Crash But Not Burn

It felt a little like déjà vu on Thursday night.  My mind was transported back to February 2003 when the whole of Israel waited with baited breath as the Space Shuttle Columbia re-entered the earth's atmosphere with the very first ever Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon on board.  Despite feeling immense pride at the amazing achievements made by a tiny country and its first astronaut, the day was not to end well.  The space shuttle burned up during its re-entry to the atmosphere killing all on board in the process.  Ilan Ramon's memory remains a folk legend in Israel.  And so, too, there was disaster last night as Beresheet, Israel's first ever lunar craft, made its final approach to the Sea of Serenity.  Unfortunately another failure along Israel's route to becoming a superstar country in the area of space travel and exploration.  The quest to become only the world's fourth country to safely land a craft on the moon was not achieved yesterday by the Israeli lunar lander.

In spite of another setback for Israel in the field of space exploration, there were so many positive things that came out of Beresheet's trip to the moon that it is really difficult to see it as a failure at all.  Coming at the end of a week that also saw a general election that proved to be very divisive in many respects, it was heart-warming to see how the country and the Jewish world united in support of Beresheet.  Willing it to safely land on the surface of the moon.  Willing Israel to take up an important place as one of the handful of nations to achieve this.  This unified support was in such contrast to the previous few days over the period of the election, and would have seemed impossible only two or three days earlier.  This extended not only to those in Israel, but to Jews around the world.  We could feel a real sense of support from Jews around the world during the time of this project, something that is not taken for granted at all.

The fact that Israel became only the seventh nation on earth to send a spacecraft into orbit around the moon, is a huge achievement in itself.  And this was the very first project not sponsored by a national government, making the achievement quite unique.  This is a great response to those who use every opportunity to criticise Israel and to those who wish to destroy her.  This is the way to answer those who accuse Israel of being an apartheid state, and to demonstrate to BDS and its supporters that there is tremendous depth to Israeli ingenuity and huge desire to develop, to build and to make a real difference in science, technology and other fields.  This is the way to show that the Israel that is seen on BBC and CNN and that is castigated at the UNHRC, is not the real face of Israel.  Beresheet is a much truer face and a fairer reflection of what Israel really stands for and what she is truly about.  This shows Israel to be a nation that builds rather than destroying, and this stands in stark contrast to the lack of any positive achievements by many of Israel's enemies.

The attention that this project has drawn to the field of space travel and space exploration in Israel is almost on the scale of the attention drawn to it by Ilan Ramon and his exploits.  Surely, the interest of the next generation is almost assured in the process.  In spite of the slip-up at the final hurdle, young Israelis have been excited by this story sufficiently to ensure that they will be seeking ways of succeeding where Beresheet failed.  In the same way that we did not hear the last of Ilan Ramon when Columbia disintegrated and  he went on to become a household name and a legend, I am sure that we have not heard the end of an Israeli lunar landing.  It seems not to be coincidental that the name chosen for the spacecraft was Beresheet, the first word in the Torah with the meaning of "in the beginning".  Just as the name signifies, this seems to be just the beginning of great things to come.

Huge credit needs to go to the SpaceIL team, to sponsor and president Morris Kahn and to all those involved in the project.  They gave Israel and Israelis a dream and something around which to unite and feel proud.  And they gave thousands of Israeli children the little flame to ignite their interest and their desire and determination to ultimately succeed in the quest to have Israel successfully land on the moon.  This is a huge achievement and a very positive island in a huge sea of negativity that often surrounds Israel.

The Israeli flag and the Torah are on the moon.  They landed there with a crash rather than in the elegant way that we would have preferred.  But they are there to stay.  They may have crashed, but they did not burn.  A marker has been established, and this is certainly not the last that we will hear of Israeli ventures in space.  It is just the beginning.

The BBC Has Not Suddenly Become Pro-Israel

Israel's relationship with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has been tenuous to say the least. The BBC has been accused in the past by Israel and Israelis of adopting an anti-Israel stand at every opportunity. This attitude, it seems, is a simple extension of the view adopted by the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office which has always had a strong bias towards the Arab world. This view has not lived well alongside any support for Israel, and the Arabists have always seemed to have the upper hand in dictating the foreign office's policies in the Middle East, and its general attitude towards Israel.

As one of the best-known broadcasting corporations in the world and one of the premier international news organisations, it was always expected that the BBC would retain impartiality and report the news including all relevant facts and without bias. Israelis have long felt that this impartiality has not been exercised when reporting news about Israel. Somehow, the BBC has succeeded in omitting critical relevant facts in relation to a story, or misreported information which always serve to present Israel in a more negative light. Israelis became fed up with this situation a few years ago, and began turning off the BBC news channel from their TV sets. Appeals to have the BBC news channel removed entirely from the channels offered by cable and satellite TV providers in Israel were unsuccessful, but it is safe to say that this news channel has far fewer Israeli viewers today than it had a few years ago. This is despite the fact that Israelis are avid news watchers and do like to keep up to date with international events.

Against this background, the BBC aired a program on Monday 16th August 2010 covering the Gaza flotilla raid. The report was broadcast on the BBC's documentary program Panorama. As a general rule, Panorama has a good name for its ability to research matters in some depth, and get to the bottom of issues that others may not dare to investigate. It is a long-running BBC flagship weekly program with a solid reputation. Israel's own history with Panorama reflects its overall relationship with the BBC. The last time Israel was covered on Panorama was in January 2010 when Panorama ran a documentary about tensions in East Jerusalem in the area near to the old city. In that program, BBC reporter Jane Corbin succeeded in promoting a one-sided and biased agenda, showing a distortion of Jewish history and Jewish rights to Jerusalem. So when it became clear that "Death on the Med", Panorama's investigation into the Gaza flotilla raid would again be presented by Jane Corbin, expectations were low. This was especially the case when considering the way in which Israel has been roundly criticised in the international media for the events of the Gaza flotilla raid which left nine Turkish activists dead.

The Panorama program featuring Jane Corbin's reporting has surprised us all, and may even cause one or two Israelis to give the BBC a second thought. The program succeeded in giving a "warts and all" insight into the IHH, the organisation that sponsored the Gaza flotilla, and into Israel's elite Naval Command 13 that had the responsibility to take over the flotilla to prevent it from entering the waters of Gaza. Interviews were undertaken with activists who were on the ship, and exclusive footage was shown which has reinforced the Israeli Navy's claim that not all those aboard the Mavi Marmara were simply peace activists. In addition, exclusive interviews were conducted with some of the IDF commandos involved in the raid about their experiences of events once they went aboard the Mavi Marmara. These interviews were backed up with new footage from the IDF showing events on that fateful night, as well as exclusive interviews with Major General (retired) Giora Eiland, who was responsible for the IDF investigation into the raid. He was open about sharing his conclusions regarding the raid, and revealed areas where he feels the IDF went wrong. He was also happy to share his views about the scene that greeted the naval commandos when they boarded the ships, and the limited choices available to them to save themselves from being lynched.

Jane Corbin's conclusions in Death on the Med were clear. The Mavi Marmara was not simply a ship that was being used to bring supplies to the unfortunate residents of Gaza. Rather, it was used a political tool to confront and embarrass Israel. A group of approximately forty of the activists on board the ship were shown as being ready to resort to violence, and were prepared to use weapons to achieve this. When Jane examined the goods that were brought by the Gaza flotilla, many of which are still stored in a warehouse in Gaza, two thirds of the medicines that were offloaded were found to be beyond their expiry date.

As can be expected, the anti-Israel lobby went into action to criticise the BBC for the program. Numerous accusations were levelled in justification of this criticism. The fact that Jane focused only on events that took place on the Mavi Marmara, and not on any of the other 6 ships in the flotilla, was found to be unjustified. The BBC was even criticised for having the "audacity" to broadcast the program during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and at a time in the evening that many Muslims would not see it due to the fact that they would be breaking their daily fast. When the BBC was critical of Israel, the Muslim lobby felt satisfied that it represented their views. Now that it has finally shown the real truth behind the Gaza flotilla, it comes under heavy Muslim criticism. Perhaps the fact that the usually anti-Israel BBC has concluded that the Gaza flotilla was not really an attempt to help the people of Gaza has finally exposed the real truth.

Whatever the conclusions in Death on the Med, I would not yet be jumping to conclusions regarding the BBC's general approach to Israel. I am not yet of the view that the BBC has suddenly adopted a pro-Israel bias. The truth is that I am not asking that the BBC go out of its way to be pro-Israeli. All I ask is that the BBC presents all the relevant facts in an unbiased and professional way. It is my belief that doing this will mostly show Israel to be doing its best to defend herself from those wishing to destroy her, and acting in a fair and humanitarian way even towards her enemies despite all that she is forced to tolerate. If the BBC was fair in its reporting, it would add that no country in our day and age should have to tolerate having its right to exist questioned, or to have to endure missile attacks on its innocent civilians on a daily basis.

No matter what it has broadcast in the past, or what it may broadcast in the future, the BBC deserves kudos for Death on the Med. The jury, however, is still out regarding the BBC's overall approach to Israel.

Death on the Med is definitely worth viewing. It is available on YouTube in two parts below.