BBC Bias Alert: Justifying and Humanizing Terrorist Murderers
February 2, 2012 15:45 by Simon PloskerHaving minimized Shammasina’s crimes, the BBC gives him ample space to justify his actions while painting him as a victim. While the dead Israelis are simply statistics, the humanizing of a murderer even extends to Shammasina’s “frail” mother and his family situation:
Out of one of the bedrooms steps Ibrahim’s frail 85-year-old mother, Tamam. While he was in prison, Ibrahim’s brother, father and wife all died.
With both Shammasina’s lack of regret and his mother’s open support for his murder of Israelis, this is certainly no exposé of the warped values of terrorists. Instead, the BBC offers further justification for terror, interviewing Abdul Hakim Abdul Aziz Abd Hanaini who served 20 years for making explosives for use by terrorists:
Abd Hanaini insists that taking up arms against Israel was the only option he had.
“At that time, when we resisted the occupation with arms, we were young, young men,” he says.
“I saw with my own eyes the killing of children, the killing of women, and the destruction of our olive groves, the occupation and burning of the land. This made us feel that we had to defend our families, our children, our women.”
In one feature article, the BBC has successfully humanized terrorists while justifying murder, ostensibly as a result of “occupation”. Would the BBC humanize or sympathize with convicted murderers in the US, UK or elsewhere, let alone even give them a platform? Of course not. So why then, does the BBC deem it acceptable to treat Palestinians involved in murder differently?
We’d like to hear the BBC’s answer to that very question. Send your complaints through the BBC Complaints website – www.bbc.co.uk/complaints. For detailed instructions on how to navigate the BBC Complaints website, click here.
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steve mann
9:11 pm
Feb 05, 2012
Please read and dont assume- I said “Since” the Beirut shelling-
And if Israel- now- Is sending to England- representative after representative- Purely to discuss this very issue- Why do you think that is-?
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Albert Reingewirtz
11:13 pm
Feb 05, 2012
You are so clear! “This very issue?” What issue?
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David Abrahams-Edley
1:11 am
Feb 06, 2012
Albert. I heave to agree with you that there are anti-semites in Britain. But there is also large a pro-Israel lobby. This thread was about the anti-Israel stance on the BBC. Of that we are in agreement. I see your point being that Britain has not politically been a friend of Israel – again we are in agreement. We have clowns running Britain – again we are in agreement. We can look at the history and interpret it again and again but the fact is this – in 2012 the world is where it is. The US is in the verge of bankruptcy, The EU is disintegrating and the Arab world is falling apart. Iran is building bombs that are clearly earmarked for Israel and most of the western world hasn’t a clue about the politics or history of the middle east – which is why so many people in Britain misguidedly support so called Palestinian Arabs living in Judea and Samaria. The same people have no idea about the ethnic cleansing of Jews in arab states in the 1940s but shout about the Arab ‘refugees’ and their right to return. No one anywhere points out that Gaza and ‘The West Bank’ under the 1948 boundaries are politically Jordan and Egypt and the Jordan and Egypt have no interest in having them back. Israel is the Jewish home state built on thousands of years of heritage that for 60 years has fought daily for its very survival. We in Britain know this. It is up to Honest Reporting to address this. It seems to me it is the job of Honest Reporting to show the truth to the world of what is really happening. We must be in agreement on this point. Through its history Britain has treated its Jews disgustingly but so has every other nation – Ilive near York which was a site of a massacre by the troops of Edward I in the 13th Century. But it has also been a haven – my family came to Britain to escape the pogroms in Russia. Britain like every other country on the planet has political contradictions and duality. It wanted the fledgling Israeli state to fail but used it in 1956 to fight Nasser in Egypt. I mentioned Nafekh and the Valley of Tears in 1973 an earlier email – this is one of a thousand examples of how brave Israel is the West’s first line of defence against the evil of islamic extremism. I hope you understand that even though you clearly do not like Britain – there are people in Britain – quite a lot in fact – that support Israel and will always defend it. Many Britons have made Aliyah and I hope this underlines this. The Britain you are talking about is politically as alien to us as it is to you. All politicians the world over are rubbish. Please don’t tar all Britons with the same brush.
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Stan Lee
8:13 pm
Feb 06, 2012
My compliments on a good piece of rationalization. It would have to fall to a Jew whose family left the vicious pogroms of Russia, to differentiate between long-lived Russian persecution of Jews and the existing bigotry against Jews in the UK. I, in no way, am attempting to minimize the history of Jewish persecution in Britain, that history is well-recorded and shameful, but ignorance is ignorance.
No one could put it better than you have, you and your predecessors have felt it first-hand.
As for BBC, it became known as “Baghdad Broadcasting Co.” during the period leading up to the invasion of and subsequent arrest-trial of Saddam. The BBC is properly named and it earns its name each day of its existence. Good people have protested about BBC’s cozy relationship with causes Arab-Muslim, but if anything BBC is disgustingly consistent.
A healthy boycott of BBC in all its venues could be the best remedy for this operation that’s outlived its value…if it ever had any.
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Joseph
8:32 pm
Feb 15, 2012
If a group one thousand (or less) people consistently refused outright to pay their television license fee, and continued to refuse to pay any fines until all were summoned to court, the stage would be set for a public rebuke of the BBC for violating the terms of its own charter.
That charter requires impartiality, fair and balanced reporting and context. Public funding, and all funding of the BBC including direct grants from the Foreign Office, is predicated on the BBC’s compliance with its charter. To accept and use the funds, to follow policies and practices at variance with the charter, amounts to fraud. Those responsible should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
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Albert Reingewirtz
2:08 am
Feb 06, 2012
Thank you for your post. You made me feel real good. When I speak of Britain as an anti- Semitic country I do not single it. I view France in exactly the same light. The French police arrested my mother. The Gestapo arrested my father. They were gassed with French produced ZYKLON-B. On the other hand I was saved by a Captain of the Salvation army. No one in his right mind will think that all the French including those not born yet are guilty of the extermination of the Jews of France. Again not all the Jews of France were exterminated. I am still around.
Britain as a nation has been virulently, actively, willingly, of it’s own choice horrible to the Jewish nation and in particular to the Jewish nation of Israel. Israel to this day suffer and in great danger because of British misdeeds in 1948. Today it is the Guardian and the BBC at the forefront of British attacks on the Jewish state. If I do not care about Britain being invaded by Muslims Britain previously exploited all over the Middle east. Britain deserves it just like France deserve the same. They are there to collect what is rightfully theirs. As for the Jews of Britain their time is running short. Time to leave!
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Albert Reingewirtz
5:31 pm
Feb 06, 2012
You have relinquished nothing. The floor was burning under your British feet everywhere. Colonialism had become unacceptable as the slave trade had become earlier that you too were a major part of it. Don’t attempt to rap yourself in a moral mantle that doesn’t fit Britain. The main reason Britain has fallen on hard time is because it can’t live from robbing “the natives” world wide. The time has arrived for Britain to live within it’s means and since stiff upper lip precludes one from menial work importation of the modern version of slavery is necessary. So, the greatest source of low wages is where people multiply like flies because of religion and that is where Muslims come in into Britain. They have no security, no future so they off course to their religion where they hear that they will inherit the earth when the world Caliphate is achieve by them. There is no need to discuss the Guardian or the BBC. They are the bottom of the barrel when it comes to true journalism as is their motherland, Britain.
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Denis MacEoin
6:29 pm
Feb 06, 2012
Albert, Your sweeping and unswerving attacks on Britain resemble the Islamist and left-wing attacks on Israel that I’m so tired of hearing and reading – as I’m sure all of us on these pages are. You are sometimes right, but tat doesn’t excuse your unremitting attack on one country, and it gets tedious to listen to it. Why don’t you call for a boycott of the UK, why don’t you call it an ‘apartheid state’ or a ‘Nazi state’ and be done with it? Your attacks are so prejudiced, so one-sided, that I am inclined to defend Britain on everything, rather than accept some of your criticisms. You can never see good in Britain, just others never see good in Israel, and that is why I think you have done such damage to this conversation.
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Albert Reingewirtz
7:08 pm
Feb 06, 2012
You point out that I am unrelenting in my attack on Britain but never ask why? I suspect that you know very well why after all it is part and parcel of British history. From your post I know that you are familiar with British history. Nevertheless, I must point out my observation that of all the nations, including the Arab states and Muslim states Britain in fact is the state that caused the most damage to the Jewish State of Israel and for the longest of time. Britain is like their Bulldog it’s jaws are locked on little Israel and won’t let go. The BBC and the Guardians are just symptoms of an ancient malady afflicting the British nation. It is time for the British nation to submit to some kind of therapy. I am just providing a mirror so you can see for yourself. Maybe it will help, maybe it won’t. I do not have great hope for sick Britain. I do not have to tell you which human disease Britain is suffering from, right? That you get tired of it is great! Maybe some bits and pieces are sinking in.
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Matt Pryor, London
7:16 pm
Feb 09, 2012
Depressing as it sounds, I think Israelis have every right to hate the British. Historically we have betrayed them again and again. Our politicians are cowards choking on Arab oil, and our liberal media pundits (with a few honourable exceptions) hate Israel with a passion, almost as much as they hate Britain. Unfortunately there is very little that the ordinary person can do about this state of affairs, other than watch with horror as it deteriorates day by day and complain to deaf ears. Only last week Nick Clegg, with support from our Prime Minister, while shaking hands with a Holocaust denier and a terrorist (Abu Mazen) declared that “settlements” are “vandalism”. I am disgusted with the British establishment’s treatment of one of the few countries in the world that still has a friendly disposition towards it. Shame on every one of us, and particularly the BBC.
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Albert Reingewirtz
7:23 pm
Feb 09, 2012
Thank you! I hope you will not get in trouble with supporters of Arab terror and their supporters now ruling Britain.
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BBC-Schwachsinn also doch nicht ganz so monolithisch « Medien BackSpin
4:31 pm
Jul 13, 2012
[...] von BBC News muss man sich genauer ansehen: die Verharmlosung von Terror in den Schlagzeilen, die Disposition zum Terror schlechthin, ihre Sprache des Terrors, ihre hausinterne Sprachregelung, was Terror [...]
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