May 17 2013

BBC’s Davies describes new Golan fence as ‘controversial’

The ‘Features & Analysis’ section of the Middle East page of the BBC News website included an item by the BBC Jerusalem Bureau’s Wyre Davies on May 12^th entitled “Israel prepares for the worst as tensions over Syria grow“.

In that piece, readers once again see the Iranian-backed terrorist organization Hizballah described in cartoonish terms as Israel’s “arch-enemy in southern Lebanon” and once again the writer manages to produce an entire article based around the subject of Israeli responses to weapons transfers to Hizballah via Syria without explaining the all-important underlying UN Security Council resolution 1701.

Davies’ main theme in this feature is that Israel is preparing itself for another round of conflict with Hizballah – an assertion which will not be news to anyone with even a basic familiarity with the Middle East.

“It is obvious as well, that not just the municipality of Haifa but the Israeli government and the higher echelons of the army are getting ready for the possibility if not the probability of another conflict in the north.”

However, Davies appears to have swallowed the same dubious claims regarding the Iron Dome missile defence system as promoted by his colleagues Kevin Connolly and Jonathan Marcus in recent weeks.

“Driving out of Haifa, newly installed batteries of the much vaunted Iron Dome anti-missile defence system are visible in fields to the north of the city.

After the system was successfully used in last year’s Gaza conflict, it should provide added security for Haifa and other northern towns in the event of another conflict, even though there is still a debate about how effective the system – developed in Israel and financed by the United States – actually is.”

Later on in the article comes this rather curious statement:

“Although all of the intelligence and military assessments concur that the greatest immediate threat to Israel still comes from the north and Hezbollah, in recent weeks and months there has also been a great deal of concern and attention focused on the eastern frontier.”

That analysis suggests that Davies has not entirely grasped the fact that whilst Hizballah’s traditional stomping ground is indeed southern Lebanon (to the north of Israel), its record of activity abroad and its involvement in the Syrian civil war indicate that it is by no means confined to that geographical location. The Lebanese website Naharnet reported earlier in the week that Hizballah has been involved in the recent fierce fighting in the Dara’a area in southern Syria – close to the borders with both Jordan and Israel – and other reports suggest that the terror organisation’s presence in that region has, with Iranian prompting, received Bashar Assad’s blessing.

Meanwhile, on the morning of May 15^th, mortars from Syria landed in the area of Mount Hermon in the northern Golan Heights, with the fire later being claimed by an Islamist group operating in Syria. On the same day a New Zealander serving with UNTSO was abducted from an observation post in the Golan, apparently together with two others, but released after a few hours. In southern Lebanon a UNIFIL post was overrun with three soldiers also briefly kidnapped and equipment and ammunition stolen. None of the above incidents has so far been reported by the BBC. (Also unreported was missile fire on the same day on Israel’s southern area of Eshkol.)

The repeated incidents of abductions of UN personnel in the Golan Heights have already had a detrimental effect upon peace-keeping activities along that border (one imagines much to the delight – if not intent – of the assorted Islamist groups located in the area) and an alleged recent EU statement suggests that the same could apply to the Lebanese – Israeli frontier. Ironically, during a visit to Lebanon on May 13^th, the UN Under Secretary-General for Peacekeeping saw fit to whitewash the long-standing failure of his organisation to implement UN SC 1701 which has led to the current situation in which Hizballah is able to threaten regional stability on several fronts.

“In his remarks, Mr. Ladsous commended Israel and Lebanon for their continued commitment to the cessation of hostilities and the implementation of Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese group Hizbollah, and calls for respect for the Blue Line, the disarming of all militias in Lebanon, and an end to arms smuggling in the area.”

Towards the end of Davies’ article we find another bizarre statement:

“Israel’s response to the fighting and upheaval on the Syrian side of the plateau has been spectacular if controversial.

A massive new 3m (10ft) high fence has been built in almost no time along the entire length of the de-facto border and Israel’s military presence has been visibly stepped up in the region.”

What exactly Davies thinks is “spectacular” or “controversial” about replacing a forty year-old rusty fence with a new one in light of the appearance of armed Al Qaeda-affiliated groups on its other side is – to this writer at least – something of a mystery.

And for as long as the BBC continues with its practice of selective reporting of events on Israel’s northern and eastern borders – as well as those on its southern one with the Gaza Strip – BBC audiences will also remain mystified with regard to the dynamics at work in cooking up the next round of conflict – from whichever direction it may come.

May 9 2013

BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’ promotes more Syrian regime propaganda

h/t JK

The May 6^th edition of BBC Radio 4′s ‘Today’ programme did not only feature a potentially BAFTA-winning performance by Jeremy Bowen pretending that “nobody really knows” whether or why Iranian long-range missiles might be transferred to the terrorist organisation Hizballah via Syria. Earlier on in the programme – from 1:09:07 here for a limited period of time – over four minutes of air time was dedicated to the uninterrupted promotion of propaganda directly from the Iran/Syria/Hizballah coalition by its mouthpiece ‘Conflicts Forum’ director Alastair Crooke.

Presenter Justin Webb introduces the item by stating:

“Israeli jets bombed Syria yesterday. It was the second attack in 48 hours. The Syrian deputy Foreign Minister called it an act of war. The United States, according to an intelligence official, was not given any warning before the air strikes which most people are assuming were on targets connected with the Iranian supply of weapons to Syria and then on to Hizballah – the militant group based in Lebanon which is backed by Iran and by President Assad. Alastair Crooke is a former EU mediator in the Middle East. He’s director now of the NGO Conflicts Forum and is on the line from Beirut. Good morning to you.”

Webb’s claim that “Israeli jets bombed Syria” is of course a deliberately wide – and inaccurate – interpretation of pinpoint strikes carried out against specific targets in very specific areas of a very large country. Webb’s failure to inform listeners of the political motivations of Crooke’s organisation directly contravenes BBC Editorial Guidelines on impartiality, and in particular section 4.4.14 of those guidelines.

“We should not automatically assume that contributors from other organisations (such as academics, journalists, researchers and representatives of charities) are unbiased and we may need to make it clear to the audience when contributors are associated with a particular viewpoint, if it is not apparent from their contribution or from the context in which their contribution is made.”

The interview continues:

Alastair Crooke: “Good morning to you.”

JW: “What do you think is happening?”

AC: “Err..we’ve had some reaction overnight err..from Hizballah and some sources have been speaking in Damascus. Erm..what Hizballah are saying – and they’re quite calm about it – they say they regard this very much as a political event by – political demonstration if you like – err.. by Israel. Err.. they say that they recently received emm.. effective – quote – effective weapons emm… across the border from Syria and that Israel were [sic] a little bit late on the uptake on this and that we have seen – as indeed we have seen – that Lebanon has been crisscrossed by Israeli aeroplanes during the recent days and they believe that they were unable to find what they wanted and so they gave a demonstrative attack, if you like, on the previously attacked erm.. weapons logistics centre near Damascus and this was intended really emm… having not succeeded in stopping this effective, as far as Hizballah is describing it, Israel is sending a message saying well don’t think of doing it again because we will reply.”

Using the same country and area codes, Webb’s producers could have telephoned Hizballah’s offices in the Dahiya area of Beirut and received the exact same commentary of course – albeit in perhaps less of a polished accent. Webb continues:

“And the point is these weapons – it’s the Fateh 110 isn’t it? It’s a missile that could reach Tel Aviv from southern Lebanon so in the event, for instance, of Israel attacking Iran over its nuclear programme, then this could be quite an effective active retaliation by an Iranian ally.”

Crooke responds:

“Yes, but Hizballah – and the Israelis said this quite publicly – have already got such weapons. Erm.. there’s another version of this weapon which is very similar which has been produced in Syria in recent years and almost certainly that has reached Hizballah. In any case Hizballah is fully armed. I mean there’s no question about that. Israeli intelligence sources .. amm.. admit quite clearly that they have far greater potential weapons power now than they ever had during the war in 2006. So I don’t think this – the loss – even if there was a loss of a particular weapons shipment – would be critical – strategically critical – to Hizballah’s position.”

An appreciation of the similarity of Crooke’s claims to those made by Hizballah itself can be gleaned by taking a look at this recent statement from its leader Nasrallah:

“Israel believes that if it attacks facilities and strategic stockpiles, it changes the resistance capabilities. This is an erroneous assessment.” He said,”The reason being that the stocks of the resistance have been filled with all that it needs.”

Webb then asks:

“What – are we to see this then in the context of an effort by Israel to persuade the Americans that they need now to take sides and do something?”

Crooke replies:

“Yes, I think that’s exactly right. What we’re seeing – I think it’s got two things in it – and again Syrian sources informally were saying overnight that from their point of view there was little loss. It was the same building and of course they’d cleared it since the last attack and there was nothing substantial there. Err.. they do tie it very much to the advances – and Hizballah shares this view, I believe – that the Syrian armed forces have had err.. huge advances in cutting off, if you like, the supply routes between Lebanon and Homs in Syria and also in the south and advances in the east and opening the highway to the north. In fact, I mean, it’s a huge shift taking place on the ground and they think that this is disturbing to both Israel and America: any thought that there could be a comeback by President Assad and his government and indeed a victory in military terms by them – and so there was a thought that providing a strike that would assist the opposition could be an advantage and also, in Israeli calculation, help bring err.. American involvement a little closer and by pushing America towards involvement in Syria and pushing them off their red line – the American red line as you may recall was that the use of chemical weapons would be the only cause of American direct involvement. But by blurring that and pushing America towards shifting their red line on Iran – which is the acquisition of nuclear weapons. “

Webb concludes:

“Very interesting. Thank you Alastair Crooke and we’ll be hearing the Israeli side of this in so far as we can get it after half past eight.”

That last remark refers to an interview with Major General (ret.) Giora Eiland which was conducted after the one with Jeremy Bowen.

If readers are now beginning to suspect that the BBC simply saved itself a phone call to the Syrian Ministry of Propaganda by inviting Alastair Crooke to this programme, they might not be far wrong.

We previously addressed the subject of the nature of Crooke’s organization on these pages in light of the BBC’s use of input from him in a 2011 article entitled “Hezbollah: Terrorist organisation or liberation movement?” which was recently recycled by the BBC.

“Broadly speaking, Conflicts Forum is a Western-sounding mouthpiece for the Iranian regime and its various client militias such as Hamas and Hizballah, as well as Iranian allies such as the Assad regime.

In 2007, with EU funding, Conflicts Forum produced a report (now strangely absent from the internet) detailing strategies to rebrand the proscribed terrorist groups Hamas and Hizbollah in the West as proponents of “social justice” and specifically promoting “Hamas’ and Hezbollah’s values, philosophy and wider political and social programmes”.

“We need to clarify and explain that Islamist movements are political and social movements working on social and political justice,” the report explains, “and are leading the resistance to the US/Western recolonisation project with its network of client states and so-called ‘moderates’.” It claims “the progressive space of social movements [in the West] is empty” and asks, “how the West can learn from the values and the notion of society that Hezbollah and Hamas have at the centre of their philosophy?”

Of course, access to the mainstream media dovetails with the Conflicts Forum strategy very well, but one would expect members of the media organisations themselves to be aware of the organisation’s background and aims before using quotes from its officials.”

Providing Alastair Crooke with the opportunity to spout the spin of a terrorist organization and a murderous dictatorship to millions of listeners unchallenged is obviously bad enough. But when that is done without due disclosure of the political connections of the man and his very dubious organization, then the BBC is displaying wanton disregard for its own obligation to impartiality and once again putting its own political colours – and agenda – in full view.

May 8 2013

BBC’s Bowen plays dumb to weave tangled web

The Monday May 6^th2013 edition of BBC Radio 4′s ‘Today’ programme included a contribution from BBC Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen on the subject of the preceding weekend’s alleged Israeli air-strikes on targets in Syria.

The recording can be heard here for a limited period of time, with the relevant section beginning from around 2:31:20.

Presenter Justin Webb opens the segment with the following introduction:

“Israel has not said publicly that it has attacked Syrian targets, but that is what has happened, twice in recent days. There seems to be no doubt about it and no real doubt about why either. In the short term at least, an effort to stop sophisticated Iranian-made weapons getting from Syria into the hands of Hizballah – the militants based in Lebanon. And perhaps a possible wider aim as well: to get President Obama involved. The risk, of course, is a wider war. A war that causes huge suffering but also destroys the fragile balances of power in the whole region.”

So what do listeners learn from Webb’s introduction? They are informed that Israel’s alleged actions might well be an attempt to coerce the US in another Middle East war and that Israel is destabilising the entire Middle East. Does Webb have or provide any factual evidence for those very serious assertions? Of course not: this is mere speculation on his part, with no small amount of conspiracy theory-style mud-slinging thrown in.

Webb’s first guest is Jeremy Bowen who, inter alia, makes the following statements.

“And the Israelis are acting – they say – because of the need to stop weapons getting through to Hizballah – their rivals in err…their obdure enemies in Lebanon. But you know the thing about this war, this Syrian civil war, is that it’s always been a battle ground for wider regional struggles. You know one reason the Saudis and the Qataris are backing the rebels is to strengthen themselves against Iran, which backs Assad, and of course the Israelis have also got an eye on Iran and Hizballah and Assad because that triangle is err..self-styled axis of resistance against the Israelis themselves and you know you can go on about it too as well: the pressure on the US to get involved, an element of old-fashioned East-West rivalry: the US, UK and France backing the rebels, Russia and China supporting Assad and so on.”

Justin Webb continues to weave the web:

“Um. Why though – I mean this is a sort of basic question, but an interesting one – these sophisticated weapons – we think these are missiles, aren’t they? Missiles: land to land missiles. Missiles that could be used from southern Lebanon into the heart of Israel if they were in the hands of Hizballah. But I mean given that Assad is fighting a pretty desperate war to stay in power – to stay alive indeed – it seems odd that he’d be passing any weapons to anyone.”

Bowen responds to Webb’s (pre-arranged?) cue:

“Yeah, strange, but I mean there’s speculation about this. Hizballah is increasingly said to be involved in the fighting in Syria. Hizballah very effective fighters in their dealings with the Israelis over the years. Perhaps he’s doing that as some kind of quid pro quo. Err…passing more weapons over to them. Perhaps he’s worried they might fall into rebel hands. Perhaps it’s part of a wider deal with the Iranians. I think nobody really knows. It is a bit strange as well because Hizballah is powerful in Lebanon and to…pretty much controls the airport. Now, [scoffing laugh] do they have to get weapons in through Syria if they could get them flown in direct from Iran, if that’s what they particularly wanted? And there’s been quite a bit of speculation in the Israeli press saying this is about a little bit more than moving weapons because it’s a big raid. It was a big raid in Damascus and the New York Times is reporting that ah..perhaps even hundreds of regime soldiers were killed in the raid.”

The BBC defined Jeremy Bowen’s job description as follows in 2006:

“Jeremy Bowen’s new role is, effectively, to take a bird’s eye view of developments in the Middle East, providing analysis that might make a complex story more comprehensive or comprehensible for the audience, without the constraints of acting as a daily news correspondent. His remit is not just to add an extra layer of analysis to our reporting, but also to find stories away from the main agenda.”

To be frank, Bowen’s so-called analysis – in this case as in many others – does anything but make the story more comprehensible to BBC audiences. His insistence upon muddying the waters by throwing into the equation his own baseless speculations (yes, the “Israeli press” – by which one presumes Bowen means mainly the English language version of Ha’aretz – is capable of writing drivel too) regarding occult ulterior motives for the alleged air-strikes unnecessarily complicates and clutters the picture.

But Jeremy Bowen is by no means stupid or dumb and has certainly been knocking around the Middle East for long enough to understand exactly what went on in Syria – and why – over the last weekend, so his pretence that “nobody really knows” why weapons are being transported to Hizballah is about as credible as a pantomime horse. Bowen’s near conspiracy theory insinuation that the target of the air strikes might actually not be weapons consignments because, according to him, Hizballah “pretty much controls the airport” in Beirut, can only be either the result of jaw-dropping ignorance of the extensive documentation of years of arms smuggling from Iran to Hizballah – particularly via Syria – or a deliberate attempt to herd audiences into the pens of his pet conspiracy theories. Neither of those alternatives is befitting of the Middle East Editor of a major media organization which chalks reliability and trustworthiness on its banner.

Those following Bowen on Twitter will have noticed a similar exercise carried out on May 5^th.

Neither Haifa nor Tsfat (Safed), where the Iron Dome was deployed are of course “close to border with Syria”, but the main point behind this Tweet was obviously to introduce over 35,000 people reading it to the idea that the deployment of a missile defence system could be anything other than a precautionary move. In this case Bowen had to back down pretty rapidly as Twitter users took him to task.

And then the ‘back-up’ was produced:

Only an organization with a monopoly grip on the licence fee payers’ wallets could pass off Bowen’s speculations on the ‘Today’ programme as analysis. Any Middle East analyst worthy of the title would have reminded listeners of Iran’s long history of financial and military support for its terror proxies Hizballah and Hamas and pointed out Syria’s long-standing involvement in the violation of UN SC resolution 1701 as far as arming Hizballah is concerned. A worthy analyst would then have explained to listeners that the alleged air-strikes should be seen in that context, rather than as having any direct connection to the civil war in Syria.

Fortunately, the guest following Bowen on the ‘Today’ programme was Major General (ret.) Giora Eiland, who tried to balance Bowen’s insinuations and those made during the conversation by Justin Webb. Nevertheless, it is past time for senior BBC management to make it clear to their Middle East Editor that his remit of “find[ing] stories away from the main agenda” does not mean making them up.

However, Bowen’s performance was not the only attempt made on that particular programme to advance a specific agenda regarding the recent events in Syria. More on that tomorrow.

Related articles:

Where did Jeremy Bowen learn the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict?

Ask Jeremy: Twitter Q&A gives insight into ME Editor’s approach

BBC’s Jeremy Bowen: “a deliberate escalation by Israel”

Jeremy Bowen: “The Israelis would have killed me too”

May 5 2013

BBC promotes Assad propaganda in Syria reports

The BBC’s reporting on the weekend’s unfolding events in Syria is in top gear. On May 4th an article entitled “Israeli warplanes launch air strike inside Syria” – including a filmed report by Wyre Davies which was also broadcast on BBC television news – appeared on the Middle East page of the BBC News website.

That frequently amended article relating to the events of May 2^nd/3^rd was based on a CNN report which in turn was based on claims made by anonymous US officials. According to the BBC article, a consignment of weapons destined for Hizballah was the target of Israeli air-strikes. The article states: [emphasis added]

“While Israel rarely comments on specific operations, it has repeatedly said it would act if it felt Syrian weapons, conventional or chemical, were being transferred to militant groups in the region, especially Hezbollah, says the BBC’s Wyre Davies in Jerusalem.”

Actually, it is probably safe to assume that any decision to send Israeli pilots on a mission to neutralize weapons consignments in enemy territory is based on considerably more than a ‘feeling’.

On May 5^th coverage expanded to include the events of the night of May 4^th/5^th under the headline “Damascus ‘hit by Israeli strikes’”.

The coverage included a rolling article entitled “Damascus military facilities ‘hit by Israel rockets’” in which readers were informed that:

“The BBC’s Jim Muir in Beirut says Israel’s intervention is a very dangerous development.

He says Israel will not want to be seen as being involved in the conflict, but Syria’s state media is hammering the message that the rebels are working hand in glove with Israel.”

Apparently, any Israeli action is to be considered much more of a “dangerous development” than the possibility of long-range missiles or chemical weapons falling into the hands of a terrorist organisation. And of course that particular “message” from the Syrian authorities is nothing new – and neither is its uncritical repetition by the BBC.

That passage was later replaced by the following one:

“The BBC’s Yolande Knell in Jerusalem says the latest developments are a significant escalation in Israel’s involvement in the conflict.

She says Israel has already responded to fears of retaliation by locating two batteries of its Iron Dome missile defence system near Haifa, close to the Lebanese border.”

Haifa is, of course, some 43 kilometers from the Lebanese border.

The latest version of that article includes a side box of analysis by Jim Muir in which he – like Yolande Knell – seems to be incapable of distinguishing between an act of self-defence and “involvement” in the Syrian civil war.

“Two air strikes in 48 hours does indeed start to look perilously like the involvement in Syria’s internal crisis the Israelis have always said they want to avoid, especially when they are visibly taking out military targets on the very edge of Damascus.” […]

“Israel has said that its only concern is to prevent advanced weapons being handed over to Hezbollah. Objectively it would be hard to see Israel’s interest in helping trigger an uncontrolled collapse of the regime, leaving the field open to rebel groups among which Islamist radicals currently make the running.”

Muir appears to be incapable of grasping the fact that beyond the issue of weapons being transferred by the Syrian regime to its allies Hizballah – a situation which would prompt further deterioration of the security situation in Lebanon and Syria as well as Israel – the very real possibility of weapons falling into the hands of those “Islamist radicals” also carries with it the potential for further destabilization of the region as a whole.

The BBC’s coverage also includes an article by its Defence Correspondent Jonathan Marcus entitled “Israeli air strikes: A warning to Syria’s Assad“. Whilst all in all a balanced and informative article, in common with the BBC coverage of the strike on a weapons convoy last January, it fails to inform readers of the all-important context of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and the international community’s utter failure to either disband Hizballah or prevent it from rearming after the 2006 war which has enabled the current situation to come about.

Regrettably, the BBC also saw fit to resurrect a deeply flawed article from 2011 under the link titled “Are Hezbollah terrorists?” for inclusion in its coverage of these events.

But the worst was yet to come. A later BBC report ran the headline “Israeli strikes on Syria ‘co-ordinated with terrorists ‘“, yet again uncritically repeating baseless statements put out by the Assad regime.

“The Syrian foreign ministry statement said three military sites had been hit – a research centre at Jamraya, a paragliding airport in the al-Dimas area of Damascus and a site in Maysaloun.

“The flagrant Israeli attack on armed forces sites in Syria underlines the co-ordination between ‘Israel’, terrorist groups and… the al-Nusra Front,” the statement said, referring to al-Qaeda militants fighting with the rebels. […]

The statement added: “This leaves no room for doubt Israel is the beneficiary, the mover and sometime the executor of the terrorist acts which Syria is witnessing and which target it as a state and people directly or through its tools inside.” “

Official BBC Tweets also promoted the same propaganda.

As one Tweeter succinctly put it:

And no – the use of inverted commas in that headline does not excuse the unquestioned, context-free promotion of propaganda from a regime which has already killed over 70,000 of its own people.

May 4 2013

Middle East news the BBC does not report

The news that Hamas is running military training sessions in schools in the Gaza Strip was reported by several major media organisations recently, including The Telegraph.

“Hamas authorities introduced the ‘Futuwwa’, or youth programme into the state curriculum last September for 37,000 Palestinian boys aged between 15 and 17, conceiving it as a scheme intended to initiate a new generation of Palestinian men in the struggle against Israel.

Izzadine Mohamed, 17, was among the students who attended the weekly school classes, which covered first aid, basic fire fighting skills and how to fire a Kalashnikov rifle. He was also one of 5,000 boys across Gaza who also signed up for an optional two-week camp held at a Hamas military base.”

A photograph included in a recent tweet from Hamas’ Alqassam brigades shows even younger children playing ‘martyrdom’.

A former Egyptian minister told a newspaper last week that Hamas and Hizballah had been involved in killing protesters during the ‘Arab Spring’ demonstrations in Cairo and in breaking Muslim Brotherhood prisoners out of Egyptian jails.

In a report in the Lebanese newspaper ‘The Daily Star’ , UNIFIL officials expressed their organisation’s frustration regarding increased confrontations with Hizballah in southern Lebanon as the Lebanese army presence (as stipulated in UN resolution 1701) has dwindled in the region near the border between Lebanon and Israel.

None of the above has had so much as a mention in BBC coverage of the Middle East.

May 3 2013

The curious CV of a former BBC Arabic journalist

British readers may have heard of the ‘Al Mayadeen’ TV station which was launched in June 2012 as an alternative to Al Jazeera and broadcasts from Beirut – if only because it employs one George Galloway for, according to The Times, some £80,000 a year. Those familiar with Galloway’s record at the Iranian outfit ‘Press TV’ will perhaps not be surprised to learn that Al Mayadeen’s financial backers are alleged to be Iranian and Syrian. That is denied by the station’s Tunisian director, who formerly worked for Al Jazeera – as did his colleague Sami Kleib (also spelt Kulyab). Kleib’s wife Luna Shibl – previously of Al Jazeera too – has apparently worked as a media advisor to Bashar al Assad.

Al Mayadeen’s Chief Correspondent is another former Al Jazeera employee and – like several of his new colleagues - Ali Hashem resigned in March 2012 after just a year with that station, as a result of differences with the Qatari channel over its reporting of the ‘Arab Spring’. Hashem also writes for other outlets, including ‘Al Monitor‘.

Before joining Al Jazeera, Ali Hashem worked for BBC Arabic and some of his reports can be seen here, here, here, here and here.

But the more interesting part of Ali Hashem’s CV comes before he joined the BBC, when he worked for the Hizballah TV station Al Manar – the self-proclaimed “station of the resistance” – which was declared a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entity by the United States in 2004. Al Manar was also banned by France on the grounds of its incitement of racial hatred, as well as by Germany and other countries.

In this video Ali Hashem can be seen being interviewed by a Channel 4 reporter on the subject of the Israeli air strike on Al Manar’s communications facilities during the Second Lebanon war which broke out on July 12^th 2006 after a cross-border attack by Hizballah. During that war Ali Hashem was one of Hizballah TV’s men on the ground in southern Lebanon and was on the scene at Qana on July 30th 2006 after 28 Lebanese civilians tragically died following an Israeli air strike on a Hizballah rocket launching site. Hashem’s report as it was broadcast on Al Manar TV can be seen here (warning: graphic images).

The fact that at the time, the BBC apparently did not consider there to be anything inappropriate about recruiting a recent employee of a terrorist organisation’s media arm is frankly amazing, especially as Mr Hashem’s newest gig suggests that his political sympathies and affiliations have not changed vastly since he worked for Hizballah.

One can only hope that the BBC’s Human Resources department has reviewed its hiring policy since then.

Mar 29 2013

BBC continues to be ‘impartial’ on terror

With the recent sentencing of Hizballah operative Hossam Taleb Yaacoub by a court in Cyprus, the BBC has finally broken its long silence on the subject of that trial.

A short report appeared on the Europe and Middle East pages of the BBC News website on March 28^th, stating that Yaacoub had been sentenced to three years imprisonment, although other media outlets report a four year sentence being handed down.

The BBC report – true to form – continues to euphemistically describe Hizballah as “the Lebanese militant Shia movement”. Laconic as it is, the article also manages to include some remarkable contortions and distortions – presumably inserted in the name of “impartiality”.

“Israel says Hezbollah has been behind a string of attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world.” [emphasis added]

Of course Israel is far from the only country to recognize Hizballah’s long-standing connections to terrorism, but the BBC seems to be trying to imply otherwise, as well as appearing to wrongly suggest that Hizballah activity is confined to attacks on “Israeli and Jewish targets”.

The next sentence of the report – together with another towards its end – is a fine example of an instance in which the BBC employs its obligation to impartiality in order to promote the absurd. [emphasis added]

“Hezbollah, which has been designated a terrorist organisation by a number of governments, has denied the accusations.”

“Yaccoub was arrested days before a bomb exploded on a bus carrying Israeli tourists at an airport in Bulgaria, killing six people. Israel and Bulgaria accused Hezbollah of carrying out the attack. Hezbollah said it was not involved.”

In other words, the BBC juxtaposes the results of investigations into Hizballah’s terrorist and criminal activities, carried out by various countries and international bodies, with predictable denials from the terrorist organization itself – as though they were of equal weight.

The BBC’s contrived show of ‘impartiality’ with regard to this terrorist organization are a sinister product of its warped interpretations of the term “value judgements” – interpretations which are ultimately detrimental to BBC audiences’ understanding of the issues.

Feb 23 2013

No BBC reporting on Hizballah in Cyprus

The ongoing trial of a Swedish-Lebanese citizen who was arrested in Cyprus just days before the terror attack on Israeli holidaymakers in Bulgaria last year has been making headlines due to the fact that the accused has admitted to working for Hizballah.

“During a cross-examination, the operative, Hossam Taleb Yaacoub, described himself as “an active member of Hezbollah” with the code name Wael, and said he had received a salary of $600 a month since 2010.”

“Mr. Yaacoub said that his handler, a shadowy figure known only as Ayman, told him to track the landing times for an Arkia Israel Airlines flight between Tel Aviv and Larnaca, Cyprus. Ayman also asked him to look into the rental prices of warehouses, he said.”

The story has been reported by media outlets around the world, including the New York Times, the Huffington Post, the Australian and even the BBC’s paper of choice, the Guardian. The BBC, however, has to date not seen fit to report on the trial in Cyprus itself or on its wider significance as another example of the fact that Hizballah is operating within Europe, despite the fact that the subject of the terror organisation’s designation is currently on the EU agenda.

Do BBC editors not consider this to be a matter of public interest?

Feb 22 2013

BBC selected ‘expert opinions’ and transparency

As we know, the BBC claims that:

“A member of the audience who watches, listens and reads the full range of our output should be coherently and cogently informed about events in Israel and the occupied territories, and should better understand the complex forces that are at work.”

Of course the accuracy and impartiality of that output, including the material on the BBC website, depends to no small extent upon the BBC’s choice of sources – in particular when it quotes ‘expert opinions’.

Many readers will probably have heard of the think tank ‘Conflicts Forum’ which was established in 2004 by Mark Perry (who later left) and Alistair Crooke – a former MI6 operative who reportedly got too close to Hamas for the comfort of his employers.

Conflicts Forum’s Board of Advisors used to be graced by Hamas supporter and suicide bombing fan Azzam Tamimi and former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg. Currently on its board are, among others, former Mavi Marmara passenger Ismail Patel of ‘Friends of Al Aqsa‘, Global March to Jerusalem and Airflotilla endorser Ronnie Kasrils and Hillary Mann-Leverett.

Among the contributors to Conflicts Forum is Khaled Amayreh who – as the CST has pointed out – has a dismal record of antisemitism. Conflicts Forum has produced a periodical entitled “Cultures of Resistance“, the first volume of which at least was in part financed by the UK registered charity the JA Clark Charitable Trust, which made donations to Conflicts Forum in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011 at least. A perhaps former trustee (the entries on the Charity Commission website are not up to date and the website of the charity itself is not public), chair and founder of that charity - Tom Clark – also sits on the Conflicts Forum board. Writing in the first volume of that periodical (p. 26) – alongside Massoud Shadjareh and Arzu Merali of the IHRC - Clark stated:

“There is a wide constituency in the West who want to know more and are confused and angry about what is happening in the Middle East. But whilst US/Israel have a strangle-hold on international media, little is revealed.”

Conflicts Forum’s projects coordinator Aisling Byrne reflected the organisation’s approach when she wrote in January 2012 on the subject of the uprising in Syria that:

“What we are seeing in Syria is a deliberate and calculated campaign to bring down the Assad government so as to replace it with a regime ‘more compatible’ with US interests in the region.”

Broadly speaking, Conflicts Forum is a Western-sounding mouthpiece for the Iranian regime and its various client militias such as Hamas and Hizballah, as well as Iranian allies such as the Assad regime.

An article going under the title “Hezbollah: Terrorist organisation or liberation movement?“, dated October 2011 and written by Owen Bennett-Jones (a version of which was also broadcast on BBC radio at the time), still comes up on the BBC website in a search there for information on the Iranian backed terror organization. Among others, that article features a quote from Conflicts Forum’s Alistair Crooke.

“Others, such as Alistair Crooke, disagree. A former British intelligence agent, he now runs a think tank in Beirut through which he has frequent contact with Hezbollah. “They are a resistance movement,” he says. “They are a liberation movement.” “

Of course Bennett-Jones provides no information for his readers as to Crooke’s real background (or even the name of his organization) and he certainly does not inform them that the entire raison d’etre of Crooke’s think tank is to turn that terrorist organization into something more palatable to Western minds.

Bennett-Jones also quotes Nicholas Noe, describing him as someone who “has compiled the collected speeches and interviews of the Hezbollah leader”. An intermittent Guardian contributor and founder and editor-in-chief of Mideastwire (which includes Conflicts Forum on its sidebar), Noe is also renowned for his wrapping of the Hizballah message in a form more persuasive to Western audiences.

What Bennett-Jones fails to inform his own readers is that Noe’s organization also runs Arabic language courses, a prime selling point of which is the opportunity to rub shoulders with Hamas and Hizballah.

“When Amtissal signed up to learn Arabic in Beirut, she was in for a bonus: class trips to the offices of Hezbollah and Hamas, both classified as terrorist organizations by her native America.

“It was an amazing experience,” the U.S. media studies graduate told AFP. “We saw the difference between television and reality.”

For 21-year-old Andrew Waller, the Beirut Exchange was a golden opportunity to hear the voices of groups he had only read about.

“Meeting Hezbollah was an experience I really treasure,” said Waller, an economics student at the University of Exeter in Britain.”

The readers of this BBC article should surely be entitled to know that the ‘analysis’ they are reading is provided by someone with commercial interests which rely upon remaining in the good books of Iranian proxy terrorist organisations.

When the BBC filters information and analysis for distribution to its audiences it is essentially shaping the subsequent opinions formed on the basis of that knowledge. When it decides to use sources commercially and/or ideologically linked to the very organization about which it is supposed to be providing information – especially when it does so without disclosing those relationships – it cannot be said to be providing objective, accurate and impartial information for the purpose of enhancing its audiences understanding of “complex issues”. Instead, the BBC becomes a partner in a PR campaign run by terrorist sympathisers.

Feb 18 2013

BBC’s Jim Muir whitewashes Hizballah violations of 1701

On February 15th 2013 an article by the BBC’s Beirut correspondent Jim Muir entitled “What next for Hezbollah, Israel, Syria and Iran?” appeared on the BBC News website’s Middle East page.

Just one day after the publication of Muir’s article, in which he claimed that “[g]iven the delicate, complex and explosive situation Hezbollah finds itself in, it is hardly surprising that leaders and officials have drawn in and give virtually no media interviews these days to share their views on the above questions”, Hassan Nasrallah clarified the organisation’s approach on several issues when he gave a speech on Hizballah’s “martyrs day”.

During that speech, Nasrallah said:

“The resistance in Lebanon is fully equipped and ready nowadays, we have everything we need to maintain our power… We don’t need any arms from Syria… Israel realizes that”.

That information of course comes as no surprise to anyone following events in the Middle East even loosely. But what is surprising is the ability of Jim Muir to make the following bizarre claim in his article:

“Hezbollah has scrupulously observed the ceasefire that ended hostilities in 2006.”

The terms of that ceasefire are set out in UN SC resolution 1701, dated 11/08/2006. They include: [all emphasis added]

“3. Emphasizes the importance of the extension of the control of the Government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory in accordance with the provisions of resolution 1559 (2004) and resolution 1680 (2006), and of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, for it to exercise its full sovereignty, so that there will be no weapons without the consent of the Government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the Government of Lebanon“.

Muir himself states earlier on in the article that “Hezbollah has undoubtedly been building up its arsenal since the last one [war] in 2006″, so either he is obviously aware that the terrorist organisation has contravened that clause of the ceasefire agreement or he is unaware of that agreement’s terms.

Clause 8 of the resolution calls for the establishment of:

“security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL as authorized in paragraph 11, deployed in this area”.

As well as:

“full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), that require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of 27 July 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese State“.

“no foreign forces in Lebanon without the consent of its Government”.

“no sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its Government”

Despite the ceasefire agreement, Hizballah is still supplied, trained, financed and enabled by its Iranian patrons, with members of the Quds force present in Lebanon as was recently highlighted by the death of Hassan Shateri. The situation today is that Hizballah has rearmed even more extensively since 2006 and in violation of resolution 1701, it maintains a presence in the whole of southern Lebanon south of the Litani River, with hundreds of arms dumps concealed in towns and villages, thereby turning the local civilian population into human shields.

The short video below, for example, shows the positions of weapons storage facilities in the village of al Khiam - population around 23,000 – as of 2010.

The Israeli town of Metulla in the foreground, with al Khiam in the middle distance on the ridge.

Hizballah facilities in southern Lebanon 2010

With regard to violations of the ceasefire agreement in the form of rocket fire alone, since the end of the Second Lebanon War in August 2006 there have been numerous incidents including one in June 2007, five in 2009, two in 2011 and three in 2012 – claimed by proxy paramilitary groups of one description or another, but clearly with the tacit approval (if not more) of Hizballah, which exercises considerable control over the area.

Extensively quoting an assortment of anonymous “observers and analysts” including “Shia sources” and unnamed “Western diplomats”, Muir does his best in this article to downplay Hizballah’s part in the conflict in Syria, the scope of its role as an Iranian proxy and its destabilising influence both at home and abroad – at times even presenting the theocratic sectarian militia as a ‘voice of reason’ in the Middle East and inventing a ‘moderated’ Hizballah.

“Ironically, some western diplomats have even come to see Hezbollah as a factor for stability in the Lebanese equation.

“Our interests are not totally opposed,” said one.”

and:

“Western diplomats, who had been hoping to see Hezbollah move further along the path of moderation and political engagement, were dismayed when the Bulgarian government furnished them with what one called “irrefutable evidence” of Hezbollah involvement in the bombing.”

Significantly too, Muir promotes the illusion of an “imbalance of power”, concealing from his audience the real relevance of the fact that Hizballah is merely one tip of a large Iranian iceberg which destabilizes the region (as well as places further afield) on numerous fronts.

“Despite the imbalance of power in this conventionally asymmetrical match, Western diplomats believe that, with long-range Hezbollah rockets installed in the northern part of the Bekaa Valley and shorter-range ones further south, Israel would face three to four weeks of devastating hostilities if a new war erupted.”

By presenting a false picture of Hizballah’s violations of UN SC resolution 1701, Muir not only fails to fulfil his organisation’s stated aim of informing BBC audiences about the wider world and compromises the BBC’s obligation to accuracy, but he is also clearly giving oxygen to a specific political agenda which some of his mysterious “Western diplomat” sources (which, interestingly, apparently cannot be named, thereby denying the reader the ability to judge those opinions in context) seem very keen to promote. In doing that, Muir also severely compromises the BBC’s reputation as an ‘independent’ broadcaster.

BBC Watch

Tag Archives: Hizballah