Pro-Israel LAAS and others frothing at the mouth as BBC shows some Gaza reality at last

Screams of bias from Zionist extremists after BBC programme on children in genocide zone

The Israeli government and UK pro-Israel groups, used to getting their own way for years when it comes to BBC coverage of Israel and particularly its actions in Gaza – to the point that journalists and editors are terrified of the call from the ‘ever-vigilant Israeli embassy’ according to a BBC whistleblower – are frothing at the mouth and hammering at their keyboards because the BBC has broadcast a documentary on the suffering of Gaza’s civilians through they eyes of four young Palestinians.

The BBC writes of the This World ‘Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone‘ that it:

Follow[s] the lives of four young people trying to survive the Israel-Hamas war as they hope for a ceasefire – a vivid and unflinching view of life in a warzone. 

Israel does not allow foreign journalists to report independently in Gaza. To make this film, two producers based in London remotely directed two cameramen on the ground in Gaza over nine months, gaining access to key locations out of reach to foreign press. 

The dramatic documentary sheds new light on life inside Gaza’s humanitarian ‘safe zone’ – showing everyday life with ongoing airstrikes and efforts to keep people alive in its only functioning permanent hospital, Al-Aqsa

The documentary begins with text about the October 2023 raid and repeats the Israeli government’s lie that 1,200 Israeli were killed by Palestinian militia, when Israeli media have for more than a year freely admitted – and recently even Israel’s defence minister at the time Yoav Gallant – that Israel issued repeated ‘Hannibal’ orders to kill its own people, leading to the deaths of many and likely most of the Israelis killed.

But despite this homage to Israeli government ‘hasbara’, Israel and the UK pressure groups that advocate for it clearly find the humanisation of Palestinians, even Palestinian children, too much to allow. The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle (PJC), for example, features quotes from right-wing Israel lobbyists such as ‘investigative journalist’ David Collier – who has been accused of being an ‘anti-Palestinian fanatic’ and who even uses the short code for Israel, ‘IL’, as part of his Instagram handle – and the so-called ‘Labour against Antisemitism’ (LAAS) among those attacking the BBC for daring to show the programme and not mentioning that oneof the children it features has family links to Gaza’s civilian administration.

LAAS said it had lodged a formal complaint with the BBC about the programme’s ‘bias’, with LAAS director Alex Hearn frothing:

Misinformation is the story of the Israel-Hamas conflict, and this is not an isolated case. There has been a failure of news platforms to adequately scrutinize sources and a willingness to regurgitate Hamas disinformation repeatedly. There needs to be an urgent investigation into how this happened once again.

This was apparently said with a straight face, despite the BBC’s frequent failure to disclose the pro-Israel activism of its own presenters and happily regurgitating Israel government propaganda points without scrutiny while habitually challenging every word said by Palestinian or pro-Palestinian guests.

Despite, too, the BBC’s failure to disclose the fact that the supposed ‘victims’ it presented in its 2019 stitch-up Panorama programme ‘Is Labour antisemitic’ were all right-wing, anti-Corbyn party staffers and even disgraced Israeli embassy employees. Surprise surprise, the pro-Israel complainers were not similarly outraged by that.

The Media Reform Coalition’s analysis of the BBC’s Gaza output concluded that:

there have been repeated misrepresentation of Palestinian perspectives

The above-mentioned BBC whistleblower wrote that BBC editors:

are afraid of reprimand from their bosses for reporting that displeases the Israeli government, leading to the BBC’s consistently holding back from reporting the full horrors of Israel’s war on Gaza.

But why let facts get in the way of pro-Israel outrage?

Collier’s comment exposed the real fear of Israel and its pressure industry – that the documentary might add to the enormous global sympathy for the victims of genocide and racist occupation. He fumed:

The two photographers followed these children around for months. They absolutely knew who he was. Did either of the producers? How did the BBC let a son of a Hamas minister walk around looking for sympathy and demonizing Israel for an hour in a BBC documentary?

Professionally outraged Israel supporters also raged that a boy in the video was once accompanied by… the former director of a human rights organisation. The PJC notes with apparent horror that:

Abdullah, the child featured in the documentary, appeared in an earlier BBC report. In November 2023, he can be seen talking about the destruction in Gaza while escorted by Khalil Abu Shamala, a man who was presented to viewers as his father, but who in reality appears to be his uncle.

It seems that Shamala is the former director of Al Dameer, an NGO which leads campaigns in support of Palestinian prisoners.

Al Dameer is highly active in promoting BDS campaigns, lobbying international bodies, and utilizing highly inflammatory rhetoric,” Jerusalem-based watchdog group NGO-Monitor reports on its website.

The Israeli 972 Magazine, in 2014, observed that the source of the criticism of Al Dameer – ‘watchdog group NGO-Monitor’ – is

The spearhead of the [Israeli government’s] battle against [even] Israeli human rights organizations

and was founded and run by a former Netanyahu staffer who testified to a committee of Israeli MPs that his group’s role is to ‘counter attack’ the:

language of morality, war crimes, apartheid[.]

The BBC documentary is available to watch here, at least until the broadcaster caves to pressure and deletes it.

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