beebwatch

Lebanon - rant at BBC

2009-02-12T11:18:00.000-08:00

(I'm told polite calm letters are best)

More racist spin from the BBC
Glasgow Media Group and BBC “independent enquiry”
findings ignored

To Helen Boaden - Director of BBC News

The BBC is presenting the Lebanese War as being “caused” by Hezbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers. I’ve heard many remarks to this effect, the last on World at One today. An Israeli government spokesman was interviewed about the devastating oil slick caused by Israeli attacks on fuel facilities. The Israeli spokesman stated it was the Hezbollah’s responsibility not Israel’s. The BBC reporter apologetically agreed.

I don’t pay my licence fee so the BBC, can act as sanitiser of the crimes against humanity that Israel systematically commits. The BBC’s role is to report on events not to create history to suit its own racist world view. (I do not say this lightly) The BBC is seriously failing its charter and humanity by constantly fogging the issues in the Middle East and presenting myth as fact.

ON WHAT GROUNDS DOES THE BBC BASE ITS CLAIM THAT HELLBOLLAH IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CALCULATED DESTRUCTION OF LEBANON AND SYSTEMATIC MURDER AND MAIMING OF LEBANESE CIVILIANS??

I do not believe that the BBC is attempting to present a fair coverage of the conflict. I attach a sheet with reference to key issues ignored by the BBC news reporters to the eternal shame of all who take their wages from the corporation.

KEY ISSUES

Pilger quotes a BBC program where Maureen Lipman says without serious challenge, that “human life is not cheap to the Israelis, and human life on the other side is quite cheap actually. .”

This is how Nazi’s thought about Jews, Slavs, Gipsies. It can only be this thinking that causes the BBC to propagandise for Israel and make no attempt to put the repeated conflicts in context or to present a balanced view. The people of this country deserve an impartial British Broadcasting Company not a mouth piece for Zionism.

News the BBC (Israel’s dept of spin in GB) did not communicate.

1) Since the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and the UN decision to place UNIFIL troops in the border area, there has been consistent violation by Israel of the Blue Line. IDF patrol tracks cross the withdrawal line persistently and the Lebanese government stated the deployment of UNIFIL and Lebanese troops could only happen once the Israeli violations ceased.

The most significant source of tension is the constant overflying of Lebanese air space by Israeli military aircraft. These flights occur on a daily bases penetrating deep into Lebanese airspace terrorising the civilian population by low flying and constantly breaking the sound barrier. The Secretary General and a number of interested governments have repeatedly requested Israel to respect the Blue Line. There have been clashes with Hezbollah and rockets have been fired into Israel on occasions.

2) IDF have constantly attacked Gaza killing and kidnapping Palestinians. A whole family was killed on the beach just weeks ago. Thousands of men, women and children are held in Israeli jails, many without charge or trial. These are largely kidnapped civilians from Gaza, West Bank and from Lebanon (during the 18 year Israeli occupation)

3) In reporting the war the issue of excessive force has been virtually ignored by the BBC. READ: Peter Bouckaert’s “For Israel, Innocent Civilians Are Fair Game” International Herald Tribune 3.8.06. READ: Robert Fisk, John Pilger or the hundreds of Lebanese blogs from the victims of these crimes. SEE: the pictures of phosphorus burnt children, of wives, fathers, children weeping for their loved ones. This was for two captured soldiers?

4) Olmert and Shin Bet vetoed an agreement to release the soldier captured by Hamas. This agreement by leading figures in Israel had the potential to curtail escalation i.e. the Lebanese invasion. Involved were Rabbis Meantime Froman and David Bigman plus Yitzhak Frankenthal, Palestinian cabinet minister Khaled Abu Arafa plus Hamas and PLO representatives. Reported by Omega Institute. Was this ever covered by the BBC?

5) This agreement was based on a prisoner exchange deal. Israel could have exchanged some of the incarcerated Arabs for their soldier held by Hamas as they could have dealt with Hezbollah’s request for a prisoner exchange. Was the failure to exchange prisoners “the cause” of the war ?

6) So prisoner exchanges were possibly in both stand-off’s but Israel and USA choose the military route. Seymour Hersh has reported that Pentagon staff pre-planned the targeting for the Israeli attacks “earlier this summer” and were intent on an invasion this year as preparation for an assault on Iran and Syria.

These are but 6 points in a long litany of Israeli aggression and crimes against humanity. According to Zionists, race is the issue. Israel is an apartheid state. Discrimination on the bases of race is written into their law but not GB law. So why is the BBC alined to Israeli law , not British or international law ?

Israel 2006 - What the BBC will not say

2009-01-12T06:45:00.000-08:00

"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population." David Ben-Gurion (1)

“for the sake of the land of Israel it is permissible to lie” Yitzac Shamir (2)

“ We enthusiastically chose to become a colonialist society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities....we established an apartheid regime” Michael Ben-Yair, Israeli Attorney General 1993 to 1996 (3)

From 8% of British Mandated Palestine (Jewish owned settlements) at the time of UN resolution 181 in 1947 to summer 2006 whereby Israel controls 100% and colonises over 80% of the land of the Palestinian people. Israel has lied, cheated, bullied, and murdered its way into being. This has taken place in absolute violation of UN wishes and Chapter 6 resolutions. All Chapter 7 resolutions (binding and enforceable) have been vetoed by the USA often with UK support, for almost sixty years. These crimes against humanity continue today.

The tools for the expansion of the Israeli state are terrorism and military force. Victims include those killed and horribly injured in the King David Hotel bombing, the assassination of Lord Moyne, British Resident Minister and Count Brenadotte, UN Mediator. There was extensive ethnic cleansing of hundreds of Palestine villages. Those that control Rabbinic Judaism wanted room to live - lebensraum for their planned new "nation" of peoples historically bound by religion and custom - not any ethnic or national heritage.

By May 1948 when British forces abandoned Palestinian, Israeli military forces had captured the major cities and forced some 300,000 Arabs from their land. Some sources quote 700,00 by 1949. Since then war without end and an ever expanding state of Israel notably in 1967 when Israel invaded Jordan to control the water of the River Jordan and Lake Tiberias plus the Golan Heights.

Oslo, broken promises. Israel did the reverse of the promised” land for peace” agreement by expanding settlements by 90% on the West Bank, building roads and infrastructure in gross violation of the accord and UN resolutions. Now the new “Security Barrier” is encircling “Greater Israel” with borders of 315 Kils with an Iron Wall of 670 Kils cutting off farmers and communities from their land, from their water from their markets, and laying the foundation for the next expansion of Israel in a few years when it will attempt to incorporate the West Bank into the Jewish state.

In 2006 Israel is again violently attacking its neighbours terrorising them, cutting of water, imposing curfews and making it impossible for Palestinians and Lebanese to sustain their lives. The Israeli airforce is constantly breaking the sound barrier with its US fighter planes - the sonic booms making it impossible for the Palestinians and now the Lebanese to sleep.

Since its occupation of the Palestinian homeland from 1947, Israel has been backed by Britain and the government of the USA plus powerful Jewish communities world wide. Examples:- The US provides around $4 billion annual military support. The GB provided key elements to manufacture plutonium in 1958 thus allowing Israel to become a nuclear power. Israel has used this immensely powerful gift from GB to created a vast stockpile of WMD. In the nineties Germany provided three Dolphin class submarines. These are now fitted with US supplied nuclear armed cruise missiles making Israel the most formidable of expansionist powers with vast range of destructive potential.

The development of Israel, as opposed to every other world state, is openly racist. The law of the land provides 2nd class citizenship for the minority of Israeli Arabs that remained. Palestinian, Lebanese etc., in the latest occupied territories, have the status of “untermenschen” as the Nazis classified slavs and Jews in 11 WW.

Now governments and news media point at Palestinians as the aggressors . John Pilger compares what’s happening now in Lebanon and Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto of 1941/2. Penned in with water and most means of human survival cut off, the Nazis bombed civilians indiscriminately. When Jews fought back the Nazis viciously punished the entire community. Was it wrong for the Jews not to go quietly into the dark night ? Now the Lebanese, and Palestinians are being collectively punished with the specific targeting of civilians. Have Arabs the right to fight for their lives or do they not count as fully human ?

Pilger quotes a BBC program where Maureen Lipman says without serious challenge, that “human life is not cheap to the Israelis, and human life on the other side is quite cheap actually. .” This sounds how Nazi’s thought about Jews, Slavs, Gipsies. Is this why the BBC makes no attempt to put the repeated conflicts in context and to present a balanced view ?

This is the BBC, Royal Charter and all. The Glasgow University Media Group recently produced an extensive study revealing serious bias in reporting in Israel’s favour. Last year the BBC held an “independent” enquiry which accepted some bias yet still the most respected broadcaster continues to act as propagandist for the Zionist cause.

1. May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978
2.Quoted in Ha’aretz. ref. Bad News from Israel page 84.
3. Ben Yair wrote this paragraph in Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. ref Bad news from Israel page 157

September 2001

2008-06-09T07:33:00.000-07:00

Uncovering the BBC's investigation of
the attack on the World Trade Centre
& the Pentagon

Greetings all inquiring minds.

The majority of what follows concerns the BBC’s breach of its Broadcasting Charter in their Feb. 2007 documentary “investigation” of events in New York and Washington in September 2001. [Link to Charter]

This critique is in a web file format with sections containing brief synopsis linked to greater detail as required. Main story BLACK BACKGROUND, supporting evidence, reference links and collateral stories WHITE BACKGROUND.

Firstly and most importantly this blog is NOT about what the BBC, Bush, Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and the corporate media call "conspiracy theories".

What follows draws attention to the way the slogan "conspiracy theory" has been spun through the media to provoke a Pavlov's Dog response to any inquiry about contradictions and omissions in the official explanations of events.

This very phrase lights up pathways in our brains that ring to the tune “paranoid stories by sad souls”. As if asking a question, how?, why?, who?, when?, where? constitutes evidence of psychological disturbance and flawed character, which is what the BBC explicitly labeled doubters and inquirers.

“if you tell a big enough lie and keep repeating it, people will believe it” Hitler (attributed)

This blog draws attention to several big lies; * like the BBC commentator telling you the computer scientist she is introducing and his project, are not funded by the government, when they were; ....[Link] ** presenting interviewees, supporting the official story, who are seriously compromised by conflict of interest; ....[Link] *** endorsing the Bush administration's excuse for the the absolute failures of the US "defence and intelligence systems" as SNAFU (situation normal all fu*ked up); ....[Link] **** the issue of Israeli and Jewish American involvement sidetracked by emotional blackmail and deliberate deception etc. etc. etc. ....[Link]

and the idea that:-

“Omission is the greatest form of lie” .............[LINK]
George Orwell

The BBC 911 Conspiracy Files programme left the most important, pivotal question out; How could the collapse of the twin tower have tested so many basic laws of physics without the involvement of sophisticated thermal cutting technology and demolition explosives ? [Link] If we are to believe the official explanation it is as though the Earth were flat not round, just for the day.

This blog draws attention to the gross imbalance of opinion with 14 interviewees, plus the BBC commentators, supporting the Bush administration's explanation throughout the hour long programme and 3 individuals, presented erroneously as representing 911 critics, alloted 7 minutes. [LINK]

Cautiously, this blog draws your attention to a web of connections between the BBC and the rapidly expanding Big Brother operations of US intelligence services monitoring; Facebook, MySpace, credit card transactions, e-mails, etc. etc. etc. [Link]

These networks are data mined to see " if the public mood is good or bad" ..... "whether they're ready for a revolution" (Army Sargent John Cupp USJFCOM Public Afairs). [Link]

or "mined" to assess how far the BBC
can go in manufacturing history -
instilling acquiescence to barbarous illegal
wars - with loss of civil rights -
all in the name of "fighting terrorism"

The BBC has run a four part Conspiracy Files series presented as a serious analysis of controversial events over the past decade: If you check the BBC web site you will find the programme page mocks any that question official versions of controversial events. “Incredibly" states the BBC "some believe the American Government allowed or actively helped the attacks” - then the tale of flawed paranoid souls [LINK]

Examining the BBC’s 911 story line and the analysis presented:

BBC trailer
"The Conspiracy Files travels across the United States to investigate, speaking to eye witnesses to separate fact from fiction"

Israel's Expansion

2006-09-01T11:14:00.000-07:00

Israel 2006 - What would Pastor Neimoler think ?

"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population." David Ben-Gurion (1)

“for the sake of the land of Israel it is permissible to lie” Yitzac Shamir (2)

“ We enthusiastically chose to become a colonialist society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities....we established an apartheid regime” Michael Ben-Yair, Israeli Attorney General 1993 to 1996 (3)

From 8% of British Mandated Palestine (Jewish owned settlements) at the time of UN resolution 181 in 1947 to summer 2006 whereby Israel controls 100% and colonises over 80% of the land of the Palestinian people. Israel has lied, cheated, bullied, and murdered its way into being. This has taken place in absolute violation of UN wishes and Chapter 6 resolutions. All Chapter 7 resolutions (binding and enforceable) have been vetoed by the USA often with UK support, for almost sixty years. These crimes against humanity continue today.

The tools for the expansion of the Israeli state are terrorism and military force. Victims include those killed and horribly injured in the King David Hotel bombing, the assassination of Lord Moyne, British Resident Minister and Count Brenadotte, UN Mediator. There was extensive ethnic cleansing of hundreds of Palestine villages. Those that control Rabbinic Judaism wanted room to live - lebensraum for their planned new "nation" of peoples historically bound by religion and custom - not any ethnic or national heritage.

By May 1948 when British forces abandoned Palestinian, Israeli military forces had captured the major cities and forced some 300,000 Arabs from their land. Some sources quote 700,00 by 1950. Since then war without end and an ever expanding state of Israel notably in 1967 when Israel invaded Jordan to control the water of the River Jordan and Lake Tiberias plus the Golan Heights.

Oslo, broken promises. Israel did the reverse of the promised” land for peace” agreement by expanding settlements by 90% on the West Bank, building roads and infrastructure in gross violation of the accord and UN resolutions. Now the new “Security Barrier” is encircling “Greater Israel” with borders of 315 Kils with an Iron Wall of 670 Kils cutting off farmers and communities from their land, from their water from their markets, and laying the foundation for the next expansion of Israel in a few years when it will attempt to incorporate the West Bank into the Jewish state.

In 2006 Israel is again violently attacking its neighbours terrorising them, cutting of water, imposing curfews and making it impossible for Palestinians and Lebanese to sustain their lives. The Israeli airforce is constantly breaking the sound barrier with its US fighter planes - the sonic booms making it impossible for the Palestinians and now the Lebanese to sleep.

Since its occupation of the Palestinian homeland from 1947, Israel has been backed by Britain and the government of the USA plus powerful Jewish communities world wide. Examples:- The US provides around $4 billion annual military support. The GB provided key elements to manufacture plutonium in 1958 thus allowing Israel to become a nuclear power. Israel has used this immensely powerful gift from GB to created a vast stockpile of WMD. In the nineties Germany provided three Dolphin class submarines. These are now fitted with US supplied nuclear armed cruise missiles making Israel the most formidable of expansionist powers with vast range of destructive potential.

The development of Israel, as opposed to every other world state, is openly racist. The law of the land provides 2nd class citizenship for the minority of Israeli Arabs that remained. Palestinian, Lebanese etc., in the latest occupied territories, have the status of “untermenschen” as the Nazis classified slavs and Jews in 11 WW.

Now governments and news media point at Palestinians as the aggressors . John Pilger compares what’s happening now in Lebanon and Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto of 1941/2. Penned in with water and most means of human survival cut off, the Nazis bombed civilians indiscriminately. When Jews fought back the Nazis viciously punished the entire community. Was it wrong for the Jews not to go quietly into the dark night ? Now the Lebanese, and Palestinians are being collectively punished with the specific targeting of civilians. Have Arabs the right to fight for their lives or do they not count as fully human ?

Pilger quotes a BBC program where Maureen Lipman says without serious challenge, that “human life is not cheap to the Israelis, and human life on the other side is quite cheap actually. .” This sounds how Nazi’s thought about Jews, Slavs, Gipsies. Is this why the BBC makes no attempt to put the repeated conflicts in context and to present a balanced view ?

This is the BBC, Royal Charter and all. The Glasgow University Media Group recently produced an extensive study revealing serious bias in reporting in Israel’s favour. Last year the BBC held an “independent” enquiry which accepted some bias yet still the most respected broadcaster continues to act as propagandist for the Zionist cause.

1. May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978
2.Quoted in Ha’aretz. ref. Bad News from Israel page 84.
3. Ben Yair wrote this paragraph in Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. ref Bad news from Israel page 157

Impartiality Review Schedule Announced

2005-11-09T05:34:00.000-08:00

Impartiality Review Schedule Announced
Deadline for submissions: 25th Nov.

SEE BBC WEB SITES
http://www.bbcgovernors.co.uk/

http://www.bbcgovernors.co.uk/docs/rev_israelipalestinian.html
Background and terms of reference. pdf file

Israeli-Palestinian Impartiality Review
BBC Governance Unit
Room 211, 35 Marylebone High Street
London, W1U 4AA

email to israelipalestinian.review@bbc.co.uk

In October the Governors published details of the review into impartiality in the BBC’s coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict. November 25th is the deadline for viewers to submit an opinion.

In brief: it must be noted that the review will focus on transmission within the time scale when broadcasters were forewarned that a review of “impartiality” was pending. It is a possibility, with the acute focus on coverage of the issue by outside observers, that the “partiality” towards Israel - as analysed by Glasgow Media Research in the book “Bad News From Israel” - could soften and be morphed into a more balanced coverage.

There is a fundamental flaw in any review, however independent, if those to be reviewed are prepared for any test. This point could be made in letters to the BBC. However, despite the review, BBC reporting continues to be skewed in favour of Israel.

For example in Aug. 05 on R4 @ 10 (pm) a piece about violence in the Gaza strip concerning Palestinian attacks on Israeli troops. The reporter referred to “disputed territory”, which of course it is. But would the BBC have referred to disputed territory when covering the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait or when Nazi armies were facing bloody resistance from Russians on the outskirts of Leningrad 1941? The R4 report was around the time of the Israeli army’s internationally condemned attacks on the Jegnin refugee camp. The reporter obviously had not heard of the review or perhaps had taken in too much BBC reporting himself.

The Gaza strip and West bank are occupied territory as defined by the UN. Israel has been the target of at least 65, Chapter 6, UN resolutions regarding invaded lands and crimes against humanity. The US has vetoed 28 resolutions against Israel.

The BBC is not Fox News but the subtle fog it disperses is far more damaging by creating a mirage of “balance”. An insidious, perception distorting, drip of half truths, together with an enormity of omission. The greatest casualty is our understanding of history which allows evil and injustice a free hand.

Letters to each and every one of the BBC Governors may be appropriate in addition to submission to the review panel. The names and a contact address are on the BBC Governors web site. A short hand written letter is considered by some, as better value than a long typed detailed analysis, although I can’t always limit myself as such.

John Yates 25th Oct. 2005

Fair Play at the BBC?

2005-09-06T10:17:00.000-07:00

SPINNING THE FOG CONTENT

Nothing, I feel, can change dramatically for the better unless the means of communication are wrested from vested interest. Fox News through to the BBC constantly pump what General Haig ( US Sec of State 1981/2) described as “a little fog content” that clouds and confuses issues at best and at worst, creates totally false historic perception. Spin, as they call it now, is much more sophisticated today.

Thus far there has been little success in the global struggle for adequate representation in broadcast or written media. Yes there is Chomsky, Michael Moore, John Pilger, Panorama, the Independent Newspaper and thousands of excellent revealing special investigation programmes on tv/radio and independent film productions. Statistically they involve a very small minority who have their minds tuned to question and understand the intricacies of this amazing yet threatened world. The majority of British people obtain their view of the world from the main BBC1 and ITV news broadcasts.

BBC

The BBC is uniquely respected and valued as an impartial and honest reporter of world events. This assumption is challenged by the Glasgow University Media Group report “Bad News From Israel”, an analysis of TV coverage of the conflict with the Palestinian people. The BBC Governors are now committed to an independent review of impartiality in coverage of the conflict. It is not clear how important the Glasgow study was to the Governors decision to hold a review but it is recognised as relevant by Richard Tait governor responsible for complaints.

THE REVIEW

Bringing one piece of a complex jigsaw into focus may offer effective means to communicate a wider view of an obscured reality. The BBC review offers a valuable opportunity to challenge the coverage of this key issue in the story of the dominance and exploitation of this region by outside forces. Bias and superficial coverage favouring Israel would be a major cause for the ignorance and confusion in the public mind over rights and wrongs regarding terrorism, occupied territory, WMD states, oil, Islam. Zionism etc.

ZIONISM

Zionist forces have been devastatingly influential with the new right in the USA with a coincidence of interest in engaging the US militarily in the region. Israel and Zionism could be the tail wagging the rapacious wild dog of Bush’s America.

DOUBLE STANDARDS

Double standards, heavily laced with hypocrisy, escape the attention of millions in the developed world. The dubious “values” of the western world are increasingly over powering both educated and uneducated minds connected to the Middle East. In Britain, even trying to understand, to question the reasons of bombers, was seen as unpatriotic and bad taste around the time of 7/7. Now PM Blair spins that history is irrelevant. I am not alone in thinking that the infidel effect - translated to the streets of New York, Madrid, London etc. as bombings - is related to history and perceived injustice.

BBC REVIEW
The mind boggles but I like to think of limited but achievable goals. Helping stimulate interest and participation in the BBC review is the target for my “fighting against” efforts. The review offers a valuable opportunity to challenge the coverage of this pivotal issue in the story of the exploration and control of the oil that is fuelling our rush to explore the limits of ecological tolerance on Planet Earth. I hope you will follow links on this site to participate yourself in influencing the BBC over it’s role. You can be sure that organised Zionists organisations and supporters of the Israeli view will be adding their weight to the investigation.

DISSIDENTS SYNONYMOUS

I hope something of this blog may have sparked interest in knowing more and perhaps participating in the murmuring of opposition to the fateful course of events unfolding militarily, economically and ecologically. If your dissent is in anyway synonymous with mine, I wish you luck in that.

John Yates
6th Sept 2005

As of 24th Aug 05, no details of the terms of reference for the review have been posted on the www.bbcgovernors.co.uk web site. If the Glasgow findings are upheld it must raise the question of how seriously media can distort a populations understanding of history - leading to acquiescence in face of zealous advocates for war. The media is a powerful tool. I hope you will join the move to see it controlled more widely