Thursday, December 29, 2005

Sky News and its new found anti-Israel bias


After watching Sky News this morning to try to find out about today's suicide attack in Israel I felt compelled to write the following self-explanatory letter. There has clearly been a recent change for the worse in editorial attitude at Sky, because they used to be reasonably fair and honest in their reporting. Today's report would have embarrassed even Al-Jazeera.

Sky News Editorial
British Sky Broadcasting
Grant Way
Middlesex TW7 5QD
Dear Sir/Madam,
Misleading anti-Israel reporting on today’s news

The lead story on Sky News today reported on the kidnapping of the Britons in Gaza by Palestinian gunmen. The reporter listed a number of possible reasons for the kidnapping, one of which was “Israel’s declaration of a security zone inside Northern Gaza which Israel was now shelling despite having supposedly withdrawn from there in October”. This report was misleading and sloppy on two accounts:
  1. Not even the most fanatical anti-Israeli Palestinian would argue that these kidnappings were in any way connected to Israel. These, and similar kidnappings which have taken place since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, are the work of local Fatah gangs for political and financial extortion from the ruling Palestinian Authority.
  2. Israel’s declaration of a security zone was reluctantly imposed only after weeks of unprovoked missile shelling by Palestinians from the area into Israeli towns.
This sloppy anti-Israel reporting is closely related to Sky News’ reluctance to report on the brutal and sustained terrorism being suffered by Israelis at the hands of Palestinian terrorists. If Sky had, for example, been reporting on the daily rocket attacks on Israeli towns, there might at least have been some context for the story about the security zone. But Sky has not been reporting these attacks. What is even more concerning is that Sky seems to have a policy now not to report even major suicide bombing attacks against Israelis, such as the one this morning, which killed at least three people. Any rational and honest news reporting agency would have reported that attack alongside the story from Gaza, but Sky News chose to ignore it completely. For a 24-hour news channel this seems strange to say the least, and can surely only be attributed to an anti-Israel agenda by your editorial staff.

update: Since the British media never show the faces or mention the names of Israelis killed by terrorists here is something you will not see in tomorrow's newspapers: below is Uri Binamo, 21, from Nesher who was killed in today's suicide bombing. His actions in stopping the bomber almost certainly saved dozens of lives.

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Response from LBC re Hizb ut Tahrir

I have received the following response to my letter (posted here 10 Dec 05)

***********************************************************************
Dear Mr Davidson

Thank you for your letter of 10/12/05 regarding Hizb ut Tahrir.

You made some interesting and valid points which I have noted. Obviously I do not accept LBC is a 'propaganda platform' for the organisation, but any point of view which we air should be challenged and balanced with a counter argument. I will remind my team about the importance of this.

Thank you for listening to LBC News 1152, it is a unique format which I am very proud to be a part of.

Yours sincerely,

Jonathan Richards
Eitorial Director
Chrysalis News - LBC, Heart & Galaxy.

Monday, December 12, 2005

Muslims are protesting

Isn't it incredible that, despite the terror reaped on civilians by their co-religionists, there has NEVER been any kind of public demonstration by Muslims in the UK to protest against terrorism. Yet on Saturday they were out en masse to protest against laws (already massively watered down because of their objections) intended to protect us from terrorists. And isn't it even more incredible that, in all the hours and pages of media exposure about this event not one commentator raised a question about the irony of this.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

LBC: a platform for the propaganda of Hizb ut Tahrir

Here is a self-explanatory letter I have just written to Jonathan Richards, Editorial Director, News LBC Radio Ltd

Dear Mr Richards,

I am an occasional listener of LBC News and have been shocked to hear two lengthy ‘interviews’ in the last month (13 November and today) with spokesmen from the Islamic terrorist supporting organisation Hizb ut Tahrir. I say ‘interviews’ in inverted commas because these were actually unchallenged publicity pieces by the organisation and the spokesmen were in both cases treated as if they were revered diplomats presenting well accepted viewpoints.

Maybe your editorial staff and presenters are simply unaware that Hizb ut Tahrir is banned throughout much of the rest of the world, that it disseminates racist material, is pledged to establish a Caliphate, in which non-Muslims would be politically disenfranchised, in which women would be constitutionally prevented from holding senior political office, and in which apostates and homosexuals would be executed. They are dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel and support suicide bombings against civilians not only in Israel but also in Iraq, Kashmir and Chechnya.

If LBC is going to continue to provide a platform for this organisation I would like to know why your reporters do not at least challenge the vile propaganda and lies presented and probe their views on issues such as those listed above?

What makes this kind of lengthy Jihadist propaganda even more unacceptable is that, for a supposed 24-hour news channel, LBC News spends scant time reporting on real news that could better inform people to be wary of the likes of Hizb ut Tahrir. For example, people would be less likely to accept their standard clichés about “the occupation of Palestine” if LBC actually reported about the brutal and sustained terrorism being suffered by Israelis at the hands of the Jihadists. Only this week, for example, LBC chose to either ignore completely or report in the most minimalist way a number of terrorists attacks inside Israel including the massacre carried out by a suicide bomber at a shopping mall in Netanya, relentless rocket attacks from Gaza into Southern Israel and fatal stabbings at checkpoints. When I have asked before why these events go unreported the answer is always that there is insufficient time to cover such stories. It is strange how you always find the time for Jihadist propaganda that is not news at all.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

The next time you hear a wishy washy liberal criticising Israeli checkpoints..

We now know that the suicide bomber in Netanya this week was identified as he approached the shopping mall as suspicious and was actually stopped by police. Although the police had the opportunity to kill him before he exploded they did not since they could not rule out 100% that he was deaf and in any case were prepared to take the risk of arresting rather than killing him. With hindsight this was negligent but it confirms the extreme lengths taken by Israelis to avoid any unnecessary deaths (and is only the latest in a long line of cases where individual Israelis lost their own lives by showing compassion to the bombers). This destroys the myth perpetuated in the UK media about the Israeli shoot first and ask questions later policy.

And the next time you hear a wishy washy liberal criticising Israeli checkpoints, think about the following that happened today (from the Jerusalem Post - another story you wont hear about anywhere in the UK media):

An Israeli soldier was stabbed to death Thursday by a Palestinian attacker at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Jerusalem, police said. The soldier was identified as Sgt. Nir Kahane, 20, of Kiryat Tivon. The Palestinian approached the checkpoint at around 3:45 p.m. and suddenly pulled out a knife, which was hidden in his clothes, and slit the soldier's throat. The al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the deadly attack. The checkpoint where the attack took place is the point of entry for thousands of West Bank Palestinians from the Ramallah area into Jerusalem on a daily basis.

The local IDF commander said that Israel would be forced to further increase security checks at the checkpoint, which has been the scene of previous attacks in the past, as a result of the latest attack.

"This incident hurts all our attempts to improve the quality of life of the Palestinians and we will have to decrease it in order to provide the greatest security to our forces," Col. Miki Edelstein told Israel Radio.


Wednesday, December 07, 2005

EU taxpayers funding families of Palestinian suicide bombers

Here is a letter I sent to the Sun newsdesk today:

On December 5, 2005 Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas approved financial aid to the families of every Palestinian suicide bomber and terrorist killed 'in action'. The order was signed on the very day a Palestinian Arab blew himself up at a shopping mall in central Israel, slaughtering five people and wounding more than 50. The bomber's family, along with those of every other deceased killer, will now receive at least $250 a month in direct government aid (which is significantly more than the average wage), according to the new law.

And guess where the bulk of the money the PA is dishing out comes from? The EU taxpayers as you can see from the EU's own website: www.eufunding.org/

Full details of this story can be found here:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20445

The Sun did not even mention the suicide bombing today. Perhaps you think its readers are not interested. Well I think they would be interested in the above story.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Unbelievable Islamic indoctrination of children

Check out this clip on Saudi TV (thanks to Harry's Place for finding this on the excellent MEMRI site - I understand that the clip is not new). What hope is there for the future when Muslims indoctrinate their children with such hatred?

The Western ignorance of Palestinian terrorism

Palestinians continue their murderous terrorist campaign (5 Israelis killed and dozens critically injured in yesterday's suicide bombing at a shopping mall in Netanya) and the Western media continues to ignore it. The latest terrorist attack was barely covered on any TV news channel and was completely missing in most of the newspapers. Yet the barrage of anti-Israel propaganda continues (see for example Honest Reporting's story about this) . How can intelligent, uninformed observers make a rational judgement about, for example, Israel's security fence, if they are not given the information about the context for it?

And the news at the moment is truly depressing. It turns out that at about exactly the same time as the terrorist attack yesterday the Palestinian PM Abbas announced that the families of suicide bombers would recieve a monthly income of $250 from the PA (see my letter to the Sun above. Meanwhile, despite Abbas's pathetic 'condemnation' of the terrorist attack (he says it is 'not in the interests of the Palestinian people' but note he never actually condemns it as immoral) the glorification of suicide bombers and indoctrination of children continues to be official PA policy (see HonestReporting update on this).

And just to complete the depressing news we are now finding out about what went on at the so-called 'Islam Global Unity Conference' on 4 Dec in London. Carol Gould reorts "It was shocking and terrifying. It had been advertised as a celebration of the MiddleEastern/Asian community in music and culture, but was a disgraceful Jihadists' rally. 25,000 angry young Muslims were whipped up to cries of 'Allahu Akhbar' by the likes of Yvonne Ridley, Imran Khan, various crazed Israel-loathing sheikhs and, of course, George Galloway."

Thursday, December 01, 2005

How Western Democracies are inviting their own destruction

Robert Spencer (of the excellent Jihad Watch website) has written a report of the speech by Oriana Fallaci in New York this week. As usual Fallaci provides a brilliant analysis of the Jihad threat and the way the Western democracies are succumbing to it. Fallaci, a veteren ant-fascist campaigner, has been vilified by both the right and left, and has also of course been subject to the usual death threats from muslims. Here is an extract from the report about the threat to Europe:

“I do not see Islamic terrorism as the main weapon of the war that the sons of Allah have unleashed upon us. It is the bloodiest, but not the most pernicious or catastrophic aspect of this war.” Far more dangerous to the West in the long run is unrestricted Muslim immigration, which already has brought at least 25 million Muslims to Europe (not counting, Fallaci said, the huge numbers of illegal aliens). That number will double by 2016 and, as Bernard Lewis and others have predicted, almost certainly create a Muslim Europe by 2100.

Yet all this immigration has not been accompanied by integration and assimilation – not because of European racism, but by the Muslims’ own choice. Fallaci noted that many other groups have assimilated into European societies, but Muslims have not. “They dont even care to learn our language. They only obey the rules and laws of Sharia.” They do not want to learn European ways; rather, “they want to impose on us their own habits and way of life. They have no intention of integrating with us. On the contrary, they demand that we integrate with them.” Today’s Islamic expansionism, therefore, does not need the armies and fleets with which the Ottoman Empire once terrorized Europe. It only needs the immigrants, whom short-sighted politicians and befuddled multiculturalists continue to welcome. Fallaci said that Europeans – French, Dutch, Germans, English, Italians – are about to reach the status of the Comanches, Cherokees, and Sioux: “We will end up on their reservation.” She noted that some Muslim spokesmen, confident of their imminent supremacy, already refer to non-Muslim Europeans as “indigenous people” or “aboriginals.”

What to do about all this? Establish dialogue with Muslim leaders? Try to strengthen moderate Islam? Fallaci was dismissive of both options. Muslims have no intention of entering into genuine dialogue with non-Muslims, she said, and “I do not believe in moderate Islam. What moderate Islam? Is it enough not to cut heads off? Moderate Islam is another invention of ours.” Adopting Western dress, she said, was easy; adopting Western values was not.

Then Fallaci threw down the gauntlet to the multicultural, politically correct, and fearful. “There is not,” she asserted, “good Islam or bad Islam. There is just Islam. And Islam is the Qur’an. And the Qur’an is the Mein Kampf of this movement. The Qur’an demands the annihilation or subjugation of the other, and wants to substitute totalitarianism for democracy. Read it over, that Mein Kampf. In whatever version, you will find that all the evil that the sons of Allah commit against themselves and against others is in it.” As jarring as such language is to contemporary sensibilities, Fallaci here made a statement of fact that can be verified or disproved. And indeed: Islamic terrorists such as Osama bin Laden, Zarqawi, and others have never hesitated to quote the Qur’an copiously to justify their actions. It remains for those who identify themselves as moderate Muslims to convince violent Muslims that they are misusing the Qur’an – if indeed they are – and should lay down their arms. They have had no notable success in this so far.


Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Dead Israelis don't count (letter to the Sun)

I sent the following self-explanatory letter to the Sun today:

  • Your story today about the acquittal of Parveen Sharif on charges of withholding information about her brother's imminent suicide bombing mission in Israel was interesting, but contained a glaring omission. There was no mention at all that 3 civilians were killed and 65 were injured in the suicide bombing at Mike's Bar in Tel Aviv. In fact, the impression from your report is that the suicide bombing never took place, since the report concludes with the words "Omar — who posed clutching an AK47 rifle with another British bomber — failed to detonate his device in 2003. He killed himself in shame." In fact this was a joint mission with fellow Brit Asif Hanif who did blow himself up. Moreover, contrary to what was written, there is no definitive evidence about how Omar Sharif died, but most informed commentators accept that he was killed by a Hamas operative who had organized the attack.

The problem is that the Sun is actually the only pro-Israeli newspaper, yet even it does not think that dead Israelis really count.
Incidentally the Sun story was genuinely interesting because it revealed that Parveen Sharif (who incredibly is a teacher) told pupils after 9/11: “I am on Osama Bin Laden’s team.” Those following the case will also know that she sent email messages to her brother telling him he "must be strong in his mission" and that she recieved email messages from her brother telling her that she would "have to look after the family from now on". But, of course, the jury found her not guilty of failing to inform the authorities about an imminent terrorist act on the grounds that she "could not have known about it". The question I'd like to have asked is "What exactly did she think her Jihadist brother was doing when he told her he was going to Israel?" Maybe she thought he was going to visit the Wailing Wall or swim with the dolphins in Eilat.

Sunday, November 27, 2005

When Islamaphobia is wrong but anti-semitism is OK

The sports pages were full of indignation and disgust at the racist chanting of West Ham supporters against Spurs' Egyptian striker Mido during the Spurs-West Ham match on 20 November. The West Ham fans chanted"Your Mum's a terrorist" and "Shoe Bomber" at Mido. The Football Association were so concerned about it that they have launched an investigation. All very admirable, for sure. There should be no place for such racism in football.

Yet at the very same match the West Ham fans were (as they have been doing for the past 30 years) singing much more virulently anti-semitic songs like "Gas the Jews" accompanied by the hissing sounds. Funny how the footballing authorities have never shown any concern about that isn't it.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Naive Americans pay homage to Hizbullah

The excellent MEMRI site has posted a very worrying article about The US Presbyterian Church and familes of 9/11 victims visiting, of all people, Hizbullah in Lebanon. Just what is it about "Death to America, terrorism as martydom" that these naive imbeciles do not understand?

Monday, November 21, 2005

Israel under attack from Hizbullah

Apparently Hizbullah from Lebanon is mounting a massive artillery bombardment against Northern Israel and terrorists have also crossed the border in an attempt to kidnap Israeli soldiers. Of course nothing about this on any UK news channel yet (and I doubt if there will be). Given that this is, of course, being sponsored by Iran it looks like the Iranians are determined to bring a direct confrontation as fast as possible. This is extremely serious.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

The ridiculous UK attitude to the extradition of a terrorist

The Home Secretary has finally agreed to extradite Jihad fanatic Babar Ahmad to the USA for various terrorist offenses. Based in London he used his computer skills to recruit and fund Islamic terrorism around the world (including attempting to set up a terrorist training campl in the USA) and is quite unrepentant about his views, which include seeking to replace Britain's democracy with an Islamic state. You would have thought that, after the London bombings, people in the UK would have twigged by now about the Islamic threat and the way that people like Ahmad are central to it. But no, people still don't get it. This scumbag, who rejects every idea of democracy and human rights for any non-Muslims, is now the hero of the British left and liberals (see, for example, the way the Guardian reports the story here including the usual rubbish from people like Vanessa Redgrave) and of course the Muslim Council of Britain said that "the ruling could contribute to further alienation among Muslim youths". Listening to the news and discussion programmes all day, you would have thought this guy was some kind of modern-day Martin Luther King. The concept that he is guilty of the crimes he is charged with is simply not even discussed let alone believed by the media. To them he is simply a martyr being sacrificied to those beastly Americans.

Daniel Pipes on the Palestinian attitude to terrorism

A great article by Daniel Pipes about the Palestinian reaction to the Amman suicide bombing that claimed a number of Palestinian lives. But I'm afraid it's optimistic. Judging from everything I've heard since the bombing even the so-called moderate Islamists have not changed their view that suicide bombings against Israeli civilians are always justified. In fact the Islamists (as well as the whole liberal media) get mad if you even suggest that there are similarities between a suicide bombing in Israel and one in Jordan.

Monday, November 14, 2005

BBC reporting on Israel

The BBC is inviting statements from members of the public about its impartiality on the coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Here is what I sent to them:

Dear BBC

On several occasions during the last few years I have had cause to complain to the BBC about its coverage of the Israel-Palestine issue, especially its various news programmes.

My concerns have invariably been about the anti-Israel bias in reporting, which is endemic across all aspects of the organisation including even its teletext service. The BBC's coverage of Palestinian suicide bombings has been particularly biased since inevitably the reporting focuses on Israel's response to these savage attacks and usually focuses solely on Palestinian victims. Bizarrely, BBC reports after suicide bombings have often focused on the families of the suicide bombers but rarely on the Israeli victims' families. Other examples of the systematic anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian bias include:

  • failure to report on the widespread corruption and internal fighting within the Palestinian Authority;
  • failure to report on the systematic anti-semitic indoctrination practiced by the Palesinian Authority, which includes the deliberate indoctrination of children (leading for example, to the stated desire of 80% of all Palestinian children to become suicide bombers);
  • failure to report on the widescale, brutal slaughter and torture of so-called Palestinian 'collaborators' by the Palestinian authority, while at the same time exagerrating relatively minor instances of brutality on the Israeli side;
  • failure to distnguish between the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians by Palestinian terrorists on the one hand and the much rarer accidental killings of Palestinian civilians during Israel's targeted raids on terrorists;
  • failure to report on the wild celebrations that take place on Palestinian streets following suicicide bombings, focusing instead on the words of 'condemnation' from the official PA officials who are known to say the exact opposite in Arabic of what they tell the Western media in English;
  • failure to report on the widespread fanaticism of terrorist groups that completely dominate Palestinian society, while at the same time exaggerating the role and impact of the miniscule extremist minority of Israelis.
  • general obsession with showing Palestinians as victims and Israelis as aggressors irrespective of the evidence in any situation
  • failure to show the normal Israeli perspective at any time; thus, for example, the only Israeli civilians ever interviewed are usually the more extreme settlers who represent a tiny minority viewpoint;
  • failure to acknowledge the unique vulnerability of Israel, which is the only country in the world that is existentially threatened. In particular, failure to acknowledge that the majority of Palestinians (as well as overwhelming majoirty of all Arabs) are committed to the destruction of Israel and this is also now the stated nuclear objective of another state (Iran).

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Hizb al-Tahrir welcomed to LBC

On LBC News this morning they were doing an item on the public response to the anti-terrorism laws and in particular the defeat of the 90-day rule. Guess which representative member of the British public was the (only) person invited in for their views? None other than a spokeman from Hizb al-Tahrir, the fanatical Islamic group that is banned throughout the rest of the world but who are still, despite recent attempts byt the government, legal in Britain of course. The interview was surreal with the interviewer treating the Islamist as if he was some kind of diplomat. At no time before, during, or after the interview was there any statement about who or what Hizb al-Tahrir represented, so normal uninformed listerners would have been unaware of the irony of asking this guy about a decision made by the British Parliament when the group reject the legitimacy not just of that Palriament but of all democray.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

BBC Question Time: how do they get these audiences?

I Just caught a few glimpses of Question Time tonight. Despite all the credible evidence that over 80% of the public supported the 90-day detention of terrorist suspects it seems that as usual the BBC has managed to find an audience of 90% against. This includes the usual anti-War lefties who think they are being really incisive when they bring up the usual rubbish about weapons of mass destruction. To these morons the fact the WMD were not found is actually proof that we do not face a realistic terrorist threat. Also, why were there 5 people on the panel and only one, Geoff Hoon, who supported the 90-day proposal?

The Tory woman on the panel was particularly obnoxious. How the 'party of law and order' voted against the proposal is beyond belief; their nauseating and hypocritical rationale about the overriding importance of civil liberties is simply a joke. They never deserve to be taken seriously again. What a complete bunch of bastards.

It's beginning to feel like Tony Blair is the only politician in the country who truly understands the nature of the threat we face.

10 minutes after writing the above I watched the end of the program and it was immediately followed by Andrew Neil's programme about the week's news and guess who his two guests were? Claire Short (who led the Labour rebellion against Blair) and Kenneth Clarke (Tory terrorist-appeaser-in-chief). So nice to see the BBC keeping up its lack of bias! Is there anything more sickening than this alliance between the extreme left and the right? - surprised they didn't invite Ken Livingstone's terrorist supporting cleric Qawadarwi and they could have all had a real love-in telling us how Islam is a religion of peace while Blair and Bush are the root of all evil in the world.

Monday, November 07, 2005

Hiding the nature of Islamic fanaticism

Strange isn't it how the British media (especially the BBC) will go to extreme lengths to cover up or ignore major stories that reveal the true nature of the global Islamic threat. After last month's suicide bombing in Hadera (which claimed its 6th fatality when another inured Israeli woman died yesterday) all the news outlets mentioned Mahmoud Abbas's condemnation of the attack, but none covered the story of how the bombing was wildly celebrated throughout the Palestinian Authority. The Jerusalem Post, noted that:

Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of Kabatiya, south of Jenin, Wednesday night to celebrate the suicide bombing in Hadera, which was carried out by local resident Hassan Abu Zeid.

Chanting Allahu Akbar (God is great), some 3,000 people, including Fatah and Islamic Jihad gunmen, converged on Abu Zeid's home to "congratulate" his family on the success of the attack, which killed five people and wounded more than 30.

They also called for more suicide attacks in Israel.

"With blood, with soul, we redeem Hassan," the crowd chanted. "Oh Jihad, Jihad, give us more [suicide] bombings. Oh [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon, prepare more coffins."

Also notice how the British media is covering up the fact that the French riots are being conducted by Muslims (maybe they are scared it will happen here too). The excellent website jihad watch carries the following well written piece by Hugh Fitzgerald in relation to the riots:
From 1830 to 1962 the French ruled in Algeria. They introduced modern agriculture. They allowed the humiliated and degraded Jews, through the loi Cremieux, to become French citizens and hence free from Muslim laws, humiliation, and degradation. There were universities -- real universities. Some of the best French Orientalists lived in Algeria, and published their works in Algeria -- Emile Fagnan comes to mind.

What is Algeria like today? The last Christian religious, a group of Italian and French monks exercising their vocation of charity and never attempting to be missionaries, all had their throats slit.

When Chirac visited Algeria, mobs besieged him chanting: "Visa, visa." It seems ironic now that the world has decided that the French have been beastly to their Muslim immigrants, but it’s true. Who, in his right mind, would if he could, not live in France rather than Algeria? Algeria is no longer Algerie française, as the car horns of its defenders used to toot in French cities during the days of General Salan, and that assassination attempt in Clamart, and the harkis, and Pontecorvo's absurd movie (a favorite of campuses) about the wonderful fight of the FLN against the bad bad French. See, if you can find, what the eminent anthropologist of Mexico, who worked for the French government in France, Jacques Soustelle, has written of that period.

Well, the "winds of change" blew through Algeria all right. The line of succession, from FLN to corrupt army leaders, continues to rule. And as always, the vehicle for extreme protest in any Muslim country will always be -- Islam. Nothing but Islam.

If Algeria did not have gas and oil deposits, it would sink into nothing. For even as one of the beneficiaries of the largest transfer of wealth in human history (8-10 trillion dollars to the Muslim oil states since 1973), Algeria, like Iran, like Saudi Arabia, like the sheikhdoms, is amazing not for what it has achieved with all that money, the result of no effort on the part of its people, but how little it has achieved.

It took a kind of genius in reverse to make a mess with all that money. But the Muslim states proved equal to the task. If you seek Islam's monument, look at Iran, look at "Saudi" Arabia, look especially at the once-civilized place that is now called Algeria.

Saturday, October 29, 2005

More reaction to Iran

The Sun seems to be the only British newspaper that recognises the seriousness of Iran's threat to Israel and the West -- it covered the initial story on page 2, and followed today with another news item, an editorial and a 2-page spread about Ahmadinejad on pages 32-33 with the heading "The most evil man in the world".

Unfortunately, plenty of the British public (who've been brainwashed by the BBC in the last few years into believing that Israel and the USA are the real threats to world peace) seem to think this is all an American-Zionist plot to create a pretext for military action against peace-loving Iran. Have a look at the following sample of posts on the BBC website highlighted by Melanie Philips today:


• It is also somewhat in poor taste for us Brits to condemn Ahmadinejad's fiery wording when our government has stood by an American President who is even more guilty of such charges. Bush and Blair led an illegal war where thousands of innocent people have died and for us to now turn around and comment from afar on a situation in the Middle East that we have made far worse is beyond belief...
• Is this story true? The current American regime is expert at creating faked excuses for military and political action. The WMD scam in Iraq for example. The Americans who operate in concert with Israel have made almost daily unsubstantiated threats against Iran, Syria, and any country that opposes a domineering foreign policy. Maybe Iran is just sick of Americans...
• Israel continues its brutal human rights abuses against Palestinians ...and the rest of the middle east therefore continue to hate Israel. In a nutshell. When will we see justice for the innocent people killed? America provides billions of dollars annually to Israel, which is used on advanced military hardware mercilessly against palestinian people. Only when the killing stops will ties be mended.
• OK, his remarks were a bit strong, and personally I do find them offensive. But I'm not sure it's any worse than what Bush said about Iraq, and at least Ahmedinejad is using only words, not bombs.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Suicide bombing in Hadera

Another 5 Israelis killed and 30 seriously injured by an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber in Hadera during a 'truce'. Funny how this seems to have escaped the attention of almost the entire British media.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Our wonderful Iranian friends

The following comes from a report on a conference hosted by Iran entitled 'The World without Zionism' (and remember this is the country that most liberal scholars keep telling us poses no threat to world peace, and that both Ken Livinstone and CND feel has every right to pursue its nuclear power programme):

Iran's hard-line president called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and said a new wave of Palestinian attacks will destroy the Jewish state, state-run media reported Wednesday.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also denounced attempts to recognize Israel or normalize relations with it.

"There is no doubt that the new wave (of attacks) in Palestine will wipe off this stigma (Israel) from the face of the Islamic world," Ahmadinejad told students Wednesdays during a Tehran conference called "The World without Zionism."

"Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury (while) any (Islamic leader) who recognizes the Zionist regime means he is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world," Ahmadinejad said.

Ahmadinejad also repeated the words of the founder of Iran's Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who called for the destruction of Israel.

"As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map," said Ahmadinejad, who came to power in August and replaced Mohammad Khatami, a reformist who advocated inter-civilization dialogue and tried to improve Iran's relations with the West

Ahmadinejad referred to Israel's recent withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a "trick," saying Gaza is part of the Palestinian territories and the withdrawal was meant to make Islamic states acknowledge Israel.

Friday, September 02, 2005

So it's OK to kill civilians not against the war?

Interesting quote from Dr Azzam Tamimi, of the Muslim Association of Britain on the release of the video showing 7/7 suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan. Tamimi says "He seems totally convinced that he ought to punish the British people indiscriminately because of their contribution to electing the Government. He doesn't take into consideration that the majority of people were against the war."

So would the suicide bombing have been OK in the eyes of Tamimi if a majority of people were in favour of the war? Also, presumably Tamimi would have found it acceptable if the suicide bombing had targetted civilians who supported the war in Iraq.

Just what is it with these Muslim leaders that stops them from unequivocably condeming terrorism?

Monday, August 15, 2005

Taking a break

... for a couple of weeks

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Who is the real enemy?

Listening to BBC Radio 4 this morning (wife had it set to come on as an alarm) a cosy chat show had the usual casual anti-American obsessed guests. One guy saying that the Abu Graib scandal was far worse than anything any Muslims had ever done blah blah. One guy was saying how despicable it was that the UK should be considering sending the terrorists home. He was basically saying that it was much worse to send them home and have them face possible torture than to have them kill thousands of people here. He even said that it didn't matter how many people might end up getting killed as a result because nothing, even the complete annihilation of the UK, could excuse a single 'violation' of human rights. Then I really thought I was in some parallel universe when they did an item on the British anti-war movement ..... no not the current one but the one in the 2nd WORLD WAR!!!!!! Yes, they were interviewing some old chaps who were proudly reminiscing about their heroism in being conscientious objectors. They was saying how the war achieved nothing other than unnecessary killing. The interviewer didn't attempt to challenge this view in any way - e.g. ask a simple question like how would you have fancied living under Hitler. However, at one point she did mention the concentration camps. The chaps response to this was that he felt that the stories about persecution of the Jews were simply pro-war propaganda until a friend of his who had liberated Belsen actually told him about it after the war. He kind of reluctantly agreed on this basis that some bad things had happened but nothing to warrent being involved in a war especially as it 'wasn't our duty to help the Jews'. Next thing I suppose the BBC will be rewriting history to inform today's generation how the nasty Americans and Brits brought almost total destruction to the world by unnecessarily waging war against Germans, against the wishes of a brave passifist majority.

Anyway back to the original theme. The obsessive anti-americanism that is now so embedded in the country. Look at this excellent article by Carol Gould.

'Moderate' muslims exposed

Good to see that the 'moderate' muslim organisations who the Government are courting so furiously at the moment are finally being exposed as the fanatics they really are. Next week's Panaroma is also going to apparently do a bit of an expose (including of the oderous Sir Iqbal Sacranie and his suicide bombing-supporting buddy Inayat Bunglawala). Bunglawala has written to the BBC to try to get it stopped claiming that it is all because of the BBC's pro-Israeli bias - you couldn't make this up. It is about time that these scumbags who have been allowed to dominate our TV screens over the last few weeks as the 'voice of moderate Islam' are finally being challenged. Hopefully it might even make the Government think twice about licking their asses.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Europe's cowardice in the face of enemy fire

The following excellent article by Mathias Döpfner appeared in the Sunday Times – Review, August 07, 2005
"The response to terror has been abject, says German publisher Mathias Döpfner The writer Henryk Broder recently issued a withering indictment: Europe, your family name is appeasement. That phrase resonates because it is so terribly true.
Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives as Britain and France negotiated and hesitated too long before they realised Adolf Hitler needed to be fought and defeated, because he could not be bound by toothless agreements.
* Later, appeasement legitimised and stabilised communism in the Soviet Union, in East Germany and then throughout the rest of eastern Europe, where for decades inhuman, repressive and murderous governments were glorified.
Appeasement similarly crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Bosnia and Kosovo. Indeed, even though we had absolute proof of mass murder, we Europeans debated and debated, and then debated still more. We were still debating when finally the Americans had to come from halfway around the world, into Europe yet again, to do our work for us.
Europe still hasn't learnt. Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, European appeasement often seems to countenance suicide bombings in Israel by fundamentalist Palestinians.
Similarly, it generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore the almost 500,000 victims of Saddam Hussein's torture and murder machinery and to harangue George W Bush as a warmonger.
This hypocrisy continues even as it is discovered that some of the loudest critics of US action in Iraq made illicit billions - indeed, tens of billions - of dollars in the corrupt United Nations oil for food programme.
Today we are faced with a particularly grotesque form of appeasement. How is Germany reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic fundamentalists in the Netherlands, Britain and elsewhere in Europe? By suggesting - wait for it - that the proper response to such barbarism is to initiate a Muslim holiday in Germany.
I wish I were joking, but I am not. A substantial fraction of Germany's government - and, if polls are to be believed, the German people - believe that creating an official state Muslim holiday will somehow spare us from the wrath of fanatical Islamists.
One cannot help but recall Neville Chamberlain on his return from Munich, waving that laughable treaty signed by Hitler, and declaring the advent of peace in our time.
What atrocity must occur before the European public and its political leadership understand what is really happening in the world? There is a sort of crusade under way; an especially perfidious campaign consisting of systematic attacks by Islamists, focused on civilians, that is directed against our open western societies and is intent on their destruction.
We find ourselves faced with a conflict that will most likely last longer than any of the great military clashes of the last century, a conflict conducted by an enemy that cannot be tamed by tolerance and accommodation because it is spurred on by such gestures. Such responses have proven to be signs of weakness.
Only two recent US presidents have had the courage needed to shun appeasement: Ronald Reagan and George W Bush. The US's critics may quibble over the details, but in our hearts we know the truth, because we saw it first hand.
Reagan ended the cold war, freeing half of Europe from almost 50 years of terror. And Bush, acting out of moral conviction and supported only by Tony Blair, recognised the danger in today's Islamist war against democracy.
In the meantime, Europe sits back in the multicultural corner with its usual blithe self-confidence.
Instead of defending liberal values and acting as an attractive centre of power on the same playing field as the true great powers, the US and China, it does nothing. On the contrary, we Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to the supposedly arrogant Americans, as world champions of tolerance, which even Otto Schily, the German interior minister, justifiably criticises.
Where does this self-satisfied reaction come from? Does it arise because we are so moral? I fear it stems from the fact that we Europeans are devoid of a moral compass.
For his policy of confronting Islamic terrorism head on, Bush risks the fall of the dollar, huge amounts of additional national debt and a massive and persistent burden on the US economy. But he does this because, unlike most of Europe, he realises what is at stake is literally everything that really matters to free people.
While we criticise the capitalistic robber barons of the US because they seem too sure of their priorities, we timidly defend our welfare states. "Stay out of it. It could get expensive," we cry.
So instead of acting to defend our civilisation, we prefer to discuss reducing our 35-hour work week, improving our dental coverage or extending our four weeks of annual paid holiday. Or perhaps we listen to television pastors preaching about the need to reach out to terrorists, to understand and forgive.
These days, Europe reminds me of an old woman who, with shaking hands, frantically hides her last pieces of jewellery when she notices a robber breaking into a neighbour's house. Appeasement? That is just the start of it. Europe, thy name is cowardice."
© Mathias Döpfner 2005
Mathias Döpfner is chief executive of the German media group Axel Springer. This article was published in Die Welt

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Omar Bakri and the killing of Jews

Islamic fanatic Omar Bakri has left the UK for Lebanon, but apparently it's only a holiday. Although Tony Blair explicitly named Bakri as one of the fanatics who would be deported from the UK in September, John Prescott announced yesterday that he was actually free to return to the UK as "he had committed no crime". Now we hear today that Bakri not only intends to return in a few weeks time but that he is going to have a heart operation courtesy of the NHS.

What I have never understood about Bakri is why he has not been charged for his role in the suicide bombing in Tel Aviv undertaken by British Muslims Asif Muhammad Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif in April 2003. After the Tel Aviv attack, Bakri told The Daily Telegraph, "I knew Sharif very well, and he used to attend regularly at my sessions. He was my brother, and I am very proud of him and any Muslim who will do the same as him." (See here for a full description). It later transpired that Bakri had tutored both of the bombers shortly before the attack.

You only have to listen to any one of the so-called 'moderate' Muslims who have taken over our TV screens since the London bombings to realise that these guys, while mostly condemning the London bombings, cannot brings themselves to condemn suicide bombings in Israel (in fact many of the leaders of these 'moderate' Muslim organisation actually have gone on the record as fully supporting suicide bombings in Israel). So we know that the British Government thinks it is perfectly legal to support and glorify terrorism when it is committed against Jews outside the UK. But surely the act of planning such terrorism (as Bakri himself claims he has done) is a criminal offence. So why has Bakri never been charged?

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Teaching children how to kill Jews

The excellent Honest Reporting Weblog is always worth reading. Have a look at the Under the Media Radar article and especially the bit about the Hamas summer scheme. Then remember that this is the organisation that many senior politicians in the UK and Europe want to see removed from the list of terrorist organisations.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

What Galloway is telling Arab TV

Picked this up from the excellent blog Harry's Place

You can watch what he is saying here (this is truly incredible stuff - make sure you watch the speech that follows the interview and try to remember that this man is a Member of the British Parliament)

This is what Galloway has been telling Arab television audiences on his recent tour:

Two of your beautiful daughters are in the hands of foreigners - Jerusalem and Baghdad. The foreigners are doing to your daughters as they will. The daughters are crying for help, and the Arab world is silent. And some of them are collaborating with the rape of these two beautiful Arab daughters. Why? Because they are too weak and too corrupt to do anything about it.

......It's not the Muslims who are the terrorists. The biggest terrorists are Bush, and Blair, and Berlusconi, and Aznar, but it is definitely not a clash of civilizations. George Bush doesn't have any civilization, he doesn't represent any civilization. We believe in the Prophets, peace be upon them. He believes in the profits, and how to get a piece of them. That's his god. That's his god. George Bush worships money. That's his god - Mammon.

Ironic, isn't it, that the world's last devoted pan-Arabist isn't even an Arab.

"Smash the Jewish state"

The following is a really excellent posting by Imshin on "Not a Fish (provincially speaking)" in response to a photo of an American "anti-war" protestor:

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

I hope
Charles Johnson, Michael Totten, and 'zombie' don’t mind my borrowing this photo. I printed it out yesterday and stuck it on the wall in my office this morning, where only I could see it. Today I sat with the man holding the sign, occasionally glancing at him while I worked, trying to understand.

‘SMASH THE JEWISH STATE’, he says. Smash the Jewish State. I’ve been rolling those words on my tongue and looking at the man’s image looking back at me.

He’s wearing a nice green golf shirt with a pocket. My dad likes a pocket in his shirts too, so he can have his sunglasses and other things handy. This person also has things in his pocket, just like my dad.

He’s also wearing a nice, good quality cap. It looks green, but it could be gray. I’d like to think it’s green and that he’s matched the colors. The cap looks like it has a little red five-pointed star pinned on it. Someone on Michael Totten’s comments said that he doesn’t look like a lefty, whatever that means, but doesn’t that star mean he’s a communist? I thought communists wanted to make the world a better place.

It looks like he’s made the sign himself, and attached it to the placard with clips. I wonder if he goes to a lot of demonstrations and changes the signs according to the subject on hand? That’s a very tidy, organized thing to do.

You know, physically, he reminds me of someone else. Someone I was just thinking about this year on Remembrance Day for the fallen of Israel’s wars. Guy called Yossi. He used to be in my class. I can’t remember how he was killed, but I remember not being surprised. He was the type of guy who was always ready to help, who carried the girls’ backpacks when they were tired on school trips. He was an innocent who really believed in things. And he was the type of guy who would think nothing of volunteering for the really dangerous stuff.

The appearance of the man in the photo is probably similar to how Yossi, my old classmate, would have looked had he been fortunate enough to reach fifty. He didn’t make it to twenty-six. But maybe our green-clad friend here could have learnt something from him about kindness, about industriousness, and about trying to make the world a better place. Oh, and about smiling at the camera. Yossi would have smiled at the camera, no doubt about it.

And he would never have been holding a sign saying anything like that.

Everything about the harmless-looking gentleman in the photo, in his green or gray cap, even his serious, committed expression, is in such sharp contrast with the viciously violent, hateful sentiment expressed on his little sign.

Smash the Jewish State. Smash the Jews in it. Smash my nine-year-old daughter. Smash her little collection of Bratz dolls, lovingly collected one by one. Smash our three-month-old kitten. Smash my great grandmother’s Shabbat candlesticks. Smash Ronit’s new baby with her dark skin and bright eyes, suckling milk from her mother’s breast in the shade of the tree. Smash Doctor Assuline, who helped bring her into this world. Smash Luda, who washed the room after mother and daughter had been wheeled away, and Hameed, who built the crib her parents bought for her when they brought her home from the hospital.

Smash the memory of my dead classmate, look-alike of one hate-filled American protester.

What did we do to this tidy, organized, serious man to make him hate us so much that he wants to smash us?

I suppose he will tell you he isn’t an anti-Semite.

Palestinians killing their own children

Here is a story that you probably won't see on the BBC or read about in any UK newspaper. It happened on the evening of 2 August 2005 (reproduced from Haaretz) when one of the hundreds of Qassam rockets fired by terrorists from Gaza into Israel in the last few weeks went astray:

"After a Palestinian boy was killed by a Qassam rocket fired by militants in Gaza on Tuesday night, Palestinian Minister Mohammed Dahlan said early Wednesday that those who launched the rockets were taking the place of Israeli occupiers and hurting innocent Palestinian civilians.

There was no claim of responsibility for the Tuesday night rocket attack and Islamic Jihad denied having fired the rocket.

Palestinian ministers gathered Wednesday morning to discuss the incident in which a six-year-old Palestinian boy was killed and eight Palestinians were wounded late Tuesday when the rocket missed its target and hit a family home in the village of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza.

Five children were wounded by the rocket and one was in critical condition, Israel Radio said. Four of the wounded were the children of former Palestinian minister for prisoner affairs Hisham Abd al-Razik, according to the report. They sustained wounds ranging from light to moderate.

Witnesses said militants fired three rockets at Sderot, where thousands of opponents of the disengagement had gathered in a demonstration. Two of the rockets fell in Palestinian areas and the third fell in an open field near Sderot."

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

A typical anti-Israel letter in the Sunday Times

The following letter, from D MacGregor, of Ramsgate, Kent, was the star letter in the Sunday Times on 31 July 2005 (the emphasis is mine):
The recent bombings in London and the support shown for this carnage by a group of disgruntled Muslims brought to mind a slogan I used to see everywhere, from car bumpers to T-shirts, when I lived in Australia many years ago: "Australia — love it or leave it!". And before readers write in to accuse me of racism, I'd like to make it perfectly clear that I am not a racist. I spent many years travelling the world and I have friends of all colours, creeds and nationalities. I can fully empathise with the Palestinians, who are suffering appalling treatment at the hands of the (American-backed) Israelis; I can sympathise with anyone who detests the "Yankification" of this world — but please let them not take out their revenge on the innocent British public — most of whom have no time for George W Bush, or his gung-ho predecessors or our spineless leaders.
The letter started off quite promisingly didn't it? Can you see the significance of the anti-Israel comment in here, because I can't. Apparently his empathy with the Palestinians means he can't be a racist. Well that's really comforting for all of us. Note that he stresses the bombers have no right to murder the innocent British public (in contrast presumably to the 'guilty' Israelis and Yanks and maybe even the guilty Jews and others in Britain who support the Israelis and Yanks). So maybe he is saying that it's OK to murder Israelis (and possibly even Yanks) but the bombers had better leave London alone? Whichever way you look at it, it's a pretty ridiculous letter, so why did the Sunday Times print it as their star letter? Either the Sunday Times is really desperate for well-written letters (curious as they get thousands per week, many written be well-educated people) or the editorial staff are themselves so consumed by casual hatred of Israel and Bush that they thought the letter made perfect sense.

Monday, August 01, 2005

Anybody fancy a holiday in Egypt? Think again

Egypt is a very popular tourist destination for Brits. In fact many British Jews go there in preference to Israel as they regard it as cheaper and safer. This is even true of places like Taba - a stone's throw from Eilat - despite the fact that 34 tourists were killed there in a terrorist attack in October 2004. What most people seem completely oblivious to is the depth of hatred the Egyptians have for Jews and Israelis, irrespective of the peace treaty in place between Israel and Egypt. The Egyptians, for example, have always been the leading sellers of the anti-Semitic forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" - they even screened a 20-week series on prime TV based on it recently. And it was the Egyptians who most vehemently promoted the conspiracy theory that Israel was behind Sept 11th - a view now believed by 90% of all Arabs worldwide and even 40% of all Muslims in the UK. But even I was shocked when I saw a report by Tim Marshall on Sky News. Marshall is Sky's top foreign affairs correspondent who is certainly no friend of Israel. But a few days after the 7 July London bombings he was in Egypt reporting on the reaction there to the bombings. What he found (and he was clearly shocked by it) was that from the lowest street cleaner to the highest echelons of government, the view of every Egyptian he met was that the London attacks had been carried out by the Israelis. When he interviewed on screen a supposed leading 'moderate commentator' this 'moderate' tried to physically manhandle Marshall when he dared to ask what evidence the Egyptians had for claiming the Israelis did it.
It was therefore not a great surprise when, a few days later after the 23 July terrorist attacks in Sharm-el-Sheikh, no less than the Egyptian Head of Police pronounced that these attacks too were the work of the Israelis. Reporters on the ground also learned that all Egyptians at Sharm were blaming the Israelis. It just so happens that much fewer Israelis venture down to Sharm these days compared with a few years ago. But there were about 1000 Israelis holidaying in the Sharm area at the time of the attacks. Most were in fact Israeli Arabs. Incredibly, to avoid being lynched, these Israelis had to hide in their hotel rooms and cover up the (Israeli) number plates on their cars.
It's also worth remembering that the song "I Hate Israel" by Haaban Abdel-Rehim topped the Egyptian charts for much of last year. Check out the words here (and here aome other Examples of Arab hate TV)
So, if you are thinking of taking a holiday in Egypt - do us all a favour and wait until the Egyptians stop poisoning their people with anti-Semitic rubbish.

Oh and by the way - if you are thinking about a holiday in Dubai...

..just make sure you remember that much of Al Quaida's funding comes from there as protection money. But this shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody who saw BBC's Question Time screened from Dubai during the Iraq war. The locals in the audience made very clear their support for Osama bin Laden ... and of course their view that Israel was to blame for all the world's problems.

Ken Livingstone idiotic comments about Iran

Among the many ridiculous outrages of Ken Livingstone recently this one went unnoticed. He claimed (Radio London, 28 July 2005) that there was no better example of the West's 'double standards against Muslims' than its attitude to Iran's nuclear weapons progamme. Ken feels that Muslim countries like Iran have as much right to nuclear weapons as Israel (of course that's his biggest beef) the USA and the UK. So let's spell out to Ken and his mates the reason why this is not such a good idea:

  1. The constitution of Iran states that its goal is the destruction of Israel. This goal is the unifying theme of all Iran's mullahs. Even the supposedly 'moderate' former leader Rafsanjani stated this his ultimate goal was the destruction of Israel.
  2. In the annual military parade in Iran the missiles are painted with the slogans "Death to Israel"
  3. Iran continues to be the financial and spiritual source of most Islamic terrorist groups (including Hezbollah and Hamas) and its agents are currently paying to recruit suicide bombers in the Palestinian territories.
  4. Iran is currently advertising for suicide bombers in its own country (and thousands are registering every day) to be exported to Iraq, Chechnya, and of course 'Palestine' to kill every non-muslim on 'muslim soil'.
  5. Although people like Ken might not even be aware of it, Iran has no border with Israel, and Israel has never had any dispute with Iran. But that does not stop Iran wanting to wipe Israel off the map. In addition to Iran there are several Arab countries (including Syria and Lebanon) who ARE still officially at war with Israel and who, if they ever got hold of nuclear weapons, would also try to wipe Israel off the fact of the map. In fact, let's face it, when Egypt's Mubarak is eventually gone (and that might not be too far away) Egypt would also come back into that category. That's not to mention the assortment of terrorist groups in Palestine and beyond who would kill every Jew in the world if only they had the means to do so.

So you see Ken, there isn't exactly a moral imbalance when it comes to trying to stop Iran get a nuclear bomb. Israel has a very good defensive reason to retain its nuclear deterrent. Israel would never use such a weapon offensively because it has no intention of wiping its neighbours off the face of the map. But Iran (and others) are very explicit about what they intend to do once they get a nuclear bomb. When they say that it is their sworn intention to wipe Israel off the state of the map you had better believe them.

Anti-Israel propaganda as mainstream entertainment

The extent to which the deligitimisation and dehumanisation of Israel has penetrated mainstream thought in the UK has been brought home to me by some recent examples:

  1. A programme, supposedly about football screened on BBC2 on 11 July 2005, was essentially a 40-minute recruitment ad for Hamas. Read my comments and correspondence with the BBC here
  2. A play currently on at the Tricycle Theatre Kilburn called "Arab Israeli Cookbook". The only fare on offer here is Palestinian propaganda. Read my review.
  3. A play about 'peace activist' Rachel Corrie currently showing to packed audiences. Read a review

BBC anti-Israel propaganda programme about Football

Initial Letter of complaint sent to BBC

BBC Two
Programme name: Frontline Football Palestine
Transmission date: 11 - 07 - 05

This programme was nothing other than a pure anti-Israel propaganda piece. The reporter, Ben Anderson, was guilty of a continuous stream of uninformed comments and questions. The programme presented as 'fact' a number of ridiculous, unsubstantiated claims from Palestinian individuals about incidents of violence and repossession. Even where the 'facts' were true the programme made no attempt to explain the context. For example, it made a big issue of the fact that one of the few sports training camps in Gaza had been destroyed by the Israelis. What it failed to mention was the fact that at the time it was being used to launch missiles into Israel and to train Hamas terrorists; on Hamas's own admission, a number of its 'armed fighters' were killed in the attack.
At no time in the programme did Ben Anderson mention the context for any Israeli actions (such as extended border security checks), namely that the filming took place during a period of unprecedented terrorist attacks against Israelis. The bias in the programme is best summed up by Ben Anderson's own comment while he was witnessing a furious argument between the Palestinian FA president and one of the Palestinian players. The argument was about a ban being imposed because the players had left their training camp in Qatar to celebrate the end of Ramadan. Anderson's comment was: "The Israelis have created such an atmosphere of hate that it has forced the Palestinians to even argue among themselves". Finally, since one of the major 'arguments' in the programme was that the Palestinian team was severely disadvantaged because it could not play its matches 'at home', it is beyond belief that the programme failed to mention that Israel suffered exactly the same fate during the period 2000-2004 when FIFA forced Israel to play all its home matches in Cyprus because of the continued threat of terrorism.

BBC Response

Dear Mr Edgar

Thank you for your e-mail regarding 'Frontline Football'. I understand that you felt the programme broadcast on 11 July 2005 was biased and anti-Israeli.

The notion of impartiality lies at the heart of the BBC. The BBC serves the nation as a whole recognising and responding to all different tastes, views and perspectives. Programme makers aim to reflect, inform and stimulate this multiplicity of interests with a diverse range of quality programmes.

In our programmes on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict we have tried to explain how the current situation started and has since developed and given air-time to representatives from across the political spectrum. However equal representation is not always possible or practical within individual programmes and account also needs to be taken of the way a subject is covered over a period of time. Individual reports or programmes may give more time to one particular incident, but we regularly report and display the suffering felt by both sides. Not every television or radio piece can include all aspects of the conflict, but this does not constitute bias. Perfect balance is difficult to achieve on every single occasion but overall it is a more achievable goal.

Nevertheless, I appreciate that you felt that on this occasion the programme displayed an unbalanced view and therefore please be assured that I have recorded your complaint on our daily log for the attention of BBC programme makers and management and for everyone involved in the production of 'Frontline Football'.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to contact the BBC with your views.
Regards

Nuala McGoldrick
BBC Information

My response back

Nuala,

Your response would have been acceptable if the programme was purporting to be about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a Palestinian perspective. But it wasn't. The programme was about football. It therefore breached every reasonable rule about impartiality. There are many people who would have watched the programme simply unaware that what they were seeing was nothing other than a vicious anti-Israel Palestinian propaganda documentary. People without any previous knowledge of the conflict would have come away with a hatred of Israel. Is this what the BBC intended? And if the BBC was going to commission such a programme why on earth did it use a presenter who was so clearly ignorant of any facts about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Awaiting BBC's second response

Edgar's Final Comment

The fact this programme was allowed to go ahead demonstrates the extent to which an anti-Israel attitude permeates throughout the BBC. Their response about balance is ridiculous. There is no meaningful 'counter-balance' because it would mean screening a programme about something unrelated to politics (say DIY) and using it as the basis to defame all Palestinians, with a mixture of some truth and mostly made up stories. Somehow I can't see the BBC doing that.

And to confirm how serious I think this is I noticed that in the Sun of all places the TV writer Ally Ross had a little footnote saying that he thought this programme was the one of the best documentaries he'd ever seen and was worthy of awards. I can understand why naive non-politically-aware viewers might say this. They were presented with an incredible story presented as unchallenged truth. Why would they not believe it?

Arab-Israeli Cookbook (Directors Tim Roseman & Rima Brihi)

Tricycle Theatre, 30 July 2005

An Israeli family member saw this play earlier in the week and thought it was good. So I really was taken by surprise at how offensive it actually was. This play is classic left-wing, moderately subtle, anti-Israel propaganda. The fact that it is based around food and cookery is irrelevant and purely pretentious, because it is actually a relentless diet of the simple "Palestinian = victim", Israeli = aggressor" message.

It is based around a number of characters relating their personal experiences of life during the intifadah. All the Arab characters are warm, wonderfully sympathetic and compassionate (who, as an aside, also cook or eat wonderful food that would be even better if only the nasty Israelis hadn't robbed them of their livelihoods). And of course the point is made very clearly that these Arabs and their families have been living on this land since the beginning of time. By contrast the first, and main, Jewish character is a stereotypical wealthy neurotic, thoroughly unpleasant, New York woman. She came to Israel 20 years ago when she says 'all Israeli food was disgusting Ashkenazi European fare like chopped liver and kishkas'. Note the implications here: Jews only came to Israel recently; they are all rich and neurotic. Moreover, not only was there no history of Jews in this land but they even had to bring with their disgusting European habits to pollute it. The only other Jews of note in the first half of the play are two appalling gay men lovers who know nothing about cooking even though they run a hip restaurant in Tel Aviv.

To give an example of the bias here one Arab man has recently got a job learning how to cook in a restaurant in Ramallah. This job was set up, so we are told, by a wonderful Arab Women's Organisation dedicated to alleviating hardship. The guy says that, until a month ago he was unemployed for nearly 4 years. Why? Because up until Sept 2000 he was working in a bar in Jaffa. But then "the radio brought news of Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount and the subsequent murder of Arab men, women and children". His Jewish bosses told him that he had to leave and "go back to the West Bank because we don't want any Arabs around here". When he got back to Ramallah he says he went to "help the emergency services saving Palestinians who were being shot by Israelis, but an Israeli shot him and smashed his arm to pieces". Hence he had be "helped by the very emergency services he was trying to help himself." Without the use of his arm, he could not get work. And of course "we receive not a penny in social services" etc.

So what about the Jewish Israeli victims? Well curiously there aren't any despite the first half of the play talking about two suicide bombs. The first was in a falafel restaurant whose owner (relating the story) could not understand why the restaurant was completely empty at a time when it should have been packed. Although nobody was in the restaurant a 16-year-old Arab boy walked in and blew himself up. The restaurant owner was aghast that this 'poor boy with his whole life in front of him should take his life in this way'. Note the bizarre distortion of reality here. You see the suicide bombers obviously don't want to kill anybody other then themselves, so they really are wonderful martyrs. The other suicide bombing is related by a Jewish woman who was buying her Passover shopping in a supermarket. Again miraculously nobody in the supermarket is injured because they are saved by a stack of toilet rolls that took the blast of the impact. In fact the only concern on the woman's mind is to return to get the shopping she had already paid for. So there you have it. Suicide bombings are not really such a bad thing after all.

I forgot: there was one Jewish victim. But of course this was at the hands of another Israeli Jew. The awful American woman tells us that her husband was knocked down by a lunatic Israeli driver 11 years ago. The Israeli police (note lacking any compassion) called her to tell her to get a taxi to the hospital.

During the interval we thought about leaving, but decided to stick it out. However, the second half opens with another wonderfully compassionate Arab woman relating the story of how Israelis shot up her house and killed children in the street, so at this point we decided to cut our losses and walk out.

So, I could of course have got it all wrong. Maybe the rest of the play told the story of some of the 90% of Arabs who strongly support suicide bombings of Israeli civilians. Maybe the play recounted some of the sermons broadcast on the Palestinian Authority TV calling for Arabs to kill Jews wherever they can find them. Maybe the play even focused on one of the relatives of the thousands of Israelis butchered for no reason other than that they were Jews. But somehow I doubt it....

Edgar, 30 July 2005

The forgotten Rachels

By TOM GROSS
"My Name is Rachel Thaler" is not the title of a play that is likely to be produced anytime soon in London. Thaler, aged 16, was blown up at a pizzeria in an Israeli shopping mall. She died after an 11-day struggle for life following the February 16, 2002 attack, when a suicide bomber approached a crowd of teenagers and blew himself up.
She was a British citizen, born in London, where her grandparents still live. Yet I doubt that anyone at London's Royal Court Theatre or most people in the British media, have heard of her. "Not a single British journalist has ever interviewed me or mentioned her death," her mother Ginette told me last week.
Thaler's parents donated her organs for transplant (helping to save the life of a young Russian man), and grieved quietly. After the accidental killing of Rachel Corrie, by contrast, her parents embarked on a major publicity campaign. They traveled to Ramallah to accept a plaque from Yasser Arafat on behalf of their daughter. They circulated her emails and diary entries to a world media eager to publicize them. Among those who published extracts from them in 2003 was the influential British leftist daily The Guardian. This in turn inspired a new play, "My Name is Rachel Corrie," which opened this month at the Royal Court Theatre,one of London most prestigious venues. (The New York Times recently described it as "the most important theatre in Europe.")
The play is co-edited and directed by Katharine Viner, the editor of The Guardian's weekend magazine, and by film star Alan Rickman (of Die Hardand Harry Potter fame). Their script weaves together extracts from Corrie's journals and e-mails. For those who don't recall the story,Rachel Corrie was a young American radical who burnt mock-American flags at pro-Hamas rallies in Gaza in February 2003. A short while later she died after jumping in front of an Israeli army bulldozer that was attempting to demolish a structure suspected of concealing tunnels used for smuggling weapons.
Partly because of the efforts of Corrie and her fellow activists in the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the Israeli army was unable to stop the flow of weapons through these tunnels. Those weapons were later used to kill Israeli children in the town of Sderot in southern Israel,and elsewhere. However, in many hundreds of articles on Corrie published worldwide in the last two years, most papers have been careful to omit such details. So have Rickman and Viner, leaving almost all the critics who have reviewed the play completely clueless about the background of the events with which it deals.
"Corrie was always a progressive with a conscience . she went to work with the International Solidarity Movement in Gaza," wrote Michael Billington in The Guardian last week, without a shred of explanation as to what the ISM actually is.
The ISM is routinely described as a "peace group" in the western media.Few make any mention of the ISM's meeting with the British suicide bombers Omar Khan Sharif and Assif Muhammad Hanif, who a few days later blew up Mike's Place, a Tel Aviv pub, killing three and injuring dozens- including British citizens. Or of the ISM's sheltering in its office of Shadi Sukia, a leading member of Islamic Jihad. Or of the fact that in its mission statement, the ISM said "armed struggle" is a Palestinian"right." "'Israel' is an illegal entity that should not exist," wrote Flo Rosovski, the ISM "media co-ordinator," clarifying the ISM's idea of peace. Unfortunately for those who have sought to portray Corrie as a peaceful protester, photos of her burning a mock American flag and stirring up crowds in Gaza were published by the Associated Press and on Yahoo News on February 15, 2003, before she died. But the play doesn't mention this.
So British reviewers are left to tell the British public that the play is a "true-life tragedy" in which Corrie's "unselfish goodness shines through" (Evening Standard).
"Corrie was murdered after joining a non-violent Palestinian resistance organization," writes Emma Gosnell in the Sunday Telegraph. ("Murdered"is a term that even Corrie's staunchest defenders have hesitated to use up to now.)
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph, talks of "Corrie's concern for suffering humanity. ones leaves the theatre mourning not only Rachel Corrie but also one's own loss of the idealism and reckless courage of youth." Not surprisingly, the play has also been praised on Al Jazeera's website and in the Beirut Daily Star. In one of the most astonishing comments, Michael Billington, the Guardian's critic, writes of the play:"The danger of right-on propaganda is avoided."
It is ironic to reflect that there have been several real victims of the Intifada called Rachel - and it is hard to believe that these critics have ever heard of them. All these other Rachels died within a few months of Corrie, but - unlike her - in circumstances that weren't disputed. They were deliberately murdered: Rachel Levy (17, blown up in a grocery store), Rachel Levi (19, shot while waiting for the bus),Rachel Gavish (killed with her husband, son and father while at home celebrating a Passover meal), Rachel Charhi (blown up while sitting in a Tel Aviv cafe, leaving three young children), Rachel Shabo (murdered with her three sons aged 5, 13 and 16 while at home). Only one critic (Clive Davis in the Times of London) dismisses parts of the play as "unvarnished propaganda." At one point Corrie declares "the vast majority of Palestinians right now, as far as I can tell, are engaging in Gandhian non-violent resistance". As Davis notes, "Even the late Yasser Arafat might have blushed at that one." Rachel Corrie's death was undoubtedly tragic. But ultimately this play isn't really about Corrie, but about fomenting hatred of Israel. The production is now sold out and there is talk of it being staged in America. The Royal Court is also rushing out a printed edition of the play to give to schools.
(The writer is the former Jerusalem correspondent of The Sunday Telegraph.)


Update August 2015:Confessions of an ISM member

Edgar's recent complaints of anti-Israel bias in News programmes

Letter to Sky News re their claim that 'Israel has broken the middle east truce' (15 July 2005)

Dear Sir/madam

At approx 10.15pm on 15 July Sky News brought the story of Israel's attacks against Hamas 'militants' in Gaza. The newsreader then stated that 'this attack has broken the truce that has been in place since Februrary'. Was the newsreader not aware that Islamic Jihad had already broken the truce by mounting several suicide attacks inside Israel including one in Netanya as recently as Tuesday 12 July that killed 5 people (including two children) at a shopping mall? And that Hamas had broken the truce by mounting a barrage of Qasam missiles into Israel in the previous few days, including one which killed a 22-year-old woman sitting in the porch of her house in the Negev on Thursday evening?

The Israelis' pinpointed attack killed 6 Hamas terrorists who were in the process of carrying missiles to launch further attacks. An act of self-defence if ever there was one, not a 'breach of a truce'.

Perhaps the newsreader would not have made such an obvious error if Sky News had actually covered any of the previous attacks in any detail. In fact, even the Netanya suicide bombing failed to get a mention on Sky News throughout the whole of Tuesday evening (the attack happened at 4.00pm London time). For a 24-hour news channel this omission was truly remarkable.
No response

Letter to the Sun in response to Anila Baig's article in the Sun (13 July 05)

Anila Baig ("All of us must pull together") in explaining the feelings of Muslims says "Feeling sorry for Palestinian orphans ... does not make us complicit in terror". Perhaps if Muslims also felt sorry for Israelis orphaned by the continual Palestinian suicide bombings (such as the two yesterday during a so-called 'truce') this might have more resonance. But they don't. And I have never heard a Muslim leader condemn the suicide bombings in Israel (or even Iraq) without also trying to justify it. It is time for Muslims to condemn terrorism without any 'buts'.
No response

Complaint to the BBC (21 June 2005)

BBC World Service, News (10.00pm), 21 - 06 - 05

The leading item on the News stated that, according to Palestinians, the meeting between Israeli PM Sharon and Palestinian PM Abbas ended in disappointment. The report attributed this to 'the tense atmosphere... resulting from Israel's arrest earlier in the day of 50 Palestinian militants'. It is not clear why the BBC should regard only the Palestinian viewpoint as definitive, but this report was in any case seriously flawed since it failed to mention the string of deadly terrorist attacks on Israelis (and the attempted suicide bombing of an Israeli hospital) that immediately preceded the arrests of the terrorists . The BBC's failure to report the context of both the arrests and 'tense atmosphere' represents seriously anti-Israel bias and extremely poor and misinformed reporting.
No response

Complaint to the BBC (20 June 05)

Today's BBC news on the Middle East fails to mention the two terrorist attacks in the last 24 hours that both resulted in loss of Israeli lives -- see the details, for example at:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/590104.html

Nor does the news contain any mention of the quite astonishing story of the female would-be suicide bomber who tried to repay the kindness of the Israelis who had been treating her at a Beersheba hospital by blowing them up. The full story can be found here:

Given that these (and many other similar) incidents of Palestinian terrorism are now taking place during a so-called truce I would have thought that it was imperative for the BBC to be reporting them. I would be interested to know why the BBC is keeping this information from its readers and viewers.
No response

Edward Heath - the man who ensured terrorism would work

Among the eulogising for Edward Heath it is worth remembering his appeasement of Palestinian terrorists in the early 1970s (including the infamous deal he did with hijackers to release Leila Khaled). This appeasement was a major factor in the spread of international terrorism - the excellent book "Why Terrorism Works" by Prof Alan Derschowitz documents this very well ands highlights Heath's shameful role. It is also worth recalling Heath's decision during the Yom Kippur war to deny Israel spare parts for the tanks they had bought from Britain. Without Nixon's intervention with alternative arms Israel would likely have been destroyed.