Palestine

I have lots to do at the moment so am putting it all off by writing emails of complaint to the BBC. First, one about their coverage of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel and below, one about the coverage of the autonomy referendum in the Santa Cruz region of Bolivia. I was at the yet-to-be mentioned rally in Trafalgar Sq. and it re-affirmed to me the importance of countering the media’s Israeli bias. The Bolivia complaint is a bit self-censored, what I really wanted to say is “You’re all a bunch of fascist, pro-establishment, washington-consensus, anti-Chavez-conspiracy capitalist pig-dogs.” At least in the Palestine complaint I called them racists.

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Re: 1948: The State of Israel is founded

Dear Ms Boaden,

“Thousands of Palestinians had fled or had been driven out.”

This is a shocking and despicable statement. The writer or writers of this potted history of Israel (though how you can be narrow minded enough to begin a history or the modern sate of Israel in 1948, I do not know) must know full well that this type of misinformation verges on the racist lies that have made up the Zionist narrative of Israel’s history, and are an affront to the honest and balanced journalism that the BBC should be delivering.

The ethnic cleansing of Palestine that was a requirement for the founding of the State of Israel caused 750 000 people to be displaced, 400 000 before Israel declared its foundation, 95% of whom left because of violence or violent intimidation. (Kapeliouk, Amnon (1987): New Light on the Israeli-Arab Conflict and the Refugee Problem and Its Origins, p.21. Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 16, No. 3. (Spring, 1987). Over 400 villages (Abu Sitta, Salman (2001): From Refugees to Citizens at Home. London: Palestine Land Society and Palestinian Return Centre) and possibly 70 000 homes were destroyed. (Saleh, Abdul Jawad and Walid Mustafa (1987): Palestine: The Collective Destruction of Palestinian Villages and Zionist Colonisation 1882-1982. London: Jerusalem Centre for Development Studies)

But of course you know all this. Anyone writing a history of Israel will know this. Consider the following statement:

“Palestinians, in turn, designate the 15 May as the Day of al-Nakba, “the catastrophe”, and they use it to commemorate the dispossession of hundreds of thousands of their people who were made homeless as Israel was born.”

This is a quote from, of course, the BBC News online, Tuesday, 15 May, 2001

“Thousands of Palestinians had fled or had been driven out.” 750 000 is “thousands”, 6.5 billion is “thousands”. To say “thousands” is to misinform your readers. To say “thousands” is to deny the history of the Palestinian people.

The catastrophe befell the Palestinian people, which was commemorated by “thousands” (perhaps five thousand) rallying today in central London, was the dispossession and massacres, the theft and destruction of homes, lands, belongings, livelihoods and lives, not “the declaration” as your article states, in a faint nod to balance.

Why, on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, does the BBC now choose to blatantly ignore the crimes committed by Zionism in Israel’s name?

The article doesn’t even mention Zionism. To say 1948 was “the culmination of nearly 2,000 years of hopes by Jewish people that they would one day return to the land from which the Romans expelled them” is surely a slur on the Jewish people, branding them all with Zionism’s racist ideology. As a statement of fact it is dubious, but it is an important part of the Zionist narrative, which this article seems content to present as fact.

History is history, but racist lies and misinformation and killing people today, killing Palestinian and killing Israelis. Killing fathers in Qassam rockets attacks and killing mothers in childbirth. Peace is not possible without justice, justice is not possible without truth. The BBC must be impartial, but this is only possible by a singular commitment to the truth. Lies, half-truths and misinformation are acts of violence, most of all against your readers.

Yours,

John Hill