of more religiously “right-wing” East European immigrants, fostered a demonstrably patriotic Englishness amongst the newcomers.  And in those days that encompassed outer appearance as well as inward feeling.  The visible presence of strictly observant Jews such as Chasidim was largely a post-Holocaust development. 

However, in contrast to their clear policy of downplaying the “Otherness” of Muslims, those terrible Israel-bashing leftist media twins, Al Beeb and Al Grauniad, may be flirting – I say "may be" though from what I've read and heard many supporters of Israel harbour no doubt – with a temptation, at least when it suits them, to present Jews as “The Other”. In July, to illustrate a report on the attitudes of British Jews towards Israel, the Guardian chose this rather curious photo of Chasidim in Jaffa, before replacing it with that of a similarly attired lone figure walking, back to camera, through a London market. Not the most appropriate illustration, one would have thought, to accompany a story about the attitudes of a community that is mostly only nominally Orthodox – half of which is female, into the bargain.  But at least he was British.

Over the High Holydays both the Guardian and the BBC (as if by telepathy) featured a series of photographs that were strikingly similar to each other (and indeed in some cases identical), of preparations forYom Kippur in Israel. The photos were hardly representative of Jewish belief and practice, and their inclusion suggests that there may have been (I'm putting it no stronger than that)  a questionable motive on the part of the terrible twins.

The purpose of these photographs may have been to depict Jews as “medieval people” following risible and bizarre customs, and in the case of the Guardian to provide a good laugh for the antisemites who infest its “Comment is Free” section. For instance, here’s (in Bet Shemesh) the Malkot ceremony, and (in Ashdod) the Kaporot ceremony.

That few Jews overall in or outside Israel participate in these rituals, which have virtually fallen into obsolescence, is perhaps immaterial to Al Beeb and Al Grauniad, so intent do both seem to be on showing anything that may prove detrimental to the image of Israel.  On the other hand, the photos can be justified on the grounds of legitimate interest-value.  So – innocent or guilty? Much as I dislike the BBC and the Guardian, I'm sitting on the fence on this one!

Stephen Fry in a Stir – The strange double standards of the Israel- and Pope-bashing "intelligentsia"

Stephen Fry, the actor, comedian, gay icon, and public intellectual, is often termed (though not by me) a British "national treasure".  He has also been termed –  and this description is spot-on! –  an "occasional Jew".  For although halachically Jewish, Mr Fry was not raised within Judaism, and according to his memoir (if my memory of a quick fumble with said volume in a branch of Ottakar's bookstore serves me correctly) he once contemplated entering the Anglican priesthood. 

However, Mr Fry is a signed up member of the Israel-bashing fringe group Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JfJfP).  He's hardly the sole person of halachic Jewishness but of a faith other than Judaism to belong.  The group strikes me as a rag, tag and bobtail assemblage of the well-intentioned, the ill-intentioned, and the politically naive. Some (admittedly by no means all) of its members –  like Mr Fry himself –  have tenuous links to Judaism, and some are "non-Jewish Jews" in Deutscher's sense. On its website it mocks Abe Foxman of the ADL for taking umbrage at a recent article by Karl Vick in Time magazine which bears this offensive statement:

'In the week that three Presidents, a King and their own Prime Minister gather at the White House to begin a fresh round of talks on peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the truth is, Israelis are no longer preoccupied with the matter. They're otherwise engaged; they're making money; they're enjoying the rays of late summer. A watching world may still define their country by the blood feud with the Arabs whose families used to live on this land and whether that conflict can be negotiated away, but Israelis say they have moved on.'

(Incidentally, the BBC, in a feature about Tel Aviv  –  "Is Tel Aviv the New Miami?", featuring sunbathers and opening with the line "The ladies of Tel Aviv are on the hunt for gold" –  seems to have been inspired by Vick's statement.)

But to return to Mr Fry.  In 2008, when Israel, against all the odds, achieved its 60th anniversary, he joined with many another "as-a-Jew" in signing a malevolent letter that appeared in the Israel-demonising and increasingly antisemitic Guardian.  It stated, inter alia:

'As Edward Said emphasised, what the Holocaust is to the Jews, the Naqba is to the Palestinians....We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land. We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state that even now engages in ethnic cleansing, that violates international law, that is inflicting a monstrous collective punishment on the civilian population of Gaza and that continues to deny to Palestinians their human rights and national aspirations.'

This week, Mr Fry and a bunch of "usual suspects" signed a mean-spirited letter to the ever-obliging Guardian vehemently opposing the state visit of the Pope on the following grounds:

 'Opposing the distribution of condoms and so increasing large families in poor countries and the spread of Aids. Promoting segregated education. Denying abortion to even the most vulnerable women. Opposing equal rights for lesbians, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Failing to address the many cases of abuse of children within its own organisation. The state of which the pope is head has also resisted signing many major human rights treaties and has formed its own treaties ("concordats") with many states which negatively affect the human rights of citizens of those states. In any case, we reject the masquerading of the Holy See as a state and the pope as a head of state as merely a convenient fiction to amplify the international influence of the Vatican.'

Ah! Hang on a moment! Don't the Pope-bashers' strictures regarding the promotion of large families, insistence on segregated education, regarding women as baby machines, and the oppression of gays apply equally if not more so to sections of the Islamic world, fundamentalist members of which wish to drive every other religion and social system, including secular democracy, off the face of the earth?

 Mr Fry, the leftwing "intelligentsia", the Guardian, and the JfJfP group (which is about to send a Break-the-Gaza-Siege boat to Hamastan; according to unconfirmed reports it will set sail on erev Yom Kippur!)  should be condemning the following chilling statement that a top Hamas official has just made (hat tip: http://www.gloria-center.org/gloria/2010/9/millions-of-virgins-millions-of-martyrs), stating that
every Muslim should have a lot of sons and train them to be terrorists and hence martyrs, and  concluding :

"If this is the culture of the nation today, who will be able to stop it?...As long as we continue on this path, nobody on Earth will be able to confront the resistance, or to confront the mujahideen, those who worship Allah and seek martyrdom."

This is the same official who said, a few years ago:

 "'You will be victorious on the face of this planet. You are the masters of the world on the face of this planet. Yes, [the Koran says that] 'you will be victorious,' but only 'if you are believers.' Allah willing, 'you will be victorious,' while America and Israel will be annihilated, Allah willing. I guarantee you that the power of belief and faith is greater than the power of America and Israel. They are cowards, as is said in the Book of Allah: 'You shall find them the people most eager to protect their lives.' They are cowards, who are eager for life, while we are eager for death for the sake of Allah. That is why America's nose was rubbed in the mud in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Somalia, and everywhere.... America will be annihilated, while Islam will remain. The Muslims 'will be victorious, if you are believers.' Oh Muslims, I guarantee you that the power of Allah is greater than America, by whom many are blinded today. Some people are blinded by the power of America. We say to them that with the might of Allah, with the might of His Messenger, and with the power of Allah, we are stronger than America and Israel.'"

But such are the double standards of the Guardianistas and their ilk that no condemnation is likely to be forthcoming.

The Man Who Begat a Multitude - of anti-Israel BBC presenters

The anti-Israel bias of the BBC - Al Beeb as it's consequently often dubbed - needs no introduction from me. It has been systematically documented - in a series of reports by the lawyer Trevor Asserson, who  runs the website BBC Watch, by Honest Reporting, by Tom Gross, and by the Biased BBC blog, for example.  It has also, presumably, been proven in a report the BBC commissioned from employee Malcolm Balen -  why else would the licence-funded "national broadcaster" suppress Balen's findings and furiously fight attempts via legal channels to force it to release his report?  No doubt Al Beeb hoped Balen would exonerate it from charges of bias against Israel, and didn't like what he had to say.

Al Beeb's Barbara Plett, who shed on-air tears for Arafat upon his impending death; Alan Johnston, the Gaza correspondent kidnapped by "militants" in 2007 and awarded an Amnesty International prize, immediately following his release, for his pro-Palestinian radio reports; the repugnant Orla Guerin; the seemingly incorrigible Jeremy Bowen (pictured, near Johnston's photo on a placard, during a show of solidarity by BBC staff with their kidnapped colleague) - these have been or are among the worst offenders. Their partisan reportage (together with such prejudiced online items as Bowen's "diary", which he posted on the BBC News website during Operation Cast Lead)  is truly despicable in an organisation which is obliged, by its Charter and its Producers' Guidelines, to be strictly neutral.  Yet BBC employees have been judges on journalistic awards given out by Amnesty International (a controversial organisation these days, and certainly one not particularly enamoured of Israel).  Even if the BBC employees concerned have the best of motives, in my view this involvement is not in keeping with impartiality.

Usually, Al Beeb disdainfully dismisses complaints by members of the public regarding its bias. It doesn't always bother to respond, even if a response has been specifically requested. So long as there is no independent body to arbitrate complaints, it will continue to behave in this unacceptable manner, for - shockingly - it handles all complaints itself.  Last April, however, the BBC Trust rebuked Bowen for aspects of his coverage.  But when accepting a journalism award in London in June he declared: "The BBC Trust accused me, wrongly in my view, of some inaccuracies in my reporting.  They did that because of a rather nasty campaign group in the United States and some highly politically-motivated individuals in this country who were in fact the enemies of impartiality, but they got their thoughts through."  In other words, folks, "The Lobby". And he's proved since that it's business as usual - did you catch his insinuating reference to "rich Jews" the other day in a broadcast, by the way?  (hat tip: Biased BBC).

We're all pretty familiar with BBC bias.  But when did the BBC let slip the scrupulous objectivity demanded of it, and which once made it a respected organisation trusted round the world?  Being an historically minded gal I decided to try to find out. And I believe I may have discovered the individual who began the BBC's downward spiral into biased reporting, at least as far as news about Israel and the Middle East is concerned. 

Step forward the shade of Keith Kyle (1925-2007), a Liberal-turned-Labourite who later joined the SDP, and stood unsuccessfully for Parliament several times.  Kyle seems to have been the first BBC broadcaster to flout the neutrality incumbent upon the BBC when, during the tension leading up to the Six Day War, he opined that "fundamentally in this dispute the Arabs are completely in the right.  There can be no question about this at all."  These words were also printed in the 1 June 1967 issue of The Listener, a BBC publication.

Shortly after Israel's stunning victory, the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU) was set up in London in order to coordinate Arab and pro-Arab opinion in the UK.  Its leading parliamentary supporters were Tory MP and Suez rebel Anthony Nutting (in 1956, when Nutting was Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anthony Eden had mentioned "the anti-Jewish spleen of you people in the Foreign Office") and Labour MP Christopher Mayhew, both inveterate foes of Israel.  Funded by Arab governments, CAABU could afford a secretariat, and its director was Michael Adams, who had worked for the BBC early in his career but had later joined the Guardian.  It was owing to his articles in that paper that a columnist in the Jewish Chronicle (30 June 1967) observed: "It is with a sinking feeling and eventually turning stomach that one examines the Guardian each morning." (That writer would certainly vomit daily if he read the Guardian nowadays!)

     One of CAABU's first actions had been to send Adams, while he was still employed by the Guardian, on a funded trip to the Middle East, from whence he sent a series of articles biased against Israel.  The Guardian had printed them without explaining that they had been subsidised by Arab money.  There was also a despatch from Cairo which talked of the "forcible expulsion across the burning desert of Palestinian Arabs to Gaza".  In fact, those deportees were members of the Palestine Liberation Army and a threat to Israel's security, as the Guardian grudgingly acknowledged the next day.  Adams also used the offensive term "final solution" to describe Israeli policy.

It was shortly after this that Adams became CAABU's director. The Guardian continued to offend.  In August it carried an advertisement from an Arab source that made "untrue and repulsive allegations about Israel's treatment of Arab civilians in the occupied territories" and in a report alleged the "collective shooting of civilians" by Israeli troops in the occupied territories as well as the discovery of "mass graves".  Yet overall it seems that with Adams's departure, and that of  leader writer Frank Edmead, the Guardian's coverage of Israel became more evenhanded - until it descended again into the travesty of truth and fair play that is its hallmark today.

The BBC's Keith Kyle was not slow to identify openly with CAABU.  He was a keynote speaker at one of its first major rallies.  The Jewish Chronicle (29 November 1968) noted "the intense anti-Jewish feeling generated in the CAABU audience - and among some of the speakers - by the very existence of the Jewish State, referred to as the Zionist State" as well as the way pro-Israel Jewish questioners were mocked and shouted down.

One of the worst features of Kyle's pro-Arab stance (apart from its infringement of the BBC Charter, of course) concerned the hijacking of an El Al aircraft at Zurich in February 1969.  Through his Arab contacts he had learned of the plan, but had not disclosed the information "to avoid Israeli retaliation against it".

In the same year he presented a series of programmes on the Middle East highly slanted against Israel and replete with gratuitous comments of his own.  Aghast, a  Jewish Chronicle columnist (9 May 1969) observed: "The casual viewer will doubtless have been fooled into believing that the Israeli occupation of Arab territories is barbaric and ruthless."

And that summer, on the BBC's Panorama, Michael Adams spewed out vitriol about "nation-wide and even world-wide Jewish pressure" - in other words, a certain lobby. 

In one of his platform appearances Adams - foreshadowing the avoidance by Al Beeb and the Guardian of the T-word - rhetorically enquired why the British press referred to "Arab terrorists": 'I can't remember calling members of the resistance in Nazi-occupied France "terrorists"', he continued.  (In 1999 his son, the BBC's Middle East correspondent Paul Adams, used the prescribed Al Beeb term "Islamic militants" of suicide bombers.  It was Paul Adams, when diplomatic correspondent, who in 2007 appeared to admit to BBC bias when he described Alan Johnston's job as "to bring us day after day reports of the Palestinian predicament in the Gaza Strip".)

As for Kyle, he became prominently associated with the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA; Chatham House) and wrote tendentious books on Suez and on Israel.  In 1983, when membership secretary of the RIIA, he invited as speaker Dr Israel Shahak, chairman of the so-called (and miniscule) Israel League for Human and Civil Rights, who had authored a book containing this odious assertion: "In the Jewish State, only the Jews are considered human.  Non-Jews have the status of beasts."

Perhaps we should not be too surprised that Kyle's obituary in the Guardian (27 February 2007) declared that Kyle "would have made a wise foreign secretary".