MEMORIES OF A SIX DAY WAR VOLUNTEER

May 30, 2017

VolunteersOn the 20th May 1967 I was at Wembley Stadium cheering on my beloved Spurs as they defeated Chelsea in the F.A. Cup Final.   Had anyone told me on that day, that just a couple of weeks later I would be in Israel working on a kibbutz close to the Golan Heights, I would have thought them crazy.

Two days later however, all the euphoria of that victory was dissipated when Egypt committed what was a clear act of war by closing the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping.  Tension had been rising during the previous week as Egypt mobilized its troops and then moved into Sinai demanding that the U.N. peacekeepers be removed.  The blockade however, ratcheted up the tension considerably higher.

I was twenty-three when the crisis broke.  I was articled to a partner in a West End accountancy practice, and was due to take my finals in December of that year.  I was also very active in the Federation of Zionist Youth (FZY) and chairman of its Ilford group.

As the crisis heightened, FZY was called in to help with fund raising activities.  Every evening we would go from one shul to another helping to collect donations.  Sunday mornings we were out knocking on doors collecting more gifts.  No house with a mezzuzah on the door was safe from our attentions, nor did I ever leave a house without having received a donation.

There was an incredible atmosphere around at the time, for unlike today, as war became inevitable, the entire country was 100% behind Israel.  I had a “Support Israel” bumper sticker on my car and I remember to this day a garage attendant saying to me whilst he filled up my car, that he hoped we would really show those ***** a thing or two; that was how it was at that time.

On Monday morning 5th June war broke out.  As soon as I got to the office I asked my principal if I could go to the Zionist Federation offices in Lower Regent Street, to do whatever I could to help.  Luckily, my principal was Jewish, so he gladly gave his consent.   For those of you who may remember it, Rex House was an always chaotic place, but during that week, the chaos reached new heights.

The first thing I saw on my arrival was that outside, seemingly every Jewish cab driver in London was waiting ready to deliver messages, packages and people free of charge wherever they were needed.  Inside was bedlam.  Volunteers wanting to go to Israel and take over the jobs of the men and women now serving in the army, filled every bit of space in the building as they waited to be processed.

Fundraising was more urgent than ever and elsewhere blood donor centres were being set up.  All the while communiqués were coming in from Tel Aviv with war news.  I remember hearing the breaking news that the IDF had destroyed the Egyptian Air Force on the ground in the first few hours of the war.  BBC newsreaders initially did not believe it, but gradually it became quite clear that it really was true.  Then on the Wednesday came the news that the Old City of Jerusalem had been taken and there was not a dry eye in the whole of Rex House.  That was day also that the blockade was broken.

Later that day, together with about fifty fellow FZYniks I joined the ranks of the volunteers.  Once again I had to look to my principal’s goodwill and once again he came through for me.  The war ended on the Saturday and on the following Tuesday our FZY party was on an El Al plane to Tel Aviv. By the Friday, just ten days after it had been recaptured we were in Jerusalem, praying at the Western Wall.  I remember phoning home that evening  – no easy thing in those days – and the emotional call I had with my parents.

We were sent to Kibbutz HaGoshrim, a non – religious settlement in the north of Israel, some five miles beyond Kyriat Shemona in that spit of land between Lebanon and the Golan Heights.  We were fortunate in that the Kibbutz, as well as being an agricultural settlement also ran a guest house so we had decent accommodation and, joy of joys a swimming pool.  Our work routine was soon established.  Wake up was at 4:30am.  A quick wash, a mug of tea with some stale bread and then on to a tractor to work in the fields, picking fruit or cotton or building new paths around the Kibbutz.  At 8:00 it was back on the tractor to return to the dining hall for a proper breakfast followed by another stint of work until 11:30 when we would finish for the day and crash out round the pool.

The work was hard and not without its dangers. The fruit picking mostly involved placing rickety ladders against the acres and acres of apple trees and then reaching into the furthest branches of the tree to collect the fruit. None of us escaped from what became known as “flying ladders” as we tumbled to the ground, though thankfully no-one suffered anything more serious than a few bruises – and hurt pride.

Early one morning a group of us were in the cotton fields when we suddenly heard massive explosions from the nearby Golan Heights.  For one horrible moment, we thought fighting had broken out again but it turned out only to be the IDF destroying captured Syrian munitions, but it was a reminder that we were in a war zone.

Afternoons were filled with various leisure activities.  Courses in Ivrit were arranged as were soccer matches against volunteers from neighbouring kibbutzim.  I am still carrying the scars from one ferocious encounter with South Africans volunteers from Kibbutz Dan just up the road.  For the brave, the icy waters of the lake at nearby Horshat Tal was a refreshing alternative to the kibbutz pool.

Another example of the good fortune that befell our group is that amongst us were a few who were employed at Marks and Spencer’s head office in Baker Street and every couple of weeks they would each receive a large box of St. Michael foodstuffs which of course they shared around and provided a welcome break from the rather unimaginative kibbutz diet.

The kibbutz set aside one hut for us to use as our own communal meeting place.  Our group included people of all degrees of religious observance but we all agreed it would be nice to have a Friday evening service.  On that first Friday night, we gathered in our hut and began the service.  Suddenly, I was aware that we were being joined by some of the Kibbutzniks who were peering through the windows or standing by the open door, visibly moved by the sight of Shabbat candles and the sound of Sabbath songs that they probably had neither seen nor heard in years.

Another memory of that time is the music.  Within days of it ending, an LP was produced of songs of the Six Day War and it was constantly being played around the kibbutz.  One song in particular came to define that period, Naomi Shemer’s Yerushalayim shel Zahav.  Morning, noon and night, it seemed you could never go more than five minutes without hearing that haunting refrain.  The strange thing is, no matter how many times you heard it, it never seemed too much; even today, if my I-Pod is on shuffle, and that song comes up, I have to stop what I am doing and the memories come flooding back.

Because the war itself was mercifully short, before long the men and women who had been called up began returning home.  Whilst there was still plenty for us to do, the government decided that we should see as much of Israel as possible.

We were taken in an army jeep on to the Golan Heights.  There we saw captured Syrian tanks and the gun emplacements overlooking HaGoshrim.  We saw at once that they could probably have done enormous harm just by hurling rocks down on the kibbutz from that dominant position.

Then we went on a long trip to the south.  We stopped at Ein Gedi and bathed in the Dead Sea and then in the morning, before dawn, climbed the snake path to the summit of Masada where we witnessed the most glorious sunrise breaking over the fabled ruins.  From there we were taken through Beer Sheva and via the Negev to Eilat which was just a small village at that time. Other trips took us to the Galilee and of course in our free time we all explored Jerusalem and Haifa and Tel Aviv.

Suddenly it was October and it was time to return home after what were the most amazing three months of my life.  The nervous tension in the days before the war; the very real concern that Israel could be annihilated; the unbelievable excitement and relief as we learned of the recapture of the Old City and Israel’s subsequent victory. The tremendous camaraderie of like-minded young people working on the kibbutz, delighted at being able to do our bit for the country that we all cared about so deeply.

There is one other memory.  On a bus returning  to the kibbutz from Haifa where I had been visiting a cousin, I spoke to a young Israeli.  I will never forget his words.

“Surely now, after this massive defeat the Arabs will have to accept us. They have to, don’t they?”

1 Comment | FZY, History, Six Day War | Permalink
Posted by Barry Kester

SAVE OUR LANGUAGE

May 25, 2014

Michael Gove is a divisive figure and he has aroused the anger of many in the education establishmnent. I am not going to argue the rights and wrongs of his methods here. What is not in doubt however is the sincerity of his desire to improve the quality of education in this country, nor of the need for it to be improved.

This was borne out for me last night whilst watching the Champions League Final. When watching football on television I like to keep an eye on Twitter; the banter is often very witty and can liven up what otherwise might be a dull match. During the first half of last night’s game, one of Real Madrid’s players, Gareth Bale, missed an easy chance to score. Twitter at once came to life. That is when I saw this tweet. “Bale should of scored.”

From the author’s Twitter profile, I know this is the work of someone who has completed his education – someone who has been through years of schooling, and has completed the process without knowing the difference between “of” and “have.” Could there be a more obvious example of how our education system has failed our youngsters over the past several years?

We are the custodians of the greatest language in the world. It is the language of Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, Hardy and Churchill; across the Atlantic, Lincoln, Kennedy and Martin Luther King used it beautifully and powerfully.

Many of the greatest thoughts expressed by mankind have been articulated in the English language and yet today we have young people leaving school unable to speak it or write it properly. That is a national disgrace and it is something which must be addressed without delay.

Leave a Comment » | Books, English Language, Jane Austen, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barry Kester

This Proves the hypocrisy of the BDS Movement

May 21, 2013

This Proves the hypocrisy of the BDS Movement.

Leave a Comment » | History | Permalink
Posted by Barry Kester

The Left Loves to Hate

April 13, 2013

I am sure there are many people out there who are genuinely surprised at the level of hatred that has been on display in this country since news of the death of Baroness Thatcher was announced on Monday.

They should not be, for this hatred has been on display for a number of years if you know where to look for it.

I first became aware of it when I was elected as a Conservative councillor in 1982. Margaret Thatcher had been Prime Minister for three years by then and we won control of our council, (Hillingdon) in a landslide. I was prepared for the labour opposition to be disappointed, and I was prepared for strong, reasoned arguments against some of our policies. I was not prepared however for the naked hostility and bitterness which was so openly and frequently on display. Their loathing and contempt for us was not as politicians but as people, and it took some getting used to. As a football fan, I am not unfamiliar with hostility from opposing fans, but this was far worse than anything I had seen at a football ground. Of course, such an attitude became totally counterproductive, because even when they had something reasonable to say, it would be delivered, clothed in such vitriol, as to make it impossible to be taken seriously.

Another area in which the Left’s propensity to hate is on regular display is in the politics of the Middle east and in particular Israel. The Left do not just dislike Israel. They do not just disagree with that country’s government. They hate it. They do not want Israel to change its policies. They want it to disappear. To further their agenda they re-write history, they either ignore or distort the truth, they tell outright lies and use pejorative terms such as “apartheid state” or “racist state” believing that if you repeat all this nonsense often enough it becomes the accepted truth; and thanks to the help of their comrades in sections of the media, (take a bow Guardian and BBC), they are not wrong.

I make this reference to Israel because these same tactics have been on display again this week with regards to Margaret Thatcher, once more aided and abetted by their media friends. Thus, if you listen to the haters, you would believe that she was single-handedly responsible for the closure of all the mines in the country. In fact she closed 22. Harold Wilson closed 93 – now there is a fact you do not hear very often. They say that she was responsible for the end of manufacturing in the UK. The role of the unions in the closures of course is overlooked as is the fact that nobody was buying British cars for instance, because they were so awfully made.

Now they are trying to lay the blame for banking crisis at her door. All she did was open up the City of London to global competition thereby laying the foundation for the growth and prosperity that followed from that action. It was Gordon Brown who took governance of the City from the Bank of England and established the FSA that failed so dismally in its duties. Once again however, that fact is conveniently overlooked.

What troubles me most about the events of the past week is the way that so many young people who were not even born when Margaret Thatcher was in office have cheerfully joined in the with the anti Thatcher hate fest. From what has been seen on our television screens, many of them are not from the deprived communities in the North that might feel they are justified in their dislike of the Lady, but are from comfortable middle class homes. Where have they learned the politics of hate? Who has not taught them that are two sides to every argument. And who has failed to teach them where irrational, visceral hatred can lead?

By dominating vast sections of the media and the education establishment, the haters on the left are ensuring that their vile policies will be with us for a long time to come. That should be a cause of great concern to all of us who care about the future of our country.

2 Comments | BBC, History, Israel, Left Wing Hatred, Margaret Thatcher, Politics | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barry Kester

Another Case of Anti-Semitism

March 14, 2013

There are many people who claim that we Jews are too quick to cry “anti-Semitism” whenever we see or hear something we do not like. Perhaps there is some validity in that claim, perhaps not. What is certain is that no-one can be accused of over reacting to the outrageous statements made by labour Peer, Lord Ahmed.

This is the man who in 2007 drove at speeds of up to seventy miles an hour on the M1 whilst simultaneously receiving and sending text messages, before driving into the back of a stationary vehicle killing the occupant. He was jailed for 12 weeks but served only 16 days on the ground that prison would hinder his work to promote conciliation between Muslims and non-Muslims.

All non-Muslims except Jews that it is. Because it now transpires that Lord Ahmed, a British parliamentarian has stated in a broadcast in Pakistan that HE was the victim of a Jewish conspiracy. Never mind that he killed a man; never mind that he put at risk the lives of countless others whilst texting on the motorway. No, his conviction and sentence was the result of a conspiracy by a cabal of those nasty Jews who control the press and the media.

When it comes to Jew hatred Lord Ahmed has form. In 2005 he hosted a book launch in the House of Lords for a man who calls himself Israel Shamir – who is also a Swedish-domiciled anti-Semite called Jöran Jermas.

There was a lot of unpleasant language used at that launch – this is just one piece. “In the Middle East we have just one reason for wars, terror and trouble — and that is Jewish supremacy drive.”

This is the company Lord Ahmed likes to keep. This is the kind of man he considers worthy of a platform in the Mother of Parliaments. The Labour Party suspended him then, but only for a short time. Today, to their credit, they have suspended him again. We shall see if this time it is permanent. If not it will be to their eternal shame.

The Liberal Democrats thus far have taken no effective action against their own anti-Semitic MP, David Ward after his disgusting comments on Holocaust Memorial Day, demonstrating once more how vastly different is the way outbursts against Jews are dealt with compared to those against other minorities, particularly Muslims. There is in this country a casual acceptance of anti-Semitism that I find difficult to understand and am loath to accept.

How long I wonder will this attitude be allowed to continue? Anti-Semitism is no less offensive and no less hurtful than Islamophobia and should be treated in exactly the same way and with the same degree of urgency. Perhaps it is partly our own fault. We have a tendency to like to keep our head down and to not want to rock the boat. If attitudes are to change we need to change as well and let people know that if you prick us, we do indeed bleed. We need to ensure that government, the media and everyone else know that if Britain wants to maintain its reputation as the most welcoming home to ALL minorities, it must understand that its Jewish citizens demand to be treated no less fairly than everyone elses.

Leave a Comment » | Anti-Semitism, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barry Kester

Worrying Times

February 23, 2013

If you are Jewish it is hard to comprehend all that has occurred in the past few days.

First of all there was the report that Israel’s deputy ambassador had to be evacuated from Essex University, unable to give the lecture he was supposed to give because of disruption from students. There was all the usual talk from the PSC and SWP students about “war crimes” and Israel being an “apartheid state.” It is neither surprising nor unprecedented for the extreme left to stifle the voices of those with whom they disagree; nor is it surprising that this should have happened at Essex, a university with a long history of extreme left politics. None the less, this is one more in a long list of examples of the extreme hostility that those who dare to support Israel face on our campuses.

If that wasn’t enough for one night, we then had the case of George Galloway who walked out of a debate at Christ Church, Oxford on the subject “Israel should withdraw immediately from the West Bank”. On learning that his opponent was an Israeli, he simply marched out of the door saying that he does not recognise Israel and does not debate with Israelis.

What a way for a Member of the British Parliament to behave.

And whilst all that was happening over here, across the channel in a pub in Lyon, a group of Spurs supporters, in France to see their team play in a Europa League cup match, were attacked by a bunch of Neo Nazis. The reason? Tottenham Hotspur has a large number of Jewish supporters and therefore is known as a “Jewish” club.

Any one of these incidents should give rise for concern. That all three should occur within a matter of hours is to me very worrying. It is reported in the Jewish Chronicle this week that French Jews are fleeing to London in large numbers to escape growing anti-Semitism in that country. Given what is happening here in the UK one wonders if they are not jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. Remember too, only a couple of weeks ago there was David Ward MP making deeply offensive anti-Semitic comments and the equally offensive Scarfe cartoon in the Sunday Times.

Jews in France are caught in a vice. On one side is a far right movement much more prominent there than here. On the other side is a large North African population that in some areas the authorities can barely control.

Here, in spite of a rise in anti-Semitic incidents, thanks to the superb work of the Community Security Trust (CST) who monitor all such incidents and work very closely with the authorities, Jews still consider themselves relatively safe. However, this is no time for complacency.

I have no doubt that as long as the demonization of Israel continues, so will the rise in anti-Semitism. I have said before, I have no problem when people criticize actions taken by the government of Israel in a manner they would use to criticise actions taken by their own or any other government. Unfortunately, that is not what we are seeing. The incidents at two universities this week are just the latest examples of an irrational, bitter hatred for, and obsession with Israel alone that so far as I am aware is unprecedented in history. And as long as that continues, Jews cannot feel totally safe anywhere. Less than seventy years after the horrors of the second World war, that is a shocking state of affairs.

1 Comment | Anti-Semitism, History, Israel, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barry Kester

The Nonsensical Mansion Tax

February 17, 2013

A friend of mine who sadly passed away a few years ago proudly boasted that he never let the truth get in the way of a good story. I am reminded of this today as I see the Labour Party’s latest piece of populism. I am referring of course to the proposed mansion tax.

The stated purpose of this latest wheeze is to fund a re-introduction of the 10% tax rate. It is to be introduced on homes worth £2 million or more. It is a very silly idea and I will tell you why.

First of all, it is a basic principle of taxation that it should be fair. One of the reasons that the recent child benefit changes have been so unpopular is the obvious lack of fairness in a system where a family with one member earning £90,000 loses out whilst another family with two members each earning £45,000 does not.

The proposed mansion tax is equally unfair because one family can be living in a single property now worth £2 million and will have to pay the tax, whilst another family which has built up a portfolio of say four £500,000 properties will not.

What makes it even worse is the fact that it will not even come close to achieving its stated purpose.

At the level suggested it is estimated by the Treasury that the tax will bring in £2 billion. To bring back the 10p tax rate, again according to Treasury estimates, will cost £7 billion. You do not have to be a brilliant mathematician to see that leaves a £5 billion shortfall about which there has been a suspicious silence. No doubt at some stage, in a replay of their scorched earth policies when Gordon Brown was in charge, the Milliband/Balls duo will seek yet more ways to tax the wealth creators and to mortgage our children’s future with still more borrowing. Forget the inconvenient and incontrovertible truth that higher tax rates destroy the economy and actually produce less revenue for the exchequer. That will not stop Labour who never, ever learn the lessons of history.

Leave a Comment » | History, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barry Kester

The Inevitability of David Ward

January 26, 2013

The deeply distasteful comments made on his blog by Liberal MP David Ward are the inevitable consequence of the never-ending anti Israel narrative promoted by significant sections of the UK Media.

And not just the media. The BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) Movement singles out Israel, the Jewish state alone as the one evil country in the world worthy of its attention.

Hate preachers regularly visit our universities meaning Jewish students frequently have to endure a climate of antiSemitism. So bad has this situation become that last year at Edinburgh University, Daniel Taub the Israeli ambassador was shouted down and prevented from speaking amid cries of “From the river(Jordan) to the sea, Palestine will be free” and describing the ambassador as “a propagandist for an apartheid state.” Sadly, this was not an isolated incident. Other pro-Israel speakers have had talks interrupted or cancelled, always with cries describing Israel as a racist and/or apartheid state.

Such casual misuse of language, particularly when it is repeated often enough, soon adds legitimacy to the lie, as the Nazis themselves well knew.

It matters not that across the Middle east, muslims kill each other almost on a daily basis. More than 60,000 have been killed in Syria in the last few months alone – more than have died in the entire Israel/Palestine conflict since 1948 – and the world barely bats an eyelid. But, should a single Palestinian die when Israel takes action to defend itself, then the world condemns, and Israel stands accused of using disproportionate force and countless other crimes.

It is hardly surprising therefore that in this frenzy of anti Israel hatred, anti-Semitism should flourish. Not that I believe there is any distinction between the two. Of course it is perfectly legitimate to criticize Israeli government policy and I often do so myself. But what is happening today goes way beyond that. No sane person would deny that there are far, far worse regimes around than Israel, regimes with histories of violence and human rights abuse that greatly exceed what is alleged to happen in Israel. Yet these regimes receive but a fraction of the criticism that Israel does. There are no BDS movements for them. Their representatives can visit our universities without fear of protest and their artists can perform in our theatres without interruption. There is no attempt to delegitimize these states or calls for them to be abolished. Only Israel is singled out for this treatment. So why the distinction? It can only be because Israel is the Jewish State.

And because of this poisonous atmosphere where Israel is concerned, newspapers feel free to publish tasteless cartoons that would not have been out-of-place in Der Sturmer; Otherwise respectable middle class English people feel free to disrupt concerts or theatre performances whenever Israelis come here to perform. References to the “Jewish Lobby” one of the oldest of anti-Semitic tropes, are common place. And MPs like David Ward, conscious of his large Muslim constituency see nothing wrong in equating the gas chambers and crematoria of Auschwitz with Israeli actions taken to defend itself against enemies who deny its right to exist. To say such moral equivalence is vile is to understate the case by a mile.

But make no mistake. Ward’s comments are nothing new. The only reason they have attracted such wide attention is because of the timing, coinciding as they do, with Holocaust Memorial Day. Otherwise, in the current climate, they probably would have passed un-noticed or indeed would have attracted silent nods of agreement from those who subscribe to the distorted view of Israel so prevalent today.

Leave a Comment » | History, Israel, Politics | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barry Kester

Why The Press Must Remain Free

December 3, 2012

Like everyone I have every sympathy with those private people such as the McCanns and the Dowlings whose lives were made still more intolerable by unscrupulous reporters. I totally understand their desire to see the recommendations contained in the Report by Lord Justice Leveson enacted in full. Where “celebrities” and politicians are concerned my sympathy is less easily given and their desire to see a “statutory underpinning” to press regulation I view with a healthy dose of scepticism.

I read newspapers; I view television; I use Twitter and read blogs. I can honestly say that scarcely a day goes by without my coming across an article or news report with which I profoundly disagree. Oftentimes those articles arouse in me a deep fury because I know them to be based upon falsehoods or half-truths; they can be horribly biased, they can be hurtful and even racist. But the right of an individual to express his views, no matter how much I or anyone else might oppose them is fundamental. Free speech is the oxygen that gives life to democracy and we tamper with it at our peril. A free press of course is an essential manifestation of free speech.

That does not mean that Leveson should be ignored. Improvements in the way the press is regulated can and should be made. Legislation, however is not the way to proceed and I offer one simple reason why I say that.

A couple of weeks ago we heard about the case of the foster parents in Rotherham who had three sibling children removed from their care for no other reason than the fact that they were members of UKIP, a political party that favours British withdrawal from Europe, a view shared by a majority of the population. The three children sadly, have now been placed in separate foster homes. The decision to remove them from a home where they were very happy was a political one, made by employees of a Labour run council who find UKIP’s policies distasteful. This is what happens when politically motivated people in positions of authority take it upon themselves to interpret the law according to their political beliefs.

Any statutory body that is established to “underpin” press regulation will be filled with political appointees and that single fact should be sufficient reason for anyone who cares about free speech to run a mile from any suggestion of statutory control. For if a council can decide that membership of a mainstream political party is grounds for being considered unsuitable to be a foster parent, just imagine what havoc politicians might wreak if they controlled our press.

Leave a Comment » | Politics | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Barry Kester

BBC

November 18, 2012

The crisis at the BBC has been a long time coming and it will take far more than the resignation of George Entwistle to resolve it. That is because there is much more wrong at the BBC than just the problems highlighted by the Newsnight failings.

Those failings have caused many people to wonder if they can trust the BBC, an organisation that once was a byword for integrity and honest reporting. The reality is however that for a long time now, its integrity and truthfulness have been in doubt.

Throughout the 1980s it became apparent that the BBC was not just reporting the news in the impartial manner that its Charter required; rather it had begun “spinning” stories, slanting them to reflect the leftist viewpoint that was becoming the dominant force throughout the organisation. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the BBC was becoming the broadcasting wing of the Guardian, the left of centre newspaper that is now virtually required reading if you wanted to get ahead.

For me, the moment that proved that the BBC had lost all moral authority, was the infamous Question Time programme broadcast on 13th September 2001, two days after the 9/11 attacks.
For an hour, a former US ambassador had to endure an astonishing outpouring of vitriol from an audience that insisted that America had it coming and had got its just desserts. I know I was not alone in being reduced to tears of shame at what I was witnessing on my television screen that night.

One might have thought that after that debacle, the BBC would have taken a long, cold, hard look at itself to assess where it went wrong. But that would have been expecting too much. Such is the arrogance of the organisation and so in thrall to the leftist world view had it become, that no-one working there could see any need for change. Indeed, in the years since, that view has become even more entrenched along with the assumption that it is too big and too important for any outside body to interfere with how it is run.

But with an annual income, forcibly extracted from every household in the land of £3.6 billion, the need for greater accountability has never been clearer. The new Charter, which came into force in 2007 and which created the BBC Trust to replace the former Board of Governors, was supposed to have provided that, but so far, with little visible success. The obsession with political correctness, the left of centre viewpoint still dominate the Corporation’s output; and not just the news but can be seen in drama and entertainment programmes too.

And as time goes by, the BBC becomes ever bolder in the way it pushes its agenda. At times I feel it does not even try to pretend any more that it is even-handed. Some BBC people even admit it. Thus, Andrew Marr. “The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities, and gay people. It has a liberal bias, not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.” What Marr does not say of course, is that as the Corporation has grown, the staffing profile he has highlighted becomes self-perpetuating, as not unnaturally, newcomers reflect the preferences of those employing them. Walk into a job interview carrying a copy of the Daily Telegraph and you will be out of the door in 5 minutes. If on the other hand you are carrying the Guardian, sign here please.

Today, the BBC’s position can be summed up as follows. It is pro Labour, Pro Europe, pro Green and obsessively politically correct. It is Anti Tory, Anti America, (except Obama of course,) anti Markets and above all, anti Israel. Indeed such is its hostility to Israel that to date it has spent in excess of £300,000 of licence fee income to prevent the publication of the Balen report which looked into its anti-Israel bias in the reporting of the Middle East conflict. If they had nothing to hide, why go to such extremes to keep the report under wraps? Even as I am writing this blog, I can see numerous examples of that bias in its reporting of the current crisis in Israel/Gaza.

There is a unique opportunity now, as several new enquiries get underway following the Newsnight disasters, for a complete overhaul of the organisation. If these enquiries concentrate just on those programmes’ failings, that would be a tragic waste. What needs to happen is that no aspect of the way the BBC is run should fail to be put under the microscope. Its funding. Is there a place in the 21st century for a broadcaster funded by a mandatory levy on the public? Its vastly overblown management structure. How is that going to be reduced as it must be when budgets everywhere are being cut. The services it provides – is there for instance still a need for Radio 1 when commercial broadcasters provide exactly the same service? Should it concentrate mainly on providing the cultural, educational programming as envisioned in its Charter? How is it to deal with the impartiality issue so essential to regaining the public’s trust? These, and no doubt there are others I have left out, are the issues that have to be considered.

I have been severely critical of the BBC for a number of years, primarily because of its blatant bias. However, at the same time, I recognise that there is much that it is quite superb at doing. Its coverage of the recent Olympics springs immediately to mind. I want to see it continuing to do those good things, but at the same time, I want to see it stop doing the very bad things. That will only happen if we fully grasp the opportunity that is now upon us.

1 Comment | BBC, Israel, Politics | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Barry Kester

« Previous Entries