BBC buckles

The link here is to a submission by a Jonathan Turner to the BBC Charter Review. It wouldn't ordinarily be a big deal but the Jewish Chronicle is extremely pleased that this guy has just won the right to get a response to any complaint he makes about the Beeb's Israel coverage. Fine with me. Out of several complaints to the Beeb I have only ever received one reply from Richard Sambrook. The worrying things about this victory are that it was won by the complainant writing to Michael Grade threatening judicial review and that the JC is so pleased. Now, did the Beeb buckle because judicial review was threatened or was it because Michael Grade was involved? Also, why is the JC so chuffed? They seem not to consider the possibility that the complaints might be rejected. To be continued....

Jews for rough justice for Palestinians

aka the Board of Deputies of Deputies of British Jews
Yes it's Neville Nagler again dragging the good name of the Jewish people through the blood of the Palestinian people. Why does the Guardian give him space? Why do them let him sign off as representing the Board of Deputies of British Jews ? Especially when only yesterday they had a letter from Irene Bruegel of Jews for Justice for Palestinians condemning the so-called Jewish National Fund as colonial settlers. Is there not a Trade Descriptions Act for "representive" groups? And if there was what would the Board of Deputies be forced to describe itself as?

Afghanistan: the final frontier?

"Aid workers who remained in Afghanistan throughout the years of Soviet occupation, tribal anarchy and Taliban rule are preparing to flee the country because US military tactics have made it too dangerous to operate there." No comment required.

JNF an NGO?

Just as the UN gave the Zionist movement the green light for an ethnic cleansing campaign back in 1947 so it seem to be blessing the efforts of Israel's main beneficiary of the ethnic cleansing the so-called Jewish National Fund.

The Jewish National Fund, which has just achieved UN recognition as an NGO, can't possibly be involved in the illegal expansion of settlements (Report, July 27).[what report?) - it is a charity whose aim is 'to relieve poverty in the territory of the state of Israel'!
Irene Bruegel
Jews for Justice for Palestinians

She's got me there:

Samson's suicide
Sir: Both Jonathan Smilansky and Mark Elf (letters, 27 July, etc) are wrong. The first recorded suicide 'bombing' in the Middle East was Samson's destruction of the Temple.
MARGARET HENRY
Nuneaton,
Warwickshire

Independent letter

That Simon Kellner* geezer must be some kind of self-hater**.

"Sir: Jonathan Smilansky is wrong to say that Yasser Arafat introduced suicide bombing to the Middle East. The first such bombing that I know of in the Middle East was by Hizbollah against American troops, killing 241, in 1983. Hamas, not under Arafat's control, carried out the first Palestinian suicide bombing in 1994 after an American Zionist, Dr Baruch Goldstein, carried out a suicidal attack on a mosque in Hebron killing 29 Palestinians.
MARK ELF
Dagenham, Essex"

* The Independent's editor and the only Jewish editor of a mainstream UK newspaper.

** Self-hater - What Zionists call a Jew who criticises Israel

Leon Rosselson, live and direct!

from The Guardian. letters page exposing the Israeli embassy's Shuli Davidovich as a liar.

Joe Cahill

Arguably the last of the legendary Irish Republican leaders

Remarkable, there's even a hint of reverence in the Daily Telegraph. Well maybe not.

Worst tragedy of the war

Dick Cheney wept openly as the news came in on the weekend that Halliburton has posted a $663 m loss.

Jews against Zionism

The State of Israel was supposed to grant security to Jews; it has created a death-trap whose inhabitants live in constant danger, the likes of which is not experienced by any other Jewish community;

The State of Israel was supposed to tear down the walls of the ghetto; it is now constructing the biggest ghetto in the entire history of the Jews;

The State of Israel was supposed to be a democracy; it has set up a colonial structure, combining unmistakable elements of apartheid with the arbitrariness of brutal military occupation.

So comment!

Good lord! Now Will Hutton does a Hutton

In a ludicrous puff piece for good old. Zionism, you know, the ethnic cleansing, segregationist one of yesteryear, as distinct from the..er...ethnic cleansing, segregationist one of this year and next, Will Hutton tells us about the lofty egalitarian ideals of the kibbutz movement. Here's a sample:

"The kibbutz movement was a living example of how to build a new society based on genuine equality of opportunity and mutuality of respect in collective democratic communes that actually worked." Actually the kibbutzim were usually founded on land bought from absentee landlords for Jewish settlement only. As they developed they came to rely on Arab labour but it was a rare kibbutz that allowed any Arabs to joins as equals.

It gets worse:
"That was then.Today, Israel's kibbutz movement is in crisis as a succession of right-wing governments has redirected subsidies to support settling the West Bank, where settler numbers are now double those working on kibbutzim. [this ignores the fact that kibbutzim were established in the occupied territories almost as soon as Israel had conquered them so in 1967 as in 1947/8, the kibbutzniks were the shock troops of the Zionist conquest of Palestine.]

The movement is paying the price for clinging to outdated nostrums, like belief in caring, equality and collective action, building Israel within its pre-1967 borders while recognising a Palestinian state and valuing the endless possibility of human development." [the Labour Zionists never recognised the idea of a Palestinian state until quite recently and when you consider how they define Palestinian "statehood" it appears they still haven't come to terms with it. And if it is paying a price it is for its outrageous hypocrisy]

Early in the article Hutton refers to his young "friends who had spent their gap year working on them eulogising about the experience". Did they really not notice the way Arabs were treated? How did they think whole tracts of "Israel" became Arabrein?

What is the JC up to?

I thought BlahBlahFlowers' owner Loz's comment from below deserved more prominence:
"In what crazy world does an article by two people who, by their own biographies, might be considered to have an interest in Israel be called independent?"

And my response:
"I don't know if the JC sees itself as briefing the Zionist movement as to a "party line" or if it sees itself as deceiving its readership. Probably a bit of both."

Now I know the JC's editor Ned Temko is an avid visitor here so perhaps he could tell us. Is he lying with. his readers or to. them? Also he might want to explain why no url was given for www.bbcwatch.com. My suspicion is that had people have been able to click or otherwise go straight to the BBC watch site they would have known immediately that it was a Zionist site and therefore not independent at all. So what does that make Ned Temko? A deliberate liar? Well yes actually....unless he can refute it. Still at least it means he sees himself as pulling the wool over the eyes of his readers. If he wanted them to share in this latest "big lie" he would have posted a url.

The BBC's war against Israel

by an independent* source.

This seems to have come hot on the heels of the report by Greg Philo and Mike Berry - Bad news from Israel - saying that the BBC has a clear bias in favour of Israel. The Jewish Chronicle response led to it having to publish two letters two weeks running by Greg Philo. The Jewish Chronicle is far more satisfied with this "report".

* That is independent according to the Jewish Chronicle

The Guardian is pro-Israel: The Guardian

Just a day before The Guardian. Review section published an absurd article denouncing The Guardian's. anti-Israel bias, Seumas Milne, the Comment Editor of The Guardian, had a letter published in The Jewish Chronicle. pointing out just how pro -Israel The Guardian. has been.

See this:

Colin Schindler is surely wrong to claim that "rejectionists" of Israel are "disproportionately promoted" on the Guardian's comment pages or that we have had a "plethora of rejectionist articles".

All staff columnists and a large majority of outside contributors who write on the Israel-Palestine conflict support a two-state solution. The only article I recall explicitly rejecting Israel's right to exist was by British Muslim writer Faisal Bodi three-and-a-half years ago (before my time as comment editor). We've had occasional pieces that might be regarded by some as rejectionist: for example an anti-Zionist article by British Palestinian Ghada Karmi and a handful by longtime Palestinian two-state supporters who question whether two states are still viable, wondering instead whether to campaign for equal rights in a single state.

But the weight of comment in the Guardian could not by any stretch of the imagination be regarded as rejectionist. In fact some critics have argued that the case for a single-state solution is under-represented on our pages given the number of, say, British Muslims who support it.

The Guardian's comment pages try to provide the broadest spectrum of opinion in any English-language newspaper with its centre of gravity on the centre-left.

Some JC readers might be surprised to know that in the past year we have, by my tally, had 13 pieces by Israeli writers and six by Palestinians on the comment pages.

Among the Israelis have been the settlers' leader, Israel Harel; Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom; Foreign Ministry legal adviser Arthur Lenk; former Sharon government adviser Jonathan Spyer; and Emanuele Ottolenghi - as well as Meron Benvenisti; Uri Dromi; Avraham Burg; Avi Shlaim; Sharon Sadeh; Roman Bronfman; and Yossi Sarid.

Seumas Milne
COMMENT EDITOR,
THE GUARDIAN
FARRINGDON ROAD, LONDON EC1

The Guardian is anti-Israel: The Guardian

Bryan Cheyette (a Zionist professor from the University of Southampton) condemns The Guardian's. anti-Israel bias and suggests that reserving 78% of Palestine for the world's Jews and 22% for Palestine's Arabs represents "evenhandedness". He also says that: "Sensationalist headlines - "Israel simply has no right to exist" - help to sell papers". Now consider this. People go into the newsagent, pick up a newspaper, look all the way through it (since the "offending article" didn't appear on the front page), then, in the unlikely event of finding an article that calls Israel's "right" to exist into question, they buy the paper rather than put it back down. Has that ever happened? And why on earth does The Guardian. give space to such nonsense?

Privates on parade

Yitzhak Laor, in the London Review of Books, on an exhibition by Israeli soldiers who have served in the occupied territories.

Back down below

Sorted at last.  My comments are down, way down actually.  I'm averaging about nought a day now. 

Back on top

Ok my comments now appear above the posts to which they relate instead of below but everything else is back to normal.

 

Chez Juives?

This article by Uri Avnery puts Sharon's ridiculous speech to American Zionists into context.

Still no comment

My comments facility is still down.  I am working on restoring it.  In the meantime feel free to email me at levi9909@aol.com and if you ask me to I will post the email as a comment to the post to which it relates when I'm back up and running.

Thanks