Mick Hartley

Blog

  • The BBC’s wider failure to properly report on events in Gaza

    From a Times report on the problems facing BBC Verify, and the ongoing war of words with the White House:

    Despite the focus on Verify, some consider the criticism it faces to be a symptom of the BBC’s wider failure to properly report on events in Gaza.

    “No one turns to Verify after it has done a bit of geo-locating and says ‘The wool has now fallen from my eyes and I can see clearly’,” said one senior journalist.

    “Hamas is a body that routinely lies and executes people it doesn’t like, but we treat them as if they’re of equal status to a democratically elected government that runs an open society. Impartiality does not mean neutrality — it means truthfulness.”

    John Ware, the former BBC Panorama reporter, called the broadcaster’s coverage of events in Gaza “quite timid”.

    “[No] programme has spent any time in the Palestinian Authority, looking at the official outlets, which almost daily spew out the most revolting antisemitic tropes,” said Ware.

    For the BBC only one side is guilty of spewing hatred, and it isn't the Palestinians.

  • The genocide framing of the Gaza conflict

    s, this openness perversely amplifies them, making the country a uniquely visible and morally charged target.

    While anti-Israel prejudice in the mainstream media is long-standing and certainly plays a role, framing the problem as one of bias fundamentally misunderstands its nature. The rapid escalation in the use of the term genocide is not the product of ignorance; rather, it is entirely purposeful, with mainstream reporters and essayists engaging in frequent linguistic and legalistic contortions to justify their usage of an inflammatory term in order to delegitimize the actions of one side in a conflict and legitimize the actions of the terrorist organization that started the Gaza war.

    Well yes. But surely an important factor here is that old truth: the Jews will never be forgiven for the Holocaust. Now, at last, comes the chance to point the finger at those smug people who, by their very existence, and in particular by their determination to build Israel, a land of their own where they can be free from persecution, keep reminding us of the unparalleled evil that was inflicted on them by the great civilisation that was Europe. By us. The opportunity is being gleefully seized. Ha! See? They're just as bad as us. No – they're worse. All the old antisemitic canards about the nasty Jews – hey, it turns out they're true after all!

  • Nothing taken from trans people ‘except a false belief’

    senior member of Britain’s equality watchdog has said.

    Akua Reindorf, one of eight commissioners at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said transgender people had been misled about their entitlements and there “has to be a period of correction” to recognise the women’s right to single-sex spaces.

    Ms Reindorf made the comments at a debate about the Supreme Court ruling that the word “sex” in the Equality Act refers only to biological sex, and not to a person’s gender identity.

    The ruling confirmed it was lawful for female-only sports teams to exclude trans women and for trans people to be barred from lavatories and changing rooms for the opposite sex. This was later backed up by interim guidance from the EHRC.

    Asked by an audience member about concerns that the ruling could roll back the rights of trans people, Naomi Cunningham, a barrister and panellist at the debate, said trans people “will have to give way”, adding: “It can’t be helped, I’m afraid.”

    Ms Reindorf, speaking next, agreed, saying: “Unfortunately, young people and trans people have been lied to over many years about what their rights are.

    “It’s like Naomi said – I just can’t say it in a more diplomatic way than that. They have been lied to, and there has to be a period of correction, because other people have rights.”

    Naturally there are dissenting voices:

    But Chiara Capraro, the head of gender justice at Amnesty International UK, criticised Ms Reindorf’s comments.

    She said: “The EHRC has the duty to uphold the rights of everyone, including all with protected characteristics. We are concerned that it is failing to do so and is unhelpfully pitting the rights of women and trans people against each other.”

    It was, of course, the trans activists who pitted the rights of women and trans people against each other, by demanding that trans women – men in dresses – have access to women's toilets, women's sport, women's prisons, lesbian groups, by misrepresenting the law. Now they know better. Or should know better. But Amnesty have lost the plot on this, as on so much else.

  • Hamas brutality

    As not seen on the BBC:

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    "Six others were reportedly executed without trial, without court—just Hamas’s bullets.

    "For those constantly worried about ISIS-linked militias in Gaza: hopefully, your concern extends—at least equally—to the daily torture, executions, and lawless brutality inflicted by Hamas on Gazans themselves."

  • Men in women’s sport

    When it's fine:

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  • Piers Morgan “a significant part of the problem of disinformation”

    ad been the victim of a “calculated and malicious hoax” and expressing deep regret for the reputational damage caused to the British Army. Morgan’s defence of his decision to publish those fake pictures stemmed from his opposition to the Iraq war in a disgraceful example of “the ends justify the means”.

    Did he learn anything from that shameful incident? The way I was treated on Uncensored suggests not. At least when Morgan was in the employ of a national newspaper, he could be held accountable. But this no longer appears to be the case. He is now free to shout down his guests without consequence.

    The problem doesn’t stop with Morgan. The unfair way in which Israel is presented in the Western media, and the refusal to treat Hamas’s claims with scepticism, misleads the public. It increases the threat of violence to Jews around the world, but also, crucially, props up and encourages Hamas, thereby prolonging the war and the suffering of Israelis and Palestinians alike.

  • The realisation of the Palestinian vision of return

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  • The “genocide” meme

    Yep. Another facile lying slogan.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  • Breaking the blockade

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  • Guardian trouble

    an style=”font-size: 11pt”>What it does is correct the situation *in which the trans rights movement had arrogated itself 'rights' by disseminating a false interpretation of the law which undermined women's rights.*

    It arrogated itself these 'rights,' therefore, by non-democratic means, and attempted to enforce its claims by preventing anyone from discussing what it was doing, and threatening and trying to destroy the livelihood and reputations of people who refused to comply.

    The act of injustice here is one that has been perpetrated *by* the trans rights movement *against* the people whose rights they attempted to non-democratically help themselves to, that is, women and especially lesbians.

    And the main newspaper of the left is still so largely captured by the ideological discourse of the trans rights movement that it is totally failing to accurately inform its readers about what has happened, how this situation arose, who has wronged who, and what the SC judgement actually represents.

    It is still seeking to present the wronged parties as the aggressors, and the people who spent over a decade illegitimately trying to remove their rights as the victims.

Powered by