Made the mistake of watching the news with MIL

[Iturnedmyfaceaway]

My elderly mil (child of holocaust survivors) is visiting.
have been avoiding watching the news during her visit.
tonight though we were flicking through the channels and settled on bbc news with the very distressing reports from Gaza.

mil started ranting about the bbc bias, I said they weren’t biased, that pulled out the stopper and she kept talking…..

I left the room for a bit, came back, she talked a bit more, so I gave her a hug, changed channel. We’ll be fine tomorrow.

I feel for her. I'm not the child of holocaust survivors but what's happening is very upsetting. The obsession with neutrality is going to seem cold to her. Be in her corner when you're with her.

Make that two! I think you’re shameful.

Your poor MIL

The BBC has made some mistakes in the coverage too: the other day they were caught out broadcasting a video in which a known Hamas propaganda actor featured prominently, despite their own Verify department having acknowledged that films with him in are not objective.

It’s extremely difficult to know what really is going on in Gaza, because so few of the international press are on the ground there, and news outlets are heavily reliant on footage and figures from both sides that may not be reliable. A lot of the press around the world has a slant towards one or the other side. Your MIL is entitled to her view, and she may well be far more aware of Jewish history than many reporters are!

It’s one of the great difficulties of this conflict that it is extremely difficult to find a neutral ground or factual basis to report from right now.

I feel for your MIL - how painful this must be for her. She is right the BBC have been biased eg some of their local reporters praising the Hamas attacks and the assumption about the hospital bomb as well as what @asterel said about the Hamas actor.

It's not difficult to see what's happening in Gaza at all.
There are some extremely well documented accounts on social media following what is happening, hour by hour.

Motaz_azaiza

Byplestia

Wizard_bisan1

to name but a few of the amazing journalists risking their lives daily to bring us the truth.

Fuck me. I can’t believe this thread.

They are biased. Wasn't it them who had to apologise because at least two presenters called the pro Palestinian marches "pro hamas". She is also biased from her position and to be honest, from her age and position, I'd let her have this one. Her opinion isn't going to solve the crisis. Smile and nod.

I think you handled it well. I certainly wouldn't argue because there is no point. Her view is based on her own life experience and won't change.

There are 2 evil groups here but if you call out one of them, despite their own history, you are automatically antisemitic. Why?
The IDF advised citizens to move to certain points and then bombed those points. They bombed refugee camps. This is the opportunity they have been looking for, we all know it but no one will acknowledge it because to do so, you 'hate Jews'. I honestly don't understand this.
Genocide has always been the end game and, really, if you wipe out as many children as you can, odds go up 🤷‍♀️

I'm not antisemitic, hearing the rhetoric of the Israeli leaders over the last decades and feeling ill over their actions does not make me so.

And no, I do not in any way, shape or form, support Hamas and THEIR evil.

I think the bbc is biased generally actually, but the reports on this conflict that I have seen have been as balanced as any of the other main news channels have been.

Have always watched BBC news since growing up in NI during the troubles.

My heart is broken having travelled in Israel (on a kibbutz in the 70's, working) and in Palestine. Met such amazing people. Doing fantastic work on the environment. Together. Was there working with Peace people just before Covid was declared a worldwide pandemic.

War always fucks everything up look at Russia/Ukraine

Thanks for the sensitive responses.

”Edgy” is just what the situation is at the moment -good word.

it is perfectly possible, of course, to be the child of Holocaust survivors and have empathy for the children being bombed out of their homes/lives.

As several other holocaust survivors - actual survivors not at one remove - have demonstrated.

it is quite possible to be outraged at what Hamas have done/are doing and also what the Natanyahu is doing/advocating.

The BBC is biased.

Have they reported that a senior member of Hezbollah said that they don't care about the fact that 10k Palestinians have died, because 11k will be born in the next 2 months?

Maybe it helped, though, that you let her keep talking, it sounds like she needed to get her feelings out in a safe space, and with you to be there for her.

I believe that almost all BBC reporters are acting in good faith. That doesn't mean that there isn't personal and institutional bias. Plus getting duped.

Use a variety of sources. Also have enough time away from the news as it can be depressingly draining.

In all honesty, I think the child of holocaust survivors bit might be a red herring.

Sit down to watch the news with most older generations and there will be strong differences of opinion. I left FB partly because I couldn't take seeing MIL like Britain First posts any more (the kind of 'let's give homes to army veterans rather than asylum seekers' posts, but we all know what it leads to).

I thought Obama gave a good talk about it https://www.tmz.com/2023/11/04/barack-obama-israel-palestine-gaza-both-sides-conflict/

It wasn't the Palestinians who organised the Holocaust.

I'm not sure that Obama is best suited to talking objectively.
In his last year in office the United States dropped over 25,000 bombs in 7 countries, including an airstrike on a hospital in Afghanistan.

She is the CHILD... of HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS

I do not think this should equate to having zero compassion for the children in Gaza

they are living their own hell and I can’t even contemplate what the long term mental health issue will be in the region
it doesn’t bear contemplation

and did Palestine do the holocaust ? Obviously no

the way everyone is enabling IDF behaviour because of ‘the holocaust’ is baffling to
me

You sound like such a caring DIL dealing with an almost impossible issue.

You have clearly so much compassion for her, despite finding some of her comments hard to hear.

I think you will eventually be able to process this letting down of the guards as a positive thing. Yes, you heard her say some things that shocked you, but now you've heard them and you know her mind a little better, and her hurt, and her trauma and the difficult feelings she has internalised.

She also now knows that you love her even though you don't agree with her on this.

You are just a little bit more knowledgable about each other than you were before. And that next hug and 'I love you' will be all the more meaningful because you are saying you can accept the differences even if you don't agree.

OP I get it, we can’t talk about it with Fil. He brought it up on the phone with Dh, warning Dh to “be careful of those Arabs in the UK they will be getting restless” 😡😡 Dh blanked the comment and immediately changed the subject.

For context Fil is 93, grew up in what was Rhodesia, and has now lived in South Africa for about 50 years. He was quite happy with the apartheid system there. There are lots of conversations we refuse to have with him.

Surely being a child of holocaust survivors would make a person more sensitive to an ethnic group experiencing genocide, not less.

Same here. Surely knowing how horrific people can be to each other would make you even more determined to oppose cruelty and oppression in the extreme.

@CatMadam you can’t see why a child of Holocaust survivors might be shaken by the barbaric massacre of 1400 Jews in the country founded to keep them safe? Or by the stated ambitions of the group responsible to keep going until Israel ceases to exist? I can fully understand why she might find a media focus on the victims of Israel’s response, rather than on the attack that caused them to take such action, excessively balanced or “biased”, regardless of how other people might view the same coverage.