July 4, 2006: Wouldn't want to be judgmental ...

I have run out of time and these seem to go together.

BBC rejects recommendations on Middle East news reporting Johnny Paul, July 2, 06
www.ejpress.org/article/9405

LONDON (EJP)--- The BBC has rejected the call made by a recent independent inquiry to look at the news organisation’s reporting on the Middle East, to change its policy on using the words “terrorism” or “terrorist” and appoint a director to oversee coverage of the region.

The 38-page report, which was released in May, recommended it describe “violent attacks on civilians for political or ideological reasons, regardless if perpetrated by state or non-state actors”, be regarded as “terrorism” and perpetrated by “terrorists”.

The report had been commissionned by BBC's Governors.

The independent panel suggested the term be used “in respect of relevant events since it’s the most accurate expression for actions which involve violence against randomly selected civilians with the intention of causing terror for ideological, including political or religious objectives, whether perpetrated by state or non-state agencies”. [....]

The BBC’s reporting, according to the panel, displayed “gaps in coverage, analysis, context and perspective” and failed to “maintain consistently the BBC’s own established editorial standards, including on language.” [....]

Then there is Canada's CBC's news from Israel (so it is termed) with Adrienne Arsenault, news which invariably carries stories of how the Palestinians are being inconvenienced and suffering because of retaliation for the kidnapping of an Israeli, Cpl. Gilad Shalit. Would the Israelis have retaliated if Shalit had not been taken? Where are Arsenault's stories of Israeli suffering? We don't get personal stories very often--if at all--of Israeli families affected by Palestinian actions; she tends to concentrate on the Palestinian suffering. Is it just me or is Arsenault biased?



Transcripts of Hamas' video
http://scaramouche.motime.com/post/587227

[....] Transcripts of Hamas' video leave no doubt about the true agenda of the Islamists in which the future Palestinian State, being pushed as the "only" solution for the Arab-Israeli conflict, will be a vanguard. The video boasts, "We will rule the nations, by Allah's will, the USA will be conquered, Israel will be conquered, Rome and Britain will be conquered. The Jihad for Allah... is the way of Truth and the way for Salvation and the way, which will lead us to crush the Jews and expel them from our country Palestine. Just as the Jews ran from Gaza, the Americans will run from Iraq and Afghanistan and the Russians will run from Chechnya, and the Indian will run from Kashmir, and our children will be released from Guantanamo. The prisoners will be released by Allah's will, not by peaceful means and not by agreements, but they will be released by the sword, they will be released by the gun". [....]

It’s not a cycle, it’s a jihad: 03 July 2006
http://scaramouche.motime.com/post/587146

Charles Krauthammer, aiming and shooting with deadly accuracy, tells the world to knock it off, already, with the spin cycle (or is it cycle spin?). From Time magazine

Israel Invades Gaza. That is in response to an attack from Gaza that killed two Israelis and wounded another, who was kidnapped and brought back to Gaza ...which, in turn, was in response to Israel's targeted killing of terrorist leaders in Gaza...which, in turn, was in response to the indiscriminate shelling of Israeli towns by rockets launched from Gaza.

[....] What is so remarkable about the current wave of violence in Gaza is that the event at the origin of the "cycle" is not at all historical, but very contemporary. The event is not buried in the mists of history. It occurred less than one year ago. Before the eyes of the whole world, Israel left Gaza. Every Jew, every soldier, every military installation, every remnant of Israeli occupation was uprooted and taken away.

How do the Palestinians respond? What have they done with Gaza, the first Palestinian territory in history to be independent, something neither the Ottomans nor the British nor the Egyptians nor the Jordanians, all of whom ruled Palestinians before the Israelis, ever permitted? On the very day of Israel's final pullout, the Palestinians began firing rockets out of Gaza into Israeli towns on the other side of the border. And remember: those are attacks not on settlers but on civilians in Israel proper, the pre-1967 Israel that the international community recognizes as legitimately part of sovereign Israel, a member state of the U.N. A thousand rockets have fallen since. [....]

Do not miss Krauthammer's logical conclusion.

Our CBC emphasizes only the "repression" of Palestinians ... talks only of Palestinian "militants" ... on the public airwaves ... paid for by all Canadian taxpayers. Do we want more of this?

Perhaps we should start our own club to counter the Friends of the CBC ... Perhaps Enemies of the CBC? ... Enemies of Forced Taxpayer Funding For Bias?