UK News
Insights from the UK and beyond
from AxisMundi Jerusalem:
Tony Blair assailed at a Palestinian mosque
Tony Blair, the Middle East envoy for the "Quartet" of powers - the European Union, the United States, Russia and the United Nations, was assailed by a Palestinian man during a visit to a mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron on Tuesday.
"You are terrorism," the man shouted as guards tried to cover his mouth. "He is not welcome in the land of Palestine."
Blair did not appear to be shaken. He told reporters most Palestinians and Israelis want a peaceful resolution to the conflict. "Frankly it's not protests that will do that. It's patient negotiation," he added.
Read more about the incident and why many Arabs don't like the former British prime minister here.
Click below to watch the incident, filmed live at the ancient mosque of Hebron on October 20, 2009:
PHOTO: Middle East envoy Tony Blair passes through an Israeli checkpoint during his visit to the West Bank city of Hebron October 20, 2009. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun
BBC – taking a stand on Gaza
The BBC has been roundly condemned at home for its refusal to broadcast an emergency appeal for Gaza on behalf of the Disasters Emergency Committee, a coalition of 13 aid agencies.
It says it does not want to be seen to be taking sides in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and that broadcasting the appeal could jeopardise its carefully cultivated position of impartiality. Sky News has followed suit.
But criticism has been fierce, including from the government and the Church of England.
The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, has accused the BBC of “taking sides”. He said on Friday: “This is not a row about impartiality but rather about humanity.
Former BBC foreign correspondent Martin Bell said the BBC should admit it had made a mistake. He claimed “a culture of timidity had crept” into the corporation. “I am completely appalled,” he said. “It is a grave humanitarian crisis and the people who are suffering are children. They have been caught out on this question of balance.”
BBC Director-General Mark Thompson said: “Inevitably an appeal would use pictures which are the same or similar to those we would be using in our news programmes but would do so with the objective of encouraging public donations. The danger for the BBC is that this could be interpreted as taking a political stance on an ongoing story.”
What do you think? Are Sky and the BBC being too cautious or do they have a point?
I think that the behind-the-scenes reason for this decision by the BBC, which is so contrary to its usual tear-jerking brand of broadcasting, is probably that it has drawn a lot of private but high-powered criticism about its one-sided coverage of the recent action and its editorial bias against Israel.
Having decided to withdraw to the bunker of “impartiality” it has, in true big corporation style, gone into headless chicken mode and chosen the wrong issue on which to make a stand.
For Thompson to pretend that the BBC does not have a political stance on the Palestinian issue and many others is complete farce. As for Sentamu and the rest of the predictable gang who are complaining about the BBC’s new-found “impartiality”, their complaint is not about the high-minded “humanitarian issue”. It is simply that they are afraid of losing their traditional mouthpiece.
Brown outdone by Obama effect
Gordon Brown has not had the best of luck since replacing Tony Blair as British prime minister a year ago. Now it seems Brown’s bad luck has followed him overseas.
On a trip to Iraq and Israel this weekend, he had the misfortune to have U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama following hard on his heels — and grabbing the lion’s share of media attention.
Obama, who has pledged to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months if he wins the November election, arrived on Iraq on Monday, just two days after Brown’s whirlwind tour of Baghdad and Basra. He is due to arrive in Israel just hours after Brown’s plane took off on Monday to return to London.
Brown, known for his dour personality, could not compete in the charisma stakes with the senator from Illinois, the focus of intense interest as he makes his debut on the world stage with a tour of Europe, the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz, noting the lack of impact Brown’s visit had made in Israel, sympathised with the British leader. “Visiting Israel in the same week that Obama is expected to arrive is like being the opening act for The Beatles,” it said.
Obama fever has swept some of the countries he is due to visit as people there get a first close look at the politician who takes on Republican Senator John McCain in the race to succeed U.S. President George W. Bush in the White House.
Brown, on the other hand, has little novelty value because, while he is a relatively new prime minister, he spent a decade before that as finance minister and so is well known to many of the leaders and ministers he held talks with.
I tend to suffer from narcolepsy when he appears on TV. A recording of screaming pigs is less painful to hear than a Brown briefing
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The Wall
This honest and courageous Palestinian man speaks for all palestinians when he says Tony Blair (and the UK government) are terrorists.
Its a disgrace that the corrupt security men try to cover his mouth in his own country.
Blair has no business stepping foot on any Palestinian land. I recommend that he goes back to the UK and confess to all the crimes he has committed while in office including the mass murdering of millions of Iraqis, Afghanis, and Palestinians.
Blair and Abbas are both a disgrace to humanity!