BBC Blasted for Refusing to Air Plea for Humanitarian Aid for Gaza Victims

Tuesday, January 27, 2009 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: BBC, humanitarian aid, health news

(NaturalNews) When 13 charity organizations helping to feed, treat and bury all the victims of the Israeli attack on Gaza attempted to run an ad on the BBC asking for humanitarian financial aid, the response they received shocked the whole world: No!

The BBC has refused to allow the ad to be aired, infuriating even veteran BBC journalists who are now beginning to realize just how deeply their own organization is involved in the politics of censorship.

Young children in Gaza are suffering from the devastating wounds of war, with arms and legs lost to exploding munitions and burns on their skin from the white phosphorous rained down upon civilian populations by the Israeli military. Like any children caught in a war, they need food, water, medicine and shelter.

I dare ask: Is it not the right thing to aid these victims of war?

Set aside for a moment who's right or wrong between Israel and Palestine. No sane person could reasonably believe that young children are at fault for the escalation of violence in the region. And yet they are the ones suffering from this war. Do we not have the right as compassionate human beings to ask for humanitarian aid for those children?

Or is it really the position of the BBC that these children should suffer and die simply because they were born on the wrong side of the wall?

Protesters stormed the BBC's offices yesterday and were finally beaten back by police. Religious leaders, politicians, statesmen and government ministries have all expressed outrage at the BBC for this censorship decision that would deny the ability of the British Red Cross, Save the Children and other non-profits to appeal for humanitarian aid.

I want to be very clear about my position on this matter, even at the risk of losing a few NaturalNews readers who disagree: I believe humanitarian aid is never a crime. Giving food and medicine to bleeding children in Gaza is the right thing to do. These actions are simply based on human compassion, and they should never be labeled as crimes or restricted by the mainstream media.

It doesn't mean I condone the actions of all Palestinians. Do not misconstrue my compassion as an endorsement of every action made by people who participate in the escalation of war. Rather, my sense of compassion is based on the fundamental desire to end human suffering, even for those humans we disagree with or wish to condemn.

If you disagree with me on this, then you are an enemy of the Red Cross, by the way. The Red Cross was founded on the principle that all victims of war deserve humanitarian medical aid, regardless of which side they're fighting for. This is a deeply religious principle, by the way: That even those you disagree with deserve some form of human dignity as they are dying from the wounds of battle.

Even the Bible itself defends this position. I'm no Bible scholar and can't quote the exact passages, but I get the big picture of its teachings, and it sure doesn't say "Let the children of your enemy suffer and die," which is apparently what many hate-filled war promoters believe at the moment. To adopt such a view is, technically, genocidal by definition.

Besides, humanitarian aid improves relations between opposing factions. When one side of a war offers to give humanitarian aid to the opposing side, it actually improves the long-term outlook of peace between the two parties. When such aid is denied (or actively blockaded), it has the opposite effect: It breeds more future violence and even serves as a recruiting tool for new extremists.

If Israel seeks endless war with its many enemies, the best way to promote that ongoing war is to injure thousands of civilians (including young children) and then deny them humanitarian aid. That situation serves as a fertile breeding ground for new terrorism that further promotes endless war.

But the more intelligent observers around the world have already figured out that's what western powers really want: Endless war. The Bush "war on terrorism" was all about endless, always-fearful, in-your-face war. Many Israeli military leaders have also figured out that the best way they can stay in power is to provoke endless war with their neighbors, which keeps the war funds flowing and the power concentrated in the hands of the few. An outbreak of peace would be devastating to the powerful few who control Israel or the United States, not to mention the U.K.

Peace is the enemy of those who seek power over others.

Humanitarian aid should not come with restrictions

It is a cruel world, indeed, when people feel a need to make children suffer. The depth of hatred expressed by people on both sides of the Gaza disaster is unfathomable. To think that human beings could hate each other so deeply that they would support the suffering of another nation's children is beyond mentally disturbed: It is sick, obscene and delirious.

The BBC has now placed itself in that category. It is now squarely against humanitarian aid, and it has admittedly taken this position purely for "political reasons."

Saving children from suffering is no longer politically correct, it seems, and the BBC was willing to sell out its integrity at a moment's notice.

It is at moments like this that I genuinely fear for the future of the human race, and I wonder whether human civilization has a real chance of surviving at all.

The reason I'm covering this story, by the way, is because humanitarian aid is part of the holistic philosophy of health and abundance reflected throughout NaturalNews content. And over the last several years, I've personally donated many tens of thousands of dollars to victims of natural disasters throughout the world, including people of different religions from my own, of different nationalities, different ancestry. I've donated to earthquake victims, tsunami victims, hurricane victims and people who were simply impoverished and broke. I've supported war veterans and even the medical needs of World War II bomber pilots whose actions over Dresden, Germany were nothing short of genocidal.

In no case have I restricted my donations to those who only agreed with my views, or my religion, or my nationality. Humanitarian aid given with such restrictions is no aid at all, and the true humanitarian does not require recipients of his (or her) aid to conform to their own worldviews before offering it.

If I see a child bleeding out on the street, and I can reach that child with aid, I do not care whether his parents committed acts of war against my parents, or whether his father works at the FDA, or whether I think he will someday grow up to hate me. I simply give the child aid and trust that my goodwill will make a lasting impression on this child, which will one day blossom into a multiplication of that goodwill being returned.

I don't mean to sound too gushy here, but it is only through this philosophy of loving our fellow human beings that we can ever hope to achieve peace in our world. Hatred breeds hatred, but it can be countered by peace, love and compassion. And when the BBC interferes with that peace, love and compassion, it is defining itself as a force of hatred and destruction in our world.

Please send your letters of protest to the BBC right now: The official BBC complaint page is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/make_complai...

Help me flood the BBC with complaints about this issue, and let them know that blocking appeals for humanitarian aid is a foolish mistake on their part.

Sources for this story include:

Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0128/p07s01-wo...

BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7853019.s...

(Yes! Even the BBC journalists are so outraged over the decision of their own management that they're writing stories about this on the BBC.)