radiofree.asia

Actor Liam Cunningham says BBC’s pro-Israel bias is like ‘contacting Himmler for his take’ on the Holocaust

Game of Thrones star Liam Cunningham has criticised the BBC‘s “jaw-dropping” bias towards Israel during its genocide in Gaza as akin to asking a Nazi official to comment on the Holocaust.

Liam Cunningham pulls no punches

Speaking to journalist Mehdi Hasan, Liam Cunningham stressed that BBC News has approached him but that “there is not a hope in hell of me going on the BBC at the moment”. The reason is that BBC coverage of Israel’s genocide is “like watching a movie”, due to its apparent attempts at ‘evenhandedness’ and ‘impartiality’. And he asked the question:

Are we saying, due to impartiality, that if this was 1944 or 1945 when we discovered the horrors of Auschwitz, would we be contacting Heinrich Himmler for his take on the genocide? Because that’s what’s going on now. I find it astonishing.

Hasan agreed, saying:

It’s a tragic scene that we’re in where, as you say, people want to be evenhanded in a genocide.

And it’s not just the BBC. Because most mainstream media outlets continue to provide a platform for genocide-supporters or genocide apologists to spout propaganda even as the settler-colonial state they’re defending is starving children to death to get what it wants.

This behaviour is all the more disgusting, Hasan pointed out, because of the hypocrisy mainstream outlets display on Israel. As he said:

I don’t think the BBC wait for the Russian military response every time they report on a missile attack on Kyiv.

Things only change when people stand up and resist

In recent days, Liam Cunningham has shown his support for the Freedom Flotilla campaigners currently seeking to take aid to Gaza by boat. And in one video, he criticised governments for failing to stand up for international law, adding:

The only things that have changed the world radically have not come from the seats of government. it’s come from people standing up and saying ‘we’ve had enough’.

Referencing the global scholarly consensus that Israel is committing genocide, he said:

We’re sick of weasel words. We’re sick of appeasement with people saying ‘oh, we’re going to think about sanctioning, we’re gonna think about this, we’re gonna stop a trade deal’. Not enough! The words are not enough. Action is required.

Featured image via screengrab

By Ed Sykes

This post was originally published on Canary.