Journalist John Pilger, no friend of Israel, uses the New Statesman to blast a BBC apology to Israel over the network’s handling of an interview with Mordechai Vanunu:
Can you imagine the BBC apologising to a rogue regime that practises racism and ethnic cleansing; that has “effectively legalised the use of torture” (Amnesty); that holds international law in contempt, having defied hundreds of UN resolutions and built an apartheid wall in defiance of the International Court of Justice; that has demolished thousands of people’s homes and given its soldiers the right to assassinate; and whose leader was judged “personally responsible” for the massacre of more than 2,000 people?
Can you imagine the BBC saying sorry to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, or other official demons, for broadcasting an uncensored interview with a courageous dissident of that country, a man who spent 19 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement? Of course not.
Yet last month, the BBC apologised “confidentially” to a regime with such a record, so that its correspondent would be allowed back, having promised to abide by a system of censorship that continues to gag the dissident. The regime is Ariel Sharon’s in Israel, whose war crimes, appalling human rights record and enduring lawlessness continue to be granted a certificate of exemption not only by the US-dominated west but by respectable journalism.
