Not long ago, I helped the Like for Israel: Hackathon collect information about pro Israeli blogs for what we hope will become a SMART phone application. This list is useful for any Israel advocate or even for those who just want to keep up-to-date.
It is my intention to begin interviewing bloggers (face-to-face and chat) to contribute to networking between blogs.
Action Items:
Enjoy, read, comment (all bloggers love that) and share.
If your blog is not listed here or if there is an error let me know.
Dervla Murphy is an 80 year old Irish touring cyclist and veteran author of adventure travel books. In truth, I had never heard of her until her open letter to the Republic of Ireland President, Michael Higgin, Michael, reject this invitation began to circulate the Internet.
From what I have heard about the anti Israel and anti American delusions of the new Irish President I am far from sure I am all that unhappy if he takes Murphy’s advice and stays away. There is little doubt that Murphy is preaching to the choir, here. On the other hand, her letter contains so much of the delusions and obsessions of the Irish Destroy Israel Lobby that it really should be answered in detail.
I regret that the old Tibet was not there for me to travel through By the time you could go in as a tourist it had been so wrecked by the Chinese that I didn’t want to go; the whole culture had been fractured by the Chinese invasion.
An open letter to Michael Higgins as a more self-aware Murphy might have written it
Dear President Higgins,
It distresses me that you might consider an offer from Shimon Peres, a man whose politics and world view are far to the left of most Israelis and much closer to that which you and I profess than say a Mahmud Abbas or an Ismail Haniyah. Of course it’s possible that your “would be considered” is a diplomatic way of saying maybe when I really mean NO! but subtlety is not exactly my style.
I somehow managed to miss the brutality of China when I visited Tibet or Castro and the Communists when I visited Cuba. So I perhaps am not the best person to advice on what a truly vicious regime really does.
Even more surprisingly I failed to notice that in four visits to the area that my fellow travellers would call Palestine that the name Canaan had disappeared from history somewhere about the late Bronze Age. No wonder I had problems buying tickets! No surprise, then, that I missed Palestinian oppression of those who find love with others of the same sex; those who worship Jesus and not Allah, women who ‘shame’ the family by wearing the wrong clothes or journalists who make the mistake of pointing out the corruption of the Palestinian leadership. When they were screaming out death to the Jews, every tree and rock has the duty to help Muslims to kill Jews I must have been hiding behind the wall.
As this isn’t really an appeal to you but a screed justifying my obsession with Israel my next step was quoting a Jew who agreed with me. I found it necessary to remind the readers that Tony Judt was Jewish. It is as if the religion he didn’t practise somehow gave him a credibility to criticise what the Jews in Israel do, as if his background as a lecturer in European history with a focus on France did not. If I constantly criticised Islam by quoting apostate Muslims or unemployed African immigrants by a black professor at Trinity College I might be labelled racist but Israel is judged by different rules. It shouldn’t be treated differently from Slovenia but somehow I couldn’t find one country out of the approximately 193 in the world to warn you from visiting.
You and I both know, President Higgins, that if you had anywhere near the support among the Irish people that Israel has among the Jews you would be Prime Minister not President. This is why I have this obsession to find Jews to agree with me? They don’t represent more than a tiny section of Jews and barely a statistical blip of Israelis but they do provide me a degree of cover from the charge of antisemitism. In a region where 22 states openly declare themselves both Arab and Muslim I wouldn’t want my opposition to the existence of one Jewish state in the world to open me to that charge.
Still mostly I want to market boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS). The truly extraordinary thing is that I actually believe terrifying shop girls selling chocolates and bath salts will bring Israel to its knees. Chocolates and bath salts, not computer technology and software, cellular phone applications, CAT scanners or drip irrigation, nor any of the hundreds of inventions and discoveries coming out of Israel in chemistry, physics, medicine, economics, biotechnology, computer sciences, agriculture and even games.
We believe that closing a small luxury chocolate manufacturer must force Israel to make the changes it considers suicidal where diplomacy, persuasion and dialogue will fail. By the same standards preventing the Irish cinema audience from attending a film festival must be devastating. The irony is that the film makers in Israel are among the small group of Israelis who fail to see BDS not a alternative to violence but as an adjunct to it.
As our intellectual inspiration Stalin is said to have said, “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs”. If we can’t have BDS without hurting leftist film types or Arab farmers, so be it.
No public attack on Israel would be complete without bringing in supposed European guilt about Auschwitz, although why neutral Ireland should feel guilty is another question for another time. I don’t want it to be thought it antisemitic that I expect Israel to behave with compassion to the Palestinians because of the Jews’ history or persecution but I excuse Palestinian misbehaviour because of their history of persecution. I just expect Europe to do so.
I t may seem strange to you to hear me saying truly neutrality is not an option, Mr. Higgins. Ireland’s traditional policy is military neutrality. Just remember that when you visit in your any of the countries with far worse human rights records that I have bicycled through with my eyes firmly closed to any injustice I don’t wish to see. Neutrality is shown not only by what you do but what you don’t do.
With all suitable greetings, David Guy parodying Dervla Murphy
Way back on the 8th of November, 2011 I submitted a complaint about Israel boards protest boats taking medical aid to Gaza. A boat supposedly carrying medical supplies to Gaza that when stopped by the IDF didn’t carry any. I felt, that if the BBC journalist didn’t know this at the time, four days was plenty of time to update the report.
The BBC has developed quite a reputation for a Byzantine complaints procedure almost as user unfriendly as its online search engine. Still, this time they did send a form letter, taking four months not the 10 working days of receiving them they promise for most complaints. That in itself is a cause for complaint.
Dear Sir or Madam,
Thank you for your comments regarding this report http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15591860. I am sorry not to reply sooner.
It was widely reported at the time, by the main international news agencies, and claimed by the activists on the boats that they were carrying medical aid.
The video of the conversation between the Israeli Navy and the boats is indeed perplexing. This video suggests that the boat was carrying medical supplies http://www.tahrir.ca/content/video-showing-medical-aid-tahrir-labeled-food-stuff. It is not our video and we are not able to verify it independently.
Best regards,
Middle East desk
BBC News website
The report is now ‘history’ – the official BBC version, that is. It is no longer news and therefore will neither be edited, stealth or otherwise, nor will there be any update, such as noting, ’Israeli sources examining the boat found no medical supplies’.
Surely as journalists, that is an important story?
The following questions arise:
Why did the Israelis not find anything? Was it incompetence, conspiracy or was the boat actually not carrying anything?
Why did the Captain not know about the medical cargo – or was he lying? (About 0:48 into the IDF video).
Why knowing that Israel would deliver the medicine anyway and would throw away food, didn’t the Tahrir protestors point this out at Ashdod? (About 0:23 into IDF video)
Why if the BBC couldn’t verify the information wasn’t there a notice to that effect in the report. Why was there no notice that this ‘story’ was sourced from other agencies and the activists. Not even the famous BBC ‘scare quotes’ indicating this was a quote from an involved party?
Why did no BBC journalist think it important enough to be in Ashdod for the inspection?
Was the unacceptable delay (4 months!) in responding to the complaint a tactic to avoid changing the report?
Once again the supposedly responsible media simply presented an uncorroborated story from the Palestinian side as fact with the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval from their organisation. The BBC simply accepted what Al Jazeera produced. Perhaps, that’s no real surprise. So many former Beeboids work there Al Jazeera English is practically a sister organisation to the BBC.
It is notable that their source (uncredited in the original article) was not even Al Jazeera but the Canadian Boat to Gaza site. No possibility of partiality that might need checking?
Not alone on this
I was not the only complainant on this issue. I taken the liberty of copying a response from another complainant on the Biased BBC website. Look for the commenter My Site (click to edit) on page #7.
Just for fun, I think Aunty has hired Dr. Who to handle its archive complaints, through he does seem a hole digger in the mould of my Newsnight Producer chum…
Dear Sir or Madam, It’s Sir. Might I take this opportunity to enquire how you did not know this, as the BBC complaints system makes considerable play of garnering such detail?
Thank you for your comments regarding this report http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15591860. I am sorry not to reply sooner. If it was about an event in November of last year, that is quite a period. May I also ask why the complaint itself was not included in this reply, or a complaint log number, or anything to help find out what you are responding, after all this, time, to? It is tricky to respond otherwise.
It was widely reported at the time, by the main international news agencies, and claimed by the activists on the boats that they were carrying medical aid. Until I see my original complaint it’s hard to be sure, but I’d think I was interested in how activist claims got translated into BBC headlines.
The video of the conversation between the Israeli Navy and the boats is indeed perplexing. This video suggests that the boat was carrying medical supplies http://www.tahrir.ca/content/video-showing-medical-aid-tahrir-labeled-food-stuff. It is not our video and we are not able to verify it independently. I’d suggest therefore that rushing to broadcast news, and headlines such as:’Israel boards protest boats taking medical aid to Gaza’ … when the actual facts are in such doubt, is hardly optimal on the trust and integrity front, much less professionally sound. Would you agree? Or not?
Best regards, Middle East desk
BBC News website
Beyond the mystery of why complaints are being handled in so many different ways by so many different BBC departments, despite going into the system by the only means one has on offer, I have to love the ‘we didn’t know what was true, so went with our version of it anyway’ admission.
A bit about the illustrations: If you hadn’t realised the gentleman in the top right corner is George Orwell It is believed his Ministry of Truth in 1984 was based on his experiences in the BBC. The picture of the fishing boats comes from the original BBC article. Not actually relevant to the story in typical BBC half-a-story fashion it doesn’t point out that the boats in the picture are in clear site of the Israeli city of Ashkelon. The smoke stacks are of the power station, a strategic target.
How many times have you heard this mantra from one of the Destroy Israel Lobby – ”Criticism of Israel is not antisemitism”? Apart from those Islamists/Muslims/Arabs who have no problem with Kill the Jews! are there any Jew Haters left?
I always say that criticism of Israel is not criticism of Jews but nevertheless Jews are responsible for anything Israel does but I am not antisemitic.
I agree that the one Jewish state in the world has no right to exist but I am not antisemitic.
I support Islamic groups who regard killing Jews as a religious duty but I am not antisemitic.
I repeat classical anti Jewish tropes about the evil Israel is supposed to have done but I am not antisemitic.
I think the movement of Arabs less than 100 km while remaining in the historical (at least from 1919) Palestine is ethnic cleansing but the demand that all Jews be pushed out of the proposed state of Palestine (~1/2 million) is only justice but I am not antisemitic.
I expect Israel to behave with compassion to the Palestinians because of the Jews’ history or persecution but I excuse Palestinian misbehaviour because of their history of persecution but I am not antisemitic.
I regard Israel as the greatest criminal state in the world as if 192 other states don’t exist but I am not antisemitic.
I regard the movement of Arabs as a result of the Arab refusal to accept the state of Israel as aggression but I ignore the forced migration of a similar number of Jews from the Middle East but I am not antisemitic.
I cherry-pick every critical comment made about Israel, no matter the source, but I ignore what is going on under Palestinian control in Gaza and the PA against women, gays, Christians and Palestinian Muslims who don’t toe the line but I am not antisemitic.
I condemn the decision to declare Israel as the Jewish State as racist but ignore every Arab State including the proposed Palestinian one that declares itself to be both Arab and Muslim but I am not antisemitic.
I see the settlement of roughly 0.18% of the 12,061,226 km2 that are the Arab League countries as unacceptable imperialism but I am not antisemitic.
I don’t find it strange that every declared antisemite is also anti-Israel but I am not antisemitic.
If the antisemitic position is not expressed by someone wearing a swastika and a brown shirt I don’t recognise it as antisemitic but I am not antisemitic.
I can understand why some others are antisemitic but I am not antisemitic.
Over the lifetime of this blog I have frequently been highly critical of the BBC bias and recommend highly the Biased BBC blog.
I have been less critical of the Guardian bias (because I so rarely read it) but nevertheless recommend the CiF Watch blog.
Now I’m delighted to note that Reuters, so often noted for fauxtography, repeating unchecked Palestinian claims as fact and yes, bias has a blog devoted to it as well: Reuters Middle East Watch. Definitely worth keeping an eye on it.
RMEW* exposes errors, bias, and propaganda in Reuters Middle East Reporting. It is not a “blog” as such but rather an open, public,evidentiary database documenting Reuters’ violations of its own Trust Principles, Handbook, and generally accepted standards of professional journalism.
The next two recommendations are not media specific but concern the retelling of stories, over-and-over again. This isn’t a charge of plagiarism although that happens nor the ubiquitous filling in space with background straight from Wikipedia. It relates to repeating stories one year to the next. How often can shed a tear for the last Christian shepherd? Why does it sound so familiar? Perhaps In Bethlehem, shepherds watching their flocks by night are a dying breed from 2010 gives a clue?
A rebel group of Jerusalem-based reporters has reacted to the decade-long tradition of Bethlehem holiday stories by refusing to accept any holiday cheer this season. Refusing editors’ requests for “Christmas in the holy land” tales of Palestinian woe and tourist shows, the group has announced it will refrain from filing any articles until an actual news event occurs. “We are doing this for the good of our readers. Who, if they have any memory whatsoever, will recall that we have written the exact same Bethlehem story for the past four years,” said a spokesman for the group. He continued that the decision was also financial, hoping to save the dying newspaper industry the cost of commissioning a new piece when they could just rewrite the previous versions. One journalist, who asked to remain anonymous, said the rebel group was trying to quell more extreme elements who called for a torching of all olive-wood products made in Bethlehem, and the expelling of shopkeepers who whined excessively.
Finally and not unrelated. It’s not just text that gets recycled. It’s also photographs. Watch Video documents photojournalism ‘machine’s’ coverage of East Jerusalem and West Bank below. Among other things it confirms my opinion that at least part of the reason Israel/Palestine is so obsessively covered is the ease that journalists can pretend to be covering wars with very little real danger or inconvenience that might come from real combat photography.
Incidentally, Illia Yefimovich from the embedded video is also the photographer who captured the famous stone thrower knocked over by car shot. I blogged about it in Set-up,stoned and skittled. With what you have seen here, what version do you believe: photgrapher just happening to be on the spot or photographer arranging a ‘scene’ that will sell?
Around about this time, when Christmas and Hanukka fall at about the same time (this year the eight days of Hanukka and the twelve days of Christmas actually overlap) the arguments about whether Hanukka is the Jewish Christmas rise anew. There’s a mea culpa here. As a child in culturally Christian Australia I happily pocketed the Hanukka gelt† and Christmas presents from the various service organisations my parents belonged to, without guilt.
Anne Frank - Palestinian?
The Christmas-Hannuka connection did get me thinking, however. Why, if the Destroy Israel Lobby, BDS, Arab money, some Christian groups, the ‘extreme’ ‘Left’ etc. has co-opted Christian iconography to attack Israel, don’t they co-opt Jewish imagery from this festival. They have already appropriated Holocaust imagery without embarrassment. An Internet search will find Anne Frank the Palestinian and young Palestinian victim of the Warsaw ghetto with arms upraised.
The Hannuka story would on the face of it be an ideal addition to the Palestinian narrative. A small group of ‘indigenous’ citizens take on the might of a foreign occupying army – and win. Can’t you just imagine Arafat as Judah the Maccabi? Can’t you just imagine the Palestinian hero in a keffiyeh, as Simon stabbing elephants? Surely there’s some way of fitting the ubiquitous Hanukka menorah into the story‡?
So why don’t they do it?
Are you surprised that I have several theories?
Denying any Jewish connection to this land is more important than yet another piece of imagery. The Hanukka story, combined with supporting historical evidence is yet more proof of Jewish connection. Only Muslims and Christians are permitted. At least Christians are until no longer necessary for PR.
The name is a problem. I always knew him as Judah or Yehudah but even Judas (as in the Apostles) is problematic. Sounds too much like Judea. This is solvable of course. Most of the Old and New Testament prophets have their Arabic equivalents.
Jewish holidays are simply too unfamiliar - regrettably even for the Jews.
Chanukkah Candlelight, Pana Nichuirc, A Girl, A Blog & Life In-between!!!, Saturday, December 17, 2011
The Syrian Greek King Antiochus IV Epiphanes*
† Literally Hanukka gold. It can mean gifts but is just as likely to be round pieces of cheap chocolate covered in gold-coloured paper to resemble coins.
‡ After much searching I did find a menorah as the cannon on an Israeli tank.
* Coin of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. English: Left: Head of Antiochus IV. Right: Zeus Nikephoros enthroned. Greek inscription reads Antiochus, image of God, bearer of victory
I posted a criticism of France 24 for unilaterally recognising Palestine in France 24 desist svp. One criticism of my criticism is that I have become so obsessed in rooting out anti Israelism in the media that I am hearing things that are not necessarily there. When I heard 1PM Palestine I really was hearing 1PM Paris time!
To tell the truth, when I listen I still hear Palestine but the Parisian option is tooreasonable an alternative to ignore.
Complaining to the BBC is usually a complete waste of time†. Still complaining about one false/misleading headline is likely to be easier than complaining about an overall culture of bias against Israel. Please excuse the shorthand nature of the complaint
If the BBC correspondent(s) was not aware of this at time of the incident he/she has aware of it for four days. The BBC has a journalistic responsibility to update the article with this information.
Most of the coverage of UNESCO’s decision to admit Palestine as a full member of UNESCO can be summed up in two points: 1) Israel and America opposed it implying only them and 2) America threatened UNESCO with loss of funding implying coercion by Uncle Sam. Neither point is correct. I’ve tried to add some talking points about why Palestine shouldn’t have been admitted and a depressing prediction for the future. Continue reading UNnecessary UNESCO
That in itself is a cause for complaint.
