10-Jan-13: When terror is ignored by news reporting agencies, the BBC for instance, what can we learn?

We posted this article on January 5

On January 5, 2013, we posted here under the title "5-Jan-13: The headaches from Sinai grow in intensity" about the seizure by the Egyptians of U.S.-made missiles concealed in a pit in the sands of northern Sinai. This followed a similar intelligence-driven intercept a little earlier of French-made missiles elsewhere in Sinai. All these - along with vastly larger numbers of non-intercepted rockets - were intended to be smuggled into the hands of the Palestinian Arab terrorists of Hamas in Gaza. So were most of the 1,500+ rockets fired at Israeli civilian targets in November's fighting from Hamas-controlled Gaza. We therefore know pretty well what the intended purpose was.

We concluded with these words:

For each announcement of weapons having been intercepted on their way into Gaza, there are dozens, maybe hundreds, not announced and not intercepted. Sinai is a growing and major source of existential terrorist danger to Israelis.

That's important information for anyone concerned about the constant spiral downwards into cross-border violence that is again a constant factor in the highly volatile Arab world in the wake of what is innocuously, but misleadingly, termed the Arab Spring.

Now this morning from BBC Watch, there is this spot-on comment under the heading "BBC silent on weapons smuggling to Gaza". After pointing out that the rocket seizures got coverage via the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency and Associated Press among others, nevertheless:

The BBC has reported nothing of this. Once again, the repeated failure to report incidents which contribute to a build up of tension means that if and when Israel is obliged to react to events resulting from terror organisations rearming themselves, BBC audiences will have no idea of their context or background.

If, like us, you listen to BBC World Service radio (whose "objectives and targets are jointly defined by the BBC and the British Foreign Secretary and the UK government" though most people do not realize it) or watch any of its numerous television channels, you cannot fail to be impressed with what British talent and an annual budget of more than five billion US dollars (!) can achieve.

We know something from personal experience of the political track record of the chairman of the trust that runs it. We wrote about him and it here on this blog more than six years ago [see "6-Oct-06: Crying Poor: The Terror-Laden Rise and Rise of the Palestinian National Payroll"] and in the pages of the Wall Street Journal [see "Blood, Money and Education"] in 2003.

In that WSJ op ed, we pointed out how, back then, Chris Patten - during the EU phase of his public service career - could have taken meaningful steps himself, personally, with his own two hands and a pen, to bring an end to Palestinian Arab terrorism or at least to significantly curtail it. With the funding power in his control at that time, and holding (as he did) the unambiguous evidence of the horrors that those funds were achieving, he could have channeled the beneficiaries of the budget under his supervision to "become peace-directed and positive" (the actual words we used). Or he could take the road of denial. He did the latter.

BBC Watch reminds us how the BBC, now on Patten's watch, gives signs that denial is key to its strategic coverage of the war of terrorism being conducted against us here.

[For some additional background, we recommend "Patten vigorously defends EU money to Palestine" (2002), Aid Donors Turn a Blind Eye to Palestinian Terror" (2003), "EU millions: Was aid handed to terror gangs?" (2003), "European Union Funding of Terror and Hatred: A Chilling Update" (2004)]