Anjana Gadgil speaking at Portsmouth High School GDST, of which she is an alumna of. (photo credit: Portsmouth High School)
Anjani Gadgil came to the UK when she was a baby of a few months old. Her parents are of Indian origin. She was raised in the UK in Portsmouth, studying in London and then going on to become a respected journalist. Eventually landing at the BBC.
The job of a journalist is to ask questions – often uncomfortable ones. Particularly so during turbulent times.
A few days ago while Ms Gadgil was interviewing Naftali Bennett, ex PM of Israel, who many describe as an extremist (he was an aggressive leader of the Yesha Council in his earlier years, and has boasted about enjoying killing Arabs), she asked some difficult questions.
The full interview lasted eight minutes, twenty seven seconds. The extremist elements of the Israeli Lobby (most of it is) took exception to one question lasting a few seconds – which was Gadgil asking the question: “terrorists but children, the Israeli forces are happy to kill children?”
The context behind this question was that four of the Palestinians killed were under the age of 18. Therefore, as western and many non-western countries define them, they indeed were children. And in the eyes of the law they are treated as such.
It is a wholly legitimate question to ask given the facts and legal definition.
Gadgil even says “terrorist” but “children” so, she took both sides into account. What Bennett was saying as well as what the UN defined them as.
The flurry of hate, abuse and threats directed towards her by the “Israel Lobby” since that question, led the poor woman to cancel her Twitter account and go into hiding for days after, in fear of the volley of abuse from the “Israel Lobby”.
Gadgil’s cancelled Twitter account.
This kind of abusive bullying and harassment by the “Israel Lobby”, cannot be acceptable.
We are a free and democratic society. It cannot become acceptable that journalists are driven to this. And for what? For just doing her job!
Not to mention the widespread howls of fake accusations of “antisemtism” and “blood libel”. Both of which are widely used amongst the extremists to suppress probing questions or criticism of Israel.
Blood libel is an archaic and obsolete form of Jew hatred, where by Jews used to get falsely accused of murdering Christian boys in order to use their blood in the performance of religious rituals.
Interestingly, after the unjustified complaints by the extremist elements within the Israel Lobby to the BBC, they released a statement “apologising”. Saying the question was not “phrased well” and was “inappropriate”.
Which actually, and quite rightly, wasn’t really an apology, nor did it retract anything that was reported or said by Gadgil.
It was mere lip-service to quieten down the extremist Zionist and Jewish factions within the “Israel Lobby”.
Pandering to extremist factions in society has never served society well.
Today it is Gadgil, tomorrow it will be you. This affects us all.
If false “blood-libel” claims can be made when Israel in fact does kill Palestinian children (it may not be the intent / primary driver to do so) but that fact that it has done for so long, and so many children have been killed, means de-facto Israel does kill children, and is presumably happy to do so.
Below is a snapshot of the Palestinian children Israel has killed only in the past few years:
Will people stop calling out children being killed by Israel because of fear of being falsely labelled with “blood-libel” accusations, just like how so often people are falsely accused of “antisemitism”?
Maybe that’s the intent of the “Israel Lobby”. To act with ever increasing impunity. Without being questioned.
What happens when Palestinian children end up dead at the end of yet another Israeli “military operation” – will journalists and news channels question it, or will they think it’s just not worth the hassle?
And let us take a little closer look at these people who are making these “complaints”. The Daily Mail outlined a few:
Meet Arsen Ostrovsky: An radicalised extremist who is actually Australian, but has moved to Israel to live on illegally occupied Palestinian land (as designated by the legally binding UN Security Council Resolution 2334) – on the wrong side of the “Green Line”. He berates one of only two Muslim female members of congress by falsely claiming Qatar is a “terror state”, indirectly linking a Muslim woman who wears a hijab with false “terror”. This chap apparently is a “human rights lawyer”.
Below, he uses some of the classic slurs and tropes that is endemic amongst the “Israel Lobby”, against pro-Palestine individuals and Palestinians. He refers to Mohammed el-Kurd, the now famous Palestinian activist as being a “racist, Jew hater and terror supporter” for no other rationally justifiable reason other than he is a Palestinian and a Muslim.
Here, he shows his racist tendencies by blaming the one and only Palestinian congresswoman for being responsible for the “explosion of violence against Jews in the US” – even though all the official data shows that the vast majority of hate crimes against Jews are perpetrated by white folk.
Meet Haymi Behar: he falsely describes CAIR (Council on American–Islamic Relations) a Muslim civil rights and legal advocacy group as spreading terrorism, and accuses it of being connected to the now defunct “Muslim Brotherhood”. And continues to lie by saying “CAIR is classified as a terror aiding org in many Arab countries”. In actual fact the only Arab country that classified it as such was the UAE, due to political reasons – the USA did not agree with this classification and sought clarifications from the UAE on how they arrived at that conclusion. CAIR has good and deep relations into the US administration, as well as doing work in collaboration with pro-Jewish groups such as the ADL.
He uses the classic trope against Arabs (meaning Palestinians in this context), where he suggests the Palestinians do not care if their children live or die. It is a heinous form of dehumanisation of Palestinian children that is often used by many in Israel Lobby. Dehumanisation of humans means it provides a pathway to kill them, it is what the Nazis did of the Jews of Germany and Europe. But I presume history and the causes of past atrocities is not a strong point for these extremist Zionists. They’re often happy just pushing the Holocaust dead and gas chambers without actually understanding the reasons of why and how it got to that. Thy are oblivious to the fact that there are many things that preceded the gas chambers and deaths. The various Holocaust memorial organisations could do a hell of a lot more on educating their communities and the wider community on the preceding elements and tactics. They are miserably failing in that aspect.
And last but not least, Camera UK: generalises Muslims with a false assertion that British Muslims are “more likely to hold antisemitic views”. When in fact all the official stats show that it is non-Muslim folk who perpetrate the vast majority of hate crimes against Jewish people in the UK. This type of Muslim hate, shrouded under the facade of “pro-Israel-pro-Zionism”, is widespread within the “Israel Lobby”. These are the kinds of lies that fuels hate crimes against Muslims in the UK – making Muslims the most targeted religious group, who have the most hate crimes perpetrated against them.
When we become fearful of questioning events, then we have lost a major tenet of democracy. We mustn’t allow this to prevail by nefarious peddlers of racism, hate and extremism.
