More dead children. More BBC ‘news’ channelling Israeli propaganda
JVL Introduction
Suddenly the IDF cares about children being killed.
In an awful incident, twelve children playing soccer were killed. The IDF spokesperson Daniel Hangari claims them as Israel’s own, murdered by the appalling terrorists of Hizbullah.
Only they are Syrians, caught up in Israel’s occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, forced to live unwillingly under an Israeli military occupation.
Suddenly Israel cares about them. Crocodile tears indeed, shed also by the BBC relaying Israel’s propaganda uncritically, as the number of children and the number of Palestinian soccer players murdered by Israel continues to soar, ten months into their war on Gaza.
After listing a series of such attacks by Israel Jonathan Cook asks whether we, and the BBC, shouldn’t draw the obvious conclusion.–that the Israeli military machine is more of a terrorist organisation than Hizbullah?
RK
This article was originally published by Jonathan Cook's blog on Sun 28 Jul 2024. Read the original here.
More dead children. More BBC 'news' channelling Israeli propaganda as its own
Forget a 10-month genocide in Gaza. Only when Israel can exploit the deaths of Syrians living under its military occupation are we supposed to start worrying about the ‘consequences’
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This moment I’m listening to Ahmed Alnaouq [We Are Not Numbers: https://wearenotnumbers.org/about/%5D speaking about the BBC being complicit in the killing of Palestinians, by its selective, often passive, reports of deaths of Palestinians. Often reporting of them “dying”, rather than specifying they have been killed by another Israeli massacre. He points to the case of Muhammed Bhar, the young Palestinian man, who was deliberately mauled by the Israeli handlers of ferocious trained Israeli dogs, then left bleeding to later die. Originally the BBC said he “died alone” without any credible context. It was only afterwards they changed their headline, but the article ended with a response from the Israeli Army! The BBC is, and always has been, the voice of the British State, acting as a vassal for propaganda, misinformation and “leaks” from the Intelligence Services for political purposes. Ahmed Alnaouq points to the BBC’s reliance on Israeli sources to frame its news agenda, and reinforce the predominant Western narrative against the International right for liberation and self-determination for the Palestinian people. The BBC is acting in support of “cultural genocide” by portraying the Zionist entity as victims, whilst ignoring the daily massacres, starvation and slaughter of innocent, mostly women and children, in Gaza and the West Bank.
The BBC news this morning was very clear that Golan was occupied territory, NOT part of Israel. It also described the children killed as Druze, but did not say that they were Syrian, which I doubt was an accidental omission. However, it was less remiss in the information it supplied than Jonathan Cook claims, and as the BBC is bad enough, I don’t think over-egging the pudding is necessary.
MY criticism of the way the BBC has treated this event is in its absence of proper explanation and historical context. Most viewers/listeners will have little idea about a) the status of Golan, b) how it differs from the Palestinian ‘Occupied Territories’, c) that Israel has illegally ‘annexed’ Golan and now treats it as part of ‘Israel’, d) that the Syrians of Golan are treated as second class, and e) that there’s a wide range of issues concerning natural resources, history, education, housing, culture etc etc where Israel walks right over Syrian interests and needs. They certainly will not know that there are some half million refugees and their descendants who got forced out of or fled Golan. Only 5% of the original population remain. See for more information the website of Syrian community organisation Al Marsad (a project which the British Shalom-Salaam Trust has long supported) based in Majdal Shams where the twelve children were killed. https://golan-marsad.org
Great post from Jonathan. I posted it immediately on Facebook and was told within seconds that it had been removed for infringing their community standards. Jesus wept!
Indeed, deep hypocrisy, again, from murderous Israel and our ‘trusted’ BBC.
I’ve just tried to post the original on my newsfeed but Zuckerberg’s propaganda machine blocked it, of course. I managed to get my own comnentary up there earlier but I wonder how much its access has been restricted.
The full truth appears even worse according to SKWAWKBOX:
‘I’ll be imprisoned if I’m filmed saying this but missile that killed 12 Druze civilians at football pitch was Israeli’, says medic – and funeral-goers drive away far-right Israeli politicians attempting to co-opt deaths of occupied people …
I tried to circulate this on Facebook and it was blocked.
I did notice on Radio 4 last night that the BBC reported that “The funerals took place yesterday of the children killed…” and wondered how many times the BBC has reported the funerals of Palestinian children since October 7th last year. Once more, it seems completely normal to the BBC that some deaths and funerals require our attention and some pass unnoticed. Over the years and decades, this distortion of reality plays its part so that, in effect, UK citizens don’t “care” about the deaths of Palestinians, children included. I am curious as to how the editorial team at Radio 4 come to their decisions. Is there really noone in the room who sees the hypocrisy?
Channel 4 News is very much better than BBC in reporting the atrocities Israel is perpetrating in Gaza and elsewhere in the region.
How the American government and media frame world events seems to have more effect on the BBC’s own news coverage than it should do, in my opinion. So this analysis from today’s “Tortoise Sensemaker” points to changes already underway in American political views and policies which could in the next decades change the BBC coverage of Israel and the Middle East:-
“America is changing rapidly and if current trends continue, Christians could make up less than half of the US population within a few decades.
[ So Christian Zionism may lose much of its political power]
That’s not because other religions are taking over – Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddists only total about six per cent. The trend is driven by people leaving Christianity when they reach adulthood. 30 per cent of Americans are already religious “nones” [“none of the above”?]. By 2070, they could be the majority.
Race against time. So those who embrace or at least recognise the Christian nationalist label are moving fast in Republican-run states, on Capitol Hill and in the courts, targeting LGBTQ+ rights, abortion and contraception, and promoting Christianity in schools.”
What also amazes me is how small a percentage of the total US population Jewish and Muslim Americans are. They’ve had such an impressive impact on American politics I’d assumed Jewish and Muslim Americans were at least 13% US population.
A useful article from Mondoweiss explaining who the Golan Druze are, and Israel’s two-faced behaviour towards them. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/07/who-are-the-syrian-druze-of-majdal-shams/?ml_recipient=128374305608172952&ml_link=128374301794502437&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2024-07-31&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation