Gaza Appeal Opens Can Of Biased Worms

The BBC decision not to broadcast a 'charity' appeal to raise funds for Gaza has opened a can of worms among UK broadcasters now desperately trying to use the appeal to get themselves off the hook and justify their shameful biased coverage of the conflict.

At the BBC in particular, it reveals the split between BBC bosses, wary of a world-wide audience in the face of international media criticism and its own news organisation bent on presenting the conflict with blatant anti-Israel bias and pro-Hamas atrocity propaganda. 

At the time of writing, the BBC is refusing to back down amid criticism of its decision, despite three rival terrestrial channels, ITV, Channel 4 and Five deciding to run the appeal.

Mark Thompson, the BBC's director-general, said: "The decision was made because of question marks about the delivery of aid in a volatile situation."

Unlike Channel 4 and ITV, the BBC and Sky,which is considering the request, broadcast directly to the Middle East including Palestine, Israel and moderate Arab states, as well as fundamental Islamic regimes in Syria and Iran.

The appeal would rub Israeli noses in the dirt of the Gaza conflict, without mention of the destruction caused by Iran-backed rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. 

The bias of the appeal would be too obvious if presenters didn't mention that Hamas was committing crimes against humanity by using Gazan civilians as human shields. 

Moreover, the appeal could be seen as highlighting the victims of fundamental Islamic aggression and the BBC would not want to criticise Hamas by broadcasting such an appeal. 

More moderate Arab states too would be outraged at an appeal for the victims in Gaza, which includes members of Palestinian rivals Fatah, who are being routinely murdered and tortured by Hamas thugs in the wake of the conflict. 

Earlier, ITV and Sky had agreed with the BBC that they would not air the 'charity' appeal but ITV later reversed its decision.

Channel 4's decision to broadcast the appeal should come as no surprise. The broadcaster is already in hot water after an insulting and offensive alternative "Christmas message" by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, at the height of the conflict. News anchor, Jon Snow, too for his offensive, comments over former President Bush. The channel's biased 'news' coverage of the conflict has verged on the fanatical and its output a bad joke. 

The issue of the appeal was swiftly whipped up as a 'cause' by the usual well-organised suspects protesting outside the BBC's Broadcast House, all carefully crafted to create pictures for the waiting media. 

A couple of lowly government ministers have waded into the row urging the BBC to reconsider, while the Archbishop of York speaks from the heart and soul of humanity. 

The appeal is by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), an umbrella organization of 13 aid charities but there is no shortage of cash and aid for Gaza. 

Millions of dollars have poured in. The UN, EU and governments including our own have donated very generously. Aid is available locally and Israel has already lifted its ban on foreign aid workers entering Gaza. Many outside the cloistered world of the UK media have questioned DEC's motives for a 'political' appeal. 

It's difficult to see how such an appeal would not use stock pro-Hamas propaganda TV footage and the testimony of women and children made under threat by the thugs standing behind them. And can a presenter give a balanced and unbiased account of the events leading up to the suffering, without giving away their anti-Israel credentials. 

How can anyone be sure any of the aid will go to all the people of Gaza and not just into the pockets of Hamas and handed out to its supporters or those poor souls brow-beaten by the authoritarian regime, while Gazans from rival Fatah are left to starve and scrabble around in the ruins. 

No one would deny that humanitarian aid should override politics when innocent people are suffering. This conflict, like so many before, has been all about politics and power. 

Unlike the humanitarian aid already there in Gaza, the so-called 'charity' appeal is a political appeal and the on-going row is more about pseudo-liberal posturing politics than people.  

Picture: Foreign aid distributed in Gaza from the BBC website

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C4's Jew-Hating Fascist For Xmas Message

Channel 4 is sinking to appalling depths to court controversy and boost flagging ratings, by airing a Jew-hating, gay-bashing tyrant, in a deeply offensive TV message during a Christian celebration. 

The insulting broadcast by Iran's president, as part of C4's 'alternative' Christmas message, is a disgraceful act of wilful publicity, justified by the usual pseudo-liberal clap-trap. 

Even the government has condemned the broadcast, with the foreign office saying that allowing Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad to deliver Channel 4's 'Alternative Christmas Message' will cause international offence. Too right.

This is a dangerous fanatic with well-documented anti-semitic and anti-gay views, a despotic ruler using 'religion' as an excuse for a fascist regime preaching hatred and bigotry.

Reminiscent of a student union debate, which deliberately uses controversial speakers to drum up interest, Channel 4 justified its broadcast with a pathetic claim that it was offering viewers an "alternative world view". 

But Channel 4 is a state-owned and publicly-subsidised broadcaster and the prats at the top should realise with that comes responsibility, taste and decency. At best it's a deeply embarrassing, national disgrace.

The Orange Party doesn't give a fig what this fascist bastard may say during his broadcast. Allowing an outrageous tyrant airtime is an insult to Jews around the world and condones the actions of a regime which oppresses homosexuals  and treats women as second class citizens. 

Who next Robert Mugabee? Why not go the whole hog and just re-run some of Hitler's anti-semitic speeches, dressed up as the 'alternative' voice? 

Labour MP Louise Ellman, of the Labour Jewish Movement, said: "I condemn Channel 4's decision to give an unchallenged platform to a dangerous fanatic who denies the holocaust while preparing for another, and claims homosexuality does not exist while his regime hangs gay young men from cranes in the street."

Channel 4 has deliberately and wilfully given a platform to a despot who has made no secret of of the fact he wants to wipe Israel from the face of the earth and persecute Christians.

More importantly, it is disturbing that a national broadcaster would stoop so low to try to shock its pitiful audience to grab headlines and boost ratings.

Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell  called on the broadcaster to "pull the plug on this criminal despot, who ranks with Robert Mugabe, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and the Burmese military junta as one of the world's most bloody tyrants".

Squirming with the usual and predictable twisted pseudo-liberal garbage, C4's head of news and current affairs, Dorothy Byrne, said: "As the leader of one of the most powerful states in the Middle East, President Ahmadinejad's views are enormously influential ... As we approach a critical time in international relations, we are offering our viewers an insight into an alternative world view."

The Orange Party will watch with interest which advertisers have chosen to buy advertising slots around this appalling broadcast - but will treat the actual broadcast with the contempt it deserves - and give this fascist despot a very wide berth. 

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C4 News Sniffing Around Obama

Channel 4 News is the first mainstream broadcaster on either side of the Atlantic to begin sniffing around the spin and hype of the Obama political machine, which has been highlighted by the Orange Party on a number of occasions. But is this a one-off or can viewers expect more unbiased  reporting?

In a down-bulletin piece last night, the programme featured a report from Washington-based reporter, Sarah Smith.

The lead in article, which accompanies the news package, points out Obama's life is subject to intense scrutiny:

"His rhetoric sounds like he is running as an "outsider", not just another politician, almost an anti-politician. But is the real truth about Barack Obama that he is really an insider and that he has spent years mastering the rules of the political game? His life and background are now subject to intense scrutiny, in particular his dramatic rise through the politics of Chicago. Meanwhile, rumours about his religion and his past in one of America's most corrupt cities swirl round the internet." 



With the Democrat convention less that a week away and the Obama campaign going into overdrive, it takes a fearless mainstream broadcaster to stick its neck out and try to uncover the truth. 

But Channel 4 is a state-owned, commercially subsidised broadcaster wearing its pseudo-liberal heart on its sleeve. The Orange Party suspects this will have been a one-off sop to fairness and objectivity, before the C4 News is sucked up in the Obama hype and starts to bang the drum for the One. 

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