British press sympathizes with Jew-killers

JNW News
British press sympathizes with Jew-killers
By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
February 19, 2004

Jerusalem (jnewswire.com) - The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and England's Sky News Thursday ran reports sympathetic to the "Palestinian" jihadist bombers who have mass-murdered hundreds of Jews over the last 11 years.

The BBC lionized disgraced MP Jenny Tonge, who was recently forced to relinquish her front-bench seat in the House of Commons after saying she might consider becoming a "suicide" bomber herself, and who subsequently intimated she thought these killers were "brave."

Simultaneously, Sky News played and replayed an "exclusive report" on a meeting between its Middle East correspondent and a "Palestinian" woman would-be jihadist bomber who is serving five years in an Israeli prison.

By trying to raise sympathy for the terrorists, both stations were following a century-old British tradition of pro-Arabism.

Disgraced MP

According to the BBC's website, its Radio 4 had invited Liberal Democrat MP Jenny Tonge to travel to Israel and the "West Bank" last week to meet with "families and victims of suicide bombers."

A month earlier, Tonge had lost her position as the party's spokesman for children after saying she understood "suicide" bombers motives and might consider becoming one if she had to live as the Palestinians do [sic].

She was given a page on the BBC website to share her experiences in the region.

Empathy, not sympathy

Referring to Judea and Samaria as "Palestine" - a nonexistent state - Tonge began by denying she had shown sympathy for and approval of "suicide" bombers.

Her statements had been "misinterpreted by the tabloids."

It had been "empathy" she said, trying to justify those feelings by challenging listeners to witness for themselves the contrast between the "affluent citizens" of modern Israel and "the third world of Palestine."

[Ed note: Tonge would have made a stronger case for the poor Palestinians had she compared them to their abundantly wealthy and notoriously corrupt leaders. Multi-storey mansions have sprouted all over Ramallah, Bethlehem, Gaza City and the other Palestinian population centers since 1993. By contrast, Israel's once-booming economy has been all but shattered, mainly as a result of the Palestinian-launched and perpetuated terrorist war against the Jewish state. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis live below the poverty line, and unemployment levels are at a record high.]

Tonge, for whom "the blame lies with both sides," appeared either unaware or dismissive of the fact that successive Israeli governments since 1993 have handed the Palestinians legitimacy, territory, political infrastructure, and security forces, together with ongoing employment for tens of thousands of "Palestinian" Arabs.

'Samson was first suicide attacker'

The crusading MP also compared "the disparity" between Israel's modern arsenal and the weaponry available to the "Palestinian" terrorist forces, as if the latter would use any weapons they could obtain for any reason other than driving the Jews out of "Palestine" and into the Mediterranean Sea.

"Someone has reminded me that Samson was the first suicide attacker," Tonge said, adding that she was taken to a "safe Christian house" to meet with Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terrorists.

Standing under a picture of Jesus, these Muslim murderers had lauded her expressions of "empathy" for their killers. "This was spine-chilling."

They told her "they now accepted that Israel had a right to exist and their campaign would stop when Israel withdrew to its 1967 borders, removed settlements and returned Jerusalem to the Palestinians."

This, Tonge raved, was "a different message from the one we have been used to."

She attempted to cast doubts on the widely verified fact that "Palestinian" schoolchildren are indoctrinated with a hatred of Israel. Such activities "didn't seem to apply here," she said, then went on to empathize yet again with the more than 150 Arabs who have chosen to kill Jews by blowing themselves up.

"It is certainly true that suicide bombers are regarded as national heroes here, but what else do they have - born out of despair and the desire to resist occupation, laced with religious belief," she asked.

Jewish babies, children, women and other civilians "are chosen because there is no way of getting at military targets."

Tonge expressed her incredulity at not being able to find Israelis who similarly sympathized with these Palestinian killers.

"The next day back in Israel [sic], I couldn't find anyone who was willing to see why the Palestinians resorted to suicide attacks," she said. "Some of the Israeli arguments had truth in them, but it was all so negative."

Unsurprisingly, the Briton rounded off her report with a transparent attempt to paint moral equivalency between an Israeli mother whose daughter was murdered by a woman "suicide" bomber," and a "Palestinian" mother whose son was killed by Israeli soldiers waging a war on terror. The Israeli mother was planning to meet with the Arab one.

"We know there are many such people in Israel and Palestine, fed up with the stupidity of their leaders," Tonge concluded triumphantly, clearly seeing no difference between PLO terrorist dictator Yasser Arafat and democratically elected Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Sky Special Report

From early Thursday morning to late in the afternoon, in its top news slot for a considerable part of the day, Sky News TV ran a "special report" on what it called a "new breed of militants" - "Palestinian" women bombers prepared to die for their cause.

Sky correspondent Emma Hurd had been given access to an Israeli prison holding "young Palestinian women whose smiling faces belie their crimes."

One of them was a "placid 27 year old," Obeida Khalil, who was serving a five-year sentence for planning to carry out a "suicide" attack.

"For me," Khalil said in Arabic, "all the Jews are soldiers and I wanted to kill as many as I could."

She had wanted to emulate the carnage caused by her own brother in a "suicide" attack in Tel Aviv, and had been "so happy" when she received her belt of explosives.

Speaking in a soft, lilting tones, Hurd said that seven Arab women had carried out "suicide" attacks in the past three years. The reporter listed what she believes to be the reasons why.

Poverty, frustration and religious zeal were the usual motives for such attacks, but at least some of these women had been "on the outside of society seeking respect."

One recent bomber, a mother of two small children, may have been sent to kill Jews because she had been caught committing adultery.

Hurd's report seemed designed to evoke sympathy and compassion for those who would mass murder Jews.

Closing her file, she allowed Khalil to voice her determination that, "As long as I am alive I will never leave the Jews alone, I will never let them live on my land."

"Next time, she warns," said Hurd, "the Israeli security services will not be able to stop her, she won't be taken alive."

British tradition

Both the BBC and Sky News have a long history of skewed reporting on the "Palestinian"-Israeli conflict.

Both organs subscribe to the Arab position that Israel has taken over "Palestinian lands" and that the "Palestinian" Arabs are freedom fighters seeking to drive out the occupiers.