‘Gaza: Doctors Under Attack.’

In light of the BBC's cowardly subservience I felt obligated to write to complain about the decision not to air ‘Gaza: Doctors Under Attack.’ In all likelihood the decision was not made by the BBC, and that lies at the root of the issue. UK audiences, in significant part, have come to expect such cowardice on the part of the Corporation. The unfolding Genocide must, at some point, come to fuller light and when it does the BBC will find itself very much on the wrong side of history. Let us hope that the BBC and Starmer's Government are not permitted to tarnish the entire nation alongside!

Dear BBC

I have a complaint and, pertinent to that complaint, it is one that I know, almost for certain, will be ignored, likely, along with thousands of other complaints on the same subject.

It saddens me for multiple reasons, not least being that I feel I am watching a BBC in front of and beside which I grew up, being seriously denuded to the point where I now feel compelled to answer my granddaughter’s (12 years old) increasingly probing questions along lines, that I believe the Corporation to be no longer worthy of the descriptor, ‘reliable news outlet.’ I must be honest here and point out that this belief is hardly one that has recently been formed. I will not waste your time with the history of my reasoning.

My complaint concerns the recent decision of the BBC not to broadcast the documentary ‘Gaza: Doctors Under Attack.’ Admittedly, I have not yet viewed the footage myself, although I know that when I do, which I will, there will be nothing to suggest that the program is in breach of any (so called) impartiality code, unless historical fact must now itself be considered impartial. Further, precisely as did the featured doctors, I felt I already knew that the program would be pulled.

I had hoped for a better outcome with the earlier pulled documentary, ‘How to Survive a Warzone,’ which I have watched, twice. I would imagine that there is every chance that some, if not all, of the featured children are no longer alive, perhaps snipered by a UK supplied bullet, blown apart with UK enabled munitions, or else having since starved to death! Of note, the family connection of the opening narrator to a Hamas administrative officer in no way diminishes either the footage or the mounting evidence that Israel is pushing to Ethnically Cleans the Gaza Strip. Was any of the footage seen as questionable, or was it just the children? Has it not occurred to any of those BBC client journalists that a ‘Hamas run Health Service,’ as the BBC insists upon prefixing any mention, might be the necessary consequence of a land under oppressive occupation? The latter part (under occupation), by comparison, being a fact that the BBC seldom if ever sees fit to remind its viewers.

I was more suspicious that the program would not be aired when I chanced upon Dead Ringers, Friday 13th July. I recognise that the BBC will likely claim that Dead Ringers is a satirical show but still it was shocking to hear quite how easily the efforts of the Freedom Flotilla, and especially Greta Thunberg, could be reduced to sniggering from the sidelines by those ‘brave’ script writers. A 22 year old prepared to risk belligerent interception, possible missile attack, possible death, in international waters by a rogue state! Did the brave script writers, peeping from behind their desks, thousands of miles distant, not want to acknowledge the point that Israel, was almost certainly behind the earlier missile attack in Maltese waters (International airspace)? A 22 year old who, in one act, did more to highlight what is increasingly likely to be determined a Genocide, than that whole ‘landlocked’ raft of scriptwriters at ‘Dead Ringers.’ History will at least record Greta Thunberg as having been on the right side of history, scant consolation.

That the BBC is unreliable as a news outlet is increasingly there for those who choose to see and to hear. But it is worse than that, the Corporation is now fallen to ‘reliably unreliable!’ Gary Lineker, since dismissed for what, honesty? Mr Clive Myrie may boast about ‘honest journalism’ being his reason for getting out of bed in the morning but that ship has long since sailed. Am I not correct in pointing out that Gary Lineker- the same Gary Lineker- interviewed Ukrainian footballer, Oleksandr Zichenko, some time back in 2022, to great acclaim and absolutely no calls for his dismissal? Interview is linked for your reference, still up on the BBC website I believe. So what could possibly be the difference? It cannot be about the invasion of a foreign soil, nor about an occupation, certainly not about the ICJ and the ICC being prepared to use terms such as ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ and ‘plausible Genocide,’ nor can it be about the numbers of medical staff murdered, nor teachers, nor children, nor the number of hospitals targeted, nor the vast number of perpetrators of ‘War Crimes’ posing for the camera as they commit their acts! So, what plausible difference can there be? Could it be one of racial priority? If not, please do illuminate!

The Centre for Media Monitoring has recently undertaken a very thorough forensic investigation into BBC coverage of the Israeli slaughter of Gazans- it would be naïve in the extreme for me to refer to events inside the Strip as a ‘conflict,’ one wonders why the BBC so often does so. For reference I have included a link to the report.

The Lancet has also undertaken a thorough investigation, this one into the actual numbers of Gazans murdered by Israel. At its release the number executed or otherwise murdered stood at 186,000. When we consider that over two million people recently lived in this tiny space, and we then make the effort to view even a fraction of the available footage of the killing, 186,000 seems a very conservative number! Incidentally, half of that number is likely to have been children! Were the authors of this investigation in any way consulted before ‘Gaza: Doctors Under Attack’ was dropped? Again I have provided the link to the report.

The BBC (I would have to write) pretends to care about things such as ‘impartiality,’ ‘verification,’ ‘integrity’ and ‘journalistic standards’ but reporting upon a plausible Genocide (as found by the ICJ) is not an event that necessarily requires a deal of impartiality. I have no doubt that the ‘other side’ to this Genocide could be unearthed, no matter how deranged, otherwise there would be no plausible Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing being conducted. But, please for context, and by comparison, consider a) how does the BBC choose to cover Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? or b) China’s treatment of the Uyghur population?

Israel’s murder of tens of thousands of children seems likely to rise to hundreds of thousands now that the nation undertaking the Genocide (Israel) and the nation providing the greatest number of munitions (USA) have teamed up in order to practice their weapons upon starving Gazans. Surely, it must be one of the worst of War Crimes, to murder, sniper and obliterate innocent children! So, on which side of history does the BBC wish to find itself? How will it wish to cover the clean up? Or the rebuilding of whatever substitutes for what was a whole Gazan population?

Because the BBC elects to make complaints difficult- undoubtedly, it must receive a fair few!- I did not add the links, which was an oversight on my part, brought about through a fair bit of hoop jumping. I have corrected that omission here:
Links:
Lancet on Gaza deaths: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38976995/
Centre for Media Monitoring: https://cfmm.org.uk/bbc-on-gaza-israel-one-story-double-standards/
Gary Lineker in conversation with Oleksandr Zinchenko: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtFbMAicuPA


Additionally, I have here ventured some suggestions regarding omissions on the part of the mighty Corporation, listed below:
• What actually happened on the 7th October 2023, when numbers of Hamas fighters attacked Israelis in Southern Israel? How many Israelis are thought to have been killed by Israel and the IDF, under the Hannibal Directive? Were any Israeli babies found to have been beheaded or put into ovens, as reported by the BBC amongst many others? What evidence of rape has been unearthed?
• How do the messages to the Israeli population (in Hebrew) differ from those delivered to the outside world (in English)? Incidences of Genocidal rhetoric and intent for example, which ministers may have urged further/greater War Crimes?
• In light of concerns about Iran working towards nuclear capabilities, at what stage is Israel’s nuclear program? Does Israel have nuclear weapons?
• In light of the frequent use of terms such as anti-Semitism, various tropes and blood libel, which would necessarily encompass this suggestion, what is the power of the Israeli lobby in the UK? In Parliament there may be counted Labour Friends of Israel, Conservative Friends of Israel and Liberal Friends of Israel (Commons and Lords). What overlap is there between the Board of Governors of the BBC and the Jewish Chronicle? Investigate the immense sway of numerous NGOs and other hidden funding organisations. Who are and who appointed members of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. This is our democracy we are forever being told!
• It is often said that the housing system is broken and has been for years, so who is lobbying to keep it so? Who funds the lobbyists? Which Lords and MPs are being lobbied? Which MPs are significant property holding landlords? Who is forever delaying justice for the survivors of Grenfell?
• Teresa May quashed it but why no Orgreave enquiry? Is it true that the BBC reversed footage of the significant police-miners clash, in order to wrongly present the event as if the miners charged the police rather than the other way around?


We are not supposed to suggest as much, lest we get accused of peddling an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory but it is difficult to believe that something far bigger is not driving this.