Again, The BBC Shows Its Bias & Its Bankruptcy

Donnison makes light of real concerns

What a wretched leftist propaganda machine the BBC is. 

Notice how it has reported the not unreasonable view of former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott that Islam needs a reform movement.

Mr Abbott writes, inter alia, in the Sydney Daily Telegraph and sister papers today:

'Round  the world, terrorists screaming out Allah-u-Akbar are killing decent people going about their daily lives....

Dealing with terrorism and the Islamist fanaticism that inspires it is the great challenge of our time.

Obviously there needs to be a very strong security response at home and abroad....

The security response is necessary but it’s not sufficient. There also needs to be a concerted “hearts and minds” campaign against the versions of Islam that make excuses for terrorists.

Although most Muslims utterly reject terrorism, some are all too ready to justify “death to the infidel”....

Demonising Islam generally or all Muslims could bring on the “clash of civilisations” that academic Samuel Huntington feared two decades back and make “Islam’s bloody borders” even more dangerous. But we can’t remain in denial about the massive problem within Islam.

Islam never had its own version of the Reformation and the Enlightenment or a consequent acceptance of pluralism and the separation of church and state.

Fortunately there are numerous Muslim leaders who think their faith needs to modernise from the kill-or-be-killed milieu of the Prophet Mohammed.

It’s also time Australians stopped being apologetic about the values that have made our country as free, fair and prosperous as any on Earth....

Islam needs to delegitimise the urge to “behead all those who insult the Prophet” but only Muslims can do this. That’s why everyone interested in a safer world should be reaching out to “live and let live” Muslims and encouraging them to reclaim their faith from the zealots.

In Australia that means talking to decent people who happen to be Muslim as well as to “official” Muslims inclined to see “Islamophobia” in any criticism....

It’s also time Australians stopped being apologetic about the values that have made our country as free, fair and prosperous as any on Earth.

Where hate preaching is not illegal it should at least be thoroughly answered point-by-point with a very robust defence of human rights and responsibilities.

It’s not culturally insensitive to demand loyalty to Australia and respect for Western civilisation. Cultures are not all equal. We should be ready to proclaim the clear superiority of our culture to one that justifies killing people in the name of God.'

Not offensive or over-the-top, is it?  At least, not to rational people.

But look at the BBC's report. That item is less a report on what Mr Abbott has said as what lefty and Muslim critics have declared in response to what he has said.  It's reminiscent of BBC reports on and from the Middle East, when the Israeli case ("Israel says") is put last, after the views of Palestinian Arab spokespeople and any UN official/leftwing activist who might happen to be on hand.

Then there are the snide, derogatory references to Mr Abbott's "letter" (in fact, it's an op-ed article) having appeared  "in News Corps tabloids" (that's the Murdoch stable, which also happens to carry the syndicated column of Australia's most-read columnist, the conservative Andrew Bolt, who is of course anathema to the Left, for lots of reasons including his pro-Israel stance.)

"Tabloids".  That's a way of saying that the newspapers in question are populist pieces of trash fit only to wrap fish 'n chips, not the highbrow newspapers (The Guardian, Ha'aretz, the Israel-bashing Fairfax press) that Al Beeb reporters and intellectuals of the left choose as their daily fare.  (Yes, I'm being sarcastic when I say "intellectuals"; after all, that term hardly describes the Bowens and the Donnisons and the Knells, does it?)

Note, too, the gratuitous reference to Mr Abbott having once been intended for the Roman Catholic priesthood.  The BBC, like its Aussie counterpart the ABC, which it resembles so much in pet causes and ideology, rarely wastes an opportunity to depict the Roman Catholic Church in a bad light (allegations of priests behaving badly are, as it were, a godsend to it).  I suspect that the gratuitous reference to Mr Abbott's religion is a snide way of implying that he's some kind of Christian fanatic and that when it comes to having a go at Islam, well, he would, wouldn't he? For of course religion is there to be poked fun at by the Left, unless that religion is, well, the one that needs reforming.

There's no byline given for the report, but presumably it's by the BBC's snide and snotty Jon Donnison, who when he can be bothered to tear himself away from tweeting schoolboyish semi-smut and other trivia, does occasionally report from the Land Down Under, though rarely with any degree of profundity.  He seems to have left his reporting hat in the West Bank or Gaza, when all is said and done, and coming to the Antipodes is all a bit of a (no pun intended) come down.  At least, that's how his characteristically superficial reports strike me.

How utterly loathsome, too, is Australia's embattled Opposition leader Bill Shorten in implying that Islam is above criticism.  Why, in its attitude to women alone it proves itself culturally inferior to and at odds with Western values.

Bill should look at this video, of a secular Iranian woman being disrespectfully treated at a talk she is giving at a constituent college of London University, to see just how contemptuous of women Western Islamists are.

Better still, he and his fellow Lefties (those decrying Abbott's article is Greens leader Richard Di Natale) should read Professor Phyllis Chesler's latest article here

How desperately Shorten, who's doing very badly in opinion polls, must need the "Muslim vote".

How utterly hypocritical the Greens are.

But Malcolm Turnbull's not much better.

Incidentally, concerning Australian politicians and Islam, readers may be interested in my latest Elder of Ziyon article (which illuminates the reference in the image above to the Mufti) here

David Singer: "Growing Islamoparanoia Needs To Be Contained – If Rampant Islamophobia Is Not Allowed To Run Riot"

Here is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.  It's entitled "Islam Must Degrade And Destroy Islamic State".


He writes:

The impassioned plea by the father of a Jordanian F16 fighter pilot captured by Islamic State has shot down attempts by American President Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to distance Islam from the Islamic State (ISIL). Speaking to the media, the father of Islamic State’s star captive, 1st Lt. Mu’ath al-Kaseasbeh, said:

“I direct a message to our generous brothers of the Islamic State in Syria: to host my son, the pilot Mu’ath, with generous hospitality. I ask God that their hearts are gathered together with love, and that he is returned to his family, wife and mother.

We are all Muslims.”

This desperate cry for mercy stands in stark contrast to what President Obama stressed at a media conference in August:

“Let’s be clear about ISIL. They have rampaged across cities and villages killing innocent, unarmed civilians in cowardly acts of violence. They abduct women and children and subject them to torture and rape and slavery. They have murdered Muslims, both Sunni and Shia, by the thousands. They target Christians and religious minorities, driving them from their homes, murdering them when they can, for no other reason than they practice a different religion.

They declared their ambition to commit genocide against an ancient people. So ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents.” 

  Cameron has been equally as strident:

'We should be clear: this is not the “War on Terror”, nor is it a war of religions. It is a struggle for decency, tolerance and moderation in our modern world. It is a battle against a poisonous ideology that is condemned by all faiths and by all faith leaders, whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim.'

Abbott was eager to support Obama and Cameron’s statements – telling a media conference during the Martin Place siege in Sydney last week:

'But the point I keep making is that the ISIL death cult has nothing to do with any religion, any real religion.'

These presidential and prime ministerial statements had followed a most explicit condemnation of Islamic State by Iyad Ameen Madani – the Secretary General for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation – the collective voice of the Muslim world – representing 57 countries over four continents comprising 1.4 billion Muslims – the second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations.

Must read: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4966/christians-churches-attacked

 As Vatican Radio reported on 25 July:

'In a statement, he [Madani] officially denounced the "forced deportation under the threat of execution” of Christians, calling it a "crime that cannot be tolerated.” The Secretary General also distanced Islam from the actions of the militant group known as ISIS, saying they "have nothing to do with Islam and its principles that call for justice, kindness, fairness, freedom of faith and coexistence.'

Yet the simple plea of one distraught Jordanian parent pleading for his son to be set free – stressing that “we are all Muslims” – will certainly sheet home the distinct unease being felt by non-Muslims living in Sydney – still reeling from the Lindt Chocolat Café siege and subsequent shoot out in Martin Place killing two innocent civilians and the self-styled Islamic cleric who perpetrated the siege.

Such unease subsequently found the head of the Australian Defence League and two other people being charged over a brawl near a mosque in Sydney's Islamic heartland – Lakemba.

The news that Sulayman Khalid, 20, was one of two men arrested on Christmas Eve as part of an ongoing counter-terrorism investigation into the alleged planning of a terrorist attack on Australian soil – has only increased such unease.

As the Daily Telegraph reported:

“Khalid, also known as Abu Bakr, appeared earlier this year on SBS’s Insight wearing a jacket emblazoned with the Islamic State flag and stormed off the set when questioned about his support for IS fighters.”

France has this week also seen three supposedly “lone wolf” incidents allegedly involving “deranged” Muslim perpetrators in:

1. Nantes – when a van was driven into a crowd killing one and wounding 9 other shoppers

2. Dijon – where a man shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest” in Arabic) injured 13 in a similar attack to that in Nantes

3. Tours – where an attacker – also yelling “Allahu Akbar” – was shot dead after stabbing three police officers

Meaningless OIC condemnatory statements designed to distance Islam from Islamic State are no longer sufficient.

Surely the time has come for the OIC to galvanise its member States into pledging unified Islamic military action to degrade and destroy Islamic State.

Such steps could include:

1. OIC resolving that all 57 member States join the American-led coalition of 62 States presently fighting Islamic State.

Presently only 13 of those Islamic States have joined the coalition. Major Islamic States – such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Algeria, Pakistan and Nigeria remain uncommitted.

2. Making a unified Islamic approach to the United Nations Security Council by sponsoring a resolution calling for the use of armed force by the United Nations against Islamic State under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter.

Four Islamic States – Malaysia, Nigeria, Chad and Jordan – are members of the UN Security Council and provide an effective bloc to pressure the Security Council – particularly those States exercising a veto - into taking such action.

Growing Islamoparanoia needs to be contained – if rampant Islamophobia is not allowed to run riot.

David Singer On The Folly Of "De-Islamizing" The Sydney Siege: "The Bogeyman in the Lindt Chocolat café won’t go away"

In his latest article, appropriately entitled "Islamic State – The Bogeyman Haunting The Lindt Chocolat Café" Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer justifiably points to the folly, which has affected even the Australian prime minister, of trying to divorce Islam from the Sydney siege.

Incidentally, although this video (hat tip: Vlad Tepes blog) is not part of David Singer's article, it is nevertheless instructive as to what some uninhibited people are saying, and what certain other people are saying back to them, at the normally dignified site of the floral tributes to the murdered victims of Man Haron Monis:  Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson.


Writes David Singer:


The joint press conference given by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on 16 December after the siege at the Lindt Chocolate café in Martin Place had finally ended - was particularly noteworthy for certain viewpoints expressed by Mr Abbott during that conference.

 The Prime Minister  – flanked by NSW Premier Mike Baird, Commissioner Colvin of the Federal Australian Police and Deputy Commissioner Burn of the New South Wales Police – made the following statement:

“It is pretty obvious that the perpetrator was a deeply disturbed individual, a long history of crime, a long history of mental instability and infatuation with extremism. It’s interesting that the ISIL death cult seems to attract people like that. I refuse to use the term Islamic State and I would strongly caution anyone, anywhere, from using that term, because that exults a movement which has nothing to do with any real religion and is a travesty of a true and just state. It is very wrong to identify the death cult that the individual concerned tried to associate himself with; it is very wrong to identify that death cult with any community or with any faith. The phrase that I like to refer to, uttered by my friend, Prime Minister Najib of Malaysia, of the ISIL death cult: it's against God, it's against religion, it's against humanity.”

The Prime Minister’s description of the perpetrator  – self-styled Islamic cleric Man Haron Monis – failed to mention his involvement - with his partner Amirah Droudis – in a long running legal battle defending charges arising from letters sent in 2007 to the families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

Their cases and appeals have so far progressed through eight separate court hearings and appeals in which Monis and Droudis were separately represented by two different legal teams.

Funded at enormous public expense by Australian taxpayers – the matter first reached the High Court in 2012 leaving the High Court’s six judges who heard their case split neatly down the middle 3-3.
At this High Court hearing three QC’s, Five Senior Counsel, and 10 Junior Counsel appeared for Monis and Droudis the Queen and the State of New South Wales – with the Commonwealth, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland intervening .

The latest hearing – a second Application for removal of all the proceedings to the High Court – was heard on 12 December 2014 by the High Court - comprising his Honour Chief Justice French and his Honour Justice Gageler – who refused the applications.

The matters are listed for mention in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal again on 12 February 2015.
The opinions of these legal teams regarding Monis’s alleged mental instability and ability to give instructions and comprehend what he was being told could prove most enlightening.
The Prime Minister’s comments exhorting people not to mention the term “Islamic State” fly in the face of the unpleasant reality that has developed since Islamic State and the restoration of the Caliphate were formally declared in June and has since reportedly attracted 80 recruits to its ranks from Australia.

Prime Minister Abbott’s attempt to downplay the threat to world peace and security constituted by the actions of Islamic State – as endorsed by the UN Security Council in Resolutions 2170 and 2178 – constitute a serious error of judgement. Mr Abbott’s ”death cult” views were first expressed in September this year. At pains to “de-islamize” the Martin Place siege – the Prime Minister stated at his joint press conference:

“We are a very united society. Yes, we have amongst us a few deranged individuals who may choose to try to wrap their psychoses in a political ideology. But the point I keep making is that the ISIL death cult has nothing to do with any religion, any real religion. It has nothing to do with any particular community. It is something to which sick individuals succumb and sick individuals exist in all communities and in all societies. This idea that ISIL is somehow spawned by any particular religion, frankly it's probably even less true than saying that Catholicism spawned the IRA. They're just completely separate things.”

Islam was clearly visible at the Lindt Chocolat café when Monis forced hostages to hold up a black flag that declared in Arabic script:

“There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”

“Islamic State” was also certainly at the forefront of his thinking.

In a video  – shot while the siege was ongoing and posted to Facebook  – Westpac executive and fitness business owner Marcia Mikhael relayed three requests by Monis including:

"One is for him to get an IS flag and he will release one hostage.”

New York Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counter Terrorism – John Miller – had no reticence in stating that the Martin Place siege had the hallmarks of Islamic State orders – telling the Daily Telegraph on December 16:

“You have to go back to September when ISIS put out the call through its official spokesman for people to attack in their own countries with what they have at hand.”

Viewing Islamic State as purely a death cult and not a well-armed and run State already occupying an area larger than England denies the reality of what this group poses.

The bogeyman in the Lindt Chocolat café won’t go away because Australia’s Prime Minister wants to put the term “Islamic State” out of sight and out of mind. 

David Singer: "Palestine – Negotiating Semantic Minefield Becomes Pressing Necessity"

Here is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

Two former [Labor] Australian Foreign Ministers – Bob Carr (2012-2013) and Gareth Evans (1988-1996) – have published an article this past week engaging in a semantic tug of war with Australia’s current [Liberal] Foreign Minister – Julie Bishop  – over Australia’s recently declared policy of refusing to describe East Jerusalem as “occupied territory”.

East Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria were conquered in 1948 by Transjordan and illegally annexed in 1950  – when Transjordan then changed its name to “Jordan” and the 3000 years old geographic designation of “Judea and Samaria” to the “West Bank”.

East Jerusalem and the West Bank were lost by Jordan to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

In 1980, the Israeli Knesset passed a Basic Law declaring reunified Jerusalem the eternal capital of Israel, while providing for freedom of access to each religion's holy sites – a decision not sanctioned by the United Nations.

“Occupied territory” carries the clear connotation that such territory indisputably belongs to someone else. Yet East Jerusalem and the West Bank have not been under any internationally recognised sovereignty or control since Great Britain handed back its administration of the Mandate for Palestine to the United Nations in 1948. Israel refers to the West Bank as “disputed territory”: 

“The West Bank and Gaza Strip are disputed territories whose status can only be determined through negotiations. Occupied territories are territories captured in war from an established and recognized sovereign. As the West Bank and Gaza Strip were not under the legitimate and recognized sovereignty of any state prior to the Six Day War, they should not be considered occupied territories.

The people of Israel have ancient ties to the territories, as well as a continuous centuries-old presence there. These areas were the cradle of Jewish civilization. Israel has rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, rights that the Palestinians deliberately disregard.”

Australia’s Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, agrees: 

“It is important, as far as you can, not to use loaded terms, not to use pejorative terms, not to use terms which suggest that matters have been prejudged and that is a freighted term.

The truth is they’re disputed territories.”

Carr and Evans conveniently overlook mentioning or rebutting Israel’s position – indicating a level of intellectual dishonesty which is disappointing coming from persons with such distinguished backgrounds.

Instead, Carr and Evans ring the alarm bells – attempting to incite a state of international hysteria when claiming:

“If East Jerusalem is not to be referred to as “occupied”, why not Nablus or Bethlehem? If the Australian government can say “occupied East Jerusalem” is fraught with “pejorative implications” what is to stop Ms Bishop applying this to the occupied West Bank as a whole? It is a short step away for the Coalition government to declare that all the West Bank, with its population of more than 2 million Arabs, is no more than a “disputed" territory.'

Are they really unaware that 40 per cent of the West Bank – including Nablus and Bethlehem - contains 96 per cent of the West Bank Arab population – and has been under the total administrative control of the Palestine Liberation Organisation since 1995?

Have they forgotten that Israel offered to cede its claims to sovereignty in more than 90 per cent of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority in 2000/2001 and 2008 – and that both offers were rejected.

Carr and Evans aren’t averse in misleading their readership when they assert:

“The International Court of Justice in 2004 declared not only that the West Bank was occupied but that this was illegal.”

It is unseemly that they forget to mention that this decision was an Advisory Opinion only and has no binding legal effect.

What is completely inexcusable is that Carr and Evans relied only on this International Court of Justice decision – whilst apparently failing to consider the following established international law with specific application to the West Bank – namely:

1. The Mandate for Palestine 1922 – especially article 6 – and article 80 of the United Nations Charter; and

2. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338

These provisions provide the legal basis for Israel using the term “disputed territory” and Australia rejecting the pejorative term “occupied territory” used in countless UN Resolutions – misleadingly suggesting an Arab entitlement to 100 per cent exclusive sovereignty.

The Arab-Jewish conflict has been an ongoing battle of words as much as a series of real live battles fought by the Jews against its Palestinian Arab neighbours, the armies of six Arab States and a myriad number of terrorist groups over the last 130 years.

Notable semantic battles that have influenced the political debate include:

1. Do the words “in Palestine” as used in the Mandate for Palestine mean “all of Palestine”?

2. Do the words “Withdraw from territories” used in Security Council Resolution 242 mean “all the territories”?

3. Are there “1967 borders” or only “1967 armistice lines”?

4. Did the words “Reconstitute the Jewish National Home” as used in the Mandate for Palestine preclude the creation of a Jewish State?

5. Does “Palestine” include what is today called “Jordan”?

Whilst one side talks “occupied territory” and the other “disputed territory”,  negotiations will continue to go nowhere. A pathway through this semantic minefield needs to be found which leads to the parties using commonly agreed and understood language.

If not, this minefield could blow up with disastrous consequences for everyone – not just the disputants.

Another Syria or Iraq is the last thing the world needs now.

Israel: Australia's Abbott Sets The Tone

Aussie Foreign Minister Julie Bishop

The Sydney Morning Herald (like its Fairfax stablemate, the Melbourne Age, not a newspaper highly supportive of Israel) reports inter alia:

'The Abbott government has swung its support further behind Israel at the expense of Palestine, giving tacit approval to controversial activities including the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

Acting on instructions from Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop, government representatives at the United Nations have withdrawn Australia's support for an order to stop ''all Israeli settlement activities in all of the occupied territories''....

Former foreign affairs minister Bob Carr described Australia's withdrawal of support for Palestine as ''a shame, in the deepest sense''...'

When Aussie Liberal Leader Tony Abbott Endured Abuse From A Rabid Antisemite (video)

It seems safe to say the foul Australian antisemite and apparent 9/11 truther (see his written and other garbage on YouTube including his similar abuse of Philip Koperberg) screaming anti-Jewish canards in Sydney some time ago won't be voting Liberal in the imminent federal election.

What a nut!

Good on yer, Mr Abbott, for keeping so cool.