Category: Israel and Gaza (Page 3 of 14)

J’Accuse the Sunday Times of fabulist journalism : Israel’s alleged attack on Sudanese arms factory

28/10/2012 / Ray Cook / 0 Comments

Earlier this week there were reports from the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, of explosions at an arms factory in the outskirts of the city.

It was not long before the Sudanese were accusing Israel of bombing the facility. Israel remained mum.

In the past Israel has been accused of firing on a convoy carrying arms across Sudan to be delivered ultimately to Hamas in Gaza and behind this arms route is none other than Iran.

It would be entirely feasible for Israel to undertake such an operation. By supplying sophisticated weapons to a terrorist group bent on the destruction of Israel, Sudan is fair game.

However, there is little hard evidence. Iran claims to have discovered remnants of Israeli munitions at the factory site.

Most news outlets ask the question: ‘Did Israel bomb Sudan?’. This is a valid question to ask.

Some, though, have blatant headlines which claim this to be a fact. It cannot be a fact until there is independent evidence or an admission. Anything else is speculation. It may be well-founded, it may even be blindingly obvious who did it, but it is not journalistic fact.

Uzi Mahnaimi, an Israeli reporter for the Sunday Times, along with colleague Flora Bagenal in Nairobi (yes, you may well ask ‘ who?’) appear to have detailed information about the attack. For them there is no question, no journalistic caution about accusing Israel. They have every detail of this covert operation.

Problem is, they do not reference one source or one shred of evidence. The whole story reads very suspiciously. You can tell when journalists are making it up.

The online article is behind a paywall. The whole article is strongly editorialised including the headline: “Israeli jets bomb Sudan missile site in dry run for Iran attack” (or in the paper edition: Israel hits missile site in dry run for Iran’) so that we can draw the conclusion, if we are stupid enough, that Israel chose to bomb Sudan not because it was defending itself from an arms production and smuggling route originating in Iran but because it fancied having a practice run for a future putative bombing of that country.

Not only are our correspondents certain that Israel is to blame but the ST even gives us exciting comic-book graphics of the incident and the numbers and types of aircraft involved and the route the planes took, how they were refuelled and how the Sudanese air-traffic control and radar system was jammed.

The piece ends in American action movie style with Israel’s chief of defence staff (who Uzi knows was actually taking part in the mission, of course) calling Prime Minister Netanyahu at home with the words, ‘”All went well, … the guys are on their way home'”.

Now how the heck would he know that? Has he bugged Netanyahu’s phone? It’s ridiculous and also the main giveaway that this is pure fantasy masquerading as journalism.

It’s not the first time Uzi has been caught with his journalistic pants down; here is the Wikipedia entry (redacted to remove references to numbered notes and other links) about Israel’s supposed, but now proven to be a hoax, ‘ethnic bomb’.

In November 1998, The Sunday Times reported that Israel was attempting to build an “ethno-bomb” containing a biological agent that could specifically target genetic traits present amongst Arab populations. Wired News also reported the story, as did Foreign Report.

The article was quickly denounced as a hoax. Microbiologists and geneticists were skeptical towards the scientific plausibility of such a biological agent. The New York Post, describing the claims as “blood libel”, reported that the likely source for the story was a work of science fiction by Israeli academic Doron Stanitsky. Stanitsky had sent his completely fictional work about such a weapon to Israeli newspapers two years before. The article also noted the views of genetic researchers who claimed the idea as “wholly fantastical”, with others claiming that the weapon was theoretically possible.

A planned second installment of the article never appeared, and no sources were ever identified. Neither of the authors of the Sunday Times story, Uzi Mahnaimi and Marie Colvin, have spoken publicly on the matter.

It seems that Uzi has a record of shoddy journalism and, on the ethnic bomb story, he and his late colleague, Marie Colvin, no friend of Israel, were more than ready to publish unfounded trash simply because maligning Israel was involved.

Mahnaimi is well known for producing exclusives about Israel to the attention of Sunday Times readers.

I wonder where his sources are?

Another low for the BBC News website

25/10/2012 / Ray Cook / 2 Comments

Since the beginning of the week dozens of rockets have been launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel in a significant ramping up of the usual barely (if at all) reported regular barrage that penetrates southern Israeli cities towns and rural communities. On Tuesday an IDF officer was critically wounded in attack near the Gaza border.

On Twitter and in Israeli newspapers and other online media and websites this barrage was big news. Israel employed its Iron Dome defence system which is only partially effective in protecting large conurbations far enough away from launch sites. Typically Israelis have 15 seconds to get to shelters once the sirens sound.

Then two farm workers near Kissufim were badly injured by rocket fire.

On the BBC and its website what was the reaction for at least two days? We are talking about the world’s most respected news service, allegedly.

Nothing. Zip, Nada. Goor nisht.

I and friends online came to the conclusion that the BBC would not report this until Israel responded and that the headline would imply that Israel was the aggressor.

Sure enough, yesterday, Israel did respond and the BBC’s own response was immediate; there it was on the website’s World and Middle East pages with “Militants killed in Gaza strike’.

BBCWatch have been assiduously reporting this timeline and you can see their reports at BBCwatch.org

That report seems to have disappeared (actually buried and changed here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20054554) and been replaced with a more balanced one ‘Israel and Hamas ‘negotiate unofficial truce’ in Gaza’

I’m sure the original is somewhere in the BBC archive but I would hazard a guess they had several complaints about it and updated it. This is typical. A piece appears with a headline reversing cause and effect; the body of the piece often contradicts the headline and draws some moral equivalence between unprovoked attacks on civilian targets by Hamas or Gaza-based ‘militants’ and Israel’s response to prevent further attacks by targeting those about to fire or those who it knows have already done so.

Today we now have two very different pieces from the BBC. The one about the truce at last puts the horse before the cart:

Five have been injured in Israel since rocket attacks began on Monday.

Israel retaliated with air strikes on Gaza City, killing at least six militants.

…..

On Wednesday, more than 70 rockets were launched into southern Israel, injuring five people, two critically, according to the Israeli military.

In response, Israeli aircraft and tanks targeted rocket-launching sites in northern Gaza.

Hamas’s military wing, the Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades, confirmed it had been involved in firing dozens of rockets and mortars into Israel.

In a statement, the Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades and a smaller Gaza-based militant group, the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), said: “These holy missions come in response to the repeated, continuous crimes of the enemy against our people.”

But should we not have a headline at some point during this timeline which says ‘Five Israelis critically injured by rockets from Gaza‘ or ‘Israel responds to escalation of attacks in the South‘?

I’m sure we could all write a better, more balanced headline than the ones being spewed out from the BBC Mid-East desk.

Now, if you have any doubts about the level of moral degradation that the BBC’s reporting of this conflict has now reached you only have to look at the report by Jon Donnison who appears to be following in the illustrious footsteps of Jeremy Bowen and Barbara Plett reaching new heights of ignorance and moral bankruptcy.

Please be careful. This reports contains graphic examples of the BBC’s egregious attempts at what it calls ‘balance’ but is simply either bias, stupidity or moral decrepitude. (There was, apparently, an even worse report by Donnison last night which I have not been able to source yet)

Here’s the link in all its emetic glory. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20073219

The text below the video:

Mourners in the Gaza Strip have buried four Palestinian militants killed in Israeli air strikes over the past two days.

Israel said the militants were hit as they prepared to fire rockets into southern Israel.

It says at least 60 rockets and mortar shells have landed on its territory, seriously injuring three people. Schools have been closed on both sides of the border for fear of more attacks.

Ah – ‘Israel said’ – in other words we should not believe the Israelis but swallow whole anything emanating from terrorist-occupied Gaza.

And ‘schools have been closed both sides of the border‘ just to emphasise that same old moral equivalence. If schools have been closed in Gaza then it’s a precaution not normally offered to its children when rockets are launched from them. Or maybe it’s a good idea to close these schools to demonstrate to the BBC in particular how they protect their children. Or maybe Eid has something to do with it?

In the report Donnison does not show us hundreds of thousands of Israelis cowering in bomb shelters but the funeral of ‘militants’ killed by Israeli air strikes, and quoties Hamas. He leaves out the fact that this was after dozens of rockets hit Israel. We see mourning relatives and Gazans taking cover but absolutely nothing about Israelis.

These reports do tell us what actually happened if you care to decipher the text and remove the veneer of ‘balance’ but it certainly takes a strong solvent and an even stronger stomach.

Hamas reduces trade with Israel; Israel gives Gazan children free medical treatment

02/10/2012 / Ray Cook / 0 Comments

News this week that Hamas has halved the import of Israeli fruit, because to buy from Israel is to buy from the enemy. This move is part of the ‘resistance’. Only apples and bananas are now allowed in by Hamas. They want to cultivate their own fruit industry.

This is fine. It’s a great idea to be self-sufficient. But they are not so yet. In the meantime their own people will suffer price hikes and, presumably, as a result, many will go without this essential and important part of their diet.

Hang on a minute. Are we not being constantly told that it is Israel that is causing malnutrition because of the ‘blockade’? Is Israel not to blame for the black market in goods including foodstuffs?

But here we have Hamas punishing its own people for ideological reasons.
Of course, it will still be Israel’s fault. After all, were there no Zionist entity there would be no need for resistance and the benighted Gazans would have all the oranges and limes they could eat.

It is a shame that the Gazan authorities failed to stop the looting of millions of dollars worth of greenhouses which were actually purchased by American Jews from former Jewish settlers in Gaza. These American Jews then donated the greenhouses to the Palestinians of Gaza. They were all but destroyed in a matter of days in 2005.

And what do we now hear? Another flotilla is on its way from Europe in a further attempt to break the blockade and to keep Gaza in the news whilst Syria burns. Will they be bring fruit (not apples and bananas as they are clearly not yet ideologically tainted enough for Hamas to ban their import from Israel).

Is it not utterly extraordinary that Hamas imports anything at all from the evil Zionist entity? Is it not utterly extraordinary that the genocidal Zionist entity would want to feed the people it is trying to commit genocide against? Those Jews, eh. Anything to make a quick shekel.

But those genocidal Jews are really being outrageously cynical and hypocritical. They are actually saving the lives of Gazan children – for free! Is there no end to the lengths the Jews will go to whitewash their many crimes.

Mohamed and Hadeel (both 12), Hadeel’s brother Ahmad (15) and six-month-old Lian all suffer from kidney insufficiency and have been hospitalized for several months at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa. They have been receiving lifesaving therapy while awaiting kidney transplants.

Image by Pioter Fliter courtesy of Rambam Medical Center

Mahdi Tarabia, head nurse of the Pediatric Nephrology Unit, explained that the treatment they need, peritoneal dialysis, is not available in the West Bank and Gaza, so medical authorities from these areas cooperate with Rambam to save children’s lives.

“The hemodialysis treatment that these children were given before their arrival at Rambam was associated with medical complications, resulting in a worsening of their condition and many hospitalizations,” he explained.

As opposed to hemodiaysis, where the blood is cleansed via an artificial kidney over the course of several hours a few times per week, in peritoneal dialysis the treatment is given through the abdomen overnight, not interfering with the child’s daytime activities. Each of the young patients’ families has been trained by Rambam’s staff to administer peritoneal dialysis.

The families received the equipment required for this treatment, and the solution used with it, from Teva Pharmaceuticals. The company will arrange to have supplies conveyed through the Erez checkpoint at the border of Israel and Gaza.

The three schoolchildren are soon due to be sent home, while the recently arrived baby still needs time to be stabilized.

Sometimes things are not quite as black and white the Palestinians and the media would like them to be.

So, as I was saying about valuing life, valuing death…

13/06/2012 / Ray Cook / 0 Comments

I recently posted a blog about the Palestinian death cult masquerading as ‘resistance’.

The very next day Challah Hu Akbar broke a story about a Palestinian Kindergarten in Gaza which promotes this particular form of resistance.

This story soon spread like wildfire across the Net invoking predictable reactions on both sides.

What was instructive was contrast between the outrage of people I would call ‘right-thinking’ and the apologists for this particular form of child abuse who, of course, blamed it on Israel and even accused Israelis and their supporters of being hypocrites because Israel teaches its children to behave the same way to Palestinians – apparently.

First, here’s the very brief article from Challah Hu Akbar:

The following photos were taken at a recent graduation ceremony at a Gaza City kindergarten.

According to the director of the kindergarten, they have this every year during the graduation ceremony.

One of the children is quoted as saying “When I grow up I will be working in Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigades, and I will resist the Zionist enemy and fire rockets at it until I die a martyr.” The same child says that he loves “the resistance” and hopes to “kill” Zionists.

Here’s just one image:

Let me remind you – this is a kindergarten.

This story was taken up by YNet News

Here’s a flavour of that article:

One child, Hamza, said “When I grow up I’ll join Islamic Jihad and the al-Quds Brigades. I’ll fight the Zionist enemy and fire missiles at it until I die as a shahid and join my father in heaven.

“I love the resistance and the martyrs and Palestine, and I want to blow myself up on Zionists and kill them on a bus in a suicide bombing,” he said.

During the ceremony the children “demonst

rated” how Israel treats Palestinian prisoners. In the display, handcuffed children depicting inmates were placed in cages, with an “Israeli guard” standing nearby.

Another child depicting an Israeli prison guard placed the head of a “Palestinian prisoner” in a bucket of water to demonstrate how Palestinian prisoners are “tortured” in Israel.

“At every kindergarten graduation ceremony we focus on the children to represent the role of struggling and resistance in the way of Allah so they will grow up to love the resistance and serve the cause of Palestine and Holy Jihad, as well as to make them leaders and fighters to defend the holy soil of Palestine,” one of the teachers said.

Most instructive were some of the comments. Here goes – get the sick bag ready.

Jarda from the Czech republic said:

They are right

You stole their land, you expelled them from their homes. They are right to hate you. I wish them good luck in their fight against intruders.

MO from ‘Palestine’:

What are the kids in Israel doing in their KG? how to make a pizza????
Don’t beleive that 🙂
Hee guys … you are pressing the people in Gaza like a lemon from all sites … what do expect???

Marwan, Tel Aviv ‘Palestine’

so how is this different from what settlers teach their kids

oh come now! who do you think you’re kidding with such reports?! we all know that hate & racism are taught in israeli schools 24/7 and everyday of the year! it’s even in every page of the curriculum! so stop trying to fool the world with such lame propaganda stunts… we won’t teach our children to love those who wanna enslave and murder them!

So you see, how hatred justifies the most appalling moral depravity. But this is not ordinary hatred; it is a perverted religious death cult so obscene that it its adherents and apologists have to invent an even greater depravity to justify it resulting in a downward spiral of unimaginable dehumanisation not just of the ‘enemy’ but the self and a society.

You cannot argue or rationalise this kind of nihilism which feeds on itself.

As I continued to read Rabbi Israel Meir Lau’s great memoir, Out of the Depths, today I came across the final words of Hitler’s will written before he committed suicide in the bunker:

Above all I charge the leaders of the nation and those under them to scrupulous observance of the laws of race and to merciless opposition to the universal poisoner of all peoples, international Jewry.

Did not Hitler put uniforms on children and indoctrinate them in Jew-hatred?

BBC, Gaza and continued illegitimate reporting

11/03/2012 / Ray Cook / 7 Comments

The blatant misreporting and misrepresentation of Israel’s self-defensive action against rocket fire from Gaza continues to be a national disgrace.

There’s something very rotten in the State of the BBC’s Middle East desk on its news website.

Only today did the continuing murderous barrage of southern Israel which puts a million lives at risk, not to mention property and treasure, actually make it to the website’s home page. Although even that small mention now seems to have disappeared.

And what was the headline to direct us to this sudden escalation in rocket fire from Gaza which has seen over 200 missiles launched since Friday? Was it “Miltitants in Gaza launch rocket barrage against southern Israel’?

Not bloody likely. This is the BBC, remember and they seem only interested, for the sake of balance, of course, to highlight Israel’s response in defence of its citizens.

‘Israel launches fresh airstrikes on Gaza’

This was the disgusting headline.

“Israeli (sic) says almost 100 rockets fired from Gaza have struck Israel since the exchange of fire began.”

Subtle, no? Israel ‘says’ – after all, you take what Israel ‘says’ with a strong dose of scepticism, no? And ‘since the exchange of fire’. Thus, in a sentence, neutralising and sanitising the assault on Israel and characterising it as morally equivalent that Israel’s fire, in response to the rockets, is somehow a justification for the rocket fire from the Gaza side. So, once again, cause and response are turned on their head.

In fact, the report lies and implies that Israel is responsible for the escalation:

“The latest flare-up began on Friday when an Israeli air strike on a car in Gaza City killed militant commander Zohair al-Qaisi, secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), and two of his associates.”

What it does not mention is that al-Qaisi was plotting a terrorist attack. When the British or Americans take out terrorist leaders in Afghanistan that is justified but because the BBC is ‘neutral’ about the Israel-Palestine conflict and terrorists are ‘activists’ or ‘militants’, taking them out is an ‘escalation’ not a defensive act.

The Arab League, which has proved useless in preventing the horrors in Homs in Syria, characterised the 15 deaths of terrorists and rocket firers as a ‘massacre’. I wonder what the minimum number of Palestinians is to be called a ‘massacre’ ? 5? 10? In Syria it appears to be several hundred. Are innocent Syrian lives worth so much less than Palestinian militants in the debased arithmetic of the Arab world?

And just to show how even-handed the BBC is, what picture do they show us? The school in Beersheva hit by a rocket? No, they show us the results of an airstrike on Rafah where one person was killed.

UN spokesman Richard Miron called the situation in Gaza “very fragile and unsustainable”.

“We deplore the fact that civilians are once again paying the price,” he said.

I wonder whose civilians he means? Could it be the 1 million Israelis who are indiscriminately targeted by rockets and mortars? Or those in Gaza who are unfortunate enough to pay the price for the actions of groups who care nothing for the safety of their own fellow citizens? Maybe he means both? But I doubt it.

And whilst Israel closes its schools (and it’s lucky it did, as one rocket hit a school in Beersheva as I mentioned above) to protect its children, in Gaza, no doubt as has always been the case, schoolyards and hospitals, mosques and residential areas are used as bases for rocket launchers with the callous, deliberate and cynical hope that Israel will strike and injure or kill ‘martyrs’ and bring opprobrium on itself.

It is instructive to muse what would be the situation if Israel were Syria and Netanyahu Assad. What response would there be to hundreds of rockets aimed at civilians? Israel’s restraint is in gross contrast to Assad’s brutal massacre of his own people. Indeed, as the rockets rained down, Israel was discussing how to continue to deliver humanitarian aid through its crossings.

Assad, lays a real siege to his own people cutting off electricity and starving the populace whilst Israel feeds its enemies and provides them with the wherewithal to live.

Yet, no doubt, sooner or later, the UN will be stirring itself to condemn Israel for defending itself

Aya’s story

05/02/2012 / Ray Cook / 3 Comments

How often do we hear or read about how terrible Israel is preventing Palestinians in dire need of medical treatment getting through checkpoints and borders quickly enough?

How many reports have you read which characterise the massive humanitarian efforts of the Israeli medical community as somehow being part of the ‘occupation’?

I have written before about the extraordinary Rambam Medical Centre in Haifa.

I have no problem reproducing in full this story I received today which is just one example of hundreds, thousands, which are simply overlooked by the likes of the Guardian because it is a positive story which undermines all the negativity and false spin some of the media puts on anything positive which comes out of Israel.

So here is the report from the Rambam by David Ratner, Director:

Haifa, 5 February 2012

Just a Heartbeat Away…

Aya and Prof. Avraham Lorber : Photo by Pioter Filter-RHCC

When Aya Almasal, 12, left her Gaza home approximately one month ago and headed for Rambam, she didn’t know that this trip would save her life. For several years Aya had suffered from sudden bouts of unconsciousness, and her doctors couldn’t find the cause. About a month ago, Aya set out for Rambam to treat this problem, which had accompanied her since birth. Upon leaving Gaza, she felt ill and the situation steadily deteriorated. As the girl neared Rambam, in Haifa, her heart stopped working and she was, in effect, dead. After repeated attempts at resuscitation, the girl’s heart began to pump and she arrived at Rambam, artificially respirated and in serious danger. At the hospital, Aya was diagnosed as suffering from Long QT Syndrome, a disorder of the heart’s electrical system that causes irregular and rapid heart rate, and had prevented blood from reaching her brain. This had caused Aya to lose consciousness suddenly, and could have killed her.

Shortly after the diagnosis, Aya was hospitalized in Rambam’s Department of Pediatric Intensive Care, where she remained for a week. Doctors there stabilized her condition, and Dr Munder Bolus, director of the Unit of Electrophysiology implanted her with a defibrillator pacemaker. Accompanying drug treatment, the pacemaker supplies an electrical shock which ‘jump starts’ the heart during irregularities. After almost a month of hospitalization, Aya felt better, was discharged last Thursday, 2.2.12, and returned to her home in Gaza, standing on her own two feet.

According to Aya’s treating physician, Prof Avraham Lorber, who is head of Rambam’s Department of Pediatric Cardiology and Adult Congenital Heart Defects, Long QT Sydrome is a widespread heart defect that can be controlled with appropriate treatment. “Aya will need a pacemaker all her life,” said Prof Lorber. “She will be monitored to be sure the pacemaker and battery are working correctly.”

Fortunately, Aya had arrived at Rambam in time to receive life-saving treatment. But the girl did not have to die in order to live. Aya’s congenital defect should have been detected earlier. “Every year we treat a number of children with these types of problems,” says Prof Lorber. “Some patients are diagnosed when they seek treatment for their irregular heart rates, and others in regular check-ups. This early detection of life-threatening problems illustrates the far-ranging implications of preventive medicine.”

Rambam’s Department of Pediatric Cardiology and Congenital Heart Defects treats a wide range of disorders, like Aya’s. A large number of patients, some 650 children and youth, arrive from neighboring countries and are treated on a humanitarian basis. A number of Palestinian patients are currently at the department, among them a three-week old infant scheduled for heart surgery, and a 40-day old baby who needs a stent procedure. “Other Palestinian patients are now receiving treatment here or will soon be transferred to Rambam,” states Prof Lorber. Our experience in general medicine, and in cardiology, specifically, allows us to help most of these patients.”

I doubt we will see Guardian reporter Harriet Sherwood and all the others mentioning this any time soon. Unless they can find a way of making it an anti-Israel story.

Syria and anti-Zionist hypocrisy in the UK

27/12/2011 / Ray Cook / 1 Comment

Watching the news coming out of Syria daily, the reports off 5000 dead troops firing on unarmed protestors, cities being shelled, the wounded dragged from hospitals, I couldn’t help notice how little outrage has been evident within the very righteous anti-Zionist community.

Whenever Israel is in conflict with Hamas, defending its citizens from rocket attack or intercepting ships which seek to break Israel’s maritime blockade of the Gaza strip, we can expect marches, demonstrations, statements of solidarity with the Palestinians, Hamas and Hizbullah, headline news articles, debates in Parliament, public meetings, a Twitter deluge of anti-Zionist hatred, outrage in The Guardian and the full panoply of anti-Israel hatred orchestrated against it.

Yet, what do we see? Despite condemnation in Parliament and daily news reports with horrendous images of the dead and abused, including women and children, there have been no demonstrations in London or any siege of the Syrian embassy.

Does it not strike you as a little odd that so many people are motivated by outrage to take to the streets to take sides in a conflict in the Middle-East when Israel is involved, but when a tyrannical regime is suppressing democracy by declaring war on its own civilians, the same people who are so self-righteously opposed to anything Israel does are mute.

Where is the Syrian Solidarity Campaign? Where is the Free Syria Movement?

Could it be perhaps that when Israelis and, therefore, Jews are killing Muslims as part of an on-going existential conflict, this is not acceptable to the sensibilities of those take the side of Muslims in that conflict, for the declared reason that it is all about justice and historical wrongs? But when Muslim is killing Muslim (and – would it be too mischievous to suggest – when Muslim is killing Christian) this is of less importance for multitudes of the self-righteous, anti-israel activists.

Perish the thought. Yes, perish the thought that it is the Jewish element of the conflict rather than the righteousness of the cause that is at the heart of all that breast-beating and outraged indignation.

After all, if it were all about saving the innocent, then the pro-Pal/anti-Israel brigade would be out on the streets with the same anger and violence of expression calling for the destruction of the Syrian dictatorship and the implementation of a democratic government.

But they don’t, do they?

BBC, the provocatilla and the manipulation of the news

06/11/2011 / Ray Cook / 0 Comments

Yesterday the Israeli navy intercepted two yachts trying to break the naval blockade of Gaza.

This blockade has been declared legal by the Palmer Report into the Mavi Marmara incident last year when IDF soldiers killed 9 Turkish ‘activists’ leading a convoy to bring aid to the Gaza Strip.

The two yachts were the rump of a second flotilla which tried unsuccessfully to sail from Greece earlier this year.

This time they decided to sail from Turkey.

As often happens with the BBC website, it is constantly updating its stories as events unfold.

The IDF spokesperson on Twitter Avital Leibovich created the hashtag #provocatilla and those who supported this flagrant attempt to break international law used the hashtag #freedomwaves.

Of course, those aboard the flotilla, mainly Americans and journalists, apparently, have a right to protest and even challenge international law. As long as they realise that they will have to take the consequences if they break it.

These same people are the first to condemn Israel if they are judged to have broken international law. So this was an exercise in hypocrisy. It was also a stunt which was dangerous as their boats struggled in rough seas.

There was a huge irony when the Israelis offered them medical assistance if required. I tweeted that the Israelis were “… offering humanitarian aid to those carrying ‘humanitarian aid’ ” in the full knowledge, unlike the BBC, that the boats carried no such thing.

In fact, when asked what they were carrying by the IDF, the activists told them that they were not carrying anything. So no aid. Yet this seems to have been lost on the BBC journos who characterised this as an aid flotilla thwarted by those dastardly Israelis who will stop at nothing to prevent the beleaguered Gazans from receiving that aid.

This is the first headline the BBC carried:

4 November 2011 Last updated at 14:23

Israel blocks protest boats trying to get to Gaza

Ok, so far not so bad. They were, indeed, protest boats.

The Israeli navy has intercepted and boarded two boats which were trying to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Exactly right.

The Irish Saoirse (Gaelic for freedom) and the Canadian Tahrir (Arabic for liberation) were travelling about 50 nautical miles from the shore when they were contacted by the Israeli navy and told to turn back, the flotilla organisers told the AFP news agency.

The navy said it “advised the vessels that they may turn back at any point, thereby not breaking the maritime security blockade” or could sail to Ashdod port in Israel or to Egypt.

“The activists refused to co-operate,” AFP quoted the navy as saying.

Nothing about the fact that the blockade is deemed legal by the UN Palmer report but illegal by other UN bodies who do not know or wish to understand international law.

There is also an interesting mention of Turkey not sending warships to accompany these boats. Could it be that the Turks were quietly taken to one side by the Americans? Or is it they already knew that no aid whatsoever was being carried on these boats?

No mention in this article that hundreds of trucks pass everyday from Israel into Gaza (1500 this week, in fact) to feed their enemy and its captive population and to deliver medical supplies.

Then, a few hours later the headline changed to this:

Israel boards protest boats taking medical aid to Gaza

Wha!!? What ‘medical aid’? Did they not hear what I heard that there was nothing on these boats except some tins of tuna?

Immediately the headline conjures up an image of bad guys, the Israelis, stopping good guys, Gazans, from receiving medical aid – and it’s a complete lie which is still not corrected.

But it’s worse than that: the Israelis offered to escort the boats to Ashdod and, after inspection, take the aid through its regular crossing points.

Yet it still says in plain text:

They were carrying medical supplies for the coastal enclave.

Read it here.

And still no mention of the daily convoys crossing into Gaza.

You would never guess that Israel was supplying vast quantities of aid daily and that the activists had no intention of bringing anything to Gaza but themselves in an act of self-righteous self-promotion that brings peace not one iota closer.

So what image would you display to illustrate this article? A line of trucks entering Gaza from Israel? The flotilla boats? Their empty hulls? No, it was this:

People in the West Bank have staged protests in support of the Gaza flotilla

Again, the support for the flotilla is highlighted when there were apparently a mere handful of people there.

You would think that staging protests would mean a significant number. It’s another misrepresentation of facts.

So much for egregious reporting of the provocatilla.

A day earlier we were subjected to this headline:

Israeli troops ‘kill two in Gaza’

This is elaborated thus:

Israeli security forces have killed two people in a clash on the border of the Gaza Strip, local medics say.

Palestinian sources said Israeli troops had crossed over into northern Gaza.

The Israeli military said it had carried out a strike after a routine patrol came under attack. It said “hits” were confirmed, but said it had no information on casualties.

Why is the headline not:

Gaza militants attack Israeli border patrol

This would place cause and effect, attack and response in the correct chronological order. But no, the BBC always has to tell us what the Israelis did in their headlines regardless of who initiated the incident.

How about if two British soldiers were blown up by a landmine in Helmand and the perpetrators hunted down and killed; would the headline be:

Four Taliban militants killed by British troops in Helmand

I think not.

So what, then, would you expect the BBC to use by way of illustration of this incident? Maybe a picture of militants firing RPG’s? Or IDF troops firing tank rounds? Uh,uh. This is the image they used:

Thursday's clash interrupted a lull in recent cross-border violence

Huh? What the…?

What the heck has an apparently injured young Palestinian against a whitewashed wall with a motorbike nearby got to do with this story? Why is there a young boy looking on?

To me, this is a clear attempt to shift the balance of sympathy for this incident toward the Palestinians. Look, young innocents hurt by the the evil Israelis – again!

It’s a ludicrous photo to use.

The Guardian would be proud of this type of manipulation of news items under the cover of objective reporting. And that just about sums up the depths to which the BBC News website’s Middle East desk has sunk.

BBC News website MidEast Desk is surely beyond the Pale

01/11/2011 / Ray Cook / 1 Comment

This is a short blog just to demonstrate the complete one-sided and biased reporting that is being spewed from the BBC website.

This is what passes for journalism on the UK’s premier news site. A brilliant website which I use a lot, but something has to be done about this crude anti-Israel propaganda that passes for balanced comment.

Here is the headline from Sunday:

New Israeli air strike into Gaza after ‘ceasefire’

Now what to you think that implies?

It implies that Israel broke the ceasefire. LIES. There was never any ceasefire despite the vaunted Egyptian brokerage. Islamic Jihad kept firing and ignored it.

One Palestinian was killed in a new Israeli air strike in Gaza, hours after Egypt apparently brokered a ceasefire.

Those perfidious Jews are at it again – they cannot be trusted to sit by and watch rockets fired at cities of more than 200,000 people and they completely ignore the BBC’s attempts to mendaciously and cynically make its readers believe Israel is at fault.

Then there’s a picture of Israeli fire crew dousing a car. What do you think their caption should be? Maybe ‘Israeli cities under constant barrage, hundreds of thousands in bomb shelters, schools closed’?

No. This is what the caption says:

Palestinian militants fired rockets into Israel, after five militants were killed in an Israeli air strike

So what does that imply, pray tell? It implies, dear reader, that the ‘militants’ are responding to an Israeli air strike. It does not tell you that this very air strike was in response to ‘rockets’ – read missiles – being fired at Israeli cities.

The BBC turns this deadly attack on Israel into a schoolyard game of ‘he started it, miss’.

So for those of you who still are not sure, here’s the actual truth:

There would be no Israeli air strikes if there were no missiles from Gaza.

Now if you read the article I am referring to, it actually gives a reasonable account – so why do they spoil it by letting someone from Respect write the headlines and the captions? Am I contradicting myself? No. Anyone who does not know the realities of this conflict would read the headline first, have their opinion formed for them, then read the rest in the light of that headline.

And the BBC know it. The same person who wrote the article surely did not write the headline. Someone is saying ‘hmm, a balanced article, let’s see what I can do to spin it against Israel and still get away with it’.

SACK THEM!

Rockets rain on Israel, BBC again inverts cause and response

30/10/2011 / Ray Cook / 2 Comments

Can you imagine this BBC headline in September WWII:

“100 German infantry killed by Polish bombers – SS vow revenge”

And then decide to report that the Wehrmacht have begun operations in Poland in retaliation for earlier Polish air attacks.

You will note that Basil Fawlty was more accurate when accused of ‘starting it’ and responded, “You invaded Poland”.

Oh for a latter-day Basil at Al Beeb! Or at least one sage!

Melanie Phillips has been closely following the BBC Middle East desk’s clear intention to blame Israel for escalation whilst posing as even-handed and objective. You can read her articles here and here.

As I followed the news via Twitter last night, I too was monitoring the BBC’s response and was appalled by what amounted to agitprop for the Islamic Jihad dressed up as journalism.

Whilst the country is obsessed with News Corp’s egregious behaviour at Parliamentary level surely it is time to look at the BBC – Guardian Axis when it comes to reporting the Middle East and in particular the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Within minutes of the death of Sir Jimmy Savile OBE the BBC had a potted obituary across its website but as Southern Israel cowered in bomb shelters, closed schools and listened to the wail of air-raid sirens, all the BBC could muster was to report on the death of five ‘militants’ who were were killed preparing to launch a rocket at Israel.

Even today’s Sunday Times has a tiny little paragraph headed “Gaza Strike” and continues:

Israel carried out an air strike against an Islamic Jihad training camp in the Gaza Strip yesterday, killing five men. It claimed the group was responsible for rocket attacks. (my emphasis)

Notice ‘claimed’ – apparently Israel is an unreliable source and maybe Israel had an ulterior motive. Add to this the vague ‘rocket attacks’ which context as to time and place you have a compete misrepresentation of events.

But the BBC plumbed even greater depths hinting at the often used trope that missiles from Gaza are hand-made and harm no-one so any response from Israel is disproportionate and ‘aggression’. They reported (now corrected) that rockets landed harmlessly. Why mention that? If not to provide a subtext of ‘So, therefore, any Israeli response is disproportionate’.

This idea was soon scotched when these harmless rockets actually killed someone. Then, of course, the twitosphere which one minute is condemning Israel for disproportionate aggression now claims that the man’s death was a result of justified retaliation.

Am I reading in too much? I don’t think so. This is exactly the same mindset whenever Israel acts to defend its population, whether it be in Operation Cast Lead or the Mavi Marmara. When it reacts to the aggression of others, it is condemned even by those here in Britain who should know better and claim to be a friend of Israel (i.e Cameron and Hague as well as the Millipedes).

As I tweeted last night:

#Israel should not pre-emptively strike at rocket launchers like the British should not have attacked V1 and V2 sites until Germans launched

and

#BBC cheerleaders 4 #Hamas & pro-Pals believe/imply that if a rocket kills noone #Israel should just ignore it bbc.in/vthEoX

Then if a rocket DOES kill someone, it’s ‘retaliation’ = ‘justified’

which was the sandwich for Melanie’s

BBC ignores rocket attacks on Israel, presents defence strikes as aggression. MPs should question abuse of licence fee.

As Melanie points out, it was Islamic Jihad who fired into Gaza on Wednesday beginning the Cycle of Violence as a Twitter friend put it. In fact Twitter was alive with pro-Palestinians and Left wingers berating Israeli aggression and even postulating that it was a deliberate attempt to have an excuse for not releasing the remaining 550 criminals in the second tranche of the Shalit ‘deal’.

One reporter suggested this may an attempt by Assad of Syria to deflect from the horrors of the brutal repression of his people.

I have another idea: Islamic Jihad want to lure Israel into a ground operation and kidnap another soldier. On the other hand maybe they want to attract Israeli aircraft which they can attack with their newly-acquired Libyan ground-to-air missile.

Of course, if you go to the BBC site now, as has often happened in the past, there is a more balanced report. The BBC prides itself for the speed of reporting. Maybe the night shift have one spin they wish to place on any Israeli defensive action and the day shift have another. Or maybe it’s more cynical than that: defame Israel first then cover your tracks with what passes for balanced, for which read ‘morally-relative-human-rights-speak’.

Whatever the case is, it’s very poor journalism and as one of the world’s leading news organisations it beggars belief.