"We Use Live Rounds When ... Necessary to Protect Our People"

Jon Snow grills Israel's Ambassador to the Court of St James Mark Regev:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cuv7dnMf2Tg

Colonel Richard Kemp, meanwhile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZeixviJbeo

British Broadcasting's Mr Pompous Diagnoses "Humankind's Most Grievous Cancer"

Channel 4 newsreader Jon Snow (for more on the 2013 event shown in the video see here), he of the  repellently pompous manner and the noisome habit of addressing the ever-courteous Mark Regev as if the latter is a prisoner in the dock of a criminal court, has been pontificating about the current situation in Gaza, to which he paid a visit.  (See here and here)

Among the inevitable and numerous Israel-demonising comments his Snowblog here has garnered, such as

Israel is officially indefensible, regardless of the history of the Jewish people.

The suggestion that the abused often become the abusers has never been more obvious than it is right now.

there are very occasional voices of reason:

Dear Readers,

 Have any of you taken a tour of Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, and Egypt lately? Because the anarchy in those Countries is what you advocate that we accept in Israel. Could Jon have taken his comfortable BA flight out of Syria, Iraq, Sudan, or Libya? No, because ISRAEL is the ONLY Country in this locale, that is NOT in total Chaos.

 Hamas has sworn to annihilate Israel. Instead of helping the people of Gaza, for 9 years they have amassed rockets to shoot at Israel, diverting all available funds for that purpose. You hold Hamas out as a viable partner in peace? No, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Syria, and ISIS have all vowed to wipe Israel off the map. Living is a better option than peace after annihilation.

and

‘Two peoples living in an area far smaller than England, one of which besieges the other, both of which target each other’s civilians.’

Ah! Who besieges whom, Jon, in this one-way street (of your making)? Jon Snow over a barrel (head buried in a sand tunnel?). A most mysteriously evasive and uneven-handed statement, but one thing’s for sure: it wouldn’t cut it with the author of C4′s beloved Masters of War, who also wrote Neighborhood Bully:
Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man
 His enemies say he’s on their land
 They got him outnumbered about a million to one
 He got no place to escape to, no place to run
 He’s the neighborhood bully

 A Tweet (Pat Condell) says you are virtually Hamas’s new spokesman. But you gotta love Yigal Palmor’s Tweet about you, which whips your game-of-drones (and hectoring-and- lecturing) butt 7-1: ‘You don’t know anything Jon Snow’

 Except how to panda to Hamas propaganda, media manipulation, international emotional blackmail and (your own) bad spelling, bad logic and poor grasp of the nature of Islamist extremism.

Most of the people raving about your wonderful journalism have Arabic names, but a good journalist actually LISTENS and is able to do two-way conversation. But you are a one-way tunnel. Palmor had very clearly already admitted the school hit could have been Israeli ‘response fire’ when you sanctimoniously accused him of having left that out of the possibilities. Now did anyone with an Arabic name point that out to you? Ironically, Al Jazeera had already suggested the hit could have been from Hamas. Perhaps Al Jazeera is more biased than C4?

and

'I find you also have to see the conflict in a far bigger, historically and politically, picture – in the picture of the beginning under the British mandate, the following first years of the lonely Israeli state who tried to defend its existence and the growing radicalism of islamic groups in various countries and their leaders who all have their own interests to have this soup simmering endlessly.

 To avoid inner conflicts like democratization of their own societies, to avoid moving in the end and instead fueling on and on antijudaism.'

In the blog Snow pontificates that the Israel-Palestinian conflict

“is humankind’s most grievous cancer, for its cells infect conflicts in every corner of the world".

This fallacious claim reminds me of some rather good points author and US State Department adviser Jared Cohen made during Operation Cast Lead:

'At times, I have remarked to friends that the further one goes from the epicenter of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the angrier people seem to be about it....Why are Bangladeshi and Pakistani immigrants living in the UK angrier about the Arab-Israeli conflict than events in their home countries or the integration and inclusion challenges that more directly affect them? ....

How does one account for the double standards, inconsistencies, and lack of similar activism around local issues that are illustrated by these questions? There is no single answer, but perhaps certain trends and contexts that help explain the phenomenon. The media is an obvious starting point. Al-Jazeera, Al-Manar, and other Arab media outlets are flooding the airwaves throughout Muslim communities with images from Gaza and the West Bank. The media plays on identity presenting these images to touch the hearts and minds of Muslims and non-Muslims throughout the world. ...

The barrage of images in the media, particularly during a period of fighting, ensures that the Arab-Israeli conflict is at the forefront of people's minds. There is no shortage of entities that seek to exploit this. Governments like Syria and Iran face serious economic, political, and social challenges at home. Fearing that any of these vulnerabilities could catalyze rebellion, insurrection, or protest, these regimes employ corrupt, autocratic, and repressive tactics to deprive their populations of rights and opportunities to mount any serious challenge, including a viciously controlled media. It is not surprising that these regimes view the Arab-Israeli conflict as an opportune issue that can divert attention away from their domestic shortcomings. The repressive leadership of these countries actively distract from their domestic deficiencies by pushing their population to focus anger, frustration and rage externally....

Where States do not stoke the organically felt sentiments in Muslim communities, non-state entities play the role of flame-thrower, agitator, and mobilizer on what they view as a winning issue. In places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Indonesia, groups like Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Jamaa Islamiyya use the global outcry in ungoverned spaces, urban slums, and impoverished rural areas to piggy-back on the emotion and recruit new members. They care not for the Palestinian people, nor do they advocate a peaceful solution; their sole interest is in seizing an opportunity for exploitative recruitment.

An amplified global outcry has led to a misperception that all the world's problems will be solved if the Arab-Israeli conflict is resolved. While this would be a tremendous achievement that would allow the world to move forward beyond a conflict that has perpetuated for decades, it is not the silver bullet solution. A Palestinian state will not create jobs in North Africa, it will not reduce poverty in South Asia, and it will not help Muslims in Europe integrate. By making the Arab-Israeli conflict a lynchpin for all the world's problems, we only fuel an inclination to use Israel and Palestine as the scapegoat for unrelated and local challenges across the developing world.'

 Malmo:

Montreal:

Regarding the possible impact on Al Beeb of protests see here 

Click here for Israel's ambassor to the USA, Ron Dermer, reminding CNN of its responsibility to report on Hamas's seminal role in the agony of Gaza.

Snow Business Like Shmo Business – Jon Snow treads the boards with Gideon Levy

If, like me, you’re owned by a cat or dog, chances are that you associate Frontline with a veterinary product which with super-efficiency zaps fleas and tapeworms. However, for metropolitan champagne socialists, whether scribes or non-scribes, Frontline is just as likely to signify the Frontline Club, motto: “Championing Independent Journalism”. The club seems particularly fond of inviting as speakers journalists known for their harsh criticism of Israel – inevitably, therefore, Jeremy Bowen of the BBC and Jon Snow of Channel 4 have both featured on its guest list. (Al Beeb’s College of Journalism website has links to both resultant videos – funny about that, eh?)  And not only journalists – Frontline also hosted, on one inglorious occasion, that professorial trio of Jewish Israel-loathers Jacqueline Rose, Shlomo Sand, and Avi Shlaim.

It’s been said of Bowen that he comes across as a thwarted thespian, but I reckon that it’s Snow who’s the actor manqué. Yes, he really ought to be in show business, did histrionic Jon. Authoritative voice raised in pompous indignation, arms flailing to emphasise a point, the well-connected university drop-out (actually, he was rusticated when his leftist political activism went too far ) who admits to getting his start as a television reporter owing to nepotism, has almost become a pastiche of himself. A few years ago, around Remembrance Day, with the dismissive phrase “poppy fascism”, he announced his refusal to conform to etiquette (some might say "decency") and wear a British Legion poppy in honour of Britain’s fallen service personnel – the people who gave their lives so that democracy and free speech might endure. His hammiest performances have included shouting in self-righteous anger at Israeli media spokesman Mark Regev regarding Cast Lead and the Mavi Marmara affair, performances that reinforced Snow’s cult status in anti-Israel circles and made him the darling of those hateful types who post nasty judeophobic messages on YouTube whenever a video of Regev appears there.

Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist writing for Ha’aretz, where he has a column called “Twilight Zone”, is of a decidedly thespian disposition too. He’s an assured and accomplished speaker with a flair for the dramatic and an instinct for working an audience that many a budding actor at RADA would envy. A “hate-mongering post-Zionist” is the veteran international Jewish leader Isi Leibler's assessment of him (Jerusalem Post, 8 December 2008).  Levy demonises his own country, saying how ashamed he is to be Israeli, how brutal and indifferent to human suffering his countrymen are, and how he appreciates the boycott movement – all the usual obscenities and maybe a little bit more. Here’s how Leibler described him more recently: http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=2359

'For those who are unaware, Levy is regarded as one of the most extreme and outspoken of the Israeli anti-Zionist journalists, notorious for demonizing Israel and supporting the most anti-Israeli groups. He repeatedly brackets Israeli behavior with that of the Nazis, accuses Israel of practicing apartheid and committing war crimes, and defines himself as anti-Zionist. He accuses Meretz, Peace Now and others on the far left in Israel of lacking the courage to open "the 1948 file."'

Levy came Britain to appear at the Edinburgh International Book Festival and to promote his tome The Punishment of Gaza, an anthology of his Ha’aretz screeds, and he’s had plenty of opportunities to do so outside the Scottish capital, and to carry on the task of spreading hate against Israel, having (to quote Snow) “played to packed houses at last minute events in both Manchester and London”.

This evening both Snow (as interviewer) and Levy (as speaker) are appearing before the Frontline Club, reprising the roles that they filled last evening when they appeared, at the premises of Amnesty International UK's Human Rights Action Centre and under the auspices of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Jews for Justice for Palestinians (a motley collection of idealistic naive Jews, hard left Jews, as-a-Jews, and conveniently-for-the-purpose-of-bashing-Israel-halachic-but-not-raised-as-Jews/practising-a-religion-other-than-Judaism-Jews [delete as appropriate]). Seeing the 350 persons present (who judging from their questions proved in the main to be every bit as hostile to Israel as the speaker himself ), Levy wryly remarked "No-one would show up if I spoke in Tel Aviv", and then launched into his usual charm offensive and demonisation of Israel and its (Jewish) inhabitants.

Snow made it easy for him, gushing “How brave you are!” and being – in the words of a pro-Israeli present, one of the few people in the audience to pose a tough question – “cloyingly obsequious” and an "unctuous sycophant".

And in his Snowblog posted this morning, headed “An increasingly lone Israeli voice”, Snow continues his adulation of Levy, appearing to have swallowed his canards hook, line, and sinker. Just as well, then, that better informed voices, such as those of Jonathan Hoffman and Yisrael Medad, have been commenting over on that blog to set the record straight.
http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/an-increasingly-lone-israeli-voice/13494#comment-21856