Another BBC stunt to polish Israel's image?

Reports in Haaretz say that the BBC's Top Gear team has been seen entering Israel from Jordan. "Viewers," said the newspaper's Daniel Schmil, "will be able to hear exactly what Clarkson, Hammond and May thought about Israel's roads in the coming season." The objective of the Top Gear visit is to film Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May driving roadsters to Jerusalem, modifying them along the way to suit the local conditions, "in the amusing and entertaining style for which the programme is famous".

This visit comes at a time when Britain, Spain, Turkey and Canada are boycotting the OECD tourism conference in Jerusalem, so questions must be asked about the BBC's timing and intention in this choice of location for the popular programme. Put aside the fact that Mr. Schmil's "Israeli roads" on the road to Jerusalem will, in fact, be roads on the occupied West Bank and not Israeli at all, will the Top Gear team drive on the settler-only roads that lacerate the Palestinian countryside? Will they have to drive on the tracks used by most Palestinians to circumvent the Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints? Will they, in fact, be stopped at such checkpoints and be delayed for hours on end as Palestinians are, or denied free passage completely? Probably not, although we will have to wait and see the programme itself before we will know for sure.

Nevertheless, the BBC and other Western media outlets have ignored the release of the latest report by the UN's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories. Prof. Richard Falk "called for the support of the international boycott and sanctions campaign against Israel because of its continued occupation of Palestinian land." The Lebanese newspaper Al-Nahar covered this story just a couple of days ago; the BBC was probably too busy with Clarkson's cronies and their boys' toys to care about yet another senior UN official condemning the "racial discrimination practiced" by the Israelis and the "dual standards that affect [Palestinians'] freedom of movement within the West Bank" and from Jerusalem to the West Bank". What Prof. Falk has to say is, though, of huge relevance to the BBC and its choice of location for this popular television series. The BBC has a responsibility to be impartial; filming an entertainment programme in territory occupied by Israel in which human rights are abused daily, is not impartiality, for it signals to Israel that it can do what it wants, the BBC will still treat the Zionist state as a member of the civilised world.

It may not be too late for Top Gear's production team to make amends. The producer should insist to the Israeli government minders that Top Gear wants to tackle the same roads, and face the same harassment as the Palestinians; doing so would expose Israeli claims of being a democratic state for what they are; lies, damned lies and Israeli propaganda. If the BBC misses this opportunity, it will confirm that the BBC misses no opportunity to serve the interests of Israel, acting as an arm of Israeli hasbara which seeks to disguise the Zionist state's occupation and oppressive policies under a cloak of normality. Top Gear's challenges for its presenters usually entail driving in conditions that are far from normal, and that is arguably their appeal. It is hoped that the abnormality of life for ordinary Palestinians living under Israel's brutal occupation of their land will be made clear in the resultant programme. Jeremy Clarkson is known for his robust, no-nonsense stand against many of the ills in the modern world. Will he have the courage to stand up and be counted as an opponent of Israeli injustice? Let's hope so.

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PRC Action Alert: Direct Bias showed on BBC on Flotilla crime

PRC Action Alert: Direct Bias showed on BBC on Flotilla crime The Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) expressed its deep apprehension and anger over the BBC coverage regarding freedom Flotilla. The Freedom Flotilla which is a mere humanitarian mission has been covered by a wide range of western media outlets in the last few days. The BBC started to speak about the Boats of the flotilla only in the last 2 days. In most of its coverage BBC depended on Israeli sources whilst the Palestinian side has been ignored. PRC suggests that such coverage harm the image of BBC and could classify it as an alternative for some Israeli media outlets. PRC and part of its day-to-day monitoring for BBC observed the following: On one of its today’s article BBC gave a space for the Israeli side while it has ignored the Palestinian side. The official account of Israel though, Danny Ayalon, Israeli deputy foreign minister was presented, which stated that organizers’ intent was violent. The article mentioned that 'Guns and knives' were used by the civilian passengers. The great exposure of Israeli account continued on the BBC breakfast (BBC TV) and its running news casts. Spokespersons and Israeli officials were given a chance to justify the Israeli attack. BBC reporters in Israel also contribute to this dilemma as they only speak out what they get from the official Israeli sources. PRC call on BBC to stand neutral and give up its routine policies of quickly admitting and giving a space for the Israeli narrative. The centre puts the facts ahead to the BBC that Israel announced its intent to attack these boats a few days ago. This gives us a direct and clear-cut massage that Israel will be inventing propaganda and lies to cover up its crime today. BBC should give more focus on the other side of the story which is the massive scale of the victims, the legality of this attack which happened in the international waters. BBC should investigate the last Israeli positions over the past week and compare it with what happened today. People in the UK and elsewhere who watch the BBC aspire to find non bias accounts and true stories. But, sadly what’s being going on BBC is one sided and reach the degree of flagrant bias. With so many different sources of information from governments to NGOs, the BBC finds it morally and journalistically appropriate to provide justifications of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) for its unprovoked crime. The BBC is alone in quoting the IDF that the Flotilla had violent intentions and humanitarian personnel on board were carrying knives, guns and fired shots. The BBC thinks it’s an impartial organisations, in fact it has shown that it’s a mouth piece for the IDFs crimes. The BBC should recognise that an impartial position at this early stage would have been to simply state the facts as accepted by the international community and not provide justifications for the killings of 19 innocent civilians. BBC spokesperson, told PRC that, 'We are unable to respond as we have not been given the courtesy of detailed evidence of any accusation.' However, PRC told the spokesperson of the above mentioned coverage and the time of the news casts. PRC call on activists, journalists to protest against the BBC performance. File a complaint against BBC: 03700100222 Or by web feedback: http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/feedback/default.stm

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How Can You Trust The Cowardly BBC?

The BBC Trust is now a mouthpiece for the Israeli lobby which abused Bowen

By Robert Fisk

The BBC Trust's report on Jeremy Bowen's dispatches from the Middle East is pusillanimous, cowardly, outrageous, factually wrong and ethically dishonest.

But I am mincing my words.The trust – how I love that word which so dishonours everything about the BBC – has collapsed, in the most shameful way, against the usual Israeli lobbyists who have claimed – against all the facts – that Bowen was wrong to tell the truth.

Let's go step by step through this pitiful business. Zionism does indeed instinctively "push out" the frontier. The new Israeli wall – longer and taller than the Berlin Wall although the BBC management cowards still insist its reporters call it a "security barrier" (the translation of the East German phrase for the Berlin Wall) – has gobbled up another 10 per cent of the 22 per cent of "Palestine" that Arafat/Mahmoud Abbas were supposed to negotiate. Bowen's own brilliant book on the 1967 war, Six Days, makes this land-grab perfectly clear.

Anyone who has read the history of Zionism will be aware that its aim was to dispossess the Arabs and take over Palestine. Why else are Zionists continuing to steal Arab land for Jews, and Jews only, against all international law? Who for a moment can contradict that this defies everyone's interpretation of international law except its own?

Even when the International Court in The Hague stated that the Israeli wall was illegal – the BBC, at this point, was calling it a "fence"! – Israel simply claimed that the court was wrong.

UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 called upon Israel to withdraw its forces from territories that it occupied in the 1967 war – and it refused to do so. The Americans stated for more than 30 years that Israel's actions were illegal – until the gutless George Bush accepted Israel had the right to keep these illegally held territories. Thus the BBC Trust – how cruel that word "trust" now becomes – has gone along with the Bush definition of Israel's new boundaries (inside Arab land, of course).

The BBC's preposterous committee claims that Bowen's article "breached the rules [sic] on impartiality" because "readers might come away from the article thinking that the interpretation offered was the only sensible view of the war".

Well, yes of course. Because I suppose the BBC believes that Israel's claim to own land which in fact belongs to other people is another "sensible" view of the war. The BBC Trust – and I now find this word nauseous each time I tap it on my laptop – says that Bowen didn't give evidence to prove the Jewish settlement at Har Homa was illegal. But the US authorities said so, right from the start. Our own late foreign secretary, Robin Cook – under screamed abuse from Zionists when he visited the settlement– said the same thing. The fact that the BBC Trust uses the Hebrew name for Har Homa – not the original Arab name, Jebel Abu Ghoneim – shows just how far it is now a mouthpiece for the Israeli lobby which so diligently abused Bowen.

Haaretz gave considerable space to the BBC's findings yesterday. I'm not surprised. But why is it that Haaretz's top correspondents – Amira Hass and Gideon Levy – write so much more courageously about the human rights abuses of Israeli troops (and war crimes) than the BBC has ever dared to do? Whenever I'm asked by lecture audiences around the world if they should trust the BBC, I tell them to trust Amira and Gideon more than they should ever believe in the wretched broadcasting station. I'm afraid it's the same old story. If you allow yourself to bow down before those who wish you to deviate from the truth, you will stay on your knees forever.

And this, remember, is the same institution which said that to broadcast an appeal for medicines for wounded Palestinians in Gaza might upset its "neutrality". Legless Palestinian children clearly don't count as much as the BBC's pompous executives.

How do we solve this problem? Well I can certainly advise viewers to turn to Sky TV's infinitely tougher coverage of the Middle East and – I admit I contribute to this particular station – I can recommend the courage with which Al-Jazeera English covers Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian-Israeli war.

I can well see how BBC executives will say that this article of mine today is "over the top". Jeremy Bowen may indeed think the same. But the First World War metaphor would be correct. For Bowen and his colleagues are truly lions led by BBC management donkeys.

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The real reason the BBC refused to show the DEC appeal?

The real reason the BBC refused to show the DEC appeal?

To bury the news of course but what news? I didn’t hear about it….

Crikey! This is fun, somebody on our Gaza group just asked:

Is this the real reason the BBC refused to show the DEC appeal?

& put the link to the Independent article about Thomson meeting Sharon etc etc & which you have all probably seen by now:

http://www.independent.co..uk/news/people/pandora/bbc-chief-holds-peace-tal

ks-in-jerusalem-with-ariel-sharon-517400.html

To which I replied (or at least I tried):

Good question but I am saying ‘no.’ I got my own little conspiracy theory on this one. Quite a few ppl been putting that article about since last week but

Let’s face it! These ppl aren’t stupid, they must have known this was going to cause a fuss & let’s face it, it worked, the BBC hijacked & smothered the news. Consider also that the same night that the BBC were asked to air the DEC appeal, last Thursday, More4 News aired this:

Were some of the weapons used in Gaza shipped to Israel from the Lakenheath US Air force base? More4 News investigates. We know that was the case with the cluster bombs used in Lebanon in 2006 and it's something the British government has no control over.

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/israeli+weapons+via+east+anglia+/2909027

or http://tinyurl.com/d8astx

No bandwagon of MP’s (like EDM 585) to protest this outrage & not from what I can work out any other media coverage…. But also, there has been a lot of talk of war crimes in the houses of parliament & lords, that not getting much attention either, so I think the BBC or Mark Thomson in particular, playing a bit clever, or cunning, as Zionists do, imho that is.

Baroness Tonge – War Crimes Witnessed by Entire World & What Hope for Israel’s Long-Term Future Now?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzIL2ikCue

PS: have u seen this?

British Jews Serving in (IDF) Israeli
Armed Forces

It is illegal under the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870 (c.90) for a British Citizen to serve in the armed forces of another country

http://www.thelondonpost.net/sq-jan-30.html

Well, I tried to but it wouldn’t let me post, I kept getting this sign:

Warning: This Message Contains Blocked Content

Some content in this message has been reported as abusive by Facebook users.

So I tried reposting, taking out one link at a time from the bottom up & this sign kept coming up until it got to a point where I couldn’t make my point, as it would seem that the More4 News post is the main offender. Maybe the post has suffered the ‘zionist swarm,’ as my old friend Greg Felton calls it? Maybe I’ll have to watch again to check just how ‘abusive’ it was/is? Maybe I should contact Mr Miller and give him a good telling off!

Israel to ICC Universal Petition

Action4Palestine

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Gaza Strip academics, journalists: BBC out of Gaza

Palestinian academics and media personnel, as well as international activists, demanded the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) leave the Gaza Strip over its refusal to air an appeal for aid on the network.

Academics organized a sit-in near the entrance to the BBC’s office in Gaza, accusing it of bias toward Israel and “its crimes,” as well as denouncing its stance on rejecting to publish an appeal for humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip on its satellite channel.

The BBC said it would not play the appeal due to its policies on neutrality.

Protesters demanded that BBC reporters Paul Wallet, Andrew Herill and Paul Martin leave Gaza immediately, threatening to “use the shoes of those killed on them” if they remain in the Strip.

Other demonstrators chanted slogans against the BBC’s administration, including General Manager Mark Thompson, accusing him of lying and carrying banners reading, “BBC out of Gaza,” “Boycott BBC” and “BBC: Biased toward Israel and complicit in Israeli war crimes.”

British activist Ewa Jasiewicz called for her country to stop supporting Israel, end investment within its borders and boycott Israeli products. She added that many other members of Palestinian solidarity organizations “were eyewitnesses to Israeli crimes in Gaza.”

As’ad Abu Sharkh, a university professor in Gaza, said, “The BBC has become a partner to Israel in its war on Gaza.”

He insisted the BBC should equally refuse to air threats to “turn Gaza into a larger holocaust more grotesque than that of the Jews,” a reference to Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai’s statements during the three-week assault, “while refusing to air an appeal on behalf of the very victims of that holocaust.”

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Tony Benn to BBC: "If you won't broadcast the Gaza appeal, I'll do it myself"

Tony Benn accuses the BBC ON AIR of capitualating to the Israeli Government by refusing to air an appeal for the Gazan people by the Disaster Emergency Commitee (DEC) he then broadcasts the Address himself much to the consternation of the interviewer!

Disaster Emergency Commitee (DEC)
Gaza Crisis
PO BOX 999
LONDON
EC3A 3AA

Disasters Emergency Committee Gaza humanitarian appeal:
Launched by UK charities on 22 January to raise money for Gaza aid relief and reconstruction

Participants: Action Aid, British Red Cross, Cafod, Care International, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, Help the Aged, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Oxfam, Save the Children, Tearfund, World Vision

Information on 0370 60 60 900 or at DEC website

In November 2005, BBC Head Mark Thompson traveled with his Jewish wife to Israel,
where he held direct talks with Ariel Sharon, which were intended to let the
BBC 'build bridges with Israel'. Thompsons Wife Jane Blumberg is a Zionist, makes you wonder how easy the decision came to the BBC now right!

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George Bush: God talks to me

A BBC series that will go to air later this month, includes mention of a meeting Bush had with Palestinian leaders in 2003. It was during this meeting that Bush divulged his "special" relationship with the man upstairs.

In the BBC program - Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs - due to be aired this month, Palestinian foreign minister, Nabil Shaath, says he and Mahmoud Abbas were treated by Bush to the following revelation:

"I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,' and I did."

The hymn "In the Garden" that includes the lyrics "he walks with me and he talks with me" has nothing on the President's relationship with the great hypothetical. To hear Bush tell it you would think he had God on speed-dial.

Bush's ill-conceived "War on Terror," launched on the back of 9/11 and a pack of lies, features an enemy that has been largely concocted in order to justify Bush's madcap adventures. R.T Naylor's book - "Satanic Purses: Money, Myth and Misinformation in the War on Terror" - exposes the inner-workings of a "war" that is more myth than reality.

The tall tale the Bush administration has been peddling about a global Islamic terror network stretching from the Middle East, to Chechnya and the jungles of the Philippines - is a fiction. Worse Bush has conned the American people into buying this fable - but who are they to argue, God himself is giving Bush inside tips.

The tragic part is that a good time Charlie with limited skills and childlike notions about "God" was ever let anywhere near the Presidency of the United States. The American people and the global community have paid a terrible price for this man's follies, including a massive civilian toll in Iraq and 1,950 dead American service men and women.

Recently Bush said that he honored the military dead by giving up golf - an unintentionally insulting statement that turned out to be a lie, since there is evidence that he went ahead and played golf anyway.

The idea that Iraq has now been "liberated" and "victory is at hand" is Bush administration propaganda. Buying-off Sunni insurgents and maintaining a tenuous grip on the security situation is a guarantee of nothing, especially given the changing dynamics in the Middle East.

The global tensions fired up by Bush, with quasi-religious warnings of "evil doers", "an axis of evil" and a mythical global terror organization with the backing of a sophisticated financial network, was the scenario he needed to justify his military adventures. God apparently was in on it all, urging Bush along a path of lunacy - pushing the world ever closer to the abyss - an abyss that yawns wider with Iran now in the cross hairs.

God of course is a great alibi. If your schemes backfire or when you are faced with the horrific consequences of your actions, you can say "God told me to do it" and absolve yourself of guilt and responsibility.

God is a hypothetical, but unfortunately George W. Bush isn't. Even with his popularity at an all-time low, he continues to embrace his delusional world view and mocks American Democrats as "appeasers" from a platform in the Knesset. His comparison of the situation in the Middle East with Nazi tanks rolling into Poland and the machinations of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich is inflammatory and wrong headed. At that stage in WW2 the prospect of military actions unleashing a nuclear disaster wasn't part of the equation, as it is now.

Bush's term as president is drawing to a close, but the consequences of his actions will continue to reap a bitter harvest for many years to come.

sourced

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A biased BBC report about Christians in Palestine provokes a strong response from George Galloway **A MUST HEAR**

Click Here To Hear Full Comments

"It's a foul lie. It is a falsehood which marked I think a new low in the BBC's coverage of Palestinian affairs. As you know, there are not that many people more closely involved with the Palestinian question than me, and for as long as me - more than 30 years. The Christians in Palestine have been consistently ignored by the West. The Church of the Nativity, where Jesus was born, was on fire under Israeli shell fire. Priests and nuns lay dead unburied in the crypt just 5 years or so ago. And none of the Christian politicians, like Mr. Tony Blair dare I say it, raised a finger to help them. The Christians in Palestine are as much a part of the resistance to Israeli occupation in Palestine as any other section of the population. And the idea that Palestinians Muslims are oppressing Palestinians Christian is just a foul lie, and I am grateful to you for bringing it up."

George Galloway On The Radio

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