Calton was frankly horrified to hear questioner Stephen Bedford ask 'does Israel deserve a future' on Radio 4's Any Questions? program last night and equally horrified that the BBC should allow such an obviously biased question. (For those who didn't catch it, fast forward to 12 minutes in the iPlayer version, unless you want to listen to a ten minute discussion on the election of Police Commissioners in England.)
To suggest that any nation does not deserve a future is tantamount to advocating genocide and Calton is wondering if, in fact, the question constitutes a hate crime under our new legislation on such matters. Perhaps someone should phone the police and find out. What is encouraging is that all four of the panel stated quite clearly that Israel has a right to exist and two at least were just as shocked as Calton was at the way in which the question was framed. In these days of heightened tension in the Middle East it is quite reasonable to question whether the actions of Israel or any other nation are legitimate or proportionate, however, questioning a nation's right to continued existence is not reasonable. Nor is it helpful.
Yet another example of BBC bias. Shame on them.
PS. It also didn't escape Calton's attention that Jonathan Dimbleby gave the number of Israeli strikes on Gaza but omitted to mention the number of rockets which have been fired into Israel from Gaza. Calton was just so incensed last night that he forgot to mention it!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thankyou for commenting. Please be aware that Calton does not have a lot of time to spend either moderating or responding to comments so it may take a day or two for your comment to appear and you won't necessarily get a reply. Disagree by all means but keep it civil - abusive or unpleasant comments will be deleted.