Blatant BBC Bowen Bias Blasted

Blatant anti-Israel bias of BBC's middle east editor, Jeremy Bowen, has been blasted in a report by the corporation which has blown away any claims of accuracy and impartiality over its Gaza conflict reporting.  

The BBC Trust has ruled coverage of Israel in an article on the BBC's web site and a radio broadcast by Bowen was partially inaccurate and that aspects of the internet article lacked impartiality. 

In reporting about Israel, the BBC's internal complaints panel found Bowen has breached the corporation's guideline on accuracy and impartiality.

Confirming what many already knew, the Zionist Federation said that the findings show the BBC has an anti-Israel "bias" and that the position of Bowen, is "untenable". Claims rejected by the corporation. 

The Trust was responding to complaints filed separately by a London-based barrister and by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA).

Taking up the claim, journalist and author Chas Newkey-Burden, said: "It is extraordinary to think that the BBC entrusts a man such as Bowen with coverage of such a monumentally important issue. As we saw during Operation Cast Lead, anti-Israel distortion contributes to the atmosphere of hate that leads to violence against Jews on the streets of Britain."

Time and time again the BBC distorted and twisted its coverage of the Middle East and Gaza conflict, hghlighted by the Orange Party and others at the time fed up with a pseudo-liberal bias which verged on the anti-Semitic. 

But the BBC continued its bombardment of the UK media with Iran-backed Hamas propaganda, as Israel tried to strike back in vain to explain their side of the conflict.

The Orange Party became heartily sick of the blatant pro-Hamas bias from the BBC, most notably the highly skewed reports from middle east editor Bowen and his band of Iran-backed Hamas apologist thugs disguised as "journalists".

The Zionist Federation of the UK said that Bowen's position as Middle East editor of a public service broadcaster "is untenable in the light of the ESC's findings."

The report vindicates what many thought at the time of Bowen's reports. Viewers and listeners had to put up with his relentless attacks on Israel, delivered with an almost religious fanatical zeal, hardly able to contain his hatred and contempt coupled with fawning yawning support for the Palestinian cause.

Not quite the style one would expect from an objective BBC reporter.

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Murdoch Comes Over All Jewish

Master Of The Universe, Rupert Murdoch, has delivered a robust defence of the state of Israel with a warning the survival of the West depends on its rise or fall. Murdoch is a powerful player on the world stage and in the main stream media and his influence should not be underestimated. On this issue, His Master's Voice deserves to be heard.

Wearing one of his many media hats, Murdoch used a speech to the American Jewish Committee to deliver his diatribe against growing anti-semitism and the future of Israel, as the West continues to "reach out" to Iran and its band of international murderers.

Pointing out that he isn't Jewish, he did have the brazen cheek to try to take credit for practically inventing the word chutzpah. 

As the recent conflict in Gaza and pseudo-liberal news bias has shown, public debate is becoming poisoned by a rise in anti-semitism which many thought had been confined to the dustbin of history. 

The Orange Party has no time for the pseudo-liberal posturing of politicians and media such as the BBC and Channel 4 News, whose distorted opinions and news values get them in a right pickle. 

Blatant anti-semitic bias was vividly demonstrated in the recent coverage of the Gaza conflict, love-bombing the Jew-hating, gay-bashing preachers of hate in Iran and its web of terrorists. 

Murdoch points out: "In the end, the Israeli people are fighting the same enemy we are: cold-blooded killers who reject peace, who reject freedom and who rule by the suicide vest, the car bomb and the human shield."

And he asks if "we in Europe and the US can survive if we allow the terrorists to succeed in Israel"?

In the US, Obama continues his misguided and dangerous policy of "reaching out" to Iran with "a new beginning", aided and abetted by his new poodle Brown, who seem oblivious to a regime that backs the thugs of Hizbullah and Hamas and is now on course to acquire a nuclear weapon to wipe out Israel. 

Murdoch gives a warning over the recent attacks in India where Islamic terrorists singled out the Mumbai Jewish Centre to torture and kill the victims in a well-planned and well-coordinated attack. That particular outrage, which was practically ignored by the western liberal media, is a test run for similar attacks in similar cities around the world. 

In Gaza, dead Palestinians serve the warped political propaganda purposes of Hamas. Only now is the true scale of the Hamas atrocities becoming known. But Iran-backed thugs of Hamas get away with this, as it rules by fear and intimidation, accountable to no-one but itself.

In the global media war, which Murdoch knows a thing or two about, he questions media coverage of the Gaza conflict.

Images of Palestinian deaths have led some to call for Israel to be charged with war crimes by an international tribunal. Why do we never hear calls for Hamas leaders to be charged with war crimes?

Why do we hear no calls for human rights investigations into Hamas gunmen using Palestinian children as human shields? Why so few stories on the reports of Hamas assassins going to hospitals to hunt down their fellow Palestinians? 

And where are the international human rights groups demanding that Hamas stop blurring the most fundamental line in warfare: the distinction between civilian and combatant?

Fine words now from Murdoch but a tad hypocritical. Where was his vast media empire at the time? Busy going with the flow to 'sell newspapers'. 

There is passionate disagreement on many social and political issues and points of view, raised by Murdoch in his Times and saucy sister the Sun but here is one powerful, lone dissenting voice in the mainstream media to counter the illiberal anti-semitism of pseudo-liberals. 

The Orange Party doesn't always see eye to eye with this megalomanic media monster whose tentacles spread across the world. But in this sense, chutzpah is probably the best word to use. 

There's a strong disapproval for a lot the Dirty Digger has done and said but on the issue of Israel and the Jewish people, there is a grudging admiration.

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A Kosher Reason For Backing Jews

Struggling with the vexed question of why an old liberal Leftie should feel so Jewish all of a sudden, the Orange Party is not alone in trying to unravel the mystery. The answer comes from another liberal Leftie, author Nick Cohen, who's delivered scorching polemics on the mixed-up values of the old Left. Cohen puts his finger on it: "The more the British Left indulges antisemitism, the more kosher I feel."

Cohen's article for the Jewish Chronicle begins in a jocular vein: 

My name is Nick Cohen, and I think I’m turning into a Jew. Despite being called “Cohen”, I’ve never been Jewish before.

But where he's coming from chimes with some on the so-called liberal left: 

My sole interest in Jewish concerns came from being a left-wing opponent of the far Right, and the blood-soaked antisemitic superstitions which turned Europe into a graveyard. When I was young, such attitudes seemed unproblematic. You did not have to be a Jew to oppose fascism; everyone I knew did that regardless of colour or creed.

And that leads into a powerful and forceful argument: 

Today the old certainties have gone because there are two far-right movements: the white neo-Nazi parties that the Left still opposes; and the clerical fascists of radical Islam which, extraordinarily, the modern Left succours and indulges. I am not only talking about Ken Livingstone, George Galloway and their gruesome accomplices in the intelligentsia. Wider liberal society is almost as complicit. It does not applaud the Islamist far Right, but it will not condemn it either. From the broadcasters, through the liberal press, the Civil Service, the Metropolitan Police, the bench of bishops and the judiciary, antisemitism is no longer an unthinkable mental deformation. As long as the conspiracy theories of the counter-enlightenment come from ideologues with dark rather than white skins, nominally liberal men and women will not speak out.

For Cohen, the experiences of left-wing antisemitism and in particular the BBC's Gaza bias has changed the way he thinks and there is no retreat: 

As the struggle between theocracy and liberalism intensifies, I can see some being pushed into taking the same journey I have taken and finding their views towards Judaism and Israel softening as they realise that antisemitism helps drive the fascistic ideologies of the 21st century just as it drove the Nazism of the 20th.

Politicians keen on pseudo-liberal posturing should take note of that breath of fresh air. Give the boy a kosher sandwich.

Nick Cohen is the author of What's Left: How The Left Lost Its Way.

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BBC Must Stand Firm On Gaza Appeal

Pressure is mounting on the BBC to overturn its decision not to broadcast a Gaza 'charity' appeal with more than 90 MPs piling in with political posturing. But the BBC must stand firm if it is to salvage any scrap of impartiality left in the corporation. 

The BBC decision has opened a can of worms revealing the split between BBC bosses, wary of its world-wide audience and international criticism and its own news organisation, bent on presenting the conflict with blatant anti-Israel bias and pro-Hamas atrocity propaganda. 

Today BBC director general, Mark Thompson, repeated that airing a 'charity' appeal would put the corporation's impartiality at risk and the BBC could not give the impression it was "backing one side" over the other. Sky too said today it will not broadcast the 'charity' appeal for similar reasons. 

Thompson's comments come as more than 90 cross-party MPs back a parliamentary motion urging the BBC to screen the appeal, raising the ugly spectre of an authoritarian parliament bullying the corporation and trying to directly control and influence the output of the state broadcaster. 

Criticism over the decision has come from a host of usual suspects, as the appeal was swiftly whipped up as a 'cause' in a well-organised, stage-managed protest.

The so-called 'charity' appeal is a political appeal and the on-going row is sadly more about pseudo-liberal posturing politics and the fundamental Islam 'cause' than people.  

Humanitarian aid is already there in Gaza. Millions of dollars have poured in from the UN, EU and governments including our own. Now Hamas thugs are crawling out of the rubble to mount their own insidious PR offensive. 

How can anyone be sure any 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. 

DEC's motives for the appeal are at best part of a do-good mentality, at worst politically motivated and highly suspect. 

Unlike Channel 4 and ITV, the BBC and Sky broadcast directly to the Middle East.

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. 

But the BBC also broadcasts into Palestine and moderate Arab states, as well as fundamental Islamic regimes in Syria and Iran.

It's difficult to see how such a 'charity' appeal could avoid using stock pro-Hamas propaganda TV footage and the testimony of women and children made under threat by the thugs standing behind them. 

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. 

Indeed, the appeal could be seen as highlighting the victims of fundamental Islamic aggression which wouldn't go down well in Tehran. 

More moderate Arab states would be outraged at an appeal for the victims in Gaza, without mention of Palestinian rivals Fatah, who are being routinely murdered and tortured by Iran-backed Hamas thugs in the wake of the conflict. 

Channel 4's decision to broadcast the 'charity' appeal on the other hand comes as no surprise. The channel's 'news' coverage of the conflict has verged on the fanatical and its biased output a bad joke. Channel 4 is desperately trying to use the appeal to get themselves off the hook and justify their shameful coverage of the conflict and blatant anti-Jewish bigotry.

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. But wading in waving around so-called liberal credentials is not the way to bring peace to the Middle East. 

Culture secretary, Andy Burnham, has said the BBC is right to make its own judgement over the appeal and there the matter should rest. 

The Orange Party is at the front of the queue when it comes to bashing first Blair's now Brown's biased BBC - but that applies in the main to its news output, not overarching decisions of the corporation. The BBC is making the right call on this one. 

Picture: A worker readies a shipment of relief aid to Gaza at the warehouses of the Jordanian Hashemite Charity Organization in Amman (Thursday Jan 22, 2009), from UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). AP Photo by Mohammad Abu Ghosh.

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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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A Shaky Cease-Fire In Gaza

Israel's unilateral Gaza cease-fire has thrown the ball firmly back in the Hamas court, with a warning that Israel will reserve the right to return fire, if Hamas continues to fire rockets into the South.

The Israeli cabinet voted for an Egyptian-backed 10-day cease-fire deal, ending the three week long Operation Cast Lead, after a cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv this evening. 

But the Jerusalem Post reports IDF forces will remain in Gaza until it's clear Hamas has ended its rocket fire into Israel. 

Hamas leaders have repeatedly warned they will not respect any cease-fire as long as Israel remains inside Gaza. Asked about Hamas continuing its rocket attacks, the Israeli prime minister warned "he wouldn't advise them to try it". 

Prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said the aims of the Gaza operation had been "met in full" and the cease-fire would start from 2am Sunday (local time).

Israel's operation had been at least a year in the planning and training, with the objectives of taking out Iran-supplied Hamas rockets launched from Gaza and ending Iranian weapons smuggling through the Egyptian border tunnels, before the start of Obama's US presidency. 

EU leaders, including prime minister Brown, had offered help to end arms smuggling into Gaza. The cease-fire was agreed by the Israeli cabinet after talks with Egyptian intelligence chiefs, according to the Israelis. 

Meanwhile, Iran's proxy war against Israel was confirmed at an Arab summit, where Hamas leader, Khaled Mashaal, rejected Israel's conditions for a truce and called on all Arab countries to cut ties with the Jewish state, backed by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian president Bashar Assad. More moderate Egypt and Saudi Arabia boycotted the summit.

With Hamas launching a rocket attack on Israeli civilians during the cabinet meeting and in the hours afterwards, the signs are it won't be long before any fragile peace is shattered. 

Picture: The Israeli cabinet meets at the defence ministry in Tel Aviv, Saturday night.

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BBC's Gaza Bias Mocked In Israel

The BBC's endless diet of pro-Hamas bias hasn't gone unnoticed in Israel, with the popular Israeli comedy show 'Eretz Nehederet' (A wonderful country) delighting viewers with its satire of the corporation's Gaza coverage. 

As Operation Cast Lead enters its third week and calls from around the world denouncing Israel and its actions growing stronger, many Israelis see the anti-Israel BBC bias as part of the on-line battle for hearts and minds and an excuse to vent anti-semitism.

A fierce battle rages on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, blogs and forums and in the Main stream media but Israel has been fighting back with its own Hasbara (explanation), including this from 'Eretz Nehederet'.

UPDATE 21.20: The Israeli cabinet has announced a unilateral 10-day cease-fire deal in Gaza. At a press conference directly following the meeting, prime minister Ehud Olmert said goals of Operation Cast Lead had been met in full and thanked foreign minister Tzipi Livni for diplomatic efforts.

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Pro-Israel London Rally In Cease-Fire Game

Jewish organisations, fed up with pro-Hamas, pseudo-liberal media bias are planning a pro-Israel rally in London on Sunday, as political leaders continue to jump on the Gaza bandwagon, keen to be seen as players in the cease-fire game. With a wave of anti-Semitic violence and anti-Israel demonstrations in London, Jewish organisations have had enough.

Politicians are strutting around with an eye on photos and headlines, in an effort to boost their popularity and politically correct credentials.

The Orange Party has lost count of the number of political leaders quick to throw in their two penneth using the common theme of "ending the humanitarian suffering of Palestinians" to try to give themselves a popularity boost. But the gap between PR rhetoric and realistic solutions is huge.

Earlier this week, the Orange Party drew attention to the deafening silence from the useless US middle east 'peace' envoy Tony Blair. Sure as eggs is eggs, Blair popped up the following day with meaningless drivel, which captured some headlines but showed him up as a complete waste of space. 

Here, both Brown and foreign secretary Miliband are not averse to the occasional political posturing and the UK government occasionally pops its head above the parapet. But, as a major arms exporter to Israel, the government prefers to keep its head down and export licences for arms sales under wraps. 

With peacemaking comes power and prestige. Now the field is crowded with players including Turkey, Russia, numerous European leaders, the UN Secretary General, Qatar, Egypt and in the background, the US.

Both French president Sarkozy and Egyptian president Mubarak, stand to gain from the media attention. Israel is happy to go along with the cease-fire farce if it helps soften a hostile pro-Arab media, particularly in Europe.

A realistic, lasting and stable cease-fire requires a huge and costly effort to make sure it works, otherwise the violence will start up again and escalate. 

Egypt hasn't stopped Hamas from getting weapons, smuggling them into Gaza and lobbing them at Israel. Europe and France in particular have failed to implement a UN Security Council Resolution which ended the 2006 Lebanon war. 

Fine speeches and an international force have not prevented Palestine's Hizbullah from rebuilding and increasing its arsenal of rockets with its sights on northen Israel. 

European monitors at the Egyptian/Gaza Rafah crossing fled at the first sight of Hamas gunmen. Europeans are good at giving advice but few have the political will to enforce Israeli security when agreements are violated.

The key to ending the conflict rests with the US, where Bush along with Germany's Chancellor Merkel stand out, pinning the blame squarely on Iran-backed Hamas.

The US is the only power that can give credibility to a stable and serious cease-fire agreement. But the US abstention in the UN security vote shows the realism of the US and UK position. The US and UK are over-stretched and over there in Iraq and Afghanistan and cannot afford to divert troops to UN peace-keeping and monitoring forces. 

Meanwhile both the BBC and the Iranian president's favourite broadcaster, Channel 4, continue to play down the attacks on Israel, the wave of anti-Semitic violence escalating in Europe and the pro-Israel street protests, preferring instead to lay the 'humanitarian' charge.

Jewish organisations say they "cannot remain passive to the latest anti-Semitic incidents and anti-Israel demonstrations which have been taking place in the UK" and are due to stage a mass rally of solidarity in Trafalgar Square on Sunday.

What some still fail to realise is that Israel's action have been at least a year in the planning and training. Faced with continued Iran-backed Hamas rocket attacks and total failure to prevent Hamas smuggling in more through the Egyptian tunnel network, Israel will not give up, until its military objectives have been met. 

The stability of any cease-fire will depend on Israel's current military achievements. Any premature end will simply serve as the starting point for the next round in the Iran-backed Hamas avowed intent to wipe out the state of Israel. 

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