London, Jan 24, IRNA – A British government minister Saturday urged the BBC to “stand up” to the Israeli regime and broadcast a combined appeal from 13 British aid agencies to raise emergency funds for its destruction of Gaza.
The decision by the state-funded broadcaster not to screen the appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) was “inexplicable” and its excuse was “completely feeble”, said Health Minister Ben Bradshaw, who is himself a former BBC journalist.
“I am afraid the BBC has to stand up to the Israeli authorities occasionally,” Bradshaw told BBC Radio Four’s flagship current affairs programme, Today.
His call, made ahead of a public rally outside the BBC’s Broadcasting House in central London, comes after the corporation’s director general Mark Thompson rejected an appeal from International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander to reconsider the boycott.
“While I recognise that this is a decision rightly taken by broadcasters, I hope that in light of the great human suffering still taking place in Gaza, you will reconsider your decision in relation to the appeal,” Alexander said in a letter to the BBC and other broadcasters who joined the ban.
But Thompson claimed that showing the humanitarian from British charities might compromise the BBC’s impartiality. The BBC chief operating officer, Caroline Thomson, went further in suggesting that the aid raised might be diverted and that there had to be great care that the “money will go to the people it’s intended for.”
“I think this was an inexplicable decision. This is a humanitarian catastrophe and I am afraid the reasons given by the BBC are completely feeble,” Bradshaw said.
“The one about delivery – the British government is giving Pnds 25 million (Dlrs 35 m) to Gazan relief, we don’t have a problem getting it in. There’s no reason why there should be any problem getting the relief in,” he said.
The DEC, which was set up in 1963 to coordinate the response from 13 of Britain’s leading aid agencies at the time of disasters, has already said it was perplexed at the BBC’s refusal.
“We are totally apolitical,” its chief executive, Brendan Gormley, said. “This appeal is a response to humanitarian principles. The BBC seems to be confusing impartiality with equal airtime,” he said.
Former British cabinet minister Tony Benn criticised the BBC for what is believed to be its first breach of an agreement with other broadcasters that dates back more than 45 years to 1963.
“The decision of the BBC to refuse to broadcast a national humanitarian appeal for Gaza, which has left aid agencies with a potential shortfall of millions of pounds in donations, is a betrayal of the obligation which it owes as a public service,” Benn said.
“To deny the help that the aid agencies and the UN need at this moment in time is incomprehensible and it follows the bias in BBC reporting of this crisis, which has been widely criticised,” he said, referring to protests already staged at several BBC offices.
Benn, who was joining Saturday’s rally as president of the Stop the War Coalition, used his interview with Today programme to broadcast an appeal himself, urging listeners to send gifts to PO Box 999 London EC3A 3AA or donate via freepay account 1210 at post offices in the UK.
Other criticisms have come from Mohammed Sawalha, president of the British Muslim Initiative, who said that refusing to broadcast the charities’ appeal was a “disgraceful decision”.
“The BBC should be ashamed for its coverage of the Israeli aggression which failed to address the catastrophic suffering on the Palestinian side, and now it’s concerned about its impartiality.
“Never was the BBC impartial throughout this crisis,” Sawalha said.
Former senior news editor at the BBC, Jon Barton, said he “astonished at its decision to veto the DEC’s Gaza appeal” and that it was “a shameful mistake which the BBC must reverse.”
“It is absurd to suggest that broadcasting a strictly humanitarian appeal for 1.4 million desperately needy civilians risked ‘compromising public confidence in the BBC’s impartiality’,” Barton said in a letter to the Guardian newspaper Saturday.
“It is also offensive, particularly to millions of Muslims in the UK and overseas who are easily persuaded that the BBC is a British government mouthpiece,” he said.
The boycott comes after Muslim aid agencies in Britain have faced increasing restrictions in trying to send emergency assistance to the Palestinians.
The most recent case was the decision last month by Lloyds TSB bank to clearing cheques from Interpal, the UK’s leading charity that supplies humanitarian aid to Gaza and the West Bank.