Instead of Helping Implement the Proscription of Palestine
Action You Should Be Doing Your Best to Frustrate It - As Martin Luther King said:
Please note
the date is wrong but the link is correct.
It is
Friday 4 July 7.30 pm
Register Here
bit.ly/PalActionPlan
If you want to add your name to this Open Letter please let me know at azvsas@gmail.com
Monday 30 June, 2025
Dear
Ben Jamal,
I
write as one of the original founders of Palestine Solidarity Campaign although
I resigned in 2022 as a result of PSC’s abandonment of anti-Zionism in the new
Constitution which you supported.
I
have subsequently observed in wry amusement that you now claim to have been
anti-Zionist all along. However as long as you don’t call for the replacement of
a Jewish Supremacist state by a Unitary Democratic State
it is impossible to consider PSC anti-Zionist.
We
are living through the world’s first live streamed genocide in Gaza and the
fulfilment of Zionism’s Messianic End Times. US and British imperialism are
wedded to supporting Hitler’s
Bastard Offspring. Today when genocidal and exterminationist ideas are
commonplace in Israel and when nearly half of Israeli Jews support
exterminating the Palestinians of Gaza, the last thing we should do is retreat
in the face of government threats of proscription. Today the Nazi doctrine of
Death by Hunger is the official policy of the Israeli government.
Ben Jamal
Despite
the creation of a mass Palestine solidarity movement, both in Britain and
internationally, we have not been able to stop the Genocide. At best we have
been able to limit the carnage and force Zionism’s mafia bosses in Tel Aviv to
admit a bare minimum of aid.
PSC,
together with Stop the War Coalition and other groups, have organised
impressive demonstrations in London but by themselves theyhave failed to change
British government policy, wedded as it is to NATO and the alliance with the United
States. Today we are led by war criminals and we must act accordingly.
A
chance was missed in January when the Police banned the march from starting
from outside the BBC. The Metropolitan Police adopted wholesale the Zionist smear that the marches offended Jews worshipping in a distant synagogue,. Instead of saying
that you would call the march at the BBC regardless of the Police’s attempt at
sabotage you meekly complied by rearranging the starting point in Whitehall, which
enabled the Police to kettle, harass, arrest and attack protestors.
By
way of contrast, one of the most successful groups in the past five years has
been Palestine Action.It has been so
successful that the government has been forced to try and proscribe it as a
terrorist organisation. This is the first attempt to ban a protest group as
‘terrorists’. This attempt has been met with a wave of opposition from other
protestand civil liberties groups,
charities and academics reaching
into the Home Office itself.
If
anything represented a line in the sand then this is surely the issue – the proscription
of a protest group as ‘terrorists’. It is an assault on the most basic of rights
of a democratic society, the right to protest and freedom of speech, Articles
10 and 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights.
As
you are aware, having often quoted them yourself, protest movements have a long
history of defying coercive and repressive laws when democratic rights and
basic freedoms were under attack. Slavery abolitionists, trade unionists,
Chartists and Suffragettes were prepared to put themselves on the line. As Martin
Luther King said
in his Letter from a Birmingham Gaol
‘one has a moral responsibility to
disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law
is no law at all."
A
law, which is passed, which erodes our democratic rights is an immoral law.
This was the position of the Suffragettes, the Chartists and all manner of
social movements in the past. This is a law fit for a Police State and yet you
insist that PSC branches and members meekly comply. In your ‘advice’
you write
PSC’s position is clear – we will not
allow any branch to jeopardise the organisation and the movement by
taking such actions in the name of PSC. It is vitally important for
all branches to understand this and to act accordingly – ensure that
no branch communications profess support for a proscribed
organisation, that no events are planned in support of a proscribed
organisation, and that no clothing or signs are used which profess support for
a proscribed organisation
The
Police, the Courts and the State have been implacably opposed to the Palestine
solidarity movement.Why?Because the West’s alliance with Israel is
based on strategic imperialist interests. Israel is the West’s attack dog. This
is why Palestine Action has been targeted. To the state Palestine Action’s
opposition to Britain’s military co-operation with Israel is no different from
that of Hamas. Hence the proposed proscription.
Whereas
Western regimes have supported the Zionists the people have supported the Palestinians
as opinion
polls have consistently demonstrated.The reception of the audience at Glastonbury to Kneecap and Bobby Vylan’s
chants
of ‘death to the IDF’ demonstrates who has the ear of the young.
We
see this in the decision
of the High Court on Monday approving the sale of F-35 components even
though the judges knew full well that they will be used to commit genocide.
The
Guardian reported
on Saturday that ‘concerns about
proscribing Palestine Action extended into the home secretary’s own
department.’ A senior civil servant was quoted as saying that ‘Home Office staff are concerned about the
“absurd” decision to ban Palestine Action under UK anti-terrorism laws.’
“From desk to desk, colleagues are exchanging
concerned and bemused conversations about how absurd this is and how impossible
it will be to enforce. Are they really going to prosecute as terrorists
everyone who expresses support for Palestine Action’s work to disrupt the flow
of arms to Israel as it commits war crimes?
If
ever there was a time for civil disobedience it is now. It is fine citing the
example of groups in the past which broke the law for the common good but there
comes a time when PSC has to decide which is more important – obedience to the
law or solidarity with the Palestinians. If PSCrefuses to contemplate civil
disobedience it is more of an NGO than a solidarity campaign.
The time to refuse to accede to the proscription of Palestine Action, whilst Zionist genocide
groups go unmolested, is now. If thousands of people openly defy the
proscription by refusing to accept Police State Starmer’s equation of Protest
Groups with Terrorism then the law willbecome inoperable.
‘To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under
the heaven.’
Now is that time but to the leadership of PSC,
afraid as you are of your own shadow, the idea of civil disobedience is something
you praise in history not something you yourselves participate in. Past heroism is easy to praise. Doing it yourself is something else.
PSC has never missed an opportunity to miss an
opportunity. Unlike the Anti-Apartheid Movement of the 1970s it is afraid to build
a popular movement that challenges the State’s support for genocide. The vast
majority of the population, both in Europe and the United States are utterly
sick of the genocide in Gaza yet PSC is afraid of breaking the law.
Now
is the ideal time to put a spoke into the Zionist wheel. Now is the time to
defy yet another anti-Palestinian law with both right and public opinion on our
side. Yet what do you do?You instruct
members and branches of PSC to fully implement the ban on supporting Palestine
Action if the law comes into effect. Let’s be blunt. You are doing the work of
the Zionists for them. You don’t know what to do with a mass movement except
march them up the hill and down again.
You
have no perspective beyond the accumulation of funds and the employment of more
staff.PSC has made over a million
pounds from Israel’s genocide in Gaza yet politically you are still as timid as
when, in 2022, you took anti-Zionism out of the constitution.
What
is your justification? The threat of 14 year prison sentences? I doubt if even
Lady Justice Carr, the most reactionary Chief Justice since Lord Denning would
dare impose such a sentence but more importantly public opinion would not stand
for it. The best way of avoiding prison sentences is mass defiance of the law
such that it will be impossible to implement it since it is clear to all that Palestine
Action is not a terrorist group. Embedding a lie within the law will not make
it true.
A mural was painted in Gaza over a year ago to thank us for taking direct action against Israel’s war machine.
Now, more than ever, Palestinians need us to step up.
Your
fear of challenging the unjust laws that Yvette Cooper is proposing stems from
your fear of upsetting the applecart. To be blunt you are afraid of challenging
the undemocratic British state and prefer to sacrifice the Palestinians
instead. It was not PSC but Palestine Action that had a mural painted for
it in Gaza.Palestine Action have
achieved in 5 years more than PSC have done in 40.
What is the purpose of PSC if not to support the Palestinians?Palestine Action has closed 3 Elbit factories
and premises in its five years of existence. It has posed a challenge to the
Israeli state’s operations in this country which PSC with all its staff and
resources have not been able to match. Hence its proscription.
I am not at all surprised by your behaviour. When Palestine Action was
formed in July 2020 PSC did all that it could to strangle it at birth. Your ‘legal
advice’ then was a carbon copy of your advice today. You wrote:
PSC has sought legal advice about the potential
liabilities arising from the commission of acts of criminal damage of high
monetary levels ... If the value of the damage caused exceeds £5000 a person
can be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years imprisonment and/or an unlimited
fine.
These liabilities potentially extend to both
individuals encouraging or assisting criminal acts (including, for example,
providing financial support), and organisations, including PSC branches that
offered encouragement or assistance.
These concerns are not raised because PSC, or the
BDS Movement is opposed to any form of direct action. Instead, they are raised
because of the strategic and legal risks associated with the type of action
being conducted by the group.
If supporters
of the Palestinians had taken your advice and if members of PSC had gone along
with it then Palestine Action would not have existed. You were forced
to change course because PSC members and supporters disregarded your advice. Today
you write
that:
Publicly inviting support, for example
through a social media post, wearing clothing which indicates support, or
arranging a meeting where a member of a proscribed organisation speaks or a
speech indicating support for the organisation is given are all criminal
offences which can carry prison sentences of up to 14 years
That
is true, theoretically and that is why mass
action in defiance of this law is necessary and should be organised, with PSC’s
help if possible, without it if necessary. The proscription of Palestine Action
can only be challenged by mass defiance, not the timidity of PSC under your
tutelage. PSC itself should be taking the lead instead of trying to frighten
its members. There is nothing stopping national PSC declaring that its support
for PA remains unchanged.
You and the leadership of PSC have always been hostile to PA because you saw it as a competitor. In January
2022 when PA achieved its first victory with the closure of Elbit’s Oldham
factory PSC was eager
to claim the credit. You issued a statement which said:
We pay tribute to all
those who have campaigned since Elbit Systems purchased the site in 2007,
including many members of the Manchester PSC branch
‘I have to pay tribute to whoever drafted the
statement. It must have taken some effort to draft a statement welcoming the
closure of the factory without at the same time mentioning the group which was
responsible for the campaign that was responsible for this success.
Because
British imperialism supports Zionism and Israel there is no legal way to
prevent the state supporting Israel short of mass action. That is why defiance
of the law is an essential component of any solidarity action. Of course that
does not mean we defy the law on any and every occasion but we choose the time
and place. This is such an occasion. The classifying of a protest group as a terrorist
group breaks new ground. It is a red line for more than just the Palestine
solidarity movement. It has united Palestine solidarity supporters with
virtually the whole liberal and even not so liberal establishment. It is
indefensible. If any issue was likely to be won by a refusal to cowtow to the
Police and State this is the time.
Your real
reasons for opposing a refusal to implement the law have nothing to do with
possible prison sentences for those who defy the law. They have everything to
do with your empire building and the cushy salaries that comes with it.
You say
that ‘The people of Palestine are depending on us now, during their darkest hour, and we cannot afford to let them down.’ Yet by colluding
in the implementation of this law that is precisely what you are doing. You are
helping the British state implement this police state law.
At a Time of Genocide, Division and Disunity is a
Luxury We Cannot Afford
When I ‘came
out’ as an anti-Zionist Jew in 1970 it was a lonely experience. I lived in
Liverpool where my father was a rabbi in a community of about 8,000 people (now less than 2,000).
The only
other Jews I knew were in a socialist group which I joined at the age of 16 (expelled at 19!), the International
Socialists(now the SWP). It was thanks
to them that I read my first anti-Zionist pamphlet, the Class Nature of Israeli
Society, by Moshe Machover, Haim Hanegbi and Akiva Orr.
This
pamphlet, which first appeared as an article in the New Left Review, helped
me to make sense of my instinctive hostility to Zionism as a Marxist. Zionism I began to see as an
exclusivist ideology and movement whose only concern was the Jews. This was before the oppression and
dispossession of the Palestinians and the Apartheid nature of Israeli society
had become widely known.
At that
time there was no Palestine solidarity movement in Britain and much of the left
had illusions in Israel. Tony Benn and Eric Heffer, two stalwarts of the Labour
left were members of Labour Friends of Israel.
Today everything
is different. Jewish anti-Zionists are not rare. Zionism is no longer assumed to
be the natural home of Jews. Its alliance today with the far-right – the EDL,
Tommy Robinson, Bannon, Orban etc. – is well known, clear and unmistakable but half a
century ago things were different.
interview with neo-Nazi Richard Spencer
on Israel’s Channel 2 about why he calls himself a 'white Zionist'
Hasbara,
the Zionist version of propaganda still held sway. The Labour Zionists who had
formed the government of Israel from 1948-77 continuously spoke of peace whilst they waged war. As I wrote in Tribune in July 1984, there was nothing
Likud had done that Labour hadn’t done before it.
It took the
invasion of Lebanon in 1982 for the scales to fall from the Left’s eyes. Benn and Heffer resigned from LFI. For much of the left Israel had been an oasis of
socialism in the Middle East. Even Hannah Arendt was fooled into believing that the Kibbutzim were ‘perhaps the most promising of all social
experiments made in the 20th century.’[The
Jew As Pariah, p. 185.
The image of the Kibbutzim seen in the West - Zionism and Socialism - however Arabs played no part in this 'socialism'
The
kibbutzim were held to be models of socialism with their collective
organisation and their lack of private property. No one told me that they were
racially exclusive societies that banned Arabs from membership or that they had
been established over the ruins of confiscated Arab villages whose inhabitants
had been expelled. Nor had we been told that they had been established as the
most effective and economical method of colonisation and were stockade and
watchtower settlements.
Israel was
not founded for the benefit of Jews. The West does not support Israel because
it calls itself a ‘Jewish’ state. As James Baldwin notedin 1979:
Whenever
criticism of Israel is made our rulers profess to be concerned about ‘anti-Semitism’. It is the only form of racism they are concerned about. Even Donald Trump, a bigot
and racist for every season, is not only concerned about Jewish students (Zionist
Jewish students naturally) suffering from anti-Semitism on campuses but he has cut federal funding from those universities and colleges which allow
Palestine solidarity protests on campus.
This is at
the same time that he is insisting that diversity and anti-racist programmes be
ended, migrants be deported and that Confederate flags and symbols be preserved.
You would
have to be stupid (unfortunately many people are) not to see how the rich and powerful,
not least racists like Starmer, are using Jewish people and what they
call ‘anti-Semitism’ (i.e. anti-Zionism) as a means to intimidate and
frighten off support for Palestine and opposition to Zionism.
The same is
true in this country. The racist Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Mark
Rowley, has used the pretext of Jewish Sabbath Services to reroute,
ban and delay Palestinian marches on the grounds that they might cause offence to
Zionist Jews. Jewish residents of Swiss Cottage are the pretext for banning demonstrations against Israel's racist ambassador, Tzipi Hotoveli.
British and
Western support for Zionism is not because of their concern for Jews but
because of their own imperial interests. Jews constitute the moral alibi for
imperialism in the Middle East.
It is for
that reason alone that it is incumbent upon Jews who are not Zionists to say in
both words and deed that what Israel does is not in my name.
In the United
States 40% of young Jews
see Israel as an apartheid state and one suspects that that figure is far higher today in the midst of the current genocide. No one who is progressive and Jewish has
any excuse any longer for neutrality. Non-Zionism is no longer an option. It is fence sitting.
As Martin Luther
King said‘The hottest place in Hell is reserved for
those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.’
Archbishop Desmond
Tutu observed that if
you are neutral at a time of injustice you have chosen the side of the
oppressor.
Today it is
not difficult to be Jewish and anti-Zionist. On April 10, the Zionists’
propaganda organ, the Jewish Chronicle, woke
up to the fact that young Jews were turning against Zionism and carried an article ‘Who are the young Jews turning against
Israel?’ by Jane Prinsley.
Former General
Amiram Levin
Of course Jane, like all the Jewish
Chronicle’s journalists is a Zionist. If she wasn’t she wouldn’t be working for
them. The JC had started to realise that ‘Radical new groups for Jews who do
not support Zionism have formed on campuses up and down the UK’. It went on
to say that
‘radical Jewish student groups have emerged to cater to Jews who do not
support Zionism. From Leeds, Liverpool, Brighton and Birkbeck to Edinburgh,
Warwick, Cardiff, Cambridge and UCL, students have formed Jewish communities,
or kehillot.’
This followed an article by Karen Glaser
who used to be a features writer on the New Statesman where she wrote what I called the most ‘trivial, trite and superficial’ article the
NS has ever run. Its subtitle was ‘How Karen Glaser’s ex-boyfriend had a very
very narrow escape!’ The article was about how Ms Glaser had kicked her Corbyn
supporting, socialist boyfriend out of the nest at 2 am in the morning because
he doubted that Corbyn was quite the anti-Semite that his girlfriend imagined.
So the article‘I can’t discuss Israel with my anti-Zionist
kids – it’s pointless’ was on a par with Glaser’s normal output.
It described how 11 year old Talia had given her mother back the Star of David
she had been given as a baby and further that she was ‘resigning as a Jew’.
Not only that but Talia had disposed of her mother’s
big Israeli flag! Bright and intelligent child you might think. Clearly someone
to interview. Karen though thought differently:
Zionist
parents whose children are scared of being associated with Israel; youngsters
who have internalised antisemitism, in particular its political iteration,
anti-Zionism. Their parents say these young people openly loathe the Jews’
nation state. And anecdotal evidence suggests that the problem has grown
exponentially since the October pogroms.
Karen Glaser is nothing if not stupid. That after
all is why the Jewish Chronicle sought her out. It probably hadn’t occurred to
her that it isn’t internalisation of anti-Semitism but detestation of burning
children alive and bombing hospitals that is making Jewish youngsters puke at
the mere mention of the ‘Jewish’ state. Talia doesn’t sound like someone who is
intimidated.
Naturally I wrote a letter to the JC suggesting that it might have been a
good idea to interview the children concerned and find out their views. And
equally naturally the JC refused to
print it. The last thing the JC wants
to admit is that there may be good reasons why young Jewish kids detest Jewish racial
nationalism.
Shortly after these articles 36 members of the Board
of Deputies signed a letter to the
Financial Times. It was not an anti-Zionist letter. Far from it. But even hardened Zionists had begun to realise that they were defending the indefensible. A war driven by neo-Nazis in Israel's government.
Equally predictable was the reaction of the genocide
supporting President of the BOD, Phil Rosenberg, and the rest of the Board's Executive. There is no atrocity, no genocide that they cannot support. The presence of open fascists in Israel's government worries them not. They immediately suspended Harriett Goldenberg,
the Vice-Chair of its International Division and opened disciplinary proceedings
against all 36 signatories.
Moshe Yalon –
Ben Gvir & Smotrich are Mein Kamp Reversed
Being good Zionists the last thing they wanted to
see is any discussion over the rights and wrongs of the actions of what I have called ‘Hitler’s
Bastard Offspring’. The BOD is there to
support whatever Israel does, right or wrong. Jewish neo-Nazis like Itamar Ben-Gvir trouble them not. After all even Gvir and Smotrich are Jewish and Zionism is about the unity of the Jewish tribe.
Rosenberg
then issued a disingenuous statement that
proclaimed‘The Board of Deputies is a democratic organisation’ without mentioning the suspension of one officer and the disciplinary process
(in the form of a complaint) that was taken against the dissenters.
It is clear that the worm is beginning to turn. That all those who have
not become overt fascists and racists, like Rosenberg and his Executive, have
developed qualms about the genocide being conducted against 2 million Palestinians
in the name of a war against Hamas.
It is therefore incumbent upon Jewish anti-Zionists to come together and
form one united organisation like Jewish Voice for Peace in the United
States.At the moment we have a plethora
of organisations. I am in Jewish Network for Palestine,
there is Jewish Voice for Labour,
formed in the Labour Party during the ‘anti-Semitism’ smear campaign against Corbyn
and there is the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Organisation
and the newcomer on the block Na'amod, which
contains a few Zionists, non-Zionists and anti-Zionists. Na'amod is the most moderate
and probably the largest.
There is also the older Jews for Justice for Palestinians
which is a 2 states group that does very little except canvass for signatures
for its founding statement and there is also Independent Jewish Voices
which made a big splash when it was created in 2007 but which is now inactive.
Its website was last updated a year ago and its last meeting was over four
years ago.
By my estimates there are about 2,000 people who are members of the
above organisations. There are undoubted differences between people but there
is no reason why there should be so many organisations.
JfJP and IJV are not membership organisations. Clearly Na'amod, in so
far as it contains some Zionists, will not be able to join a unified anti-Zionist
organisation but there is no reason why the 3 anti-Zionist Jewish organisations
cannot come together into one single anti-Zionist Jewish organisation.
Although JVL has not explicitly declared itself as anti-Zionist, in
practice it is. There will obviously be differences over things like one or two
states though the consensus today is that two states cannot be achieved given
the number of settlers in the West Bank.
However we owe it to the Palestinians who are undergoing such terrible
massacres and pogroms to put aside minor differences in the name of not only
unity but effectiveness. A single united anti-Zionist Jewish group would be a pole of
attraction, in particular to young Jews who do not wish to have to bear the
strain and the stain of being seen to support genocide in the name of Jews.
Most Jews who have grown up with the exploitation by Zionism of the memory of
the holocaust find it strange that the most ardent supporters of Zionism today
are the neo-Nazi and far right in politics.
When Tommy Robinson, Donald Trump and Viktor Orban are on your side,
with neo-Nazi Richard Spencer declaring that he
is a White Zionist, many Jews will decide that they have had enough of Zionism and
its quest for Jewish racial purity. It is the duty of the existing anti-Zionist
groups to facilitate that journey not to erect obstacles to it.
The BBC Response to My
Complaint of Bias & Genocide Denial was that it was ‘Abusive in Nature’& ‘Goes against our values’
Under Fire: Israel's War On Medics
A week
ago I made a Complaint to the BBC about their decision to withdraw Gaza – How To Survive a Warzonefrom BBC iPlayer.
I also made some observations about their Zionist gatekeeper Raffi Berg and
their ex-soap powder cum Pepsi salesman Tim Davie.
A few days ago I was sent an M.Phil dissertation on the BBC’s
record during the first 6 years of the Nazi period. It doesn’t make pretty
reading. Who would have thought that the BBC, which today appeases the Zionists
on the grounds of ‘anti-Semitism’, was so sympathetic to the concerns of the
Hitler regime?
When anti-Semitism was a genuine problem rather than a pretext
for defending genocide, the BBC bent over backwards to placate the Nazi regime.
It ignored their anti-Semitism. Indeed it justified it, branding Germany’s Jews
a political threat rather than a religious group, which was what the Nazis were
saying.
So when the BBC and the British Establishment parade their
‘anti-Semitism’ credentials today just bear in mind that when anti-Semitism was
alive and kicking the BBC had no problem with it.
According to the BBC my complaint went against their ‘values’ and was abusive. Not only that
but the ‘tone and language’ was ‘offensive’. Who would have guessed what
snowflakes the BBC are.
This is
my response.
BBC Complaints - Case
number CAS-8047026-N0S3Z9
Dear BBC,
It seems
that you have lost your judgement in the wake of the PR disaster that is Gaza – How To Survive a Warzone. Accusations of enabling genocide
have touched a raw nerve. I only hope that you can see and smell the blood of the
thousands of Palestinian children who your propaganda has helped to kill.
In your
response (14 March) to my complaint about your persistent pro-Zionist bias you informed
me that it was ‘abusive in nature’ and
that ‘the tone and language used is
offensive’ and that ‘the underlying
message goes against our values’.
Perhaps you
can explain for your viewers what your values are? Do they include balancing
Israeli lies with their actions such as bombing tent encampments and the
burning alive of Palestinian children?
Do your
values include support for the torturing to death of doctors such as Dr Adnan al Bursh?
A good example
of your bias is the headline ‘Palestinian doctor
dies in Israeli prison’. What did he died of? COVID? Over eating?
How is it
that a healthy man of 50 when he was arrested died soon after? Why has his body
not been returned to his family? Has the BBC asked any of these questions? Or
is the death in custody of Palestinian prisoners taken for granted by the BBC?
We are told that ‘No details were
given on the cause of death, and the prison service said the incident was being
investigated.’ The same prison service that had previously denied it even Dr
Al-Bursh. Have you followed up on this so-called ‘investigation’?
The BBC refers
to ‘Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry’
as if to pour doubt on their claim that 496 health workers have been killed by
Israel. Do you preface Israeli claims with ‘the Likud-run government’. Hamas
happens to have been elected to govern Gaza.
Sky News however did investigate and they reported that:
"In mid-April 2024, Dr Adnan Al-Bursh arrived
at Section 23 in Ofer Prison. The prison guards brought Dr Adnan Al-Bursh into
the section in a deplorable state. He had clearly been assaulted with injuries
around his body. He was naked in the lower part of his body.
"The prison guards threw him in the middle of
the yard and left him there. Dr Adnan Al-Bursh was unable to stand up. One of
the prisoners helped him and accompanied him to one of the rooms.
He died soon
after. The death of Dr Bursh was a prima
facie case of murder yet the BBC displayed no interest in the circumstances
or causes of the death of a famous orthopaedic surgeon. Instead it quoted the
meaningless warblings of a Biden Administration spokesperson.
Did
Netanyahu’s fan and ex-CIA man at BBC News, Raffi Berg, deem that the story did
not fit with your image of Israel as ‘the
only democracy in the Middle East?’
Sky
News - The Murder of 5 year old Hind al Rajab and the Paramedics Sent to Rescue
Her
Let us take
another example of BBC Censorship by omission, the murder of 5 year old Hind al
Rajab, the little girl who was blown up by an Israeli tank along with the
ambulance crew that was sent to rescue her. Again Sky News covered her death in detail and again Raffi Berg decided to ignore it.
Informing the Public with Stickers
The reality
is that BBC News coverage is dictated by a Zionist zealot, Raffi Berg and you
call this ‘balance’. It is not surprising that you decided that my complaint ‘will not be circulated to our colleagues for
consideration or further reply.’ What point is there in disturbing their
consciences when it is clear that they have none?
It seems that
you took offence at my language. Who would have guessed that the BBC’s genocide
supporters have hurt feelings? I suspect that Eichmann and Hitler too felt hard
done by. However the death of thousands of Palestinian children does not seem
to move you.
Since
October 7 the Government has supported Genocide in Gaza whilst denying it was
taking place. Naturally the BBC has fallen in line. Instead of admitting you
are a state propaganda organisation you pretend that you are independent and your
coverage ‘balanced’.
I plead
guilty to being insensitive to your feelings. Faced with Israel’s starvation of
Gaza, its bombing of hospitals (because they are all Hamas), its torture camps
and rapes, it is not a difficult decision given your heroic efforts at news
management.
In nearly
all cases of genocide, the killers claim they are acting in self-defence. Ratko
Mladic, the Bosnian Serb commander based his case against genocide on the claim that
his forces were acting in self-defence. Mladic was convicted of genocide and war crimes by the
International Criminal Tribunal. Similarly with the Armenian genocide. The
Turkish Foreign Affairs Ministry claimed that
Ottoman policy of removing the Armenians from
militarily sensitive zones to the inner parts of the country must be seen as a
justified measure of self-defense not genocidal action
The BBC not
unnaturally has adopted the Zionist narrative.
You ignored a
petition from 700+ Jewish anti-racists and a thousand media commentators such as Gary Lineker. Who are they compared to the voice
of 45 Racist Jews?
Jews who are
anti-racist and anti-Zionist are invisible to the BBC because in your eyes we
aren’t Jewish. To be Jewish in the eyes of the Establishment you have to be a
supporter of Zionism. I do not recall a single BBC programme on Jewish
anti-Zionism or which has acknowledged that one-third of British Jews refuse to define themselves as
Zionists.
Jews in
Britain are the moral alibi for the crimes of imperialism. It is far better to
pretend to be defending a ‘Jewish’ state than admitting it’s about oil,
resources and strategic interests. At least Trump is honest when he declares that
he wants to plunder other countries.
Unlike you
most British people are not desiccated pen pushers. You reach for your ‘guidelines’
much like a drunk leans on a lamppost, for support rather than illumination.
Even the BBC’s own journalists protest
at the censorship
There are of
course genuine journalists at the BBC who are outraged at your coverage. Owen
Jones quotes from numerous journalists at the BBC
but I suspect that those handling complaints are selected for their slow-witted
viciousness to say nothing of their stupidity.
Censorship applies
not only to what you publish but also what you don’t publish. In the case of
Ukraine the BBC doesn’t face such dilemmas. It carries only Zelensky’s version
of events.
Israel is
different because it is a western settler-colonial occupation. Indigenous
people are, by definition, sub-human terrorists. When the BBC reports from
Palestine it takes care not to use the word Occupied and prefers euphemisms such
as Disputed Territories.
Israel’s
defence of its land theft is akin to a burglar claiming title to the goods he’s
just stolen, though on a much grander scale.
Former BBCjournalist Karishma Patel has called the BBC out for refusing to reach “reasonable,
evidence-based conclusions” over Israel’sgenocide in Gaza. She suggested that
you have become “a vehicle in informational warfare”. That’s why she resigned in 2024.
Impartiality has failed if
its key method is to constantly balance “both sides” of a story as equally
true. A news outlet that refuses to come to conclusions becomes a vehicle in
informational warfare
We have passed the point at
which Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity are debatable. There’s
more than enough evidence – from Palestinians on the ground, aid organisations;
legal bodies – to come to coverage-shaping conclusions around what Israel has
done.
In the case
of Ukraine there is no balance. The BBC reached its conclusions that Russia was
in the wrong on day one of the invasion but in the case of Israel you prefer to
wait for eternity as you pretend that it is about Hamas rather than ethnic
cleansing.
Russia’s
version of events, that the promises made to Gorbachev in 1991 about NATO
expansion were broken are never put even though they are documented in the US’s own National Security
Archives.
Imagine if
Russia had destroyed or bombed every Ukrainian hospital in order to eradicate
terrorists. Would that explanation be treated with respect by the BBC? BBC
balance is a dishonest attempt to treat right and wrong, good and evil,
genocide and peace as equals.
As
Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
Martin Luther King made the same point when he said that “The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral
conflict.”
There is no
such thing as neutrality. You either support genocide or you oppose it. The
fact that the BBC refuses even to mention the word is proof enough as to where
you stand.
I realise
that the scribe who wrote to me may take offence if called a liar so I’ll
suggest that you are being economical with the truth. The BBC coverage of Gaza is
an extension of the Foreign Office’s policy objectives.
That
brilliant film on Gaza’s children, with Abdullah being a natural presenter, was
scrapped because the foul Danny Cohen, Baroness Deech’s trollope of a daughter,
Sarah, Oberman and all the other political dwarfs were considered more
important than the thousands of people, Jews included, who bombarded you with
complaints.
How the BBC
Appeased Hitler and either Ignored or Justified Nazi Anti-Semitism
I’ve just read a fascinating M. Phil Dissertation by Guy Raz of Cambridge University.
It’s titled ‘The
BBC and Appeasement: Broadcast Coverage of Nazi Persecution of the Jews,
1933-1938’. In his Introduction
Raz writes:
‘Between 1933 and 1938, Nazi Germany engaged
in the systematic persecution of its Jewish community with acts of increasing
intensity. One would, therefore, expect the BBC to have reported extensively on
these developments considering its association with hard-nosed journalism and
critical news broadcasting. That this was not the case is in part explicable
through the extent to which Broadcasting House, in direct and independent
compliance with the diplomatic aims of the Foreign Office, was party to and a partner
in the application of the policy of appeasement. There was a major discrepancy
between the BBC's knowledge of what was happening in Nazi Germany and the
Corporation's effort to disseminate that knowledge to any great extent. 'Negative'
news about Nazi Germany was carefully controlled by the BBC during this period
in order to ensure that 'sensitive' information was not widely distributed for
public consumption.’
This could
have been written, word for word, about your coverage of Israel today. When anti-Semitism was a matter of life and death, when
Jews were being beaten, impoverished and put in Nazi concentration camps the
BBC did not want to know.
John Pilger doesn't hold back: "The BBC is and has long been the most refined propaganda service in the world." pic.twitter.com/6mViFKnG4Z
— Rachael Swindon #WeAreCollective (@Rachael_Swindon) December 9, 2017
But
when ‘anti-Semitism’ is a propaganda tool weaponised to justify apartheid and
genocide the BBC is suddenly opposed to it. You have even installed an Israeli
spy, Raffi Berg, as a Zionist gatekeeper in charge of the news. As John Pilger said, the BBC is the world’s
most sophisticated propaganda machine.
There were 3 major anti-Semitic mileposts between 1933 and 1939
in Germany. The first was the Boycott of Jewish Shops on 1 April 1933. The second was the
passage in September 1935 of the Nuremberg Laws which stripped German Jews of
citizenship (something the Zionists welcomed) and the third was Kristallnacht, the Nazi pogrom of 10-11 November 1938 when most
synagaogues were burnt to the ground, over 100 Jews killed and 30,000 thrown
into concentration camps. How did the BBC cover this? Guy Raz writes:
the April boycott was discussed in two
non-news bulletins but the tone of the discussion preferred to minimize the
extent of the boycott. The Nuremberg decrees were mentioned in one, brief news bulletin
lasting no more than twenty seconds and devoted primarily to the Memel dispute.
Kristallnacht was also mentioned in a
news bulletin, without commentary and with few details.
The
Nuremberg Laws were described by Gerard Reitlinger as ‘‘the
most murderous legislative instrument known to European history’ yet the
BBC gave them 20 seconds in a news bulletin. Kristallnacht, the pogrom that signalled
Nazi intentions towards the Jews was mentioned without comment.
When
anti-Semitism was a reality the BBC stood with the racists and anti-Semites? Why?
Because the BBC was born in the womb of the British Establishment and shares
their values. Raz tells
us that
News deemed 'negative', defined as such by
the Foreign Office ... was to be avoided after 1936. What is astonishing,
however, was just how little information about anti-Jewish persecution was
dispensed for broadcast before this time - three years after the introduction
of anti-Semitism as official policy in Germany. Even fewer reports about
anti-Jewish persecution would be broadcast after 1936.
When
Hitler was preparing the ground for the expulsion and eventual extermination of
Europe’s Jews, the BBC was silent. But today when ‘anti-Semitism’ is a mere prejudice
the BBC is all over it like a rash.
No
doubt the BBC’s famous ‘balance’ was in operation then too. It balanced between
the British government and Hitler. Jews were out of the equation altogether
just like the Palestinians are today.
‘the Corporation
saw anti-Jewish persecution as secondary to other forms of Nazi repression,
most notably, anti-Church persecution’.
Christians
were not discriminated against as Christians.
‘When information about anti-Jewish repression
reached the airwaves, the tone of the broadcast almost always implied that
Jews, along with Marxists and Social Democrats, constituted a political opposition.’
The
idea that religion is a political ideology or movement is not new. Geert
Wilders, the fascist leader of Netherland’s Party for Freedom (PVV) says exactly the same about Islam today:
Islam is an ideology aiming for world
domination rather than a religion. It demands that the state be regulated
according to Islamic law.
If
Wilders weren’t so ignorant, he would know that the same is true of all
religions. The Israeli Right, which controls Israel’s government, also wants to see Israeli civil law
replaced by Halacha, Jewish law.
Some
of the worst genocidal states during the Holocaust were the Christian ethno
states, Romania, Slovakia and Croatia. Every religion has those who believe
that their religion is supreme. Guy Raz said:
what is surprising was the extent to which
the Corporation 'spiritually surrendered' to Nazi conceptions of race by adopting
some of the language of German racialism.
This is
no surprise. Racism is as English as buttered toast and the BBC is nothing if
not a reflection of ruling class Englishness.
Broadcasts also often implied that Jews were
partially responsible for the increase in anti-Semitic persecution.
This was
particularly evident during the Holocaust. Hungary was the last country in
Europe with a large Jewish population when the Nazis invaded on 19 March 1944. Robert Philpot wrote about how the
BBC had consistently avoided the topic of its Jews in its wartime broadcasts to
Hungary, failing to warn that a Nazi invasion would mean deportations and
death.
Prof. Carlile
Macartney was a wartime adviser to the BBC and the Foreign Office. He proposed that
the BBC needed to take into account the anti-Semitism of the Hungarian populace
andavoid mentioning Jews altogether.
His advice was a reaction to ‘continuing concerns that the Hungarian Service was, in
fact, too associated with Jews.’ A December 1939 internal BBC memo, spoke of the
criticism the corporation had received that the service’s announcers had “Jewish-sounding voices” and that its six
Hungarian staff were “purely or
preponderantly Jewish.”
A further memo 18 months later spoke of how “One of the main criticisms of our broadcasts has been on the ground of
Jewish accents.” It was necessary to bring in “a nucleus of Aryan voices.”
Jean Seaton, in her article ‘The
BBC and the Holocaust’ states that
'The BBC displayed both before and during the
war, views and decisions that were quite simply anti-Semitic.'
On the eve of the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria, its
founder and General Manager Lord Reith
assured the German foreign minister that the
'BBC was not anti-Nazi' after von Ribbentrop suggested otherwise.
Today the
BBC has exchanged its respect for Nazism for adulation of Zionism. Raz observed
that the BBC went out of its way to portray Hitler in a positive light. For
example the destruction of Jewish and ‘degenerate’ art found fulsome support in
the BBC.
When his policies seemed to defy rationality,
like the destruction of 'degenerate artwork', reports often came to his
defense. ‘At least he [Hitler] honours
art to the extent of believing that its misuse can encompass the cultural
destruction of a people; and equally that... it can be the greatest agent in
national regeneration,' said one art review.
The BBC’s most
disgraceful decision was over who should represent them at the 1936 Berlin
Olympics. Harold Abrahams, a gold medalist in the 1924 Olympics, ‘was also the Corporation's most popular and
widely respected sports commentator.’’
There
was just one problem. Abrahams was Jewish and for 3 months ‘executives
debated on the prudence of sending Abrahams to Berlin as the BBC's representative..’the
Director of Broadcasting wrote to the Director of Programming that
You will remember that at a
Programme Board meeting in the late autumn we discussed the advisability of
using Mr. Harold Abrahams as our commentator at the Olympic Games. It was then felt that while we
were not prejudiced against him for racial reasons, it might be advisable to
postpone a final decision as to his employmentbyusuntil nearerthetime,when weshouldbeabletoseethestateof
feelinginGermany...
The Controller of Public
Relationswrote:
Abrahams is a Jew. He is our
best commentator on athletics. The question arises as to whether or not we
should do this [label Abrahams as a commentator]. We all regard the German
action against the Jews as quite irrational and intolerable and on that score
we ought not to hesitate, but should we, as between one broadcaster and
another, put aside all views of this kind and take the line that however
irrational we regard another country's attitude to be it would be discourteous
to send a Jew commentator to a country where Jews are taboo?
Just
savour that for a moment – it would be discourteous to send a Jewish
commentator to a country where Jews are taboo. Can anything better sum up the
BBC’s historic attitude to racism?
From
Nazi Germany and the Holocaust in the 40s to Genocide in the 2020s the BBC has
never let principle stand in the way of what is in the best interests of the
British ruling class.
The
committee's decided against sending Abrahams ('it would be definitely impolitic for us to send Abrahams as our
official commentator') illustrates the cowardly nature of the BBC. It is in this light
that the decision to pull the film on Gaza
should be seen. It has nothing to do with ‘terrorism’ or ‘anti-Semitism’.
It is simply a continuation of the BBC’s loyalty to British Foreign Policy.
This
and this alone explains the abysmal, biased coverage of Genocide in Gaza. Indeed
the BBC refuses to even use the word ‘Genocide’ thus taking the position of the
very genocide deniers that it decried in Srebenica where 8,000 not half a million have died.
Israel developed its own atrocity propaganda
surrounding October 7 which mirrored British atrocity propaganda in WW1 when
German troops were accused of bayoneting Belgian babies. The BBC has carried it
without once questioning it.
Defense minister confirms
army orders to kill Israelis on 7 October
On October 7 Israel put into
operation the Hannibal Directive which decrees that it's better to kill a captured Israeli rather than allow them to be exchanged later for Palestinian hostages. The Zionist love of killing Palestinians outweighed their concern for their own citizens. which decrees that it’s better to kill a captured Israeli than allow them
to be exchanged later for Palestinian hostages. The Zionist love of killing
Palestinians outweighed their concern for their own citizens.
On 7 July 2024 Ha'aretz reported that the IDF used the Hannibal Directive to prevent Hamas taking Israeli soldiers captive. It later turned out that the Directive was also used to prevent the capture of civilians. There were many such similar stories in the Israeli press.
Hannibal
Doctrinewhich decrees that it’s better to kill a captured Israeli than allow them
to be exchanged later for Palestinian hostages. The Zionist love of killing
Palestinians outweighed their concern for their own citizens.
Hannibal
Doctrinewhich decrees that it’s better to kill a captured Israeli than allow them
to be exchanged later for Palestinian hostages. The Zionist love of killing
Palestinians outweighed their concern for their own citizens.
On 7 July
2024 Ha’aretz reported that the IDF used the Hannibal Directive to prevent Hamas
taking Israeli soldiers captive. It later turns out that the Directive was also
used to prevent the capture of civilians. There were many such similar stories
in the Israeli press.
On 7 July
2024 Ha’aretz reported that the IDF used the Hannibal Directive to prevent Hamas
taking Israeli soldiers captive. It later turns out that the Directive was also
used to prevent the capture of civilians. There were many such similar stories
in the Israeli press.
The Australian Broadcasting
Corporation ran a story ‘Israeli forces accused of killing their own citizens under the 'Hannibal
Directive' but
not the BBC. There isn’t one mention of the Hannibal Directive on the BBC’s
website. The BBC is STILL propagating Israeli lies that Hamas operatives
slaughtered Israelis on October 7 when the truth is that the majority of
Israeli civilians were killed by the IDF.
Take another
story, which is connected with the BBC pulling Gaza – How To Survive a Warzone. The killingof Palestinian children. There is every reason to believe that the
high number of Palestinian children killed is a consequence of their being deliberately targeted.
Rabbi
Eliyahu Mali, who runs the Bnei Moshe Yeshivah in Jaffa has, like other rabbis,
openly advocated for the murder of Palestinian children because they
represent the future generation of Palestinian fighters. It is an argument that
Himmler made about Jewish
children:
“For I did not consider myself
justified in exterminating the men—in other words, killing them or having them
killed—and then allowing their children to grow up to wreak vengeance on our
children and grandchildren.
When complaints were made to the
Israeli Police, who are happy to raid Palestinian bookshops on a whim, they recommended
that Mali not be prosecuted. Has the BBC covered this story or related it to
what is happening in Gaza? Of course not.
The BBC was happy to carry the allegations of
Netanyahu that the Bibas children were killed by Hamas with their bare hands rather
than that they were killed by Israeli bombing. The BBC gives full unchallenged coverage
to any Israeli lie.
There is no evidence to support
Israel’s allegations and there is no medical evidence either. Hamas was not given
the chance of rebutting Netanyahu’s lies.
When it comes to documented proof of
Israel’s murder of Palestinian children the BBC goes silent and withdraws the
only film that allowed Palestinian children to express themselves. When
Zionists make demands the BBC rushes to demonstrate their fealty to the
genocidaires.
The UN has just released a Report that Israel’s systemic attacks on women’s
healthcare in Gaza amount to “genocidal acts”, and that the Israeli military
have used sexual violence as a weapon of war to “dominate and destroy the Palestinian people”.
Has the BBC
reported on this or investigated? Well it did lead with Israel’s denials on BBC
Radio 4 News. When a Russian atrocity is announced does the BBC lead with
Russia’s denials? To call the BBC genocide enablers would be an understatement.
The BBC’s silence and refusal to
accurately report
the multiple accounts of Israeli torture of Palestinian health care workers and
their murder makes it complicit in that murder. Because if the BBC and other
western media were calling out these war crimes Israel would not feel that it
had impunity to do whatever it wants.
The BBC has repeatedly carried Israel’s atrocity
propaganda about Hamas rapes on October 7, despite there being no forensic
evidence and despite Israeli prosecutor Moran Gazsayingthat she has no cases or victims.
In an interview with Ynet, Moran
said that the prosecutors are not filing a case on sexual assault or rape by
Hamas militants as her department has failed to find any evidence despite
having over fourteen months to investigate the claims.
"In the end, we don’t have
any complainants. What was presented in the media compared to what will
eventually come together will be entirely different…" Moran said.
However the
BBC has been reluctant to publicise the well documented examples of Israeli soldiers raping
Palestinian women. Rape of indigenous people is a well established colonial
tradition.
An Israeli soldier who raped a Palestinian prisoner alongside other soldiers appeared on Israeli channel 14 to defend his unit that committed the rape. The incident sparked outrage as it was filmed on CCTV cameras and spread to the media.
The verified Israeli rape of
Palestinian men, with the perpetrators appearing on Israel’s Channel 14
boasting of their deeds, hasn’t merited coverage on BBC News or any
investigative programme. Raffi Berg instead commissioned ‘We will dance again’since
the focus must always be on the settlers never the colonised.
The deliberate starving of Palestinian
prisoners began under Israel’s neo-Nazi Minister of Police, the Kahanist Ben
Gvir who openly proclaimed the policy. The
BBC has never provided any context to Israel’s policy of torturing Palestinian
prisoners.
Whereas Israeli hostages kiss their
captors Palestinian hostages show no affection for their guards. One Zionist
suggested to me that Israeli hostages were suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. I
asked why it was that Palestinian prisoners don’t suffer from this malady!
I refer particularly to the torture of the Director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan
Hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who told a legal representative of “the torture and abuse” he was subjected
to since being detained by Israeli occupation forces 47 days ago.
The BBC
refrained from publicising what has happened to Dr Safiya. One wonders what its
response would be if it had been Hamas that had been torturing an Israeli
doctor?
"A pure soldier showcases the quality football that was made with hard work after prolonged fighting in the Whores' Strip."
This is the caption written for an image shared on a prominent Israeli settlers' Telegram channel. The image shows an Israeli soldier stepping on the… pic.twitter.com/m9bVKLAvLe
The
destruction of this and other hospitals was a war crime. To capture and torture
doctors is a practice that even the Nazis refrained from. The only Jewish
communal building that survived untouched in Berlin till 1945 was
the Jewish Hospital. Israel has outdone the Nazis as no hospital in Gaza has
escaped unscathed.
The BBC refuses to use the term ‘genocide’ despite
the overwhelming evidence. For example Israeli ministers like Nissim Vaturi,
the Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, have called for all adult men in Gaza to be
killed. That sounds a bit like genocide but if you don’t report it then you
don’t have to decide.
There is also the small matter of the mass graves which are
being uncovered in Gaza but I wouldn’t want to disturb your conscience any
further. You have a lot weighing it down as it is.
I wouldn’t expect the BBC to cover the case of an
Israeli soldierplaying footballwith the skull of a Palestinian man. After all this is simply good old
colonial fun and games.
I might expect the BBC to carry prominently the
story of Israel’s denial of food and fuel aid to Gaza and how babies havefrozento death. However the silence of the BBC on this as on so much else is
deafening. There are only some voices that the BBC can hear. See
