BBC: The truth, the whole truth and nothing but lies

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Recently the BBC have shown a two part ‘documentary’ titled ‘The Holy Land And Us – Our Untold Stories’.

They reflect the views from a British Muslim and British Jewish perspective with family ties to the geography. My political research and activism over the last five decades have given me cause for concern over the impartiality of the BBC when tackling this subject and I was intrigued to establish if anything had changed. The fact that the BBC were forced to commission a report, the Balen Report in 2004 specifically to explore internal bias and that the report has never been publicly released, should conclude to any reasonable person the extent of the anti-Israel commitment within the BBC. Nevertheless, I was prepared to give the broadcaster a fair shot with the objective to check, validate and thereafter expose any false narrative that has historically been perpetuated by the Palestinians and given credibility by the BBC.

The British Muslim perspective concentrated on two ladies both with supposedly, historic Palestinian ties to pre 1948 Israel starting with a certain Aqueeli Agha al Hassi the great, great, granduncle of one of the women. This man was identified as an indigenous, land owning, strongman of the Galilee protecting Muslim, Christian and Jewish families in the area and these claims were validated by a hand written note from the British Consul, James Finn circa 1860. Just simple research identifies that the facts are quite different.

As his name reveals he was not an indigenous Palestinian but a migrant from Egypt via Libya and ran a protection racket demanding taxes from the peasant farmers – the Fellahin and any itinerants passing through. By paying the authorities a share and for keeping a relative calm, they allowed his criminal activities to continue. He was duplicitous playing interested parties, irrespective of religion or nationality against one another depending on who offered the most money. I guess the note from James Finn was when he was assisting the British against the Ottomans. He was nothing more than Arab Mafia and never owned, though militarily controlled part of the Northern Galilee. Later he allied himself to the Jordanian Ben Sukhr tribe who paradoxically James Finn also noted in his 1860 “Papers relating to the disturbances in Syria” swarmed across the Jordan River in their thousands to take advantage of the economic benefits brought by Zionism. He allied himself to this tribe after being kicked out of Acre for backing the wrong faction in an inter Christian dispute. The noted anthropologist Alexander Scholch asserted that he contributed little to the socio – economic development of Palestine and was certainly not a ‘benefactor of the peasants’.

The first program is approximately 70 minutes long fairly split between the two sides. A full 7 minutes of the 35 minutes of the Palestinian narrative was devoted to this man and his family which glorified him as a strong, generous and respected Arab nobleman. No check was done by the BBC to consider the truth which in fact is rather different. He was an immigrant, non-Palestinian Arab who was duplicitous and despised by many and ended up joining other Arabs to assist in the Zionist project.

Would there be any further need for me to explore what I knew was going to be a continuation of lies and deceit perpetuated by the Palestinian side? Of course, not but how could I stop now as inevitably Deir Yassin would raise its head for the sole purpose of exploiting the false Palestinian narrative. Deir Yassin, the mythological massacre, has been weaponized by Palestinians as their best propaganda tool. A full 21 minutes was devoted to this one incident narrated as a massacre inflicted on Palestinian villagers by Jewish militia. A British Muslim lady with family from the village who were killed was interviewed to discover what happened. Again, the family name Zidaan is not Palestinian but Algerian and similar to the first Palestinian family above no reference was made about being non indigenous workers. The commentary leading up to the interview by the BBC narrator suggested that most of the accounts of the ‘massacre’ are from eyewitness testimonies as very few documents are available. This is utter rubbish as the book The Massacre That Never Was, by the Arabic speaking Professor Eliezer Tauber reveals that there is an abundance of verified documentation.  Rather than the peaceful village the BBC attempted to portray, Deir Yassin was a heavily fortified village, armed with automatic weapons sourced from Egypt and surrounded by trenches. Four Jewish militia were killed immediately on entering the village and the battle lasted ten hours after which 105 villagers, including women and children were killed. 200 villagers were captured and later released – not the actions of a militia intent on a massacre. The deaths of the women and children may have been avoided had the Palestinian forces not used the same tactics as the Palestinians use to this day, sheltering behind women and children as human shields whilst the opposition were returning fire. Again, a simple check of the facts should have debunked this lie but instead 60 percent of the Palestinian story was further devoted to mythology.

Just think about this and take it in. The BBC shows a two-part semi documentary about a very sensitive and emotive subject and of the 35 minutes devoted to the Palestinian side in Part 1, evidence verifies that no less than 80 percent of that narrative as being fabricated and, or totally out of context. Should and could the BBC have been more diligent in their fact checking before showing this program? Of course, they should have.

Naturally there was no mention of the Hadassah massacre of 78 Jewish doctors, nurses, medical students and patients on April 13, 1948. Nor was there any mention of the Hebron civilian massacre of August 24,1929 in which 69 Jewish men, women and children were butchered in their homes. Similarly, the Safed massacre where only 20 Jews were killed 5 days after the Hebron massacre was ignored too. These last three events were true massacres not battles. Obviously, the BBC chose to ignore or exclude as the perpetrators were Arabs and the victims Jews. The BBC leopard has not changed its spots.

In conclusion I know that many like myself are angry but not surprised at the BBC output. What is more perplexing is why Robert Rinder, a morally decent, Jewish, pro-Israel celebrity allowed himself to be used like a sycophantic, subservient stooge in a program promoting Palestinian propaganda.

Disclaimer: Opinion expressed in this article are solely of the author and may not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of this newspaper.

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Peter Baum
Peter Baum, Editor (International Political Affairs) to Blitz is a research-scholar, who writes extensively on Israel, Holocaust, Zionism, Middle East, Anti-Semitism, and other issues. Peter Baum has worked for four decades in the International Financial Markets specializing in the Capital Market. He held directorships at large International Financial Institutions and ended career as consultant to an Investment Management company. Baum is a member of the Institute of Directors. He has worked extensively abroad in the Asia, Africa, the USA and Europe and after retirement spends his time as a political researcher, activists and columnist. In addition to his engagement with Blitz, Peter Baum has also been writing for the Gatestone Institute, Conservative Woman and Decisive Liberty and has appeared numerous times on TV and radio mainly talking about Israel and the Middle East.

3 COMMENTS

  1. BLITZ, SWHC and the UK Jewish Community are blessed to have such a dedicated research-scholar to expose the corrupt persons who hide behind the shield of deceit

  2. Well done, Peter, another masterpiece of detection and revelation. Thank you so much.

    Whilst I am happy that the deception perpetrated by the BBC (and other media) is exposed, I would be much happier of course if it hadn’t all happened in the first place. How do they recruit journalists, I wonder?! There must be a mastermind behind it. Have you ever encountered a policy manual of some kind circulating within the BBC that drives this bias?

    I stopped buying a licence fee more than thirty years ago and never watch television, simply because we could not trust the BBC to put on programming that was suitable for my growing family.

  3. We need more detailed info on the Hadassah massacre of 78 Jewish doctors, nurses, medical students and patients on April 13, 1948, the Hebron civilian massacre of August 24,1929 in which 69 Jewish men, women and children were butchered in their homes. and the Safed massacre where 20 Jews were killed 5 days after the Hebron massacre

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