It’s been busy today. Not for me particularly but in the outside world. First, the troops have been sent into Gazza to start removing those Israeli settlers who have decided not to leave of their own volition. There was much anguish and many tears and I have to say I felt a little sorry for them. On the other hand I felt that now, if only a little bit, these people had an idea of what it’s like to have been Palestinian for the last 40 years.
The other thing this has brought home is the rampant bias that exists within the BBC. I listen to the radio all day and today has pretty much been devoted to this one news item. On the hour every hour the news has been almost totally about the evacuation. There have been entire programmes about it. I wonder what will happen tomorrow and Friday as the action continues. This is at odds with the coverage given to the Palestinians when these same Israeli troops have entered Gazza and bull-dozed thousands of their homes. Did we get all-day coverage of that? Did we get loads of interviews with the now homeless Palestinians? No!
And to underline this bias an Israeli gunned down 6 Palestinians murdering 4 of them. This was given scant coverage as was an incident a couple of weeks ago when an Israeli murdered some Palestinians on a bus and was then unfortunately beaten to death by angry bystanders. Had a Palestinian done this we wouldn’t have heard the last of it. Odd that isn’t it? It kind of makes you wonder who actually controls the BBC, and I’m not talking about the government.
Another thing that has been rammed down our throats all day is the leaking of various documents from the independent commission looking into the death of a Brazilian a couple of weeks ago at the hands of the police who thought he might be one of the suicide bomber suspects. These documents were leaked to ITN News who thought (or maybe that’s giving them attributes they don’t have) it would be in the public interest to broadcast them. Mmmm. Did they not think that these were just a few of probably thousands of documents relating to the incident? Did they not think that the leaking might be a little selective? Did they not think that this might be prejudicial to the on-going investigation? Of course not. It’s news isn’t it?
And on a lighter note this year is the centenary of E=MC2. Bet you didn’t know that did you? No nor me. :)
