Panorama showing face in East Jerusalem

Panorama has just shown its 'hard-hitting' account of Palestinian suffering around East Jerusalem (A Walk in the Park, BBC 1, 18 January, 2010).

By the BBC's usual woeful standards, Israel came out pretty badly. How, one might ask, could it appear otherwise, even to this most tepid of news organisations, given the glaringly obvious extent of Israel's ruthless conduct?

But not so badly that we got a truly comprehensive picture of the ethnic cleansing going on. Indeed, Jane Corbin never dared explore that term - as stated in the film by one Palestinian man, Jawad Sayam - or the associated word “apartheid” to describe the kind of systematic oppression and exclusion being carried out by the Israeli state.

Forty more Palestinian homes are due for demolition this year, Corbin tells us at the start of the film. “That's because the municipal government has a budget it has to use up for demolitions.” No, actually, it's because the Israeli state, and its municipal enforcer, are intent on eradicating Palestinians from the land – continued ethnic cleansing, in more plain and honest words. Why not simply say so?

At no point did Corbin seriously challenge the Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, and other settler ideologists in the film. Think what someone like John Pilger might have said in his calm, probing way to Barkat's posturing claims that Jews should be free to live in an undivided city.

Likewise, there was no direct challenge to the interviewed settler family about the actual illegality of their presence. As they were being escorted around by government-funded armed guards, all we got from Corbin was some weak, assumed comment about the atmosphere between them and their Palestinian neighbours not being "very warm".

We did see graphic images of Israeli brutality and mapped illustrations of the land grab, alongside moving and articulate expressions from the Hanouns and other Palestinian families. The Israeli lawyer Danny Seidemann's evidence, explaining Israel's mendacious "facts on the ground" agenda, was also exemplary, serving to show the courageous resistance of many concerned Jews to Zionist propaganda.

Yet, herein lay an essential problem in Corbin's report: it never actually mentioned or contextualised that unremitting spectre of Zionist control, occupation and expansion. The term "Zionist" is also, seemingly, far too hot for the BBC to countenance, no doubt because of its deeper, 'troubling' implications about Israel's formative ethnic cleansing and the continued application of this state-centred doctrine.

Some Zionist utterings may, of course, need little side commentary. Reasonable viewers should have been able to see Arieh King, head of the Israeli Land Fund, for the cruel evicting zealot that he is. But, again, where was the direct challenge from Corbin other than to ask if he's just helping to create hostility: "Aren't you worried about the tension you're causing by buying up these Jewish properties in a predominantly Arab area?"

As "Arieh" serves eviction notices on Arab homes, Corbin does link his protection by Israeli soldiers with the Israeli state's plan to control more land, but can only conclude that Palestinians are being "squeezed out" of Jerusalem rather than being ethnically cleansed. The term "transfer" is, likewise, never considered. The language throughout is carefully neutralised.

While Corbin's report does provide a useful illumination of the Israeli state's stealthy manoeuvring, it is always cautiously tempered by 'balanced' BBC mitigation. Thus, "tension in Silwan is growing, and both sides are suffering," Corbin declares.

The following account of Ahmed Qaareen being shot by an Israeli is harrowing, his young son's pitiful crying serving to demonstrate the sense of Palestinian despair. Yet, it's a forewarning, so we're told, of the inflammatory possibilities to come. Where, one wonders, has Corbin and her peers been these past years, other than viewing the 'conflict' from inside the BBC's privileged West Jerusalem offices.

Coming back into the Old City, Corbin states that Israeli police superintendent, Ofer Shomer, "has one of the hardest police jobs in the world." This coy line is a brazen circumvention of the Israeli state's oppressive control over the holy sites. Corbin stood silently by, allowing Shomer to blame Muslims for the recent riots at the Al Aqsa mosque, failing to ask about the constant incitement of Jewish fundamentalists and how Palestinians are routinely prevented from entering this part of the city to visit and pray.

Walking along the "separation barrier", as Corbin dutifully calls it, there's no explanation that the Wall was declared illegal in 2004 by the International Court. Again, Israel's illegal occupation of East Jerusalem and construction of the wall, as defined under international law, was never broadened out to show that it's just part of the wider occupation of the West Bank and imprisonment of Gaza. Indeed, Gaza is never once mentioned in the film. Here would have been an obvious point to cite the numerous conclusions of key figures like UN Rapporteur Richard Falk and the landmark Goldstone report.

Doron Spielman, from the Elad settler organisation, gave further vent to the claim that Israel is "the sovereign entity" and that he's proud he can enable more Jewish people to live here. Taking Corbin around the excavations under Silwan, Spielman conjures up the ancestral spirits: "You close your eyes, you sit on one of these stones, you walk through this place with a bible and you literally see the people from the bible jumping out of the pages at you."

In response to Spielman's pretexts and 'literal apparitions', Corbin can only muster a feeble question about putting Jewish history before Arab history, rather than accusing him and his state sponsors of using archaelogy - and biblical ghosts - to advance the ethnic cleansing process.

Corbin did briefly reference Israel's efforts to link the Old City with its outlying East Jerusalem settlements, thereby cutting off the West Bank from Palestinians in East Jerusalem, yet still managed to portray Jerusalem as an enclave-type conflict bearing little relation to Israel's wider oppressions.

Nor, through all of this film, was there the slightest reference to US/UK backing for Israel and the West's complicity in permitting this apartheid process to continue. Typical of BBC foreign affairs output, it was framed as a conflict between two warring parties, the standard two sides narrative, with no mention of Obama's supplications, appeasements and refusal to wield the necessary pressure on Israel.

The BBC will, no doubt, proclaim this as evidence of fearless, flagship journalism. In fact, Corbin's was the safest pair of hands the BBC could find to deliver the message of "powderkeg" Jerusalem, as opposed to apartheid Jerusalem.

As ever, the problem running through such BBC presentation is the pretend tone of "impartiality" and "objectivity", conveniently disabling any more pressing investigation and exposure of the gross injustice going on. Serious, honest journalism is not about giving 'fair' time and voice to 'each side'. It's about journalists' willingness to speak critically to power, particularly when it's obvious to those journalists that power is wielding the big, brutal stick against the powerless.

It's instructive to note that the BBC are only just now shining a little attention on the plight of those being evicted and forced to watch their homes being torn down in East Jerusalem. Corbin's film also looks like a tokenised 'top-journo-visits' reportage attempting to raise the BBC's lowly reputation as a serious media player in the region.Which begs the question: where was the reporting of the al-Kurd family's removal in 2008, resulting in Mr al-Kurd's death, and the concentrated legal, political and military enforcements used to facilitate settler occupation in places like Sheikh Jarrah?

We'll, no doubt, get another cursory half hour review of the issues in a year or so, the BBC having dispensed its 'Reithian duties' for now. This film did cast a certain accusatory light, and it's always helpful to get further exposure of the issues. Yet, the limited extent of such output is still an appalling abrogation by the BBC, particularly when one considers the centrality of the Palestinian case with its vital ramifications for the Middle East and beyond.

John

Scottish trade visit to Israel: an exchange with SDI

Scottish Development International are planning a trade mission to Israel (10 - 15 January 2010). The news will come as cold comfort to struggling Palestinians, particularly those enduring primitive hardships inside Gaza. It will also disgust many people here in Scotland, averse to the notion that trade with an apartheid state should come before humanitarian support for an occupied and brutalised people.

I wrote to SDI requesting an explanation.

Dear Elaine Philip

I've been reading the web page regarding SDI's planned visit to Israel.

I find it deeply disturbing that a Scottish government-backed body could even countenance such a 'mission' when Israel continues its illegal occupation and Gaza lies in ruins, its 1.5 million people victim to a merciless economic and humanitarian siege.

The First Minister and many of his government have proclaimed their open support and sympathy for suffering Palestinians, condemning Israel's occupation and the mass murder of over 1400 Gazans this time last year. The SDI's visit goes against the very grain of that humanitarian position.

You will also be aware of the recent Goldstone report (ratified by the UN General Assembly) into these events, concluding that there's an overwhelming case to indict Israel for war crimes.

Following its own exhaustive visit to Palestine and Israel, the STUC has also formally endorsed the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) policy, convinced of the need to counter Israel's apartheid treatment of Palestinians.

I note the SDI's ambitions to develop trade links with Israel's "life sciences" sector. That's a dark, ugly irony given the Israeli state's massive concentration on death sciences; a military-R&D-driven economy that's using Gaza as a human laboratory to deploy new lethal weaponry, including the illegal use of white phosphorous on innocent civilians in Gaza.

All this has been forensically recorded in the Goldstone document, as well as Amnesty International and International Red Cross on-the-ground reports.

For all these reasons, any proposed SDI trade relations with Israel is to be utterly condemned. I'm sure many Scottish people would be appalled to learn that they are paying for such a delegation.

In the name of humanity, please give your most urgent consideration to Israel's criminal violations of international law and cancel the visit.

Yours sincerely

John Hilley
For Glasgow Palestine Human Rights Campaign

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Dear John

I acknowledge receipt of your email. I will ensure your comments, together with others received both for and against the planned trade mission, are passed to relevant members of staff.

Regards

Elaine

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Dear Elaine

Thanks for your reply. The main point of my mail, aside from stating our objections to the visit, was to elicit a specific explanatory response. I'd be pleased if you could ensure this is forthcoming.

Yours sincerely

John Hilley
For Glasgow Palestine Human Rights Campaign

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Dear Mr Hilley

Thank you for your message about the trade mission to Israel arranged by Scottish Development International (SDI) as part of its planned programme of trade missions overseas.

This mission is being organised in partnership with UK Trade and Investment. Its purpose is consistent with all international work undertaken by SDI, which is to assist Scottish companies in developing links to secure new investment and jobs into Scotland by increasing their overseas markets. The Scottish Government and SDI supports a number of trade related missions to the Middle East. For example, last October SDI visited the United Arab Emirates.

with best regards

Anne MacColl
Scottish Development International

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Dear Anne

Thanks for responding.

With respect, that's a complete evasion of the questions I put to SDI regarding the moral and legal standing of this visit. It's further lamentable that you attempt to legitimise SDI's involvement through association with UK-level trade and investment bodies. The complicit promotions of an Israel-friendly British government suggests no similar onus on their Scottish counterparts.

While your delegation prepares to be feted in Tel Aviv, the people of Gaza are, again, being bombed and murdered by Israeli forces. Israel continues to block basic food, medicines and essential fuel supplies from crossing any of Gaza's entry points. Despite new UK trading standard directives, illegal Israeli settlements are labelling produce for export as 'West Bank', further strangling what passes for a Palestinian 'economy'. Meanwhile, Tzipi Livni, senior Israeli army officers and other planners of the Cast Lead attacks have cancelled visits to the UK fearing arrest over war crimes. Is this really an appropriate state to be conducting favourable trade links with?

Moreover, your assertion that the Scottish Government supports various Middle East trade missions takes no account of that same government's recorded denunciations of Israel's illegal occupation and criminality in Gaza.

Have you stopped to consider that in cultivating Israel in order "to secure new investment and jobs into Scotland", the SDI is helping to legitimise its occupation-based economy, thus prolonging the political impasse and giving a green light to more Palestinian suffering? Are these supposed trade openings for Scottish companies more important than human lives and the growing global effort to make Israel abide by UN resolutions and international law?

Again, I request your specific consideration of the following with regard to SDI's visit:

The Goldstone report's conclusions on Israel's pre-planned attack on Gaza and its illegal economic siege.

The STUC's BDS policy, based on an extensive study of Israel's military, economic and human rights violations.

The evidence of Israeli apartheid, as presented by UN Rapporteur Richard Falk and other notable international figures.

I look forward to your more considered response on these matters.

Yours sincerely

John Hilley
For Glasgow Palestine Human Rights Campaign

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A further exchange (11 January 2010):

Dear Mr Hilley

thanks for your return message.

In addition to my comments from my message to you on Friday, the position from the Scottish Government position regarding the situation in Gaza is very clear and the Deputy First Minister announced a package of humanitarian aid last year. The Scottish Ministers strongly believe that, in the longer term, only engagement and dialogue leading to a two state solution, based on the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the need for a safe and secure Israel and Palestine, can form the basis of a lasting peace in the Middle East.

best regards

Anne MacColl
EMEA Operations DIrector, Scottish Development International

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Dear Anne

Thanks for your further response.

Yes, I'm very aware of the humanitarian package and some Scottish ministers' concerns. But why should this be presented as some kind of mitigating argument for the SDI's trade visit?

The desire for "engagement and dialogue" is all very noble, but these 'well-intentioned' calls mean precisely nothing to a state zealously intent on maintaining its illegal occupation, murderous attacks and apartheid persecutions. How convenient to hide the imperatives of business and profit behind such ersatz peace talk.

The actual point of trade-related action - as with trade sanctions against South Africa - is to help push the principal aggressor party towards that very position of serious, engaged dialogue. Continuing to build and normalise trade and political relations only serves to legitimise the aggressor's behaviour, further negating any prospect of a just negotiation. The SDI is, thus, serving to intensify the problem, not diminish it.

The "need for a safe and secure Israel and Palestine" also falls into that same 'two sides to blame' cliche-speak so redolent of 'sensible business'. And it's always telling to see Israel's 'safety and security' noted first in such sentences.

There wiil be no just and durable peace in the Middle East until Israel's mass criminality is seriously challenged and checked by the 'respectable international community' of which SDI apparently forms a part. In its determination to forge closer ties with Israel, the SDI is, in effect, a complicit party to ongoing Palestinian suffering.

Yours sincerely

John Hilley
For Glasgow Palestine Human Rights Campaign
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Scottish Parliamentary motion proposed by Sandra White (SNP) MSP:

S3M-05463 Sandra White (Glasgow) (Scottish National Party): Scottish Development International Trade Mission to Israel— That the Parliament notes with concern the proposed trade mission on 10 to 15 January 2010 organised by Scottish Development International (SDI) to Israel, a state that is currently in contravention of numerous United Nations General Assembly and Security Council resolutions and stands accused of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during the Gaza conflict, amounting to war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity; notes that this trade mission was postponed in January 2009 after advice from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the wake of Israel’s December 2008 offensive, and, while welcoming the Scottish Government’s clear position on the situation in Gaza and the substantial package of humanitarian aid announced last year by the Deputy First Minister, urges SDI to reconsider its current stance while Israel continues to flout international law and stands accused of possible crimes against humanity.

Supported by: Patrick Harvie, Hugh O'Donnell, Bill Kidd, Christine Grahame, Shirley-Anne Somerville, Robin Harper, Dr Bill Wilson, Aileen Campbell, Mike Pringle, Elaine Smith, Hugh Henry, Angela Constance, Anne McLaughlin

Lodged on Thursday, January 07, 2010; Current

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John

Ending the decade - rationally speaking

Rational - adjective:
agreeable to reason; reasonable; sensible

Words. Rational words. Words of concern. Words of dissent. Aren't they all, the zillions and zillions of them, ultimately superfluous in the face of what actually occurs, what the powerful dismissively, uncaringly, unilaterally, conspiratorially, calculatingly, wantonly, finally do?

Just think of all the campaigning, the street demonstrations, the hard-boiled evidence, the just legal opinions, the challenging letters, the humanitarian pleas, the mass condemnations directed at the warmongers who murder with impunity, the financial masters who profit and wreck lives, the climate vandals motivated only by selfish intent. The results? The bombs keep dropping on innocents, the bankers steal away with more public booty and the planet remains on a collision course with oblivion.

Tony Blair continues to walk in our midst, a criminal at large, a "peace envoy", no less, not simply unrepentant but mindfully self-assured about his 'divine' part in the genocide of Iraq. What 'rational' state would permit such a quantum abuse of power? The one, we must assume, which offers the Chilcot inquiry as a 'rational' investigation of those matters. Shouldn't we fear not only those who rationalised the intelligence in pursuit of war, but also the dark intelligence of those appointed to rationalise the crimes of the rationalisers?

Meanwhile, fear, of the economic kind, continues to stalk people's lives, the rational consequence of an irrational free market system. The massive daily exercise in hegemonic ideology underpinning capitalist society helps maintain the relentless message that banking bailouts and rampant speculation of public money are all good, rational practices; that more neoliberalism is the only rational way out of the 'mess' (as though all was well and rational 'before'); and that we will all, according to 'rational' Treasury forecasts, be ultimate beneficiaries of the great state handout to the fat cats.

The coming general election will see another intensive assault on the poorest and socially vulnerable to pay for the great 'New Deal' in saving the financier elite. Economic recovery, so it goes, remains ever-dependent on the stability of the banking sector and protection of its executive class.

Usefully, some rational evidence is now at hand to show just how irrational that dependence is:

"Hospital cleaners are worth more to society than bankers, a study suggests.

The research, carried out by think tank the New Economics Foundation, says hospital cleaners create £10 of value for every £1 they are paid. It claims bankers are a drain on the country because of the damage they caused to the global economy. They reportedly destroy £7 of value for every £1 they earn. Meanwhile, senior advertising executives are said to "create stress". The study says they are responsible for campaigns which create dissatisfaction and misery, and encourage over-consumption."

We live in a society where poor souls sit hungry and cold outside Tesco and other supermarket cities with their groaning shelves of food, all serving to keep an owner class in fabulous wealth. One might rationally say, go inside and take what you need. Act rationally, not according to the irrational rules of super/market society. Don't deprive yourself of life's basic necessities when they are all readily available. Rationalise according to your higher human rights, not what the market deems the supremacy of property rights.

That, of course, would be condemned as not just illegal, but dangerously anarchic; threatening to the 'rational' order of things. To those appalled by such gross inequality, it should make perfect rational sense.

Taking with moral intent, balancing, sharing, acting in compassionate consideration of others, thinking sustainably: these are all the hallmarks of rational non-market behaviour.

Corporate behaviour, on the other hand, predicated on zero-sum competition and greed, cannot, by rational definition, also be governed by reason or sensible judgement about human well-being. The irrationality of financial speculation underlying the present bout of economic woes - for those at the bottom end, not the high financiers - is testament to that rationally deducted truth.

And there's no more rational illustration of profit-led anarchy than the climate change crisis.

Copenhagen signifies man's most staggering capacity for blind irrationality. Even when presented with all the evidence of climate disaster, even when given the rare collective opportunity to correct the problem, the chance is not just lost, but, worse, sabotaged and dismissed by politicians protecting corporate interests.

Having just sent another thirty thousand troops to Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Nobel 'peace' man, flew into town and presided over the biggest exercise in hand-wringing stagecraft the world has ever witnessed. The poor nations, those now facing the gravest threat of flood, hunger and mass death, argued with rational conviction that a deal must be secured in order to avert the looming catastrophe - and were, predictably, blamed for the gathering's collapse. The victims victimised. It was ever thus.

Words? Even rational words? Is it any use in stating the obvious, mentioning the plain, scientific truths, re-issuing the warnings, reprising the dire implications, the prospect of imminent death warrants for millions? Power decides. Power spins. Power walks away.

Is that all too pessimistic a summary, a prognosis? Perhaps. It's always easy to forget that other kind of power: the power of people to mobilise, resist and effect rational change.

I think, for example, of how Palestine has, in the words of Omar Barghouti, now reached its "South Africa moment." Whatever the massive task in ending Israel's occupation and brutality, that shift in international support for the Palestinian cause didn't seem on the cards even a decade ago. Rational persuasion, much of it from sustained and patient campaigning - applied words - has helped change that. A year on from the slaughter of over 1400 in Gaza, many more people have come to see that holding 1.5 million people captive, deprived and fearful inside a human laboratory isn't a very enlightened or rational way of treating human beings. Nor, even for some now-realising Israelis, is it any rational way to maintain their own perceived security.

The same rational objections to state murder and political deceit are also encouraging demands for the architects of such crimes to be brought to justice. Beyond the servile rationalising of the war-friendly media, the word "Blair" has become, like a brand name, synonymous with mendacity, mass murder and the singular art of saving one's neck.

And with that rational take on word association, here's three key terms to reflect upon, with hopeful and, perhaps, not so hopeful significance, for the coming decade:

Universal jurisdiction

The Goldstone report, citing Israel's gross violations in Gaza (and the West Bank/East Jerusalem), carried a specific call for universal jurisdiction to be incorporated into individual state laws, providing a much stronger hand for campaign groups seeking grounds for indictment against the higher powers. As with the recent arrest warrant granted in a London court against Tzipi Livni, the growing application of universal jurisdiction takes us another step towards the possible arraignment of senior warmongers.

Corporate dependency

Irrational capitalist greed has necessitated emergency state action, primarily into the banking and financial sector. Of course, bankers' generous bonuses continue while banks hound struggling mortgage defaulters. There's no progressive agenda here. Socialism it's not. But the crisis intervention does, effectively, signal the end of the neoliberal ascendancy and the supreme fiction of free market 'wealth creation'. It's another rational, if harsh, lesson in understanding and rejecting the false promises of market life.

Climate countdown

Alas, one is forced to assume the most rational, realistic reading of the climate issue: ongoing environmental decline. Copenhagen was never a "sell-out": the rejection of any serious plan for carbon reduction was already decided behind the scenes, instructed by corporate lobbies and executed by their political appointees. Yet, still rationally speaking, there remains the enduring prospect of counter-action from below, from concerned and active citizens, based on the reasonable, rational assumption that too much is at stake to allow the forces of irrationalism to kill the planet.

Still time, in short, to wake up..."before they turn the summer into dust."

Peace, love and encouragement towards rational words and action this coming year.

John

Tom Harris: closing the door on reasonable questions

Tom Harris MP
Member of Parliament for Glasgow South

House of Commons, London SW1A OAA

17 December 2009

Dear Mr Hilley

Humanitarian situation in Gaza

Thank you for your further correspondence. I said in my last response to you that I will not be writing to Ivan Lewis again on the issue you raised. I would like to make it clear that this does not, as you suggest, preclude me from putting any further questions to him on your behalf, only that I now consider this particular issue to have been addressed.

I hope you find this information helpful.

Best wishes

Tom Harris
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27th December 2009

Dear Tom Harris

Thanks for your further message (17 December 2009).

If you remain willing to put further questions on my behalf, I see no valid reason for excluding the specific one I asked, which hasn't actually been addressed.

So, as a constituent, please ask Ivan Lewis to provide a convincing statement on how he reconciles his Labour Friends of Israel membership with his decision to oppose the Goldstone report.

Also, are you willing to sign this Early Day Motion in support of universal jurisdiction?

http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=40074&SESSION=903

As this is the first anniversary marking the start of Israel's mass murder in Gaza, I'd like you to give serious consideration to these questions.

I look forward to your reply.

Regards

John Hilley

Classic BBC: excuses, denial and closure

Remember the start of Israel's mass assult on Gaza one year ago (27 December)? Remember the ways in which the BBC helped misrepresent Cast Lead as a supposedly 'defensive' exercise? Rememer how they refused to allow a basic humanitarian appeal on behalf of suffering Gazans?

Well, as another valiant Viva Palestina convoy endeavours to deliver a little comfort to Gaza, here's a very timely reminder of the BBC bolting the door to news that blames and shames Israel.

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Dear Tim Franks

Today's BBC Online report, "World 'failed Gaza over Israeli blockade' - aid groups" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8425698.stm offers some useful, if still nominal, lines on the dire situation and failure of international responses.

But where is your reporting of the major UK aid convoy currently headed for Gaza? Surely this would have been an obvious place to inform readers about such an impressive humanitarian intervention. http://vivapalestina.org/

Can you offer any credible explanation for this glaring omission?

Perhaps you could headline another piece on the general absence of such coverage with:

"BBC 'failed Gaza over reporting convoy efforts to break Israeli blockade' - Palestine support groups."

Wouldn't that be a truthful addition to your present article?

Regards

John Hilley

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John

Thanks for your email. We had this news story, recently, on the internet http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8425232.stm

and there has also been some coverage on World Service radio.

As the convoy nears Gaza, we'd be happy to keep abreast of any developments.

Best wishes

Tim Franks

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Thanks Tim

I had a look at the linked story - the word "nominal" again coming to mind.

I'd still like some explanation about the particular absence of the convoy story.

And why the need to await "developments" when the actual departure of the convoy and its aims should be a newsworthy item in its own right?

Perhaps you'd like to elaborate on the BBC's continued failure to cover the Viva Palestina project.

(As standard practice, I will post this and any further exchanges at the Media Lens message board.)

Best wishes

John

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John

We receive a lot of requests to cover events managed by pressure groups and NGOs, often with the aim of highlighting some very important issues. It's up to us, then, to decide which we will cover in their own right, as part of another story, or not at all. We have, in the past, covered attempts to break the Israeli blockade. We are likely to do so again in the future. In the meantime, we frequently investigate the fundamental issue of conditions for Gazans in the territory across TV, radio and the internet. As I said before, we are happy to keep across developments with your convoy.

Best wishes

Tim
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Dear Tim,

Thanks for getting back.

I'm afraid that "pressure group" defence won't really wash. The fact is that a very significant convoy is attempting, once again, to break the illegal blockade. You shouldn't need soliciting to think about whether to go out and cover it. It's news, and newsworthy in its own right.

Note also that the convoy marks Israel's murderous assault precisely one year on. There's an obvious context to 'hang' the story on.

You are entirely right, the un/reporting of such is your decision. And the decision not to cover it indicates very clearly the trusted subjective nature of your selective judgement. For it seems to fit very neatly with a wider BBC consensus on the non-reporting of Viva Palestina activity.

Can you explain why that is?

Also, what is meant by "your convoy"? This is a broadly-supported public and humanitarian effort to assist broken and demoralised people. Why portray it as the work of some narrow interest group? Would you describe Children in Need-type aid in such a way?

Best wishes

John

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John

I'm sorry you weren't satisfied with my response. If you want to take the matter further, please do so through this link http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/homepage/

Tim

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Thanks Tim

As ever, the default silent sign-off.

Anyway, thanks for your replies - always helpful to keep on record as illustrations of BBC closure.

Best wishes.

John

To Guardian Editor, Alan Rusbridger

A letter (sent 19 December) to the Guardian Editor, following a fine critique of the Chilcot hearings by Media Lens.
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Dear Mr Rusbridger

The Chilcot 'inquiry' has all the obvious makings of the classic gentleman-appointed exercise in purest warwash.

But what of the media's own role in being a trumpet-blower for the invasion? And what, more particularly, of the Guardian's carefully-crafted editorial part in giving the war, its aftermath and Tony Blair's cynical manipulations that all-important mantle of respectability?

The latest Media Lens Alert offers more than ample evidence of the gross deceptions. The fact of Blair's criminality as chief political executive in the slaughter should need no further elucidation.

Yet, as your Guardian leader noted:

“the primary aim of the probe must be to promote the reconciliation of the public with a political class which misled it so badly”.

Why “reconciliation”? Why not the criminal indictment of that political class?

Again, we see here the Guardian's ever-so-coy efforts to soothe the issue, while loftily evading its own complicit part in the human disaster that is Iraq.

The Media Lens Alert puts it well:

“This is why media protestations that politicians need to be called to account are so cynical, so insulting to the intelligence.”

The Guardian supposedly prides itself in highlighting the political contortions of Chilcot's witnesses. But where is the critical self-examination, the same reflections on the Guardian's own apologetic part in the great war narrative?

Alongside those mandarins currently being 'grilled' by Chilcot, there is another vital establishment grouping whose conduct requires serious investigation: the liberal media gentlemen's club, of which the Guardian has honorary place.

As Editor of the country's most proclaimed 'liberal-left' organ, you have, for some considerable time now, refused to engage any enquiring voice on these matters. Whether through private contempt or selective avoidance, that silence speaks volumes about the Guardian's editorial fear of rational challenge.

In the 'spirit of public accountability' so lauded by the Guardian with regard to Chilcot, wouldn't it be fitting, at least on this occasion, to answer the fairly-argued charges made by Media Lens?

Yours sincerely

John Hilley

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No response received - or expected.

John

Tom Harris replies on Gaza and Goldstone

A further exchange with my MP, Tom Harris. (Previous exchange here.)

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House of Commons, London SW1A OAA

2 December 2009

Dear Mr Hilley

Humanitarian situation in Gaza

Thank you for contacting me again regarding the response I passed onto you from Ivan Lewis and those on the Goldstone Report.

In your letter, you indicate that you feel that the response from Mr Lewis is not personalised to the concerns you raise. I cannot agree. On several occasions in his reply, Mr Lewis refers specifically to the points you raised. I am afraid that it will not always be the case that the Minister's response is the one you had hoped for. It is for this reason that I will not be writing to him again to ask for further clarification on this issue.

You have also asked for my opinion on the Goldstone report. As you point out, the UK and many other EU countries abstained from the vote to endorse it at the UN General Assembly. The report, which was commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council raises some serious issues, but as Foreign Secretary David Miliband has pointed out it is also flawed. In a letter to the UK's leading Jewish community organisations the Foreign Secretary said:

"I share important concerns about the failure of the Goldstone Report to recognise adequately Israel's right to protect its citizens and pay sufficient attention to Hamas's actions. I am also very clear that the excessive emphasis on Israel by the Human Rights Council is deeply unhelpful...The Goldstone Report does raise some serious issues which should be properly investigated. We have asked Israel to show the strength and rigour of its democracy by establishing full credible and impartial investigations. And we have continued to be absolutely clear in our condemnation of Hamas rocket attacks as a clear violation of international humanitarian law."

It is my understanding that there are also some concerns about the report's propriety. It is for these reasons that I agree that the UK was right not to endorse the Goldstone report. I hope you find this information useful.

Best wishes

Tom Harris MP
Member of Parliament for Glasgow South

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9 December 2009

Dear Mr Harris

Thanks for responding to my further letter.

You say:

"I am afraid that it will not always be the case that the Minister's response is the one you had hoped for. It is for this reason that I will not be writing to him again to ask for further clarification on this issue."

I'm rather intrigued by the 'logic' behind this statement. It seems to be saying that Ivan Lewis's differing view (which I, of course, expected) precludes you from putting any further questions to him on my behalf. That's a bland evasion, not a credible reason for dismissing my questions to him.

The same kind of evasion permeates your rejection of Goldstone. Citing David Miliband's own evasive reasons for rejecting the report is merely seeking shelter behind the UK's shameful abstention.

The Goldstone report has been widely commended for its fairness and scrutiny. There's no serious doubt about its "propriety" - as you insinuate, yet fail to explain - among international jurists like Goldstone himself.

It's also worth reiterating that Goldstone has fairly strong Zionist sympathies and accepted the enquiry mandate reluctantly. Yet, he still found Israel to be in serious breach of international laws and liable for war crimes charges. Are we to believe that the "flawed" legal aspects you suggest - again, none of which are elaborated here - justify this blanket rejection of the report?

As you, of course, know, Goldstone has also recommended action against Hamas regarding rocket fire. So, the UK's and your own stated objections on these grounds have no rational basis.

It's entirely obvious that the UK's close relationship with Israel is the central reason behind the refusal to support Goldstone. And your own pro-Israel sentiments are entirely consistent with that alignment. Which, in turn, explains your refusal to put my further question to Ivan Lewis regarding his Labour Friends of Israel membership and (as with Miliband and Brown) the part that affiliation played in rejecting Goldstone.

One year on from the slaughter of Gaza, the Goldstone report offers a comprehensive statement on those crimes and what the international community can do about them.

As my MP, I have you on record as saying that you won't endorse Goldstone and that process of justice. I hope to have your refusal highlighted come the next general election.

Yours sincerely

John Hilley

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Plase sign the petition urging the UK government to endorse the Goldstone report.

John