BBC MIDEAST CORRESPONDENT: "ISRAEL CONTROLS BRITISH GOVERNMENT"

BBC Mideast Correspondent Drops the Mask (LGF)
Former BBC Middle East correspondent Tim Llewellyn gave an interview to ElectronicIntifada in which he excuses Syria’s occupation of Lebanon, offers up an incredibly twisted rationalization of suicide bombing ...

I then asked Llewellyn about the media’s fascination with the “suicide bomber” and of BBC reporting in general. I asked him whether he thought it would be a good idea if more BBC correspondents actually lived with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza; in Nablus, Ramallah and Bethlehem for example, rather then in West Jerusalem.

“The problem with suicide bombings ... it’s never been explained properly, as to why it happens and what provokes them, because people are afraid that if they try to do that - and you have the example of Jenny Tonge (and it might be added Mrs. Blair) - they are condoning them (Jenny Tonge is a British politician with the Liberal democrats). And again, we come back to the ‘war on terror’; that people are very nervous about saying anything that could possibly be construed as advocating blowing up civilians. This isn’t to say that it is a good idea or that it’s never helped the Palestinians in the long run, but again it’s the lack of context of why these things happen and the profiles of the people that do them. Quite often people that carry out these acts are people who have suffered at the hands of the Israeli occupation in the most ghastly circumstances. But we don’t hear that side of the story, certainly not in the BBC’s or ITV’s main news bulletin. The contexts of these attacks are terribly important ... I think the Western media, because they are based in Jerusalem, tend to see the things from the Israeli side. The violence becomes something the Israelis can capitalize on ...”

... and insinuates that Israel controls the British government:

In conclusion Llewellyn informed me of what he thought was a grave development in British institutional journalism: the issue of self-censorship.

“I think what is happening in this country, especially in our institutional broadcasting, is that there is a kind of insidious self-censorship going on. In other words, people pre-think, what they think, might upset other influential institutions. Whether it is the Israelis or the British Government or the Board of Governors or whatever ...They do a censorship job before it has to be done by someone else”.