The New Dark Age

If the BBC was not tarnished enough by its coverage of Israel’s attack on Gaza — in the words of Tony Benn, “often looking like a propaganda wing of the Zionist lobby” — its decision yesterday to block an appeal for emergency aid to Gaza would be reason enough for making the BBC a focus of our demonstration on Saturday 24 January.

While the media is now saturated with reports showing the scale of Israel’s barbarism over the past three weeks and the humanitarian disaster it has created, and while the United Nations, the Red Cross and all the other aid organisations involved are saying that immediate emergency aid must be rushed to Gaza, the BBC has blocked a joint appeal by a wide range of organisations from being broadcast after all the main news programmes on every TV channel.

These emergency appeals to populations in desperate need of aid have been organised frequently in the past 48 years and not once in that time has one been blocked. It is agreed by all the channels that a decision to support an aid appeal must be unanimous among the broadcasters and so the BBC’s decision not to agree scuppered the whole aid appeal, which it is estimated would have raised at least £10 million — aid which would have been used immediately to help Palestinians in Gaza, now barely surviving in catastrophic conditions.

One in six buildings have been destroyed or badly damaged by Israel’s bombs and missiles, many dead are buried underneath and still being dug out, the country’s infrastructure has been destroyed, one million people have no electricity, half a million people have no access to clean running water, the hospitals are crammed with people who have suffered horrific injuries without enough basic medical supplies for them to get the treatment they need.

A spokesperson for the organisations which wanted to broadcast the prime time appeal, said, “Agencies are already providing food, drugs and blankets as well as delivering clean water. But we will soon reach the limit of what we can do, without more money.”

And the BBC’s response? “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 news story.”

This has nothing to do with “impartiality” – the appeal was for humanitarian aid to a devastated people. How can you be “impartial” about that? Either these people need the aid or they don’t.

We have seen throughout these weeks of barbarism how Israel’s spin machine has been indulged by the BBC in particular. We know, as the Guardian reported two weeks ago, that the BBC management instructed its journalists to enable this to happen. The result was Israeli spokespersons given frequent opportunity to justify mass slaughter, including the deaths of over 400 children.

Our demonstration on Saturday assembles outside BBC Broadcasting House. To register our disgust at the BBC’s capitulation to Israel’s manipulation and intimidation of the media, we are asking protestors to bring children’s dolls, wrapped if possible in white shrouds, to be laid on the steps of the BBC, as a memorial to the hundreds of children who died and as an act of solidarity with the Paletinians in Gaza denied urgently needed aid because of BBC “impartiality”.

DEMONSTRATE FOR GAZA: SATURDAY 24 JANUARY END THE BLOCKADE: STOP ALL ARMS SALES BRING THE WAR CRIMINALS TO JUSTICE Assemble 2.00pm BBC Broadcasting House for rally Portland Place, London W1A 1AA Nearest tubes: Great Portland Street or Regents park. March starts at 3.00 pm. Ends with rally in Trafalgar Square 4.30 pm.

BRING CHILDEN’S DOLLS WRAPPED IN WHITE SHROUDS TO LAY ON THE STEPS OF THE BBC

BRING SHOES WITH MESSAGES TO GORDON BROWN INSIDE TO DELIVER AS WE MARCH PAST DOWNING STREET Instead of banning all arms trade with Israel and breaking all diplomatic relations, Brown has offered to send the British navy to help Israel tighten its blockade on Gaza.

MARCH ROUTE: Assemble and rally Portland Place, March to Regent Street, Piccadilly, Lower Regent Street, Trafalgar Square, Northumberland Avenue, Embankment, Parliament, Downing Street, Trafalgar Square (End rally)

2) A LIFELINE FROM BRITAIN TO GAZA

A Lifeline for Gaza aid convoy will leave Britain on Saturday 14 February 2009. It has been initiated by George Galloway MP, who writes:

We will not look away. The Palestinians in Gaza need our help now, just as they did when Israel’s bombs and illegal weapons were dropping.

Thousands of people have contacted me to say that they have marched, cried at the television pictures and feel helpless in the face of the suffering.

That’s why I have launched a major initiative in response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. I will be leading an aid convoy from London to Gaza leaving on 14 February and travelling through France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and through Rafah and into Gaza. It will bring material aid and raise the banner of Palestine in all the countries that we visit.

The convoy will be led by a British fire engine, ambulances, and many trucks full of practical aid given by the various communities in Britain.

FOR FULL DETAILS OF THE AID CONVOY, SEE THE VIVA PALESTINA WEBSITE: http://www.vivapalestina.org/