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Sunday, November 15, 2015

The BBC and the refugees. Why they deliberately misreported a story.



Is the BBC biased against Israel and Jews in general?  Does its continuous inconsistency of approach in matters pertaining to the State of Israel amount to antisemitism? Do the ideological blinkers worn by the BBC’s journalists and editorial staff prevent it from carrying out the terms and conditions of its license (which is currently up for renewal)?

Let’s see.  On the 13th of November Nathan Graf, a forty year old male was repeatedly stabbed after leaving a kosher restaurant, in Milan, Italy. Being ultra-orthodox he was identifiably Jewish.  And he allegedly holds Israeli citizenship (although from the original Italian news reports there was no mention of nationality except for the Afghan antecedents of the victims’ father). According to news reports, several young Israeli students heard Nathan Graf and came to his aid at which point the attacker who “appeared to be Arab” fled with two accomplices.  There was no evidence that the attack was inspired by ongoing violence against Jews in Israel.

The BBC news reporter stated that the victim was Israeli and that the attack occurred during a time of multiple attacks in Israel.  The BBC journalist then stated that Arabs view Jews as supporting Israel.

The BBC is a secular organization and it rejects the idea that nations can identify by religion, unless that is, the country is Muslim, in which case it is OK, even when its Islamic religious particularism is viciously prejudicial. This makes the BBC journalists assumption that the victim who was attacked, was attacked because he was Israeli, unmerited on the face of it.  Unless Nathan Graf was carrying a sign stating “I am an Israeli” then the statement by the BBC reporter was conjecture, more bluntly, it was at best unprofessional speculation and at worse, a conspiracy to conceal the truth.

The second statement by the BBC journalist (the Arab view on Jews) was equally bizarre, as well as religiously bigoted.   It hovered on the line between journalistic license and incitement to terror.

In Islam, Jews, like Christians, are ‘protected minorities.’  This means that for as long as they do as they are told and live within the limits defined theologically by the Islamic ‘faithful’ then they enjoy the protection of their Muslim hosts (that theory does not however, stand up to the practice of movements such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State). This concept is called the Dhimmi.  While it is said to be inappropriate in an era of democracy and national entities, it is not the understanding of fundamentalists who view the application of Dhimmi status as timeless. Forty percent of the worlds Muslims are fundamentalists.  This means they view the Koran as absolute truth; that religious texts are understood to be literal, not figurative, neither time barred nor time diminished.  A significant percentage of the remaining sixty percent of the world’s Muslims are sympathetic to the ideas expressed in their faith.  One of those unfortunate ideas is that any nation, group or individual that violates the eternal contract (of Dhimmitude) between Islam and the infidel nation forfeits all rights, including that of life itself.

Many Arabs therefore consign Jews to that religious category of excommunication, which places them outside of humanity.  Comparisons with far-right, genocidal ideologies (of the 20th Century) could be made.  Even if the BBC rejects religion, at least religion as practiced in the Western World, the attack on a person who was unambiguously identifiable as a religious Jew was a fundamental assault on Western Society. 

Unless that is, the BBC is justifying random attacks on Jews by virtue of Arab theological attitudes towards the infidel, in this case people of Jewish faith.  If that is the case then the BBC has crossed a line.  It now openly advocates for the murder of Jews and justifies this behavior because of its radical political bias…..in direct contravention of its operating license.

This attack and the subsequent atrocities that were carried out in France (the following day) raises questions about the wisdom of opening our borders to Arab refugees for whom unadulterated hatred of everything we in the Western World stand for is a matter of cultural identity.

Not everyone behaves like this, but far too many do.

In February 2015 Islamic State declared its intention of flooding Western Europe (within six months) with 500,000 of its followers (or 50,000 as the number appeared in later Western reporting).  This seems strange given the reported ruling by IS that they were opposed to any Muslim fleeing a Muslim land for any country that is Dar al-Harb (governed by infidel, unclean) because to so flee would be a religious abomination.  Nevertheless, in one case, it is known that a dozen Christians were murdered by other refugees traveling on the same refugee boat because those Christians committed the unforgivable crime of praying to the wrong god.

The attack on Nathan Graf is being portrayed as politically inspired because of the minefield of ethical issues it raises if it is not.   The BBC is complicit if not the leader of this pack of vultures for whom ethical considerations are an inconvenient barrier to the ongoing war against Israel.

We should set aside the over-riding principle of welcoming the asylum seeker. The attack on Nathan Graf, the Belgian murders in 2014, French mass killings in early 2015 and latterly, the French attacks that also took place on November 13, raise serious ethical questions about the continued admittance of refugees whose beliefs are fundamentally incompatible with those of our own societies. Incompatibility, violent opposition to integration and the intelligence services being overwhelmed by an Islamic State fifth column are the minimum considerations that must now be given to any further refugee absorption in Europe or elsewhere.

These are not just questions about security.  Not least among the questions we should be asking is: Given the blind prejudice of news organizations such as the BBC, are they capable of reporting the news with any fealty to the untarnished truth? If the answer is no, then the BBC has outlived its service mandate.

Update:   It is 18:00 on the 14th of November.  The lead French prosecutor, in a live press conference announced that one terrorist was identified as a Syrian passport holder, registered as a refugee on his arrival in Greece in October 2015. A second terrorist has been identified as Belgian.  He had been known to the intelligence community for his terrorist associations since 2010.  Belgium with its strong antisemitic associations has more of its citizens fighting for Islamic State than any other European country (as a percentage of its overall population). The weapons used in the Charlie Hebdo atrocity were purchased in Brussels and according to the internet site “Politico” it is suspected that three of the terrorists in the latest attacks in France came from Belgium.   

3 comments:

  1. On this subject of the European attitude to Israel and it's population something happened here after Charlie Hebdo. After the European speeches, marches and Je suis's came the European demands to label and boycott products from the West Bank. In a blink. It's not a lot, definitely not a lot but more people here in Sydney now have gone from sympathizing in times of mass murder of Europeans to seeing it as a self inflicted train wreck with a strong smell of inevitability. Like the ship is going down and the passengers and especially the captain are ordering martinis.

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  2. The BBC journalist then stated that Arabs view Jews as supporting Israel. Aren't they right? Every opinion poll shows the same thing. Jews overwhelmingly support Israel, although what they think Israel is is undefined. It is one of Israel's great strengths

    For that reason Israel Haters give mass coverage to tiny Neturei Karta and the small group of anti Israel 'heritage' Jews, as if to say, "See not all Jews support Israel". Ironically a high proportion of the ultra Orthodox are tentative in their support of the state of Israel.

    Many of the incitement graphics show the Israeli to be stabbed as an ultra Orthodox caricature. As far as they are concerned although only 20% of Israelis look that way, Nathan Graf was a stereotypical Israeli.

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    1. That is not the point I make in the article. Even assuming that you are correct, for the BBC to take sides in what then becomes an ethno-religious (Arab-Jewish) conflict is a severe provocation. It is also a challenge to the BBC’s stated purpose and a direct violation of its primary licence condition of impartiality. Australasia and North America have certain beliefs such as freedom of religion that is of greater importance than that to which freedom of religion attaches in Europe. Nevertheless, previous centuries of ethno-religious strife culminated in the trauma of the Shoah. We have seen that Europe appears to be incapable of learning any lessons from the past – as demonstrated by further ethnic cleansing and genocide post-Shoah in Bosnia.

      For that reason alone we do not ‘do’ ethno-religious conflict. That BBC report was incitement precisely because a) it suggested that there was justification for the Arab assault on the Jew and b) because by hiding behind a specious excuse for attacking someone, what remains a serious fundamental issue in Europe (religious hatred) appears to have been explained and therefore, justified.

      So ever increasing occurrences of ethno-religious conflict is OK as long as the target is Jewish. Excusing the assault because it was portrayed as being against an Israeli is both outrageous and immoral.

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