BBC bias
On Christmas Day I drove to the Hebrew University Hadassah campus in Jerusalem where I work part-time. While driving I listen to the BBC Foreign Service in English. I was struck by the fact that during that time, taken at random, incredibly I heard four programs about the Palestinians!
The first program was not surprisingly about Bethlehem, about the poor Palestinians there suffering from economic deprivation because the tourists aren't coming. But, one enterprising restauranteur has come up with a novel way of advertising, he has written ads on the Israeli security Wall that divides Bethlehem from Jerusalem, and has also written his menu on the Wall across from his restaurant. So in this way he has reduced the terrible Wall put up by the Israelis to a practical use. Of course, there was no word about terrorism (or is it "militancy"), nothing about the intifada that caused the dip in tourism to Bethlehem since 2000, and nothing about the Israeli lives saved by the "Wall" keeping the terrorists (sorry "militants") out of Jewish Jerusalem.
Then there was a program about Israeli and Palestinian youths brought together for a "peace" experience in Belgium. They interviewed the participants from Jerusalem and Hebron, and the response was pretty uniform, both the Arabs and Israelis said that the others were really nice people and they could live together, as long as they avoided certain topics. But, when they returned home after the meeting, things went pretty much back to what they were before on the ground, and e-mail communications between them degenerated into politcal name calling. This program was more balanced in that neither side was blamed for the circumstances (it's the Governments' fault).
One program amounted to pure pro-Palestinian propaganda, in which four Palestinians from different places and different economic levels were interviewed about being "exiles" (are there no other exiles in the world?) There were two Jordanians, one young man from a "refugee" camp in Jordan and another a former Minister in a Jordanian Government. The former said that he was glad that the camp was being improved and built-up, while the latter, while admitting that he could hardly complain about being Palestinian as he was a Jordanian citizen (as are all Palestinians in Jordan), and was economically successful, nevertheless he missed the original run-down camp where the refugees really remembered that they were Palestinians. One of the others was a successsful woman artist in the Gulf States, who was ideologically committed to recovering Palestine, and the fourth was an old lady who still kept the key to her house in Jaffa, and was upset that she was not receiving rent from the man who had rented it from her before 1948, but then she couldn't remember where the key was. Of course, there was no mention of the war in 1948 that the Arabs initiated, nor of the many wars since then. My overall impression was that these people are living a "second life," like a fantasy or cyber life, that has nothing to do with reality.
Finally, there was a discussion program with three writers, one South African half-black, one Scottish and one Palestinian. Of course, they asked the Palestinian about the best Arabic books published in 2008, and he told about a book that uses horses as a metaphor for the conflict with Israel. I wondered why they chose a Palestinian, whose native language is not English, out of all the world of authors.
Any one of these programs might be considered reasonable, and even two might be considered understandable, but four (!) programs including Palestinians within a 3 or so hour period (one and a half hours each way) is clearly excessive and beyond coincidence. During this period there were no programs about Jews, Israelis, Russians, French, Peruvians, Americans, Indians, etc. etc...What is this British liberal obsession with the Palestinians, they aren't important in terms of actual contributions to the world, they are still mainly unsuccessful refugees after 60 years (maybe that's unique), they aren't even pleasant, but very militant and in fact very violent (although this was never mentioned). I don't know how much this is costing someone, but clearly the programming of the BCC has been hijacked by pro-Palestinian elements. Don't believe anything you hear on the BBC, it's been co-opted!
The first program was not surprisingly about Bethlehem, about the poor Palestinians there suffering from economic deprivation because the tourists aren't coming. But, one enterprising restauranteur has come up with a novel way of advertising, he has written ads on the Israeli security Wall that divides Bethlehem from Jerusalem, and has also written his menu on the Wall across from his restaurant. So in this way he has reduced the terrible Wall put up by the Israelis to a practical use. Of course, there was no word about terrorism (or is it "militancy"), nothing about the intifada that caused the dip in tourism to Bethlehem since 2000, and nothing about the Israeli lives saved by the "Wall" keeping the terrorists (sorry "militants") out of Jewish Jerusalem.
Then there was a program about Israeli and Palestinian youths brought together for a "peace" experience in Belgium. They interviewed the participants from Jerusalem and Hebron, and the response was pretty uniform, both the Arabs and Israelis said that the others were really nice people and they could live together, as long as they avoided certain topics. But, when they returned home after the meeting, things went pretty much back to what they were before on the ground, and e-mail communications between them degenerated into politcal name calling. This program was more balanced in that neither side was blamed for the circumstances (it's the Governments' fault).
One program amounted to pure pro-Palestinian propaganda, in which four Palestinians from different places and different economic levels were interviewed about being "exiles" (are there no other exiles in the world?) There were two Jordanians, one young man from a "refugee" camp in Jordan and another a former Minister in a Jordanian Government. The former said that he was glad that the camp was being improved and built-up, while the latter, while admitting that he could hardly complain about being Palestinian as he was a Jordanian citizen (as are all Palestinians in Jordan), and was economically successful, nevertheless he missed the original run-down camp where the refugees really remembered that they were Palestinians. One of the others was a successsful woman artist in the Gulf States, who was ideologically committed to recovering Palestine, and the fourth was an old lady who still kept the key to her house in Jaffa, and was upset that she was not receiving rent from the man who had rented it from her before 1948, but then she couldn't remember where the key was. Of course, there was no mention of the war in 1948 that the Arabs initiated, nor of the many wars since then. My overall impression was that these people are living a "second life," like a fantasy or cyber life, that has nothing to do with reality.
Finally, there was a discussion program with three writers, one South African half-black, one Scottish and one Palestinian. Of course, they asked the Palestinian about the best Arabic books published in 2008, and he told about a book that uses horses as a metaphor for the conflict with Israel. I wondered why they chose a Palestinian, whose native language is not English, out of all the world of authors.
Any one of these programs might be considered reasonable, and even two might be considered understandable, but four (!) programs including Palestinians within a 3 or so hour period (one and a half hours each way) is clearly excessive and beyond coincidence. During this period there were no programs about Jews, Israelis, Russians, French, Peruvians, Americans, Indians, etc. etc...What is this British liberal obsession with the Palestinians, they aren't important in terms of actual contributions to the world, they are still mainly unsuccessful refugees after 60 years (maybe that's unique), they aren't even pleasant, but very militant and in fact very violent (although this was never mentioned). I don't know how much this is costing someone, but clearly the programming of the BCC has been hijacked by pro-Palestinian elements. Don't believe anything you hear on the BBC, it's been co-opted!
posted by Jack Cohen at 10:05 PM
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