The BBC has pulled its documentary about children in Gaza from iPlayer after mounting pressure over a featured child being the son of a Palestinian minister, in a move some commentators have slammed as “cowardly”.
Outrage over Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone reached its highest point on Wednesday and Thursday, with the Israeli ambassador in London complaining to Britain’s public broadcaster, and culture secretary Lisa Nandy saying she will “be discussing” the issue with the BBC.
Most criticism has focused on the fact, first reported by researcher David Collier, that the documentary’s 13-year-old narrator Abdullah Alyazouri is the son of a minister in Gaza’s Hamas-run government.
Middle East Eye found on Thursday that Dr Ayman Alyazouri, Gaza’s deputy agriculture minister, appears to be a technocrat with a scientific background who previously worked for the United Arab Emirates government and studied at British universities.
Earlier this week a group of 45 prominent Jewish journalists and members of the media, including former BBC governor Ruth Deech, piled on pressure by sending a letter to the broadcaster demanding the film be removed from the iPlayer.
The sins of the fathers, huh?
They were slammed!!! Oh boy that’s rough. I hope they weren’t slammed too hard. /s
I think the word they were looking for may have been “criticized” or something like that?
That seems brutal, will they ever recover?
The media puts on a giant show. They always slam and get slammed but they are just acting. Nobody really gets hurt.
Novara has a video about it which contains part of the Documentary. The visuals of the documentary are really amazing https://youtu.be/d7P5o4X7pTg
