Without any sense of irony, the flagship radio 4 show “Today” was pushing a programme on afterwards discussing how we might discuss Israel in an objective way. Taking lectures from the BBC on that matter defies belief. Listening to Today I have never been quote so angry about the way I have to pay £157 a year to fund the BBC. It stated repeatedly on Today that
“More than 700 Israelis and 400 Palestinians have died as a result of the violence”
We can quibble about the numbers but that is not the point. The issue here is that the BBC is treating the stripping naked, gang rape, murder and parading through the streets of the dead body of a young woman as the same as one of the perps being shot in battle as the same. They are not. Explicitly the Hamas attacks on Israel targeted civilians, 260 of whom were young folks at a music festival for peace. Men, women and children were shot or had their throats cut just for being Jews. Or in a few cases because Hamas wrongly thought they were Jews. Teenage girls raped in front of their family then murdered, the list of utter atrocities goes on and on and on.
This is like something from a pogrom in Eastern Europe a hundred and fifty years ago, or from Nazi occupied Europe. Armed men going from house to house dragging out Jews to slaughter them because they are Jews. Most of the Palestinian dead are combatants. As Israel has responded there have been Palestinian civilians killed.
That is not because of “carpet bombing” of Gaza as some describe it. Israeli jets target specific military targets but Hamas opts to base its combatants in or near schools, hospitals, mosques and in densely packed residential districts. Here’s the bottom line, as ever: Israel aims to kill combatants to protect its civilians, Hamas aims to see civilians killed, either Jews or Palestinians, to protect its combatants. If Israel blows up a Mosque which Hamas butchers have occupied, Hamas spins that as an attack on the Mosque. The death of its own folks is just collateral damage. The death of Jews is a cause for celebration.
So the deaths over the weekend are not equivalent and for the BBC to state that they are in a casual way is disgusting, I was screaming in anger at the radio. Surely I cannot be forced to pay for this obscenity?
Martha Kearney was on the ground in the Middle East for the programme and interviewed some Israelis and, “for balance”, a Gaza resident, a worker for Oxfam. I braced myself for Oxfam has long campaigned against Israel and its official statement is:
“Oxfam strongly urges all parties to immediately cease all military offensives and maintain restraint to prevent further escalation of violence that will only harm innocent civilians on both sides. The surge in military escalation underscores the persistent failure of leaders to address the prolonged occupation and Gaza blockade.”
In other words, Oxfam says that after the Hamas atrocities, Israel must not respond. Its only 700 fucking Jews dead, Israel must turn the other cheek and not try to eliminate those who would slaughter even more Jews. Worse still you see that Oxfam is engaging in whataboutery. Its justificiation for the pogrom is the supposed crimes of Israel. There can be no justification for what Hamas did at the weekend. Surely even Oxfam gets that?
As I prepare for the third anniversary of my father’s death one of my proudest achievements in life was persuading dad, in his final years, to cease his fifty-year support of Oxfam.
So, the Oxfam worker came on and bemoaned the terror her and her family were suffering hearing air raid alarms and explosions in Gaza. Why should this be happening she bemoaned to the sympathetic BBC. Why do you think you dumb bitch? It is happening because Hamas, which runs Gaza, launched a pogrom to butcher innocent Jews, children , holocaust survivors, women and teenage girls who were raped before their final murder. What did you expect? Natch the BBC and Martha did not put this apologist for pogroms in her place.
Why must we pay for the BBC to be just so offensive.