The Relative Value of Life and Death

Former Ambassador, Human Rights Activist

The cause of the tragic Druze deaths in Majdal Shams was the illegal Israeli occupation in Syria, a fact which the residents of the town are clear about. The large majority of the Druze community in the Golan Heights has always refused to accept Israeli citizenship.

That picture is from a demonstration four years ago, but it shows that the Golan Druze know where their allegiance lies, and it is not with their Israeli occupiers.

The deaths are a tragedy, and they would be a tragedy if they were Druze, Palestinian or Jewish kids. The right of occupied peoples to armed resistance against Israel is absolute, but that does not remove the personal tragedy of anybody who loses their children.

But last night the disproportion of the BBC coverage of these deaths, which the BBC blamed on Hezbollah, compared to the coverage of Palestinian deaths in Gaza, was so outrageous as to be beyond parody and almost beyond belief.

It was the lead item on the main news. It was the full treatment. Intrepid British BBC journalist visits the scene, shows the blast area and damaged football pitch, interviews eye witnesses, interviews parents, scenes of funerals. Grief piled upon grief. Bellicose self-righteous statements from Israeli ministers.

It was not just hugely more coverage than given to any of the ten times the number of kids in Gaza who have been killed on average every single day for nearly ten months; we have a direct comparator where Israel recently attacked a Palestinian children’s football game killing scores more people.

The Palestinians did not get a British BBC journalist, coverage of the funerals, interviews with relatives. That incident got about 3% of the BBC airtime.

Furthermore, while reporting the Hezbollah denial, the BBC then said that the United States regime had confirmed it was a Hezbollah missile, as though that settled it.

The notion that the United States is either a neutral or an honest arbiter is utterly ludicrous. But it passes muster in BBC la-la land.

Israel has been bombarding Syria relentlessly from long before October 2023 and has continued unabated – and unreported by western media. Israel’s attacks on civilian areas of Damascus this last few weeks week have been devastating.

It is pretty obvious that any loose missile that dropped on Majdal Shams is likely to have come from Israel, which is slinging huge quantities of munitions into Syria and Lebanon with wild abandon.

Alternatively if Netanyahu wished to pull a false flag to justify escalation, it is also pretty obvious he would choose a minority community within Israel as the victims.

Of course, to paraphrase Noam Chomsky, anybody in the BBC capable of such thoughts would no longer be in the BBC.

Finally, many congratulations to Nicolas Maduro on his re-election in Venezuela.

I have to confess I got this wrong. I thought the huge amount of effort and money poured in by the CIA would be effective, particularly in undermining key officials through bribery. The collaboration of Twitter and Meta with the CIA programme also looked more effective than it evidently was.

A great day for democracy. In a few hours time I shall raise a glass of Lagavulin to Nicolas Maduro and the revolution in Venezuela.

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