Berlin

Actually that sort of illegal annexation of another country is the sort of thing that leads to anti semitism. I'd be anti anyone who decided to just build in my garden!
DH pointed out correctly that many Jewish people don't agree with what Israel is doing. Netanyahu doesn't speak for all Jews in the same way Sturgeon doesn't speak for all Scots.

I don't understand it either nor do I understand the attempts to label criticism of the Israeli government as anti-semitic, but that's what some groups try to do.

Apparently Trump has said that he'll reverse the US non-veto, so I fear for Palestine.

Palestine. Stupid predictive text. Stupid typist!

I'm not anti Semitic it just doesn't seem right. Palestinian is Palestinian so why set up all these Israeli settlements in what is another country? I don't understand why this is somehow OK to some people.

Careful Jane10! You'll be accused of being anti-semitic. I agree with you and I think we're going to see trouble. I wonder if the UN will have the teeth to act.

@Ankers

Do you read Aljazeera? They have plenty, but I think even they are a bit wary, since some of their journalists were arrested - and, in some cases, condemned to death.

Some of the big news agencies and state media do send in war correspondents. However, investigative journalism has almost disappeared, not only for war stories, for financial reasons. Therefore, there is a reliance on second hand reporting and some media outlets are less vigilant about checking their sources.

Yesterday, the BBC was nearly half an hour behind other media on reporting the killing in Milan of the Berlin truck murderer. I wondered why. At first, I thought the BBC was asleep on the job, but then realised that other outlets were reporting unconfirmed sources. The BBC waited for the official announcement by the Italian authorities, which is why I would still trust rather than outfits such as Sky, which almost exclusively uses secondary reporting.

Many years ago, I worked for Reuters and we monitored how quickly we got out our big news stories and were always in competition with the other news agencies, so half an hour would have been frowned upon. However, we also used to monitor the source of the information and who confirmed stories. An official source could not be compared with 'Fred Bloggs said...'.

These days, the internet has completely changed the situation. News outlets rely on 'live' pictures from outsiders. These can be manipulated to show just one side of a story. Undoubtedly some pictures from the Middle East do just that. Moreover, some governments use doctored photos for their own propaganda and have sometimes been caught out using archived pictures from historic conflicts. This is what Farage did with his immigrant poster. He used a genuine photo, but accompanied it with an entirely different narrative.

I cant say I have seen her with weapons being used around her, but I could be wrong.

There dont seem to be the likes of Kate Adie, Jeremy Bowen and another woman journalist, and their crews of course, standing there while the action is happening, nowadays.
Their reports were invaluable. Plus the background reporting.

Where are the reports from Tunisia. Or Iraq or other middle eastern countries, from the ground? Regular news reports?

We seem to see quite a few reporters actually in wartorn countries on the BBC news. Lyse Doucet for example.
Looks like trouble ahead with the UN coming out against illegal Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory. I don't know why this is such an apparently contentious issue. Obviously I'm being naive but isn't it just plain unfair to the Palestinians?

I have read several times that reporters just dont go into wartorn countries and areas like they used to.
Often newspaper reports are merely written in London using reports from local people on the ground. Which is not the same thing at all.

Thinking about it,this could explain quite a lot.
If the world's media, or the west's doesnt really have much of a clue about what is really happening in areas of the middle east, how can

Governments make correct policies?
The ordinary people get a clear picture?
News of the area be very accurate?
Regional variations and thoughts and insight be taken into account?

Not that I blams reporters. I think that over the years, so many of their number have been lost, that they dont go now.

@Jalima

I agree that Western meddling with bombs and the need to sell arms has been partly responsible for the mess. Do you remember when people though that 'getting' Ghaddafi and Saddam Hussain was the target?

The kind of support ('meddling' if you like) would be much softer and more in line with what MOnica is suggesting. The British Council already operates in North Africa, offering advice for education projects, business and language course, etc.

I don't think we can wash our hands of the situation for young people in other countries by claiming that they have nothing to do with us. The British are relatively lucky, because we are made up of a number of islands, so a giant moat gives us some kind of protection. Mainland Europe isn't so lucky. Even without Schengen, it was possible to cross borders without going through checkpoints. Without building walls and having 30 metre 'no man's land areas' such as existed in Berlin before 1989, I don't see how that can be stopped.

It's not just a humanitarian issue, but we're now seeing that physical borders can't stop the spread of ideas. I don't think we can afford to hope the whole thing goes away. Along with other countries, we need to try and improve living conditions in other countries, so that people don't want to risk their lives to escape. The EU has a working group on the issues. Unfortunately, the UK will no longer be a part of that, just when European co-operation is needed more than ever.

Lillie, How could he have turned his life round? He had a criminal record in Tunisia, had been in an Italian prison for three and a half years. It sounds as though he had no qualifications or experience. From what I've read, he had no family outside Tunisia to support him. He was in Italy (and later Germany) illegally.

He couldn't have just turned up for a job interview, because he would have had nothing on his CV. He couldn't have earned money legally, so he fell into crime and was obviously influenced by radicalists.

This was the reality before September 2015, when Merkel opened Germany's borders. At least, the refugees are now in Germany legally and don't have to hide from the authorities (unless they are there illegally, of course). The genuine asylum seekers do now, at least, have some state support, including language classes.

I agree with you, MOnica. There isn't a quick fix.

ETA, the Basque separatist movement, has been held responsible for 829 deaths (according to Google).

West Germany had the Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Gang) throughout the 1970s. It's been claimed it was responsible for 34 deaths.

Could it not be Europe wasn't affected so little reporting of middle east and east?

Jalima - can you tell me what you think the point is of having a thread showing horror ? Wouldn't you rather seek a solution?

I was saying to my husband tonight that in the 60s and 70s there was none of this terrorism - on TV you would see there was IRA trouble, because it was reported, between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland but nothing on the scale of this.

I think in every society there are a group of young men who for a variety of reasons fail to thrive and fall into a marginalised group who turn to drugs and alcohol and then slip into petty crime to finance their lives. These young men are susceptible to the blandishments of organisations that offer simple nostrums and simple solutions to the problems of life.

That is why in England right wing racist organisations recruit mainly from young white men in this group, extreme Islamists recruit from this group within the Muslim community. It is why the IRA recruited so easily from the marginalised Irish catholics.

These organisations give these young men time and attention, some, like the Islamists and the IRA recruit them into an 'army'. Give them money and status. Our government needs to think more deeply about how to help these disaffected groups gain status and respect in their own eyes and the eyes of those around them. It needs to start in the schools but continue after they have left. Probably include focused work based training courses.

Yes, good post daphnedill.

Decades ago North Africans and blacks would join forces against the police or the state, but now they are divided by Islamic politics. I don't think meddling by the west created this state of affairs.

So if the truck man left Tunisia over six years ago he must have been very young arriving in Italy. Young enough to turn his life round and make himself a good future? But no. Maybe receiving some of these people into a different culture doesn't work and actually makes them more resentful and disaffected.

I meant to add that some do not want enlightenment for the masses or democracy.

I think what is going wrong is meddling by the west daphnedill although Tunisia was supposed to be the one success of the Arab Spring, was it not, or am I getting

A good Swiss name Anker, btw.

What do you mean by 'huge' proportionally to population- do you know.

Recent study in France show that many French estimate the % of Muslims in France to be up to 60% - when it is acutally 7.5%.

I'm blushing, Ankers.

@MOnica

Tunisia is usually recognised as the most enlightened of all the Middle East/North African countries. It has a a secular constitution and a fragile democracy. Nevertheless, it has a huge number of people signing up to IS. So what's going wrong?

I think we really need to understand what's happening at ground level, before we can stop terrorism.

Have you seen daphnedill's post? It was a good post.