Danny Cohen was once the Director of BBC Television. When he writes in the Telegraph about the way that the BBC currently reports on Jewish and Israeli issues, one can sense the anger of someone who has been let down by former colleagues. In his latest article he writes,
This week the BBC has been reporting live from Syria as the wretched Assad regime collapsed. It is not clear yet whether Syria is destined for a democratic future or will fall prey to jihadists previously affiliated with the Islamic State and al-Qaeda.
It seems though that the BBC is optimistic. Reporting live from Damascus, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet said the following: ‘‘This is one of the most diverse countries in the Middle East with multiple Christian and Muslim sects. And you can see it here in the Old City, all the different Quarters – Jewish, Muslim, Christian. They’re all here. They want to believe they have a space now as Syria embarks on this new chapter.”
For anyone with the slightest knowledge of the 20th century history of Jewish people in the Arab world, this statement is both ignorant and offensive.
There are believed to be three Jews left in Syria. That’s right, three Jews. The rest fled for their lives. After Syria gained independence from France in 1946, Jewish people and their property were repeatedly targeted. In 1947, the Syrian government organised and encouraged Arab inhabitants of Aleppo to attack Jews. Pogroms followed. Synagogues, Jewish schools and orphanages were destroyed. From that point on it was clear that Jews were not welcome in Syria. The community fled to Israel and elsewhere and now there are just those three Jews left in the whole country.
Related post: Examples of spectacular historical ignorance. I will take the liberty of quoting one of my own comments to that post:
…the holes in the knowledge of innocent dupes are frequently – in fact almost always – the evidence that someone in the past succeeded in deliberately fostering a myth, or blanking out a truth.
“It is not clear yet whether Syria is destined for a democratic future or will fall prey to jihadists”
If only we had a previous instance that we could use as guidance – oh yes, Afghanistan.
I doubt it’ll go the full ‘stan. My bet is Syria turning into another Iraq or Libya.
Continuing proof – if any were needed – that anything proferred up by any form of media these days should be subjected to the Crichton – Gell-Mann test.
Hint – just as New York’s Little Italy now contains very few Italians, it might be well to consider that having an area of Damascus labelled the Jewish Quarter does not, in fact, prove the presence of any actual Jews. I suspect that the writer of this piece penned it from a nice, safe spot in the Middle East – say, Jerusalem – using more Wikipedia than shoe leather.
llater,
llamas
It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry – how can “The Chief Foreign Correspondent” of the BBC not know that almost all Jews were either killed or driven out of Muslim ruled countries many decades ago.
This attitude goes back a long way – for example there were many Jews in Arabia before Muhammed started his religious-political campaign, but he killed the men and enslaved the women. Followers of Islam complain that a Jewish women poisoned Muhammed – Jews reply that this was in response for him killing her family and enslaving her. Surely an educated lady is aware of all this?
The 19th century return of Jews to the Holy Land was hardly the first attempt of Jews to return – but, over the centuries, every previous effort had ended in massacre. Although a Jewish community clung on in Jerusalem – especially what is now called (by the media – and the accursed “international community”) “Occupied East Jerusalem” where there were many Jewish places of worship till 1948 when the Jordanian Army and the Arab Legion took the area, the Jordanians later destroyed almost all Jewish places of worship till the area was recaptued in 1967.
When it comes to the BBC I always suspect deliberate lying rather than ignorance to be the source of their inaccurate reporting. Basically they are a real life incarnation of Orwell’s Ministry Of Truth.
I wonder if the lady is any better at Christian history.
Would the lady, for example, be able to answer the question “who besieged Vienna in 1529 and 1683?” if she could answer that question the lady might be less prone scream “Islamophobia” at the many Austrians who are, rightly or wrongly, disturbed by the increasing Islamic population. 1529 and 1683 were hardly freakish incidents – they were part of a conflict that started in the 7th century and carried on into modern times.
Does the lady even know who Gladstone’s speeches on the Bulgarian, and other, massacres in the late 19th century were directed against, or of the effort to commit genocide against Christians in the Middle East during the First World War?
I sometimes get the feeling that modern “educated” people know no history before the 1930s – perhaps not even till the 1960s
Modern “educated” people also seem to have no respect for other religions and political philosophies (Islam is both) – they seem to see no reason to study what these belief systems teach, and just repeat slogans such as “all religions teach basically the same things” – which they do not.
Even Christian theological colleges, of some denominations, no longer seem to teach theology, at least not as much as they once did – in the sense of actual doctrines. Not Christian theology and not Islamic theology – for example arguments against Islam seem to have stopped being taught as long ago as the 1960s, instead (bad – mistaken) economics, sociology and politics seems to be taught.
As late as 1960 Western societies appeared strong – people, mostly, had jobs in productive employment, they got married and they had children.
However, even back then, there seemed to be a decline in knowledge as to WHY cultural practices were followed – and, contra Hayek, a society where most people have no idea about the basic “why?” questions will not proper – liberty does not (again contra Hayek) just “evolve” without people choosing it and understanding it – as Ronald Reagan often said “liberty is never more than one generation away from being lost” – and in the 1960s Western societies came under attack and proved vulnerable to cultural attack, as most people (even then) did not know the reasons why cultural practices were followed – “that is what we have always done” and “that is what we do around here” are not arguments, and they do not stand up to cultural attack.
It must be stressed that Muslims are NOT to blame for the cultural, indeed biological (the decline of the fertility rate and so on) decline of the West – the West appears to have committed Cultural Suicide at the pushing of Collectivist “intellectuals” – such as the Fabian Society (founded as long ago as the 1880s) and the Bloomsbury Group – and other such societies and groups in other Western countries.
Such elite groups had little influence on the lives of ordinary people till the 1960s – but they were not idle, they were “preparing the ground” as it were, gaining control of policy and of education (the “educated” make policy) – undermining such things as traditional families, and both religious and secular mutual aid groups and institutions.
Again Muslims are entirely innocent in all this – the decline of the West is self inflicted, indeed Islam could argue that it is expanding into collapsing cultural spaces.
Llamas, you write, “I suspect that the writer of this piece penned it from a nice, safe spot in the Middle East – say, Jerusalem – using more Wikipedia than shoe leather.
To be fair to Lyse Doucet, the BBC reporter concerned, that is not the case. The line about “all the different Quarters – Jewish, Muslim, Christian. They’re all here” was said in a live video report from Syria. You can see the video in this tweet by Orly Goldschmidt.
It’s still astonishing that the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent of all people did not know this basic historical fact about the history of the Middle East when she’s meant to be the one explaining it to others.
I vaguely recall hearing at one point that the idea, “Europeans thought the world was flat until Christopher Columbus proved them wrong” was pushed by Protestants trying to discredit the Catholic church, the latter apparently being more popular in the European monarchy around 1492.
I’m not looking for a reference because I’m lazy, and it’s not really relevant to the main point of the post. Which I guess is a smaller factor in “the holes in the knowledge of innocent dupes”.
So the current Jewish population of Syria could literally fit in a phone box, possibly on a motorbike and definitely into a Mini. (Assuming that corpulence is not an issue).
Does that total count the Mizrahim Mossad agents whom they think are locals? 🙂
Let’s hope the Druze in the Syrian-controlled Golan are allowed to secede to join Israel, assuming Greater Idaho is still a work-in-progress.
Huh! Nobody living in the West has a democratic future. And anyone that thinks Syria, fractured as it was by ethnic and religious divides would ever have sufficient cohesion to be a country without a dictator. Is …. not a serious commentator. Syria was just carved out of the geography for the convenience of the French and British.
If Von de Leyen, saying, “I don’t care what German voters want …” wasn’t enough of a warning.
Or the cancelled Romanian election, because it returned the wrong result.
Democracy is an impediment for the fascists ( melding of big business and the state ) who wish to reorganise society, to their advantage.
Anyone, anywhere who still clings to the idea that any Western society is a democracy, is sorely deluded.
I know some of those people. The scheme isn’t quite as ludicrously pie-in-the-sky as it might seem.
Intrastate reapportionment has been a driving force in urban politics here in the US since . . . forever. Draw district lines that foster your own politics. Loop out the boundary to capture people who vote like you, and exclude others who don’t. City political maps look ludicrous, with long fingers reaching out to grab suburban areas for their votes.
What is Greater Idaho if not a reapportionment scheme writ large? It could very well work, and it would help to end the domination of vast areas by one concentrated group of people in a city.
@ Natalie Solent – well, I stand corrected. That’s what I get for being too lazy to check.
But your correction – actually makes it worse. So she was right there, in Damascus, yet she still didn’t perceive that the Jewish Quarter of that city – contains no actual Jews? Crack reporting, there . . .
As to the possibility of Western-style democracy in the new Syria – don’t be so bloody silly. Tribally-segregated, religiously-driven tyranny in less than a month. Bet on it.
llater,
llamas
Democracy in the Western world – as opposed to Corporate State politics. Some countries do not seem to tax Corporations less than individuals (that corporations just serve the interests of individual shareholders was one of the errors of the late Milton Friedman – if only Corporations did just serve individual shareholders), and some Western countries do not have a fertility rate lower than replacement level.
Paraguay meets both tests – but running away to Paraguay is a bit dubious (considering who has done that in the past).
Still – it is hard to think of another plan.
Next door Argentina may turn out O.K. – or it may not, I do not know. Argentina is really for another thread.
.
See also the interesting link between the obscene government in Tehran and that in Damascus. Most Iranians are supposed to be of the Shia sect; long considered “heretical” by the Sunni types.
Most Syrians are nominally “Allawites, an even MORE “heretical” sect.
The key link is that one of the core doctrines of both Shia and Allawite flavours, is the “Twelfth Imam”.
This character is a deviant rip-off of a basic “Messiah”.
As expected, there is a catch.
Said Imam will ONLY return when the world is in total chaos and ripe for redemption.
The “Naughty” (infidels, heretics, etc) will be cast to the pits of Hell and the “Nice” will live in paradise.
So, bring on the chaos to call down the “Messiah”, How much more “holy” / “righteous” can you get?
Sand-pirate “philosophy” 101.
The “infidels” will, at best, get ONE chance to “choose wisely: Submit (the ACTUAL meaning of the term “Islam”) and “convert”, Become a slave, for (a short) life, Die at Allah’s leisure, for the entertainment after Friday prayers.
It is simple and has been openly declared for ages.
Only terminal cretins and the truly psychotic will play along.
What I also find wryly amusing is that doctrinaire islam HATES the “godless” (atheists) even more than they hate the Jews, if that is any comfort to some.
Bruce
Not most, they are a sizeable minority of the Syrian population, and Assad senior was one, and he picked a core of Alawites to prop up his Baathist regime, which his son (AIUI nominally Sunni having converted to his wife’s religion) continued.
As for the Sunni majority, they appear to now have an extremist Sunni government. Here is an interview with an Israeli Druze gentleman explaining how he views the risk the Druze would face under such a government, the Alawites might fare slightly better, as they might be regarded as notionally Islamic and thus able to convert.
As the alleged Chinese curse goes:
“May you live in interesting times”.
When a small but significant proportion of a population decides to do something “interesting”, all bets are OFF.
In my old town there’s a road called Snuff Mill Yard – so clearly, there’s a snuff mill! There’s a road called Carpenter’s Lane – so clearly there are carpenters! There’s a road called Gasworks Lane – so clearly there’s a gasworks! There’s a road called Corn Exchange Square – so clearly there’s a corn exchange!
Names of bits of geography are names of bits of geography, not definitions of the people living there.
Yes there are important differences between different groups of followers of Islam – however, sadly, the teaching about infidels (people who do not follow Islam) of all the Islamic groups is much the same.
Muhammed was clear on this – and the Median surahs (verses) of the Koran are later, and therefore take precedence, over the earlier (and supposedly more tolerant) Mecca surahs.
Muhammed was also clear in his position that he was NOT making stuff up – he was repeating messages from God (Allah) which can not be changed by any man or group of men.
So those who are waiting for Islamic teaching on non Muslims to be fundamentally changed, wait in vain. Although the doctrine of tactical deception (NOT lying for personal benefit – only for what is necessary for Islam) may allow a follower of Islam to present Islam in a moderate light – if that is tactically necessary (say that Muslims are greatly outnumbered in a certain place), till the tactical position changes.
It is actually a great strength of Islam that its basic doctrines can not be changed by people who have just wormed their way in and gained control of a bureaucracy – what has happened to the Church of England or is now happening to the Roman Catholic Church (and to the various establishment Protestant churches in various Western countries) could not happen to Islam – where each believer has a clear duty to use any-means-necessary (including, if necessary, lethal force) to defend basic Islamic doctrines from being undermined in this way.
For example, no one who held a high position in Islam could say “well abortion is good now” or “let us bless homosexual unions” – well they could SAY that, but then things would go very badly for them.
And – as an e-mail correspondent points out, since we’ve already established that I’m too lazy to check – the lady’s ‘journalism’ didn’t even extend to a quick trip to Wikipedia, as I had alleged. If she’d even bothered to go to those lengths, she’d have found the article ‘Jewish Quarter of Damascus’, which describes in detail the process by which the Jewish Quarter of Damascus no longer contains any Jews. It is an ex-Jewish Quarter. Bereft of Jews, it rests in peace . . .
llater,
llamas
Why is their God so afraid of not being believed in? Is it because once he has no believers he will cease to exist?
This sounds like a job for proven CV liar Marianna Spring and her multi-million pound taxpayer-funded bbc verify team.
bobby b, December 14, 2024 at 6:15 pm
and Mr Ed, December 14, 2024 at 4:21 pm
” . . . assuming Greater Idaho is still a work-in-progress.”
The “Greater Idaho” website is very good. Takes a firm but polite approach toward convincing the Oregon governor to meet with them. Makes strong economic and political arguments that should appeal to the Leftists in Oregon (Portland and the northern Willamette Valley).
All of the Oregon counties involved have voted in favor of Greater Idaho. The Idaho Legislature has voted to start talks with Oregon. This is not some nutjob’s whim.
I like the pragmatism of the Greater Idaho folks; lots of other areas they could include (N Calif, SW Oregon, parts of E Washington), but they want to focus on what is most likely to get done the soonest.
Think about the impact if they are successful: people everywhere will be awakened to the fact that things do NOT need to stay the way they are re political boundaries.
We should STOP talking about red states and blue states. Instead talk about blue enclaves within vast red regions, i.e., large cities. Most of the US is like this.
Talk about the fact that for many of these vast red areas in blue states you have 10s of millions of people (probably more than 150 million total!) who have no representation in the Governor’s mansion or the US Senate (I need to look up the total population of all the red counties). And it’s been this way for decades in many of these states. Talk about disenfranchised minorities!
A simple statement to leftists: “did you know that 100 million people in the US have no one representing them in the US Senate or in their Governor’s mansion and they have been disenfranchised like this for more than 20 years?”
The Greater Idaho project faces a difficulty that is likely insurmountable.
From Article IV of the US Constitution:
That specifically covers the creation of a new state from parts of Oregon and Idaho.
And the problem is that Progressives have no incentive whatsoever to do this. It will create a state which will absolutely be a red state, adding two more Conservative Senators to the Senate, and at least 1 more Conservative Representative. Why would they want to do that?
In order for this to happen, Conservatives will need to win a controlling majority in the state governments of both Oregon and Idaho, along with the Governorships, while simultaneously holding a majority in both houses of Congress in Washington. And it’s possible that they might even need a 2/3rds majority in the Senate to make it happen.
Let’s just say that I would be greatly surprised to see it. Delighted, but surprised.
Ferox, at 4:37pm
Thanks for the US Constitution check!
I agree this is unlikely to happen.
However, I think you’re mistaken in this: there would be no new conservative Senators (ID already sends two conservatives to DC) and no new conservative Rep since, and I’m not sure about this, I’m guessing that the Dems have not managed to gerrymander Eastern OR out of representation in the House. And there’s a carrot for the Lefties: what’s left of OR would NEVER face a challenge to their blueness, in the OR govt, the Senate or even the House.
But you’re right, getting the approval of the OR legislature will be tough. Getting Congress to approve even tougher. Unless of course the R’s controlled both Houses and the Presidency! Wait, that’s exactly the case for the next 2 years, right?
And yes, I know that RINOs will prevent anything good from happening.
Greater Idaho (sorry, I know this is OT) isn’t seeking to form a new state. They want to drag a state line to a different spot.
Still very hard to do, very unlikely to happen – but no new state.
The West…
“it is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre”
The words of a prophet without, indeed actively denied, honour in his own land…more’s the pity. The result…inevitable.
I doubt this will be published here.
Stonyground – historically Christianity also held this position, namely that if you were not a Christian you did not go to Heaven (the position was sometimes expressed as “you go to Hell”, but technically it was never quite that).
A good God would not, by definition, send people to Hell, or have them cease to exist (final death), just because they did not believe in His existence – or because they did not worship Him in a particular way.
So, if God is good, what happens to non believers? Do they go to Heaven? Or do they go somewhere else, not Hell, which is not Heaven, but is not a bad existence either?
The recent faux pas by CNN takes the subject of press ignorance and gullibility about Syria into the stratosphere.
Will the BBC top that in 2025?
John – what nonsense did CNN talk about Syria?
Oh – I see John, the fake “political prisoner” that the CNN person “liberated” from prison.
Stupid – especially as there were many real political prisoners, it was absurd to stage it.
Doucet, like most Antisemites,, believes that Jews are found everywhere on earth in immense numbers, and control everything.Samizdaters should not mess up her narrative by infecting it with fact.
Howie – sometimes I find it comforting.
It may appear that I am isolated in a town in the English Midlands, sitting in a decaying house with no prospects and no real resources for my old age – but really there are vast numbers of people like me, hidden near by, and we secretly control everything.