The BBC’s Israel Problem

The release and rapid withdrawal of the BBC documentary “Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone,” after it emerged that the 13-year-old narrator was the son of a Hamas official, is just the latest example of the BBC’s “Israel problem.”  The BBCs Website describes the documentary as: “Shed [ing] new light inside Gaza’s humanitarian ‘safe zone’ showing everyday life with ongoing airstrikes and efforts to keep people alive.”  There is no discussion of “cause and effect.”  The documentary does not mention that the situation in Gaza is a direct result of the Hamas terror onslaught of October 7, or that there was a ceasefire, albeit broken numerous times by Hamas, in place prior to October 7.  Similarly, the atrocities of October 7 are not mentioned.  The impartial and uninformed observer might mistakenly assume that those “depraved Zionists” just woke up one fine day and decided to turn Gaza into a war zone.

Besides the usual, and expected by the BBC, anti-Israel one-sided and distorted narrative of the documentary, an additional problem is that the money paid by the BBC, and by extension British taxpayers, seems to have gone directly to the coffers of the Hamas, a proscribed terror organisation.  Despite the BBC’s belated apologies over “serious flaws” in the documentary, it has also exposed the cooperation’s deep seated institutional bias against Israel, which includes NEVER using the word “terrorist” when it comes to Hamas.

Which begs the question, why won’t the BBC use the “T” word to describe those evil barbarians who shoot thousands of unguided missiles at (Israeli) civilian population centres, who behead (Jewish) babies, rape (Jewish) women and girls, who murder, kidnap, and torture (Jewish) civilians from children to the elderly (Jewish) Holocaust survivors, who put (Jewish) children and adults in cages, who brutalise and parade murdered Jews in their streets, and destroy (Jewish) communities in the Jewish homeland, while recording it all on social media?  According to an inane article on the BBC ‘s website , titled “Why the BBC does not call Hamas gunmen terrorists.”

It’s simply not the BBC’s job to tell people who to support and who to condemn, says the BBC’s World Affairs editor John Simpson.

The King of England, the Prime Minister of the UK, the President of America, and other world leaders can call the barbaric evil unleashed on innocent Israeli citizens “terror,” but not the holy BBC, unless…

The victims are not Jewish, and the attack isn’t in Israel. When four British citizens were killed by a radical Islamic terrorist in London on March 23, 2017, the headlines, and indeed the entire article, mentioned “terror” and “terrorist” multiple times. “London attack: Four dead in Westminster terror attack” screamed the headline.  The article went on to declare,

The terrorist chose to strike at the heart of our capital city where people of all nationalities, religions and cultures come together to celebrate the values of liberty, democracy and freedom of speech.

So, the BBC claim is simply untrue, as clearly the BBC do use the words “terror” and “terrorist” when the terror attack occurs outside of Israel and the victims are not Israeli or Jews.  Why doesn’t the BBC call a terrorist a terrorist if the attack occurs within Israel, or if the victims are Israelis or Jews?  Why doesn’t the BBC realize that all terror, wherever it happens, from London, to New York, to Sydney, to Cairo, to Israeli towns and kibbutzim stems from the same source, incitement by fanatical militant Islam to go out murder and terrorise “non-believers” to establish a pan-Muslim caliphate?  Why does the BBC have double standards in the language it uses to describe terror attacks inside Israel, and to Israelis and Jews? As Natasha Hausdorff, a barrister and member of UK Lawyers for Israel, observed:

In light of the manner in which the BBC has served as a Hamas mouthpiece, for the last sixteen months at least, there is a responsibility on them for the suffering of Palestinians in general, and in encouraging the Hamas to continue its war against Israelis and in dragging out and perpetuating this conflict.

The son of the Hamas official/child/narrator Abdullah, says in the documentary, which I have watched in its entirety, “My greatest hope is that Gaza goes back to what it was before.”  What do you think he means by that?  That Gaza should go back to a terrorist ruled enclave, based on Shariah law, where its residents are incited from birth to hate Jews by the warped terrorist entity that runs the enclave?  Simultaneously, the same Hamas should continue to embezzle and steal billions of dollars of international aid money and building a subterranean terror metropolis preparing for the next round of attempted genocide of the Jewish state?  Is that what he means?

Samir Shah, chairman of the BBC, described, with a straight face, questions over the Gaza documentary as a “dagger to the heart” of the BBC’s reputation as impartial and trustworthy, the chairman added: “We will get to the bottom of it and take the appropriate action.”  (In other words, “We at the BBC are so sorry for getting caught.”)  Do not hold your breath.

In the documentary one sees markets and stores full of food, fruit, vegetables, meat and all types of produce.  One sees the residents of the enclave enjoying Israeli supplied electricity and water, in addition to well-dressed children with nice haircuts.  Not exactly starvation or genocide.  No mention, besides a brief sentence for one second at the beginning, is made of how the war started, the brutal behaviour and massacre Israeli citizens by the Hamas death cult, documented my themselves, or the Israeli/international hostages being held in the most inhumane conditions, some in Gazan houses.  In addition, there is a total absence of fighting age men in the film.  That is because they are all terrorists hiding in the tunnels, torturing hostages and attacking IDF troops.  Sometimes what one does not see is more important than what one sees.

There are many unsubstantiated and false claims made during the documentary such as:

• “The occupation forces are committing massacres” says one “nurse”
• “School buildings get bombed…even in the safe zone”
• “The scale of attacks on paramedics has been enormous”
• That’s the 10^th time they’ve targeted the hospital.”

There are also soundbites that, despite the film makers best efforts to sanitise the documentary of any pro-Hamas rhetoric and indoctrination, slip in:

• People say it’s like the 7^th of October. The sky is red, and everybody is celebrating (the Iran missile attack).
• The death Sinwar.  “It was a brave honourable way to go (die). May he rest in peace.”

There are also deliberate mistranslations from Arabic.  Every time “Yehud” (Jew) or “Al Yahud” (the Jews) are mentioned by the people on the ground, the translation is always “Israeli” or “Israelis.” (One of many examples is at 28:11, “the Israelis destroyed everything.” He actually says, “Yehud” (Jews))

The film concludes with the grossly overestimated and unsubstantiated Hamas provided death toll: “57,136 people are missing or dead in Gaza since the war began.  17,841 are children.”  The Fathom journal in its article, “Statistically Impossible: A Critical Analysis of Hamas’s Women and Children Casualty figures” states:

These Hamas tactics – embedding among the civilian population to achieve a ‘human shield’ strategy – have resulted in the very real and very tragic deaths of an unknown number of women and children. The same Hamas war criminals who have engineered these tragic deaths are also behind the absurd and fabricated propaganda statistics so widely cited by the western media.

While the death of any civilian during a war is tragic, in the case of Israel’s attacks on Hamas, such deaths are inevitable since Hamas facilities and leaders hide behind civilians and under schools and hospitals. Hamas fighters block civilians from evacuating. And then, Hamas’ Ministry of Health inflates the casualty figures. Whilst innocent civilians have inadvertently been killed in Israel’s defensive war, what these unsubstantiated and unchallenged numbers, issued by Hamas’ “Health Ministry” (and mindlessly and lazily repeated by the mainstream media/press) are in fact just fanciful propaganda statistics.  One also needs to factor in the following:

• Natural causes: The CIA statistics state that 15-16 Gazans die of natural causes per day. That works out as 750 over every 50 days. Does anyone doubt that Hamas added their numbers to the casualties of the war and blamed Israel?
• Terrorist casualties: At least half of the casualties are Hamas terrorists. This includes those child fighters (which is illegal according to international law) over fifteen who are recruited to the terrorist army.  There numbers are all included in the “statistics.”
• Hamas falsifies casualty numbers: They routinely inflated casualty figures and then add them to its list of casualties.  One example is the case of the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City on October 17,2023.  The Hamas Health Ministry claimed almost immediately that there were 471 casualties from Israeli attacks.  Many media sources and celebrities rushed to condemn the “massacre” (that never happened).  The reality was thirteen died in the explosion caused by an errant Palestinian Islamic Jihad missile that fell in the parking lot.  One can be assured that those phantom “casualties” were added to the statistics.

All of this is irrelevant to the “impartial” BBC documentary makers who quote the numbers as if they are carved in stone.  They do not question the numbers or the source of these statistics.  This is simply because they have, and have had for years, a perversely anti-Israel narrative.  The BBC is as far as being “partial and trustworthy” in its chairman’s words, as it can possibly be when it comes to reportage in the Middle East.

Maybe, next time the BBC (and the Hamas terrorist death cult) should consider the following if they really want to know “How to Survive a War Zone:” Avoid initiating conflict with your neighbour and then playing the victim when they retaliate. When will the BBC make a documentary, based on the bodycam footage of the Hamas terrorists titled “How to survive if you are an Israeli living on a kibbutz next to Gaza?” It would be difficult indeed to make. As many did not survive.