The perfectly balanced BBC

Today's BBC website carries yet another perfectly balanced article about the recent disengagement in Gaza. Yes, it's all about how the disengagement has had nothing to do with security and the thousands of mortar attacks on the former settlements, but about the demography of ensuring that Israel has a Jewish majority. Whilst the latter is indeed one of the reasons, this article deftly kicks aside security altogether. But the real thrust of the article is to tell us how the Israeli state and the Jewish Israelis have wholly oppressive attitudes and practices towards Israeli Arabs.

The very balanced title is "Israeli Arabs fear for the future". The photo accompanying the article is well chosen. An elderly Arab, with a very resentful and anxious expression on his face looks warily towards a strong, hunky young Israeli soldier who leans back proprietorially, festooned with weaponry. The clever angle at which the photograph has been taken makes him look much taller than the Arab than he actually is. You're no doubt meant to conclude that this soldier is a Jew, because the article certainly won't tell you about the significant numbers of Israeli Arabs who choose to serve in the IDF and reach far higher ranks than any black or Arab soldier holds in the British armed forces.

The article chooses to interview people in a "dilapidated" Arab village which happens to straddle the 1948 Green Line border. Highly typical of such villages, no? And it's said to be "engulfed" by the expansion of Jerusalem, as if no other city had grown since 1948, and of course "surrounded on all sides by Jewish settlements and neighbourhoods."

The Israeli Arab people he speaks to complain of Jewish neighbours they formerly knew socially not wanting to know them any more. Of discrimination in employment. Of Jews being suspicious of them. We are told

The speaker, and everyone else I met in Beit Safafa, spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared the consequences of getting on the wrong side of the Israeli authorities

Does our fearless reporter think to ask any of the neighbouring Jewish Israelis what the background to all this is? Could the incidence of suicide bombing by Palestinians helped by East Jerusalem Arabs have had anything to do with this sad state of affairs? Has he reflected on the fact that Israeli Arab MPs and anti-zionist activists continue to deliver George Galloway-style denunciations of Israel in the Knesset with impunity? Does he go and check out the actual evidence of Arab involvement at every level of Israeli society as judges, members of Parliament, university lecturers, doctors in hospitals? Does he compare that to the percentages of black and Arab people holding those roles in the UK? Does he think to compare what he finds with the attitudes of some non-Muslim Londoners to their fellow Muslim citizens after the bombs of July 7th and those of the Jews described in the article? Read for yourself and see...

Comments

[Ripper]

I notice that the 'reporter' has a Jewish name - the type of Jew whom the BBC loves to employ.

[mark]

And of course further proof that every time Israel makes any move towards peace (e.g. by leaving Gaza) it is simply followed up by condemnation of somehing else.

[Pooh]

"I notice that the 'reporter' has a Jewish name"

I'm pretty sure he's not Jewish.

BTW, a really great post. I'm not surprised Melanie Phillips picked it up.

[Tiferet]

Brilliant post. True to the last word.

[Judy]

Thanks for the comments everyone

Good shabbos all

Judy

[RottyPup]

"I'm pretty sure he's not Jewish"

You're right -- He's a Muslim:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/1883472.stm

[David]

Excellent post. I linked to you on the strength of it. Sometimes it's enough to drive one to despair!

[Judy]

Rottypup, that's a really smart piece of googling. That link is really worth reading. Though I do wonder if Mr Asser might have been Jewish before he became a Muslim-- his article does coyly hint at something unusual about his history.

David-- thanks. I've enjoyed visiting your blog

[Jonny]

This is an email I got from the BBC after a complaint...

Dear Sir

The article in question - "Israeli Arabs fear for the future"
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4180362.stm) - should be seen in
the context of other articles which focus on a particular community
caught up in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and it is therefore a
mistake to describe it as a "selective" or "biased" analysis, as some
BBC users have done.

Beit Safafa is a useful microcosm to provide insight into Israeli-Arab
and Palestinian viewpoints and is well known for the good relations
which its inhabitants maintained with their Israeli neighbours.

It is a matter of genuine interest to reveal, as the research for this
article does, how the sands have been shifting between the various
communities. The views presented were a fair and accurate reflection of
those of the inhabitants the reporter spoke to in the village.

Some users have complained that the article does not spend time
enumerating the advantages or rights enjoyed by Arab citizens of Israel.
This is because it is the view of the inhabitants, reflected in the
article, that they were losing those advantages and facing new threats,
which was a much more pressing concern for them.

Thanks for your interest in the BBC News website.

Regards
BBC News Website
http://news.bbc.co.uk/

[Judy]

Dear Jonny

Typical BBC response. But you can take it further if you're not happy with this brush off. Firstly, did you know that that response will have been written by either the reporter concerned or the website news editor? In other words, no independent mediator will have been involved. This is simply the offenders defending themselves. When I last heard, he was a Mr Tariq Kafala. You can write to the BBC Complaints unit and say you are not satisfied with the response, and wish the complaint to be taken to the next level up. If you can relate your points of complaint to the BBC Charter (balance, bias etc) that helps. There are plenty of good points to be made. Good luck, if you do take it further. And if you do, keep us posted.