Israeli Apartheid Week: The shame of UK students

Cross posted from the blog of David Collier

During these weeks across the UK, universities are holding ‘Israeli apartheid week’. I have sat and viewed with revulsion as images have emerged of students on campus being fed raw radical Islamic propaganda. It has turned into a show, with each of the universities trying to outdo each other. This year Cambridge received praise for placing a military checkpoint in the centre of the Sidgwick lecture site at the University.

Did I just call it raw radical Islamic propaganda? Yes, I did, but more on that later.

Just last night (24th Feb) I was at SOAS to hear yet another incessant and libellous attack against Israel. The usual tales were told, replete with examples of how Israel is randomly shooting at people in the street. The evening started with the host boasting about being able to recognise Zionists in the…

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More inconsistent BBC News reporting of the number of Israeli terror victims

BBC Watch

On the evening of February 24^th the BBC News website’s Middle East page published an article now titled “Israeli soldier shot dead by ‘friendly fire’ in West Bank attack” which relates to an incident which took place over six hours beforehand in Gush Etzion. As has been the case in several recent headlines to articles about terror attacks by Palestinians, the title chosen fails to clarify to readers who perpetrated that “West Bank attack”.

The circumstances of the incident itself are accurately reported, albeit with the usual employment of politicised terminology to describe its location.

“An Israeli military reserve officer has been shot dead, apparently by a fellow soldier, during an attack by a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank.

The military said the soldier opened fire as the Palestinian man attempted to stab Capt Eliav Gelman at Gush Etzion Junction.

An initial investigation suggested Capt…

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BDS is Failing: a continuing series (March 2016)

Here’s the latest installment in our monthly round-up of BDSfails.

Economic BDS Fails

• Israel selected to host Forbes 600 under 30

 Forbes has announced its first Under 30 Summit EMEA, (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and has selected Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for the inaugural event.

The Under 30 Summit EMEA is hoping to attract 600 young entrepreneurs and game changers from across the world: 200 from Europe, 200 from the US and 200 from Israel.

“We look forward to bringing our successful Under 30 Summit to the EMEA region, and there is no better place than Start-up Nation, where innovation is at the core of everything that is going on,” said Randall Lane, editor of Forbes magazine.

• Munich-based DAB Bank is slated to discontinue the account of one of the top BDS campaign websites in Germany

Dr. Jürgen Eikenbusch, the spokesman for DAB Bank Munich, wrote the…

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Will the BBC report Iranian ‘terror grants’ pledge?

BBC Watch

As has been noted here before, back in July 2015, BBC coverage of the P5+1 deal with Iran included assurances from some of the corporation’s senior correspondents that funds freed up by sanctions relief would be used by the Iranian regime to improve the country’s economy.

“President Rouhani was elected because people hoped that he would end Iran’s isolation and thus improve the economy. So the windfall that they will be getting eventually, which is made up of frozen revenues – oil revenues especially –around the world, ah…there are people who argue that look; that will go to try to deal with loads and loads of domestic economic problems and they’ll have trouble at home if they don’t do that. If people – the argument goes on – are celebrating in Iran about the agreement, it’s not because they’ll have more money to make trouble elsewhere in the region; it’s because…

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BBC interviewee selected to comment on antisemitism story convicted of antisemitism

BBC Watch

In early January 2014 both BBC Two’s ‘Newsnight’ and BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ covered a story portrayed as follows by ‘Newsnight’ presenter Jeremy Paxman:

“Now a French comedian has managed to short-circuit his country’s professed commitment to free speech. President Francois Holland, with support from both Right and Left, today encouraged local authorities to ban performances by Dieudonné M’bala-M’bala – usually known just as “Dieudonné”. It’s being done on grounds of public order because his alleged antisemitism has tested to destruction Voltaire’s supposed belief that ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ “

The ‘Newsnight’ item included an interview with a man introduced by Paxman as “the French writer and film-maker Alain Soral” and “a close friend of Monsieur Dieudonne” who “helped him popularise the infamous quenelle gesture”.

On Radio 4 Sarah Montague introduced recycled sections of that interview thus:

“Well a number of French cities have now banned the comedian and…

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New official numbers on Belgian fighters in Syria and Iraq

BBC silent on latest Gaza Strip smuggling attempt

BBC Watch

Sadly, there is nothing novel about the BBC failing to report on terror-related abuses of the system of entry of goods into the Gaza Strip. 

Since the end of the 2014 conflict – during which BBC journalists self-conscripted to Hamas’ PR campaign against the border controls aimed at preventing the entry of weapons and dual-use goods into the Gaza Strip – the corporation has repeatedly failed to report on the issue of Hamas’ misappropriation of construction materials and has also ignored attempts to smuggle substances such as sulfuric acid and TDI into Gaza.

Photo credit: Ministry of Defence

Moreover, whilst ignoring those stories the BBC has concurrently given platforms to the amplification of false information about restrictions on the types and amounts of goods entering the Gaza Strip.  

Earlier this week it was announced that yet another smuggling attempt has been thwarted.

“Israeli security guards at the Kerem Shalom…

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How an uncorrected inaccuracy became BBC conventional wisdom

BBC Watch

At the end of December 2015 the BBC World Service radio programme ran an item about what it inaccurately portrayed as a “book ban” in Israel. As was noted here at the time:

“Rabinyan’s book ‘Gader Haya’ was published in Israel six months ago and subsequently won a literary prize. The book has not been “banned” as she also later claims in this interview and no-one – including high school students – is ‘barred’ from reading it. Rabinyan’s freedom of speech and artistic freedom have clearly neither been “harmed” nor “threatened” by the fact that a pedagogic committee of the kind also found in other countries decided that – like countless other books and for assorted reasons with which one can agree or not – hers would not be included in the curriculum.”

Nevertheless, two subsequent BBC World Service programmes about the same topic similarly inaccurately described Dorit…

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More than a few headlines: Guardian reply to Israel coverage criticism misses the mark

The Guardian’s readers’ editor Chris Elliott published an op-ed today responding to criticism of the paper’s coverage of Israel during the latest round of Palestinian violence (Accusations of bias in coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, Feb. 22).

Elliott focused on one particular complaint that we posted about:  a Guardian headline accompanying an Associated Press (AP) article, about four terror attacks on Israelis in one day, that focused on the deaths of the Palestinian attackers.  

Elliott rejected the complaint because, he claimed, “the headline is not inaccurate, nor…does it suggest that the three Palestinians were innocent victims”. He did acknowledge, however, that the strap line – suggesting that the Israeli version of events was in doubt – was “problematic”.

Though we’vepostedfrequentlyon UK mediaheadlinesabout the current terror wave, the problem of media bias against is far greater than ‘a few’ misleading…

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BBC R4’s ‘Moral Maze’ sidesteps the moral issues behind the BDS campaign

BBC Watch

The BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Moral Maze’ is billed as providing audiences with the opportunity to hear “[c]ombative, provocative and engaging live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week’s news stories”. The February 20^th edition of the show was titled “Banning Boycotts” and part of its synopsis explains the timing of this particular debate.

“Now the government is planning a law to make it illegal for local councils, public bodies and even some university student unions to carry out boycotts. Under the plan all publicly funded institutions will lose the freedom to refuse to buy goods and services as part of a political campaign.”

The programme (available here) is well worth listening to in full and some of its notable aspects relate to both practical and philosophical issues.

One of the pro-boycott ‘witnesses’ invited to the programme was John Hilary – introduced as “the executive…

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