Martin Short, a British author and producer, Tim Llewellyn the BBC's Middle East correspondent for nearly a decade, and Abe Haim, of Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine sat down to discuss the book "Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee" by Grant Smith.
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Showing posts with label bbc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bbc. Show all posts
Thursday, 22 November 2007
Monday, 10 September 2007
Wednesday, 22 August 2007
VIDEO: Maria Aman's story on BBC World News
August 22, 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izUFQ3518GE
"Her injuries are forever, for the rest of her life"
Report, The Electronic Intifada, Aug 10, 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izUFQ3518GE
"Her injuries are forever, for the rest of her life"
Report, The Electronic Intifada, Aug 10, 2007
Wednesday, 15 August 2007
Haaretz Article Ignores Bil’in
Dennis Fox : Tuesday, August 14th, 2007
What stands out most for me in this Haaretz article on the extraordinary growth rate of ultra-orthodox West Bank settlers is that, despite the primary focus on Modi’in Ilit and Beitar Ilit, there is no mention at all of Bil’in and Saffa, the Palestinian villages that have now lost much of their land to the growing Modi’in complex.
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Why Ha'aretz Is A Piece Of Crap
Lawrence of Cyberia : October 22, 2004
Ha’aretz is a lot like the BBC: a news outlet that enjoys a reputation for progressive, liberal reporting, despite the fact that its fundamental bias is not really pro-Right or pro-Left at all, but strongly pro-Establishment.
Ha’aretz is “liberal” in exactly the same way: it gives a platform to outstanding individuals who will challenge conventional wisdom on Israeli affairs in a way that the newspaper as a whole will not.
There is one area of Ha’aretz’ reporting that I doubt I have ever relied on however, and that is their reporting of I.D.F. affairs.
The two faces of Ha'aretz
Jonathan Cook, Electronic Intifada, 5 April 2003
Dear reader, as Israel slides ever deeper into a morass of racism and ethnic solipsism, please do not lean too heavily on Haaretz to understand how or why this "light unto the nations" has grown so dim.
Haaretz and the Military Press Bureau - Who Inspires Whom?
Oznik News, December 10, 2002
Military press releases in English Lack Parts Of Hebrew versions, reports Haaretz - in its Hebrew edition only.
Looking Behind Ha'aretz's Liberal Image
Ran HaCohen, October 2, 2002
In the last two years – which saw both the Intifada and the launching of its English on-line edition – Ha'aretz has taken a sharp turn to the nationalistic right.
What stands out most for me in this Haaretz article on the extraordinary growth rate of ultra-orthodox West Bank settlers is that, despite the primary focus on Modi’in Ilit and Beitar Ilit, there is no mention at all of Bil’in and Saffa, the Palestinian villages that have now lost much of their land to the growing Modi’in complex.
==============================
Why Ha'aretz Is A Piece Of Crap
Lawrence of Cyberia : October 22, 2004
Ha’aretz is a lot like the BBC: a news outlet that enjoys a reputation for progressive, liberal reporting, despite the fact that its fundamental bias is not really pro-Right or pro-Left at all, but strongly pro-Establishment.
Ha’aretz is “liberal” in exactly the same way: it gives a platform to outstanding individuals who will challenge conventional wisdom on Israeli affairs in a way that the newspaper as a whole will not.
There is one area of Ha’aretz’ reporting that I doubt I have ever relied on however, and that is their reporting of I.D.F. affairs.
The two faces of Ha'aretz
Jonathan Cook, Electronic Intifada, 5 April 2003
Dear reader, as Israel slides ever deeper into a morass of racism and ethnic solipsism, please do not lean too heavily on Haaretz to understand how or why this "light unto the nations" has grown so dim.
Haaretz and the Military Press Bureau - Who Inspires Whom?
Oznik News, December 10, 2002
Military press releases in English Lack Parts Of Hebrew versions, reports Haaretz - in its Hebrew edition only.
Looking Behind Ha'aretz's Liberal Image
Ran HaCohen, October 2, 2002
In the last two years – which saw both the Intifada and the launching of its English on-line edition – Ha'aretz has taken a sharp turn to the nationalistic right.
Neta Golan on the beginning of the ISM
Neta Golan, a Jewish Canadian-Israeli activist, talks about how the International Solidarity Movement started.
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It's My Story: From Rosedale to Ramallah
BBC Radio, Thursday 2 October 2003 : Listen HERE
Neta Golan is a young Canadian Jewish woman who has crossed over to the other side of the Middle East conflict. Neta's family emigrated to Israel from a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood of Rosedale in Toronto when she was nine. Her father told her "Israel is our only country now". She once shared her family's attitudes towards Arabs as obstacles to a greater Israel.
Then Neta Golan began to change her way of seeing the Palestinians. She helped launch the International Solidarity Movement, an organisation that uses peaceful means to protect Arab rights and protest against the occupation of Palestine. Neta now lives permanently in the West Bank. She's married a Palestinian and in the spring of this year she gave birth to her first child. Neta Golan is blunt in her appraisal: Israel has never come to terms with the Holocaust and the failure to do so means that history repeats itself save it is the Palestinians who are oppressed and murdered.
Under the guise of the Oslo accords, Israel has been building dozens of new settlements in the West Bank, all of them mini-recreations of European ghettos: walled communities surrounded by hostile territory. But the difference, she says, is that it is the Jews who are choosing to create these 'new ghettos,' rather than being forced into them by European anti-Semitism. Her views and the frankness with which she delivers them have made Neta a target of hate among right wing Israelis.
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The long journey from Nablus to Tel Aviv
Neta Golan writing from Nablus, occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine, Jun 25, 2003
My father passed away last week.
I took Nawal, my two month old daughter, and attempted to go to Tel Aviv to attend the funeral and grieve with my family. Nablus, the city I live in, was besieged and completely sealed off.
This has been the case for most of the last two years. Israeli soldiers threatened to shoot anyone approaching the checkpoint.
On the day of my father's funeral we were "only" delayed for an hour. It was the third time Nawal made this journey since her birth.
Despite the risk involved in getting in and out I came often because I knew my father was dying. I needed him to see his first grandchild, to tell him I loved him, to say goodbye. After the funeral we spent a week with our Israeli family.
My husband, who is Palestinian, is forbidden to enter the part of Israel/Palestine that was occupied in 1948. It was hard that he could not be with me. But I knew that I was privileged to be able to grieve with my family.
I kept thinking of my friend Amal, one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen, with huge hazel eyes and dark black hair. Her family was forced to leave Palestine for Jordan before she was born. Her husband, Abed, is from the West Bank. They have two beautiful children. If she leaves the West Bank, to see her family in Jordan, she will not be allowed back. Her parents have only seen their grandchildren in pictures. Her father was old and ill and she could not see him. He died and she could not be at his burial or comfort her mother.
Today, she refuses to accept that her father is dead. It is not death that she can't deal with, for people living under occupation must live with death every day. It is that fact that she was forced to choose her husband and children over her parents that she can not live with. Her hair has suddenly began going white.
The policy of denying spouses of Palestinians residency is one of the many forms that ethnic cleansing takes here. It is a policy as old as the state of Israel but Sharon takes special pride in it. In his election campaign he boasted that he had stopped Palestinians from entering Israel (greater) by stopping family reunification completely. Amal will never see her father again. Many thousands of Palestinians share her fate.
-------------------------
It's My Story: From Rosedale to Ramallah
BBC Radio, Thursday 2 October 2003 : Listen HERE
Neta Golan is a young Canadian Jewish woman who has crossed over to the other side of the Middle East conflict. Neta's family emigrated to Israel from a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood of Rosedale in Toronto when she was nine. Her father told her "Israel is our only country now". She once shared her family's attitudes towards Arabs as obstacles to a greater Israel.
Then Neta Golan began to change her way of seeing the Palestinians. She helped launch the International Solidarity Movement, an organisation that uses peaceful means to protect Arab rights and protest against the occupation of Palestine. Neta now lives permanently in the West Bank. She's married a Palestinian and in the spring of this year she gave birth to her first child. Neta Golan is blunt in her appraisal: Israel has never come to terms with the Holocaust and the failure to do so means that history repeats itself save it is the Palestinians who are oppressed and murdered.
Under the guise of the Oslo accords, Israel has been building dozens of new settlements in the West Bank, all of them mini-recreations of European ghettos: walled communities surrounded by hostile territory. But the difference, she says, is that it is the Jews who are choosing to create these 'new ghettos,' rather than being forced into them by European anti-Semitism. Her views and the frankness with which she delivers them have made Neta a target of hate among right wing Israelis.
------------------------
The long journey from Nablus to Tel Aviv
Neta Golan writing from Nablus, occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine, Jun 25, 2003
My father passed away last week.
I took Nawal, my two month old daughter, and attempted to go to Tel Aviv to attend the funeral and grieve with my family. Nablus, the city I live in, was besieged and completely sealed off.
This has been the case for most of the last two years. Israeli soldiers threatened to shoot anyone approaching the checkpoint.
On the day of my father's funeral we were "only" delayed for an hour. It was the third time Nawal made this journey since her birth.
Despite the risk involved in getting in and out I came often because I knew my father was dying. I needed him to see his first grandchild, to tell him I loved him, to say goodbye. After the funeral we spent a week with our Israeli family.
My husband, who is Palestinian, is forbidden to enter the part of Israel/Palestine that was occupied in 1948. It was hard that he could not be with me. But I knew that I was privileged to be able to grieve with my family.
I kept thinking of my friend Amal, one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen, with huge hazel eyes and dark black hair. Her family was forced to leave Palestine for Jordan before she was born. Her husband, Abed, is from the West Bank. They have two beautiful children. If she leaves the West Bank, to see her family in Jordan, she will not be allowed back. Her parents have only seen their grandchildren in pictures. Her father was old and ill and she could not see him. He died and she could not be at his burial or comfort her mother.
Today, she refuses to accept that her father is dead. It is not death that she can't deal with, for people living under occupation must live with death every day. It is that fact that she was forced to choose her husband and children over her parents that she can not live with. Her hair has suddenly began going white.
The policy of denying spouses of Palestinians residency is one of the many forms that ethnic cleansing takes here. It is a policy as old as the state of Israel but Sharon takes special pride in it. In his election campaign he boasted that he had stopped Palestinians from entering Israel (greater) by stopping family reunification completely. Amal will never see her father again. Many thousands of Palestinians share her fate.
Saturday, 11 August 2007
The Nakba in Israeli textbooks and official discourse
Ben White - The Electronic Intifada - August 2, 2007
As the BBC reported, "for the first time" the "Palestinian denunciation of the creation of Israel in 1948" had been included. This incident afforded a perfect opportunity for seeing how the Nakba -- what Palestinians called their expulsion by Zionist forces from their homes and villages in what is now Israel during 1947-48 -- is viewed by "official" discourse in the West (through the filter of the mainstream media), and within Israel itself.
Most mainstream news stories about the Israeli textbook were infused with a positive tone, and typical headlines described the development as "acknowledging" Palestinian suffering, "adding perspective," or "admitting" the Palestinian view (LA Times-Washington Post, San Francisco Gate, Sydney Morning Herald). Taking the online BBC report as an example, however, we find that this apparent move towards objectivity is deeply problematic.
======================
The story TV news won't tell
The Observer, Sunday June 20, 2004
For 10 years Tim Llewellyn was the BBC's Middle East correspondent. In this passionately argued polemic he accuses British broadcasters, including his former employer, of systematic bias in covering the Arab-Israeli conflict, giving undue prominence to the views of Jerusalem while disregarding the roots of the crisis.
WHY THE BBC DUCKS THE PALESTINIAN STORY - PART 1
By Former BBC Middle East Correspondent, Tim Llewellyn
WHY THE BBC DUCKS THE PALESTINIAN STORY - PART 2
By Former BBC Middle East Correspondent, Tim Llewellyn
As the BBC reported, "for the first time" the "Palestinian denunciation of the creation of Israel in 1948" had been included. This incident afforded a perfect opportunity for seeing how the Nakba -- what Palestinians called their expulsion by Zionist forces from their homes and villages in what is now Israel during 1947-48 -- is viewed by "official" discourse in the West (through the filter of the mainstream media), and within Israel itself.
Most mainstream news stories about the Israeli textbook were infused with a positive tone, and typical headlines described the development as "acknowledging" Palestinian suffering, "adding perspective," or "admitting" the Palestinian view (LA Times-Washington Post, San Francisco Gate, Sydney Morning Herald). Taking the online BBC report as an example, however, we find that this apparent move towards objectivity is deeply problematic.
======================
The story TV news won't tell
The Observer, Sunday June 20, 2004
For 10 years Tim Llewellyn was the BBC's Middle East correspondent. In this passionately argued polemic he accuses British broadcasters, including his former employer, of systematic bias in covering the Arab-Israeli conflict, giving undue prominence to the views of Jerusalem while disregarding the roots of the crisis.
WHY THE BBC DUCKS THE PALESTINIAN STORY - PART 1
By Former BBC Middle East Correspondent, Tim Llewellyn
WHY THE BBC DUCKS THE PALESTINIAN STORY - PART 2
By Former BBC Middle East Correspondent, Tim Llewellyn
Sunday, 29 July 2007
John Pilger : "It never happened..."
John Pilger, The New Statesman, 26 July 2007
One of the leaders of demonstrations in Gaza calling for the release of the BBC reporter Alan Johnston was a Palestinian news cameraman, Imad Ghanem. On 5 July, he was shot by Israeli soldiers as he filmed them invading Gaza. A Reuters video shows bullets hitting his body as he lay on the ground. An ambulance trying to reach him was also attacked. The Israelis described him as a “legitimate target.” The International Federation of Journalists called the shooting “a vicious and brutal example of deliberate targeting of a journalist”. At the age of 21, he has had both legs amputated.
Dr David Halpin, a British trauma surgeon who works with Palestinian children, emailed the BBC’s Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen. “The BBC should report the alleged details about the shooting,” he wrote. “It should honour Alan [Johnston] as a journalist by reporting the facts, uncomfortable as they might be to Israel.”
He received no reply.
The atrocity was reported in two sentences on the BBC online. Along with 11 Palestinian civilians killed by the Israelis on the same day, Alan Johnston’s now legless champion slipped into what George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four called the memory hole. (It was Winston Smith’s job at the Ministry of Truth to make disappear all facts embarrassing to Big Brother.)
While Alan Johnston was being held, I was asked by the BBC World Service if I would say a few words of support for him. I readily agreed, and suggested I also mention the thousands of Palestinians abducted and held hostage. The answer was a polite no; and all the other hostages remained in the memory hole. Or, as Harold Pinter wrote of such unmentionables: “It never happened. Nothing ever happened… It didn’t matter. It was of no interest.”
One of the leaders of demonstrations in Gaza calling for the release of the BBC reporter Alan Johnston was a Palestinian news cameraman, Imad Ghanem. On 5 July, he was shot by Israeli soldiers as he filmed them invading Gaza. A Reuters video shows bullets hitting his body as he lay on the ground. An ambulance trying to reach him was also attacked. The Israelis described him as a “legitimate target.” The International Federation of Journalists called the shooting “a vicious and brutal example of deliberate targeting of a journalist”. At the age of 21, he has had both legs amputated.
Dr David Halpin, a British trauma surgeon who works with Palestinian children, emailed the BBC’s Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen. “The BBC should report the alleged details about the shooting,” he wrote. “It should honour Alan [Johnston] as a journalist by reporting the facts, uncomfortable as they might be to Israel.”
He received no reply.
The atrocity was reported in two sentences on the BBC online. Along with 11 Palestinian civilians killed by the Israelis on the same day, Alan Johnston’s now legless champion slipped into what George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four called the memory hole. (It was Winston Smith’s job at the Ministry of Truth to make disappear all facts embarrassing to Big Brother.)
While Alan Johnston was being held, I was asked by the BBC World Service if I would say a few words of support for him. I readily agreed, and suggested I also mention the thousands of Palestinians abducted and held hostage. The answer was a polite no; and all the other hostages remained in the memory hole. Or, as Harold Pinter wrote of such unmentionables: “It never happened. Nothing ever happened… It didn’t matter. It was of no interest.”
Friday, 20 July 2007
John Pilger: Freedom Next Time
The title of this talk is Freedom Next Time, which is the title of my book, and the book is meant as an antidote to the propaganda that is so often disguised as journalism. So I thought I would talk today about journalism, about war by journalism, propaganda, and silence, and how that silence might be broken. Edward Bernays, the so-called father of public relations, wrote about an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. He was referring to journalism, the media. That was almost 80 years ago, not long after corporate journalism was invented. It is a history few journalist talk about or know about, and it began with the arrival of corporate advertising. As the new corporations began taking over the press, something called "professional journalism" was invented. To attract big advertisers, the new corporate press had to appear respectable, pillars of the establishment—objective, impartial, balanced. The first schools of journalism were set up, and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around the professional journalist. The right to freedom of expression was associated with the new media and with the great corporations, and the whole thing was, as Robert McChesney put it so well, "entirely bogus".
..............................
The BBC began in 1922, just before the corporate press began in America. Its founder was Lord John Reith, who believed that impartiality and objectivity were the essence of professionalism. In the same year the British establishment was under siege. The unions had called a general strike and the Tories were terrified that a revolution was on the way. The new BBC came to their rescue. In high secrecy, Lord Reith wrote anti-union speeches for the Tory Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and broadcast them to the nation, while refusing to allow the labor leaders to put their side until the strike was over.
So, a pattern was set. Impartiality was a principle certainly: a principle to be suspended whenever the establishment was under threat. And that principle has been upheld ever since.
..............................
The enduring tragedy of Palestine is due in great part to the silence and compliance of the so-called liberal left. Hamas is described repeatedly as sworn to the destruction of Israel. The New York Times, the Associated Press, the Boston Globe—take your pick. They all use this line as a standard disclaimer, and it is false. That Hamas has called for a ten-year ceasefire is almost never reported. Even more important, that Hamas has undergone an historic ideological shift in the last few years, which amounts to a recognition of what it calls the reality of Israel, is virtually unknown; and that Israel is sworn to the destruction of Palestine is unspeakable.
There is a pioneering study by Glasgow University on the reporting of Palestine. They interviewed young people who watch TV news in Britain. More than 90 percent thought the illegal settlers were Palestinian. The more they watched, the less they knew—Danny Schecter's famous phrase.
Speech delivered at the Chicago Socialism 2007 Conference on Saturday June 16 2007
View here or :
John Pilger on Al Jazeera:
..............................
The BBC began in 1922, just before the corporate press began in America. Its founder was Lord John Reith, who believed that impartiality and objectivity were the essence of professionalism. In the same year the British establishment was under siege. The unions had called a general strike and the Tories were terrified that a revolution was on the way. The new BBC came to their rescue. In high secrecy, Lord Reith wrote anti-union speeches for the Tory Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and broadcast them to the nation, while refusing to allow the labor leaders to put their side until the strike was over.
So, a pattern was set. Impartiality was a principle certainly: a principle to be suspended whenever the establishment was under threat. And that principle has been upheld ever since.
..............................
The enduring tragedy of Palestine is due in great part to the silence and compliance of the so-called liberal left. Hamas is described repeatedly as sworn to the destruction of Israel. The New York Times, the Associated Press, the Boston Globe—take your pick. They all use this line as a standard disclaimer, and it is false. That Hamas has called for a ten-year ceasefire is almost never reported. Even more important, that Hamas has undergone an historic ideological shift in the last few years, which amounts to a recognition of what it calls the reality of Israel, is virtually unknown; and that Israel is sworn to the destruction of Palestine is unspeakable.
There is a pioneering study by Glasgow University on the reporting of Palestine. They interviewed young people who watch TV news in Britain. More than 90 percent thought the illegal settlers were Palestinian. The more they watched, the less they knew—Danny Schecter's famous phrase.
Speech delivered at the Chicago Socialism 2007 Conference on Saturday June 16 2007
View here or :
John Pilger on Al Jazeera:
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