Since my previous post on Gaza, an almighty row has erupted about the BBC's refusal to air an appeal from the Disaster's Emergency Committee for humanitarian aid for Gaza. I can quite understand that some see this issue as the BBC putting its airy idealism ahead of the suffering of innocent civilians. But (though clearly I have huge sympathy for the Gazan cause, and will certainly be sending a donation) I have to agree entirely with their decision. I do appreciate Director General Mark Thompson's argument that the BBC "could not broadcast a free-standing appeal, no matter how carefully constructed, without running the risk of reducing public confidence in the BBC's impartiality in its wider coverage of the story."

The attack on the BBC seems to me to misread the balance of arguments on either side. On the one hand, it is not as if by failing to show the advert the amount raised by the appeal is going to be significantly reduced (and, ironically, the row has perhaps led to greater publicity than one advert could ever have gained). In the wider context, not much would be gained by showing the advert on the BBC, given that it will already receive extensive coverage on other television channels. On the other hand, the BBC would have much to lose if the BBC was felt to be becoming impartial in its reporting. As it stands, the BBC has been exceptionally effective at reporting from the conflict zone, given the logistical difficulties placed in its way by Israel, and it is this reporting - as much as the actual facts on the ground - that has massaged public sympathies for the greater humanitarian good.

Finally, Members of Parliament such as Nick Clegg have argued that "It's an insult to the viewing public to suggest they can't distinguish between the humanitarian needs of thousands of children and families in Gaza and the political sensitivities of the Middle East." Taking a look at the BBC message boards during the original conflict, though, and it's quite clear that a large number of viewers were already attacking the BBC for being too pro-Palestinian - and it is not at all clear that these viewers would have been able to distinguish between the universal humanitarian objective served by airing the appeal, and the political inference that the BBC was nudging its way ever more to the liberal extreme by doing so. What level of discrimination and nuance is there in a comment like this one:

No amount of spin by BBC and its allies will make terrorism anything other than pure and simple murder of innocents. Calling them "freedom fighters" or anything
else is simply disgusting. Shame on you, BBC.

I could not find where on the BBC website the word "freedom fighters" was used directly to describe Hamas, but clearly the "viewing public" patronised by Clegg are better readers than I am. How about this other commentator? Do you think he or she would distinguish between the BBC's humanitarian sensitivity and its political bias:

I find it difficult to understand why the BBC and other news channels broadcast this non-stop, but don't even pay lip service to the number of rockets which have been persistently fired at Israel.

Quite clearly the BBC stated the number of rockets being fired, and the number of Israeli casualties. But if even absolute details like this can be ignored by such a vehement public, do we really think that the more subtle issue of the appeal will be responded to thoughtfully? On the basis of this commentator, who is unable to avoid stereotyping in broad brush strokes, we ought not to be hopeful:

The European left wing can't stand Jews defending themselves.They love the pacifist Jews who quietly walked into the showers - but can't stand it when Jews fight back.I just hope Israeli politicians realise that the protests from Europe are mainly by the large Muslim population and awful left wing groups.People of sound mind are standing with you Israel. We are aware of the biased media in Europe. We are aware of the BBC's pro-Palestinian bias.

I culled these comments in just a five minute survey of the boards. In that time, I did not find one comment that praised the BBC for its balanced coverage. So the BBC is right to stick to its principles and not show the DEC appeal. If it shows it, this will only bolster the case for those who condemn its alleged pro-Palestinian bias, but conversely no one will celebrate the showing of the appeal as evidence of the BBC's objectivity. The BBC has too much to lose, and not much to be gained.

Labels: BBC bias, DEC appeal, Gaza

I listened to the radio this morning, and heard a BBC correspondent interviewing a Gazan mother who lost nine of her family, four of them her children, in an Israeli air strike. It appears that the munition used was white phosphorous, the use of which is legal on the open battlefield as a smokescreen, but which is not permitted for use as an assault weapon in areas where civilians are likely to be.

The woman, remarkably calm, recounts how each of her children died. I saw him decapitated, she explains of her eldest. Her second died of smoke inhalation. Her youngest, she says, "melted in my arms."

What brutal poetry this phrase conceals. Echoes of Hamlet thinking of death here - "Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve into a due." But, as Adorno said, after the Holocaust poetry becomes impossible. And to perceive any poetry in this phrase seems equally inappropriate. For one is left to imagine - or to try to imagine - what it must be like to be a mother looking at your child in your arms as they simply melt away, vanish, cease to exist, life slipping out as easily as water down a drain.

Of course, these metaphors too are not appropriate. For they do not capture the other sensations that must have surrounded this moment that the woman's phrase eloquently conceals: the smell of charred flesh, the smashing of glass and the crumbling of rubble, white smoke, a chemical agent sticking to the skin and burning white hot and, around, little bits of felt silently fluttering down from the sky, each one a packet containing more lethal fire.

It is hard to know what to say about the Israeli action that has not already been expressed by the media, at least in European newspapers and television (the recent London Review of Books carries elequoent disavowals of the Israeli action, by scores of academics). Whilst news organisations have striven to be impartial, beyond a certain point objectivity has to tip into compassion and anger on the Palestinian and Israeli sides of the border. When 1200 Palestinians (about a third of them children) die in response to a dozen Israeli deaths, the dynamics of the war as one of retaliation - as Israel sees it - simply does not work. Israel, the world's fourth largest military power, has lost the moral conflict.

The use of white phosphorous, the shells of which bear the stamps of the American factories in which they were produced, has become iconic of this new mood. Given that the Gaza strip is one of the most densely populated regions on Earth, it is pretty clear that it should not have been used. Now that Israel has admitted use of the munition, there will, of course, be an investigation by the army, who will no doubt find some middle-ranking officer to use as a scapegoat, whilst keeping Olmert and his generals free from blame for planning to use such a weapon. There will, of course, be more impartial investigations by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and the United Nations, the findings of which will be breezily dismissed, whilst the shells still make their way from Lockheed and Boeing factories in the States to land in the homes of civilian women melting children (future terrorists!) out of existence.

Cynicism aside, one is left with just one hope. This is that another, balance has tipped, one which has its long end half a century ago, and which has ensured that no matter how Israel levered its military might, the balance of international opinion would never tip into condemnation. Previous Israeli actions, from the 1967 war to the recent Lebanon conflict have, been conducted under the cloud of the Holocaust. For every Hamas rocket attack on Israel, the rest of the world could not attack Israeli policies because it was still assailed by the guilt of World War Two. Now, however, opinion seems, perhaps, to have shifted. The repressed has returned for the last time, so perhaps now for the first time, it is possible to be anti-Israeli without this having the faint whiff of anti-Semitism. We must now be willing to stand defiant and say of Israel that, whilst terrorism is something to which they have the right to respond, we have the right to say: "enough."

Labels: Gaza, Israel, Politics