Activist Ashleigh Shaw gives Asian Express readers her opinion on the world-wide press coverage on the ongoing Gaza conflict
Since the three Israeli settlers were kidnapped and subsequently found dead, the Israeli authorities have escalated their control over the people of Gaza, as usual in the form of violence, fear and bombing from land, sea and air.
Since the beginning of the escalation, ordinary people, from around the globe, from all walks of life, all religions, all cultures, have joined together, sometimes in their tens of thousands, to show their support for the Palestinian people.
Their soul purpose has been to voice their contempt for the disproportionate Israeli attacks and collective punishment, of the already beleaguered citizens of Gaza, and also the West Bank.
The mainstream media, such as the BBC, from here in Britain, were reporting the attacks on Gaza, as a justification for Hamas rocket attacks.
As for my part at this point, I could not bare the bias reporting of the situation, and reached for my phone, and made a video giving a brief outline of what was actually happening, and why Hamas had fired the rockets.
What began to become clear was that Hamas were reacting in self-defence after the mass arrests of civilians.
After a few days, reports came pouring in over social media, especially Facebook, showing that people were beginning to protest in favour of Palestine, and against the Israeli attack on them.
Yet our British mainstream media remained silent.
As a direct result of the video I had posted to Facebook, I was contacted and asked to speak at a protest outside BBC Media City, Manchester, to show our outrage at the clear misinformation and pro-Israeli bias.
The protest was attended by around 5,000 people and I can assure you – we were very loud.
The BBC reported the protest, as a short paragraph stating that the protest was against the Israeli attack on it’s website, but still, we had nothing on the mainstream news.
If there is a large demonstration anywhere, the media is there, on the ground, in the thick of it, giving us minute-by-minute reports. So why the silence now?
This is not a couple of small protests, this is a global out pouring of humanity towards the Palestinian people, surely – a mass global movement is worthy of reporting.
At the heart of the matter, lies the ‘no-criticism-of-Israel’ policy, which appears to have been adopted by both the world’s governments and mainstream media with equal guilt.
What makes Israel so special?
Why is it that we are allowed to criticise every other country on the planet, yet criticism of Israel is actively suppressed?
Without entering into the realm of conspiracy here, the fact of the matter is, that Israeli lobbies are a powerful force.
They have infilterated most governments, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in the U.S.A. and the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BDBJ) in Britain for example
Their purpose? To fight for the rights of the Zionist state, behind the closed doors of OUR government’s conference rooms.
Our governments put the interests of Israel, before those of it’s own people, and that of the Palestinians, and now they are actively censoring the Global Media.
Frustrated BBC journalists had to resort to tweeting pictures of the protests below their offices at BBC headquarters in London.
It is a most disturbing turn of events, and those which must be addressed. We want a free press, not a Zionist press.
