Oiled Media Bias at the BBC

Consider this opening line:

The first time I realised how delicious olive oil from the West Bank can be was more than ten years ago when a Palestinian farmer offered me breakfast as I stood watching a broad strip of his land being destroyed.

That was the BBC's Jeremy Bowen.

Jeremy, dear chap, only ten years you've know good olive oil?

And if we're talking time-wise, that territory has been the "West Bank" only since April 1950.  Before that, for 2500 years, it was Judea and Samaria.  Judea like in where Jesus was born.  Judea like in Jews.

And the best olive oil is from Meshek Achiyah at Shiloh.

^

More Bowen Bowdlerizing

Received this in response to this I wrote about Jeremy Bowden:

This is what Jeremy said to Ed Stourton, the presenter of the Today programme, yesterday. I thought it was worth transcribing because it is truly a classic. It starts about 5 and a half minutes into this clip. There's an interview afterward Bowen's "analysis" with an Israeli woman and an Arab guy.

Bowen: "Well it can't be cheerful when there's been so much violence, not just the killings of Jews in Jerusalem but what's been going on in Gaza over the last couple of weeks in which more than a hundred and twenty Palestinians, around a third of them Palestinians, have been killed. You've got to be sceptical about the peace proces that was originated in Annapolis in December and I think both sides, even though they say "Yes, we'd like to talk". The Palestinians, don't forget, suspended the talks last weekend because of what Israel had been doing in Gaza. The Israelis are saying yes, we'll go back to them as well. Both sides said they want to go back to them [er, didn't you just say, Jeremy, that the Pals. suspended talks? - YM] but even the Prime Minister's spokesman said yesterday that it's clear that you can't have attacks like this in Jerusalem and expect a successful peace process and if you were to insert the word 'Gaza' in that you could pretty much expect Palestinian spokesman to say something very similar."

Stourton: "So the next step is what if indeed there is one?"

Bowen: "Well the next step for those who are interested in peace quiet and calm is to hope that there aren't any more attacks, going either way, quite frankly.

Amazing.

"Our Editor Says"

To understand just how much power Jeremy Bowen possesses, see this excerpt from a BBC report:-

The BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen says that the school was no ordinary seminary. It was the ideological cradle of the settler movement in the West Bank, which could be the reason it was targeted.

Key figures linked to the school were strongly opposed to Israeli pull-out from Gaza.

Many of its students are on special courses that combine religious study with service in combat units in the Israeli army.

Our editor says that those who gathered at the seminary ahead of the victims' funerals were people who were already opposed to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to engage in talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

This incident will only make stronger their determination to stop any agreements going through, our editor says.

Ever read a news report where the editor injects him,self so prominently into the story?