UPDATE: Jewish support grows for letter to BBC defending Gaza film
JVL Introduction
UPDATE – As of Tuesday evening, February 25, more than 600 British Jews have publicly endorsed calls on the BBC to reinstate on iPlayer the documentary Gaza: How to survive a Warzone. The updated list of names has been sent to Tim Davie and appears at the end of this post.
Thanks are due to Skwawkbox for circulating the letter to BBC Director General Tim Davie which is gathering signatures from growing numbers of Jews appalled by the removal from iPlayer of an excellent documentary about the lives of children in Gaza. At the time of posting this (1830 on Saturday Feb 22) more than 300 British Jews have now signed, including film maker Mike Leigh, actress Miriam Margolyes, comedian and writer Alexei Sayle, author Gillian Slovo and other eminent academic and cultural figures. An updated list of names will be sent to Tim Davie tomorrow.
The letter is seeking Jewish signatories as a response to the initial complaint attempting to link the film to Hamas terrorism, initiated by veteran anti-Palestinian campaigner David Collier and promoted by prominent Jewish defenders of Israel keen to block public access to a rare BBC programme showing the humanity, humour and courage of Gazan youngsters.
The resulting furore on social media has very likely increased the audience for the film many times, with links to a variety of downloaded copies circulating widely.
NWI
This article was originally published by Skwawkbox on Fri 21 Feb 2025. Read the original here.
250+ leading British Jews call on BBC to restore documentary it deleted to please Israel lobby groups
Reject propagandists’ ‘cynical’ complaints, broadcaster told
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Excellent work by all concerned. I have written in to complain separately. BBC have been put under pressure from a handful of hypocritical shills led by the disgusting David Collier and are so weak-kneed it took just 48 hours for them to cave in. Its the ONLY full documentary that exists What a shameful suppression of these remarkable children’s voices-.
Publish and be damned.
One sort of human being takes responsibility for his or her actions. Another sort of ?human being wants to keep things secret.
In the matter of the film, it is the second sort that has been influencing the BBC and, clearly, they are ashamed of what they are doing and what has been done in their name. If what they had been doing, and the underlying reasons for the film were right, they would publicise it . They don’t want to. They have been responsible for their actions and those of their fellow deviants from civilised human behaviour and they must be ashamed.
Desmond Tutu’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission cleared the air after South Africa’s Apartheid and the time is shortly coming when a similar action will be needed to clear the air and the minds of people who are complicit in what must be the greatest crime of our era.
The BBC’s claims to impartiality are as flimsy as rice-paper in a rainstorm. The Zionist cabal says ‘Jump!’, and Tim Davie speedily does an imitation of a dog leaping up to lick its master’s face. The BBC news directors’ blatant attempt to make individual heroes of the Israeli hostages while discussing the Palestinian hostages as if they were no more than lost parcels being returned to their owners is nauseating to witness. This can’t sit well with the BBC’s real journalists. Who is going to persuade Tim Davie and the BBC’s Board that what Israel is doing is just WRONG, and needs HONEST reporting, whatever the Zionists say.
It is high time BBC stopped dehumanising Palestinians at the behest of Israeli pressure groups and lived up to its commitment to truth and transparency
Great work by the signatories and Skwawkbox but one has to suspect that religious identity invoked with regard to Israel, will once again simply turn out a beard, and that the anti-genocide critics will be treated once again, as the wrong sort of Jews. Put simply, the lobby has a nuclear armed state’s PR budget behind it, Israel is a strategic asset for the US, the UK government is its lapdog, and the BBC stands revealed a blatant state-affiliated propagandist. That is not an excuse to stop campaigning but instead to reject false pre-determined starting points for debate that the establishment presents to those fighting oppression. Nations are social constructs, they don’t have rights to exist, least of all those white colonial constructs built out of 19th racist colonial ideologies – is the establishment similarly clamouring to unite Ireland or mourning Yugoslavia? The term racism originated in the post war decolonisation consensus and described the ongoing structural oppression of western imperialisms victims. Especially, given the rigged nature of public debate, there isn’t any reason to be treating Israel with any greater sanctity or legitimacy, than its two sister colonial projects, Rhodesia & Apartheid South Africa, that also bucked the decolonisation consensus. This means publicly acknowledging Israel’s lobby – like previous colonialist lobbies – are simply racists supporting racism. In the end there is going to be more of the public outside the corrupted hollowed out centre, repeating this obvious logic, than those listening to distant over-centralised illogical establishment orthodoxies.
Every single day I fire off complaints to the BBC about its coverage of Gaza……
For me this episode shows the steady hypocrisy of the ‘Labour’ government which proves itself to be composed of shallow establishment politicians who act as if Zionism is the predominant belief of all Jewish people, a vile slur against Jews when selfish Zionist extremism in Israel has caused the deaths of disproportionate numbers of indigenous women and children.
Dear all , Thank you for your humanity and morality. God bless you all. Anjum
We stand with you.