pro-Palestine campaign complains to BBC

Auntie Beeb

I have never really found the BBC overtly anti-Israel. Having attended many a pro-Palestinian meeting I always hear them moan about how anti-Palestinian Auntie is.

And despite the recent Panorama with Jane Corbin the BBC has given Israel’s relief team to Haiti incredible coverage, as have Sky and CNN. No one has quite believed how Israel got to the disaster zone of Haiti so quickly and set up a field hospital so efficiently and before anyone else, including the Americans.

And then there was the recent Newsnight with Tim Collins taking a walk through Sderot and Gaza in order to give his own experienced military perspective on how certain disputed deaths might have been caused and mosques destroyed. He totally found in Israel’s favour.

Colonel Tim Collins (militaryprofs)

I just received a copy of this complaint below to Auntie from the pro-Palestine campaign (some might even call it a “lobby”). It is a fascinating read. The most fascinating part is the letter’s allusion to Micky Rosenfeld, Israel’s police spokesman (aka Mickey Roosevelt apparently) as being “‘from North London'”.

Whatever could they mean by repeating such a meaningless fact? Answers on a postcard please.

But at least the BBC tries its very best to aggravate both sides equally:  

Newsnight Tuesday 19th January 2010 complaint to BBCShare

I was repelled by the ‘Newsnight” segment featuring Colonel Tim Collins on
Tuesday night. He was on an obvious mission to justify the Israeli massacre in
Gaza that occurred a year ago.

Given the BBC’s callous refusal to publicise The
DEC appeal that followed this inhuman and, universally acknowledged,
disproportionate attack, it is astonishing that you would follow this up with a
downright justification of Israel’s horrific war crimes.

The BBC’S claim to impartiality has been completely discredited by this sequence of events.
Colonel Collins, who has been compared to a character out of ‘Apocalypse Now,’
made no effort to make sense of the numbers of deaths involved: 13 Israelis
(four of those were ‘friendly fire’, 1,400 Palestinians, involving hundreds of
civilians, including women and children.

Instead, he seemed unmoved by the evidence in front of him and chose only to see Hamas posters and interview the
usual suspects in their ‘lair’ with an arsenal consisting of homemade rockets.
At Sderot, his guide was Mickey Roosevelt, ‘from North London’ who showed
Colonel Collins the rockets collected since 2000 which have caused so little
damage.

Micky "Roosevelt" Rosenfeld (flickr.com/rinatush)

He was not taken to review Israel’s arsenal of F16s, nuclear weapons,
phosphorous bombs and all the other paraphanalia of the world’s fourth largest
army. It was as if Israel was the unarmed victim, living in fear of having homes
demolished, schools flattened and hundreds of civilians slaughtered.

The programme presented a complete distortion of the facts and made no attempt
to inform, provide context, or even the slightest attempt at impartiality.
Colonel Collins is well-known for his gung-ho speeches (‘show them no mercy’,
‘we are their nemesis’) and boasts of his war record in the most brutal military
interventions of the past decades. ‘Not as bad as Faluja,’ he commented, eyeing
a flattened mosque.

He claimed to have found proof of weapons having been stored
in the crypt of this building, but there was no evidence shown on camera.
As he toured the region in an Israeli-piloted helicopter, he flew over Qalqilya,
one of the Palestinian towns most grievously affected by Israel’s apartheid
wall. ‘It’s to protect the main road,’ said the pilot, speaking of an
Israeli-only road built on stolen Palestinian land.

Given the BBC’s complete blanking of the recent VivaPalestina Convoy, the Gaza
Freedom March, and other efforts by civil society humanitarian activists from
around the world, the programme takes on a special meaning.

The depth of the BBC’s bias is demonstrated across the entire output of your programming and not
only by the skewed nature of this particular item on ‘Newsnight.’

The Shame of the pro-Palestinian campaign

Palestinian flag

Imagine for one moment that the nasty Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) supported by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and all of its supporters was a success. Israeli industry would be on the verge of bankruptcy and all of the innovations and inventions that are constantly discovered by Israeli scientists would not be discovered for lack of funding and investment.

Like, for example, the Camera in a Pill that travels through the digestive tract sending back photographs of the intestines in someone’s body. There is now no need to use cables that are passed into the digestive system through the nose or mouth and which would normally require a patient to be sedated. Patients can now carry on their normal lives while a diagnosis of their condition can take place. All they need do is swallow the “Camera Pill” which is then excreted out after the 24 to 48 hours that the pill takes to go through the digestive system.

You only have to glance briefly at www.israel21c.org to see the range of innovations produced by Israeli scientists that seek to improve people’s lives. The many innovations include using music therapy to help deaf and hearing-impaired toddlers, developing alternative energy sources such as solar and hydro power and an Iphone App for finding free Parking in New York.

Yet, a successful boycott, particularly an academic boycott, would stop all this development in its tracks. One of the main aims of the sanctions is to “cut off trade and investments“. If an academic boycott succeeded then Israeli scientists would not be able to consult with international scientists over crucial developments.

And then there is Haiti. It could not have escaped anyone’s notice that the reports on Sky and the BBC have focused mainly on the Israeli rescue team. The pictures and footage coming from this tragedy are too much to bear but Israel is doing its best to save those buried under the buildings and still just about alive.

As soon as the quake struck last tuesday Israel prepared to dispatch a 220 man team on two El Al planes. The entourage brought with them a field hospital that can serve 500 patients a day and includes 40 doctors, 25 nurses, a children’s ward and an intensive care unit.

Sanctions would have seriously reduced the effectiveness of Israel’s ability to save these lives. The rescue mission should impress on the Palestinians that Israel would go anywhere in the world to improve conditions and health, even as far as Gaza!

The Israeli, British and all the teams are heroes for putting their lives at risk by going into terribly insecure buildings which could collapse any moment especially if the expected aftershocks occur.

Even the church has not been immune from the ignorance. It recently divested from Caterpillar on the basis that Israel uses its bulldozes to demolish illegal Palestinian homes. The church made a recent ineffectual gesture by dumping its shares in Caterpillar even though Caterpillar could now be playing a crucial role in helping Israel’s rescue mission by using its equipment to move swathes of rubble to get to the dead and dying.

But even as Israel does good the anti-Israel brigade will again attempt stir up an audience against Israel. In London tomorrow night there is an anti-Israel meeting. It is at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square from 7pm till 9pm.

You would hope that for one night the whole event could be turned into a “Help Haiti” evening. The hostilities against Israel could be resumed once every thing has been done to rescue Haitians.

The combined passion, intelligence and power of these people could be used to such positve effect, instead it will be wasted as Israel once again becomes the target:

Dr Karma Nabulsi, Oxford University

Bruce Kent, Vice President Pax Christi

Sir Gerald Kaufman MP – Just returned from Gaza

Phyllis Starkey MP

Lowkey

George Galloway MP

Alison Shepherd, UNISON

Daud Abdullah, Middel East Monitor

Jeremy Corbyn MP

Kate Hudson, Chair CND

Alexei Sayle

Richard Burden MP

Joseph Healey, The Green Party

Lindsey German, Stop the War Coalition

Hugh Lanning, Deputy General Secretary PCS

Anas Altikriti, BMI

Ismael patel, Friends of Al Aqsa