BBC WS radio listeners told Israel prevents Gazans from getting fresh air

Four minutes of Hamas lies and propaganda go barely challenged by Jon Donnison.

As noted in a previous post, an item relating to incidents which began the previous afternoon which was aired in the July 21st afternoon edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newshour‘ included an interview (from 07:56 here) with Hamas’ Ghazi Hamad.

Presenter Jon Donnison introduced that interview thus: [emphasis in italics in the original, emphasis in bold added]

Donnison: “…we want to hear from Hamas. Are they trying to provoke another war in Gaza? Ghazi Hamad is Hamas’ deputy foreign minister in the Strip.”

Hamad: “No, I think that we are not interested in a new war. We try to avoid this. I think we have kind of understanding with all Palestinian factions to avoid any escalation or tension but you know that the source of the problem is the occupation. The problem is the blockade imposed by Israel. So it creates a lot of problems in Gaza.”

Donnison did not bother to clarify to listeners that “the blockade imposed by Israel” is a counter-terrorism measure made necessary by the dramatic rise in attacks on Israelis after Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a violent coup eleven years ago. Neither did he inform audiences that when Hamad refers to “the occupation” he means Israel’s presence in Israel rather than the Gaza Strip from which Israel disengaged completely 13 years ago.  

Donnison: “You say you want to avoid an escalation but these cease fires are meaningless – aren’t they? – if your snipers are shooting at Israeli soldiers.”

With no challenge whatsoever from Donnison, listeners then heard Hamad repeatedly – and inaccurately – describe the Hamas organised, funded and facilitated ‘Great Return March’ agitprop as “peaceful” and a “protest”.  

Hamad: “Look…ahm…I can say that regarding the ‘March of Return’ [it] is a peaceful march. We [are] controlling the situation very well. This march is as I said is a protestingpeaceful protesting – but sometimes you find some problems [unintelligible] we try to control this. But Israel try to use some mistakes or some things done by individual in order to punish people, in order to target the different sites in Gaza, to try to kill people as yesterday – they kill four people and injure more than 60 or 85 people. It is not the first time that Israel try to use some excuses to increase the number of victims in Gaza.”

Donnison: “What do you expect them to do if Hamas and the other Palestinian factions are continuing to fire rockets out of Gaza into Israel indiscriminately?”

Hamad: “We never started to fire rockets. I think we respect that…”

Donnison’s notably weak response to that blatant lie came in three words:

Donnison [interrupts]: “That’s not true.”

Hamad: “No, no, no. We respect the ceasefire approved in 2014 but you know that if it…why you forget now, since the beginning of the March of Return which [is] a peaceful march, we have about 160 people were killed? There is no [not] one, no [not] one Israel soldier were injured or killed. And we have more than 15,000 people were injured. Many of them were amputed [sic – amputated]. Many of them are [unintelligible]. This [is a] bigger crisis, this bigger tragedy among the Palestinian people. Now because one Israeli soldier was killed all the world they will criticize and say that the problem on the shoulder of Hamas. You should not forget the high numbers of victims among the Palestinians.”

Donnison: “Hamas has been in power in Gaza now for more than ten years. Three wars during that time. Close to 3,000 Palestinians killed in those wars. Unemployment at 44%. Youth unemployment at 60%. Only 3 to 6 hours of power a day. Hamas has failed as a government and failed the Palestinian people living in Gaza, hasn’t it?”

Hamad: “The question [is] why Hamas failed. Because Hamas is [in] a big prison which is called Gaza. Gaza is about 360 kilometers. It’s closed from all sides by the Israeli occupation. They prevent export, import, free access. Prevent us from even having fresh air, fresh water, electricity. Everything is closed. So after that you come and blame Hamas that they are responsible for this. Now if Israel, now if the occupation, if Israel end that blockade, if Israel give the Palestinians a freedom of access, I think the situation is getting better in Gaza. Now if you ask now international organisations including UN, UNRWA, UNDP – these people will say very frankly that who is responsible for the blockade in Gaza is Israel. Israel is still controlling all the borders around Gaza. Now we ask people now to give us chance now to establish airport or sea port or to open the crossing around Gaza but Israel they don’t want. They want to punish people; to punish Hamas and to punish also the ordinary citizen.”

Making no effort to inform listeners that the claim that Israel ‘controls all the borders’ is untrue because the Gaza Strip has a border with Egypt, failing to clarify that goods and people enter and exit the Gaza Strip on every working day and refraining from challenging even the supremely absurd lie that Israel prevents Gazans from having “fresh air”, all Jon Donnison had to say after that tirade of falsehoods was:

Donnison: “Hamas’ deputy foreign minister in Gaza, Ghazi Hamad.”

Apparently the BBC World Service believed that those four minutes of barely challenged lies and propaganda from a terrorist organisation could be passed off as “accurate and impartial news, current affairs and factual programming of the highest editorial standards“.

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