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Category: BBC

  • Starvation in Gaza is so bad even the BBC is covering it – and reporting it all wrong

    The BBC’s role is not to keep viewers informed. It’s to persuade them a clear crime against humanity by Israel is, in fact, highly complicated geopolitics they cannot hope to understand

    You can tell how bad levels of starvation now are in Gaza, as the population there begins the third month of a complete aid blockade by Israel, because last night the BBC finally dedicated a serious chunk of its main news programme, the News at Ten, to the issue.

    But while upsetting footage of a skin-and-bones, five-month-old baby was shown, most of the segment was, of course, dedicated to confusing audiences by two-sidesing Israel’s genocidal programme of starving 2 million-plus Palestinian civilians.

    Particularly shocking was the BBC’s failure in this extended report to mention even once the fact that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been a fugitive for months from the International Criminal Court, which wants him on trial for crimes against humanity. Why? For using starvation as a weapon of war against the civilian population.

    I have yet to see the BBC, or any other major British media outlet, append the status “wanted war crimes suspect” when mentioning Netanyahu in stories. That is all the more unconscionable on this occasion, in a story directly related to the very issue – starving a civilian population – he is charged over.

    Was mention of the arrest warrant against him avoided because it might signal a little too clearly that the highest legal authorities in the world attribute starvation in Gaza directly to Israel and its government, and do not see it – as the British establishment media apparently do – as some continuing, unfortunate “humanitarian” consequence of “war”.

    Predictably misleading, too, was BBC Verify’s input. It provided a timeline of Israel’s intensified blockade that managed to pin the blame not on Israel, even though it is the one blocking all aid, but implicitly on Hamas.

    Verify’s reporter asserted that in early March, Israel “blocked humanitarian aid, demanding that Hamas extend a ceasefire and release the remaining hostages”. He then jumped to 18 March, stating: “Israel resumes military operations.”

    Viewers were left, presumably intentionally, with the impression that Hamas had rejected a continuation of the ceasefire and had refused to release the last of the hostages.

    None of that is true. In fact, Israel never honoured the ceasefire, continuing to attack Gaza and kill civilians throughout. But worse, Israel’s supposed “extension” was actually its unilateral violation of the ceasefire by insisting on radical changes to the terms that had already been agreed, and which included Hamas releasing the hostages.

    Israel broke the ceasefire precisely so it had the pretext it needed to return to starving Gaza’s civilians – and the hostages whose safety it proclaims to care about – as part of its efforts to make them so desperate they are prepared to risk their lives by forcing open the short border with neighbouring Sinai sealed by Egypt.

    Yesterday, an Israeli government minister once again made clear what the game plan has been from the very start. “Gaza will be entirely destroyed,” Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, said. Gaza’s population, he added, would be forced to “leave in great numbers to third countries”. In other words, Israel intends to carry out what the rest of us would call the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, as it has been doing continuously for eight decades.

    Simply astonishing. We’ve had 19 months of Israeli government ministers and military commanders telling us they are destroying Gaza. They’ve destroyed Gaza. And yet, Western politicians and media still refuse to call it a genocide.

    What is the point of the BBC’s Verify service—supposedly there to fact-check and ensure viewers get only the unvarnished truth—when its team is itself peddling gross distortions of the truth?

    The BBC and its Verify service are not keeping viewers informed. They are propagandising them into believing a clear crime against humanity by Israel is, in fact, highly complicated geopolitics that audiences cannot hope to understand.

    The establishment media’s aim is to so confuse audiences that they will throw up their hands and say: “To hell with Israel and the Palestinians! They are as bad as each other. Leave it to the politicians and diplomats to sort out.”

    In any other circumstance, it would strike you as obvious that starving children en masse is morally abhorrent, and that anyone who does it, or excuses it, is a monster. The role of the BBC is to persuade you that what should be obvious to you is, in fact, more complicated than you can appreciate.

    There may be skin-and-bones babies, but there are also hostages. There may be tens of thousands of children being slaughtered, but there is also a risk of antisemitism. Israeli officials may be calling for the eradication of the Palestinian people, but the Jewish state they run needs to be preserved at all costs.

    If we could spend five minutes in Gaza without the constant, babbling distractions of these so-called journalists, the truth would be clear. It’s a genocide. It was always a genocide.

    The post Starvation in Gaza is so bad even the BBC is covering it – and reporting it all wrong first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • I Was In The Documentary ‘The Settlers’; This Is The Part They Didn’t Tell

    The BBC documentary ‘The Settlers,” directed by Josh Baker and written by Louis Theroux, has recently aired to much international attention. It aims to give Western viewers an inside look into the minds of Israeli settlers – those who occupy Palestinian land in the West Bank, often with open ideological commitment to ethnic cleansing and supremacy.

    The film achieves its goal to a certain extent, as it exposed the raw, unfiltered language of settlers who speak brazenly about displacing Palestinians from their ancestral homes.

    But while the documentary was willing to give settlers the microphone to lay out their dangerous visions for the future, it fell painfully short in giving equal weight to the lived reality of those whose lives are being shattered by those very ideologies.

    The post I Was In The Documentary ‘The Settlers’; This Is The Part They Didn’t Tell appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • As its good little bitch, the BBC just refused to say why public support for Israel is collapsing

    The BBC‘s racist, institutional bias in favour of Israel has been clear throughout the state’s settler-colonial genocide in Gaza. In particular, its propaganda strategy involves the omission of key context. And a new article about falling support for Israel in the US is a perfect example. Because the BBC couldn’t bring itself to mention Israel’s war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or apartheid – not even once. And the only mention of genocide was to note that former president Joe Biden rejected the label “Genocide Joe”.

    The BBC is an utter embarrassment

    Like good propagandists, the BBC has long participated in the whitewashing of Israeli crimes like attacking hospitals and health workers. It has also failed consistently to give a prominent place to key context like the fact that Israel’s prime minister is an internationally wanted war criminal, or that numerous genocide experts have long accused the settler-colonial power of committing genocide in Gaza, the occupied Palestinian territory whose highly concentrated population it had previously isolated with a brutal blockade that turned the strip into “the world’s largest open-air prison”. And the tightening of apartheid structures has met with tumbleweed.

    It’s not exactly like there aren’t enough Israeli war crimes to mention. There’s the murder of children around a refugee camp clinic, “the largest child massacre“, or the flattening of the “only specialised cancer hospital”. There’s the use of human shields “at least six times a day” or the pushing of civilians into “a concentration camp” and “letting starvation and desperation do the rest”. And there’s the murder of hundreds of media workers, more than in any other conflict in living memory.

    But there’s not even a mention in the BBC article of reports or rulings from international legal institutions or human rights organisations.

    They can do journalism. They just prefer to do PR for war criminals.

    The BBC certainly can provide background and research when it wants to. For example, the article outlines fairly well the factors that established Israel as the next step in Western colonialism. It mentions the New York Zionist campaign in the subways to “collect money to try to get England to open the doors” to Palestine when Britain was in control of the territory. It quotes a woman saying:

    My brother would go on the subway trains, all the doors open on the train and he’d shout ‘open, open, open the doors to Palestine’

    The article also quotes historian Rashid Khalidi, whose family British colonialists expelled from Palestine in the 1930s. He said:

    On the one side, you had the Zionist movement led by people whom are European and American by origin… The Arabs had nothing similar… [The Arabs] weren’t familiar with the societies, the cultures, the political leaderships of the countries that decided the fate of Palestine. How could you speak to American public opinion if you had no idea what America is like?

    The piece makes it clear that experts were warning the US government of the risk of intensifying conflict in the Middle East if Washington backed the creation of Israel. It later explains how the war of 1967 showed the US “the importance and the significance of Israel as a major military and political power in the Middle East”, further strengthening the US-Israeli love-in. And it even mentions how Trump’s proposals for Gaza “upended international norms, flying in the face of international law”.

    Just no talk of ‘genocide’. No ‘apartheid’. No ‘war crimes’. And no ‘ethnic cleansing’.

    In short, the BBC is perfectly capable of giving context when it wants to. It cannot plead ignorant or incompetent. It simply chooses to avoid mentioning the international condemnation of genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and apartheid. That is a conscious choice, and an utterly despicable one.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Ed Sykes

  • Jewish Settler-Colonialists


    The straightforward responses in the documentary The Settlers by Louis Theroux will not surprise anyone who has kept abreast of the long-running Zionist plan to create facts-on-the-ground in Palestine. What is surprising is that this documentary was produced and broadcast by the BBC, a broadcaster that is usually inimical to Palestinian suffering. The documentary (currently viewable at Rumble.com) has been noticed. [Editor’s Note: The documentary has been blown away already. And Rumble has posted no explanation. See 404 notice below.]

    Zionist-triggered Western censorship at its best.

    The Independent considers The Settlers to be a “masterpiece.”

    The Middle East Eye hails the documentary as “an unflinching look at the Israelis [sic] intent on stealing the West Bank.”

    The Islam Channel praises Theroux for “highlight[ing] the horrifying influence of the illegal Israeli settler movement.”

    The title of the Spectator’s review was rather enigmatic: “How come the only Palestinians Louis Theroux met were non-violent sweeties?” The Spectator granted, “In a program called The Settlers, it’s perhaps fair enough that the focus should be so squarely on these people and their intransigence.”

    And what about the documentary’s title?

    Dictionary.com defines settler innocuously as “a person who settles in a new region or colony.” Is this the proper appellation? Others would argue that the term settler-colonialist is more accurate. The Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School states, “Settler colonialism can be defined as a system of oppression based on genocide and colonialism, that aims to displace a population of a nation (oftentimes indigenous people) and replace it with a new settler population.”

    The documentary begins with the lanky, bespectacled Theroux asking a settler whether they are “deep inside the Palestinian territories”? The settler-colonialist Ari Abramowitz objected, calling it “the heart of Judea.” He further objected to a “jihadist Palestinian state” being located in the heart of Israel.

    Abramowitz is forthright in saying he aspires to win territory from Palestinians.

    The settler-colonialists are described as “religionist nationalists.” A young Jewish woman Ovi says, “I believe Gaza is ours … The Bible says this place was given to the Jews. This place is ours.”

    Throughout the documentary, the Zionist goal is clear: to remove Palestinians and repopulate the land with Jews.

    Theroux spends much time interviewing Daniella Weiss, the “godmother of the settler movement,” an unabashed Zionist, who claimed: “We do for governments what they cannot do for themselves… Netanyahu is very happy at what we do but he cannot say it.”

    Gaza fits what Netanyahu cannot say, Weiss states the goal of “the practical idea of establishing Jewish settlements in the entire Gaza Strip. We very much encourage and enable the population in Gaza to go to other countries. You will witness how Jews go to Gaza and Arabs disappear from Gaza. They lost their right to stay in this holy place.”

    But Jews are not a pure monolith. Theroux interviews a protesting Israeli man who says, “The question is: what kind of country do we want to be? Do we want to be a colonizing country or do we want to be a country that at least offers peace and wants to live in peace with Palestinians?”

    What can Gazans expect if settler-colonialists create outposts in Gaza? The documentary examines the situation in the West Bank where outposts are set up to expand and become communities with the aim of becoming recognized as settlements by the Israeli government. These outposts and settlements are under the protection of the Israeli military.

    The Texan-raised Abramowitz denies Palestinians exist. When pressed by Theroux on this, Abramowitz replies, “They are Arabs.”

    The illegality of settlements is disregarded by Abramowitz. This is echoed by Weiss who shrugs off the commission of war crimes as a “lighter felony.”

    Such Zionist views point to the impunity of settler colonialists in dealing with the indigenous Palestinians. One common war crime is preventing Palestinian farmers from harvesting their produce, particularly olives. Israeli soldiers will arrive, demand identification, and send the farmers away from their land. And if a farmer is lucky, he will still be alive after the encounter.

    The filmmaker spoke of an “ideology of superiority of one group over another.” This even has rabbinical support.

    Rabbi Dove Leor said, “To my mind, there was never peace with these [Palestinian] savages. There is no peace and never will be…. This land belongs only to the people of Israel. All of Gaza, all of Lebanon should be cleansed of these ‘camel riders.’”

    To accomplish the disappearance of Palestinians, Weiss advocates using “the magic system of Zionism” to take over the land and repopulate it with Jews. “This will bring light instead of darkness,” says Weiss.

    Issa Amrou, a Palestinian activist, guides Theroux around occupied Hebron and explains the life of Palestinians under occupation. The system of encouraging Palestinians to leave is through fear of the Israeli soldiers, checkpoints, closing Palestinian businesses, making life intolerable, and fragmentation of Palestinian towns, leading to Jews taking more land.

    Near the end of the documentary, Theroux speaks again with the Texan-cum-settler-colonialist Abramowitz who makes known his feelings for Palestinians: “I don’t have tremendous compassion for a society that has an unquenchable genocidal, theological, bloodlust. It’s like a death cult.”

    Says Abramowitz, “I reject the real premise that these people [Palestinians] are actually a real nation for a lot of reasons.”

    “We know the righteousness of our cause. That’s what it means to be a Hebrew, what it means to be a Jew…”

    The Israeli government’s recognition of the Evyatar settlement in the lands of the Palestinian town of Beita spurred a celebration, and Weiss arrived to speak to a jubilating crowd.

    Theroux catches up with the settler-colonial godmother after her speech to the festive gathering. He asks what is wrong with a two-state solution?

    Says Weiss, “We want to have a Jewish state based on Jewish rules, on Jewish values. It is not a relationship of neighbors.”

    “Why not?” asks Theroux.

    “Because we are two nations.” At least Weiss admits to there being a Palestinian nation.

    Weiss makes clear that her overarching aim is Aliyah, bringing more settler-colonialists to the land. She does not think about the Palestinians because she is a Jew.

    Theroux says, “That seems sociopathic.”

    Weiss rejects this, saying, “It is normal.”

    In the settler-colonialist Zionist mindset, othering is normal.

    *****

    People who care about humans elsewhere and are unfamiliar or uninformed about the plight of Palestinians ought to watch The Settlers and become familiar and informed. Theroux probably presents the situation as close to the line as one could hope to have broadcast. Through the narrative, the viewer will hear that there is anti-Palestinian racism and violence against them, but the discussion will not be graphic, and visually the violence is downplayed.

    The post Jewish Settler-Colonialists first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Louis Theroux in Israel lobby’s sights as he shows ‘sociopathic’ nature of illegal settlers

    Despite recent capitulations to the pro-Israel lobby, the BBC has just broadcast a documentary by TV icon Louis Theroux on the “sociopathic” nature of the illegal settlement movement in occupied Palestine. And he’s already very clearly in the sights of the lobby.

    Louis Theroux exposing racism, apartheid, and settler violence

    Louis Theroux worked on The Settlers in response to reports that settlers were “accelerating the settlement process while being protected by the Israeli military”.

    The documentary shows Rabbi Dov Lior, “one of the most prominent and influential rabbis in Israel” and “one the most dangerous people” in the country, calling Palestinian people “savages” and asserting:

    There is no peace and never will be… This land belongs only to the people of Israel. All of Gaza, all of Lebanon, should be cleansed of these ‘camel riders’

    The film also gives an insight into daily harassment of Palestinians by Israeli occupiers, Israel’s system of apartheid, and soldiers’ bullying and aggression (in this case of Theroux himself), with a clear instinct to get physical in order to impose their will.

    One US settler claimed Palestinians’ connection with their land isn’t real, with no apparent irony. He said Zionists couldn’t allow a “Palestinian state right in the heart of Israel” (referring to the occupied West Bank) because:

    to understand the Arab way of thinking, they understand there’s a war. They win the war if they get territory, they lose the war if they lose territory.

    “Sociopathic”

    Daniella Weiss is chair of the Nachala movement, which has long established illegal outposts in the West Bank. And she spoke to Louis Theroux about “using the magic system, Zionism” to try and colonise Gaza, saying “you establish communities, you bring Jewish families… this is how the state of Israel was established, and this is what we want to do in Gaza”. In a speech we see, she insisted:

    We very much encourage and enable the population in Gaza to go to other countries. You will witness how Jews go to Gaza and Arabs disappear from Gaza

    And regarding the illegality of already-existent Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, she was defiant. When Theroux explained it was a war crime, she answered:

    It’s a light felony

    She claimed she had been involved in almost every illegal settlement since 1967. And she underplayed settler violence by saying:

    Confrontation is not overt terror

    She highlighted that “I have a lot of influence” over youngsters and politicians in Israel, more than her critics.

    Theroux wanted to know if she considered the suffering of Palestinians as a result of her efforts, asking:

    To think of other people, other children, not at all, that seems sociopathic, doesn’t it?

    She answered:

    No, not at all. This is normal

    Theroux summed the settler movement up as “extreme ideology, delivered with a smile”.

    Louis Theroux: in the sights of the Israel lobby

    Some media outlets have called The Settlers “potent“, “vital“, a “masterpiece“, and Louis Theroux’s “shocking best“. But those on the right have been quiet or combative.

    The Telegraph, for example, said “Theroux’s approach is mismatched with the political reality of Israel” (whatever that means). It tried to shrug settler extremism off as a fringe phenomenon that the Israeli state dislikes (which it doesn’t), while suggesting 7 October 2023 justified settlers being heavily armed (despite that being true long before 7 October). On the other hand, however, it was right to say “it’s a shame that journalists aren’t allowed into Gaza”. It just forgot to mention that this is because Israeli war criminals have been doing their best to hide their genocide by stopping foreign journalists from entering and killing dozens of local journalists.

    Theroux also documented “the extreme end of the Jewish settler movement” back in 2011. So he was undoubtedly already on the Zionist radar. But in preparation for his new documentary, one prominent pro-Israel lobbyist preemptively attacked him with a February piece in the Spectator titled “Why does Louis Theroux keep picking on Israeli settlers?” Because violent, racist colonialists don’t deserve scrutiny for committing war crimes, apparently.

    The article’s author was Israeli-state apologist Jonathan Sacerdoti, a former spokesperson for highly controversial Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) who once bragged about “weaponising” antisemitism to banish Jeremy Corbyn from “public life”. You may remember that, back in 2020, Sacerdoti also joined other anti-socialist hacks in rescuing the failing Jewish Chronicle (JC), a right-wing, pro-Israel propaganda outlet with a long track record of dubious ethical behaviour. Their work smearing left-wing critics of Israeli crimes – together with a toxic coalition of other right-wing forces – very much paved the way for the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the shamefully widespread apologism for it.

    Will the BBC fold again?

    Overall, the BBC‘s coverage of the Gaza genocide has been awful, with clear pro-Israel bias. In February, for example, genocide-apologists bullied the public broadcaster into pulling an important documentary about Gaza. Over a thousand UK-based media professionals condemned this “politically motivated censorship”, which they described as “racist” and “dehumanising”. They accused the BBC of “erasing Palestinian suffering” and “suppressing narratives that humanise Palestinians”.

    Louis Theroux’s documentary is a piece of much-needed context. And that has been sorely lacking in the coverage of both the BBC and other outlets. Whatever comes next from the pro-Israel lobby, the BBC must resist the urge to throw its professional reputation even further into the gutter.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Gary Lineker just ‘Chomskied’ Amol Rajan over BBC coverage of Israel – and the MSM ignored it

    Gary Lineker has done a new interview with the BBC’s Amol Rajan to mark his departure from Match of the Day. This follows tensions regarding his refusal to censor himself politically, especially on Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

    Most mainstream media headlines about the interview, however, seemed to ignore his powerful critique of the BBC over its awful coverage of Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

    Gary Lineker: ‘You can’t be impartial about the mass murder of thousands of children’

    Former football star Gary Lineker insisted that one key mistake the BBC makes is that it “tries to appease the people that hate the BBC“. And this is particularly clear when it comes to the Israel lobby. Because genocide apologists hate it when truth comes out, and even highly compromised news outlets like the BBC can’t help telling the truth sometimes.

    In February, for example, pro-Israel forces bullied the BBC into pulling an important documentary about Israel’s crimes in Gaza, and Lineker was one of over a thousand UK-based media professionals to condemn the public broadcaster’s “politically motivated censorship”, which they described as “racist” and “dehumanising”. This letter accused the BBC of “erasing Palestinian suffering” and “suppressing narratives that humanise Palestinians”.

    And in his BBC interview this week, Gary Lineker also hit back hard against accusations that he should have kept his mouth shut on the Gaza genocide to protect the BBC‘s ‘impartiality’, stressing that:

    the mass murder of thousands of children is probably something that we should have a little opinion on

    On average, Israeli occupation forces have killed at least one Palestinian child every hour in Gaza since their genocide began in October 2023. In total, they have murdered around 17,492 children. That number includes about 825 babies, 895 one-year-olds, 3,266 preschoolers, and 4,032 six-to-10-year-olds.

    Amol Rajan responded to Lineker by saying the BBC “needs to be impartial about it”. Lineker cut him off, saying:

     Why? It needs to be factual.

    ‘The FULL context needs to be there’

    Rajan echoed Israel’s attempt to justify its genocidal crimes in Gaza as a response to the events of 7 October 2023, ignorantly saying “that full context needs to be there”. But Gary Lineker’s comeback was clear. He asserted:

    But that’s not the full context, is it? Because the full context starts way before October the 7th, doesn’t it?

    That context includes the growth of political Zionism in the late 19th century, British colonialism in Palestine in the early 20th century, the Zionist settler movement and its terror campaigns before Israel’s creation in 1948, the mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948, Israel’s decades-long consolidation of control via war and oppression, and Western support for Israel as a Cold War anti-communist power and then as an ongoing outpost, proxy, and tool for imperialism in the Middle East via ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and war crimes.

    While the BBC keeps platforming Israeli propaganda for ‘impartiality’ purposes, it rarely gives the full context which would show true journalistic professionalism.

    Other mainstream media outlets hardly jumped on Lineker’s Gaza genocide comments either:

    That’s why it’s up to independent media outlets and rare mainstream critics like Gary Lineker to keep highlighting what the establishment media won’t.

    Featured image via screengrab

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Gary Lineker just ‘Chomskied’ Amol Rajan over BBC coverage of Israel – and the MSM ignored it

    Gary Lineker has done a new interview with the BBC’s Amol Rajan to mark his departure from Match of the Day. This follows tensions regarding his refusal to censor himself politically, especially on Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

    Most mainstream media headlines about the interview, however, seemed to ignore his powerful critique of the BBC over its awful coverage of Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

    Gary Lineker: ‘You can’t be impartial about the mass murder of thousands of children’

    Former football star Gary Lineker insisted that one key mistake the BBC makes is that it “tries to appease the people that hate the BBC“. And this is particularly clear when it comes to the Israel lobby. Because genocide apologists hate it when truth comes out, and even highly compromised news outlets like the BBC can’t help telling the truth sometimes.

    In February, for example, pro-Israel forces bullied the BBC into pulling an important documentary about Israel’s crimes in Gaza, and Lineker was one of over a thousand UK-based media professionals to condemn the public broadcaster’s “politically motivated censorship”, which they described as “racist” and “dehumanising”. This letter accused the BBC of “erasing Palestinian suffering” and “suppressing narratives that humanise Palestinians”.

    And in his BBC interview this week, Gary Lineker also hit back hard against accusations that he should have kept his mouth shut on the Gaza genocide to protect the BBC‘s ‘impartiality’, stressing that:

    the mass murder of thousands of children is probably something that we should have a little opinion on

    On average, Israeli occupation forces have killed at least one Palestinian child every hour in Gaza since their genocide began in October 2023. In total, they have murdered around 17,492 children. That number includes about 825 babies, 895 one-year-olds, 3,266 preschoolers, and 4,032 six-to-10-year-olds.

    Amol Rajan responded to Lineker by saying the BBC “needs to be impartial about it”. Lineker cut him off, saying:

     Why? It needs to be factual.

    ‘The FULL context needs to be there’

    Rajan echoed Israel’s attempt to justify its genocidal crimes in Gaza as a response to the events of 7 October 2023, ignorantly saying “that full context needs to be there”. But Gary Lineker’s comeback was clear. He asserted:

    But that’s not the full context, is it? Because the full context starts way before October the 7th, doesn’t it?

    That context includes the growth of political Zionism in the late 19th century, British colonialism in Palestine in the early 20th century, the Zionist settler movement and its terror campaigns before Israel’s creation in 1948, the mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948, Israel’s decades-long consolidation of control via war and oppression, and Western support for Israel as a Cold War anti-communist power and then as an ongoing outpost, proxy, and tool for imperialism in the Middle East via ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and war crimes.

    While the BBC keeps platforming Israeli propaganda for ‘impartiality’ purposes, it rarely gives the full context which would show true journalistic professionalism.

    Other mainstream media outlets hardly jumped on Lineker’s Gaza genocide comments either:

    That’s why it’s up to independent media outlets and rare mainstream critics like Gary Lineker to keep highlighting what the establishment media won’t.

    Featured image via screengrab

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • “They Cannot Tolerate Challenges to Wealth and Power” | George Monbiot | BBC Politics Live #shorts


    This content originally appeared on Just Stop Oil and was authored by Just Stop Oil.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Global Charade: Israel, Palestine and the “Rules-Based Order”

    The post-WW2 ‘international rules-based order’ that supposedly underpins global affairs in the interests of peace, democracy and prosperity has always been largely a charade. But Israel’s continuing Gaza genocide, carried out with seeming impunity and with the complicity and even active participation of the US and its allies, has exposed the charade like never before.

    Twenty years ago, at the 2005 World Summit, the United Nations General Assembly endorsed the doctrine of the ‘responsibility to protect’ or ‘R2P’. The key concerns were to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Whenever populations are at risk of such crimes, the international community is supposed to take collective action ‘in a timely and decisive manner’ to prevent mass atrocities from taking place.

    In practice, only some massacres matter, whether threatened or actual: namely, those that can be exploited by Western powers to further their own geostrategic interests (for example, see our media alerts here and here). The Nato-led attack on Libya in 2011 is a textbook example. Western politicians and their cheerleaders across the media ‘spectrum’ declared that the world had to act to prevent a ‘bloodbath’ in Benghazi when Gaddafi’s forces there were allegedly threatening to massacre civilians.

    In fact, the public were subjected to a propaganda blitz to promote the Perpetual War that had already wreaked havoc in Iraq, resulting in the deaths of over one million people, the virtual destruction of the Iraqi state and the proliferation of Al-Qaeda and other militia groups.

    In 2016, a report from the UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee summarised the destructive consequences of Nato’s 2011 intervention in Libya:

    ‘The result was political and economic collapse, inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of Gaddafi regime weapons across the region and the growth of ISIL [Islamic State] in North Africa.’

    As for the supposed threat of a massacre by Gaddafi’s forces in Benghazi, the alleged motivation for Nato’s ‘humanitarian intervention’, the report concluded that this ‘was not supported by the available evidence’. Likewise, claims that Gaddafi used African mercenaries and employed Viagra-fuelled mass rape as a weapon of war were invented.

    Nato’s actual goals were regime change and Libya’s oil, long pursued by the UK. After years of the West cosying up to Gaddafi, including by Tony Blair, the Libyan leader had become a hindrance to Western interests.

    As historian Mark Curtis observed:

    ‘three weeks after [then UK prime minister David] Cameron assured parliament in March 2011 that the object of the intervention was not regime change, he signed a joint letter with President Obama and French President Sarkozy committing to “a future without Gaddafi”.’

    Curtis added:

    ‘That these policies were illegal is confirmed by Cameron himself. He told Parliament on 21 March 2011 that the UN resolution “explicitly does not provide legal authority for action to bring about Gaddafi’s removal from power by military means”.’

    Like Blair, Cameron should have ended up in The Hague facing charges of war crimes.

    ‘Unapologetic Genocide’

    If the doctrine of ‘R2P’ was authentic, then there would have been massive international action to prevent Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as Israeli terror acts committed in the occupied West Bank, including the routine killing of Palestinian children.

    It took Amnesty International 14 months after the attacks of 7 October 2023 to publish a finding of genocide against Israel on 5 December 2024. A further four months have passed. In March, Israel shattered the ceasefire it never intended to keep, killing almost 1,600 Palestinians since then. According to the Health Ministry in Gaza, around 51,000 people have been killed by Israel since October 2023. The actual death toll is likely much higher. Israel has also halted all supplies of food, fuel and humanitarian aid into Gaza.

    The killing of 15 medics and emergency workers last month by Israeli soldiers, and the attempted Israeli cover-up, with bodies and vehicles buried in a shallow mass grave, provoked not a single public condemnation of Israel from Western leaders, as far as we are aware.

    BBC News, no doubt aware of public scrutiny and perhaps also under internal pressure from some of their own journalists, set its ‘BBC Verify’ team to work. This followed the publication of harrowing video footage of Israel’s attack found on the mobile phone of Rifaat Radwan, one of the victims. Heartbreakingly, he could be heard saying moments before his killing:

    ‘Forgive me mother because I chose this way, the way of helping people. Accept my martyrdom, God, and forgive me.’

    The 19-minute clip revealed that the vehicles in the convoy of the Palestinian Red Crescent had their headlights and emergency lights on, with high-vis jackets being worn, flatly contradicting Israel’s dishonest statements of the convoy behaving ‘suspiciously’ and constituting a ‘threat’.

    Early BBC reports carried the headline: ‘Israel admits mistakes over medic killings in Gaza.’

    This was the BBC once again bending over backwards to minimise Israel’s crimes.

    The headline was later updated to a more accurate, but still soft-pedalling:

    ‘Israel changes account of Gaza medic killings after video showed deadly attack’

    Notably, BBC News did not use the word ‘massacre’ in its reports, which it plainly was. Nor did they spell out that Israel’s spokespeople had been deceitful in their statements. In fact, Israel has a long history of spreading disinformation and even outright lies: a crucial fact that is routinely missing from ‘mainstream’ news reports.

    Instead, the BBC said that Israel had merely ‘changed its account’ of what had happened. Likewise, the Guardian went with:

    ‘Israeli military changes account of Gaza paramedics’ killing after video of attack’

    The 15 victims were but statistics, with little or no attempt to name or humanise them; no interviews with grieving relatives or account of their lives, their hopes, their ambitions.

    Owen Jones put it well via X and, at greater length, in a video:

    ‘Imagine Russia executed 15 Red Cross medics and first responders, burying them in a mass grave.

    ‘Imagine it lied about this grave war crime. Imagine footage then proved this.

    ‘Would the BBC frame that as “Russia admits mistakes over medic killings in Ukraine”?

    ‘No it would not.’

    On BBC News at Six on 7 April, international editor Jeremy Bowen concluded his account of Israel’s massacre of the 15 medics and emergency workers with a shameful piece of bothsidesism:

    ‘Israel now admits that its soldiers made mistakes when they attacked the convoy. It consistently denies it commits war crimes in Gaza. The evidence indicates that all the warring parties have done so.’ [Bowen’s own emphasis]

    The egregious false balance, the failure to point out Israel’s long and disreputable record of lying, and the BBC’s refusal to use words such as ‘massacre’ and ‘genocide’ are all glaringly obvious to the public.

    Historian and political commentator Assal Rad observed via X that Western media have no compunction giving headline coverage whenever ‘Russia lies’. But, in the case of Israel, the headlines use the weasel phrase: ‘Israel changes account’.

    As mentioned, it is possible that both public and internal pressure on BBC News are occasionally having an impact on the broadcaster. As trade unionist Howard Beckett pointed out, the BBC initially reported the appalling Israeli attack on 13 April on the al Ahli Arab Hospital, the last fully functional hospital in Gaza City, with the headline:

    ‘Gaza hospital hit by Israeli strike, Hamas-run healthy ministry says’

    BBC News systematically includes the phrase ‘Hamas-run healthy ministry says’ in its headlines, implying that the source may not be trustworthy. The headline was later updated to:

    ‘Israeli air strike destroys part of last functioning hospital in Gaza City’

    As ever with BBC News, Israel’s excuse for the attack appeared near the top of the article:

    ‘The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it targeted the hospital because it contained a “command and control centre used by Hamas”.’

    Richard Sanders, an experienced journalist and filmmaker, noted via X:

    ‘BBC again reports the Israeli claim the Al-Ahli Baptist hospital was a “command and control centre used by Hamas” without caveats – despite the fact such claims in the past have proved to be entirely untrue again and again. Bad, bad journalism.’

    ‘Bad, bad journalism’; namely, propaganda. But entirely standard for BBC News and much of what passes for ‘mainstream’ news.

    Readers may recall that this is the same hospital where a devastating explosion occurred on 17 October 2023, killing 471 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Israel mounted a huge propaganda operation to try to convince the world that the cause was a ‘misfiring’ Palestinian rocket. However, detailed analysis by Forensic Architecture, a multidisciplinary research group based at Goldsmiths, University of London, which investigates human rights violations, revealed that a more likely conclusion is that the cause was an exploding Israeli interceptor rocket.

    In the hours after the explosion, doctors who treated the wounded held a news conference at nearby al-Shifa Hospital. There, the British-Palestinian surgeon Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, currently Rector of the University of Glasgow, said that: ‘This is a massacre’, predicting that ‘more hospitals will be targeted’.

    Dr Abu-Sittah would later say that the blast at al Ahli hospital was the moment when it seemed clear to him that Israel’s military campaign ‘stopped being a war, and became a genocide’.

    Sky News correspondent Alex Crawford pointed out that this was the fifth time the hospital had been bombed by Israeli military forces since October 2023.

    As investigative journalist Dan Cohen noted of the latest attack:

    ‘This is the same hospital Israel bombed in October 2023 and waged a massive media disinformation campaign to blame a Palestinian rocket. Now they don’t even pretend. Unapologetic genocide.’

    Does Italy Have A Right To Exist?

    Last November, perhaps seeking a viral ‘gotcha’ moment, a journalist challenged Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, with the clichéd question, ‘Does Israel have a right to exist?’

    Albanese’s cogent response is worth contemplating:

    ‘Israel does exist. Israel is a recognised member of the United Nations. Besides this, there is not such a thing in international law like a right of a state to exist. Does Italy have a right to exist? Italy exists. Now, if tomorrow, Italy and France want to merge and become Ita-France, fine, this is not up to us. What is enshrined in international law is the right of a people to exist. So, the state is there. The state of Israel is there. It’s protected as a member of the United Nations. Does this justify the erasure of another people? Hell, no. Not 75 years ago. Not 57 years ago. Surely not today. Where is the protection of the Palestinian people from erasure, from annexation, from illegal occupation and apartheid? This is what we need to discuss.’

    A powerful reply indeed. Where is the much-vaunted ‘R2P’ when it comes to Palestine? Instead of discussing how best to protect the Palestinian people and, more importantly, taking immediate decisive action to do so, the West continues to support the apartheid and genocidal state of Israel: arming it, providing diplomatic cover, colluding with the Israeli air forces with RAF spy flights over Gaza and war operations, including the secret supply of weapons to Israel, being conducted from the RAF base in Cyprus.

    As is well known by now, the International Court of Justice in The Hague is currently deliberating over a case of genocide against Israel. Last year, the ICJ declared that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories – Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem – is illegal. And the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant. And yet, Netanyahu was recently welcomed with open arms in Washington, DC, having flown through airspace in France and other European countries which, under their ICC obligations, should have denied him that privilege.

    Palestinian journalist Lubna Masarwa, Middle East Eye’s Palestine and Israel bureau chief, observed that:

    ‘To western leaders, there are no red lines for Israel’s slaughter. Emboldened by the US and other western powers, Israel feels it can get away with unleashing hell on all Palestinians.’

    She added: ‘The inhumanity of these times scares me, as a journalist and as a person.’

    Last Friday, Mirjana Spoljaric, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said that Gaza has become ‘hell on earth’. Israel was ‘threatening the viability of Palestinians continuing to live in Gaza at all’. What is happening in Gaza is, she said, an ‘extreme hollowing out’ of international law.

    As Andrew Feinstein, the author, activist and former South African MP, stated in a recent powerful video for Double Down News:

    ‘The West has a choice: stop supporting genocide or mutate their own democracies and destroy international law forever. The West has chosen the latter.’

    The post Global Charade: Israel, Palestine and the “Rules-Based Order” first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Laura Kuenssberg’s anti-nationalisation gotcha over British Steel blows up in her face

    The UK steel industry is facing chaos at the moment, with calls for the government to re-nationalise British Steel. It’s a state of affairs almost anyone could have predicted, because privatisation is a scam, and it always leads to worse products and services, and it always ends up costing the taxpayer a fortune.

    Still, there are those who try to defend it.

    One person spewing pro-privatisation talking points this Sunday was the BBC‘s Laura Kuenssberg:

    Anti-British Steel nationalisation propaganda

    So, why is it propaganda to ask how much it will cost to re-nationalise a privatised industry such as British Steel?

    Because – as we’ve already stated – nationalisation actually saves money in most instances.

    As the pro-public ownership group We Own It report:

    • Public ownership of water will save £2.5 billion a year – investing this will reduce leakage levels by a third.
    • Public ownership of energy networks will save £3.7 billion a year – enough to buy 876 new offshore wind turbines.
    • Public ownership of rail will save £1 billion a year – enough to buy 100 miles of new railway track.
    • Public ownership of buses will save £506 million a year – enough to buy 1,356 new electric buses.
    • Public ownership of Royal Mail will save £171 million a year – enough to open 342 new Crown Post Offices with post banks.

    Kuenssberg’s question is like asking how much it will cost to put out a fire at a bank. Sure, in the short-term we would have to pay the firefighters to tackle the blaze, but in the long term we wouldn’t setting fire to massive heaps of cash for no good reason.

    And yet this is always the question that gets asked about nationalisation.

    To be fair, the situation with British Steel isn’t as clean cut as with the services above, because the globalised economy has made it cheaper to import steel than to produce it. But even with that being the case, there are important things to consider:

    1. The globalised economy we’ve become reliant on has begun to wobble, showing we were wrong to assume it could be relied on forever.
    2. We can’t treat the country like a ‘growth-at-all-costs’ business which doesn’t plan beyond next quarter. Ultimately, we have to balance the cost of maintaining our steel industry with the risk to jobs, security, and the economy which come with allowing fly-by-night foreign companies to run and dump our vital national industries.

    You can’t tell us it’s cheaper and more productive to repeatedly go through this doom cycle of selling industries like British Steel; paying to prop them up; paying to renationalise them, and then selling them off again. I mean, you can tell us that, but we’re going to assume you’re saying that because you’re being paid by the people who want to rinse the country for more money.

    Kuenssberg did publish an article which goes into some of the finer detail, but it’s telling she’d use the interview as an opportunity to focus on the key propaganda point of the privatisation fetishists.

    It’s also telling that media figures who are supposedly worried about public finances aren’t asking why Labour isn’t implementing wealth taxes to prevent inequality growing even further.

    U-turns on U-turns

    Keir Starmer has gone from presenting himself as a vaguely left-leaning politician who was pro-nationalisation to a very right-wing prime minister with hyper nationalist tendencies. The interesting thing is that in this moment either incarnation of Starmer would likely do the same thing – renationalise British Steel.

    We fully acknowledge that if Starmer does it now, it will be because he wants to sabre rattle about national security for the benefit of the flag-shagging knuckle draggers who are going to vote for Reform regardless of how many Union Jacks he drapes himself in. At the same time, if we renationalise one industry, the case to renationalise everything gets that much easier.

    As such, expect to see more figures in the British establishment standing up for their corporate pals on the Westminster supper circuit.

    Featured image via BBC

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Trump fanatic Farage threatens UK councils with the Elon Musk DOGE treatment

    Donald Trump and Elon Musk have been making a right old mess of the US government. While there was always much to criticise about the country, Musk and his so called ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ (DOGE) haven’t been going after the programmes which make people’s live worse; they’ve been going after the ones which make things borderline tolerable. Now, Nigel Farage is threatening to do the same thing to councils across the UK.

    DOGE: the slashing bureau

    If you listened to Musk (like Nigel Farage seemingly has) you’d believe he genuinely wanted to improve government efficiency. If you listened to anyone who wasn’t a billionaire, you’d know that DOGE was a spite-driven machine designed to cut services for regular people.

    CNN rounded up several ways Musk “misled” Americans, including:

    • Lying about a USAID-paid celebrity trip to Ukraine designed to “boost Zelensky’s popularity among Americans” (the trip never happened).
    • Sharing misinformation spread by random X users, including a graph which suggested an increase in tax credits was some sort of nefarious welfare scheme (it was actually a scheme that Trump signed into power and Joe Biden later allowed to expire).
    • Musk also claimed “They took money from FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency], meant for helping Americans in distress, and sent that money to luxury hotels for illegal immigrants in New York” (the money was from a separate scheme and the hotels weren’t luxury).

    Don’t get us wrong – we’re not saying the US government was doing good work with any of the above. USAID did benefit many people around the world, but at the same time it existed primarily to push American soft power abroad. Biden should have continued the tax credits scheme, too, and New York and the US government would actually save money by using permanent housing instead of temporary solutions like hotels.

    DOGE isn’t slashing these services to implement something better, though, it’s slashing them because Musk and other billionaires despise anything which doesn’t benefit themselves. This is why Musk is very happy to take government “contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits” for his own companies, but cries bloody murder when government money is directed anywhere else.

    Incompetent

    And let’s not forget the incompetence (something Nigel Farage needs no lessons in).

    In February, DOGE had to rush to rehire crucial workers in fields like nuclear weapons. As the Standard reported:

    Federal workers responsible for America’s nuclear weapons are being rehired after being accidentally fired in President Donald Trump’s rush to slash government waste in a whirlwind of new policies since he returned to the White House.

    Scientists trying to fight a worsening outbreak of bird flu and officials responsible for supplying electricity are also being given their jobs back after being among the tens of thousands of workers axed by Trump’s administration.

    “This shows a level of absolute incompetence in the firing process,” said Don Moynihan, a professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

    “They are taking a chainsaw to public services without any kind of careful review of the people being removed and the tasks they are employed for.”

    You might not agree with nuclear weapons existing, but you probably think that as long as we do have them they should at least be secure.

    Attacking MAGA

    Another element we should mention is that the promise of DOGE to Trump voters was that it would go after the enemies of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. But do you know who it actually attacked?

    That’s right – Trump voters themselves.

    In the 2024 election, nearly two thirds of veteran voters opted for Trump. How did Trump and Musk repay them? Well, as The Week reported:

    A “climate of fear” has enveloped the Department of Veterans Affairs, said Sonner Kehrt in Mother Jones. Guided by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, the Trump administration has cut 2,400 jobs at the agency over the past month. And last week, VA Secretary Doug Collins announced plans to ax 80,000 more employees this year—about 17 percent of the department’s entire workforce. Despite repeated claims from administration officials that the layoffs will not affect the 9 million vets who rely on the agency for medical care and other services, VA workers say the cuts are “already hurting” patients. Suicide prevention trainings have been canceled, and therapists who work with PTSD patients have been fired. Some vets have seen mammograms and other crucial exams delayed for months because of staff shortages. Meanwhile, VA workers are struggling to focus on providing care as they worry about whether they’ll even have a job tomorrow. “Honestly, the last time I felt this level of fear was in combat,” said one decorated veteran turned veterans’ therapist.

    One thing Musk and the Trump movement have raged against is the the idea of ‘DEI hires’, with DEI standing for ‘Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion’. As it turned out, many of the veterans employed in the federal government were hired as part of DEI initiatives to provide support for American soldiers after they return from combat. Now, these soldiers are going from an environment which provided next-to-no-support to one which is actively hostile towards them.

    And all because the guy they supported won.

    Does this sound like something we want to import to the UK? Nigel Farage clearly thinks so.

    Musk’s finger puppet Nigel Farage being fingered by Laura Kuenssberg

    On her Sunday morning politics show, Laura Kuenssberg suggested the upcoming council elections could be a “big breakthrough” for Nigel Farage and his Reform Party, asking him:

    councils have been strapped for cash for a long, long time. We know that. And there are many issues. Let’s look at a couple of them.

    There’s already an overspend of £3bn for children with special needs. Councils aren’t able to give people the help that they need. They haven’t got enough money to meet it. So if Reform was to be running any council, would you increase Council Tax, or would you cut back services even further?

    You could argue these are the only two options, sure; you could also argue that Reform could use their growing electoral heft to bully Labour into sending more money to councils (money we’d like to see them generate through wealth taxes). Kuenssberg doesn’t even consider this to be an option, of course, because she’s one of the many ideology-brained austerity psychos that make up the British media.

    Farage responded:

    I’ve looked at the numbers. We did thousands of FOI requests to have a look where money was being spent. I’m gonna say this. We probably need a DOGE for every single county council in England.

    Yep, because DOGE is working out great in America.

    It’s really making people’s lives better.

    It isn’t just a scam to funnel more money to the rich.

    Nigel Farage blamed the shortages on things like councils spending money on ergonomic chairs. Undoubtedly there are instances of excessive spending which you could point at, but let us be clear – when a politician rises to power with a focus on what they can cut and not what they can improve, they really have no intention of improving anything.

    Kuenssberg did push back, saying:

    if you look properly at how local councils spend their money, nearly 80% of it is on education, police, children and adults social care, and the vast majority of it does not go on things like ergonomic chairs in the office. There are serious shortages.

    The problem is that she’s not saying this because she thinks the point about chairs is silly; she’s saying it because she wants Farage to commit to cutting things like education and adult social care.

    Little America, thanks to Nigel Farage

    With America fucking up so fantastically right now, you’d think UK politicians would want to distance themselves from the ongoing catastrophe. Sadly, it seems like our political class want to go down with the Titanic success Trump is having – with Nigel Farage cheering the pack on.

    Featured image via BBC and Wikimedia (Gage Skidmore – background removed from image)

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The BBC gave nearly 60% of its coverage to just ONE pro-assisted suicide lobby group

    When it comes to BBC coverage of assisted suicide – or anything, really – the foremost UK public broadcaster should rebrand itself the British Bias Corporation and be done with it. This is because, any claims to impartiality the BBC could claim to uphold, has been well and truly demolished once again. This time, it’s over its news site’s stacked coverage of Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill.

    BBC bias on assisted suicide

    Journalist Dan Hitchens dug into the BBC’s output across its news site in the last six months. He looked at the period between October 2024, and the end of March 2025. Specifically, he analysed news stories for their inclusion of different representatives and groups.

    And what he found was blatant bias in favour of the pro-assisted suicide lobby:

    The “single campaign group” Hitchens flagged is none other than the opaquely funded Dignity in Dying. The organisation has spearheaded lobbying efforts to push MPs to back the bill in parliament.

    Ahead of the vote at second reading in the House of Commons, the group spent vast sums peddling the bill to the public on social media.

    So, Hitchens essentially revealed that the BBC has platformed the lobby group in a whopping nearly 60% of its stories on the bill.

    By comparison, it has given over its coverage to groups/individuals against assisted suicide in only a third of its articles.

    If that weren’t bad enough, Hitchens noted the pitiful excuse the BBC had previously made for this staggering disparity:

    In short, to the BBC, it doesn’t give a shit about amplifying the voices of those the assisted suicide bill could impact most. As the Canary has consistently articulated, this will be chronically ill and disabled people.

    BBC bias: we’ve been here before, we’ll be here again

    Of course, none of this is out of step with the public broadcaster that’s anything but ‘impartial’ in reality. The notion that the BBC is a trustworthy, non-partisan source of information is about as believable now as a Labour cabinet minister refusing to drink to a round of “Never have I ever taken vast donations from sleazebag corporate lobbyists”.

    What it passes off as impartiality is really just a complicit client media. It unabashedly maintains the status quo of the establishment and corporate capitalist classes. That is, the BBC has long laundered the agendas and reputations of the neoliberal right. In doing this, it has kept them soundly in power. Political editor, Boris Johnson suck-up, and all-round slimy Conservative grifter Laura Kuenssberg is a case and point of precisely this.

    Throughout Israel’s abhorrent genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, its disgusting capitulation to the war-criminal-led state has been nothing if not obvious and relentless.

    So the BBC really is no stranger to laying cover for the perpetrators of unconscionable deaths either. Be it the Covid fatal “let it rip” legacy of Tory administration past, or genocidal Israel, it’s a blatant vehicle for this type of establishment-sustaining propaganda. In that sense then, its overt lean into the lead org of the assisted suicide lobby, is arguably right at home.

    Not its first time promoting assisted suicide with DiD’s help

    Nor is this the BBC’s only foray into sanitising assisted suicide either. Dignity in Dying’s own annual accounts detail how in 2023, it:

    provided consultancy support on Casualty and Coronation Street storylines

    That is, the lobby group input into two of the broadcaster’s most popular programmes. As the Telegraph highlighted:

    In September last year, a major plot line in BBC medical drama Casualty revolved around Jan Jenning, a paramedic played by Di Botcher, helping Gethin West – a Motor Neurone Disease (MND) sufferer portrayed by Robert Pugh – to end his life in Switzerland.

    Two months earlier, Coronation Street showed Paul Foreman, another MND sufferer, asking his boyfriend Billy Mayhew, an archdeacon, to help him die.

    Of course, the effect of it normalising assisted suicide in two prominent soaps, cannot be overstated. These stories promote assisted death, over provision of genuine support assisting people to live.

    Now, Hitchens has blown open the BBC’s broadscale bias over this once again. Who it chooses to amplify speaks volumes. This is especially the case when it has put out this coverage amid parliamentary and committee votes on the bill.

    It should be a scandal that a vested lobby group has such enormous monopoly over its output on such a contentious issue. However, it should also be no surprise from the establishment stooge that is the BBC.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The graver Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, the quieter the BBC grows

    ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook

    The BBC’s news verification service, Verify, digitally reconstructed a residential tower block in Mandalay earlier this week to show how it had collapsed in a huge earthquake on March 28 in Myanmar, a country in Southeast Asia largely cut off from the outside world.

    The broadcaster painstakingly pieced together damage to other parts of the city using a combination of phone videos, satellite imagery and Nasa heat detection images.

    Verify dedicated much time and effort to this task for a simple reason: to expose as patently false the claims made by the ruling military junta that only 2000 people were killed by Myanmar’s 7.7-magnitude earthquake.

    The West sees the country’s generals as an official enemy, and the BBC wanted to show that the junta’s account of events could not be trusted. Myanmar’s rulers have an interest in undercounting the dead to protect the regime’s image.

    The BBC’s determined effort to strip away these lies contrasted strongly with its coverage — or rather, lack of it — of another important story this week.

    Israel has been caught in another horrifying war crime. Late last month, it executed 15 Palestinian first responders and then secretly buried them in a mass grave, along with their crushed vehicles.

    Israel is an official western ally, one that the United States, Britain and the rest of Europe have been arming and assisting in a spate of crimes against humanity being investigated by the world’s highest court. Fourteen months ago, the International Court of Justice ruled it was “plausible” that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, is a fugitive from its sister court, the International Criminal Court. Judges there want to try him for crimes against humanity, including starving the 2.3 million people of Gaza by withholding food, water and aid.

    Israel is known to have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, many of them women and children, in its 18-month carpet bombing of the enclave. But there are likely to be far more deaths that have gone unreported.

    This is because Israel has destroyed all of Gaza’s health and administrative bodies that could do the counting, and because it has created unmarked “kill zones” across much of the enclave, making it all but impossible for first responders to reach swathes of territory to locate the dead.

    The latest crime scene in Gaza is shockingly illustrative of how Israel murders civilians, targets medics and covers up its crimes — and of how Western media collude in downplaying such atrocities, helping Israel to ensure that the extent of the death toll in Gaza will never be properly known.

    Struck ‘one by one’
    Last Sunday, United Nations officials were finally allowed by Israel to reach the site in southern Gaza where the Palestinian emergency crews had gone missing a week earlier, on March 23. The bodies of 15 Palestinians were unearthed in a mass grave; another is still missing.

    All were wearing their uniforms, and some had their hands or legs zip-tied, according to eyewitnesses. Some had been shot in the head or chest. Their vehicles had been crushed before they were buried.

    Two of the emergency workers were killed by Israeli fire while trying to aid people injured in an earlier air strike on Rafah. The other 13 were part of a convoy sent to retrieve the bodies of their colleagues, with the UN saying Israel had struck their ambulances “one by one”.

    Even the usual excuses, as preposterous as they are, simply won’t wash in the case of Israel’s latest atrocity — which is why it initially tried to black out the story

    More details emerged during the week, with the doctor who examined five of the bodies reporting that all but one — which had been too badly mutilated by feral animals to assess — were shot from close range with multiple bullets. Ahmad Dhaher, a forensic consultant working at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, said: “The bullets were aimed at one person’s head, another at their heart, and a third person had been shot with six or seven bullets in the torso.”

    Bashar Murad, the Red Crescent’s director of health programmes, observed that one of the paramedics in the convoy was in contact with the ambulance station when Israeli forces started shooting: “During the call, we heard the sound of Israeli soldiers arriving at the location, speaking in Hebrew.

    “The conversation was about gathering the [Palestinian] team, with statements like: ‘Gather them at the wall and bring some restraints to tie them.’ This indicated that a large number of the medical staff were still alive.”

    Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs in Palestine, reported that, on the journey to recover the bodies, he and his team witnessed Israeli soldiers firing on civilians fleeing the area. He saw a Palestinian woman shot in the back of the head and a young man who tried to retrieve her body shot, too.

    Concealing slaughter
    The difficulty for Israel with the discovery of the mass grave was that it could not easily fall back on any of the usual mendacious rationalisations for war crimes that it has fed the Western media over the past year and a half, and which those outlets have been only too happy to regurgitate.

    Since Israel unilaterally broke a US-backed ceasefire agreement with Hamas last month, its carpet bombing of the enclave has killed more than 1000 Palestinians, taking the official death toll to more than 50,000. But Israel and its apologists, including Western governments and media, always have a ready excuse at hand to mask the slaughter.

    Israel disputes the casualty figures, saying they are inflated by Gaza’s Health Ministry, even though its figures in previous wars have always been highly reliable. It says most of those killed were Hamas “terrorists”, and most of the slain women and children were used by Hamas as “human shields”.

    Israel has also destroyed Gaza’s hospitals, shot up large numbers of ambulances, killed hundreds of medical personnel and disappeared others into torture chambers, while denying the entry of medical supplies.

    Israel implies that all of the 36 hospitals in Gaza it has targeted are Hamas-run “command and control centres”; that many of the doctors and nurses working in them are really covert Hamas operatives; and that Gaza’s ambulances are being used to transport Hamas fighters.

    Even if these claims were vaguely plausible, the Western media seems unwilling to ask the most obvious of questions: why would Hamas continue to use Gaza’s hospitals and ambulances when Israel made clear from the outset of its 18-month genocidal killing rampage that it was going to treat them as targets?

    Even if Hamas fighters did not care about protecting the health sector, which their parents, siblings, children, and relatives desperately need to survive Israel’s carpet bombing, why would they make themselves so easy to locate?

    Hamas has plenty of other places to hide in Gaza. Most of the enclave’s buildings are wrecked concrete structures, ideal for waging guerrilla warfare.

    Israeli cover-up
    Even the usual excuses, as preposterous as they are, simply won’t wash in the case of Israel’s latest atrocity — which is why it initially tried to black out the story.

    Given that it has banned all Western journalists from entering Gaza, killed unprecedented numbers of local journalists, and formally outlawed the UN refugee agency Unrwa, it might have hoped its crime would go undiscovered.

    But as news of the atrocity started to appear on social media last week, and the mass grave was unearthed on Sunday, Israel was forced to concoct a cover story.

    It claimed the convoy of five ambulances, a fire engine, and a UN vehicle were “advancing suspiciously” towards Israeli soldiers. It also insinuated, without a shred of evidence, that the vehicles had been harbouring Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters.

    Once again, we were supposed to accept not only an improbable Israeli claim but an entirely nonsensical one. Why would Hamas fighters choose to become sitting ducks by hiding in the diminishing number of emergency vehicles still operating in Gaza?

    Why would they approach an Israeli military position out in the open, where they were easy prey, rather than fighting their enemy from the shadows, like other guerrilla armies — using Gaza’s extensive concrete ruins and their underground tunnels as cover?

    If the ambulance crews were killed in the middle of a firefight, why were some victims exhumed with their hands tied? How is it possible that they were all killed in a gun battle when the soldiers could be heard calling for the survivors to be zip-tied?

    And if Israel was really the wronged party, why did it seek to hide the bodies and the crushed vehicles under sand?

    ‘Deeply disturbed’
    All available evidence indicates that Israel killed all or most of the emergency crews in cold blood — a grave war crime.

    But as the story broke on Monday, the BBC’s News at Ten gave over its schedule to a bin strike by workers in Birmingham; fears about the influence of social media prompted by a Netflix drama, Adolescence; bad weather on a Greek island; the return to Earth of stranded Nasa astronauts; and Britain’s fourth political party claiming it would do well in next month’s local elections.

    All of that pushed out any mention of Israel’s latest war crime in Gaza.

    Presumably under pressure from its ordinary journalists — who are known to be in near-revolt over the state broadcaster’s persistent failure to cover Israeli atrocities in Gaza — the next day’s half-hour evening news belatedly dedicated 30 seconds to the item, near the end of the running order.

    This was the perfect opportunity for BBC Verify to do a real investigation, piecing together an atrocity Israel was so keen to conceal

    The perfunctory report immediately undercut the UN’s statement that it was “deeply disturbed” by the deaths, with the newsreader announcing that Israel claimed nine “terrorists” were “among those killed”.

    Where was the BBC Verify team in this instance? Too busy scouring Google maps of Myanmar, it would seem.

    If ever there was a region where its forensic, open-source skills could be usefully deployed, it is Gaza. After all, Israel keeps out foreign journalists, and it has killed Palestinian journalists in greater numbers than all of the West’s major wars of the past 150 years combined.

    This was the perfect opportunity for BBC Verify to do a real investigation, piecing together an atrocity Israel was so keen to conceal. It was a chance for the BBC to do actual journalism about Gaza.

    Why was it necessary for the BBC to contest the narrative of an earthquake in a repressive Southeast Asian country whose rulers are opposed by the West but not contest the narrative of a major atrocity committed by a Western ally?

    Missing in action
    This is not the first time that BBC Verify has been missing in action at a crucial moment in Gaza.

    Back in January 2024, Israeli soldiers shot up a car containing a six-year-old girl, Hind Rajab, and her relatives as they tried to flee an Israeli attack on Gaza City. All were killed, but before Hind died, she could be heard desperately pleading with emergency services for help.

    Two paramedics who tried to rescue her were also killed. It took two weeks for other emergency crews to reach the bodies.

    It was certainly possible for BBC Verify to have done a forensic study of the incident — because another group did precisely that. Forensic Architecture, a research team based at the University of London, used available images of the scene to reconstruct the events.

    It found that the Israeli military had fired 335 bullets into the small car carrying Hind and her family. In an audio recording before she was killed, Hind’s cousin could be heard telling emergency services that an Israeli tank was near them.

    The sound of the gunfire, most likely from the tank’s machine gun, indicates it was some 13 metres away — close enough for the crew to have seen the children inside.

    Not only did BBC Verify ignore the story, but the BBC also failed to report it until the bodies were recovered. As has happened so often before, the BBC dared not do any reporting until Israel was forced to confirm the incident because of physical evidence.

    We know from a BBC journalist-turned-whistleblower, Karishma Patel, that she pushed editors to run the story as the recordings of Hind pleading for help first surfaced, but she was overruled.

    When the BBC very belatedly covered Hind’s horrific killing online, in typical fashion, it did so in a way that minimised any pushback from Israel. Its headline, “Hind Rajab, 6, found dead in Gaza days after phone calls for help”, managed to remove Israel from the story.

    Evidence buried
    A clear pattern thus emerges. The BBC also tried to bury the massacre of the 15 Palestinian first responders — keeping it off its website’s main page — just as Israel had tried to bury the evidence of its crime in Gaza’s sand.

    The story’s first headline was: “Red Cross outraged over killing of eight medics in Gaza”. Once again, Israel was removed from the crime scene.

    Only later, amid massive backlash on social media and as the story refused to go away, did the BBC change the headline to attribute the killings to “Israeli forces”.

    But subsequent stories have been keen to highlight the self-serving Israeli claim that its soldiers were entitled to execute the paramedics because the presence of emergency vehicles at the scene of much death and destruction was “suspicious”.

    In one report, a BBC journalist managed to shoe-horn this same, patently ridiculous “defence” twice into her two-minute segment. She reduced the discovery of an Israeli massacre to mere “allegations”, while a clear war crime was soft-soaped as only an “apparent” one.

    Notably, the BBC has on one solitary occasion managed to go beyond other media in reporting an attack on an ambulance crew. The footage incontrovertibly showed a US-supplied Apache helicopter firing on the crew and a young family they were trying to evacuate.

    There was no possibility the ambulance contained “terrorists” because the documentary team were filming inside the vehicle with paramedics they had been following for months. The video was included near the end of a documentary on the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, seen largely through the eyes of children.

    But the BBC quickly pulled that film, titled Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone, after the Israel lobby manufactured a controversy over one of its child narrators being the son of Gaza’s deputy Agriculture Minister, who served in the Hamas-run civilian government.

    Wholesale destruction
    The unmentionable truth, which has been evident since the earliest days of the 18-month genocide, is that Israel is intentionally dismantling and destroying Gaza’s health sector, piece by piece.

    According to the UN, Israel’s war has killed at least 1060 healthcare workers and 399 aid workers — those deaths it has been possible to identify — and wrecked Gaza’s health facilities. Israel has rounded up hundreds of medical staff and disappeared many of them into what Israeli human rights groups call torture chambers.

    One doctor, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, has been held by Israel since he was abducted in late December. During brief contacts with lawyers, Dr Safiya revealed that he is being tortured.

    Other doctors have been killed in Israeli detention from their abuse, including one who was allegedly raped to death.

    Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and execution of medical personnel is part of the same message: there is nowhere safe, no sanctuary, the laws of war no longer apply

    Why is Israel carrying out this wholesale destruction of Gaza’s health sector? There are two reasons. Firstly, Netanyahu recently reiterated his intent to carry out the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

    He presents this as “voluntary migration”, supposedly in accordance with US President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate the enclave’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians to other countries.

    There can be nothing voluntary about Palestinians leaving Gaza when Israel has refused to allow any food or aid into the enclave for the past month, and is indiscriminately bombing Gaza. Israel’s ultimate intention has always been to terrify the population into flight.

    Israel’s ambassador to Austria, David Roet, was secretly recorded last month stating that “there are no uninvolved in Gaza”— a constant theme from Israeli officials. He also suggested that there should be a “death sentence” for anyone Israel accuses of holding a gun, including children.

    Meanwhile, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has threatened the “total devastation” of Gaza’s civilian population should they fail to “remove Hamas” from the enclave, something they are in no position to do.

    Not surprisingly, faced with the prospect of an intensification of the genocide and the imminent annihilation of themselves and their loved ones, ordinary people in Gaza have started organising protests against Hamas — marches readily reported by the BBC and others.

    Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and execution of medical personnel is part of the same message: there is nowhere safe, no sanctuary, the laws of war no longer apply, and no one will come to your aid in your hour of need.

    You are alone against our snipers, drones, tanks and Apache helicopters.

    Too much to bear
    The second reason for Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s health sector is that we in the West, or at least our governments and media, have consented to Israel’s savagery — and actively participated in it — every step of the way. Had there been any meaningful pushback at any stage, Israel would have been forced to take another course.

    When David Lammy, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, let slip in Parliament last month the advice he has been receiving from his officials since he took up the job last summer — that Israel is clearly violating international law by starving the population — he was immediately rebuked by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office.

    Let us not forget that Starmer, when he was opposition leader, approved Israel’s genocidal blocking of food, water and electricity to Gaza, saying Israel “had that right”.

    In response to Lammy’s comments, Starmer’s spokesperson restated the government’s view that Israel is only “at risk” of breaching international law — a position that allows the UK to continue arming Israel and providing it with intelligence from British spy flights over Gaza from a Royal Air Force base in Cyprus.

    Our politicians have consented to everything Israel has done, and not just in Gaza over the past 18 months. This genocide has been decades in the making.

    Three-quarters of a century ago, the West authorised the ethnic cleansing of most of Palestine to create a self-declared Jewish state there. The West consented, too, to the violent occupation of the last sections of Palestine in 1967, and to Israel’s gradual colonisation of those newly seized territories by armed Jewish extremists.

    The West nodded through waves of house demolitions carried out against Palestinian communities by Israel to “Judaise” the land. It backed the Israeli army creating extensive “firing zones” on Palestinian farmland to starve traditional agricultural communities of any means of subsistence.

    The West ignored Israeli settlers and soldiers destroying Palestinian olive groves, beating up shepherds, torching homes, and murdering families. Even being an Oscar winner offers no immunity from the rampant settler violence.

    The West agreed to Israel creating an apartheid road system and a network of checkpoints that kept Palestinians confined to ever-shrinking ghettoes, and building walls around Palestinian areas to permanently isolate them from the rest of the world.

    It allowed Israel to stop Palestinians from reaching one of their holiest sites, Al-Aqsa Mosque, on land that was supposed to be central to their future state.

    The West kept quiet as Israel besieged the two million people of Gaza for 17 years, putting them on a tightly rationed diet so their children would grow ever-more malnourished. It did nothing — except supply more weapons — when the people of Gaza launched a series of non-violent protests at their prison walls around the enclave, and were greeted with Israeli sniper fire that left thousands dead or crippled.

    The West only found a collective voice of protest on 7 October 2023, when Hamas managed to find a way to break out of Gaza’s choking isolation to wreak havoc in Israel for 24 hours. It has been raising its voice in horror at the events of that single day ever since, drowning out 18 months of screams from the children being starved and exterminated in Gaza.

    The murder of 15 Palestinian medics and aid workers is a tiny drop in an ocean of Israeli criminality — a barbarism rewarded by Western capitals decade after decade.

    This genocide was made in the West. Israel is our progeny, our ugly reflection in the mirror — which is why Western leaders and establishment media are so desperate to make us look the other way. That reflection is too much for anyone with a soul to bear.

    Jonathan Cook is a writer, journalist and media critic, and author of many books about Palestine. He is a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. Republished from the Middle East Eye and the author’s blog with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The BBC’s latest shameful propaganda for Israel plumbs new depths

    On 23 March, Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers gunned down 15 emergency workers. As reported at the time, those killed included “eight Palestinian medics… along with six Civil Defence first responders and a UN staff member“. Israel’s military responded by claiming the vehicle had behaved suspiciously, and that it was driving at night without headlights or emergency signals. Now, uncovered mobile phone footage has debunked these claims, with the IDF admitting inaccuracies. The BBC, meanwhile, has published an article which tacitly accepts the IDF argument – namely that its soldiers simply “made mistakes”, and not that they deliberately massacred a van full of people:

    BBC headline which reads 'Israel admits mistakes over medic killings in Gaza'

    BBC headline propaganda for Israel

    According to the article itself, the IDF is blaming its own soldiers:

    Israel has admitted its earlier account claiming the vehicles approached without lights was inaccurate, attributing the report to the troops involved.

    Media Lens, meanwhile, suggested the following correction to the BBC‘s headline:

    Given what we know so far, it would be probably be too much to expect the BBC to run with a headline like ‘IDF lied’. To satisfy BBC impartiality rules, they’d have to know that IDF commanders knew the truth and chose to obscure it; they can’t simply assume the IDF is lying just because the IDF has a long history of lying (in some instances allegedly; in others provenly). As the Institute for Middle East Understanding has stated:

    Israel’s military and government have a long and well-documented history of lying and falsifying evidence to cover up and deflect responsibility for war crimes they commit against Palestinians.

    The link above gives several well-documented instances of the IDF “lying and falsifying evidence”. The Canary has also published many articles on the topic – as have outlets like Declassified UK, Novara, Byline Times, The Grayzone, and Jacobin.

    So, if we agree that the BBC can’t outright accuse the IDF of lying, how could they have worded this headline?

    Let’s take a look at the headline again:

    Israel admits mistakes over medic killings in Gaza

    As stated, the problem is that the headline presupposes the massacre was a mistake, so how could we fix that?

    Fixing BBC Israel headlines

    Quite simply, actually, by just changing the word ‘admits’ to ‘claims’:

    Israel claims mistakes over medic killings in Gaza

    When we use the word ‘admits’, it suggests we believe a person is guilty, and that they have now confirmed this. When we say ‘claims’, we’re stating that a person has stated they did something, but we’re doing so without the assumption that we agree with their assertion.

    While an admission of guilt is generally an act of taking accountability, in this instance the IDF is taking accountability for a far lesser crime than that which it stands accused of. It didn’t admit to a massacre; it admitted to ‘mistakes’ – mistakes which wash its hands of responsibility for the massacre.

    As the IDF has a documented history of making false statements, it’s not partial to treat it as an impartial source of information. Given that, we’d argue that the BBC could justifiably go harder than simply tweaking one word. Why not run a headline like the following:

    Israel admits sharing falsehoods over medic killings

    Or even:

    Footage shows Israeli soldier claims weren’t true

    Either option would be a bit soft for our liking, but they’d inarguably fall within the realms of BBC impartiality.

    Figures like Owen Jones have provided commentary on how the BBC “covers up Israel’s crimes”:

    The massacre and the aftermath

    Reporting on the story on 1 April, Al Jazeera wrote:

    Nine Palestine Red Crescent (PRCS) medics in ambulances, as well as some Civil Defence workers, went to help people in Rafah, Gaza, and disappeared on March 23 after coming under attack from Israeli forces.

    What followed was a week of Israeli obstruction until international teams were finally able to enter the area where the medics and rescue workers disappeared.

    They found gruesome proof of direct attacks on the humanitarian workers. One medic remains missing.

    It added:

    The bodies of 14 murdered people were found in a shallow mass grave, according to the PRCS.

    Eight were identified as PRCS medics, five were Civil Defense workers, and one was a UN agency employee.

    And also that:

    They were killed “one after another”, then buried in the sand along with their emergency vehicles, the UN said.

    “The available information indicates that the first team was killed by Israeli forces on 23 March, and that other emergency and aid crews were struck one after another over several hours as they searched for their missing colleagues,” a spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Palestine said.

    “Their bodies were gathered and buried in this mass grave,” OCHA head Jonathan Whittall said from the scene.

    “We’re digging them out in their uniforms, with their gloves on. They were here to save lives,” he said.

    “These ambulances have been buried in the sand. There’s a UN vehicle here, …[an] Israeli forces bulldozer has buried them.”

    New footage

    On 5 April, new footage drew initial IDF claims into question, as the BBC reported:

    Israel originally claimed troops opened fire because the convoy approached “suspiciously” in darkness without headlights or flashing lights. It said movement of the vehicles had not been previously co-ordinated or agreed with the army.

    Mobile phone footage, filmed by one of the paramedics who was killed, showed the vehicles did have lights on as they answered a call to help wounded people.

    The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) insists at least six of the medics were linked to Hamas – but has so far provided no evidence. It admits they were unarmed when the soldiers opened fire.

    The mobile video, originally shared by the New York Times, shows the vehicles pulling up on the road when, without warning, shooting begins just before dawn.

    The footage continues for more than five minutes, with the paramedic, named as Refat Radwan, heard saying his last prayers before the voices of Israeli soldiers are heard approaching the vehicles.

    It’s okay when our side does it

    Israel has been conducting a genocide for over a year, and it’s being investigated as such at the highest global level. If Israel wasn’t a key ally of the UK and the United States, it’s hard to imagine the BBC would be sparing its blushes like this.

    At some point, they really need to ask themselves if it’s worth tarnishing what remains of their reputation for a rogue state which will go down in history as a purveyor of genocide and lies.

    Featured image via BBC

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Gil Tavner & Danny Shaw with Stephen Nolan | BBC Radio 5 | 30 March 2025 | Just Stop Oil


    This content originally appeared on Just Stop Oil and was authored by Just Stop Oil.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Gil Tavner with Jeremy Vine | BBC Radio 2 | 28 March 2025 | Just Stop Oil


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  • The BBC just let disgraced Justin Welby return to rub salt in survivor’s wounds

    In November 2024, then-archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigned from his position in disgrace. Welby’s resignation came after a review found he “could and should” have done more to bring a prolific paedophile to justice – a man who Welby had known since the ’70s. Now, the BBC has given Welby an opportunity to try and launder his reputation. Instead, Welby has undoubtedly made things even worse for himself, and forced victims to once again recoil from the inhumanity of the church:

    Justin Welby/John Smyth

    Welby resigned following the release of a report on abuse in the church. As reported by the BBC at the time:

    A British barrister’s “horrific” and violent abuse of more than 100 children and young men was covered up within the Church of England for decades, according to the conclusion of a damning report.

    John Smyth QC is believed to be the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England, a long-awaited independent review found.

    Smyth QC, who died aged 77 in Cape Town in 2018, was accused of attacking boys at his Winchester home who he had met at a Christian summer camp in Dorset during the 1970s and 1980s.

    Accusations against Smyth first came to the public’s attention following a 2017 documentary from Channel 4 (Welby was the archbishop from 2013). The BBC detailed the timeline:

    The investigation came after a report by the Iwerne Trust in 1982, which was not made public until 2016.

    Smyth was confronted about his conduct after the report compiled by Rev Mark Ruston and Rev David Fletcher.

    It found Smyth identified pupils from leading public schools including Winchester College and took them to his home near Winchester in Hampshire, where he carried out lashings with a garden cane in his shed.

    It said eight of the boys received a total of 14,000 lashes, while two more received 8,000 strokes between them over three years.

    The Iwerne Trust called the practice “horrific” but the claims were not reported to police until 2013 – more than 30 years later.

    Despite his “appalling” actions having been identified in the 1980s, the report concluded he was never fully exposed and was therefore able to continue his abuse.

    He was encouraged to leave the country and moved to Zimbabwe without any referral being made to police.

    During this time, church officers “knew of the abuse and failed to prevent further abuse”, the independent review led by Keith Makin says.

    It adds: “From July 2013 the Church of England knew, at the highest level, about the abuse that took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s. John Smyth should have been properly and effectively reported to the police in the UK and to relevant authorities in South Africa.

    “This represented a further missed opportunity to bring him to justice.”

    In Zimbabwe he was charged with the manslaughter of a 16-year-old boy, who was attending one of his summer camps. Smyth was not convicted of the offence.

    Initially, Welby refused to resign. Here’s what victim Mark Stibbe told Channel 4 in response to that:

    I think he should resign… I think there’s so much shame, so much pain, so much agony associated with this

    Welby eventually resigned in disgrace. Now he’s returned, and people are once again showing their disgust.

    ‘Forgiveness’

    The standout moment from the interview was when Welby didn’t hesitate to say he would forgive Smyth, as reported by the BBC:

    Asked by the BBC if he would forgive Smyth, Welby said: “Yes.  I think if he was alive and I saw him, but it’s not me he’s abused.

    “He’s abused the victims and survivors.  So whether I forgive or not is, to a large extent, irrelevant.”

    It’s true that forgiveness is a core tenant of Welby’s faith. However, as Welby also said in the interview that he was “absolutely overwhelmed” by the scale of abuse he encountered in the church, it’s hard to understand how Welby hasn’t questioned his faith:

     

    Of course, some are suggesting that Welby’s so-called ‘faith’ is all an act:

    The Independent covered the above-mentioned event, reporting:

    In a column for the magazine, Mr Hislop wrote he was unimpressed by Mr Welby’s appearance at the dinner.

    “Isn’t this lovely?” said Mr Welby to Mr Hislop, who replied: “It is lovely that you have resigned.” Mr Hislop said this was “not the most brilliant bit of repartee”, but an exchange of views followed and they parted on unfriendly terms.

    The Have I Got News For You host also criticised those at the gala that approached Mr Welby to comfort him and tell him he is “brave” for resigning.

    “These particular Christians were far too keen to forgive each other for their sins,” Mr Hislop wrote, “and far too slow to seek justice for the poor victims in their flock”.

    He added: “Welby seemed to me to be unrepentant and unashamed. I am not convinced he has been punished enough – unlike the poor boys his friend so mercilessly flogged in the name of Christianity.”

    The BBC also spoke to one of Smyth’s victims on the topic of forgiveness, reporting:

    One of Smyth’s victims, known as Graham – who made the 2013 complaint – told the BBC he would not forgive Welby.

    He said: “I’ve said before that, if in 2017 he had contacted us, said ‘I will come and apologise to you personally, I am sorry, I messed up’, I would have forgiven him immediately – but he never has in those terms.”

    Asked if he could ever forgive Welby, Graham said: “Not if he continues to blank us and refuses to tell us the truth. We’re the victims, we deserve to know what happened and we don’t yet.”

    In the interview, Welby attempted to shift blame on to the police:

    Pushed on why he did not do more while in office, Welby said police told him “under no circumstances are you to get involved because you will contaminate our enquiry”.

    He added: “I should have pestered them to be honest, and I see that now.”

    It’s not unfair to suspect the British police of incompetence on these sorts of investigations. In fact, many are asking why they’re not investigating Welby:

    The response to the appearance of Welby

    Many are asking why the BBC dedicated a significant section of its political programme to Welby:

     

    Others are highlighting that the disgraced Welby was a prominent voice in the efforts to smear Jeremy Corbyn and the left as antisemites:

    Back to the topic of forgiveness, it’s interesting to note that Welby doesn’t always forgive. In an interview from October 2023, he stressed that while he did blame Hamas for the terror attack on 7 October, he would not blame the Israeli government for the decades of terror they’d inflicted upon the Palestinians:

    Welby has also posed for a photograph with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

    It’s unclear if Welby would pose with Netanyahu now there’s an arrest warrant out for his suspected war crimes (or indeed if Netanyahu would want to be pictured with the disgraced Welby). What is clear is that no one wants to hear any more from this disgraced establishment stooge.

    Featured image via the BBC

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Labour minister falls apart live on the BBC over vicious DWP cuts

    In a tense exchange on BBC Breakfast, Labour minister James Murray faced pointed questions about his party’s approach to the escalating cost of living crisis and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) cuts. Presenter Nina Warhurst challenged Murray on its assault on chronically ill and disabled people, and children.

    Labour: under pressure even from the BBC

    Warhurst highlighted the stark reality many are currently experiencing under the DWP:

    On average, Brits are facing a £600 increase to bills in the next financial year. One in 10 households are living in fuel poverty.

    This alarming statistic underscores the gravity of the situation as families grapple with rising costs and diminishing resources.

    She hadn’t finished though. Warhurst then went onto say:

    The accusation to Labour at the moment is you’re out of touch with how hard it is for the poorest households and you’re afraid to tax the super-rich.

    Despite the growing concerns, Murray maintained a stance that the current DWP welfare system is “broken” and requires urgent reform.

    He emphasised that boosting the economy is paramount, claiming it is the most effective way to improve the financial situation of citizens. “We know how hard it is for people across the country,” he insisted, explaining that the government’s top priority is to drive economic growth, which he believes will ultimately increase disposable income for households.

    DWP cuts: hitting the poorest

    However, scepticism remains about the viability of this strategy, especially since Rachel Reeves recently announced plans to significantly slash the DWP welfare budget by over £6 billion. This decision, according to internal projections from the Labour government, could result in over 250,000 people falling into poverty, including a staggering 50,000 children. Yet even this has been called out as false – with some analysts saying the figure is nearer 400,000.

    Experts are questioning the long-term consequences of these cuts, raising red flags about the potential harm that could come from reducing DWP welfare support.

    The growing calls from progressive Labour MPs for the Chancellor to implement a 2% wealth tax on individuals with assets exceeding £10 million have yet to gain traction within the government, drawing accusations that the Labour party may be out of touch with the financial struggles facing poorer households.

    Unlike many in the political elite, the voices advocating for this wealth tax argue that it is an essential step toward addressing economic disparities and supporting those who are struggling.

    Labour isn’t Labour

    During the interview, Warhurst did not shy away from confronting the notion that Labour’s DWP approach may appear disconnected from the realities faced by ordinary families. The implications of austerity measures, particularly within the realm of welfare, present a looming threat to countless individuals, including those with disabilities and jobseekers who rely heavily on government assistance.

    With rising poverty levels and an increasing number of people experiencing dire financial difficulties, it is essential for the government to contemplate the ramifications of its policy decisions on everyday lives.

    The effect of DWP welfare cuts could resonate deeply, impacting not just individual wellbeing but also the broader social fabric of the nation. With resistance to them rising – even on the BBC – it remains unclear how long Labour can maintain this position.

    Featured image via screengrab

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • James Skeet | BBC One Breakfast Show | 28 March 2025 | Just Stop Oil


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  • Even BBC journalists are being deported from Turkey as Erdoğan’s authoritarianism intensifies

    Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested over the weekend on corruption charges. However, as the leader of the opposition, Imamoglu’s arrest has sparked anti-government protests in Turkey. Imamoglu has presented a staunch opposition to Turkish president Recep Erdoğan and, as Al Jazeera reported:

    The court’s decision to send Imamoglu to pre-trial detention comes after the opposition, European leaders and tens of thousands of protesters criticised the actions against him as politicised.

    Censorship in Turkey

    Now, thousands of protesters have been detained and government-owned media appears to be running a blackout on any coverage of the protests. A number of journalists have been arrested and a BBC reporter has even been deported after his reporting of demonstrations.

    Hundreds of thousands of protesters have gathered across Turkey in what was initially to express opposition to Imamoglu’s arrest, but have quickly bloomed into wider anti-government gatherings. However, Turkish state media has been accused of censoring any coverage of the protests. The Guardian reported that government owned channels broadcast interviews with ministers unrelated to the protests and that:

    Substantive coverage of the protests has instead been the preserve of the small slice of newspapers and cable channels that exist outside the well funded and slick pro-government broadcasting networks.

    Erol Önderoğlu of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said:

    This is the negative outcome of what Erdoğan has built for two decades, which is a highly polarised, toxic media environment.

    Erdoğan now controls about 85% of national and corporate media in Turkey, so we’re not talking about a fair media environment where pluralism truly flourishes.

    Deportation

    In a move likely to awaken the attention and ire of Western media, the Turkish government have also deported BBC reporter Mark Lowen. In a statement, the BBC said:

    This morning (27 March) the Turkish authorities deported BBC News correspondent Mark Lowen from Istanbul, having taken him from his hotel the previous day and detained him for 17 hours.

    On Thursday morning, he was presented with a written notice that he was being deported for ‘being a threat to public order’.

    Lowen himself said:

    To be detained and deported from the country where I previously lived for five years and for which I have such affection has been extremely distressing. Press freedom and impartial reporting are fundamental to any democracy.

    And, to further compound the issues of censorship in coverage of the protests, several journalists have been arrested as demonstrations continue. RSF released a statement with the details of those journalists arrested:

    AFP photojournalist Yasin Akgül, freelance photojournalist Bülent Kılıç, Now Haber reporter Ali Onur Tosun, and freelance journalist Zeynep Kuray were simply doing their job — covering massive public demonstrations.

    An RSF representative in Turkey said:

    This is the first time that clearly identified journalists who were in the middle of working have been sent to prison under this law against public gatherings and protests. These scandalous rulings reflect a deeply serious situation in Turkey.

    Equating professional journalists with protesters not only shows shameless bad faith but also highlights the grave interference of political power in the judiciary that is attempting to silence the media.

    Turkey crackdown

    In addition to journalists being arrested, many protesters have been detained by authorities. Footage shared on social media showed rows of riot police threateningly lined up beside protesters:

    Footage from Getty showed riot police trying to use tear gas on demonstrators:

    Gigantic crowds continued to gather despite the attempted government repression:

    Growing anger

    At the time of publication, almost 1,900 people have been arrested during the protests. This number will likely increase, with further protests planned for the weekend and no sign of tensions easing. Erdoğan has remained defiant and blamed the opposition for inciting protests.

    However, what started as protests against the apparent politically-motivated arrest of a mayor, has quickly captured an exhaustion and frustration with the government that will be much harder to pacify. The Turkish government’s response of censoring, arresting, and deporting even coverage of opposition is testament to their fear of public collectivity and resistance.

    Featured image via screengrab

    By Maryam Jameela

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • BBC gives propaganda masterclass as Israel attacks another hospital in Gaza

    Israel attacked another hospital in Gaza on 23 March, just days after Israeli media outlet Haaretz said the apartheid state had “committed the largest child massacre in its history” in the occupied Palestinian territory. In recent days, Israel also flattened “Gaza’s only specialised cancer hospital”. Unmoved by these horrors, however, the BBC continues to normalise Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians with dispassionate propaganda.

    US surgeon Dr Feroze Sidhwa, who has been volunteering in the Nasser hospital and has criticised Israel’s recent destruction of the Gaza ceasefire, described how Israel had killed a teenage patient of his in the 23 March strike. He added that “The male surgical ward is destroyed. It does not exist any more. It will have to be completely rebuilt.” Some commentators have suggested that Israel may be trying to intimidate Sidhwa and other US doctors in the hospital, who have been outspoken in the media.

    The BBC took a different approach to reporting on the Israeli attack.

    BBC propaganda on behalf of Israeli war criminals

    Amid the Israeli onslaught on Gaza since October 2023, the BBC has shown itself to be an expert at omitting key information and context while focusing people’s attention on Hamas to distract from Israel’s crimes.

    Media critic Assal Rad said the broadcaster’s latest piece of propaganda sounded “like an Israeli press release“. And Richard Sanders, director of the powerful and comprehensive documentary Investigating war crimes in Gaza, stressed that:

    The BBC continues to soften the most grotesque war crimes for the Israelis.

    Its report on 23 March:

    • Led with a headline focusing not on Israel targeting a hospital but on the assassination of a Hamas civilian official in the attack. The BBC knows that Westerners have been conditioned to think ‘terrorist’ when hearing the name Hamas, but as Sanders pointed out, “this is a civilian official killed in hospital while receiving treatment”.
    • Mentioned Hamas 12 times, and Israel just 11 times, despite Israel carrying out the attack. One way to focus attention on Hamas, for example, was to say it was the “Hamas-run health ministry” that described the damage. Considering that no one was questioning Israel’s responsibility for the attack or the damage it caused, there was no other reason for using this phrase other than to keep Hamas at the forefront of the reader’s mind.
    • Said “the hospital department that was hit was evacuated after a large portion was destroyed”. Again, we know it was Israel that hit the hospital and destroyed a portion of it, so we can consider the use of the passive voice (“was hit” and “was destroyed”) as a tool for taking the focus away from Israel’s decision to attack a hospital.
    • Repeated Israel’s propaganda claim that Hamas uses hospitals “as hiding places for weapons and command centres” without the important context that no one has actually verified this allegation. It’s not just that Hamas denies doing this. Because international experts who have long criticised the absence of evidence for Israel’s assertion and its prevention of independent verification. And that is key context that any respectable media outlet would include.

    A masterclass in selective context

    The BBC‘s article also demonstrated perfectly how selective context works. Because it:

    • Gave Israel a very favourable portrayal in terms of both its destruction of the ceasefire and its genocide of tens of thousands of Palestinians, including 17,492 children. As Sanders pointed out, “you would have no idea from BBC reporting the Israelis continually violated the ceasefire even before the atrocities of the last few days”, in which Israel murdered almost 200 children.
    • Stated that it was Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023 that “triggered” Israel’s genocide. Here, it carefully stated that it was “mainly civilians” who died on that day. The BBC doesn’t give us any clue as to why Hamas might have launched that attack, however, or what it sought to achieve. There’s no mention, for example, of how Israeli occupiers spent many years turning Gaza into “the world’s largest open-air prison”, isolating its highly concentrated population with a brutal blockade.
    • When it came to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, meanwhile, the BBC suggested Israel simply “responded” to 7 October with an attempt “to destroy Hamas”. It failed to mention that Israel destroyed pretty much the whole of Gaza, without achieving its aim of ‘destroying Hamas’. And then, to top it off, it placed doubt on Israel’s murder of thousands of children and other civilians by saying Israel’s offensive “has killed more than 50,000 people, the Hamas-run health ministry said”. So not only did it avoid saying “mainly civilians” as it did regarding 7 October (despite the UN confirming that most have been women and children), but it unnecessarily reminded us that Hamas governs Gaza, just to plant the seed of doubt about whether Israel really has killed all of those people.

    ATTACKING HOSPITALS IS NOT NORMAL

    Journalist Mehdi Hasan has pointed out that no one is even debating whether Israel attacks hospitals anymore. Because it’s so obvious. He said:

    Now it’s just the norm & Israel doesn’t even pretend it isn’t constantly attacking Gaza hospitals

    And Assal Rad sees a direct connection between mainstream media coverage of Israel’s attacks and the normalisation of attacking hospitals. As she stressed:

    They’re trying so hard to normalize attacking hospitals.

    The fact that we have regularly seen and heard about the horrors of Israel destroying medical infrastructure and equipment doesn’t make it normal. The UN says:

    Attacks on schools and hospitals during conflict is one of the six grave violations identified and condemned by the UN Security Council.

    It adds:

    Under international humanitarian law, both schools and hospitals are protected civilian objects, and therefore benefit from the humanitarian principles of distinction and proportionality.

    The law does allow an exception if it’s clear that an enemy is using such an institution as a base for fighting. But it’s absolutely not clear in Gaza. Because the only force claiming, without verifiable evidence, that hospitals are a legitimate target is a settler-colonial apartheid state that numerous genocide experts have long accused of committing genocide in Gaza. And because it’s an occupying power, it doesn’t even have the legal right to attack the population living under its occupation.

    The BBC, however, continues to manipulate readers to think Israel’s actions are somehow normal or justifiable.

    If you wish to make a complaint to the BBC, you can do so here.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Rachel Reeves is falling apart in front of our eyes, as she crashes and burns live on TV

    When 14 years of Tory austerity led to declining living standards, support for the ruling party collapsed, and the Labour Party walked the 2024 election. Labour’s plan to undo austerity was to magically grow the economy by repeating the word ‘growth’ over and over. Now that this plan has failed, Reeves is having to justify Labour’s actions, and she’s doing a horrible job of that on both the BBC and Sky News:

    In this piece we’re going to look at what Reeves had to say for herself. We’re also going to compare what she’s saying now to what the experts are saying (and to what she herself said in the past), as we argue that Labour’s agenda is one of austerity, inequality, and decline.

    Labour: austerity continues

    Immediately after returning to power, Labour went after elderly people with its cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance. Now, it’s going after chronically ill and disabled people with its planned cuts to Personal Independence Allowance (PIP) and Universal Credit, as Hannah Sharland wrote for the Canary:

    The same day the Labour Party government launched its plans for a sweep of devastating welfare cuts, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) published a piece of research quantifying the cost of chronically ill and disabled people to society. Or, in effect, the Labour-led DWP was putting a price-tag on chronically ill and disabled people’s lives – just as it readies to strip some of their benefits, and drastically cut them for others.

    All aboard for the disabled people-are-benefit-scroungers-and-burdens-to-society government gravy train to wherever the fuck ministers want to make their killer corporate salaries next.

    On Sunday 23 March, Laura Kuenssberg interviewed Reeves, with the BBC summarising one exchange as follows:

    Reeves says there are currently 1,000 people per day on Personal Independence Payments (PIP).

    Laura pushes back, saying viewers are getting in touch quoting what Prime Minister Keir Starmer has previously said – that the “broadest shoulders should hold heaviest brunt”. Is it really pensioners, the sick or disabled people that should carry that burden, Laura asks.

    Reeves says she increased taxes on the wealthiest.

    Despite Labour pledging to end austerity, it has unfortunately returned to the same slash and burn politics of David Cameron. This latest U-turn is turning Keir Starmer and his Labour Party into a laughing stock:

    Labour MPs and politicians are among those speaking out:

    It’s not Tory austerity…

    In the Sunday interviews, Reeves denied that Labour’s plan to cut benefits, entitlements, and government spending was a return to austerity. Her argument is that it can’t be austerity because the cuts aren’t being made across the board:

    Last year, I put £100 billion more into capital spending than the previous government had committed to, we put more than £20 billion into the National Health Service.

    That is a far cry from what we’ve seen under Conservative governments in the last 14 years.

    The problem with her argument is that it’s still austerity whether it’s targeted against sick and disabled people or whether it’s affecting everyone. Reeves also said:

    We’ll set all that out when we do the spending review, but we can’t just carry on like we have been spending on the same things that the previous government spent on.

    People want to know we’re getting value for money, when people are paying more in tax that they’re getting more in return.

    While the public did object to the Tories wasting money on dodgy PPE contracts, they didn’t object to disabled people having tolerable living standards (the mainstream media objected to that, but that’s an entirely different thing).

    People aren’t buying the Labour lie that this isn’t austerity:

    They’re also pointing out that austerity just doesn’t work:

    Labour announced the changes to PIP on Wednesday 19 March, and polling since then suggest their plans aren’t going down well:

    Stats for Lefties also had a very good point about the nation’s obsession with benefits:

    So, if austerity is unpopular ineffective, and unethical, why pursue it?

    We’ll explore that throughout this piece.

    Reeves’s war on workers

    Labour’s austerity proposals are going to mean that we lose jobs in the civil service, but Reeves is being purposefully vague on how many it will mean in practice:

    Speaking on on Sky News, Trevor Phillips said to Reeves:

    But you have to be straight with people. How many civil servants are going to lose their jobs in broad terms? Okay. I’m not asking you for, you know, 532 or 5,027 – but broadly speaking, is it 5,000? Is it 10,000? Is it 15,000?

    Reeves responded:

    We’ve said 10-15% by the end of the parliament reduction in admin budgets. … So that includes consultancy. It includes travel budgets. It includes communications, budgets. So it doesn’t all have to be about people.

    Phillips came back:

    But some of it is going to be about people. You can’t say this is going to be pain free.

    Reeves responded:

    No. It’s not. But what I am saying is it will deliver better public services, because I would rather we had people employed by the NHS working in our hospitals rather than in a government department. So this is about doing things differently.

    Reeves seems to be making the argument that the size of the government currently is the maximum it can be, and that if you grow one part you have to shrink another. Other people argue that we can grow the government by reducing income inequality in this country (i.e. taxing the rich) – something we’ll get to later.

    Back to the interview, Phillips continued:

    But forgive me chancellor, this is what people say about politicians. I ask you a question that says, broadly speaking, how many roles are going to get lost? I cannot believe that you’re telling your colleagues we need to take 10% out without any idea how many of those are going to be actual jobs. I just cannot believe that that’s what you’re doing.

    Phillips is right to push on this. If it’s true that Reeves is pushing these cuts without any plan, then she’s acting in the same reckless fashion as Elon Musk and his so-called ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ (DOGE):

    People are also highlighting precisely why Musk is such a dangerous person to appease or imitate:

    A point that Phillips doesn’t bring up is that stable and well-paid government jobs have a positive effect on the job market. When people can secure rewarding work-for-life roles in the public sector, businesses have to offer better conditions to attract workers. Musk and Reeves are pushing to reduce the number of these jobs because their friends in the private sector want this state of affairs to end.

    The Rowntree Report

    Kuenssberg also questioned Reeves on a recent report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).

    As summarised by the Observer:

    In what it describes as a “dismal reality”, the JRF said its detailed analysis shows that the past year could mark a high point for living standards in this parliament. It concludes that the average family will be £1,400 worse off by 2030, representing a 3% fall in their disposable incomes. The lowest income families will be £900 a year worse off, amounting to a 6% fall in the amount they have to spend.

    The JRF also said that if living standards have not recovered by 2030, Starmer will not only have failed to pass his No 1 milestone but will also have presided over the first government since 1955 to have seen a fall in living standards across a full parliament.

    Comparing 2030 with 2025, it said the average mortgage holder is set to pay about £1,400 more in ­mortgage interest annually and the average renter about £300 more in rent a year, while average earnings are set to fall by £700 a year. The JRF said the poorest third are being disproportionately affected by rising housing costs, falling real earnings and frozen tax thresholds.

    Reeves’ and Labour’s takeaway from this seems to be that growing poverty means we need more austerity, rather than that austerity causes poverty. She’s also dismissing the JRF report out of hand:

    In the video above, a stuttering Reeves says the following when Trevor Phillips highlights the JRF’s findings that living conditions will continue to worsen under Labour’s austerity regime:

    I-I-I reject that.

    It’s weird that Reeves thinks she can cut her way to prosperity now, because the following posts show Reeves once understood that austerity doesn’t work:

    Would you believe that Reeves has literally criticised the effects of austerity on PIP?

    The Observer interviewed the JRF’s director of insight and policy who is pushing against further cuts, arguing:

    There is no doubt the government is facing an unenviable list of economic pressures and uncertainties, ranging from the domestic to the international. But how you manage these risks is a matter of political choice..

    It is wrong, and ultimately counterproductive, to try and rebuild the public finances through cuts to disability benefits. Instead, government should be addressing hardship and raising living standards directly, as part of their strategy for growth.

    Fiscal pressures should be met through tax reform. There are a number of options to raise revenue from those with the broadest shoulders, while also supporting growth by removing perverse incentives in the tax system and staying within the government’s manifesto commitments.

    The Inequality Agenda

    As noted above, Labour claims to have increased taxes on the wealthiest. If you live in the UK, you may have missed this happening. While it’s true that Labour has made some changes here and there, there’s still much more which must be done to end the income inequality which is destroying the very fabric of society.

    In response to Reeves’ latest appearances, some people highlighted this interview with union leader Mick Lynch from 2024:

    Lynch isn’t the only one highlighting the problem. Groups like the Equality Trust and Tax Justice UK are explaining the extent of inequality in the UK and the harmful consequences of it continuing to grow. As The Equality Trust notes:

    By 2023, the richest 50 families in the UK held more wealth than half of the UK population, comprising 33.5 million people. If the wealth of the super rich continues to grow at the rate it has been, by 2035, the wealth of the richest 200 families will be larger than the whole UK GDP.

    £466 billion – Wealth of the richest 50 families in the UK

    £466 billion – The combined wealth of half of the UK population

    The group lists the following ‘impacts’ of inequality (you can read more on each impact here):

    • Economic – Less equal societies have less stable economies. High levels of income inequality are linked to economic instability, financial crisis, debt and inflation.
    • Social Mobility & Education – Unequal societies have less social mobility and lower scores in maths, reading and science.
    • Crime – Inequality increases property crime and violent crime. A reduction of inequality from Spanish levels to Canadian levels would lead to a 20% reduction in homicides and a 23% reduction in robberies.
    • Health – Living in an unequal society causes stress and status anxiety, which may damage your health. In more equal societies people live longer, are less likely to be mentally ill or obese and there are lower rates of infant mortality.
    • Trust, Participation, Attitudes & Happiness – Inequality affects how you see those around you and your level of happiness. People in less equal societies are less likely to trust each other, less likely to engage in social or civic participation, and less likely to say they’re happy

    Tax Justice UK highlights ways in which we can make tax fairer in the 21st century:

    • New taxes on wealth – We’re campaigning for a new wealth tax: a 2% levy on individuals who own assets worth more than £10 million – it would affect 0.04% of the UK population and would raise £24 billion a year. We’re also campaigning to apply national insurance to investment income, raising up to £10.2 billion a year.
    • Reform existing taxes on wealth – Those who get their income from stocks, shares and other assets often pay far less tax than those who work. We campaign for the tax rates on these forms of income to be equalised with income tax. So we all pay the same rates. It could raise £16.7 billion a year.
    • Clamp down on tax havens – Hundreds of billions of pounds are lost every single year to tax avoidance via tax havens. We campaign for global action against tax havens. We’re demanding more transparency – and global minimum rates of tax, so countries aren’t undercutting each other.

    Former DWP minister professor Helen Goodman wrote to the Guardian to highlight some other areas where Labour could target the broadest shoulders:

    We should take a deeper look at the tax system. There remain big loopholes and unfairnesses: because capital gains tax is lower than income tax, people like Rishi Sunak pay 23% on a £2.2m income – equalising these rates is worth £14bn; bringing the tax relief on pension contributions for high earners back to the standard rate would bring in £13bn; tackling the tax and national insurance loopholes on City lawyers’ partnerships could be worth £8bn; the failure to tax internet giants is unfair on high street retailers, as noted by Iceland boss Richard Walker; and basing council tax on a property valuation that is more than 30 years old fails to take any account of the huge north-south disparity in house prices that has arisen.

    Another person with a lot to say on inequality is economist Gary Stevenson:

    Gary is currently asking his viewers whether he should conduct an interview with Labour, which is something the party is now requesting following his meteoric rise to prominence. You can have your say on that under the following video.

    Instead of getting any of the above, however, it looks like Labour is going to cave to demands from Trump:

    Austerity is a snake that eats itself

    Let’s remind ourselves on what the Equality Trust said on how inequality affects health:

    Living in an unequal society causes stress and status anxiety, which may damage your health. In more equal societies people live longer, are less likely to be mentally ill or obese and there are lower rates of infant mortality.

    It’s not a coincidence that growing inequality combined with increased job insecurity is leading to more people being signed off work for stress. It’s also not rocket science to work out that we could reverse this trend by reversing the trajectory of inequality.

    What’s happening in the UK is austerity worsens living conditions, politicians use declining standards to justify more austerity, and then austerity makes things even worse. It’s a snake eating its own tail, and it won’t stop until we make it clear that we won’t tolerate it any longer.

    Featured image via the BBC

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Audience member puts entire BBCQT panel to shame over DWP cuts

    On BBC Question Time, an audience member had a powerful message for the Labour Party government as it prioritises attacking the people most in need of help. That it, it is planning the severest cuts to Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits for chronically ill and disabled people in decades.

    The DWP: exposed on Question Time

    Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is aggressively seeking DWP welfare cuts of around £5bn, despite such a plan not appearing in its 2024 election manifesto. This is also despite the party being very quiet and shy about getting £5bn by “cracking down on tax avoidance and non-dom loopholes”, a pledge that was in its manifesto.

    As the lady on Question Time rightly asked over the DWP controversy:

    Why don’t we start taxing more the rich – the wealthy people that can afford it? You’re taking money from people that just don’t have anything.

    She also pointed out that:

    Previous benefit cuts for disability have been linked to over 500 deaths, some of this suicide, people starving.

    And she stressed regarding the DWP:

    You’ve got to look at who is being affected – the most vulnerable people… I was a Labour voter. I’m not gonna be any more. Because it seems that you’re actually betraying the people that are voting for you – the ordinary people that need your help.

    Starmer’s Labour: a party for the powerful, not the people

    Labour is attacking disabled people (along with children and pensioners) via the DWP instead of making their rich donors/owners contribute their share to society.

    Although it estimated in its manifesto that it could get £5.2bn in “revenue from closing further non-dom tax loopholes and investment in reducing tax avoidance”, it clearly prefers to prioritise attacking the people in society who need the most support instead.

    In fact, the Labour government has actually blocked UN efforts to crack down on global tax havens since coming to power – which sounds even worse when you realise “the UK and its overseas territories are responsible for approximately one-third of global tax avoidance through firms moving their profits offshore”.

    The audience member above talking about the DWP was spot on. Because Starmer’s Labour absolutely isn’t a party that seeks to serve the majority of the population. It is in bed with people who profit from death and destruction – of people and the planet. It has not just betrayed Britain – it has betrayed humanity.

    A mass left-wing movement to challenge the rich and support ordinary people is already in the making. And it’s not just the woman on Question Time who is sick of Labour and the DWP’s elitist shitshow and calling out for change. Because people around the country are desperate for a bit of humanity and integrity, which is almost completely absent from British politics today.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Palestine protestors are going to be at BBC HQ this weekend

    Thousands of protestors from all over the country are expected to march to the BBC headquarters in London this weekend for this year’s Al-Quds Day demonstration in support of Palestine.

    BBC propaganda

    The BBC has been instrumental in misrepresenting the genocide and trying to create a climate in which it can be publicly accepted. Police have banned recent protests from gathering outside the organisation’s offices.

    The turnout is expected to surpass last year’s record attendance in view of the continuing genocide in Palestine which has so far seen at least 50,000 Palestinians slaughtered, most of them women and children.

    Israel’s savage onslaught has continued in wilful breach of the ceasefire reached in January, with massive aerial bombardments this week which have claimed hundreds of victims and a suffocating siege that has prevented food and other essentials from entering the beleaguered Gaza Strip.

    At the same time, Israeli forces have besieged and invaded many West Bank towns and villages causing huge loss of life and damage to infrastructure.

    Determined marchers

    This year, participants will assemble at Marble Arch on Sunday 23 March at 2.30pm before marching to the headquarters of the BBC in Portland Place. The national broadcaster has been instrumental in misrepresenting the genocide and trying to create a climate in which it can be publicly accepted.

    The Al-Quds Day demo has taken place peacefully in London for over 40 years without a single arrest. One of its attractions has always been its inclusiveness with demonstrators coming from all walks of life. Jews, Christians and Muslims, and people of other faiths and none all march in common cause side by side. The event also attracts many women and children.

    Coalition

    Al-Quds Day is being supported by a much larger number of organisations this year at the BBC protest:

    • ABSocforJustice, Ahlulbayt Islamic Mission
    • Ahlulbayt Sisters Association
    • Black Activists Rising For Justice
    • Black Lives Matter Coalition UK
    • Cambridge Stop the War Coalition
    • Campaign Against Misreprentation in Public Affairs and the News (CAMPAIN)
    • Campaigns Against Sanctions
    • Military and Imperial Interventions
    • Cardiff Ahlulbayt Islamic Society
    • Christians for Palestine
    • City Friends of Palestine
    • Convivencia Alliance
    • Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC)
    • Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!
    • Hands Off Uhuru Hands Off Africa
    • Hertfordshire Ahlulbayt Islamic Society
    • Hindus for Human Rights UK (HIHR UK)
    • Innovative Minds Human Rights Group (InMinds)
    • Islamic Human Rights Commission
    • Islamic Society of Heriot-Watt University
    • Jewish Network for Palestine
    • Manchester Ahlulbayt Islamic Society
    • Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK (MPAC)
    • Neturei Karta
    • No2NATO
    • Palestine Pulse
    • Palestinian Youth Movement
    • Peacekeeper Trust
    • Scotland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (Scottish PSC)
    • Sisters Circle
    • Spinwatch
    • UAL Islamic Society
    • University of Aberdeen Palestinian Solidarity Society

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • In Pulling the Gaza Documentary, the BBC is Failing Palestinian Children

    Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone is a harrowing account of life in Gaza as seen through the eyes of Palestinian children. It provides a rare window into young lives devastated by months of relentless bombings, displacements, and unspeakable horrors.

    It aired on 17 February on BBC Two, but was swiftly removed from iPlayer four days later, following fierce lobbying from pro-Israel voices. The reasons given for its removal? Well, they simply don’t add up.

    The main objection was that the father of Abdullah, the 13-year-old narrator, is the deputy minister of agriculture in Gaza’s Hamas-run government. But like it or not, it’s a fact of life in Gaza that almost anyone living there will have some connection to Hamas. Hamas runs the government, so anyone working in an official capacity must also work with Hamas. Not only that, but Abdullah’s father is hardly a “terrorist leader” as was claimed. He is a technocrat, in a role concerned with agriculture, not politics or military, who even studied at UK universities.

    Other objections included the risk of payments potentially funding Hamas. But as Hoyo Films and now the boy himself have confirmed, Abdullah was paid a very small sum via his sister’s bank account which was used to cover basic living expenses. And the complaints around the use of antisemitic language have been rebuffed by many – including Jewish Voice for Labour. The word ‘“Yehudi” is simply Arabic for “Israeli,” and is used by Jewish Israeli journalist Yuval Abrahamto to describe himself in the Oscar-winning film No Other Land.

    Crucially, absolutely nothing in the film has been found to be factually inaccurate.

    The film received five stars in the Guardian and the Times, which described it as “exceptional”. It’s an outstanding, powerful film and a crucial piece of journalism. Since international journalists are banned from Gaza, there are scant opportunities to witness Gazan children’s stories. This film gave us a small insight and humanised Palestinian children.

    Why then, is an innocent child, the victim of unimaginable suffering, put under such intense scrutiny as to whether or not they should be allowed to tell their story?

    Consider the source

    When you consider the source of the complaints, you can’t help but feel like the humanisation of Palestinians was precisely the problem.

    Spearheading the campaign to have the documentary removed from public view was Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s ambassador to the UK. Throughout her political career, Hotovely has gone out of her way to dehumanise Palestinians, accusing them of being “thieves of history” who have no heritage, and calling the Nakba – the violent mass displacement of Palestinians – “an Arab lie.” More recently, she claimed there was “no humanitarian crisis” in Gaza.

    Despite strong counterprotests from a far greater number of people wanting the documentary to stay put – including over 1,000 industry professionals and more than 600 British Jews – the BBC bowed to pressure from the pro-Israel lobby, and dutifully took the documentary down.

    That’s why I decided to start a petition, calling on the BBC to reconsider its decision, and allow Palestinian children their right to be heard. The petition quickly gained lots of support and now has over 25,000 signatures.

    Failing Palestinian children

    Not long after I started the petition, it emerged that Abdullah, the film’s 13-year-old narrator, has experienced harassment as a result of the kickback against the film, and now fears for his life. “I did not agree to the risk of me being targeted in any way”, he said. And “[if] anything happens to me, the BBC is responsible for it.”

    Putting children’s safety and mental wellbeing at risk is not only blatantly wrong, but is in breach of the BBC’s own guidelines on safeguarding young people. Sadly, Abdullah’s was not an isolated case.

    In a recent interview with the Independent, former BBC newsreader Karishma Patel explained her reason for quitting the BBC: its longstanding refusal to show the full extent to which Irael is harming Palestinian children. She recalls how she begged the BBC to cover five-year-old Hind Rajab’s story while she was still alive, trapped inside a car with her murdered relatives. The BBC chose not to, only naming her after she was killed, and not even making clear in the headline who had done it. “The BBC failed Hind,” says Patel. “And it has failed Palestinian children again in pulling the [Gaza] documentary.”

    I’ve just written to Tim Davie, Controller-General of the BBC, to draw his attention to the huge number of people who want the documentary to be reinstated, and why the reasons put forward to justify its removal simply do not add up. I told him, “Anyone who is offended by a child sharing their lived experiences of survival can choose not to watch it. But do not deny innocent children – who have experienced unimaginable grief and loss – the right to tell their stories.”  You can read my full letter here.

    Let’s see if he responds. The BBC didn’t bother reaching out to Abdullah to apologise to him after they pulled the film. So I’m not holding out too much hope.

    The post In Pulling the Gaza Documentary, the BBC is Failing Palestinian Children first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The BBC is hiding key information about US attacks on Yemen

    The US has been bombing Yemen, with British support. And this is all because Yemen’s Houthi rebels have been resisting Israel’s genocide in Gaza by targeting ships heading to the apartheid state. However, the BBC has been minimising or omitting that vital context.

    Any mention, BBC? No?

    The BBC has long covered for Israeli war criminals when it comes to their mass murder of Palestinians. But by failing to inform the public properly about what’s happening in Yemen, it’s helping to manufacture consent for a war that Israel and its US enablers have long sought to wage against Iran. This media complicity, along with Western nations’ ongoing attempts to crack down on criticism of Israel’s genocide, is a significant threat to humanity.

    In a 17 March video from the BBC talking about the US attacks on Yemen, there seemed to be no mention at all of Israel, Gaza, or Palestine, despite Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians being the root cause of Yemeni actions in the Red Sea. The BBC video did, however, manage to mention Iran numerous times, along with Bashar al-Assad and Hassan Nasrallah.

    Minimising context that should be front and centre

    On 15 March, a BBC article online did slightly better. It led with US president Donald Trump’s propaganda, but if you were still reading by paragraph four you would learn that the Houthis planned to “continue to target Red Sea shipping until Israel lifted its blockade of Gaza”. At this point (or any point) in the article, it might be worth mentioning that Israeli occupation forces have murdered “at least 61,709 people, including 17,492 children” and injured “more than 111,588 people” in Gaza since October 2023. But no, because that might give you too much sympathy for what the Houthis were doing.

    The article did mention again, however, that the Houthis “are acting in support of the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza” and “are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK”. And it pointed out the very limited impact of Houthi actions (especially in comparison to the thousands of Palestinian children Israel has killed in Gaza):

    Since November 2023, the Houthis have targeted dozens of merchant vessels with missiles, drones and small boat attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. They have sunk two vessels, seized a third, and killed four crew members.

    It also said:

    the Houthis were unwavering in their response, saying the aggression would not diminish their support for Palestinians.

    Still nothing extra? Just a bit more? No?

    Another article on 16 March, meanwhile, made no mention of Israel until half way through, when it copied and pasted the above information.

    Another piece on 17 March led with Trump propaganda, and the headline “Trump warns Iran will face ‘dire’ consequences unless Houthi attacks stop”. Iran was clearly the focus, and the BBC only inserted the above information referring to Israel just before the end.

    At no point in any of the articles was there a mention of Israel’s mass murder of tens of thousands of people in Gaza, or the mass destruction of the occupied territory. The BBC was fully aware that this was the Houthis’ key reason for targeting ships, but it chose to avoid that information.

    The elephant in the room

    In its reporting on the US attacks on Yemen, which the British government facilitated from the now notorious genocide-enabling base of RAF Akrotiri, the BBC did little to hide its role as a state propaganda outlet. In a weak nod to journalistic professionalism, it mentioned the Houthis’ reason for intervening in the Red Sea. But it also either omitted key information or hid it down where most people don’t read.

    It may be the case that BBC reporters and/or their bosses are just incompetent or clueless. But it’s much more likely that they are actively shilling for Israel, the US, and/or the British state. Because genocide is a pretty immense elephant in the room to miss, and any journalist with integrity would feel the moral and professional duty to talk about it.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • New BBC Documentary “The Road to 7th October” is an Utter Travesty

    There has been a prolonged furore over the BBC’s craven decision to ban a documentary on life in Gaza under Israel’s bombs after it incensed Israel and its lobbyists by, uniquely, humanising the enclave’s children.

    The English-speaking child narrator, 13-year-old Abdullah, who became the all-too-visible pretext for pulling the film Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone because his father is a technocrat in the enclave’s Hamas government, hit back last week.

    He warned that the BBC had betrayed him and Gaza’s other children, and that the state broadcaster would be responsible were anything to happen to him

    His fears are well-founded, given that Israel has a long track record of executing those with the most tenuous of connections to Hamas – as well as the enclave’s children, often with small, armed drones that swarm through its airspace.

    The noisy clamour over How to Survive a Warzone has dominated headlines, overshadowing another new BBC documentary on Gaza – this one a three-part, blockbuster series on the history of Israel and Palestine – that has received none of the controversy.

    And for good reason.

    Israel and the Palestinians: The Road to 7th October, whose final episode airs this Monday, is such a travesty, so discredited by the very historical events it promises to explain, that it earns a glowing, five-star review from the Guardian.

    It “speaks to everyone that matters”, the liberal daily gushes. And that’s precisely the problem.

    What we get, as a result, is the very worst in BBC establishment TV: talking heads reading from the same implausibly simplistic script, edited and curated to present western officials and their allies in the most sympathetic light possible.

    Which is no mean feat, given the subject matter: nearly eight decades of Israel’s ethnic cleansing, dispossession, military occupation and siege of the Palestinian people, supported by the United States.

    But this documentary series on the region’s history should be far more controversial than the film about Gaza’s children. Because this one breathes life back into a racist western narrative – one that made the genocide in Gaza possible, and justifies Israel’s return this month to using mass starvation as a weapon of war against the Palestinian people.

    ‘Honest broker’ fiction

    The Road to 7th October presents an all-too-familiar story.

    The Palestinians are divided geographically and ideologically – how or why is never properly grappled with – between the incompetent, corrupt leadership of Fatah under Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank, and the militant, terrorist leadership of Hamas in Gaza.

    Israel tries various peace initiatives under leaders Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. These failures propel the more hardline Benjamin Netanyahu to power.

    The United States is the star of the show, of course. Its officials tell a story of Washington desperately trying to bring together the two parties, Israel and Fatah (the third party, Hamas, is intentionally sidelined), but finds itself constantly hamstrung by bad luck and the intransigence of those involved.

    Yes, you read that right. This documentary really does resurrect the Washington as “honest broker” fiction – a myth that was supposed to have been laid to rest a quarter of a century ago, after the Oslo accords collapsed.

    The film-makers are so lost to the reality in Israel and Palestine that they imagine they can credibly keep Washington perched on a pedestal even after we have all spent the past 16 months watching, first, President Biden arm Israel’s “plausible” genocide in Gaza, killing many tens of thousands of Palestinians, and then President Trump formulate an illegal plan to ethnically cleanse the enclave of its surviving Palestinian population to develop it as a luxury “waterfront property”.

    A viewing of a short, Trump-endorsed, AI-generated promo video for a glitzy, Palestinian-free “Trump Gaza”, built on the crushed bodies of the enclave’s children, should be enough to dispel any remaining illusions about Washington’s neutrality on the matter.

    Enduring mystery

    This documentary, like its BBC predecessors – most notably on Russia and Ukraine, and the implosion of Yugoslavia – excels at offering a detailed examination of tree bark without ever stepping back far enough to see the shape of the forest.

    The words “apartheid”, “siege” and “colonialism” – the main lenses through which one can explain what has been happening to the Palestinian people for a century or more – do not figure at all.

    There is a single allusion to the events of 1948, when a self-declared Jewish state was violently founded as a colonial project on the ruins of the Palestinians’ homeland.

    Or as the documentary delicately puts it: “Millions of their people [the Palestinians] had been made refugees by decades of conflict.”

    As ever, when the plight of the Palestinians is discussed, the passive voice is put to sterling use. Millions of Palestinians were accidentally ethnically cleansed, it seems. Who was responsible is a mystery.

    In fact, most of Gaza’s population are descended from Palestinian families expelled by the newly declared state of Israel from their homes in 1948. They were penned up in a tiny piece of land by European colonisers in the same manner as earlier generations of European colonisers confined the Native Americans to reservations.

    Even when the term “occupation” appears, as it does on the odd occasion, it is presented as some vague, unexamined, security-related problem the US, Israel and the Fatah leadership are engaged in trying to fix.

    The settlements are mentioned too, but only as the backdrop to land-for-peace calculations that never come to fruition as the basis for an elusive “peace”.

    In other words, this is the reheating of a phoney tale that Israel and the US have been trying to sell to western publics for many decades.

    It was holed well below the water line last year by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the highest court in the world. It ruled that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem was illegal, that Israeli rule over the Palestinians was a form of apartheid, and that its illegal settlements needed to be dismantled immediately.

    That is the forest all the documentary’s furious bark-studying is designed to avoid.

    Path to genocide

    The makers of Israel and the Palestinians: The Road to 7th October choose to begin their time line on an obscure date: 19 August 2003, when a Palestinian suicide bomber blows up a bus in Jerusalem, killing 23 Israelis.

    Why then?

    The programme, despite its title, is not really about the “Palestinians”. Note that the BBC dares not refer to “Palestine”.

    The true focus is on Hamas and its rise to power in Gaza, as viewed chiefly by the other parties: the US, Israel and Fatah.

    Starting the story in 2003 with a bus bombing, the programme can navigate “The Road to 7thOctober” in ways that assist the self-serving narratives those other parties wish to tell.

    On the Palestinian side, the story opens with a terror attack. On Israel’s side, it opens with Sharon deciding, in response, to dismantle the illegal settlements in Gaza and withdraw Israeli troops from the enclave.

    This entirely arbitrary date allows the programme makers to create an entirely misleading narrative arc: of Israel supposedly ending the occupation and trying to make peace, while being met with ever greater terrorism from Hamas, culminating in the 7 October attack.

    In short, it perpetuates the long-standing colonial narrative – contrary to all evidence – of Israel as the good guys, and the Palestinians as the bad guys.

    In an alternate universe, the BBC might have offered us a far more informative, relevant documentary called Israel and Palestine: The Path to Genocide.

    Don’t hold your breath waiting for that one to air.

    Dystopian movie

    In fact, Sharon’s so-called Disengagement Plan of 2005 had nothing to do with ending the occupation or peace-making. It was a trap laid for the Palestinians.

    The disengagement did not end the occupation of Gaza, as the ICJ noted in its ruling last year. It simply reformulated it.

    Israeli soldiers pulled back to the perimeter of the enclave – what Israeli and US officials like to falsely term its “borders” – where Israel had previously established a highly fortified wall with armed watchtowers.

    Stationed along this perimeter, the Israeli army instituted an oppressive Medieval-style siege, blockading access to Gaza by land, sea and air. The enclave was monitored 24/7 with drones patrolling the skies.

    Even before Hamas won legislative elections in 2006 and came to power in Gaza, the tiny coastal strip of land looked like it was the backdrop for a dystopian Hollywood movie.

    But after Hamas’ victory, as the talking heads cheerily explain, the gloves really came off. What that meant in practice is not spelled out – and for good reason.

    The Israeli army put Gaza on “rations”, carefully counting the calories entering the enclave to create widespread hunger and malnutrition, especially among Gaza’s children.

    The Israeli official behind the scheme explained the reasoning at the time: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”

    That official – Dov Weisglass, Olmert’s main adviser – is one of the central talking heads in episode one. And yet strangely, he is never asked about Gaza’s “diet”.

    ‘Die more quietly’

    Stephen Hadley, George W Bush’s deputy national security adviser, claims – unchallenged – that Sharon’s disengagement was “a downpayment on a Palestinian state. … They [the Palestinians] would have an opportunity to build and show the world that they were ready to live side by side in peace with Israel”.

    Israel’s real goal, all too evident then and impossible to ignore now, was something else entirely.

    Yes, withdrawing from Gaza allowed Israel to falsely claim the occupation in Gaza had ended and focus instead on the colonisation of the West Bank, as the documentary briefly grants.

    Yes, it split geographically the main territories forming the basis of a future Palestinian state and encouraged irreconciliable leaderships in each – divide and rule on steroids.

    But even more importantly, by making Gaza effectively a giant concentration camp, blockaded on all sides, Israel ensured that the accommodationists of Fatah would lose credibility in the enclave and militant resistance movements led by Hamas would gain ascendancy.

    That was the trap.

    Hamas, and the people of Gaza, were denied any legitimacy so long as they insisted on a right – enshrined in international law – to resist their occupation and besiegement by Israel.

    It was a message – a warning – directed at Fatah and the West Bank too. Resistance is futile. Keep your heads down or you’ll be next.

    Which is exactly the lesson Abbas learnt, soon characterising his security forces’ collusion with the Israeli occupation as “sacred”.

    For Gaza, the US notion of living in “peace alongside Israel” meant surviving just barely and quietly, inside their cage, accepting the diet Olmert and Weisglass had put them on.

    Making any noise – such as by firing rockets out of the concentration camp, or massing at the heavily armed walls of their cage in protest – was terrorism. Die more quietly, Israel and the international community demanded.

    Perversely, much of episiode one is dedicated to US officals spinning their conspiracy to foil the results of the 2006 Palestinian election, won by Hamas, as democracy promotion.

    They demanded Hamas give up armed resistance or the 2 million people of Gaza, half of them children, would face a continuing blockade and starvation diet – that is, illegal collective punishment.

    Or as Robert Danin, a US State Department official, puts it, the plan was “either Hamas would reform and become a legitimate political party or it would remain isolated”. Not just Hamas isolated, but all of Gaza. Die more quietly.

    The hope, he adds, was that by immiserating the population “Gazans would throw off the yoke of Hamas” – that is, accept their fate to live as little more than “human animals” in an Israeli-run zoo.

    ‘Mowing the lawn’

    Hamas, both its proto-army and its proto-government, learnt ways to adapt.

    It built tunnels under the enclave’s one, short border with Egypt to resist Israel’s siege by trading with the neighbouring population in Sinai and keeping the local economy just barely afloat.

    It fired primitive rockets, which rarely killed anyone in Israel, but achieved other goals.

    The rocket fire created a sense of fear in Israeli communities near Gaza, which Hamas occasionally managed to leverage for minor concessions from Israel, such as an easing of the blockade – but only when Israel didn’t prefer, as it usually did, to respond with more violence.

    The rockets also prevented Gaza and its suffering from disappearing completely from international news coverage – the “Die more quietly” agenda pursued by Israel – even if the price was that the western media could denounce Hamas even more noisily as terrorists.

    And the rockets offered a strategic alternative – armed resistance, its nature shaped by Hamas’ confinement in the Gaza concentration camp – to Fatah’s quietist, behind-the-scenes diplomacy seeking negotiations that were never forthcoming.

    Finally, confronted with the permanent illegitimacy trap set for it by Israel and the US, Hamas approved in 2018 mass, civil disobedience protests at the perimeter fence of the concentration camp it was supposedly “ruling”.

    Israel, backed by the US, responded with increased structural violence to all these forms of resistance.

    In the last two programmes, Israeli and US officials set out the challenges and technical solutions they came up with to prevent their victims from breaking out of their “isolation” – the concentration camp that Gaza had been turned into.

    Underground barriers were installed to make tunnelling more difficult.

    Rocket fire was met with bouts of “mowing the lawn” – that is, carpet-bombing Gaza, indifferent to the Palestinian death toll.

    And thousands of the ordinary Palestinians who massed for months on end at the perimeter fence in protest were either executed or shot in the knee by Israeli snipers.

    Or as the documentary’s narrator characterises it: “At the border with Israel, protesters clashed with Israeli forces, and dozens of Palestinians were killed.”

    Blink, and you might miss it.

    Nothing learnt

    Only by looking beneath the surface of this facile documentary can be found a meaningful answer to the question of what led to the attack on 7 October.

    Israel’s strategy of “isolation” – the blockade and diet – compounded by intermittent episodes of “mowing the lawn” was always doomed to failure. Predictably, the Palestinians’ desire to end their imprisonment in a concentration camp could not be so easily subdued.

    The human impulse for freedom and for the right to live with dignity kept surfacing.

    Ultimately, it would culminate in the 7 October attack. Like most breakouts from barbaric systems of oppression, including slave revolts in the pre-civil rights US, Hamas’ operation ended up mirroring many of the crimes and atrocities inflicted by the oppressor.

    Israel and the US, of course, learnt nothing. They have responded since with intensified, even more obscene levels of violence – so grave that the world’s highest court has put Israel on trial for genocide.

    Obscured by The Road to 7th October is the reality that Israel has always viewed the Palestinians as “human animals”. It just needed the right moment to sell that script to western publics, so that genocide could be recast as self-defence.

    The 7th October attack offered the cover story Israel needed. And the western media, most especially the BBC, played a vital part in amplifying that genocide-justifying narrative through its dehumanisation of the Palestinian people.

    Its one break with that policy – its humanising portrait of Gaza’s children in How to Survive a Warzone – caused an uproar that has echoed for weeks and seen the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, dragged before a parliamentary committee.

    But in truth, we ought to be appalled that this is the only attempt the BBC has made, after 17 months of genocide, to present an intimate view of life for the people of Gaza, especially its children, under Israel’s bombs. The state broadcaster only dared doing so after stripping away the politics of Gaza’s story, reducing decades of the Palestinian people’s oppression by Israel to a largely author-less “humanitarian crisis”.

    Not only is the programme never likely to see the light of day again on the BBC but, after all this commotion, the corporation is unlikely ever again to commission a similarly humanising programme about the Palestinian people.

    There is a good reason why there has been no comparable clamour for the BBC to pull Israel and the Palestinians: The Road to 7th October.

    The historical and political context offered by the documentary does nothing to challenge a decades-old, bogus narrative on Israel and Palestine – one that has long helped conceal Israel’s turning of Gaza into a concentration camp, one that made something like the 7 October breakout almost inevitable, and one that legitimised months of genocide.

    The Road to 7th October seeks to rehabilitate a narrative that should be entirely discredited by now.

    In doing so, the BBC is assisting Israel in reviving a political climate in which the genocide in Gaza can resume, with Netanyahu re-instituting mass starvation as a weapon of war and spreading Israel’s ethnic cleansing operations to the West Bank.

    We don’t need more official narratives about the most misrepresented “conflict” in history. We need journalistic courage and integrity. Don’t look to the BBC for either.

    The post New BBC Documentary “The Road to 7th October” is an Utter Travesty first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • BBC sicko Laura Kuenssberg laces her Sunday show with anti-DWP PIP propaganda

    After 14 years of austerity, many sick and disabled people hoped things would get easier under the new Labour Party government. Instead, they’ve had pretty much weekly threats from Keir Starmer’s team. If we lived in a country in which the media wasn’t completely biased towards a system in which the rich get richer and the unfortunate get shafted, you’d expect some sort of pushback from the BBC. Instead, their flagship interviewer Laura Kuenssberg is seemingly pushing for Labour to do even more harm via the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) cutting Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

    As columnist Andrew Fisher noted:

    Media and political alignment on DWP PIP

    Kuenssberg was interviewing Pat McFadden, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. Watching the clip, you can see that the two are basically in agreement that sick people receiving DWP PIP money from the state is intolerable.

    Twitter user Saul Staniforth described this as “pitching the sick against the unemployed”:

    This is how Kuenssberg puts it to McFadden:

    Is it fair that you can get as much as an extra £400 a month in benefits if you’re sick rather than somebody who’s out of work looking for a job? Is that fair?

    McFadden responded:

    What’s not fair is for millions of people to be left on long term sickness benefits with… no prospect of work, which is not good for them and it’s not good for the taxpayer.

    The idea that McFadden and Labour are presenting is that there are legions of people in the UK who were maybe a bit sick at some point but are only still on benefits because the government forgot to take them off.

    If you or anyone you know claims DWP PIP or other health-related benefits, you’ll know what horse shit this is. These benefits are barely enough to survive on; of course people who can physically seek work do so once they’re able to.

    In many instances, people actually take jobs even when it’s incredibly damaging to their health.

    As bad as Labour’s argument is, thought, Kuenssberg takes it a step further when she asks:

    Is it fair for the taxpayer that some people can get more money if they’re on the sick rather than looking for a job?

    Fisher was right – people don’t get more money because they’re “on the sick”, as Kuenssberg puts it; they get more or less money based on their specific needs. If someone is able to look for work, they probably have less extreme needs than someone who cannot seek work.

    This isn’t complicated.

    And really, the only reason you’d push this argument was because you thought people who can’t work shouldn’t be entitled to anything.

    There have, of course, been several regimes in history which decided that the state needed to be increasingly hostile towards disabled people – you can probably guess the name of the big one which took this ideology to its natural conclusion.

    Cuts on top of cuts

    Two days earlier, Fisher and others commented on Labour’s leaked solution to the sickness problem:

    The Canary’s Steve Topple reported on the situation on Friday 7 March:

    The Labour Party-led Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is set to introduce a controversial package of welfare reforms aimed at saving over £6 billion, which will include significant changes to how disability benefits are administered.

    Yet, as it has done previously in the past year, the Labour-led DWP decided to leak the news to the mainstream media late on a Friday, as opposed to putting out an official announcement. It that’s not contempt for chronically ill and disabled people, it is unclear what is.

    He noted:

    Under the proposed changes, £5 billion is expected to be saved by tightening eligibility for DWP PIP, which is designed to support those with additional costs due to disability. In addition, PIP payments will be frozen next year, meaning they will not increase with inflation, affecting approximately four million chronically ill and disabled people.

    Four million.

    That’s so many people that most people in the country will know someone who’s affected.

    There will be many who are shocked to discover that their friends and relatives are affected, having bought into the propaganda that there really are millions out there who are scamming the system. So this isn’t just demonic on an ethical level; it’s also incredibly short-sighted politics.

    In other words, it’s classic Starmer.

    Topple also wrote:

    As some people pointed out, DWP PIP is already difficult to get. The Canary recently reported that nearly half – over 330,000 – of claims for PIP were rejected last year alone.

    Individual testimonies illustrate the potential impact of these changes. Carol Vickers, who has multiple disabilities, expressed her concern that the loss of PIP would affect her ability to maintain employment, stating that she feels targeted by government policies aimed at disabled people.

    As one person pointed out:

    Former Labour shadow chancellor and current MP John McDonnell was among those who spoke out over the DWP PIP controversy:

    Sicko nation

    What Labour have planned for sick and disabled people is truly disgusting, and it’s going to affect enough people that many will see Labour as the new ‘nasty party’. When that happens, remember that the BBC didn’t just go along with it; they arguably pushed Labour to go further on DWP PIP

    With the majority of people experiencing worsening living conditions, who are the real burden on Britain? Is it the people who had fuck all yesterday and will have even less tomorrow, or the people who have everything now and want it to double every year from now until the collapse of society?

    We think you know the answer to that, but you’re not going to hear it on the BBC.

    Featured image via BBC

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • BBC Evening News | Appeal Court Judgment | 7 March 2025 | Just Stop Oil


    This content originally appeared on Just Stop Oil and was authored by Just Stop Oil.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • BBC News at One | Appeal Court Verdicts | 7 March 2025 | Just Stop Oil


    This content originally appeared on Just Stop Oil and was authored by Just Stop Oil.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.