Over at CiFWatch they’ve been comparing two reports about Hamas’s 23rd Birthday celebrations and wondering why there was nothing in the Guardian to mark the happy event. Even those amongst us who staunchly defend the theory that size doesn’t matter would agree that there are limits to the number of immigrants a geographically challenged country such as Great Britain can absorb. As Richard North eloquently points out this global warming morning, the role of government is to ensure that the basic infrastructure of society runs as smoothly as possible. Upwards of 2m people in the UK depend on heating oil for their essential needs, but this government is so obsesssed in driving up the cost of power and fuel - as Chris Huhne the ecoloon announced yesterday - because of its greenie obsession that it doesn't give a fig about actual energy needs. The Cleggerons are allowing a third world energy crisis to develop right under their noses while Mr Huhne pontificates about reducing carbon. For Sky News (and bloggers such as Richard North), this failure to make sure basic supplies are available is a major political scandal as it should be. For the BBC, it's little more than an incidental footnote; Tracey of Lanark may be desperate, but who in the alarmist corporation cares? It's far more important for their hotshot news staff to focus on renewable energy pipe dreams(but tell that to Tracey!. (I'm writing this early in the news day, and coverage may develop.) The Telegraph is very clear: electricity prices are going to to rise £500 a year because of the government's lunatic "clean" energy obsession. For the BBC it's a different equation (written in matter-of-fact business need terms and a cue for pictures of useless windfarms): 
Happy Birthday!
>> FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2010
Al-Jazeera, not particularly known for its pro-Israel bias, generously shares the information that "the tight Israeli siege has made Hamas increasingly unpopular.” Yes, unpopular.
The BBC, on the other hand, hasn’t noticed this at all.
CiFWatch has:“But the BBC? Hamas is unpopular? Perish the thought. Dear old Auntie instead stresses the “tens of thousands”, the “throngs” of supporters who – of their own free will of course - “filled the streets of Gaza” to watch the festive green balloons and listen to the tinny martial music and hear how, “Hamas leader Ismail Haniya says the Islamist movement is committed to Palestinian national reconciliation in order to fight the Israeli occupation”. How noble! But, any thoughts instead of making peace with Israel for the good of all? Thought not.”
Back at the BBC website, Jon Donnison describes the scene."But on the whole, the atmosphere was festive - a day out or a big picnic, participants said. Many were bussed in by Hamas organisers from across the Gaza Strip. Occasionally, I saw an Israeli flag being burned.”
He probably supplied the matches.Size Matters
You’d think, therefore, that the chaps and chapesses from the British Broadcasting Corps would be ideally placed to sympathise with the problems facing a country the size of Wales that has been taking in around 700 African refugees per week, and treating them as humanely as it can. But not if that country is Israel.
The story behind this tale is tragic, with many ramifications (human rights abuses, people-trafficking, desperate asylum seekers, rape, murder, immigration, and the Pope) but the aspect that seems to interest the BBC is Israel’s attempt to curb unlimited unsustainable immigration.
I've received a message from a viewer who was so distressed by a broadcast aired on BBC World News that he made a transcript to compare it with two articles covering the story. The Guardian’s article by Khataza Gondwe explores the story fully, with the emphasis where it should be. The other, which is on the BBC website, is relatively neutral.
My correspondent says: ”The harrowing story is of sub-Saharan migrants who, fleeing poverty, violence and persecution, make their way north towards Israel [...] partly for the economic opportunities but largely because the Arabs at best move them on, at worst shoot them on sight or allow then to be captured by people-traffickers.”
The transcript of the broadcast spotlights the way the tone and emphasis have been shifted in the editing. By leaving certain key phrases and paragraphs on the cutting room floor they alter the balance, throwing Israel’s attempts to ‘keep them out’ into sharp focus while relegating the plight of the victims and the criminality of the perpetrators to second place.
I didn’t see the broadcast myself, but my informant recounts that the ‘redacted passages’ are as follows:“Even though they had been caught by an Israeli border patrol and were not really sure what to expect next, they said they now felt relatively safe.
That's because many migrants are fleeing persecution and poverty in their own countries, and even travelling across Egypt and the Sinai is fraught with danger.
Human rights groups accuse Egyptian border guards of shooting indiscriminately at them. Although officials insist they only fire at those who ignore repeated orders to stop, since July 2007, at least 85 people have been shot and killed trying to cross into Israel.
Many are also abused by the networks of trafficking gangs, who charge huge fees to transport them across the desert.”
“Coming here is a dream for me. I love Israel and I want to stay here.”“It is thought that as many as 700 African migrants are crossing into Israel from Egypt every week.”
In case anyone should think that these passages are dispensable and that they ‘just happened’ to be the ones that got the chop, here’s Kirsty Lang’s introduction which sets the tone, ahead of Wyre Davies’s report:
Oh yes, and the title? “The Great Wall...of Israel.” I rest my case.
”Israel has started building a huge wall around its SOUTHERN border … with Egypt. The controversial project which is costing hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars is designed to KEEP OUT thousands of African migrants who try to cross into Israel every year.”WHO GIVES A FIG?
WHICH IS IT?
Government to guarantee electricity prices
Yes, there's mention of a possible price hike, but it's well down in the story in the BBC's version. The main thrust is to justify how necessary this price-rigging mechanism is. And of course, no BBC climate change story would be complete without a smug, patronising comment from Friends of the Earth that we are now on course for saving the planet, but it's not enough.
Update: The BBC reporting of Huhne the loon's crazy policies has become more and more obfuscatory as the day has progressed. They note the claims of a £500 increase mentioned in the Telegraph, but give by far the most weight to Huhne's own preposterous assertion that the figure will be far less, and the headline is now that firms are being given ***new low-carbon incentives***. Me, I think today's lunatic measures will go down as the longest suicide note in history, as James Delingpole brilliantly outlines. Margaret Thatcher bequeathed us arguably the most competitive power industry in Europe; the nutjob Cleggerons are busy dismantling it. And they have today condemned countless thousands of old people to die miserable, cold deaths. It's unspeakable.
Friday 17 December 2010
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