Should the BBC have shown this?

Max Kaye

No.

Paul Pinfield

Yes

Wilhelm

''Should the BBC have shown this? ''

The BBC shows Doctor Who, childish garbage crap, if that aint a war crime I dont know what is.

Tankus

bit of an implication... innit !

Does Mark Thompson have sleepless nights over Gerald Bull..?

Wilhelm

Liberal Bias in the Media, Part 957

BBC Director General squeels '' We are impartial, damn it ''

EH ? Yeah, its the joke of the century.

bill

Yes

Will S

No, the BBC 'should' not have to show anything.

Benedict White

Yes they should. As in many disasters there is some man made element, and the appeal does make clear at the start that it does not have a veiw on the rights and wrongs of the conflict, all it is to do is to help those put at peril.

Seems fair to me.

Brad Brzezinski

They're damned if they do and damned if they don't. This is the result of an irrational climate of hate that they have had a large hand in creating.

It's time to sit back and enjoy their discomfort.

Mark Solomon

No it most certainly should not. Where are the appeals for the Israeli children killed by rockets launched by those ruling Gaza, democratically elected by its inhabitants?

It's all very well using the imagery of 'poor children' but international aid does not get through to them directly, it is distributed or controlled by Hamas who use it as a political weapon. And the charities behind this broadcast are the usual suspects with clear left-wing outlooks and views.

Every penny donated to these charities is one penny that Hamas does not have to spend itself alleviating the needs of its people, one penny more it has to spend itself on its favourite activities, rockets and suicide bombers against Israel. Misguided woolly-minded support of this appeal is effectively money for terrorism and a prolonging of the war. Let Hamas for once face up to helping its own people in practical ways and be held responsible for the disaster they called down upon them with their actions.

Or how about the oil-rich Arab world or Hamas' Iranian paymasters stumping up for a change? But then the Arabs won't, because they know what extremists the Palestinians are and only give them token support. Don't be duped.

Jack Sheldrake

Yes, but only if they also showed the destruction and slaughter caused in Southern Israel caused to civilian property and innocent civilians by hundreds of randomly launched rockets from launching sites in schools, hospitals and heavily populated areas in Gaza.

Frank P

The more important question is "Why didn't the BBC show this? It has screened every other piece of Hamas jihadist propaganda it could lay its hands on for the past couple of months."

The answer is undoubtedly multi-faceted; but two elements stick out like a bulldog's bollocks: first, because it knew that by refusing to screen it, it would get vastly more coverage than if it had done so. Secondly they wanted a belly laugh and being accused of pro-Israel bias has them all rolling around, pissed on Champagne at the 'piss-take celebration', on the floors of the offices in the Doughnut. They invited Greg Dyke along, of course, once he had finished his comedy gig on Newsnight. Paxo probably went home, as he seems bored shitless by the whole gig - he really wants to be taken seriously. I hope Janet Daley declined an offer to attend; I quite like her - sometimes! BBC pro-Israeli? Bawaaaaaaahahahahaha. Ian Paisley is an honoured guest of the Vatican this week, too. Oy Vey!

John MacLeod

No - having seen this, I believe they made the right call.

That is not to minimise the horrors of war, the complexities of the Holy Land or the sufferings of those maimed, bereaved, widowed or orphaned, as those hit by rocket-attacks from (deliberately chosen) densely housed areas within Gaza, and whom the government of Israel had a moral obligation and a political pressure to protect.

This film shows undoubted and real horror; but balanced, fair and objective it ain't.

John MacLeod

No - the BBC made the right call. This film ignores entirely both the horrors wrought by rocket-attacks (deliberately launched from within densely populated Gaza districts in Gaza) on the people of Israel; the moral and political pressures on Israel to defend her people (not least from an administration controlled by a party who deny her right even to exist)and the awful complexities, moral and historical, of this entrenched conflict.

And this film addresses that nightmare with all the rigour and objectivity of Lassie Come Home... demonising, implicitly but brazenly, a country founded largely by the survivors of those who learned the hard way just how far political correctness and national goodwill could reach between 1933 and 1945.

Wilhelm

Gaza voted for war when they elected a Hamas regime bent on the destruction of Israel. Hamas fired 10.000 missiles into Israel, You reap what you sew.

THX1138

Yes

Andy Leeds

Nope. The BBC were so biased in their coverage of the Gaza War it was in a hole of its own making. And in any case Hamas is sitting on a mountain of cash, so let them spend it. Every pound sent from the UK is a pound Hamas can spend of weapons, no only to wage war against Israel, but also top terrorise their own people.

RW

Neither the BBC nor any other broadcaster should show it.

The "charities" who contrived it, like Oxfam, have a long insidious record of portraying Israel as the aggressor in this conflict, when the very reverse is true. It is the Hamas "palestinian" terrorist organisation which invited this conflict by deliberately, indiscriminately attacking innocent Jewish civilians as part of a policy of trying to destroy Israel, and NOT the other way round. The destruction is entirely the fault, and the responsibility, of Hamas.

This is not a humanitarian appeal, it is in itself a piece of carefully contrived political propaganda and no publicly funded broadcasting organisation should have anything to do with it.

The best that can be said is that after literally decades of the most blatant anti-Israeli, pro-"palestinian" bias, the BBC may at last be showing a glimmer of responsibility. The Director General's decision not to show this is the right one , and long overdue. I hope for more of the same, but I'm not holding my breath.

Gruntson

No.

David

No. It's propaganda. I think that with all the media coverage the BBC refusal received, whoever want to donate will find a way.

Doug

No

Pete, Scotland

No.

Faceless Bureaucrat

As I commented over on the Coffee House Wall, I'm glad I'm not the only one viewing this sudden outpouring of 'balance' by Al JaBeeba with a certain amount of scepticism.

It surely cannot be a twinge of conscious after a long period of Israel bashing (they don't have one), so I can only surmise that at best, this is an attempt to give them something to point to when accused of bias in the future.

At least Sky has thrown them a lifeline though...

Summer

I really don't care - I've made up my own mind about the bias of the BBC and the right and wrong of Gaza - and suffice to say not a penny of my money will willingly be given to Hamas.

But, it seems to me that the BBC have promoted this anyway to a wider audiance than would have actually seen the original. In addition, it's given the Jew haters of this world ammunition to blame the BBC's move on Israel.

It is time we all stopped paying the TV Licence fee and cut off the lifeblood of this 'disgusting' organization. And at the same time realized the political bias of the charities who play the Hamas and terrorist line - I give Oxfam charity bags straight back - empty.

David Bouvier

The ad is primarily emotive - children welling up, etc.

There have been enough examples of faked or distorted footage - that I do wonder about the ad.

For example, is most of it from one demolished site filmed from different angles? What was there before? How much of Gaza has been flattened? Certainly there has been a history of verifiably staged and faked footage like this from Lebanon.

The view that there are fewer casualties than Hamas claim, and that more of them are Hamas fighters stripped of guns and uniform is gaining some traction from relatively neutral people.

And incidents of Hamas using human shields and executing political enemies are also hard to deny.

This does not have the simplicity or scale of say the Asian Tsunami ("Thousands homeless" is perhaps less than 1% of the population) and the ad is functional propaganda for the Hamas view of Gaza, whatever the validity of the appeal.

So I am not convinced that DEC should have this as a major appeal, let alone that the BBC should show it.

catesby

Yes.

The reason they didn't is that the BBC knows that very soon the truth about Gaza casualties will come out. The facts will not be as the BBC reported.

Israel will have a dossier of proven instances of the BBC's breaches of impartiality.

The BBC is creating this synthetic row merely so it has one high profile instance to point to where it hasn't been wholly in the tank for Hamas.

James J

Yes or a ban on all such appeals.
The only good that will come of this is, like the House of Lords scandal, the public will become more aware of the power of special interest groups.

Pete, Scotland

I originally voted NO.

Then I thought if the BBC showed similar images of the victims of the Hamas rockets over the past few years and split the donations accordingly, I could go with that.

Not politically correct I know, and doesn't go with the current political fashion, but at least it would be fair.

Publius

Spot on, Catesby. The whole row is synthetic, as you say, so that the BBC can later turn round and say, 'But look how objective we have been' when they have in fact been hopelessly biased and trivial.

AngloWelshDragon

No they shouldn't show it. I am unconvinced by the BBCs claims of balance - this whole episode is a smoke screen behind which they hope to hide their true, pro-Hamas, leanings.

And for the record, having now seen the true nature of this appeal broadcast I shall be avoiding donating to any of the DEC charities for the foreseeable future. I have limited funds and do not want what I donate helping to prop up terorist regimes.

Chris in UK

Only if allowing a statement of equal length from the Israeli Foreign Minister afterward.

Christopher

No

Alf Tupper

No.

Any monies which might be raised by BBC viewers, would be as nothing compared to the vast sums already pledged by the Saudis. Money is no problem.

The only function of this piece of film is to press home the anti-Israeli message to the public.

Rachel

I was originally all for the BBC showing this appeal, if only so that they couldn't hide behind it to claim impartiality.
Having seen it, I'm glad they didn't - I'm glad that they've not lost ALL grasp on reality, and can see this for the emotive propaganda it really is.

Alf's right, they may have well have just flashed "this is Israel's fault!" across the screen, it would have had the same effect.