“Hello and welcome to Outlook from the BBC world service. 
Ash Sends Incendiary Message
>> TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 02, 2010
I’m Lucy Ash.”
A heart-sinking announcement for anyone familiar with Ms. Ash
“In Today’s Programme: The aid worker inside the Gaza strip helping traumatised children there to rebuild their shattered lives.”
Lucy Ash is about to deliver rather more than an interview with the aid worker.
In her introduction she milks the latest revelations by Israel about their own misconduct in Gaza down to the very last drop.
“Now Israel has revealed that it’s disciplined two senior officers for endangering civilians by firing white phosphorus shells during last years attack on the Gaza strip,” she announces with palpable relish. “The officers, a brigadier general and a colonel, were found to have exceeded their authority in ordering the use of the weapons, which were fired in the direction of the main United Nations warehouse in Gaza City,” she continues, emphasising their ranks lest we might think lesser beings were responsible. “Use of such munitions near populated areas violates international law. White phosphorus sticks to flesh and burns for many hours causing appalling injuries.”
But what has this got to do with the aid worker? Does white phosphorus relate to the forthcoming tale of psychological healing she promised us?
“ More than 1100 Palestinians were killed during operation cast lead,” (We’ve got the white phosphorus now, so we'll stop bothering to exaggerate the body count) “and the devastation wrought by the 22 day conflict in Gaza is still everywhere to be seen. Large areas of the strip were reduced to rubble, leaving thousands homeless. Children are amongst the worst affected."
“Osama Damo (?), an aid worker with Save The Children has been involved in setting up centres to look after them, and to help them come to terms with the loss and insecurity overshadowing their young lives. Many of them have been severely psychologically traumatised by what they saw in the war.”
In addition to the traumatising effect of being indoctrinated with hatred of Jews then used as human shields by Islamist terrorists, which Ms. Ash omitted to mention.
The interview with the aid worker proceeded to detail psychological damage typical of that suffered by most war victims anywhere, and the incident graphically related to illustrate a particular child’s trauma had nothing to do with white phosphorus so far as I could see.
Lucy Ash’s introduction conjured up the notorious image of the napalm-burnt, running, Vietnamese child. The average listener could only have assumed that white phosphorus was routinely authorised by senior Israeli soldiers and deliberately used as a weapon against civilians, while Operation Cast Lead appeared to have been perpetrated for no other reason than baseless hatred of Palestinians, by aggressive expansionist Israel. Must we now expect the white phosphorus revelations to be added gratuitously to the fluctuating body count that accompanies all references to the Middle East conflict?
Do not assume that I approve of white phosphorus, or that I know enough about it to defend or attack its use. Do not assume that I think Israel can do no wrong. But Israel did one right thing in investigating and admitting this error, and in so doing handed ammunition to its enemies in the propaganda war, so was damned either way.
People who support Israel would rather it didn’t do anything at all that placed it in a bad light in the eyes of the world, but in the scheme of things how plausible is that?
Lucy Ash knew what she was doing, and, I assume, so did the BBC.
It's not often that I hear a BBC newsreader emphasising the Britishness of anything. Could it be that at last we're entering the new Elizabethan age ?
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Posts
