Well, I always welcome a chance to express appreciation and enjoyment. And I'm only too ready to acknowledge when it comes from something I've heard via the BBC. It's just that when it comes to reporting anything to do with news about Israel and the Palestinians, I'm all too often expressing quite a lot of disappointment about the subtle and sometimes not so subtle bias and distortion I hear.
So I'm really happy to tell you that this morning, BBC Radio 4 broadcast this extraordinary programme in the Crossing Continents series. The reporter, Richard Miron, spent weeks living in the former Gaza Gush Katif settlements before their final evacuation. He focused on reporting the perspectives of three settlers, one of whom was secular, one mainstream religious, and one from the messianic land-focused religious who are almost invariably represented as typical of all settlers.
The programme is remarkably balanced and humane, with the reporter including comments from the Israeli secular historian and commentator, Tom Segev. Segev speaks of the way in which absurd staged-for-the-camera attempts on the part of a small number of arguably barmy families to invoke some famous Holocaust imagery misfired and turned Israeli opinion against the settlers as a whole. Miron also visits the settlers in the aftermath of their expulsion and hears from all of them that they would never again choose to live over the (pre-1967) Green Line border, because they never again want to have the experience of having to leave their homes and see them destroyed.
All the settlers Miron interviews are presented as reasonable, humane people, whose disappointments and sense of abandonment are presented sensitively. He also repeatedly, but gently probes them about their beliefs, and their attitudes to the Palestinians of Gaza. One of the settlers nostalgically describes the pre-Intifada period when it was perfectly normal and natural to go down to the nearby Palestinian town of Rafah to shop and enjoy looking around.
Of course, those who feel the BBC is very pro-Israel in its bias will point out that this programme fails to include any Palestinian points of view. But linked to the programme's web site is this very interesting and sensitively expressed diary piece by a Gazan employee of the Palestinian Authority. For those of you who want a more blood-curdling vision of the Palestinian future, there's this report of the latest innovation in resistance to the brutal Israeli occupation from Hamas.
All I can say is, I hope they put up a "Listen Again" link for the programme. So far, they only have available their last broadcast of 28th July. Oh, and BBC Radio 4 will be rebroadcasting today's programme, at 8:30pm on Monday 3rd October. Which just happens to be after the start of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and one of the most solemn and important of our festivals. So observant Jews won't be able to listen in. But let's not quibble about a small thing like that.
Well done, BBC. Thank you for producing a sophisticated and fascinating programme.
I won't even mention the nice, gentle ride you gave Nabil Sha'ath of the Palestinian Authority on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning where you consistently described Hamas as a militant group (famous for its suicide bombers who set off their bombs in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv buses and cafes). I'll refrain from comparing that with the aggressive questioning you subjected Tony Blair to later on in the programme on the matter of root-causes in Iraq and Palestine producing terrorist bombings in London, and new laws designed to deal with terrorist groups who choose to set off their bombs on London buses and tubes.
UPDATE: You should be able to listen to the Crossing Continents broadcast from this link.
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