{"id":1928,"date":"2009-01-25T23:46:46","date_gmt":"2009-01-25T23:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gaza.haimbresheeth.com\/?p=1928"},"modified":"2009-01-29T00:03:06","modified_gmt":"2009-01-29T00:03:06","slug":"jan-26-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/2009\/01\/25\/jan-26-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"Jan 26, 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stop War Crimes! Make Zionism history!<\/span><\/h1>\n

The BBC and Israel:<\/a> Free Press<\/span><\/h3>\n

By Alan Hart<\/span><\/p>\n

Gaza appeal, and even if it changes its mind before this article is published, it really is time for an open and honest debate about what, really, determines the corporation\u2019s editorial decision-making on matters to do with Israel. On 23rd January, the first on-air words of Newsnight presenter Gavin Esler to Caroline Thomson, the BBC\u2019s Chief Operating Officer, were \u201cThis looks as if you are just scared of the Israelis\u201d (for which read the lobby of supporters of Israel right or wrong, and which should properly be called the Zionist lobby not the Israel lobby because it doesn\u2019t speak for all Israelis let alone all Jews). There is truth in what Gavin Esler said even if he was only being properly provocative, but it needs to be unpacked. Carline Thomson\u2019s initial justification for the refusal to give air-time to DEC\u2019s appeal was the need to \u201cavoid compromising public confidence in the impartiality of the corporation\u201d. A day later this was qualified a bit. Interviewed on the BBC\u2019s World TV News, she said it was important not to endanger the trust of \u201ccertain parts of the audience\u201d. (My emphasis added).<\/p>\n

The newspeak of Israeli propagandists<\/a>: The Guardian, Letters<\/h3>\n
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What Uri Dromi says about Hamas is pure and poisonous Israeli propaganda (This Hamas hallucination, 23 January). In every respect his article is almost the exact opposite of the truth. Dromi claims that: “The Orwellian mindset of the organisation is as much a barrier to peace as the rockets it fires.” But it is the newspeak of Israeli propagandists like Dromi that is truly Orwellian. Over the last four weeks the powerful Israeli propaganda machine has been churning out lie after lie about Hamas in order to excuse its own inexcusable onslaught. Israel stopped journalists going into Gaza<\/span><\/a>, preventing any independent reporting on the war crimes its forces were committing. Truth is usually the first casualty in war. Gaza was not even a war in the conventional sense of the word; it was one-sided carnage. Here are some of the facts Dromi ignores or wilfully misrepresents. First, Hamas is the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people, not the corrupt regime led by Mahmoud Abbas. Second, Hamas spokesmen have repeatedly declared their readiness for a long-term ceasefire. Khalid Mish’al recently did so on these pages (Comment, 6 January). Third, Hamas has a solid record of observing ceasefires, while Israel has a consistent record of sabotaging them. Fourth, even during the ceasefire Israel did not lift its economic blockade of the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza, a form of collective punishment forbidden by international law. Fifth, the offensive unleashed in Gaza was illegal, immoral and unnecessary. If all Israel wanted was to stop rocket attacks from Gaza, all it had to do was to observe the ceasefire brokered by Egypt in June 2008.
\nProfessor Avi Shlaim<\/strong><\/p>\n

Could not be clearer!<\/span><\/div>\n

Israel\u2019s Lies<\/a>: London Review of Books<\/h3>\n

Henry Siegman
\nWestern governments and most of the Western media have accepted a number of Israeli claims justifying the military assault on Gaza: that Hamas consistently violated the six-month truce that Israel observed and then refused to extend it; that Israel therefore had no choice but to destroy Hamas\u2019s capacity to launch missiles into Israeli towns; that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, part of a global jihadi network; and that Israel has acted not only in its own defence but on behalf of an international struggle by Western democracies against this network.
\nI am not aware of a single major American newspaper, radio station or TV channel whose coverage of the assault on Gaza questions this version of events. Criticism of Israel\u2019s actions, if any (and there has been none from the Bush administration), has focused instead on whether the IDF\u2019s carnage is proportional to the threat it sought to counter, and whether it is taking adequate measures to prevent civilian casualties.
\nMiddle East peacemaking has been smothered in deceptive euphemisms, so let me state bluntly that each of these claims is a lie. Israel, not Hamas, violated the truce: Hamas undertook to stop firing rockets into Israel; in return, Israel was to ease its throttlehold on Gaza. In fact, during the truce, it tightened it further. This was confirmed not only by every neutral international observer and NGO on the scene but by Brigadier General (Res.) Shmuel Zakai, a former commander of the IDF\u2019s Gaza Division. In an interview in Ha\u2019aretz on 22 December, he accused Israel\u2019s government of having made a \u2018central error\u2019 during the tahdiyeh, the six-month period of relative truce, by failing \u2018to take advantage of the calm to improve, rather than markedly worsen, the economic plight of the Palestinians of the Strip . . . When you create a tahdiyeh, and the economic pressure on the Strip continues,\u2019 General Zakai said, \u2018it is obvious that Hamas will try to reach an improved tahdiyeh, and that their way to achieve this is resumed Qassam fire . . . You cannot just land blows, leave the Palestinians in Gaza in the economic distress they\u2019re in, and expect that Hamas will just sit around and do nothing.\u2019<\/p>\n

Tony Benn to BBC “If you wont broadcast the Gaza appeal then I will myself”<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Good old dependable, human, and radical Tony Benn uses the BBC to subvert its message on the DEC!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Bill Morris Protest For Gaza, Against BBC Charity Broadcast refusal London 24 Jan 2009<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Tony Benn Protest For Gaza, Against BBC Charity Broadcast refusal London 24 .01. 2009<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Jewish rabbi burns his Israeli passport ,stop Gaza Massacre protest London 11 January 2009<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Haim Bresheeth speaks at the LSE occupation<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\n<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stop War Crimes! Make Zionism history! The BBC and Israel: Free Press By Alan Hart Gaza appeal, and even if it changes its mind before this article is published, it really is time for an open and honest debate about what, really, determines the corporation\u2019s editorial decision-making on matters to do with Israel. On 23rd … Continue reading Jan 26, 2009<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1928"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1933,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928\/revisions\/1933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}