BBC Gaza documentary controversy – more pro-Israel bias?
What is the BBC Gaza documentary controversy – more pro-Israel bias?
It seems the BBC has been asked to take the documentary Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone down from iPlayer after it was discovered that the film’s 13-year-old narrator, Abdullah, is the son of a minister in Gaza’s Hamas-run government, raising fears that it may be a vehicle for Hamas propaganda.
Does it, though?
If not, there’s no reason to block it – unless those making the request are simply trying to prevent the screening of a film that criticises Israel’s genocide.
The BBC itself says that it was not made aware of Abdullah’s relationship to Gaza agriculture minister Ayman Alyazouri until after the film was broadcast on BBC2 on Monday (February 17, 2025) – and insists that it had full editorial control of the filming.
This implies that the film complies with the BBC’s due diligence responsibilities and adheres to editorial standards and Ofcom rules – meaning there should be no reason to deny members of the public the opportunity to see it.
One last point: while Hamas is rightly proscribed in the UK as a terrorist organisation, Ayman Alyazouri is its agriculture minister, and This Writer is not convinced that guns and knives are the best tools for farming. It seems more likely to me that he would have them hammered into ploughshares, as the saying goes.
He might be a rabid murderer of innocents, for all I know – but his job title suggests otherwise and I think some people should hold off on their condemnatory judgments until they have some evidence to support them.
Meanwhile, a whistleblower at the BBC has claimed that the Corporation has direct instructions to safeguard Israel’s image:
Whistleblower reveals that the BBC has DIRECT instructions to safeguard Israel’s image.
Another “conspiracy” vindicated. pic.twitter.com/oz6ghgePD5
— ADAM (@AdameMedia) February 18, 2025
So if there is any bias, where do you think it lies – in whose favour?
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All lefties anti isreali get round mossad surveillence should use qubes os (with whonix) and disposable vms. Spread to as many as possible and donate: qubes-os.org/intro
“Qubes OS is best described as a Xen distribution running virtual Linux domains. Xen is a very stable and mature bare-metal type 1 hypervisor. This type of virtualization is analogous to what you may be picturing when using a product like VirtualBox with one important difference. A type 1 hypervisor has has no operating system running below it which can be compromised. Xen is installed on the bare metal and can then create and manage virtual machines.This architecture allows Qubes to create separate virtual machines (domains, in Xen parlance) in which to run applications. This ensures that risky applications can’t affect trusted applications, or even write to the underlying file system.”
Chat and share files using Dino IM and OMEMO over tor: whonix.org/wiki/Chat
Appreciate the concern around digital privacy and the tools you’ve mentioned — they can certainly be useful in high-risk contexts. But I think it’s important not to let the conversation drift into fear or speculation that distracts from what this post is actually about: editorial integrity, media bias, and the suppression of information.
The issue here isn’t whether people need to go into digital hiding to talk about Gaza — it’s whether powerful institutions, like the BBC, are openly and consistently applying their standards, or whether they’re being swayed by political pressure.
Calling for transparency and fair reporting isn’t anti-anything — it’s a basic journalistic expectation.
Let’s stay focused on that. If a film is being censored based on speculation about a narrator’s family — rather than its content or accuracy — that’s a problem worth challenging in plain sight, not just routing around.
ahso the killing goes on