BBC documentary - children of Gaza

[SmokeRingsOfMyMind]

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/feb/17/gaza-how-to-survive-a-warzone-review-these-incredible-children-offer-a-sliver-of-hope

Did anyone see this last night? Heartbreaking and enraging in equal measure.

Why are you so curious that people want your opinion? I think it's really important to understand someone's opinion, that's how we learn and grow.

Could you explain why when Israelis move in on illegal land, burning down property, killing and maiming innocent people to take over their land you wouldn't describe it as terrorism? What would you call it? I'm interested in your opinion as you have asked my opinion on many threads, that is what a talk forum is

There is abuse on this forum for people who do support Palestinians. They have been called useful idiots and f*wits as recent examples.

Haaretz does appear to give more rounded coverage of the situation - for example:

“Haaretz, Israel's oldest newspaper, this week published the accounts of anonymous IDF troops who received orders to kill unarmed men, women, children, and elders in the Netzarim Corridor, a strip of land several miles wide that bisects Gaza from the Israeli border to the Mediterranean Sea just south of Gaza City.”

would you count this as terrorism?

https://www.commondreams.org/news/haaretz-israel-war-crimes

MSM was slow to give unbiased coverage - but I would still say it’s not accurately telling us about the situation in Gaza.

« Interestingly, the media has no trouble estimating the Syrian deaths at the hands of dictator Assad (500,000) nor the deaths in the wars in Sudan or Ukraine. Only the Palestinians, who are not allowed to live, don’t get the respect of having their deaths accurately estimated. One team of Gazan undertakers said they buried 17,000 bodies in mass graves by February 2024, including 800 in one day.«

« In August 2024, based on available historical, empirical, and clinical records, we estimated about 300,000 Palestinians had been killed. (See the August/September 2024 issue of the Capitol Hill Citizen). By now it is over 400,000. Yet the media still uses the figure by Hamas and ignores the lives blown apart under the killing fields in Gaza.«

400,000 people estimated to be dead in Gaza! The BBC still stick to Hamas official figures of less than 50,000 dead Palestinians, but report on US estimates for unconfirmed deaths in Sudan- 150,000 versus 20,000 confirmed.

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/real-death-toll-gaza

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czx8de2k4epo.amp

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crln9lk51dro

To get back to the documentary…looks like the translation leaves a lot to be desired too.

https://x.com/telegraph/status/1894431030800433414?s=61&t=_cKTNp_TyAyzDViEOCJDFQ]]

(If you don’t like the Telegraph then there’s plenty of other commentary available)

Fucking hell, that's problematic.

Interesting piece from The Guardian today on this threads documentary

note. I’m really not interested in what people say just because they are celebrities. I’m posting because its relevant to the thread

Did you mean to write Jews instead of Israel?

Targeting all Jewish people for the actions of Israel, you know there's an ugly word for that.

Yes, that’s ‘telling’ if anything is.

My thoughts exactly @quantumbutterfly @Wildflowers99

I actually did a double take when I read the word 'Jews.'

The thin veil seems to be slipping.

Problematic. A masterpiece of understatement.

Thankyou @Polka83 for your last posts attachment

one comment, amongst the many ones, that sticks out to me is that of
Brigadier General Yehuda Vach whilst speaking to the Israeli troops
” there are no innocents in Gaza”.
If this is what the IDF are being instructed on and are to act on it’s not surprising that whether man, women or child they are all a fair target. As is summarised by the interviews with the IDF in your attached article.

I do also think that statements reflects the thoughts on the narrator of the threads documentary.

Article on interviews with IDF personnel

The article is an interesting read.

“The letter claims that some criticism of the documentary is based on “racist assumptions and weaponisation of identity”, and that the deputy agriculture minister and father of the teenage narrator is a civil servant concerned with food production.
“This broad-brush rhetoric assumes that Palestinians holding administrative roles are inherently complicit in violence – a racist trope that denies individuals their humanity and right to share their lived experiences,” it says.”

“The letter also claims that criticism levelled against Abdullah, the 14-year-old narrator, disregarded “core safeguarding principles”, adding that children “must not be held responsible for the actions of adults, and weaponising family associations to discredit a child’s testimony is both unethical and dangerous”.”

www.theguardian.com/media/2025/feb/26/gary-lineker-among-500-media-figures-urging-bbc-to-reinstate-gaza-documentary

Absolutely
This thought only stands if people believe
’there are no innocents in Gaza’…….which is a truly disgusting thought to process.

This broad-brush rhetoric assumes that Palestinians holding administrative roles are inherently complicit in violence

There’s a reason for that:

“Hamas formally established Hamas IDQ in 1992. Hamas IDQ was proscribed by the UK in March 2001. At the time it was HM government’s assessment that there was a sufficient distinction between the so called political and military wings of Hamas, such that they should be treated as different organisations, and that only the military wing was concerned in terrorism. The government now assess that the approach of distinguishing between the various parts of Hamas is artificial. Hamas is a complex but single terrorist organisation.”

That’s shocking. And very very revealing

The documentary was just discussed on The Media Show on R4. They said that they'd asked for comment from the BBC but got nothing.

They had on Dorothy Burns who used to be head of news and current affairs at Channel 4 who was utterly scathing about the BBC team who made the documentary. She said that if it had been her in charge she would have asked for the entire family tree of the children involved, not just the father but all male relatives. The BBC should not have been able to say that the production team didn't tell them, it was their responsibility to ask. She also said that she would have pulled the documentary the minute it came out about the father, and she didn't understand why it took the BBC several days to do this.
She also says that they have not taken responsibility and are seeking to blame the production team for their mistakes.
She said that they absolutely should have not have had a child narrating the documentary either.

No, that was clearly an error.
My apologies to anybody offended.
I obviously do not think all Jews support Israeli actions and would be stupid if I did.

Interesting article

@noblegiraffe

There are faults with the documentary- but I am not sure that it is enough to prevent people who want to know more about what has happened within Gaza to see it.

It should have an accurate interpretation. It is important to see how Palestinians think - and I am sure that there is a religious element to the war on both fronts.

As for a child narrating it- wasn’t that the whole point of the documentary- to see it from the view of a child?

Absolutely.
With all the journalists ousted how else does the world get to see at least a little of what Palestinian people are going through.

Because, according to Dorothy Burns, you should only have children in a documentary say things which are from their own knowledge and the child was narrating using a script written by others. From what I remember she said it was fine for him to tell his own story, but not ok for him to be narrating the history of the conflict and the politics of the situation.

I didn’t get enough to watch enough of it to see if this was true. I will take it as accurate.
Until Israel lets in independent journalists - it still provides a glimpse of what has happened in Gaza. It’s the best we’ve got.

Absoutley

Dorothy Burns ! ?
Given her interview in 2019 when she clearly showed she was not impartial and would be pushing her own agenda at Channel 4 ! For her to then speak about free speech when she clearly doesn’t understand the concept at all is just very hypocritical of her.