On and On

On and On

The fractured relationship between Israel and the US was the second item on news headlines this morning, but by the next bulletin it had been demoted it to the tail end. Because of Hillary’s concessionary language it was downgraded from sensational “rift,” announced with relish,
( Paxman called it a ‘Crisis of Historic Proportions) to a grudging admission that both parties were making conciliatory noises.

Too bad for the Beeb, slightly less ammunition to chuck at Israel.

Today R4 promised an interview with Ron Proser ‘before eight o’clock’ but we had to make do with Jeremy Bowen speculating over the implications of settlement building, snubbing the US, and General Petreaus’s ominous warning that Israel’s provocative act is endangering US soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Not forgetting another insurmountable obstacle, the impossibility of expecting the Palestinians to lose face. The BBC accepts unquestioningly that this immovable impediment to resuming talks trumps all others. So the more demands the Palestinians make, the more impossible it becomes to resume talks.

The actual granting of planning permission for the new house-building is more complex than it appears. It has been made to look as though it violates previous agreements as a defiant and deliberately provocative move by Israel. But my understanding is that this isn’t the case.

“The key point is that there was actually nothing to apologise for, since it was explicitly agreed between America and Israel that, as a concession to kick-start peace negotiations, Israel would stop building in the West Bank although it would continue to build in east Jerusalem. Indeed, Hillary Clinton herself, no less, praised Israel for this agreement.”

“America has thus effectively unilaterally repudiated that agreement. In other words, this whole uproar has been artificially manufactured by America to produce a crisis with Israel – while refusing, astonishingly, to condemn the Palestinians at all for their refusal to enter peace talks, their honouring of one of their worst terrorists by naming a square after her, their violent attacks on the Temple Mount in recent days, and so on.”

Defenders of Israel always view these actions with dismay because on a superficial level they look bad. So it would have been better for ‘apologists’ like myself if this had not happened. Nevertheless, why should we just accept that reporting of everything complicated will be dumbed down by the BBC so that Israel looks utterly evil.

If Paxman knows anything of the subtleties of this topic he’s not letting on. He gave the US Assistant Secretary of State Philip J Crowley a Paxman grilling. Rude and ill-tempered. “What’s America gonna do if they build them?” “Why don’t you just say ‘build these houses and we’ll cut off your
aid?’ “ On and on and on. “Occupied lands.” “ Endangering lives of soldiers.”

Newsnight continued with a prurient film about a “child sex abuser,” in which it emerged, at the very end, that the seven year old abuser had been abused herself, yet until that was revealed they implied that she was a kind of freak who had become sexualised through original sin.

Disgraceful sensationalised treatment of both subjects, even more disgusting than usual. The BBC is rotten.