Melanie Philips on the BBC:
The British Quisling Corporation
Over the past few days, the BBC’s virulent bias over Iraq, America and Israel has gone into an utterly astounding overdrive. The scandal over the ill-treatment of Iraqi prisoners has clearly destroyed the last vestiges of any attempt at fairness as hysteria has descended on our public disservice broadcaster. Item after item has mounted attack after attack on America, hyping up the distorting defeatism over Iraq and continuing to promulgate the view that Israel, the victim of the most barbaric atrocities, is instead the root of the problem in the Middle East.
Perhaps the most egregious offender is Radio Four’s Today Programme. I say 'perhaps' because readers have written in outrage to tell me of stupendous bias this week on BBC TV’s Newsnight, which I didn’t see, and even more worrying on the BBC World Service, which I didn’t hear but am told has been airing a carnival of relentless US-bashing with virtually no attempt to give the other side of the argument. Clearly, the Iraqi prisoner abuse issue is a very big story, deserves a thorough airing and is bound to create considerable justified concern. But the absence of proportion and balance, the underlying partisan position that the whole war in Iraq is wrong, and the astonishing failure to report the victimisation of Israel, presenting it instead as the source of the violence, are outrageous, indefensible and without precedent in the history of the BBC.
Between Monday and Friday this week, the Today programme broadcast 17 items on the Iraqi prisoner abuse story, four items hostile to Israel, and one item complaining that money for the poor was being diverted to the war on terror. It broadcast no items on the murder of six Israeli soldiers and the subsequent murder of five more in Gaza — events which were mentioned in passing — and broadcast merely two items, on the same day, on the decapitation in Iraq of Nick Berg.
What follows is a flavour of the Today team’s approach to these subjects. May 13 in particular was a humdinger of a programme, with virulent prejudice on rampant display.
6.10 am: John Humphrys talked to correspondent Alan Johnston about the Israeli pull-out from its Gaza operation after the recent violence. The briefest reference was made to the fact that the Israelis had been trying to recover the body parts of their soldiers who had been murdered, and Johnston said the Israelis had definitely been attacked by the ‘fighters’ in the camp. Humphrys then said: but a lot of women and children had also been at risk in the camp from the Israeli attack. Johnston fairly pointed out that women and children tended to crowd round the site of any action. Humphrys wasn’t going to let the Israelis off the hook. Did Israeli attacks have any discernible effect on terrorism, he demanded. To which Johnson replied: Palestinian support for violence had grown since the killings of Yassin and Rantissi, and there was no possibility of the violence stopping since the Israelis had said they would continue with such actions in Gaza after they pulled out.
So Israel was being blamed for the violence; the fact that the only reason Israel might continue such actions after a pull-out would be if the Palestinians continued to murder Israelis was not even mentioned. Thus Palestinian aggression was airbrushed out, and Israel blamed instead.
7.14 am: an item on the Iraqi prisoner abuse. The spokesman for Lakhdar Brahimi was invited to speculate how much more difficult this scandal would make Mr Brahimi’s task. The spokesman duly responded that it would make it much more difficult. No balancing voice was included from Iraq to represent the Iraqis who say the scandal is not a major stumbling block at all.
7.17 am: the programme returned to Israel’s pull-out from its Gaza operation with an item featuring Captain Jacob Dallal of the Israel Defence Force and Dr Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative. Dallal said: we were trying to destroy Palestinian weapons being used against us. Humphrys said: won’t they just get some more? Dallal said: we have to fight this to prevent even worse happening. Humphrys said: so even after Israel pulls out of Gaza altogether you’ll continue to go in? Dallal said: Israel has the right to defend itself against terrorism. Humphrys said: some of the people killed in Rafah might have been non-combatants; for every innocent person you kill you create a martyr. Dallal said: you don’t know innocent people were killed. Humphrys said: it was a refugee camp, it’s likely you would have killed women and children. Dallal said: that’s the difficulty because the gunmen take advantage of us… Humphrys interrupted: So you’re playing their game. Dallal said: the people we killed were gunmen.
Humphrys made no acknowledgement of the deaths of the eleven Israeli soldiers. The only deaths that concerned him were Palestinian, and he made allegations that Israel had killed non-combatants with no evidence to support this whatsoever.
Now compare this aggressive treatment with the interview that followed with Barghouti.
Humphrys said: the Israelis surely have a right to defend themselves? Barghouti said: the violence is the result of 37 years of Israeli occupation; Israel is creating apartheid.
Humphrys did not query ‘apartheid’ but said: but many who were killed wanted to kill Jews and get rid of Israel. Barghouti said: absolutely not, the Palestinians agreed with Oslo, why does Israel continue to act in Rafah?
At this point, Humphrys did not point out the key Israeli contention that more and more weapons are being smuggled through Rafah. Instead he said: what is the effect on the Arab street of the pictures of US soldiers abusing Iraqis?
He made no mention of the fact that Palestinians had played football with the heads of Israeli soldiers they had blown up, or had placed one such head on the table in front of a Palestinian speaker on a video for consumption by the Arab street. Instead, he invited Barghouti to abuse the US. And of course Barghouti obliged with a prize piece of malice, saying yes, of course the scandal would add to the US problems, with Bush siding with Sharon and creating apartheid.
This sickening aggression towards the victims of terror and virtual invitation to its mouthpiece to abuse and libel them still further was followed by an extraordinary interview at 8.10 am with Ann Clwyd, Tony Blair's human rights envoy to Iraq and the Labour MP known for her detailed documentation of mass murder, torture and abuse of Iraqis under Saddam Hussein.
After attacking her for not having known about the Red Cross report on Iraqi prisoner abuse, Humphrys accused her of providing a fig-leaf for Tony Blair by reporting that things were improving in Iraq. Clwyd said: I have also reported things that are not nice which have been improved as a result. Humphrys repeated: you say things there are improving, others say this is a distorted picture. Clwyd said: they are improving. Humphrys said: they are??? Clwyd said: they are improving all the time. I took an Iraqi to Abu Ghraib who had been tortured there under Saddam and he said people must keep the US prisoner scandal in perspective. The fact that appalling things happened in the prison under the US shouldn’t take away the fact that we’ve been liberated. 2000 people in one day were killed under Saddam.
Such testimony by an actual Iraqi victim of Saddam cut no ice at all with Humphrys, who after all knows far better than anyone who actually experienced the situation. Hundreds of people were killed in Fallujah! he exclaimed incredulously in response. We don’t even know how many are being killed in Iraq! It’s quite extraordinary that no records have been kept!
Some might think it rather more extraordinary that an ‘impartial’ BBC presenter should be giving vent to his own highly partisan opinions in this fashion. Clwyd battled gamely on against the onslaught. Get it into perspective, she pleaded; hundreds of thousands were killed under Saddam. This really sent Humphrys into orbit. Must we always compare ourselves with Saddam? he exclaimed -- when people are reading newspaper reports saying Iraq is in chaos, with Iraqis not able to do what they used to be able to do in the bad old days?
Yup, he actually said that. Iraqis now aren't able to do what they used to do under Saddam. My jaw is still on the floor.
Clwyd, who was clearly having difficulty keeping her own jaw off the carpet, said she didn’t know who these commentators were who were saying such things about Iraq. Humphrys said: you don’t read the papers?
How revealing — the anti-war idiots in the British press appear to count for far more to him than the testimony of any actual Iraqi victims of Saddam.
What all this shows is that the BBC has become far more than a redoubt of Guardian and Independent values; far more than a journalistic disgrace; far more than betrayal of the concept of public service broadcasting. It has become nothing short of a national menace, an enemy of this country’s interests and a fifth column in time of war. There is no doubt in my mind that a major reason why otherwise sane and sensible Britons have totally lost touch with reality, believe the US and Israel are the source of all evil while people who play football with the heads of Jews are the victims of injustice, and are on the way to pressurising the British government to pull out of Iraq, denounce America and thus hand victory to religious fascism, is because of the influence of the BBC, our secular church. And because of its immense global prestige and the fact that it is trusted to tell the truth, the BBC is now helping poison the discourse of the world.
The new BBC chairman, Michael Grade, is reported to believe that the BBC must draw a line under the Hutton controversy and that his job is to restore morale. In other words, business as usual. The government, badly burned by the inextricably linked public hostility to Hutton and the war in Iraq, will now not touch the BBC. The Tories, who do not appear to grasp the vital strategic importance for this country of standing shoulder to shoulder with Blair against the anti-Americanism that threatens Britain’s security, have opportunistically sided with the BBC against the government.
If the BBC had behaved in this way during World War Two, we would have lost it. If it is allowed to carry on in this fashion, we may lose against the new fascism that threatens us.
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