Britannia Radio

None So Blind

>> SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 2010

No matter what evidence is released about the “peace mission” on the Mavi Marmara, the BBC still calls the incident “Israel’s attack”, “Israel’s raid,” or whatever aggressive title they see fit to tag it. They see the incident asIsrael’s, as if it belongs exclusively to Israel, though it was clearly instigated by Turkey or Islam.

No matter how many Jihadi videos remain uncensored on YouTube while a humourous Israeli parody gets banned, albeit briefly; no matter how many “go backs to Auschwitz” we’re shown; no matter how many “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the Gas” we hear chanted, we still condemn Israel for doing what it feels it has to do in retaliation and self defence. Be it misguided and unpalatable or effective and rational, we reflexively condemn Israel with a nonchalant disregard for the imperative necessity tofight for its survival.

People are given air time to assert indignantly that Israel must make more and more concessions, lift the blockade, return to pre 1967 borders, stop building homes for Jews and grant the right of return to Palestinians and all their descendants.

The blockade is described as a collective punishment, which we abhor because of our confused and ambivalent perception of Gazans as innocent victims, while at the same time, oxymoronically, we insist they voted, responsibly, for ‘democratically elected’ Hamas. Some of us then advocate, as a protest against the blockade, the implementation of BDS (boycott, divest and sanction) against Israel, which looks uncannily like collective punishment itself. The victims would be equally ‘innocent voters,’ but applied to Israelis and their democratically elected government, it’s the right thing to do, and the anomaly can languish unchallenged.

Now the Israelis have agreed to let more stuff in, we complain that it’s not enough, the BBC gives air time to various critics of Israel to assert that nothing less than free unfettered access will do. We still think that ‘for peace’ Israel must give the Palestinians what they want, whenever they want, forever and ever till the religion of peace is sated, and goes quiet.

The BBC encourages unparalleled hostility to Israel. It defies reason.

A Leader Who Cannot Be Ignored

FOOC featured Jeremy Bowen’s cosy chat with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Although we were told that Syria was a bit of a police state, the impression given was that Bowen’s sympathy lay with
‘friendly and charming’ al-Assad, whose country had suffered the “trauma of creating Israel.”
“The Turks never attacked Israel, never smuggled weapons, never did anything harmful to Israel. They only worked for peace," he said.”

In the web article there’s a bullet-pointed ‘time line’ relating to Syria. It starts “1967 Israel seizes Golan Heights from Syria.”

Before the six day war Syria’s gun emplacements loomed above the kibbutzim located below the Golan Heights, causing the inhabitants to be on constant alert. Unprovoked, Syria did open fire, causing damage and fear. The Golan Heights are a strategic defensive necessity to Israel while Syria is a hostile neighbour.
The time-line should have read: “1967: Syria attacks Israel, starts a war and loses Golan Heights.”
So put that in your time-line BBC, and smoke it.