I’m reprinting a fine posting from Big Rab, on the BBC’s shameful attitude to the current humanitarian crisis in Gaza
The article & comments page are really worth a look
http://bigrab.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/the-bbc-and-impartiality/#comment-2678
We’re in the age of the policy, the charter and the mission statement. One can hardly buy a product or service these days without being bombarded by meaningless drivel on an individual, company or government body’s ethical principles.
Most of it is bollocks.
Click Here for some of the endless knots the BBC ties itself up in, in the pursuit of “impartiality” Click Here for more. The Beeb says it is simply maintaining impartiality by not allowing an appeal for humanitarian aid for Gaza to be broadcast. And yet by their refusal, have they not just declared their support for the Israeli government who claim there is no humanitarian crisis?
One can impartially judge whether there is a humanitarian crisis here:
The Disasters Emergency Committee are the organisation behind the Gaza Humanitarian Appeal. They have been around since 1963 and encompass 13 aid agencies including the British Red Cross, Christian Aid, Save the Children, Oxfam and Help the Aged. They too of course have a mission statement and critera for intervention. The three principles which govern their intervention are interesting.
1. The disaster must be on such a scale and of such urgency as to call for swift international humanitarian assistance.
2. The DEC agencies, or some of them, must be in a position to provide effective and swift humanitarian assistance at a scale to justify a national appeal.
3. There must be sufficient public awareness of, and sympathy for, the humanitarian situation so as to give reasonable grounds for concluding that a public appeal will be successful.
All I would suggest much more concise and helpful than the hand wringing rubbish currently emanating from the BBC. I will be donating to the DEC today and their address is on the clip below should you wish to help. (NB other broadcasters are mentioned on the clip. They have all, except Sky*, since agreed to broadcast the appeal)
Find out more about British Red Cross work in Gaza at
http://www.redcross.org.uk/TLC.asp?id=90152
or to donate to our appeal go to
http://www.redcross.org.uk/gazacrisis
I’ve made my donation and you can too at http://www.dec.org.uk/donate_now/
Donating won’t make you a supporter of Hamas or Hezbollah as the Beeb seem to think.
STU SAYS
There have been some astonishing reactionary articles supporting the Israeli massacres in Gaza, from those who should know better, and one recent notable inclusion in The Guardian which stated, quite categorically, that if you were critical of the present attack on Gaza then you were, without question, anti-semitic
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/16/elizabeth-wurtzel-antisemitism-israel-gaza
Read it and despair … but read the comment replies and see that it actually brought many differing shades of opinion closer together in their condemnation of her piece
Astonishing.
My anger and frustration at this present situation, and this level of emotive, irrational argument has literally left me in tears
STU WHO? 