For a freelance journalist, writing about conflicts, such as Gaza, does not usually pose too many dilemmas about bias and unbalanced reporting. I am free to express my opinion about events as I see them without too much concern about the familiar protesting comments. For a publicly funded media corporation such as the BBC, there is a wholly different level of responsibility in how to present news while being as even-handed as possible. However, the Beeb have now got themselves in a strait jacket by refusing to give airtime to humanitarian charity appeal for Gaza. It would seem directives on 'fair representation' have spread to other parts of the corporation and the result is a pervasive climate of caution which is eventually contrary to a public service ethos.
The current plight of the Palestinian people has no equivalence in Israel. The Gazans are effectively trapped in this narrow strip of land and on top of the shelling and destruction of their communities, they have suffered severe food shortages and a dearth of even basic medicines. That one-sidedness of misery and hardship should not make their case for help less compelling.
The charities concerned make up the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC). It is an umbrella group (Oxfam, Red Cross, Save the Children, CAFOD) which comes together intermittently when there is a pressing need for a co-ordinated response to provide relief quickly. Recent examples would be the Tsunami appeal as well as Darfur, Myannar and Bangladesh. They are fervently neutral and independent, their watchwords are transparency and accountability.
The BBC routinely provide DEC with a free Sunday afternoon slot to advertise their campaign. Their refusal has forced all the other TV broadcasters to follow suit. A BBC spokesperson attempted to explain their extra-ordinary position, "The decision was made because of question marks about the delivery of aid in a volatile situation and also to avoid any risk of compromising public confidence in the BBC's impartiality in the context of [a] news story."
The BBC lawyers in trying to find a neutral position have taken the one course of action which makes them look political. To deny charities the opportunity to raise the maximum resources for the 1.5m Palestinians in Gaza may be perverse from a journalistic point of view but from a humanitarian stance it is also an utter disgrace.
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In any event this was nothing like a conflict of forces with comparable strength. The death toll ratio approached 100:1 for Palestinians over Israelis. Their use of phosphorous in built-up suburban areas (picture) is expressly against the rules of conflict and can never be justified. The postwar goodwill toward Israel across the world as a victim nation has all but been destroyed by these aggressive and pernicious military acts.
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A friend of mine put me in touch with an organisation of peace activists base in Galilee, northern Israel. 'Creativity for Peace' work with young people from both sides to help them rid themselves of their own destructive anger and hatred towards their enemies. I wrote an article for the New Statesman which was, unusually for me, not a very political view. The article does not contain the words Jew, Muslim, Hamas or the name of any Israeli politician. The penultimate paragraph included the desperate pleas of a doctor, Ezzadine Al-Aish, who gave regular telephone interviews from inside Gaza to Israeli news media. His three daughters had all been through the Creativity for Peace programme. A week after the article was published an Israeli tank shell struck their house and all three daughters were killed.
May peace be their legacy.
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