But there are several differences. First you would have to “try.” In the UK no special efforts are required. The UK press is much more anti-Israel and anti-US than the media here. The Guardian is worse but not to be taken as seriously as the BBC which is the ‘news of record’ in the UK. Further the BBC is shown all over the world so it disseminates that trash all over. And the Guardian is uniformly leftist marxist junk, but the BBC is not pro Labour in general. The BBC is only far left on US and Israel. Conclusion – BBC has a directed bias which gets fed to the world.
Second anti-semitism is largely on the rise in the UK and Europe, more than ever since before WWII. Not so here.
Third the US government is much more supportive of Israel while UK is Arabist and hostile to Israel. No US officials made the kind of remarks Mayor Livingstone just made for which he refuses to apologize, and none made the remarks MP Dalyell made about Jews. Laura Bush did not make pro-Palestinian comments to the Queen of Jordan as did Cherie Blair.
I can’t stand the BBC on its biased merits. That’s my axe to grind. And you won’t see me defending Reuters (“one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist” post 9/11 quote from management) either.
All that being said, what does that have to do with valuing UK contribution in Iraq? I do. But as you know PM Blair got his support from the Conservatives not his own party. And the BBC has been unrelenting in its criticism of the war. So if you want to fault someone for not supporting the troops thank the Baghdad Broadcasting Company which almost got banned from British ship.
You haven't read the New York Times or Washington Post lately, have you? As for the BBC, it is a leading TV channel, but certainly not the only one. We have Sky News as well. To put equivalents - the BBC is like your CNN. But I don't see you screaming about America being an inherently anti-Semetic country because of CNN or the Washington Post.
Second anti-semitism is largely on the rise in the UK and Europe, more than ever since before WWII. Not so here.
Cite and prove. This article blandly throws out statistics about anti-Semetic incidents without backup - suggesting we're worse than France, which is preposterous.
Third the US government is much more supportive of Israel while UK is Arabist and hostile to Israel.
I'm just supposed to take this as gospel. As I previously admitted - there are segments in the government where this is true. However these happen to be the counterparts to segments in your government that feel the same way!
No US officials made the kind of remarks Mayor Livingstone just made for which he refuses to apologize, and none made the remarks MP Dalyell made about Jews. Laura Bush did not make pro-Palestinian comments to the Queen of Jordan as did Cherie Blair.
Hillary Clinton did smooch Suha Arafat. Clinton invited Arafat to the White House more than any other world leader. Not just our problem, old boy.
All that being said, what does that have to do with valuing UK contribution in Iraq? I do. But as you know PM Blair got his support from the Conservatives not his own party. And the BBC has been unrelenting in its criticism of the war. So if you want to fault someone for not supporting the troops thank the Baghdad Broadcasting Company which almost got banned from British ship.
Montag said that the UK as a whole was going down in flames. Quidnunc is on an anti-British crusade. I can certainly agree the BBC and the Guardian are crap - but to extrapolate from that an indictment of the entire country is just plain wrong, particularly when our lads are doing so much good. Media bias is small potatoes compared to heroism, blood is more important than propaganda. Montag and quidnunc have lost sight of that.
Regards, Ivan