What the BBC Means By Impartiality is NOT Broadcasting South Africa’s Case for Genocide But instead Broadcasting Israel’s Defence!
Pilger on BBC
Dear
Mr Davie,
On 11 January
the International Court of Justice
heard South Africa’s application
that
‘acts and
omissions by Israel . . . are genocidal in character, as they are committed
with the requisite specific intent . . . to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a
part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group”
and that
this was in clear contravention of the United Nation’s Convention
on Genocide.
Paragraphs
101-107 of the Application gave numerous examples of the Genocidal Intent of
Israeli military leaders, senior politicians and also their effect amongst Israel’s
soldiers.
For
example Israeli Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant’s declaration
of 9 October that
International Court of Justice at The Hague
I have ordered a
complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no
fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting
accordingly,”
Israel’s
Prime Minister Netanyahu implored his listeners:
you must remember what Amalek
has done to you, says our Holy Bible." with reference to I Samuel 15:1-34
"Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly
destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman,
infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass"
Viewers
saw Irish KC Blinne
Ní Ghrálaigh's powerful closing speech in South Africa case. All independent
observers are agreed that South Africa’s case was overwhelming.
3 Israeli hostages die because Israeli used banned chemical weapons, poison gas, to try and kill Hamas militants
As Nimer Sultany
wrote in The Guardian:
The
powerful case
brought by South Africa against Israel at the international court of
justice under the genocide convention is a wake-up call for many western
governments and media outlets that uncritically supported Israel’s savage war.
Maayan Sherman, mother of an Israeli soldier who was one of three hostages found dead in a Gaza tunnel in December, says they were killed when Israel flooded the tunnel with poison gas. She compared his death to the gassing of Jews in the Holocaust, calling it 'premeditated… pic.twitter.com/Wykk9Czhrf
— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) January 18, 2024
I say viewers, but of course
not those who watch BBC because you took a decision, in the interests of ‘balance’,
not to broadcast the case that South Africa
was presenting. Instead you decided, in line with previous practice, only
to broadcast Israel’s defence the next day.
ICJ:
Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh's powerful closing statement in South Africa case against
Israel
BBC’s viewers
were therefore unable to judge for themselves the case that Israel was
responding to, which is exactly what you intended, because in your view the
people of Gaza have no case.
The
murder of 15,000+ children, 120 journalists, innumerable doctors and health
workers, the attacks on all of Gaza’s hospitals – all on the pretext that Hamas
was using them as their military bases counted for nothing because the BBC is
nothing if not a spokesperson for British and US foreign policy. Their view and
yours is that however many civilians are murdered, South Africa’s case is ‘meritless’.
If this
was China or Russia then it would be a different story. If Russia had said that
the Ukrainian resistance was hiding behind civilians or using hospitals as
bases then the BBC would be the first to call this out for what it was. But as
a failed
Conservative candidate you know where your loyalties lie.
Those who wanted to listen
to South Africa’s charges had to turn to Al Jazeera. The BBC decided that the injustice that Post Office
managers have experienced was more important.
Israel’s ‘defence’
consisted primarily of accusations that South Africa was perpetrating a ‘blood
libel’, i.e. ‘anti-Semitism’.
If the BBC was going to broadcast Israel’s
defence then you were under a duty to broadcast the South Africa’s allegations
of genocide. This is so elementary that it hardly needs stating.
They answered 🙄 pic.twitter.com/nGhsKV3HZF
— Born to misbehave💜🔥 (@equidistante_) January 16, 2024
The BBC's Lucy Williamson shows viewers the destruction in Kibbutz Be'eri but she never thinks to ask how Hamas caused it given they had no heavy weaponry
October 7 Breakout from Prison Gaza
The BBC has acted as
the Voice of Israel. News coverage repeatedly goes back to the events of
October 7 whilst carefully omitting the fact that Israeli
tanks fired on houses in Kibbutz Be’eri killing both Israeli hostages and
their Hamas captors.
The same is true of
the Nova festival and the firing on cars escaping from the festival by Apache helicopters. All of this is ignored
by the BBC which prefers to accept the Israeli version of what happened that
day.
There is plenty of
information on how Israel’s military took the decision to implement the Hannibal Directive
and kill its own hostages, rather than allow them to be taken captive and
exchanged for the Palestinian hostages that Israel holds.
The BBC, it seems, made sure viewers got a live-stream today of Israel's defence against genocide in Gaza but deprived viewers yesterday of South Africa's detailed case for accusing Israel of genocide.
— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) January 12, 2024
I guess that counts as 'BBC balance'. https://t.co/yPZiYBonVG
See for example The
Cradles’ How
Israeli forces trapped and killed ravers at the Nova Festival, Ha’aretz’s Families
of Israelis Killed in Be'eri Home Hit by IDF Tank on October 7 Demand Probe,
Electronic Intifada’s Israeli
child “burned completely” by Israeli tank fire at kibbutz.
🚨BREAKING: ISRAELI HOSTAGE EXPOSES DISTURBING ACCOUNT
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) October 23, 2023
In a shocking revelation, Israeli hostage Yasmin Porat has raised disconcerting questions about the tragic events of October 7.
The Testimony:
In an exclusive interview, Porat disclosed that Israeli forces eliminated… pic.twitter.com/LkKSSWkGIO
Electronic Intifada
and others published
the interview with Yasmine Porat, a survivor of Kibbutz Be’eri but the BBC have
never even referred to it or similar interviews.
While the eyes of the world were glued to the live images of South Africa’s trial against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), most Western media refused to broadcast the historic event. It is only the second time in the history of the Genocide Convention that one… pic.twitter.com/4H9MPF5rYy
— red. (@redstreamnet) January 11, 2024
Electronic Intifada’s
article on how Israeli
HQ ordered troops to shoot Israeli captives on 7 October, the Times of Israel’s IDF
officer recounts ordering tank fire on Be’eri home during hostage standoff on
Oct. 7 likewise made no impression on BBC coverage of Israel’s genocidal
war on Gaza’s Palestinians.
Interview with Yasmine Porat on Kan's Haboker Hazeh radio program on 15 October 2023
Whilst information on
how many if not most civilian deaths on October 7 is easily available, not
least from the Israeli press, including interviews with the hostages, the BBC has done nothing to question the Zionist
narrative that Israeli deaths on October 7 were solely the work of Hamas.
An Open
Letter from Israelis to fellow Israelis demanding the truth about October 7th
at the end of October demanding an inquiry into the
events of October 7 was ignored. They wrote:
Israel’s domestic and
international rhetoric now contains something much more akin to Nazi extermination
propaganda.
We know what the purpose of
this propaganda is. More than 8,500 indigenous Palestinian children, women, and
men have been exterminated – and the number rises as we write. Many are trapped
under the rubble of their homes, dying slowly. Others are facing thirst,
starvation, and infectious diseases. At the same time, senior Israeli figures,
even our president, keep howling that there are ‘no
innocent civilians’ in Gaza.
Make no
mistake, what Israel is doing in Gaza now will haunt Israelis for decades. Now
is the time to make sure all Israelis understand this. And this understanding
should start with full disclosure about the events of October 7, 2023.
Not one word has left
the lips of BBC interviewers about the Hannibal Directive despite
widespread discussion in the Israeli press such as for example Ha’aretz’s 'Unlawful,
Unethical, Horrifying': IDF Ethics Code Author on Alleged Use of 'Hannibal
Directive' During Hamas Attack’. In this article Asa Kasher, the
philosopher who wrote the Israeli Military’s Code of Conduct, told how ‘allegations that the infamous operational
order may have been used on October 7 must be investigated immediately’.
The BBC is simply not interested in such facts.
I
did a google search on the Hannibal Directive and BBC. I came up with nothing.
I went to the BBC’s own site and searched on ‘Hannibal Directive’. The nearest
I came up with was a story Hannibal Mejbri:
Manchester United midfielder joins Sevilla on loan!
These
omissions are not accidental but deliberate policy decisions by BBC News, under
your direction. You are deliberately distorting and slanting the news in such a
direction as to support Israel’s narrative that October 7 was an unprovoked
attack as Hamas sought to indulge in murder and rape. Your claim of ‘balance’
is nothing but a lie.
As Jonathan Cook, a former Guardian
journalist wrote
in What the BBC fails to tell you about
October 7:
‘It is journalistic malpractice for the media to still be
repeating so credulously the Israeli military’s account….
Simply repeating that
narrative without any caveats has by now reached the level of
journalistic malpractice. And yet that is precisely what the BBC does night
after night.
Just a cursory look at the
wreckage in the various kibbutz communities that were attacked that day should
raise questions in the mind of any good reporter. Were Palestinian militants in
a position to actually inflict physical damage to that degree and extent with
the kind of light weapons they carried?
And if not,
who else was in a position to wreak such havoc other than Israel?
The BBC has repeated
every lie that Israel’s propagandists have conjured up in order to excuse
Israel’s genocidal orgy in Gaza. Instead you preferred to faithfully follow the Israeli narrative on October 7. See for
example Israel Gaza: Hamas
raped and mutilated women on 7 October, BBC hears and Hamas planned
sexual violence as weapon of war - Israeli campaigner.
A counter-narrative such as that from Mondoweiss’s article Despite
lack of evidence, allegations of Hamas ‘mass rape’ are fueling Israeli genocide
in Gaza has made no impression on the BBC’s coverage.
We should be grateful that the Palestinian armed resistance in Gaza is taking such a toll of the Zionist SS militias that have wreaked such havoc. Like the German SS, their Israeli equivalent are more at home killing children and doctors than confronting armed guerrillas which is why they are having to cover up their real casualties, something which the BBC has also not reported on. The BBC has totally failed to cover the actions of the Palestinian resistance so the increasing number of Israeli casualties must come as something of a surprise.
The BBC reports on what appears to be an attempt by the IDF to rearrange guns and equipment they found in al-Shifa Hospital for embedded media.
— Richard Hall (@_RichardHall) November 17, 2023
pic.twitter.com/4uhMElsndz
The BBC has repeated the Israeli lie that Hamas operates from the hospitals of Gaza. There was just one exception to this – Ros Atkins BBC Fact Investigation into Israel’s justification for its attack on Al Shifa Hospital.
The BBC has always
been the Voice of the British Establishment since the days when it refused to
allow the Archbishop of Canterbury to broadcast during the 1926 General Strike
because he favoured compromise. The Catholic Archbishop of Westminster was though
allowed
to broadcast because he held the strike to be sinful.
What the BBC fails to tell you about October 7:
It is journalistic malpractice for the media to still be repeating so credulously the Israeli military’s account of that day. My latest: https://t.co/EJKNpYYzUM pic.twitter.com/lp6DoBrZWG
— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) November 2, 2023
As the BBC’s own history admits:
During
the strike Reith vetted almost all the bulletins, while also dealing with the
political aspects. He decided to refuse the Archbishop of Canterbury's request
to appeal for an end to the strike; but allowed reporting of TUC statements. He
helped Baldwin write a speech to the nation, which was delivered from Reith's
home in Westminster.
Lord Reith’s own diary
recalls
a cabinet meeting on 11 May which took the view that
the government should be able to say
that they did
not commandeer [the BBC], but they know that they can trust us not to be really
impartial”.
And
this remains the situation today. Through control of the license fee and
appointments such as yours, the government can maintain a pretence that the BBC
is independent.
When the Miners were
confronting the government its Director-General was writing the Prime
Minister’s speech! And nothing had changed when it came to the Miner’s strike
of 1984-5. During the Orgreave clashes it reversed footage of police attacks on
the miners to show the miners attacking first. In 1991 the BBC apologised
for having ‘inadvertently reversed’ the
footage.
This was about as inadvertent as the editing out of laughter at Boris Johnson when he responded to a question about the importance of politicians telling the truth.
We have come to expect
that the BBC will faithfully follow the establishment narrative whether it is
on Israel, strikes or any other issue involving a challenge to the rich and
powerful.
However what the BBC is not entitled to do is to expect us to pay for what is an Establishment propaganda station.
As the late, great
John Pilger, who was banned from appearing on the BBC in his later years, said
the BBC is and has
been the most refined propaganda service in the world.’
In his 2010 documentary, The War You Don’t See,
John confronted
Fran Unsworth, head of newsgathering at BBC News and ITV News editor in chief,
David Mannion, on the failure of their reporters to challenge the lies that had
come from government and intelligence sources without which the Iraq war could
never have been prosecuted.
It was the
collusion of the corporate media in refusing to challenge the misinformation from
the Foreign Office and US State Department that led to the death of over a
million Iraqis.
The same
is true today. Israel could not get away with genocide in Gaza if the BBC and the
corporate media did not give credence to their lies and excuses. It is as if
you would have both sided Hitler’s
claim that the invasion of Poland was a reaction to Poland’s attack on Germany.
BBC News, by giving
credence to Israel’s absurd lies and cavorting with its propagandists, have
blood on their hands. What you call ‘balance’ is neutrality between right and
wrong and you always manage to come out on the wrong side.
In the Russia/Ukraine
war you have had no difficulty taking sides, erasing the history of NATO’s provocations
and its expansion into Eastern Europe in the process. This despite the promises
made to Gorbachev that there would be no expansion.
But when it comes to
Palestine you adopt a fake neutrality which in practice means you treat
Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank as if it was a normal state of
affairs. You never refer, unlike Al Jazeera, to the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied. You treat Israel’s
racist colonial police force as if it was Dixon of Dock Green.
As Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the great hero of
the South Africa struggle against Apartheid, which the BBC did nothing to help
when it continued to broadcast South Africa’s all-white cricket team, said:
“If
you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the
oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that
you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
Tony
Greenstein
