I've been waiting to see how the BBC would cover the recent missile terror attacks on Israel from Hamastan and finally, this morning, the BBC Today programme deigned to cover it @ 8.21am Naturally, Humphrys instantly suggested that Israel was to blame by impertinently striking against the Islamic terrorists that operate freely within Gaza. Then we had an interview, if you can it that, with Dr Aryeh Kontorovich who lives in Beersheva in southern Israel and Dr Mona El-Farra, vice president of the Red Crescent in Gaza. Basically Dr Mona was allowed to ramble on and on, without interruption. One wonders how the BBC can dare to suggest that the Red Crescent is some sort of neutral charity providing organisation after the semi coherent propaganda spouted by El-Farra. It doesn't matter what the situation is - when it comes to the BBC, Israel is ALWAYS to blame. Now, why might that be, do you think?Commenter Sue went into detail on the interview, which you can hear here:
I found the respective speaking times as follows:Indeed, the Red Crescent doctor is allowed to spout lies without the least attempt by the BBC interviewer to challenge her. Her insistence that Israel was targeting children and that there were no rockets from Gaza in four months was especially egregious.
Dr Kontorovich 00:2:15:49
Dr. El-Farra 00:3:41:87
During Dr. Kontorovich’s two minutes, Humphrys managed to ask four questions including one statement:
“This started at the weekend, Friday? Things had been quiet since September?”
To which Dr. Kontorovich replied:
“In Be’ersheba, but I must stress that rockets have been falling continuously on Israel, but at a low intensity”
Humphrys ignored this, repeating:
“This (intensity) has been as a direct result of attacks on Gaza on Friday morning.”
Dr Kontorovich seemed upset and flustered, while Dr El-Farra let forth a continual stream of invective, alternately accusatory and self pitying. She was allowed to digress, uninterrupted, apart from an interjection by Humphrys “Sorry, the line isn’t terribly good (it was fine) if I can perhaps explain what was you’re saying. The car carrying this man described as a militant leader, that was attacked form the air...”
Mona El-Farra re-interrupted back, and continued by denying, twice, that there have been any rocket attacks from Gaza.
“let me tell you that for the last four months there were no rockets against Israel and Palestinians respected the cease-fire.”
“It is not a war between two equal parties, Israel with its very strong army attacking a group of militia, many that have been confined to the cease-fire for the last four months. This time Israel started [it]. I will not talk more about this.”
She was allowed to digress, completely uninterrupted for a further minute or two, listing everything lacking in Gaza, and she evaded the one significant point that Humphrys put to her, which was that if the rocket attacks from Gaza were to cease, there would be no raids into Gaza by Israel. The nearest she got to addressing that point was to say she didn’t approve of rocket attacks.
This interview was typically incompetent and misleading.
Ha'aretz lists rocket attacks for the past year:
January, 2011 - 39 rockets fired toward IsraelFebruary, 2011 - 28 rockets fired toward IsraelMay, 2011 - 1 rocket fired toward IsraelJune, 2011 - No rockets were fired toward IsraelJuly, 2011 - 27 rockets fired toward IsraelAugust, 2011 - 171 rockets fired toward Israel after a coordinated terror attack by Palestinian militants kills eight IsraelisSeptember, 2011 - 13 rockets fired toward IsraelOctober, 2011 - 56 rockets fired toward Israel as response to release of former captive IDF soldier Gilad ShalitNovember, 2011 - 9 rockets fired toward IsraelDecember, 2011 - 42 rockets fired toward IsraelJanuary, 2012 - 18 rockets fired toward IsraelFebruary, 2012 - 30 rockets fired toward Israel
(h/t Yoel)