The Red Cross attacks, the BBC flacks

Surrounded on three sides by terrorist forces, Israel has come under attack by the International Committee of the Red Cross for the measures it has taken to defend itself. According to the Red Cross, Israel is responsible not only for the inconvenience of Arab life on the West Bank, but also for the misery of life in Gaza. The BBC story on the Red Cross’s condemnation of Israel — one of the BBC’s leading stories yesterday — does not mention Hamas, Fatah, or Hezbollah.
The BBc simply reports that the ICRC has called for political action — i.e., pressure on Israel, not reform within territory under the jurisdiction of Hamas or Fatah — to mitigate conditions in Gaza and the West Bank. According to the BCC, the ICRC “says humanitarian assistance cannot possibly be the solution in Gaza and the West Bank.” Indeed.
In a world of rational discourse, it might be deemed newsworthy that a purportedly humanitarian organization has taken the side of terrorists. The same proposition applies to the BBC itself, but its been on the wrong side of such issues for a long, long time. The BBC, of course, systematically barred Winston Churchill from discussing his defense and foreign policy views during the 1930’s.
Sir John Reith was head of the BBC at the time. According to William Manchester, “Reith saw to it that [Churchill] was seldom heard over the BBC…” In his voluminous diaries Reith wrote of Churchill: “I absolutely hate him.”
Why did Reith detest Churchill? In Reith’s eyes, Churchill was a warmonger. Reith, not coincidentally, held Hitler in the highest regard. Reith’s successors at the BBC follow in his footsteps.
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