The Semi-Official Brits Do It Again -- The British Canard Ought to Be Muzzled [enchaine']
UPDATINGS AT BOTTOM
The surreptitious British campaign to smear Israel has struck again. The BBC, an arm of the British Foreign Office, is putting forth a virtually meaningless document to smear Israel and, as some have said, to shatter another Israeli "myth." Just why the British psywar experts and their Western and Arab comrades in arms are so busy "shattering" Israeli "myths" should be no mystery. It's an expression of hatred and a method of psychological warfare against an enemy. The Entebbe Rescue is one of the great stories of heroism in modern history. Israelis and Jews everywhere rightly took pride in it, albeit it was not 100% successful, since the commander, Yoni Netanyahu, as well as some hostages, died in the raid. Here is the BBC website article which clumsily puts forth a comment by an anonymous source as a serious argument against what Israelis and decent people throughout the world have believed about the Entebbe Rescue. See link here.
The BBC web site article is interesting in that it also reports a coy official British approach toward the successful Israeli operation. The article reports that British officials questioned whether the operation was legal under international law and were uncertain whether the Ugandan dictator at the time, Idi Amin, was really collaborating with the hijackers. There is no mention that Amin came to the airport to view the hostages and talk with the hijackers. Nor is there mention that Idi Amin was under the influence at that time of a white British officer named Major Bob Astles. This coy questioning about the international legality of the Israeli operation also demonstrates the depth of hatred for Israel within the Foreign Office at that time, more than thirty years ago.
One needs to read BBC articles like this one while bearing in mind the BBC and Foreign Office attitude toward the Holocaust. At the beginning of the Holocaust, the BBC pretended not to know about it, although Britain no doubt had excellent intelligence about doings within the Nazi-fascist domain. Later, some information was broadcast but such broadcasts were minimized and the role of the Jews as victims of a monstruous crime was obfuscated to an extent. Barbara Rogers, a British historian, gives an overview of British official policy on reporting the Holocaust. Here are some other of our earlier posts on the BBC and the Holocaust based on letters published in Yiddish by Shmul Zigelboym, delegate of socialist Jewish Labor Bund to the Polish government in exile in London, who made largely fruitless efforts to get the British to help the Jews trapped in Poland and to get the BBC to emphasize their plight. Here & here & here & qui & ici & aqui'. The British Foreign Office also ordered British troops not to go into Baghdad during the massacre of Jews in 1941 called the Farhud to stop that massacre, according to a British officer named Somerset de Chair. This can be considered a British contribution to the Holocaust. Moreover, it was British policy, specifically that of Anthony Eden, the foreign minister, to foster Arab nationalism and foundation of the Arab League.
The BBC cannot be considered a neutral party in the Arab-Israel conflict, nor are its reports reliable.
UPDATING
William Goldnadel of the Association France-Israel has pointed out that LeMonde too has also played up the meaningless British embassy report as if it proved that the Israel Shin Beyt security agency were behind the Entebbe hijacking. Le Monde is a newspaper controlled by the French foreign ministry as the BBC is controlled by the British Foreign Office.
COQUECIGRUES [par Gilles William Goldnadel, le six juin 2007]
Dans son édition du 3 juin, Le Monde publie un article qui affirme : « Des documents d’archives du gouvernement britannique rendus publiques vendredi 1er juin, jettent un doute sur la version officielle d’une des plus célèbres prises d’otage de l’histoire contemporaine, le détournement, il y a 31 ans, d’un avion d’Air France vers Entebbe, en Ouganda ».
Selon ces documents, ce détournement serait « l’œuvre du F.P.L.P. avec l’aide du Shin Bet (le service de sécurité intérieure israélien) ».
Lorsqu’on se donne la peine de lire l’article, on s’aperçoit que ce serait un « contact anonyme » membre de « l’Association parlementaire euro arabe » qui aurait transmis cette « information » à un diplomate britannique en poste à Paris…
Et c’est sur cette base dont on peut juger du solide, que notre sérieux quotidien conclut péremptoirement que cette thèse « éclaire d’un jour nouveau le raid sur Entebbe ».
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Here's an analysis of the same fake accusation as made by the French government's semi-official press agency, Agence France Presse [AFP]. This analysis, in French, comes from the Metulla News Agency.
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Coming: More on James Baker and US policy towards Israel, Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, peace follies, propaganda, etc.
The surreptitious British campaign to smear Israel has struck again. The BBC, an arm of the British Foreign Office, is putting forth a virtually meaningless document to smear Israel and, as some have said, to shatter another Israeli "myth." Just why the British psywar experts and their Western and Arab comrades in arms are so busy "shattering" Israeli "myths" should be no mystery. It's an expression of hatred and a method of psychological warfare against an enemy. The Entebbe Rescue is one of the great stories of heroism in modern history. Israelis and Jews everywhere rightly took pride in it, albeit it was not 100% successful, since the commander, Yoni Netanyahu, as well as some hostages, died in the raid. Here is the BBC website article which clumsily puts forth a comment by an anonymous source as a serious argument against what Israelis and decent people throughout the world have believed about the Entebbe Rescue. See link here.
A UK government file on the crisis, released from the National Archives, contains a claim that Israel itself was behind the hijacking.Does this contain any information other than that British diplomats and their anonymous informants were hostile to Israel? The informant in this case seems to be an Arab, probably from Fatah rather than the PFLP, since Fatah had an incentive to "smear" the rival Popular Front gang as collaborators with Israel. The document, as cited, proves nothing about any Israeli involvement in the hijacking. To even make such a virtually meaningless document the centerpiece of a media smear campaign against Israel shows the depths to which the BBC and its partners in the British print media will go in efforts to smear Israel. At the same time, it may be a sign of desperation that they even use something so cloudy and lacking in substance. They have chosen a weak reed indeed to lean upon.
An unnamed contact told a British diplomat in Paris that the Israeli Secret Service, the Shin Bet, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) collaborated to seize the plane. [BBC website, 1 June 2007]
The BBC web site article is interesting in that it also reports a coy official British approach toward the successful Israeli operation. The article reports that British officials questioned whether the operation was legal under international law and were uncertain whether the Ugandan dictator at the time, Idi Amin, was really collaborating with the hijackers. There is no mention that Amin came to the airport to view the hostages and talk with the hijackers. Nor is there mention that Idi Amin was under the influence at that time of a white British officer named Major Bob Astles. This coy questioning about the international legality of the Israeli operation also demonstrates the depth of hatred for Israel within the Foreign Office at that time, more than thirty years ago.
One needs to read BBC articles like this one while bearing in mind the BBC and Foreign Office attitude toward the Holocaust. At the beginning of the Holocaust, the BBC pretended not to know about it, although Britain no doubt had excellent intelligence about doings within the Nazi-fascist domain. Later, some information was broadcast but such broadcasts were minimized and the role of the Jews as victims of a monstruous crime was obfuscated to an extent. Barbara Rogers, a British historian, gives an overview of British official policy on reporting the Holocaust. Here are some other of our earlier posts on the BBC and the Holocaust based on letters published in Yiddish by Shmul Zigelboym, delegate of socialist Jewish Labor Bund to the Polish government in exile in London, who made largely fruitless efforts to get the British to help the Jews trapped in Poland and to get the BBC to emphasize their plight. Here & here & here & qui & ici & aqui'. The British Foreign Office also ordered British troops not to go into Baghdad during the massacre of Jews in 1941 called the Farhud to stop that massacre, according to a British officer named Somerset de Chair. This can be considered a British contribution to the Holocaust. Moreover, it was British policy, specifically that of Anthony Eden, the foreign minister, to foster Arab nationalism and foundation of the Arab League.
The BBC cannot be considered a neutral party in the Arab-Israel conflict, nor are its reports reliable.
UPDATING
William Goldnadel of the Association France-Israel has pointed out that LeMonde too has also played up the meaningless British embassy report as if it proved that the Israel Shin Beyt security agency were behind the Entebbe hijacking. Le Monde is a newspaper controlled by the French foreign ministry as the BBC is controlled by the British Foreign Office.
COQUECIGRUES [par Gilles William Goldnadel, le six juin 2007]
Dans son édition du 3 juin, Le Monde publie un article qui affirme : « Des documents d’archives du gouvernement britannique rendus publiques vendredi 1er juin, jettent un doute sur la version officielle d’une des plus célèbres prises d’otage de l’histoire contemporaine, le détournement, il y a 31 ans, d’un avion d’Air France vers Entebbe, en Ouganda ».
Selon ces documents, ce détournement serait « l’œuvre du F.P.L.P. avec l’aide du Shin Bet (le service de sécurité intérieure israélien) ».
Lorsqu’on se donne la peine de lire l’article, on s’aperçoit que ce serait un « contact anonyme » membre de « l’Association parlementaire euro arabe » qui aurait transmis cette « information » à un diplomate britannique en poste à Paris…
Et c’est sur cette base dont on peut juger du solide, que notre sérieux quotidien conclut péremptoirement que cette thèse « éclaire d’un jour nouveau le raid sur Entebbe ».
- - - - - - - - - - -
Here's an analysis of the same fake accusation as made by the French government's semi-official press agency, Agence France Presse [AFP]. This analysis, in French, comes from the Metulla News Agency.
- - - - - - -
Coming: More on James Baker and US policy towards Israel, Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, peace follies, propaganda, etc.
Labels: BBC, propaganda, psychological warfare
posted by Eliyahu m'Tsiyon at
4:09 PM
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