The Palestinian Media echoes the same themes consistently yet even when translated word for word none of the world leaders bother to listen. They constantly claim they hear the plaintive cries of the Palestinian people and the BBC just admitted to translating the children they interviewed by consistently replacing their use of the word “Yahud,” which means “Jew” but they replaced that with “Israelis”. This was the first of the misrepresentations made by the BBC in their special titled; “Children of Gaza” which the BBC claims tells how the children of Gaza were affected by “Operation Protective Edge” last summer. This was reported by Israel National News in their article BBC Admits Covering Up Palestinian Anti-Semitism which the BBC’s own chief international correspondent, Lyse Doucet, explains away this obvious blurring of the children’s statement’s meaning brushing it aside almost as if to claim the difference is meaningless and we at the BBC know what is really in their hearts as they feel as we do about the situation and, as she states, “We talked to people in Gaza, we talked to translators. When [the children] say ‘Jews’, they mean ‘Israelis.’” This revelation comes on top of numerous reports and statistical investigations of the BBC’s coverage of Operation Protective Edge last summer reaching the conclusion that watching the BBC coverage one would be left believing that the Israelis were the aggressors and Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and the rest of the terror groups in Gaza were simply defending themselves. It was particularly noted that the BBC had footage but refused to air these clips depicting Israeli running with their children seeking to reach the shelters within the fifteen seconds they have at best when the “Code Red” sirens sounded in Sderot and refused to show even one of such clips during their entire coverage choosing to emphasize the trauma on the Palestinian children dismissing the damage done by the over twenty thousand rockets and mortars fired at the Israeli communities within ten miles of Gaza, not to even mention the thousands more that have rained down further into Israel where the warning time can approach ninety seconds for the furthest reaches in Israel. Unfortunately, should Hezballah in Lebanon also start a war in support of Hamas and both sides start launching rockets and missiles then the times for the Hezballah rockets and missiles are exactly the opposite with the north of Israel having that fifteen seconds maximum and the south the almost leisurely ninety seconds. I am sure that most, if not the vast majority of British citizens, believe that Israel is at least the size of the British Isles and some possibly equate it with the United States not realizing the actual size of Israel compared to fortress Britain as some history books have cast the British Isles noting the natural mote which has protected Britain from the marching of soldiers onto her shores having to cross the English Channel saving Britain from invasions from before the Spanish Armada right through World War II and the idea of a channel crossing and the cliffs of Dover preventing the Nazis from marching straight into Britain after their victory over the British at Dunkirk. The actual size of Israel is best told by viewing comparative size maps of Israel and other nations. Below are maps comparing Israel to Great Britain, United States, India and Australia Jewish Virtual Library: Israel Maps: Relative Geographical Size.
Four Maps of Great Britain, the United States, Australia, and India with to scale map of Israel super-imposed for comparison on each map depicting her actual rather than perceived size.
This misrepresentation by the BBC is not limited to this one time maligning Israel while absolving the Palestinians and neither is the BBC alone in slanting the news from the Middle East especially when referencing Israel. The most consistent representation that is more bias than outright lying is to depict Israel in every conflict as the aggressor and the party which fired first and sought the conflict while declaring the Palestinians, including terrorist entities such as Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other, lesser in size but not acts or intents, terror groups as the poor oppressed victims who are so weak they only can use rocks against the Israeli war machine. These rocks are currently rockets and ‘guided’ missiles (guided is what makes a rocket a missile but with the untruths in the reporting we figured the superfluous descriptor of guided was necessary) with warheads reaching sizes of 200kg as sits atop the M-75 which is modeled as an exact copy of the Iranian Fajr-5 series which have a range of 75km and which allows these rockets to easily reach Tel Aviv and strike at the Jerusalem metropolitan area as well and possibly reach as far north as Haifa. Hamas building these rockets has only been made possible because Iran provided Hamas and Islamic Jihad with the plans, instructions for manufacture, the necessary specialized equipment and schematics and all other required information and production specifications. The events which preceded the start of Operation Protective Edge included in chronological order initially the Hamas kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens whose kidnappers are still being sought, then three Israeli teens, one mentally different, murdered an Arab teen claiming the right of revenge and now serving time in Israeli prison, followed by an uneasy ten days where over a thousand rockets rained down starting with three or four the first day and ramping up so as to resemble the frog being slowly brought to a boil in a pan of water until they were launching hundreds per day the two days before Israel opened fire with some reaching Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem areas which were fortunately protected by Iron Dome batteries which intercepted rockets, missiles, mortars and other projectiles with approaching ninety-percent interceptions. It was the use of the Iron Dome and the building of shelters in every apartment building (every apartment in newer buildings under new laws and regulations) as well as in general areas and inside most office buildings, malls and other public places while Hamas would place their launchers knowing the Israeli artillery and tanks have return fire computers which allow for placing return fire almost immediately to within a few meters of the launch site and hoping they also hit the nearby shelter, hospital, school, nursery or other locations endangering their own civilians intentionally in attempts to either prevent Israeli retaliations or produce dead civilians, especially children, with which they intend to provide for news outlets to plaster their front page top of the fold captioned telling how Israel targets civilians when the media and anybody following the actual events realize is more propaganda than fact. There are even times Israel has been called to explain their wanton destruction of a hospital or school struck with rocket or artillery fire falsely accredited to Israel. The best example came from Operation Protective Edge when the United Nations built Shifa Hospital was struck with a large warhead which immediately was blamed on Israel. The United Nations, European Union and near countless countries and NGOs went purely ballistic in their condemnations of Israel but further study including inspection by outside observers of the entry angle of the warhead and other information including the IDF return radar systems tracking of the four Hamas M-75 version of the Fajr-5 Iranian-made 100 kg warhead missiles fired which showed the actual trajectories with one striking the Shifa Hospital, one striking Ashkelon, one striking the Mediterranean Sea and one striking the Shati Refugee camp in Gaza. Why Palestinians are kept in a refugee camp that is located in an area turned over to Palestinian control when the buildings holding them resembling more an apartment complex than a refugee camp such that all Hamas and friends need do is take down the fence and let them get on with their lives but they would rather force their own people to suffer so they can include their numbers when attacking Israel in the media for keeping those same Arabs in refugee camps, totally ridiculous and the world, including and especially UNRWA, need to liberate the camps within Gaza as well as those within the areas ruled autonomously by the Arab Palestinian Authority which continues to hold Arabs in refugee apartment buildings near Ramallah and in Jenin among others. Our article which includes the return trajectory tracking of the four rockets was titled How to Spell Hypocrite, US or UN?.
BBC slanted over the top coverage which demonizes Israel while turning a blind eye to the terrorism and attacks intended to cause maximum casualties both in Israel and to Gazans who are placed in harm’s way through intentional actions by Hamas and the other terror outfits is almost legendary. After such obvious slanted coverage became too much for even the BBC to presumably tolerate which one incident makes the entire case when a BBC journalist described on air her tears at seeing Yassir Arafat in poor health. In response to serious accusations leveled at the BBC by some NGOs who investigate honesty and accuracy in reporting including tracking biases and other means of distorting the news, the BBC took it upon itself to do an intense internal investigation and to get to the bottom of whether or not there exists any bias intended or accidental in their reporting on everything Israel. Senior Editorial Advisor Malcolm Balin conducted an investigation to determine if such biases existed and to document those instances where such was found and recommend what changes were necessary to correct these minor and unintentional quirks, after all, is not the BBC the news service much of the world tunes into for their information and by which their opinions are determined and if the BBC is presenting biased information the ramifications reach around the globe and can be so detrimental as to completely alter the perception of the world towards the unfortunate victim of such misreporting and slander. Making matters even worse are the near countless numbers of news agencies who use the BBC news feed as their bible when it comes to unbiased and honest reporting and thus any bias or errors, intentional or otherwise, has a rippling affect to the news in places one might not suspect. Additionally, the BBC is often used and quoted in the New York Times, the print and online American version of trusted news and is also distributed world-wide, thus one can start to get their arms around the problems caused by any BBC slanting of news. The Balin Report was completed in 2004 and as of yet unreleased and furthermore the BBC has invested thus far approaching, if not breaching, a nice round number of £300,000 ($460,000 US) fighting against Freedom of Information Act appeals in order to keep their own internal analysis secreted away from the prying little eyes of an anxious world. Why BBC, just tell us why you are so afraid of the report made by your own Senior Editorial Advisor Malcolm Balin’s report, we are sure the report was done with an eye to the kinds of accuracy we have come to expect from you, or is that the problem, a little too much honesty and integrity from Senior Editorial Advisor Malcolm Balin? Why BBC, just tell us why!
Beyond the Cusp
Beyond the Cusp 