The Open University examined the BBC World Service in 2010:

Little is known about why and how certain diaspora groups connect with their home countries via the BBC World Service (BBCWS).

Its authoritative reach across national and diasporic boundaries may seem paradoxical, given that is funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and has a remit to build Britain’s reputation and influence abroad. Nevertheless, despite its international profile, astonishingly little research exists on the historical and contemporary work of cultural brokerage and diplomacy performed by BBCWS.

From the prewar Empire Service on shortwave to the tri-media World Service of today, Tuning In documents how the BBC has, over eighty years, been a pivotal contact zone for diaspora engagement.

This could explain the BBC’s approach to the Middle East and the Palestinians in particular revealing that impartiality is not a valued commodity…what is needed instead is a ‘voice’ that resonates with the audience..ie tells it what it wants to hear.  We  get to see confirmation that the BBC speaks with a different voice depending on which audience it broadcasts to…BBC Arabic providing a different narrative to the BBC in English.

Memory, Participation and Resistance in ‘Global Conversation’: Discussing the 60th Anniversary of Al-Nakba on BBC, Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya Arabic and English Language On-line Forums

‘The language of impartiality misses out on a key dimension of the ‘battle for hearts and minds’ in the Middle East – the role of social memory, loyalty and solidarity in the public sphere of Arab societies, and the need for any broadcaster to resonate or articulate with this to attract a popular audience.’

In 2014 you may recognise the approach taken in 2009 whilst reporting on ‘Cast Lead‘ in Gaza:

‘BBC Arabic TV focused on the rescue operations for civilian victims, and many appreciated this.‘

Impartiality?  The BBC seem to have ditched that…what about ‘factual accuracy’?  Seems that that too is disposable, replaced with ‘narratives and world views’:

Perhaps we should ask critical questions like what value does factual accuracy carry in a media environment where facts have become so widely available and commoditized? In the context of the battle for hearts and minds being played out over the airwaves of transnational Arab news networks overt discourses, narratives and world views have gained renewed importance. How will the BBC confront these narratives and offer alternatives to the dominant narratives of the Arab public sphere, which perceives the Arab nation as the victim western neo-imperialism, illegitimate and authoritarian leadership and the object of multiple designs to ensure it remains paralysed, occupied, de-Islamised and conditionally democratised. The incident of the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Nakba and the creation of the State of Israel is arguably a vital testing ground for evaluating the BBC’s role of presenting the grey areas to a polarised audience.

Here we get to see the infamous different emphasis placed on reports by the various BBC news servies catering for different audiences:

BBC Arabic seems to have navigated the controversial waters of the 14th and 15th of May 2008 quite well.  The BBC global website contains an “Israel at 60” portal which contains interactive features and maps and testimonials from both Israelis and Palestinians on the contradicting celebrations and remembrance. However, the portal was not translated into Arabic or made available on the BBC Arabic website. Instead BBC Arabic’s coverage of the coinciding events was composed mostly of its own Nakba orientated TV news packages, along with a limited number of translated articles from the BBC World Service Middle East website.  The former spent on average one minute on Israeli celebrations and two minutes on the unresolved plight of the Palestinians. The stories clearly contrasted Israeli and “international” celebration of the creation of the State of Israel with the ongoing costs of 1948 to Palestinians.

Although Israel’s celebrations were acknowledged and pictures celebrations from around the country on the 15th of May were published on BBC Arabic there was no celebratory or congratulatory tone to the coverage despite national celebrations in Britain and congratulatory messages and events in Europe and North America, and there was no sense that BBC Arabic would attempt to rebrand the Nakba narrative in a way that recognised the legitimacy of Israel and the redemption of the Jewish people.

Instead there was a clear emphasis on the Nakba in the Arabic service’s coverage which began around the 5th to the 18th May 2008.  Some would argue that the “BBC” did not speak with the same voice in its Arabic and English coverage, but this would suggest some kind of political inconsistency which would not accurately reflect the editorial independence of the numerous services within the corporation and importantly their different mandates.  

Whilst the BBC didn’t want to go so far as to ‘recognise’ Israel it does recognise the ‘Nakba’…a Palestinian political creation that tries to put themselves on the same level of ‘victim’ status as the Jews and the Holocaust…..

In contrast, BBC Arabic’s coverage and clarity in terms of recognising the Nakba went far further than Al-Arabiya

As for peace in the Middle East based upon the recognition of Israel?

Check these Arab views out…Nationalist, Islamist and Liberal:

المرجع القومي    The nationalist repertoire:
إسرائيل ورم سرطاني    Israel is a cancerous tumour
إسرائيل اغتصبت ارض فلسطين    Israel has raped the land of Palestine
ما اخذ بالقوة لا يسترد إلى بالقوة    What has been taken by force can be returned only by force
المجتمع الدولي منحاز لطرف إسرائيل    The international community is biased in Israel’s favour
السلام مع الكيان الصهيوني الاستعماري مرفوض    Peace with the Imperialist Zionist entity  is rejected
ضعف و عدم شرعية الأنظمة العربية    The weakness and illegitimacy of so called “Arab” regimes

المرجع الإسلامي    The Islamist repertoire:     
الصراع مع إسرائيل صراع عقاﺌدي    The conflict with Israel is religious
الرجوع للإسلام الوسيلة الوحيدة لمواجهة إسرائيل    Returning to Islam is the only means to confront Israel
قيام إسرائيل مذكور في القران الكريم    Israel’s ascendance is prophesised in the Quran
نكبة فلسطين نتيجة التأمر على نظام الخلافة    The Palestinian catastrophe is the result of the abandonment of the Caliphate
كما حرر المقاومة الإسلامية جنوب لبنان ستحرر فلسطين    In the same way that Hezbollah liberated south Lebanon Palestine will be freed
لا فاﺌدة في المعاهدات مع إسرائيل – ف وسفهم الله في القران بأنهم إذا وعدو اخلفوا وإذا أتمن خان    There is no point in negotiating with theIsrael’s – Allah has described them in the Quran as breakers of trust and promises

المرجعاللبرالي    The Liberal repertoire  
دولة إسرائيل أصبحت حقيقة يجب التعامل معها    The State of Israel has become a reality we must deal with        اليهود لديهم حق تاريخي في العيش في ارض فلسطين التاريخية    The Jewish people have a historical right to live in the land of Palestine
لا يوجد بديل للمفاوضات مع إسرائيل    There is no alternative to negotiating with Israel
السلام مع إسرائيل خيار استراتيجي    Peace with Israel is a strategic choice
الحقد والشعارات وتشدد الأعمى لا يؤدي  إلى شيء     Hatred, rhetoric and blind extremism has got us nowhere
مبروك لاسرائيل    Congratulations to Israel

Of the 829 contributions on the forum 93% (or 775) participations correspond to one of the three repertoires identified.

Repertoires
Islamist   87  12%              Nationalist  523  67%              Liberal  165  21%

Further to this post (also picked up by BBC Watch and Is The BBC Biased?, Naziru Mikail took to Twitter earlier today:

I sincerely apologised for making partisan comments on the situation in #Gaza – it was against my employer's guidelines. Lessons learned!

— Naziru Mikail (@nazirumikailu) July 23, 2014

So he apologised to someone, but who it is we don’t know. Still, “lessons learned” exclamation mark!

There are two main issues about the future of the BBC that are under discussion…what is the purpose of the BBC and how should it be funded?

The BBC believes the two are inseparable…only the licence fee funding structure can maintain the unique service that the BBC tells us the BBC provides….and that no other funding structure could.

Personally I don’t see that…it provides nothing that a commercial broadcaster can’t in the way of entertainmment, news and ‘social capital’ and the licence fee is by no means the most successful or viable option.

The one thing the BBC does have, despite its loud disclaimers, is a close relationship with the government.  The BBC world service broadcasts to the world a particular view of how life should be lived, a cultural, social and political ideology beamed into the homes and minds of millions if not billions of citizens around the world….‘an overt and directed instrument of British foreign policy,  a voice within a strategy of public diplomacy.’

The satellite dish and the internet are now among the greatest enemies of tyranny (then UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Straw 2002)

The BBC on home turf is not so very different…it sees itself as the principle diviner of moral values, the  educator and guide for those who have lost their way through ignorance or prejudice, a social, political and spiritual authority providing the nation with the correct message.

Mark Thompson admitted that the BBC was no longer just a broadcaster, the corporation was to be a social force in the land, he said. The corporation was an “important builder of social capital, seeking to increase social cohesion and tolerance”, which in future would try to “foster audience understanding of differences of ethnicity, faith, gender, sexuality, age and ability or disability.

This outlook has been inherited by his replacement Tony Hall who during the Parliamentary inquiry into the future of the BBC has said that :
‘The BBC is a vitally important organisation…the greatest cultural force in Britain in my view…It is the passion that we all want to bring to what we do. Serving all audiences.  That universality is absolutely key to the BBC, to what we do.’

A ‘vitally important organisation’?  Or one doing a job that any other broadcaster could do?

‘The greatest cultural force in Britain’?  It certainly has a uniquely powerful position, completely dominating the airwaves and the internet…but if it is so powerful it should also be under intense scrutiny…it should not be able to hide explosive and highly damaging reports such as the Balen Report and all contacts between journalists and politicians, pressure groups such as Green Peace, scientists etc should be open to inspection, if not to the public then to an independent reviewer.…it should be utterly blameless in its approach to reporting and held strictly to account for its activities…it should be entirely open about such activities and the decision making process that produced them.

‘Serving all audiences’?  Hardly….it serves only one audience….those who adhere to its own particular liberal, progressive world view.  If you have doubts about immigration, climate change, Islam or Europe you are shut out of the debate…the debate that is carried on is within very narrowly defined limits.  So no, ‘universality’ is paid lip service to, but in practise the BBC does not represent the vast majority of cultural and political views of a major proportion of this nation’s population.

During that recent Parliamentary questioning of Lord Hall and others they delved into these matters…and as said they claimed that the licence fee was the only way to fund the BBC…here the answers are variously from Hall or James Purnell about BBC funding:

Q600 Mr Bradshaw: Could you clear up what the BBC’s current thinking is on both the licence fee and subscription, limited or otherwise?
Lord Hall of Birkenhead: Yes. On the licence fee, we believe it is a system that “ain’t broke”……the licence fee does a number of things. For 40 pence a day everybody in this country can enjoy first-class programmes and services.
Secondly, for that 40 pence a day we are not in competition for revenues with either Sky or ITV, or indeed with Channel 4, and what you get back from that is a broadcasting ecology that I think is the envy of the world.
You know this. You just have to go beyond these shores. Leave this country for 10 minutes and you realise that what we have here is very precious.
The system is working.

James Purnell carries on…..

The fact that we are confident the licence fee is the best way of funding the BBC makes us very open to having discussions because we are pretty confident that the arguments show that it works in practice and in theory.
We very much welcome a debate because if you have a strong idea that you believe in, testing it is a very good thing.

We think it might be pretty hard to raise the money to fund the costs of the services. Nowhere else in the world are the kinds of services that you are talking about funded commercially through subscription, certainly not without advertising. We think it may well not work even from the point of view of whether you could raise the money to cover the services, but even if you could we are not sure it is a terribly attractive idea in practice. We tried to model it. We said let us say that the services you put in the top-up would be BBC Three, BBC Four, online and iPlayer. That would save a household only £1.40 a month. They would be losing all of those services for £1.40 a month. If they then wanted to pay to get them all back, they would be paying twice the licence fee that they are at the moment.

Note that line:

‘We think it might be pretty hard to raise the money to fund the costs of the services [other than by the licence fee]’

And note he says advertising is a major factor.

Sky doesn’t seem to have a problem raising money…they have around 10 million TV customers and raise nearly £6 billion…the BBC has over 25 million licence payers raising nearly £4 billion.

Here are Sky’s figures for 2013..note that advertising plays a relatively small role in its revenue stream:

Our business model
Sky is Britain and Ireland’s leading entertainment and communications provider. As at 30 June 2013, we had 11.2 million customers taking a total of 31.6 million products.

Retail subscription revenue grew by 6% to £5,951 million (2012: £5,593 million), reflecting continued product and customer growth and the benefit of the price rise which came into effect in September 2012. Sky Business returned to growth in the second half to achieve revenue growth of 1% for the full year.
We delivered a strong performance in wholesale subscription revenue which increased by 13% to £396 million (2012: £351 million). Although the volume of wholesale subscribers was flat year on year, we continue to benefit from greater take-up of Sky premium channels on other platforms.
Advertising revenue was flat year on year at £440 million (2012: £440 million), despite the impact of the Olympics in our first quarter. Sky Media gained market share across the year to reach 22.2%, with the majority of this growth underpinned by increased ratings for our media partner channels, with whom we share revenue upside. AdSmart, our tailored advertising product, is on track to launch early in 2013/14 with good interest from potential advertisers.
Installation, hardware and service revenue of £87 million was lower year on year (2012: £98 million) driven by improved product reliability, an increased number of customer self-installations, and higher right-first-time engineer visits.
Other revenue increased by 17% to £361 million (2012: £309 million) due to continued strong performance from Sky Bet which saw an increase in unique users in the year, and growth in international programme sales due to more original commissions.

The BBC states that the complex nature of its output, the need for independence from government, and simplicity of collection mean that only the licence fee structure can work.

Clearly that isn’t true…Sky offers a tremendous range of products, it takes in a huge amount of revenue not dependent on advertising, a subscription payment method would obviously be technically possible and the technology is proven…the BBC are already looking at blocking the iPlayer for those who haven’t paid the licence fee which indicates they can similarly control access to other television broadcasts. A subscription payment system would also loosen the government’s grip on the BBC’s finances.

Of course when you have looked at the funding method you might then look at what is the purpose of the BBC and does it uniquely provide that service?

The BBC sees itself as providing ‘social capital’, a ‘public good’, and most importantly a ‘shared experience’ that unites the nation as they talk about the same TV programmes around the water cooler at work.  It clams only the BBC can provide such an experience.

But the BBC doesn’t provide that any longer, or no more than any other broadcaster or media provider.

The BBC doesn’t represent the views of the majority, instead it lectures and preaches to them, filling the airwaves with programmes designed to make you ‘think again’ about immigration, or programmes with messages about climate change shoehorned into them, or news broadcasts so one sided that they would make any Soviet era propagandist look on in envious admiration.

There is nothing really unique about the BBC any longer, there is nothing it can do better, cheaper or in a more principled manner than any commercial rival and its claim to the moral highground has long since been surrendered to political correctness and the desire to undermine everything ‘British’…..in fact rather than working to provide a shared experience it does the opposite trying to cater to all ‘communities’ as they now see Britain as being made up of…and that means British history must be deconstructed and rewritten to make the ‘new’ Britons feel good about themselves and their heritage even if it means trashing Britain and making those immigrants more likely to hate Britain than to love it and its culture…and hence unwilling to integrate….so no ‘one nation’ there due to the likes of the BBC who presumably are merely echoing what Muslim ‘conservatives’ like the once head of the MCB, Iqbal Sacranie, said….‘no other language or culture should be treated as the ‘norm’ and that the British should only be treated as one community in a community of communities.’

Ryan Bourne, head of public policy at the Institute of Economic Affairs, explains why the BBC cannot continue in its present form as Hall & Co would like:

Forget the licence fee: Why Game of Thrones damns the case for a universal BBC

If we did create the BBC now, it’s likely we’d limit its activities to pure public service broadcasting – things which would not be produced or would be under-produced in the broader market. This would require one public TV channel and one radio station at most.

The BBC knows this, so instead tries to justify its privileged position by claiming that it serves a wider “instrumental purpose” by “building a stronger sense of community through shared experiences”. But this is based on a false premise: that a genuine free market in broadcasting could not deliver shared experiences.

Did you see this report on the BBC?

The former head of Haringey children’s services Sharon Shoesmith has been awarded £679,452 following her unfair dismissal claim. Ms Shoesmith was sacked after a damning report into the 2007 death of Peter Connelly, known as Baby P, who was subjected to months of abuse. The payments, previously been rumoured to be a six-figure sum, emerged in the London council’s accounts.

Now, I do hope the BBC will ensure we are reminded that it was  Ed Balls, who was let us all recall Children’s Secretary at the time of the Baby P scandal, and who fired Shoesmith from her £130,000-a-year post without giving her the right of reply . She learned of her sacking – and the name of he successor – while watching the TV news. Balls made his decision after a report by the regulator Ofsted found Haringey had failed to protect 17-month-old Peter, who died in 2007 following months of abuse.

Whilst we may all abhor the wretched performance of Haringay council, and whilst our sympathies must surely lie with the poor child, the fact is that the taxpayer has been forced to pay out due to the incompetency of Balls.

OK, here you go, a new UN approved Open Thread. (Just kidding, I would need it to be a Jew free thread for that to be the case) Off you go…

Sorry there’s no sex….but lies and videotape there’s aplenty of.

The probable Pallywood video we looked at earlier has been going viral, not just on the internet but on mainstream news..in the papers and apparently on C4.

The BBC has ignored the video completely, commendably not reporting it as genuine, but incredibly, in light of its massive presence on the web and in the MSM, they have ignored the fact that the Palestinians have almost certainly created another Pallywood masterpiece that has become fact.

The Independent, despite being seemingly pretty anti-Israeli also doesn’t report the story…but does question its authenticity on a page that looks at social media about Gaza:

Trying to separate fact from fiction on social media in Israel-Gaza

Claim 1: A volunteer aid worker was killed by an Israeli sniper

The video has been widely covered but has still not been independently verified.

Not so ‘widely covered’ that the BBC even deign to examine its authenticity.

It’s not as if the BBC isn’t interested in what is ‘trending’…they after all have a dedicated site to monitor what’s ‘hot’:

But no mention on there.

The BBC have looked a few times at the propaganda war over Gaza:

#BBCtrending: Are #GazaUnderAttack images accurate?

Hamas and Israel step up cyber battle for hearts and minds

But no mention of this video.  Could it be that the ‘fisking’ of this video would be so embarrassing to the Palestinians, and cast so much doubt on their other claims about casualties, that the BBC has decided not to bring it or the fact that it is likely a fake, to its audience’s attention?

Never mind…here’s what the BBC think is important…still no sex..but it is funny:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ux1TzKQnJA

The BBC splash this:

Gaza conflict: Abbas backs Hamas ceasefire demands

But has the BBC reported this?…I don’t think so:

In an interview on 11 July with Al Mayadeen satellite channel, the PA President Mahmoud Abbas accused Hamas of being “merchants of war” and called on them to accept the Egyptian ceasefire initiative and proceed with political negotiations later. 

Five days later, Tayeb Abdel Rahim, director-general of the PA presidency and member of the Fatah Central Council, commented on Hamas’ rejection of the Egyptian proposal. He accused Hamas of serving regional agendas and “sacrificing Palestinian blood in the service of a global Muslim Brotherhood plot.”

Riyad al-Maliki, the PA’s foreign minister, has also reportedly said in a conversation with Frans Timmermams, the Dutch foreign minister, that the current escalation in Gaza only serves Hamas’s political interests.

PA officials are echoing the Israeli government’s narrative, putting the blame on Hamas for the high loss of civilian life in Gaza and ignoring the reality imposed on the Strip.

The BBC has gone frontpage with the UN’s suggestion that Israel ‘may have committed war crimes’:

UN’s Navi Pillay warns of Israel Gaza ‘war crimes’

Curiously no mention of the UN’s own war crime on the BBC….the hiding of Hamas weapons in one of their schools…for the second time…at least:

For second time, rockets found at UN school in Gaza

Also where are all those tunnel entrances used to launch attacks on Israel been hidden?

To hide the tunnel work from Israeli intelligence, the entrances are mostly located on the bottom floor of houses, mosques, schools or other public buildings.

Clearly that wasn’t a revelation from any of the BBC’s journalists who don’t dwell on such truths:

Dr Eado Hecht is an independent defence analyst and lecturer in military doctrine at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University.

The UN of course has a great record when accusing Israel of ‘possible war crimes’:
Goldstone: Israel didn’t target civilians
By JPOST.COM STAFF
04/02/2011 12:38

Richard Goldstone writes that Israeli investigations refute allegations against it; slams Hamas war crimes, calls UNHRC “skewed against Israel”; “Israel has right, obligation to defend itself, its citizens.”

Judge Richard Goldstone said that if Israel had cooperated with his UN-sanctioned fact-finding mission into Operation Cast Lead and if he had known then what he knows today, “the Goldstone Report would have been a different document,” especially its allegations of “possible war crimes” directed at Israel.

Goldstone also slammed the United Nations Human Rights Council, which commissioned the report, saying that the original mandate given to him was “skewed against Israel.”

“I have always been clear that Israel, like any other sovereign nation, has the right and obligation to defend itself and its citizens against attacks from abroad and within,” he wrote.

Saying that he changed the original mandate handed to him in order to investigate Hamas as well as Israel, he noted, “something that has not been recognized often enough is the fact that our report marked the first time illegal acts of terrorism from Hamas were being investigated and condemned by the United Nations.” He added that he had hoped his inquiry would usher in an era of even-handedness in the UNHRC, whose bias against Israel “cannot be doubted.”

Seems not.

The BBC grudgingly admit that Goldstone exonerated Israel when more evidence came to light but only right at the bottom of their article, the very, very last sentence:

The Goldstone report was rejected by Israel and the US as biased and flawed.

In 2011, the report’s author, South African judge Richard Goldstone, said that new accounts indicated Israel had not deliberately targeted civilians.

Don’t know about you but I’d drop my phone if I’d been shot and fallen to the ground….especially if I’d been shot not once but three times, apparently.  Having said that her indoors probably would cling on to hers hell or high water.

The BBC has remarkably played it cool with this video which claims to be of a Palestinian out looking for his lost family when he was allegedly shot by an Israeli sniper in the hip…he is then shot twice more…apparently in the chest…which would be most likely if he were to be shot again. However there is no sign of any injury to the chest and the hip injury is conveniently on the other side of the camera, a camera fortuitously on hand, provided by the International Solidarity Movement…otherwise known as Palsolidarity.org…..

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles.

Wonder if that ‘commitment to resisting the Israeli occupation’ could include a bit of play acting? Remarkably not only does the man cling on to his phone but he is seen checking it immediately after being shot….and he is still moving after the third shot.

The ISM claims the ‘body’ is still out there in the rubble…After Salem was murdered, the rescue team was unable to recover his body, which like so many others, remains among the rubble….so they obviously didn’t check to see if he was still alive…as he was definitely moving…they just left him.  With no body of course there is conveniently no need to show where the bullets hit…much like the vanished ‘body’ of Muhammed al durah.

As for an Israeli sniper…who says it was?  Where’s the proof?  Where are the wounds and where are the soldiers?  The shots sounded very close…have to be a brave sniper team to be infiltrating a Hamas held area to get that close.

Why shoot someone who is obviously with a film crew from some form of activist group in their hi-viz vests?

I’m sure the poor guy really was shot but with no visible sign of injury, no body, the background of the film makers and the unlikelihood that an Israeli ‘sniper’ would target him so openly the authenticity of this video should be questioned.

Finally if even the BBC is reluctant to go with this there must be a high degree of doubt….not something either the Telegraph, Mail or Mirror seem concerned about as they splash it over their websites.

One up for the BBC then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyNGFJJqpxI

The BBC has often opined that Gaza is destitute and failing, lacking resources to build its infrastructure…indeed it highlights Ban Ki-Moon trying to blame the Israeli blockade for the rocket attacks on Israel:

Mr Ban is due to travel to Israel for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and meetings with Palestinian officials in the West Bank.

Mr Ban said he appreciated Israel’s right to defend itself, but said restrictions on Gaza should be lifted “so that people should not resort to this kind of violence as a way of expressing their grievances”.

The blockade is of course a response to those very rocket attacks…so Moon’s logic fails me there. Good though that such a deep thinker is at the head of the United Nations in charge of peace negotiations.

The BBC frequently tells us that Gazan civilians have no where to go to take cover when the fighting begins.

But that’s just not true is it?

For a start thousands of Gazans fled to UN controlled safe areas, in agreement with Israel.

Second, instead of investing in the people of Gaza Hamas has been building a large number of tunnels, lined with concrete, some up to one mile long.

They took years to plan and build.

With all those resources Hamas has used to build these tunnels to attack Israel they could have used to build schools, homes or indeed bomb shelters.

The tunnels themselves could be used as shelters if Hamas were so concerned about their civilians.

Or indeed Hamas could just stop bombing Israel and killing Israelis and there would be no need for shelters, no need for a blockade and Palestinians could get on with their lives turning the rat trap of Gaza into a thriving society as Israel has done with its own land even whilst under 65 years of Muslim attacks designed to wipe it off the face of the earth.