By Heather Stroud
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), an organisation funded by the public, yet controlled by the government and influential lobby groups, finds itself at the centre of a storm. This time it is not about presenting biased news, or half lies that feed the narrative of their most favoured influential lobby groups, it is about airing a documentary that simply presents a view of life through the eyes of children in Gaza.
The documentary, at the centre of the storm is, ‘How to survive a War Zone’. The Campaign Against Antisemitism ‘CAA’, took out full page advertisements in The Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday’, calling for the suspension of licence fees for BBC. The claims made against BBC centre around Abdullah, a thirteen year old Gazan boy, fluent in English, who was hired by BBC as a narrator to introduce children who were finding ways to survive the Israeli war on Gaza. Abdullah, who worked for nine months during the making of the documentary, was allocated $1000 for personal expenses. The money was paid into his sister’s account. The claim made is that in paying out these expenses, BBC were funding Hamas. Like most of these claims there is no evidence to suggest that any of the money paid out in expenses was used in an actual war crime against any Israelis. For a British group that has been set up to challenge incidents of antisemitism ( racism) their disregard for the life threatening danger they have placed this child in, is alarming to say the least.
Courageous and industrious as these Palestinian children are, Israel does not regard their lives as worthy of concern. This has been well documented by evidence presented to the International Court of Justice and the numerous posts on social media of settlers referring to children as potential terrorists and the babies of Palestinians as little snakes. Israeli politicians have also called for the annihilation of all Palestinians, including children. Foreign doctors, working in Gaza, have spoken out about children being targeted, by Israeli snipers, as they struggle to flee the aftermath of a bombing raid. CAA may just as well have painted a huge red target sign on Abdullah’s back.
Israel accused Palestinian workers of UNWRA, the internationally funded organisation that runs food and social programmes for Palestinians, both inside and outside of Gaza, of working for Hamas. As a consequence several of Israel’s close allies instantly withheld funding to UNWRA, exacerbating the existing crisis and leaving many Gazans to starve — babies and children being the most vulnerable. Doctors, journalists and aid workers have all been targeted along with deadly attacks on Gaza’s hospitals, schools and residential buildings. These attacks are all based on the claim that they were legitimate military targets because they harboured Hamas fighters or were in some way connected with them.
Hamas are the elected government in Gaza. They won the Palestinian legislative elections overwhelmingly in 2006, hence anyone working for them in a civil capacity, works for Hamas. However, Israel makes no distinction between someone working for Hamas in a civil capacity and someone who is actively engaged in armed resistance against them. In the U.K. British journalists have been arrested under the terrorist act for presenting factual evidence of Israel’s war crimes. British activists have likewise been arrested under the terrorist act for trying to prevent Israeli companies (based in the UK, such as Elbit Systems), from shipping parts for arms to Israel during Israel’s genocide on the Gazan people. Under International Law any kind of resistance is considered, not only legitimate, but obligatory for those who are aware and who are in a position to prevent further genocide. For Israel Labelling those who oppose their occupation and military objectives as ‘terrorist’, is strategically advantageous. Getting your closest allies, to label those who speak of or challenge their military objectives, as terrorist, is doubly advantageous.
BBC is trapped. When serious journalists, working within the BBC, attempt to present facts favourable to the Palestinian cause, they are likely to have their work banned or severely edited to conform with government and powerful lobbyist editorial policy. Nine years ago BBC presented a serious documentary which explored Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty, ‘Dead in the Water’. Until the current documentary, ‘How to Survive a War Zone’, (now withdrawn from viewership), I’m not aware that BBC has attempted to present anything that close to documenting Israel’s war crimes. BBC has long been criticised for its bias towards Israel so to see this campaign organised by CAA, creates an ironic twist as might be read in one of Kafka’s novels. The very people who rely on the BBC to push the Israeli narrative could end up being the ones responsible for bringing it down.
The link to the BBC documentary; ‘How to Survive in a War Zone’.
https://rumble.com/v6nm6n9-bbc-gaza-how-to-survive-a-warzone.html
The BBC documentary on the USS Liberty, ‘Dead in the Water’ is available on YouTube
Heather Stroud is an activist
13 March 2025
Source: countercurrents.org