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August 13, 2014
BBC's Gaza Appeal Contradicts Its Own Head Statistician
The BBC web site's Arts and Entertainment section has posted information to publicize its broadcasted appeal for funds for Gaza.
The web page includes an information box claiming that 1875 Gazans have been killed since July 8 and that "85%+" are civilians.
Not even the Hamas-controlled groups reporting casualties in Gaza claim that 85%+ are civilians. Furthermore, this claim is undermined by even a perfunctory analysis of the casualties. Incredibly, it is even repudiated by the BBC's own head statistician on Aug. 8 who wrote,
The point is that it is hard to say with certainty at this stage how many of the dead in Gaza are civilians and how many were fighters.
BBC justifies the Gaza appeal on the grounds that the situation in Gaza meets three requirements
"The disaster must be on such a scale and of such urgency as to call for swift international humanitarian assistance; the DEC agencies must be in a position to provide effective and swift humanitarian assistance at a scale to justify a national appeal; and, there has to be reasonable grounds for concluding that a public appeal would be successful," it said.
Curiously, there are several other humanitarian disasters of greater magnitude occurring in the Middle East region that meet these conditions far more comprehensively; the attempted genocide of Iraqi religious minorities by Islamists with an ideology that shares elements with Hamas and a grinding civil war in Syria. Both of these conflicts have claimed well over 100,000 lives and the perpetrators do not conceal their intent.
Yet, the BBC decided that the situation in Gaza most deserved an Emergency Appeal.
That despite the fact that the Palestinians and Gazans, in particular, will have an inside track on garnering world attention and on benefitting from the continued largesse of the United Nations and international donors as it has for well over 20 years.
No such luck for the Yezidis, the Kurds, the Assyrians or the Chaldeans. Among the donor base responsive to the BBC appeal these people just don't matter much.
Posted by SS at August 13, 2014 11:42 AM
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