My 2 BBC Interviews This Week

Capturebbc1So I (Uri Gobey) was called up by the BBC to do a quick interview with them, regarding the situation in Gaza and how my life has been here in Israel during this time. I was told that there will be a resident from Gaza who will also have his say and then I would have mine.

The first interview by BBC Radio 5 started off with a so-called resident of Gaza, who has perfect English and who was coached to say specific things, rambling on about Israel and all the people that are being “genocided” by the Israeli military. That just ticked me off but it was an obvious piece of bait that cannot just be left alone. It never ceases to amaze me how much garbage they can come up with, while abusing powerful words in the English language to paint a not-so-pretty picture. When you take a step back and put Syria next to them, it makes Gaza look like a walk in the park. Genocide? I think not.

Well I did what I could in the very short time the interviewer gave me but then I was abruptly cut off, even though the person before me had more time it seemed. It was clear that they weren’t really in interested in my side of things but it was expected of them in the first place.

The very same day, BBC World Service called me and asked me to do an interview with them the next day. I accepted and was told the same thing as the previous interview but what took place was a whole other story. I knew it would be a set-up but I didn’t think they would stoop so low…(that was sarcastic, of course I know they would stoop this low). There was supposed to be another, or the same, Gaza resident on the other end of the call who would give his say and then I would also. They told me this call would be a live broadcast and well it was from my end but from the Gaza end they decided to put on a pre-recorded message from the day before of a BBC reporter at the site of a hospital which the IDF hit due to it being a hotbed for terrorist activity. They then moved over to my side of things with the intention of showing a completely off balance, and out-of-context comparison of the specific situation that happened the day before in Gaza and the current situation I was in at the time of the call. At the time of the call there were no rockets or sirens, so it would seem as though all is fine and dandy in Israel while mayhem is striking in Gaza. I found this cheap move pathetic and so instantly called them out on it. Some have said that I shouldn’t have but I did what I did. I then continued to describe the reality of mayhem that we have to live under. She seemed quite surprised that not everyone has a bomb shelter in Israel.

I have no issue with being put into this situation, I can handle it fine but it was a deliberate dirty trick to make me believe that it would just be a fair one-on-one, giving our input on life where we live at the moment but they really showed how dirty they can be. They do this so the audience is swayed to feel for the Gazans but feel nothing for Israelis.

The same day of the 2nd interview, they called me again for a 3rd interview, but this time I told them I am not interested due to the way they set me up by making me believe it would be the same as the first one. I have no interest in being a pawn for the BBC or any other anti-Israeli mass media who only gives a person 1 minute to try an explain an impossible situation while deliberately playing games with people’s thoughts. However, if they had to call me for a proper 30 minute debate live on air, I would not reject it, that would be a lot more worth it.

25 thoughts on “My 2 BBC Interviews This Week”

  1. To be fair, I counted seconds in the first interview. You and your Gazan opponent both had almost exactly 80 seconds. But the BBC is indefensible; they treat Hamas’s number of casualties as authoritative, and they don’t even report on the mass Jew hatred protests going on in Britain and Europe today.

  2. Norman_In_New_York

    This comes as absolutely no surprise. Honest Reporting has been calling out the BBC for a dozen years. It is also why parties to a legal action are instructed to keep their mouths shut and let their attorneys do the talking for them.

  3. Actually, I think you did pretty well – especially in the second interview. The ‘Gazan’ of the first interview was obviously a propagandist plant – wouldn’t be at all surprised if he was recorded in London.

    By enabling Arabs lies and propaganda, the BBC, and others like them, have aided and abetted Hamas in its ghoulish pursuit of Genocide agains the Jews of Israel. It is this heavily biased media support that has engendered the Hamas ‘strategy’ of hiding behind human shields – women, children, the aged, hospitals, and of course UNRWA schools…

    Hamas and their patron the BBC are both guilty of a war-crime.

  4. The real kicker here is that you have now earned the lifetime hatred of one Richard Silverstein. He, a world famous journalist, Middle East Expert, knower of all things, a repairer of the world and he doesn’t even get ONE BBC interview, and you get 2, and even decline the 3rd? What kind of world do we live in?

    1. You were FANTASTIC in the second interview, even though you were interrupted and she tried very hard to direct the conversation to match their narrative.

      Very well done avoiding that.

    2. Probably would have been rude to point out that Yavne was a Jewish cultural center since the Bronze Age

  5. I think you were great in the second interview, and I think it was important to remind people that it’s not Israeli soldiers against civilians of Gaza, that the whole time Hamas is firing on Israeli civilians. You were definitely right to call her out on setting it up. It’s only a shame that it wasn’t clear that the recording was from the previous day and not live (as it is when you wrote it), and that she got away with haughtily denying it.

  6. Uri, You did well, I am originally from Israel but have lived in London
    since i was 21 , I am now 58.

    the media here are terrible when it comes to Israel .
    The worst one I have seen is from channel 4
    the presenter is Jon Snow he interviewed Mark Regev the other day

    (and not for the first time) and his attitude was so aggressive and vitriolic. the reporter from Gaza was a Jonathan Miller who was determined to show as many dead children as possible without providing any context ( nothing must stop the narrative of
    Israel agressor Palestinian victim. By the way Mark Regev was not good.

  7. ruth rosenstock

    the US media isn’t much better. even Fox has been seduced by the propaganda pix of injured Palestinian children. nobody seems to understand that if it wasn’t for Iron Dome, thousands of Israelis would be dead.

    they seem to want us Jews to apologize for not dying. let’s not do that.

    oh, and btw to our Israeli friends:

    a big apology from all of us in America for John Kerry. we’re really sorry he’s back over there being irritating and talking out of both sides of his mouth. please do your best to ignore him, and do what you need to do to take care of your country.

  8. Yes you dealt with the interviews (particularly the 2nd one) pretty well.

    As a regular listener to the BBC’s output I have to say that they usually get things right. Radio5 live is a talk station and the vic Derbyshire show is mainly a ‘human interest’ show that masks itself as a news and comment show and Derbyshire herself has a track record of interrupting contributors constantly to clarify (where non is required) to the annoyance of listeners i.e. she treats her listeners as idiots. And she is getting replaced soon anyway.

    The BBC doesnt do op ed type pieces and has to provide both poits of view in conflicts. However some of the BBC’s output has now been outsourced to cut costs. This makes some shows susceptible to bias and undue influence from producers and editors from private production companies with an agenda.

    Its one of the biggest media corporations on the planet churning out TV and radio 24/7 in dozens of languages and occasionally fails to come up to standard. Just last week there where demonstrations against the BBC’s coverage of the Gazan conflict by left wing and Islamist supporters of the Palistinians claiming it Zionist propaganda..!!!!

  9. I’ve only just gotten around to listening to your recordings Uri, and I agree with the others. You were excellent in both but that second interview was outstanding! Kol hakavod.

    Has this been sent to Bbc Watch?

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