When The Guardian’s John Crace wrote a ‘digested read’ review of Melanie Phillips’ book The World Turned Upside Down, he was less than pleasant. Crace wilfully misrepresented the book, hurled personal abuse at Phillips, and sneered at both Judaism and the threats that Israel faces. His digested reviews are often funny and clever. But with this one his ugly prejudices came boiling to the surface.
So when I saw he had been chosen to review Jane Corbin’s mostly-admirable Panorama report on the flotilla incident, I wondered if he would be sensible and fair. He was neither.
“It was still hard to piece together what exactly did happen,” he writes. It isn’t really though is it, John? It’s only hard if you refuse to accept any evidence that paints Israel as anything but the bad guys. Then it’s probably very hard.
Laughingly, he then describes the IHH as “a Turkish humanitarian NGO”! Yes, John. And the IRA was an Irish flower-arranging group, wasn’t it? Proving his grasp on the basic facts of the flotilla incident is tenuous he also presents as an unanswered question: “Was the Mavi Marmara actually carrying aid to Gaza?”
Crace then introduces, unchallenged, this insane statement: “The IHH said its members… had gone out of their way not to kill anyone.” Call me old-fashioned, John, but where I come from stabbing someone and smashing him repeatedly in the head with a metal pole is going out of your way to kill them rather than the other way round.
“The Israelis – and Corbin, surprisingly – claimed the Mavi Marmara was carrying worthless aid, because the medicines were out-of-date – though these seem a fairly precious resource in a war zone,” he adds. Ask anyone with even basic medical knowledge and they will tell you that out-of-date medicines are at best worthless and at worst lethal. Precious? Quite the opposite. But again the truth doesn’t fit John’s agenda so he looks the other way. I have a few small issues with the Panorama show, but in the main I found it admirably fair. Perhaps that disappointed Crace.
I had a meeting with IDF spokeswoman Avital Leibovich last week in Jerusalem. She told me about her work behind the scenes with the Panorama team. I’ll write about that meeting in due course.
“The Israelis – and Corbin, surprisingly – claimed the Mavi Marmara was carrying worthless aid, because the medicines were out-of-date – though these seem a fairly precious resource in a war zone.”
I doubt Mr Crace would give out-of-date medicine to his own children. So why does he think it’s okay for the Palestinians to risk it?
Because he doesn’t really give a damn for the palestinians. He is just using them to demonise the Israelis.
I also had a few issues with the show (mostly with Vine’s introduction, but also a few comments in the main programme). But on the whole it was excellent to see the BBC finally doing their job properly and reporting things in a balanced way, even when it might prove unpopular.
Out-of-date medicines often causes more harm than good, that’s why they have a use-by date. As Shmuel says, would Grace give toxic material to his own children? If not, why does he think it’s ok to give them to other people’s children?
The answer is simple, in my opinion: he doesn’t give two hoots about the sick Palestinian children, or their parents, or anyone else in the region. He just wants to score points. He wants to make out that Israel deprived dying people of medicine.
He’s either willfully distorting the facts or he’s been sold a pup by propagandists. Either way, is this the calibre of journalism we get from The Guardian? No wonder so few people read it.
In fact there was no aid whatsoever on the Mavi Marmara, just several hundred miguided humanitarians and about 50 IHH thugs.
All the aid was on the other ships.
Spot on.
BTW here is a story of another Turkish/Leftard “humanitarian” convoy starring IHH and Bulent Yildirim which ran into the *Egyptian* security forces last January. I don’t remember seeing this dragged out for days on the BBC website, do you? Pity Israeli intelligence didn’t take more heed of it at the time.
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/ipc_e108.htm
The programme was balanced and fair and that’s all I ask for
“The programme was balanced and fair and that’s all I ask for”
“Balanced” and “Fair” are subjective evaluations and skewed by the bias of ‘the eye of the beholder’. I would have prefered that the program presented the facts objectively and left the hidden agendas to the politicians.
I saw this comment on a facebook discussion. Worth reproducing here:
“One point omitted was that no aid whatsoever was on the Turkish ship, MV Marmara, where IHH Jihadis savagely attacked the Naval Boarding Party as the landed. Indeed 3 of 6 boats had no aid – the First Mate of the *Irish* [ but Cambodian-registered ] MV Linda admitted to the Irish parliament’s Joint Foreign Affairs Committee, that they also had no aid.”
What a tool, it just shows that once these people decide they hate Israel, no amount of evidence that proves Israel is in the right will get through their heads. They have this amazing ability to switch off half their brains at times and not allow any information in.
MPAC and Mathaba didn’t like it either
http://www.mpacuk.org/story/160810/action-alert-reject-bbcs-ongoing-israeli-propoganda.html#comment-22547
http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=624335
MPAC says: “No doubt, the BBC will once again be airing and spreading propaganda on Israel’s behalf.
Enough is enough, we all know the truth of the terrorist attacks committed by Israel on unarmed peace activists. The BBC needs to know that it cannot continue airing lies as the truth.”
I have previously tried to get these sites removed from Newsnow.co.uk for breaching their editorial standards http://newsnow.co.uk/publishers/editorial-standards.html
but then I realised all the news sites do it and Newsnow would be left with nothing.
Interesting that MPAC had made up it’s mind about the programme and called for protests before even seeing it!
Judging by his tone when speaking in Turkey, so had Cameron, Chas. It’s jaw-dropping that the PM of a country should adopt a condemnatory tone and then call for an inquiry. Surely – and if warranted – it should be the other way around? Seems to me that Cameron judged without evidence. Appalling behaviour when you consider his position.
Because they Know. They would still be talking about “unarmed peace activists” even after they saw it. Don’t you know that the footage of the armed activists is just Israeli propaganda? And now it’s the BBC’s pro-Israel propaganda, sponsored by the Powerful Zionist Lobby. MPAC were right all along, don’t be so quick to judge them, Chas!
I flew out to Israel on the same day that the Mavi Marmara hove into view so (happily) missed the furore. I wasn’t able to watch Panorama last night, but can someone tell me…how do our politicians emerge from this? What were they saying at the time?
How about a Guardian investigation into how pharmaceutical companies get away with offloading expired or soon to expire medicines on third world countries for the purpose of getting charity tax breaks? This isn’t the only case – I’ve heard of similar things happening in Africa and also during the last Haitian earthquake.
I would like to introduce people to your blog. It is a breath of fresh air to read someone who, like me, attempts to expose the deliberate and malicious bias against Israel.
I urge anyone reading this to head over to the Panorama forum and register your congratulations to the Panorama team for the balanced tenor of the programme. I have to admit sitting in tense anticipation for a litany of derisory comment and innuendo in the programme but found to my surprise that the BBC had achieved a rare balance of views (rare given their normally unfair and highly biased reporting against all things Israeli). Sadly, of course, the Panorama forum is full up of posers spitting all kinds of factually unsubstantiated prose about how Panorama is only an extension of Israeli propoganda. Is anyone else waiting like me for Israeli aggression towards Gaza to somehow be linked to the appalling natural tragedy in Pakistan?
I didn’t know you. I watched your interview in the Jpost site and it’s great, as your blog is!
Thanks!
Nice piece Chas. I watched the Panorama programme this evening. I also had a few minor issues with the introduction and a couple of the interviews. However, what stood out for me was how the footage spoke for itself, sometimes because of the way the programme was made and sometimes in spite of it. It really showed up the lies and spin against the truth – well, at least to anyone with an open mind. Apparently, that excludes John Crace. When Jane Corbin said that the flotilla was NOT about aid, colour me stunned!
Going back to the subject of the article, if I may! I’ve had my own personal history with John Crace. In the aftermath of the first Prime Minister’s Debate on which I asked a question, Crace tried to turn the fact that I had appeared on two TV programmes into a criticism of me. I sent in a letter to the Guardian the next day, which thankfully got published, explaining that I had applied to be in the audience just like any other member of the British public could have.
Anyway, my point is that it looks like Crace just tries to find problems and make trouble when there clearly aren’t any whatsoever. It’s about time people stopped taking notice of him.
Wow, Israelinurse, looks like you left Chas speechless!
Wouldn’t be the first time. You should have seen his face the first time we met and I said “I’ll have half a bitter”.
(Although actually I was just being polite – I usually drink pints..)
{giggle}
I will one day begin to forgive you for not being an enormous, swarthy Yemenite who only drinks pineapple juice!