The BBC, Sky, and Gaza

The BBC, and Sky, are refusing to broadcast the Disaster Emergency Committee's (that is 13 neutral aid agencies that work internationally in disaster zones and co-ordinate Aid efforts) request to the British public to donate for Gaza. This effectively denies the DEC millions of pounds in much needed funds.

With hospitals bombed, water in short supply, and no electricity, the humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire. One does not need to take sides in this conflict to acknowledge that Aid is urgently required and would abate suffering. The BBC and Sky's decision not to broadcast is effectively the end of any pretense of objectivity in the Israel/Palestine situation. They would prefer not to allow any unstated implication of Israeli culpability for the crisis rather than save the lives of those swept up in a savage conflict, and at the heel of repression. Perversely the BBC, and Sky, have cited objectivity as their reason not to broadcast, which requires Orwellian logic to comprehend. The ministry of Truth is alive and well. No doubt the clocks of the BBC trustees, and those in Murdoch Towers, are striking 13.

Actually, it is the kind of decision one expects from Sky that chimes with Murodch's neo-liberal heartbeat. But I am taken more disappointed by the BBC, who since their undeserved castigation over the Kelly affair have become increasingly like a poor man's CNN.

I stress to add that these are my views and not necessarily those of Plaid!

However-it would be a liberal fallacy for the 'should they broadcast the appeal' to dominate the agenda here. The question should also be of continued British trade with a military regime content to use illegal Weapons in unilateral action against their neighbour. One does not need to approve of Hamas to disapprove of the Israeli government's actions. The BBC, and Sky, should be criticised for their actions, and lopsided coverage- but ultimately it is not these corporations that are to blame- but more the deep-seated liberal hegemony that places little value on the lives and struggle of Palestinians. It is this imbalance that feeds terrorism. Even Bush and Blair, the head antagonists, acknowledged that a peaceful solution in the Middle East was required. By persisting in support of this Israeli government, and governments with a similar uber-zionist agenda with no respect for international law, we are in one way complicit in the murder of innocent Palestinians and Israeli's alike.

Ultimately the relationship between East and West is in the fabric of both our economy and our society- I personally interpret the BBC, and Sky's, actions to be only baffling and misjudged at best and at worst Islamophobic and deeply prejudiced.