On Eddie Vedder and Israel/Palestine

rr165892 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong(I know you will and think I am)But its not just Israel that wants Hamas out. All the moderate surrounding Arab states do.Your clinging to a sinking ship getting into bed with them.You guys can do better for representation.

Do you not think that it's up to the Palestinians to decide who governs them politically? As to what Israel wants, Israel simply wants a 'moderate' Palestinian government that will agree to it's carve-up of the West bank into a series of disconnected islands - Apartheid-style bantustans. That's what the Israeli's want.
And the reason they have a problem with Hamas, and the PLO before them, is because Hamas, like the PLO, calls for a settlement of the conflict based on international law, and not a settlement of the conflict based on what Israel wants.

About time:

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/amena-saleem/protesters-force-bbc-confront-its-pro-israel-bias

Protesters force BBC to confront its pro-Israel bias
07/17/2014

Approximately 5,000 protesters brought the roads around the BBC’s London headquarters to a standstill on 15 July, forcing the news organization to confront its one-sided coverage of Israel’s current assault on Gaza.

As the protesters shouted “BBC, shame on you,” Hugh Lanning, Chair of Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), handed in a letter to the BBC’s Director General, Tony Hall. The letter calls on the BBC to reflect the reality of Gaza’s occupation and siege in its reporting. The open letter had been signed by 45,000 people in under a week. Signatories include scholar Noam Chomsky, filmmaker John Pilger, film director Ken Loach, musician Brian Eno, journalist Owen Jones and comedian and filmmaker Jeremy Hardy.

Protesters held up placards bearing statements from the letter, including: “We would like to remind the BBC that Gaza has no army, air force or navy” and “The BBC’s reporting of Israel’s assaults on Gaza is entirely devoid of context or background.” Speakers from organizations including Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Palestinian Forum in Britain, Friends of Al Aqsa and Stop the War addressed the crowds.

As BBC employees watched from the top of their building, some recording the protest on mobile phones and tweeting out the footage, Lanning told the protestors: “There are lies, there are damned lies, and then there’s the BBC. Come on BBC, tell the truth — it’s the occupation, stupid.”



Taking place on its doorstep, and with police having to guide out BBC staff who wanted to leave the building, it was a protest against its coverage that the BBC couldn’t ignore.

And the next day, the BBC’s flagship news program Today on Radio 4, ran a seven-minute segment asking, in the words of presenter Mishal Husain, “Are the protestors right? Have we been biased at the BBC in favor of Israel?”

It was an unprecedented segment — and maybe the first time the BBC has publicly held up a mirror to its reporting of the occupation.

Answering the question was Greg Philo, co-author of More Bad News from Israel, an in-depth study of the BBC and ITV’s (another British television network) coverage of Palestine, and professor of Communications and Social Change at Glasgow University.

Philo’s answers also broke new ground for the BBC. Uninterrupted, Philo was allowed to talk about subjects which normally appear to be taboo across the BBC’s output: Israel’s occupation, its siege of Gaza, the forced displacement of Palestinians in 1948, Israel’s “brutal apartheid” as he was allowed to describe it, and the illegality of Israel’s actions.

And, throughout, he emphasised the lack of the Palestinian viewpoint in BBC coverage in general.

Philo also praised those who had been at the demonstration, telling Husain: “I think actually the protesters are doing the BBC a favor. I think they will help the journalists to give a better perspective … I’ve had many senior journalists at the BBC saying they simply can’t get the Palestinian viewpoint across, that the perspective they can’t say is the Palestinian view that Israel is a brutal apartheid state.”
#BBCTruth4Gaza

Asked by Husain what picture is given by BBC reporting, Philo replied: “Well, the Palestinian perspective is just not there. The Israelis are on twice as much. But the Palestinian view and the historical analysis of the events is that they were displaced from their land, they are living under military rule.”

He added: “People don’t even understand that it’s a military occupation that Palestinians are subject to. They don’t know about the economic blockade, they don’t know about the consequences of that on Palestinian life.”

As Husain interrupted to argue that the BBC had carried “many reports from Gaza … reporting on the casualties, reporting from the morgues,” Philo came back to remind her that the underlying story was not being dealt with.

“The problem with the coverage is that it doesn’t refer to the history,” he said. “That [the Palestinians] lost their homes and lands, that the occupation and the way it is conducted is illegal, that they lose their water, that they had their lives, in effect, stolen from them … Even if the BBC can’t give the Palestinian view, it should at least respect international law. The BBC should be reporting the international judgements on things like the wall …”

God Bless Mr. Eddie Vedder and Mr. Roger Waters. Being part of the music industry and voicing their opinions without fear, BRAVO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOxoD-yqNOw