Sunday, February 20, 2005
The BBC has taken enormous fire for the unsupported slander they gave John Bell a platform to spout through their "Thought of the Day" segment. Rev. Bell has taken the opportunity of the criticism to re-think what he said alter his story to make the still unsupported and absurd facts more believable. The BBC itself, still doesn't get it of course (via LGF):
BBC issues apology over Thought
In the programme, on 10 February, the Reverend John Bell of the Iona Community spoke of meeting an Arab man conscripted into the Israeli Army.
Dr Bell told listeners the 19-year-old corporal had been jailed for refusing to shoot Palestinian schoolchildren.
However, the remarks angered many members of Britain's Jewish community, who said the account could not be true.
'Factual errors'
Several people told the BBC that Israeli Arabs are exempt from conscription into the army. Moreover, it would be impossible for a 19-year-old to rise to the rank of corporal.
Dr Bell has since admitted, in a letter to the BBC, that his account contained "two factual errors".
"One was that the soldier was 21 and not 19, thus he would have been of the age to be a corporal.
"The second is that he did not say he was conscripted. My presumption regarding conscription is wrong as regards Arab Israelis.
"I perfectly understand that at a time when Jewish sensitivity in Britain is running high because of anti-Semitism that part of my remarks might have been interpreted as furtive racism.
"However, such a conjecture would be completely untrue. For any unintended dismay I may have caused, I apologise unreservedly."
The BBC added their own apology, on the Thought For The Day website, acknowledging that the facts should have been checked prior to broadcast.
"We have talked to the Israeli authorities and we are unable to find any evidence to support the story told to Dr Bell and recounted by him on Thought for the Day.
"The Religion and Ethics Department apologises on behalf of the BBC and regrets the offence that was caused."
Both the BBC and the Reverend apologize for the offense, but not for the spreading of slanderous and dangerous falsehoods - only that people are offended, which is no apology at all.
As one commenter at LGF notes:
I see this propaganda technique all the time. Only the "Jewish community" is alleged to care about truth in reporting or slurs against Jews. It's a subtle, yet effective, way to segregate Jews from the general population. The Chicago Sun Times claimed only unnamed "Jewish groups" didn't want Tariq Ramadan at Notre Dame. I've seen dozens of similar examples.
Hey, The Jews are upset. Well, you know how they are. We'll just issue an "apology"...wink wink. People will understand why we had to.
It's nothing but patronizing crap.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: The BBC's non-apology apology.
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It's a good thing that I'm already working on developing a thickish skin before my conversion. Ol' Solomon over at Solomonia expresses my feelings quite nicely about the BBC's "apology," --- quite good of him to do so while my brain is under the influe... Read More
Dear Solomonia.com,
Just found out a Christian Arab friend of mine was Palestinian...
I've known him for years but only as a respectable son of a Diplomatic family who had been stationed here in Vienna Austria.
He was always respectful of my feelings and I of his...
But you should have heard the shouting match we had, or rather I had in response to the B.S. he tried to hand me on the 'situation'...
I felt like someone was trying to sell me an over-priced rug with a child wrapped-up inside who had supposedly been murdered by Ariel Sharon...
And the Americans...
And the little green men from mars...
And I just COULD NOT BELIEVE IT!!!
Someone who I had respected and admired suddenly turning into a lying maniac in such an absurd fashion...
I felt utterly insulted...
What the hell did he think anyway???
That someone just flushed my brain down the toilet and now my head was so empty that I would believe ANYTHING?????
My GOD... I'm still not over the shock.
I could not believe that someone could go from zero to lying in 0.1 seconds... after all this time.
What did I miss?
How is this possible?
I caught him in a whole slew of lies one after another...
And I had never experienced this from him before over all the years I had known him.
The only thing which changed was that as a Christian I usually had been quite conservative in my views and mostly kept my politics to my self.
But recently I have been expressing my intuitive insights on a Private Forum called
Building Bridges
Where I have been exploring the Principles of Freedom and America from my own perspective.
I asked him to review the site and give me feedback...
But I got nothing but lies about the in his eyes 'bad Israelis and bad Americans'.
Now I tried very hard to understand this phenomena because I believe that it could lead me to a deeper understanding of the larger challenges here.
And I believe it can be summed up in one very simple idea:
He does not care what is right or wrong.
He just wants want he wants.
And we are supposed to give it to him.
Without ANY arguments or negotiations.
He just came back with the same tired old 'reverse psychology' tactics, the 'pure me' tactics...
Quite honestly I was so disappointed, that I was disgusted.
Outright disgusted!
I've never been so disgusted in all my life.
All of my compassionate consideration for the Palestinians just evaporated in that moment.
I just felt how it must feel when one has just been car-jacked and as they drive away in one's private property they give one the finger.
The police happens to catch them 50 yards up the street.
And as one arrives huffing out of breath... they pull this victim routine how I'm responsible for them stealing MY CAR.
How I beat them into taking the CAR and forcing them at gun point to take the car.
And all the while crying their crocodile tears for the now arriving news cameras.
I think in such a situation I would reach over and pull the policeman's gun and END THAT theatrical performance ONCE AND FOR ALL.
I never thought I could feel such emotions of anger and intense desire for retribution.
It must have been the unbelievable betrayal I felt toward my person in the dignity and sincerity toward my sense of fairness and equality and good-will.
In that very moment all I could think was...
"You dirty lying thieves..."
If this is anything like what must be going on...
I do not know what the answer is.
They are going to have to find a more impartial judge on the matter of Jerusalem and Israel than me.
Because I would be the MOST BRUTAL ASS-KICKING JUDGE this world has ever seen.
And the Palestinians would be lucky to get away with their skin.
All these years they have been playing with our emotions like some people play a violin.
I am deeply deeply deeply disappointed.
Now I know what the old King of Jordan must have felt when he befriended the Palestinians by letting them flee into and take refuge into his country and then they thanked him by trying to assassinate him and take his country away from him.
I again get this image of the car-jacker.
Sad really.
Very very sad.
I AM.
Powerful comment. Interesting site.