Britannia Radio

All in the Mind

>> FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 2011

Looking again at Justin Webb’s recent remark that US broadcasters see British rules about impartiality as an attack on freedom of speech, I did wonder whether he sees it that way too. I also wondered what he thinks impartiality actually is. Maybe he sees it as not being free to lay his own political views on the table during political interviews. Maybe instead of playing devil’s advocate, he longs to just play devil. But he’s not allowed to, so he dutifully does his job as best he can. However, as we know, when we criticise the BBC, reining in their personal opinions a little bit is not what we mean by impartiality. We detect it in tone of voice, ‘interruption quotient’, imbalance of subject matter, selectivity of interviewee and expert witness, and much much more. One of its most slippery manifestations, though, is bias by omission, and this shows up particularly in material that has anything to do with Islam. The fear of “stirring something up” is palpable. The most recent example is the ‘Asian grooming’ issue, which can’t be discussed freely for fear of inciting the BNP, or causing a backlash, or worse, major civil disobedience. I often link to Elder of Ziyon’s website, which is an invaluable source of information for anybody with an interest in Israel and the Middle East. It tracks the astonishing political shenanigans that take place in the Arab World as well as Israel-related goings-on. If only the BBC were to tell us of some of the vitally important things they studiously ignore, I could probably hang up my keyboard, and we could live happily ever after. Or maybe not. There is considerable evidence that most Arabs and their leaders are far from the earnest seekers of peace the BBC would have us believe they are. Their mindset is light years away from ours. We considers duplicity to be a character flaw. In stark contrast, many Arab leaders seem to relish getting away with trickery and deceit. With considerable ingenuity they tailor the speech to suit the audience, proudly providing each party with what it wants to hear, inciting hatred and whipping up self pity and smouldering resentment in front of their Islamic audience. Mahmoud Abbas for example, our so-called partner for peace, has been telling the West that he wants peace with Israel, while addressing the wider Arab world in Arabic, in speeches calling for their help in eliminating Israel. Even those who view the situation exclusively through BBC’s Palestinian-promoting news-filtering mechanism must view the assumption that peace will automatically follow on from the establishment of a separate Palestinian state with some suspicion. All the violence, terrorism and religious extremism that blights the Islamic world isn’t enough to convince the Western world that the I/P conflict is neither a regional dispute over land, nor a flashpoint that justifies the whole Muslim world’s discontent. We should see Israel as the West’s canary. Its vulnerability symbolises our own, and its potential annihilation would presage our own. Islam is causing trouble everywhere. Pakistan, Sudan, Tunisia, Turkey, everywhere. In Lebanon Jeremy Bowen is too preoccupied with his vineyard story to notice that Hizbollah cannot accept that the UN might hold it responsible for the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister. A minor detail -they were responsible for it. Much of the trouble emanating form this will be directed at Israel. Several Qassam rockets have been fired from Gaza recently, but the BBC Twits are too busy tweeting politically-motivated gossip amongst themselves to notice. A fascinating article on Elder of Ziyon’s blog which originally appeared in a German magazine called Cicero describes an interview with a 23 year old, highly educated resident of the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem. She studied here in the UK and has a fetching English accent. It explains that UNRWA has bestowed, exclusively upon Palestinians, everlasting refugee status. For Palestinians alone, this can extend over the generations. This young lady is passionately determined that one day there will be a single state - ‘from the river to the sea’ - where eight million descendants of the 1948 refugees will return to settle in Israel. She will be satisfied with nothing less. She herself has never been there, and she may or may not know that 54% of East Jerusalem Arabs would rather live in Israel than in a future Palestinian state. This gives a glimpse of the mindset that is making peace unachievable. Another compelling study of the Arab state of mind is set out in the form of an excerpt from an awesome piece of journalism from the 1960s by the redoubtable Martha Gellhorn. I know following links is tiresome and tedious, but please if you only follow one, let it be that one. Elder has selected a passage from Gellhorn’s lengthy and detailed study of the history of Palestinian Arabs. Now that’s Journalism. Is there anyone at the BBC who is capable of undertaking such a project, even if there was a sudden, miraculous, uncharacteristic desire to try?