Tony Benn about the BBC refusal to broadcast a humanitarian appeal:
SkyNews: "Dozens of protesters have occupied the BBC's headquarters in Glasgow over the broadcaster's refusal to air an emergency aid appeal for Gaza.
More than 50 MPs have already backed a parliamentary motion urging the broadcaster to show the appeal for thousands of people struggling in the Palestinian territory."
Craig Murray: "I am hopeful the public outcry caused by the BBC's refusal to broadcast the joint appeal for Gaza, will open more eyes to the immense bias in the BBC's News coverage.
As it has slipped off the front page, I think it is worth reproducing this from my blog for 6 January:
What is Really Happening
I watched BBC World News for a timed hour yesterday. In that time I saw:
Pro-Israeli (including US government) speakers - 17
Pro-Palestinian speakers - 2
Mentions of Hamas Rockets as reason for war - 37
Mentions of illegal Israeli settlements - 0
Mentions of Palestinians killed by Israel during 'ceasefire' - 2
Mentions of Sderot - 12
Mentions Sderot used to be Palestinian - 0
The BBC took being banned from Gaza by the Israelis as the excuse to focus a wildly disproportionate attention on the Hamas threat to Israel. Their choice of Sderot as their base of operations was in itself a factor of bias - and their failure to say, even once, that Sderot was once Palestinian was inexcusable."
HuffingtonPost: "Moral questions also linger among Israeli peace activists troubled by the relative lack of public introspection over the destruction and civilian deaths wrought by their army's immense firepower during the fighting in the cramped territory. They say Hamas' abuses do not erase Israel's responsibility for such incidents as the shelling of a United Nations school that killed dozens of civilians sheltered there. Even if Hamas had to be weakened, they wonder how their nation, where memories of the Holocaust are so thoroughly embedded, could look past the plight of 1.5 million Palestinians trapped in a dense war zone they couldn't escape."
TikunOlam: "As human beings, we are shocked and appalled at the mass destruction unleashed by the State of Israel against the people of Gaza in its military operation, following years of Israeli occupation, siege, and deprivation.
As Americans, we protest the carte blanche given Israel by the US government to pursue a war of 'national honor', 'restoring deterrence', 'destroying Hamas', and 'searing Israel's military might into the consciousness of the Gazans'.
As progressives, we reject the same justifications for the carnage that we heard ad nauseam from the supporters of the Second Iraq War: the so-called 'war on terror', the 'clash of civilizations', the 'need to re-establish deterrence' - all of which served to justify a misguided and unnecessary war, with disastrous consequences for America and Iraq.
But as Jews of different religious persuasions, from Orthodox to secular atheist, we are especially horrified that a state that purports to speak in our name wages a military campaign that has killed over 1,400 people, a large percentage of them civilians, children, and non-combatants, with little or no consideration for human rights or the laws of war."
9:03:45 PM
