So Soon Forgotten 205


The BBC has … started its news broadcast as usual from Ashkelon in Israel, highlighting rocket attacks on Israel. There is no mention on the BBC – there has never been any mention on the BBC, or anywhere in the Western mainstream media – that for at least 4,000 years Ashkelon was an Arab town, until in 1948 the entire, Arab population of 12,000 was driven out by armed force, many being massacred. Doubtless some older inhabitants of Gaza are refugees whose home is Ashkelon.

Israel is exercising its right of self-defence in precisely the same sense that Hitler was exercising the right of self-defence in Normandy in 1944 – ie not at all. Why the world puts up with this blatant ethnic cleansing and prolonged, agonizing genocide of the Palestinian people, I have no idea. It is not just about bombs and rockets and deaths now. It is about the shepherds being pushed out of their village in 2012 as part of the same process as the massacre of Ashkelon in 1948, all a process of genocide of the Palestinians in which Obama, Clinton, Cameron and Hague, as two whole generations of western politicians before them, are actively complicit.

I blogged this on 21 November 2012. Today every single BBC News bulletin leads with precisely the same trick, from precisely the same stolen Arab village. There is evidently a BBC policy to bias coverage of massacre in Gaza by basing it in the stolen town of Ashkelon. Every single BBC news programme is led by a report of the terror of people in Ashkelon at the rocket attacks which have killed and maimed – precisely nobody. There is then a brief “balancing” mention of the continual bombing of Gaza, which sometimes does and sometimes does not mention that at least 25 people have been killed, and hundreds maimed. Of the five reports I have seen, not one has mentioned that many of the Palestinian dead are women and children (although I once saw it on the strapline underneath). Rather the BBC says that “the Israeli government states it is targeting militants and weapons factories”.

The time given to the attacks on Palestine is abut 25% of that given to the rocket attacks on Israel. The coverage is also very different – we see human interest coverage of Israelis hiding from rockets in cafes. There is nothing remotely similar of the Palestinians under infinitely more deadly attack. There was one showing of funeral footage from Gaza, not of any of the women or children killed but of someone the BBC told us was simply a “militant”.

It is so blatant it is absolutely sickening. There are decent people I know in the BBC. Why do they put up with this?


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205 thoughts on “So Soon Forgotten

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  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !

    “If Hamas had the equivalent of Mark Regev – glad they don’t because then I would have to be equally nauseated by both sides – he would undoubtedly say that, plus or minus the odd bruise sustained scrambling for shelter. the zero casualties sustained by the Israelis prove conclusively that Hamas isn’t aiming to kill civilians.”
    ________________

    So what would this Mark Regev equivalent say WAS Hamas’ aim in periodically firing off those rockets, Baal?

    Please enlighten us, bearing in mind Craig’s comment at 16h37 on 9 July.

  • lwtc247

    Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) ! at 9 Jul, 2014 – 5:14 pm
    Focused almost exclusively on the “rockets” – Gosh, that was a surprise.

    info at 9 Jul, 2014 – 4:37 pm
    I would dearly like to say ‘1984’ should be compulsory reading in school, but sadly that would be too ironic 🙁

    Long live Palestine! May Zion be thrown into the garbage bin of history. And yes, the yankee jihadists, the sectarianists, the Islamic “scholars” and the appalling Muslim “leaders” have all got blood on their hands. Scumbags.

  • Mary

    Why Israel is blind to Palestinian suffering
    Jonathan Cook
    10 July 2014

    Lots of people have been wondering over on my Facebook page how it is that Israelis are so incapable of understanding what bombing one of the most crowded places on earth entails: lots of Palestinian civilian casualties. Well, this Israeli TV interview with Palestinian Knesset member Haneen Zoabi should help.

    The programme is Meet the Press and was conducted before Israel’s attack on Gaza. The refusal of the interviewer to listen or engage with Zoabi’s argument is eye-opening and stomach-turning at the same time. Much of this ends up being a shouting match, with the interviewer trying to force-feed Zoabi the Zionist narrative.

    Israelis hear this narrative day in day out from primary school onwards. Their media almost never interview Palestinians, and when they do, as here, they simply try to drown them out.

    The interviewer, Rina Matzliach, says several times: “I do not understand you.” And she means it. Her mind is so rigidly programmed that logical arguments from the other side are quite beyond her comprehension.

    Let’s not forget too that this is the role of all mainstream media everywhere. To keep our minds tightly constrained by narratives that serve our own elites’ interests. Israeli narratives, to those of us not raised on them, appear preposterous. But our own narratives would sound equally preposterous to a Martian – or to us could we wean ourselves off the comforting illusions they afford us.

    Finally, there is a wonderful comment about Israeli democracy from Zoabi at about 14 mins in.

    Matzliach tells her she enjoys “the benefits of Israeli democracy”:

    Zoabi: I do not enjoy the benefits of democracy. I suffer from a racist democracy, which seizes my land and permits me one thing, Rina: the freedom of expression. And freedom of expression is not an indication of democracy, it is an indication of the strength of the state of Israel.* It is strong enough to grant me freedom of expression, knowing that my freedom to express myself will change nothing.

    Matzliach interrupts: But you don’t appreciate it.

    Zoabi: Look: see the incitement. The very moment that this freedom of expression disputes the red line, that is when the incitement starts.

    Watching Meet the Press, one wonders – like Zoabi – what the extent of freedom of expression really is in Israel.

    * I would add: Israel’s strength derives from its success in having ethnically cleansed Palestinians from their homeland.

    http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2014-07-10/why-israel-is-blind-to-palestinian-suffering/

    Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8UqucganIk

    (Very much like watching Hardtalk on BBC here or similar.)

  • Mary

    July 10, 2014

    Watch: Israeli propagandist “Mark Regev” gets throttled by British TV news anchor

    Watch Mark Regev (real name Mark Freiberg), Israel’s Australian-born Joseph Goebbels, lose his cool in an interview with Jon Snow of Britain’s Channel 4 News.
    http://www.redressonline.com/2014/07/watch-israeli-propagandist-mark-regev-gets-throttled-by-british-tv-news-anchor/

    The video was made in 2009 at the time of Operation Cast Lead. The subtitles are hilarious.
    Inside the mind of Mark Regev
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMd_js_oQAk#t=213

  • N_

    Craig, you know why they put up with it: because they are amoral creeps, men and women without backbones, who rake in the money and don’t give a shit about anybody else or about hypocrisy. Those scum know which side their bread is buttered. Some of them may be nice to you in private. Then they go back to helping burn Arab babies.

    Good people don’t put up with it.

    Look at this piece of propaganda from the Torygraph:
    “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/10960956/Israel-air-strikes-on-Gaza-live.html"<Hamas strikes Israeli nuclear facility. Well actually Hamas doesn’t appear to have done so or even to have claimed to have done so.

    Curiously, this piece of MI6 propaganda in the Torygraph is exactly in line with what was supposedly put out by the fantastically skilled operatives of the Syrian Electronic Army after they hacked into an IDF Twitter account.

    Is the SEA perhaps other than it seems? I was thinking it was an Israeli front, but who knows, maybe it’s a little bit of a help job from MI6 or GCHQ.

    Britain – in the form of the Tory and MI6 Psy-Ops house journal called the Torygraph – appears to be falling over itself to be more Zionist than the Zionists. It is excelling itself in showing its utter commitment to the Zionist cause, to the death of the last Palestinian if ‘need’ be.

    David Cameron has called Netanyahu to express his support for Israel. Remember, British people reading this – we paid for that fucking phone call!

    Britain is NOT neutral in this conflict. Psychological warfare is part of warfare and Britain must be considered to be giving active support to the Israeli massacre.

    Presumably Cameron asked whether there was any more support he can offer than the extreme support he and the so-called British authorities and media have offered so far. “We’re doing everything we can do to help you, Sir. Is there anything more you would like us to do, Sir?

    Here is the top article on the Zionist ‘Google News’:

    Analysis: Israel is looking for the middle ground in Gaza”.

    Be thankful, oh un-chosen ones, that Avigdor Lieberman hasn’t yet settled down to his screen to watch the implementation of his favoured option: the nuking of Gaza, the world’s biggest concentration camp.

    It is of course common for the first article on Google News to be from the Jerusalem Post or Haaretz. And did I mention the New York Times?

    Here are links to two of the main Hamas websites:

    Al-Qassam Brigades

    Palestinian Information Centre

    The Hamas effort is heroic: Khaled Mishaal: “we will defend our land until the end, even if we stand alone“.

    Keep a watch on the UN Security Council. The US will probably deploy its veto to prevent the passing of any motion criticising the ongoing Gaza massacre. That’s been the main use of the veto by any country for the past 25 years. You won’t read about that in the New York Times or Telegraph.

  • N_

    The Torygraph headline was “Hamas strikes Israeli nuclear facility“.

    Now they’ve changed it.

    A lot of such Winston Smithing goes on, without changing URL.

  • Ba'al Zevul (For Gaza)

    “Well, my dear Americans, that’s your tax dollars at work”

    http://gazatimes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/day-3-of-israeli-aggression-on-gaza-98.html

    “Allot of news was spreading about a possible ground invasion. Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbass, said a ground invasion will happen in the matter of hours, while Israeli defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, went out and announced the start of a ground invasion against Gaza, but then Israeli news said it will happen on Friday (Today) without mentioning a certain time.”

    Hope he’s wrong.

  • Big Brother Corporation

    The mainstream BBC News today is less informative and has less gravitas than John Craven’s Newsround back in the 70s and 80s.

    What’s amusing is that a lot of todays ‘news presenters’ (journalists are only allowed on screen to answer stupid, well rehearsed, questions from the studio as window dressing) who appear on News24 were on Newsround back in the 90s and 00s and have brought the same patronising dumbed down attitude with them.

  • doug scorgie

    Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !
    10 Jul, 2014 – 5:26 pm

    “Warning civilians to leave an area likely to come under military attack is quite obviously an egregious beach of international law and, as such, fully merits Mr Scorgie’s condemnation at 16h04 above.”

    “That’s right isn’t it, Doug?”
    ————————–

    The Israeli tactic Habbabkuk, is to frighten civilians into leaving their homes in order to destroy them, leaving them homeless.

    Extensive civilian deaths lead to bad PR.

    However Habbabkuk, as you will know, bombing civilian homes and infrastructure is still against international humanitarian law.

    Do you not condemn such practices?

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Destroying private property without due process is an egregious beach of any civil law code I can think of.

    Doug, please stop quoting its idiot objections to everything everyone says.

  • Mary

    The slaughter continued overnight.

    Gaza death toll hits 100 as Israel continues assault

    Published today (updated) 11/07/2014 13:30

    Font-Font+

    Relatives and friends of the al-Hajj family gather in a mosque to
    pray over the bodies of eight family members during their funeral
    in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on July 10, 2014
    (AFP/Said Khatib)

    Tweet

    GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Eleven Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes since midnight Thursday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said, bringing the death toll in Israel’s military assault to 100.

    The latest airstrike in central Gaza killed Hamas municipality employees Mazen Aslan and Mazen Abu Kas.

    Earlier, five Palestinians were killed and 15 injured in Rafah after the Israeli air force targeted the Ghannam family home.

    Ghaliya Dib Jaber Ghannam, 7, Wissam Abdulraziq Hassan Ghannam, 23, Mahmoud Abduloraziq Hassan Ghannam, 26, Kifah Shihada Dib Ghannam, 20, and Muhammad Munir Ashur, 25, were identified as those killed.

    The home was hit without warning and the impact of the airstrike completely destroyed the building and several surrounding properties.

    /..

    http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=711990

    Further on,

    ‘1090 sites bombed

    Since the start of the operation, the Israeli military’s biggest offensive on Gaza since November 2012, its forces have hit over 1090 sites in Gaza.’

  • Mary

    Jonathan Cook comments

    ‘Extraordinary even by the BBC’s appalling standards on Israel-Palestine. A report that claims it will examine the weapons being used by both sides that then forgets Israel has any offensive weapons. There’s an extensive discussion of Hamas’ different rockets and their ranges, followed by an explanation of Israel’s anti-missile defence system Iron Dome. So no hidden message there about who’s the aggressor and who the victim, I guess.’

    https://www.facebook.com/Jonathan.Cook.journalist/posts/558241027617882

    referring to
    What weapons are being used in the Israel-Gaza conflict
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28245343

    written by the well known Zionist Jonathan Marcus.

  • N_

    Thanks Mary for the info on Mishaal, of which I was unaware. (I still like that quote about defending themselves even if they stand alone, though – the quote reminds me of the heroism of the Warsaw Ghetto fighters, even if Mishaal himself is swanning about in Qatar!) I suppose there must already be some quislings in the Hamas leadership, even though the organisation derives its support from the justified enmity that people feel towards all the known and obvious quislings in Fatah.

  • OldMark

    ‘The mainstream BBC News today is less informative and has less gravitas than John Craven’s Newsround back in the 70s and 80s.’

    The Beeb’s latest pathetic attempt at a ‘balanced’ report of the latest conflict (100+ dead in Gaza, zero fatalities in Israel) has just spectacularly backfired.

    In the lunchtime bulletin Ms Chakrabharti introduced Mr Reynolds, prefacing the interview by stressing there have been casualities ‘on both sides’. The scene of Reynolds report was not Gaza, but the burnt-out petrol station in Ashdod. The attempt to make this an Israeli- friendly ‘human interest’ piece was ruined as Reynolds’ word were drowned out by whistling and jeering Israeli thugs, cut from the same cloth as Avigdor Lieberman.

  • Yonatan

    Israel wants control of the oil / gas off the Palestinian coast. I suspect the plan is to seal off the Gaza strip from the coast, possibly with an extension of the ‘separation wall’, ostensibly to stop missiles shipped by Iran to Hamas from entering Gaza (which is bs anyway, but the MSM will take it as gospel). The coast line will then magically become Israeli territory, the resources will become Israeli resources and third parties will be legally covered in deals with Israel. However, it may just be a simple case of murdering Palestinians for the heck of it.

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !

    Mr Scorgie

    “Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !
    10 Jul, 2014 – 5:26 pm

    “Warning civilians to leave an area likely to come under military attack is quite obviously an egregious beach of international law and, as such, fully merits Mr Scorgie’s condemnation at 16h04 above.”

    “That’s right isn’t it, Doug?”
    ————————–

    The Israeli tactic Habbabkuk, is to frighten civilians into leaving their homes in order to destroy them, leaving them homeless.

    Extensive civilian deaths lead to bad PR.”
    ______________________

    Now make your mind up between those two reasons – are the Israelis issuing those warnings in order to save civilian* lives (meaning avoiding bad PR) or is it so that they can destroy homes (thereby leaving civilians homeless)?

    BTW, if it’s the former, then they’re not making a good fist of it, are they? Cf the number of destroyed or heavily damaged houses mentioned by one of the Excellences on a more recent thread)

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    “However Habbabkuk, as you will know, bombing civilian homes and infrastructure is still against international humanitarian law.

    Do you not condemn such practices?”
    __________________________

    In principle I do indeed, Doug, as I hope you would the Hamas practice of embedding “military” installations in densely populated civilian areas (which I believe is also contrary to international law?).

    Hope that helps.

    BTW, the Master has spoken! (Baal, 11h30)

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !

    From Baal to Mr Scorgie, presumably about me* :

    “Doug, please stop quoting its idiot objections to everything everyone says.”

    ______________________________

    Probably desperate that his Habbabreak isn’t working properly or blacks out too many other comments.

    Quite the little dictator isn’t he, worried about the gaps on his own personal separation wall.

    * I suppose that if he calls me by name he’d be hoist with his own Habba-petard and wouldn’t be able to read his own appeal LOL

  • Porkfright

    I often used to wonder what a lost prophet was. Now I know what a totally lost prophet is.

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