[A] lot of people across the global majority are asking the extremely serious question: why the BRICS, and especially why Russia and China, are not doing more than what they’re doing on behalf of Palestine and to defend Palestine. This is an extremely serious question and it’s not being addressed by Russia and China. We have to be straightforward about that, right? The only ones who are actually doing something, once again, are the Houthis in Yemen. Heroes of the whole planet.

— Journalist and geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar in a Youtube interview with Danny Haiphong, streamed live on 17 July 2024 (approximately 18:16 to 18:54)

The sentiments expressed by Escobar were expressed to me at an earlier date by author Randy Shields:

… if all Russia and China are going to do is talk they could start talking about a one state solution. They could put some urgency into the situation. They could let Abbas and the Gulf family dictatorships know that the status quo is unacceptable. They could start telling the truth to the world that the “two state solution” is impossible and was only ever a delaying tactic by Israel. They could even announce that Palestine is under consideration for BRICS membership…. They could cut off whatever trade they have and cut off diplomatic relations with Israel, recall ambassadors, etc…

Godfree Roberts, author of Why China Leads the World gave his take on China and Palestine in his 1 May 2025, “Xi the Merciful?: The fate of China’s worst enemy lies in Xi Jinping’s hands”:

Beijing is hunting much bigger game than tariffs: the liberation of Palestine. China, Palestine’s oldest and most loyal friend, has endured America’s genocidal mania for generations and now has the tools to end their shared misery….

This year, we will witness the most momentous events since WWII. Global leadership will return to Asia, America will enters [sic] its post-imperial twilight, and Palestine will become free and independent, and the Zionists return to Ukraine whence they came.

Shields is skeptical:

There’s no evidence to back up what [Roberts] says. Russia and China continue to maintain trade and diplomatic ties with a genocidal apartheid state committing 24/7 live-streamed genocide.

China plays a long game. There is plenty of evidence of Chinese advancements in science, technology, supply chains, manufacturing, arts, etc. The question is whether China (and Russia) will come through with morally based support befitting a leading world economy?

The Communist Party of China (CPC) has made great strides for its people, having achieved a xiaokang (moderately prosperous) society in 2021. Moving forward, China aims for gongtong fuyu (common prosperity) — a society based on social equality and economic equity.

On the road to gongtong fuyu, the CPC’s next five-year plan targets “the goal of basically realizing socialist modernization, with a view to building a great country and advancing national rejuvenation” in the period 2026 to 2030. China’s rise is also meant to benefit the world as it seeks peaceful win-win relationships. Chairman Xi Jinping said, “Long ago China made a solemn declaration to the world that it is committed to pursuing peaceful development.”¹

This commitment to pursuing peaceful development has recently been thrown into question by China’s business arrangements connected to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, which can hardly be construed as peaceful development from the Palestinian side (or any morally based side).

China’s Support for Palestine

China’s support for the human and territorial rights of Palestinians dates back to the time of chairman Mao Zedong. Mao’s China supported anti-imperialist and national liberation movements worldwide; this included support for the Palestinian cause. In May 1965, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was ensconced in a Beijing office and accorded diplomatic privileges and immunity. During a meeting with a visiting PLO delegation in 1965, Mao said: “Imperialism is afraid of China and of the Arabs. Israel and Formosa are bases of imperialism in Asia. You are the front gate of the great continent, and we are the rear.”²

Post-Mao, on 20 November 1988, China officially recognized the State of Palestine and established official diplomatic relations between the two countries. On 31 December of the same year, the PLO’s office in Beijing was upgraded to the Embassy of the State of Palestine in China, and its head was appointed as the ambassador of the State of Palestine to China.

However, China has a uneven history of supporting the Palestinian cause and opposing Zionism.³

More recently, at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 22 February 2024, Ma Xinmin, director-general of the Department of Treaty and Law of the Chinese Foreign Ministry “unequivocally stated”:

“The Palestinian-Israeli conflict stems from Israel’s prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory and Israel’s longstanding oppression of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people fight against Israeli oppression and their struggle for completing the establishment of an independent state on the occupied territory are essentially just actions for restoring their legitimate rights.”⁴

Moreover,

Citing numerous articles of international laws, Ma claims that “the struggle waged by peoples for their liberation, right to self-determination, including armed struggle against colonialism, occupation, aggression, domination against foreign forces should not be considered terror acts” and that “armed struggle in this context is distinguished from acts of terrorism. It is grounded in international law. This distinction is acknowledged by several international conventions.” He further declares, “in pursuit of the right to self-determination, Palestinian people’s use of force to resist foreign oppression and complete the establishment of an independent state is an inalienable right, well-founded in international law.”⁵

Regarding the deliberations by the ICJ on the charge of genocide being carried out by the state of Israel, China supports the ICJ’s role in upholding justice and international law, and calls for an immediate ceasefire in Palestine, humanitarian assistance, and a two-state solution to achieve lasting peace in the region.

On 14 April 2025, Times of India reported that Russia and China criticized Israel for turning humanitarian assistance to Gaza into “a tool of war.” Russia’s UN envoy Vasily Nebenzya alleged that Israel was attempting to make the UN an accomplice to its warring in Gaza. This sentiment was echoed by China’s envoy Fu Cong.

As Shields, and many others, would point out this is just more words.

What is China doing in Israeli Occupied Palestine?

But the situation vis-à-vis Palestine appears decidedly more sinister.

Razan Shawamreh is a Palestinian researcher interested in Chinese foreign policy in the Middle East. She has thrown a wrench into Chinese good intentions supporting Palestinian resistance and self-determination in its territories. Shawamreh wrote an article, “How China is quietly aiding Israel’s settlement enterprise,” for the Middle East Eye in which she charges, “Away from Beijing’s lofty rhetoric about defending Palestinians, Chinese firms are helping to sustain illegal settlements.” Despite China having supported the UN General Assembly resolution 3379 that defined Zionism as a “form of racism and racial discrimination” in 1975, Shawamreh provides numerous examples of Chinese support for Zionism.

• Adama Agricultural Solutions, a former Israeli company now fully owned by the Chinese state-run firm China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina) is directly “linked to the militarised destruction of Palestinian livelihoods.”
• This is not an exception. Shawamreh writes, “In recent years, several state-owned Chinese companies, along with other private Chinese firms, have invested directly or indirectly in Israeli settlements or companies operating within them. Take the case of Tnuva, a major Israeli food producer that operates in illegal settlements. Despite international calls to boycott the company, China’s state-owned conglomerate Bright Food acquired a 56 percent stake in Tnuva in 2014. In 2021, Tnuva won a tender to operate 22 public transportation lines that serve 16 settlements in Mateh Yehuda – all built on occupied land in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. These aren’t just buses; they’re infrastructure supporting colonial entrenchment, making settler life easier and more permanent.”

An earlier article by Shawamreh concluded, “China’s alleged impartiality serves to undermine Palestinian rights.”⁶

I have seen no official Chinese response to the reports of abetting the Israeli Jews’ dispossession of Palestinians. What did appear on 17 May 2025 was a Youtube video by global impulse, titled “The SHOCKING Truth Behind China’s Gaza Aid | 60,000 Families Saved,” which claimed, “But one thing is clear, China is no longer content to be a passive observer in Middle Eastern Affairs.” Two months earlier, The Indian Express showed a video that China had sent its first batch of 60,000 packages of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza via Jordan.

Can the guilt of colluding in the genocide and dispossession of indigenous Palestinians bring comfort to the Chinese soul through providing aid parcels?

Xi Jinping on Israel and Palestine

In a speech on 5 June 2014 chairman Xi Jinping spoke of “hundreds of years [of] peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning, and mutual benefit” between the Chinese and Arab peoples. “We will not forget the promise to support the cause of the Palestinian people that China made to the Arab states … at the Bandung Conference 60 years ago.”⁷ [Emphasis added]

Mao laid the foundation for the PRC in dealing with Palestinians. As part of a symposium to commemorate the 120th anniversary of Mao’s birth, Xi channelled Mao in a speech titled “Carry on the Enduring Spirit of Mao Zedong Thought”:

We stand for peaceful resolutions to international disputes, oppose all forms of hegemony and power politics, and never seek hegemonism nor engage in expansion.⁸

The Conscience of China

China is important. Its dedication to peaceful development and diplomacy is laudatory and in stark contrast to the bombastic hectoring and warring of the US-NATO block. China cares for the well-being of all its citizens; it seeks win-win relationships with other countries — not the win-lose entanglements of the capitalist West. As such China gives substance and believability to reifying that elusive, illusory, transient, teasing, wishful abstraction called hope — hope that all too often leads to bitter disappointment.

I have been disappointed before upon hearing of Chinese involvement in an unsavoury circumstance. A few years back, I came across an article that was scathing of a big Chinese tuna-fishing company, Dalian Ocean Fishing, for alleged maltreatment of foreign workers, workers who fell sick, died, suffered abuses, substandard food, excessive working hours, and withholding of pay.

I inquired about the situation and discovered it was a rogue private company that was selling its catch to a Japanese company, Mitsubishi. Nonetheless, that does not let China off the hook. Perfection is not expected, but how Chinese-licensed private companies do business at home and abroad does reflect back on the home country.

While beyond the scope of the present article, deeper consideration of the role of the Chinese State vs. Private Capital in China’s external relationships demands elucidation. What exactly does win-win mean?
While state-owned firms are clearly extensions of Chinese policy, how China manages — or fails to manage — the conduct of private or semi-state firms abroad, especially in contested or ethically sensitive zones speaks to the conscience of a nation.

Especially concerning, is the case of Chinese state-owned companies doing business for an occupier in occupied territory. This is morally magnified when the occupier, Israel, is under scrutiny by the World Court for committing genocide. Genocide is an act that morally upstanding countries will emphatically denounce as reprehensible; in addition, morally upstanding countries will take measures to publicly distance their state from such an evil-doer until such time as it sincerely atones for its crime against humanity. Highly moral countries — for example, Yemen — will make sacrifices to bring an end to such horrific crimes.

Professor and author T.P. Wilkinson, a keen China observer, remarked, “Non-interference is China’s top principle — business comes first. If there is any morality it only applies in China.”

China does not interfere in the culture and politics of other nations. That is understood. Nonetheless, morally centered people do not wish to see their country or any other country engage in violence against other nations in the world. And morally centered people do not wish to see their country abetting violence, not borne of self-defense, by another country. For allying with unrepentant rogue actors such as the United States and Israel, vassal states in Canada, Oceania, and Europe deserve to be regarded scornfully.

As an emerging superpower, China has increasingly garnered respect for pledging and delivering peaceful, win-win relations with other countries. That needs to be across the board. China is now faced with serious allegations, and it needs to come clean on what its companies are doing in occupied Palestine. One cannot expect that a country’s political leader is up-to-date and aware of all the ongoing functions of a country, domestically and externally, especially in a rapidly rising colossus of 1.4 billion people. However, when sordid facts come to the fore, a leader must lead. It is morally incumbent that chairman Xi deal forthrightly and promptly with any Chinese involvement in ignoble business affairs or crimes against humanity.

What Would Meaningful Action Look Like?

If Chinese firms are confirmed to be operating illegally in the occupied territories of Palestine, then I submit that an official Chinese public apology is demanded, also an immediate cessation of Chinese operations in what was once known as Mandate Palestine, and a turning over of Chinese assets in Mandate Palestine to Palestinian authorities. But it is for the Palestinians to determine what would be the proper rectification by China.

Why, one may ask, is such atonement not demanded of Canadians, American, and European interests in Mandate Palestine? It is and should be, but western governments have been unabashed in supporting colonialism, imperialism, and racism abroad. This speaks to the nature and conscience of Western governments that were so quick to fallaciously accuse China of genocide in Xinjiang, and yet they are loathe to acknowledge the factually undeniable genocide in Palestine. China, on the other hand, is viewed by much of the world’s people as a cut above the western governments.

Geopolitical Realism vs. Moral Idealism

While the present article acknowledges the current realpolitik constraints that China faces in balancing ties with Israel, the US, Arab countries, and the rest of the world, it posits the primacy of moral responsibility. Morality is what separates capitalism’s dog-eat-dog law-of-the-jungle from socialism, and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is what is practiced by China.

As such an unflinching moral audit of China’s actions in occupied Palestine is called for. Therefore, to maintain its high regard, China must earn and hold onto the people’s trust through morally centered economic activities at home and abroad, as is implied by win-win relationships. In a truly multipolar world not only must power be redistributed more equitably but shared moral standards must also be elevated.

It is decidedly not a win-win relationship when Palestinians are subjected to starvation, humiliation, murder, bombardment, theft of territory, and the indignity of the World Court taking what must seem like an eternity to put a halt to a crime that demands immediate action: genocide. That China companies would profit from a genocide would cast a pall over China that would be hard to shake.

If China aspires to genuine global leadership, then it must lead not just in development and diplomacy — but in conscience.

ENDNOTES:

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

The corporation’s longstanding systematic protection of Israel, considered an ‘apartheid regime’ by major human rights organisations, has been particularly glaring since the country launched its genocidal attacks on Gaza in October 2023. We have all seen the repetition and amplification of the Israeli narrative above the Palestinian perspective, omission of ‘Israel’ from headlines about its latest war crimes committed in Gaza, and even the dismissive treatment by senior BBC management of serious concerns about bias raised by their own journalists.

The documentary focused on the experiences of several children trying to survive in Gaza under brutal attack by Israeli forces armed to the hilt with weaponry and intelligence from the US, the UK and other western nations. It transpired that the film’s narrator, 13-year-old Abdullah al-Yazuri, is the son of Ayman al-Yazuri, a deputy minister of agriculture in Gaza’s government which is administered by Hamas.

Mr al-Yazuri previously worked for the United Arab Emirates’ education ministry and studied at British universities, obtaining a PhD in chemistry from the University of Huddersfield. Middle East Eye (MEE), an independently-funded online news organisation covering stories from the Middle East and North Africa, described him as ‘a technocrat with a scientific rather than political background’, pointing out that ministers, bureaucrats and civil servants in Gaza are appointed by Hamas.

Indeed, as MEE explained:

‘Many Palestinians in Gaza have family or other connections to Hamas, which runs the government. This means that anyone working in an official capacity must also work with Hamas.’

A campaign was launched by pro-Israel voices, including Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s ambassador to the UK, and Danny Cohen, a former director of BBC television, to pressure the BBC to drop the documentary from iPlayer, soon after it was broadcast on BBC Two on 17 February.

Despite a countercampaign by over 1,000 media and film professionals objecting to the ‘racist’ and ‘dehumanising’ targeting of the documentary by supporters of Israel, the BBC quickly caved in, apologising for ‘mistakes’ that they deemed ‘significant and damaging’. Notably, however, the BBC did not point to any errors or inaccuracies in the actual editorial content of the programme.

The broadcaster attempted to divert some of the blame onto the independent company, Hoyo Films, who had made the documentary, saying that the BBC had not been told by the filmmakers that Abdullah al-Yazuri’s father was a deputy agriculture minister in the Hamas government.

Hoyo Films told the BBC it paid the boy’s mother ‘a limited sum of money for the narration’ via his sister’s bank account. A BBC spokesperson said:

‘While Hoyo Films have assured us that no payments were made to members of Hamas or its affiliates, either directly, in kind, or as a gift, the BBC is seeking additional assurance around the budget of the programme and will undertake a full audit of expenditure.’

Addressing MPs from the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee on 3 March, Samir Shah, the BBC’s chairman, said that:

‘This is a really, really bad moment. What has been revealed is a dagger to the heart of the BBC’s claim to be impartial and to be trustworthy, which is why I and the board are determined to ask the questions.’

Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, told the MPs that after ‘failures in transparency’ he simply ‘lost trust’ in the production of the film and personally ordered it to be withdrawn:

‘It was a very difficult decision. What I did – and it was a very tough decision – was to say, at the moment, looking people in the eye, can we trust this film in terms of how it was made, the information we’ve got? And that’s where we made the decision. It’s a simple decision in that regard.’

In short, one child’s family connection with an official in the civilian administration of Gaza is supposedly reason enough to remove a vital documentary humanising Palestinians. This is an important film which redressed, to a marginal extent, the overwhelming pro-Israel bias displayed by the BBC over the past 18 months.

Meanwhile, the broadcaster repeatedly and prominently platforms the leaders and spokespeople of a state committing genocide and apartheid. Is it any wonder the public reputation of BBC News has likely nosedived yet further since 7 October, 2023?

As Mark Seddon, director of the Centre for UN Studies at the University of Buckingham and a former speechwriter for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, observed via X:

‘Tim Davie should perhaps get the BBC to do some sampling. He may discover that there is a significant body of public opinion that has [been], and is, losing faith in BBC news gathering which is increasingly parochial & transparently failing when it comes to Israel/Palestine.’

Although Davie insisted on the need for BBC ‘transparency’, he was not at all transparent when asked by Rupa Huq MP to name specific groups or individuals who had demanded the BBC withdraw the film. He declined to do so. One of those is, as mentioned, the Israeli ambassador to the UK who constantly repeats ludicrous propaganda such as ‘our only target is Hamas facilities’, and who has denied that there is any humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Spineless BBC

As Chris Doyle, the director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, noted:

‘By pulling [the] Gaza film, BBC shows it cannot stand up to Israel.’

By contrast, he pointed out that in 2003, the BBC aired a documentary on Israel’s nuclear programme, titled Israel’s Secret Weapon:

‘Israeli leaders hit the roof and banned its officials from appearing on the BBC.

‘The documentary was spot on. Israel was embarrassed at having its nuclear arsenal exposed when Iraq was being invaded for a non-existent stash of weapons of mass destruction.’

Doyle added:

‘The BBC did not cave in, and Israel lifted its boycott.

‘Twenty-five years later, the BBC has lost any semblance of a spine on Israel.’

British-Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, an emeritus professor of international relations at Oxford, said that the pulling of the film was ‘only the latest example of the public broadcaster’s regular capitulation to pressure from the pro-Israel lobby’. He continued:

‘The BBC has good reporters on Israel-Palestine, but its bosses are hopelessly compromised by their pronounced and persistent bias in favour of Israel.

‘The reason for this bias is not lack of knowledge but cowardice, the fear of antagonising Israel and Israel’s friends in high places in Britain.’

Richard Sanders, an award-winning producer who has made over fifty films in history, news and current affairs, including Al-Jazeera’s ‘October 7’ documentary, said:

‘Had the situation been reversed and an Israeli boy revealed to be the child of a junior minister in Netanyahu’s government the BBC might have felt obliged to issue one of its “corrections and clarifications” but it’s highly unlikely the film would have been withdrawn and the – extremely vulnerable – production team humiliated in such a public manner.’

Sangita Myska, dropped by radio broadcaster LBC in April 2024 after robustly challenging an Israeli spokesman live on air, wrote on X:

‘I was a BBC journalist for years. However well-intentioned the Gaza doco-makers were, they did not meet editorial standards of transparency BUT does that make a material difference to the overall accuracy of the film? Given the weight of supporting evidence: Probably not.’

She added:

‘I’m reliably informed that morale amongst some brilliant, committed, journalists is in free-fall over this.’

Sanders followed up with:

‘As another old hand who has spent more hours in sweaty edit suites with lawyers and commissioning editors than I care to remember I broadly agree with @SangitaMyska’s comments.

‘But I’d stress that a media environment where the victims of genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid are subjected constantly to the most intense scrutiny, while their tormentors and those who support them are all too often allowed a free pass is a distorted and frankly racist one.’

He added:

‘Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone remains by far the best thing the BBC has produced on Gaza and bore no evidence at all of any Hamas involvement in its editorial content.

‘It is deeply concerning that it is now being used as a stick to beat the BBC which must not allow itself to become even more cowed.’

In October 2024, the BBC had broadcast a documentary called, ‘Surviving October 7^th: We Will Dance Again’. The BBC’s description said:

‘A harrowing glimpse into the brutal assault on partygoers at the Nova Music Festival – one of the sites in Israel attacked by Hamas on 7 October 2023.’

As one user on X pointed out last week:

‘BBC made a documentary “We Will Dance Again”

‘Was there anyone in that documentary that was IDF or related to IDF?

‘Were there any serving soldiers or illegal settlers in the documentary.

‘Were any of their children in it?

‘As a @BBC licence payer, I demand an inquiry.’

Of course, the ‘demand’ for an inquiry was intended ironically and there was no response from the BBC. But the point was clearly made.

The Truth Exists

As mentioned in several of our previous alerts on Israel and Palestine, there is tremendous pressure on journalists working at BBC News to toe the Israeli line. Notably, since 7 October, use of the word ‘genocide’ has essentially been banned. Any time an interviewee mentions the word in a live setting, the BBC presenter intervenes to shut down the discussion. As one anonymous former BBC journalist said:

‘People [at the BBC] were terrified of using the word “genocide” in coverage. They still are. You will very rarely see it in any BBC coverage. And if an interviewee says the word “genocide”, the presenter will almost always panic.’

And whenever Israeli war crimes or breaches of international law are raised by a guest on a BBC television or radio programme, the BBC journalist will promptly add words to the effect that, ‘Israel denies that’ or ‘Israeli disputes that’. Such BBC repetition of one side’s viewpoint is rarely, if ever, seen when reporting or discussing Russia’s actions in Ukraine, for example, or more generally when addressing Moscow’s role in global affairs.

Karishma Patel, a former BBC researcher, newsreader and journalist, wrote recently about her reasons for leaving the BBC. She observed ‘a shocking level of editorial inconsistency’ in how the BBC covers Gaza. Journalists were ‘actively choosing not to follow evidence’ of Israeli war crimes ‘out of fear’.

Media Lens readers may recall the late Professor Greg Philo, head of the Glasgow Media Group, relating how he was once told by senior BBC editors that they ‘wait in fear’ for a phone call from the Israeli embassy in London whenever a news item appears on Israel or Palestine.

Patel continued:

‘Impartiality has failed if its key method is to constantly balance “both sides” of a story as equally true. A news outlet that refuses to come to conclusions becomes a vehicle in informational warfare, where bad faith actors flood social media with unfounded claims, creating a post-truth “fog”. Only robust evidence-based conclusions can cut through this.’

She described her horror at seeing images for the first time of a Palestinian man crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer, adding:

‘To see such overwhelming evidence every day and then hear 50/50 debates on Israel’s conduct – this is what created the biggest rift between my commitment to truth and the role I had to play as a BBC journalist. We have passed the point at which Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity are debatable. There’s more than enough evidence – from Palestinians on the ground, aid organisations; legal bodies – to come to coverage-shaping conclusions around what Israel has done.’

As she rightly noted, ‘truth exists’ based on reasonable, verifiable evidence:

‘In a world where claims are constantly competing, a journalist’s job is back-breaking: it is to investigate and come to conclusions, rather than setting up constant debates – no matter who this angers and no matter how much work it takes.’

A perfect example is the fake ‘debate’ over the reality of human-induced climate change. Until very recently, the BBC created a spurious ‘balance’, where none exists, hosting exchanges between highly-credentialed climate scientists and climate ‘sceptics’ often linked to fossil fuel interests.

Patel observed:

‘In 2018, the BBC issued long overdue editorial guidance to its staff, stating: “Climate change IS happening.” There was a sigh of relief from climate scientists, after years spent warning the organisation its debates were harmful. Coverage would now be rooted in this evidence-based conclusion.’

She summed up:

‘When will the BBC conclude that Israel IS violating international law, and shape its coverage around that truth? As the old saying goes, the journalist’s job isn’t to report that it may or may not be raining. It’s to look outside and tell the public if it is. And let me tell you: there’s a storm.’

The withdrawal of the Gaza documentary has been followed by ‘torrents of online harassment and abuse targeting 13-year-old Abdullah and his family’, according to MEE. Abdullah said:

‘I’ve been working for over nine months on this documentary for it to just get wiped and deleted… it was very sad to me.’

Abdullah told MEE that the whole affair has caused him serious ‘mental pressure’ and made him fear for his safety.

A BBC spokesperson claimed:

‘The BBC takes its duty of care responsibilities very seriously, particularly when working with children, and has frameworks in place to support these obligations.’

Richard Sanders pointed out that ‘more than 200 journalists have been killed by the Israelis in Gaza’. He said that it was dangerous that:

‘the team that made this [film] are effectively being smeared as Hamas accomplices. And at the heart of the story we have a vulnerable child.’

In an interview with the Sunday National newspaper in Scotland, Patel said:

‘He [Tim Davie] was talking about distrusting the entire film on the basis of this connection that the child narrator has.

‘One of the things that occurred to me is the fact that the BBC over the past 15 or 16 months has on two different occasions willingly chosen to embed with the Israeli military and to be openly subject to its censor. That was Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza quite early on and there was a Lebanese town as well, where a BBC correspondent followed the Israeli military into the town.

‘There is a lot of concern around potential influence over this documentary but there was very little public concern over our public broadcaster embedding with the Israeli military.’

In a message he addressed to the BBC, Abdullah said:

‘I did not agree to the risk of me being targeted in any way before the documentary was broadcasted on the BBC. So [if] anything happens to me, the BBC is responsible for it.’

Artists for Palestine UK, who organised the letter mentioned earlier with over 1,000 signatories demanding reinstatement of the film, warned that:

‘Tim Davie and Samir Shah are throwing Palestinian children under the bus.

‘BBC bosses must explain how they plan to safeguard the children who participated in the film. Their lives are in danger as Israel cuts off aid and threatens to collapse the ceasefire in Gaza. How will Britain’s public broadcaster ensure it isn’t putting a target on innocent kids’ backs?’

Abdullah finished by telling MEE that he is grateful to ‘all of those in the United Kingdom who had supported me, supported the documentary and had protested for the documentary to be put back on the BBC. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart, and continue your efforts that hopefully can and will return the movie back up on BBC. I hope that Gaza sees light again, that children of Gaza have a bright future again and everybody… sees a better future and a better tomorrow.’

He concluded by saying: ‘My wish is to study journalism [in] the United Kingdom.’

If Abdullah achieves his dream, it seems unlikely he will pursue a career in journalism with the BBC.

DC

Note. At the time of writing, ‘Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone’, can be viewed here on Rumble.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Media Lens.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Akela Lacy.

It’s great. I love it here. I mean, I wish I would have left Detroit a lot sooner, to be honest. Hate to say it like that, but it’s definitely a place where I can take care of myself a lot more. It’s a more healthier lifestyle for me here. I’ve been working, making music again. But I’m just pretty much always home with my dog.

Okay, you set me up for the one question that I really wanted to ask you today right at the beginning…I heard you have chihuahuas. I want to know about them.

One’s laying on me right now and getting pissed at me, I keep talking while she’s trying to sleep. But no, I love her, man. If anything, it keeps me disciplined, having that connection with an animal. It’s just different. I mean, she’s a little special needs in some sense. She’s got meningitis. It’s something she was born with, a brain condition. It costs a shit ton of money to keep her alive, so I’m always worried about her. She’s very needy; I can’t really leave her alone too much. I had an all-day video shoot yesterday in New York, and I literally left there at 4:00 in the morning just so I can get here around 10:00 so I can take care of her ass. It keeps me out of trouble.

There are so many negative stereotypes of small dogs, and especially Chihuahuas, but once you have one, you figure out that they’re really special.

Yeah. Ditto, she’s a hairless chihuahua, so she’s a quarter Frenchy too; that’s probably why she has this brain condition. That’s not something you’re supposed to be fucking with, breeding and all that kind of shit. But she’s making me rub her belly now, so she’s all right.

There’s a lot of musings on Detroit on your new record that seem pretty specific and pretty poignant. Has that been a result of moving somewhere new? What’s changed for you?

No, the album was done before I moved here. But I mean, when I first moved down here, I lived downtown and was going out and partying a lot, which ended up with my ass being in rehab. Now I live up north in the suburbs. It’s more family-oriented up here, so it’s kind of quiet, and it’s peaceful. I live right across the street from a church, so it’s just really peaceful over here.

Congratulations on, what is it now, more than six months of sobriety?

Thank you. I mean, I don’t need no credit for it. I guess I can be proud of it, but I shouldn’t have had myself in that predicament in the first place.

That’s a mature perspective. Watching the last few episodes of your podcast, it seems you talk about it really openly. Have you found that there’s something important to you about discussing your sobriety with people?

In rehab, I really connected with one of the counselors there. We was talking and he was like, “You have a platform. A lot of people really look up to you, so you can help a lot of people. And that helping people is helping yourself in sobriety in some sense.” So I really hear him always telling me that, because he would say that a lot. “You get out of here and make sure you help somebody else, man.”

And I get messages all the time from people telling me how much it’s starting to make them look at their situations, and wanting to take the steps to get help. I feel like maybe this is my calling in life in a sense, to be that person. I guess a lot of people see me go through it—and it’s easier to take advice from somebody when you know they do it, than somebody just preaching to you, telling you certain shit. But people have seen me at my lowest.

I just want to help people. That’s really where I’m at in life right now, with music or with me talking about sobriety, you know? Whatever I can do. People send me messages all the time because I tell them on the podcast, “You need somebody to talk to.” I get so many messages from random people, and I answer them all. I talk to everybody. It’s one thing to be sober for yourself, but now I feel like I’m being sober for all these people. So for me to fuck up, it’s like I’m fucking up in front of the world and not just me or my family, which is bad enough. But now it’s like, I don’t want to let these people down. I don’t want to let myself down, but it’ll just keep me really walking that straight and narrow line. So I don’t play. I don’t do nothing that would even jeopardize it. I put that shit over anything.

You said something about that in a recent episode of your podcast that I thought was particularly meaningful, because it’s something a lot of people worry about that’s hard to put into words – how an artist might be afraid that if you get clean, you won’t be able to make art anymore. Was that one of the major considerations that you had before you made that decision for yourself?

Yeah. But I realized it’s just in me, to be honest. I made music for years before I even was getting fucked up like that. It took some time for me to be able to feel comfortable doing it sober, but now I’m having more fun than ever with it. I think I’m better than ever, to be honest. I think, if anything, me getting fucked up was just making it worse. It’s a blessing that I was able to make what I was making being fucked up. It’s almost like an injured player still out there having a good game. Now I feel like I’m healthy, and like I said, I feel like I’m better than ever now. Because before, when you fucked up and shit, you’re just like, “Let me just get this shit over with so I can go do what I want to do.” But now it’s like I’m actually enjoying the process of just making shit and being creative.

Are you excited to get out and play more shows with this new perspective?

Yeah. I mean, I’ve been doing a tour with Peggy, the Scaring the Hoes Tour, and it’s just like a newfound love for that. Before I would be onstage and I’d just be worried about the after party type shit, you know? It’s gotten to the point where it’s almost like a therapy for me to be onstage—that energy of seeing people have a good time, seeing them have fun and be happy and shit, it made me start to have fun and be happy. So it was like the bright spot of my day was to be able to go onstage, where before it’d be something I’d be dreading and getting fucked up just to do it. And now, without the drugs and the alcohol and everything, it’s like my drug and alcohol is to be onstage and performing. So yeah, I’m excited about that, because it is fun. It’s fun to do it.

Another thing you talk about on the new record is getting older. What’s the biggest thing you’re noticing at this point about what it means to gain seniority in rap, or what it means to be the age you’re at now and still making music with all the experiences you’ve had?

I mean, to be honest with you, I don’t even feel any older or anything like that. I feel like hip-hop always kept me young in some sense. But I never really had a chance to grow up – I mean, I never really worked too many jobs or had adult problems or concerns. I literally do the same things I did when I was 16. I just play video games and rap and buy clothes.

As far as me and the seniority thing, I love to give younger artists advice and stuff for them not to make the same mistakes I made, and just teach them how to deal with it—which I’m still learning myself. Because the biggest deal with me is, I just can’t handle fame. It’s uncomfortable for me. I feel like I did a lot of self-sabotaging to keep myself as close to myself as I can. So maybe that has a lot to do with why I don’t go out a lot, too. I love people to come up and talk and take pictures and stuff, but I’m also still uncomfortable about it.

I’d love to hear more about the process of writing this record. Had it been in the works for a long time?

Yeah. I wrote it during the pandemic, so I was pretty much just alone, and I had nothing. I wasn’t working, I wasn’t doing anything, so I would just be in the crib by myself… I mean, I felt like that was the only way to stop me from fucking going crazy as fuck, you know? That’s when everything was ramping up; I didn’t really care about myself at that moment. Even though the music don’t reflect that, it was almost like me losing all hope type shit. But I don’t know, it’s my form of therapy, if anything. That was the way I was able to get out what I was feeling. Because as a man sometimes, hanging around my homies and shit all the time, they don’t be emotional like that, talking to each other and shit. If anything, if I was sitting around crying about my problems to them, they’d be like, “Motherfucker, you know what I’m going through? Everybody got problems.” So that was the only way I could really get it out.

Now that it’s done and just about to be shipped out to people, how does all that make you feel? Like, “Phew, now I’m in a much better mood and I’m ready to put this out”? Or do you feel like this record getting out and into everyone’s hands is going to cause you to reflect, or even revisit some of that sadness?

Before, when I was getting fucked up and everything, I would always put so much pressure on myself and be so stressed out. I couldn’t sleep, and would be using and shit, and getting fucked up just to escape all that shit. But to be honest, I just haven’t been thinking about it! At this point in my career, I just feel like it’s a blessing that people are still interested in hearing what I’m doing. Every now and again, when I’m in bed and I can’t sleep, then it’ll come to me and I’ll just get the fucking anxiety. But I’ve just been living like it don’t exist, to be honest. And then I go to do some work for it, and that’s when it remind me like, “Oh, you got an album.”

I’m confident in it. I feel like I put my best foot forward. So maybe that has a lot to do with it too, where before, putting out a lot of those albums in the past, it was always such an experimental leap from the last one. I’d be like, “Man, I hope people like this shit.” Where now it’s like I’ve tested the product so much, I kind of know. You know what I’m saying? There’s going to be people that don’t like it, going to be people that like it. I’m able to accept that criticism way better now than before, I think. Just a more mature outlook on how subjective music is, you know?

What were you listening to while you were writing?

I mean, to be honest, I wasn’t listening to anything. I was bitter. I wasn’t listening to music. I didn’t listen to music for some years. I just now started back getting into loving just listening to music and shit. I mean, I would hear shit—I’d be at the studio and shit, the homies, we would hang out, we would play shit and listen to shit. But in my personal time, if I was at home, I wouldn’t be listening to music. And if I was, I would be listening to like… jazz. I’d just have my Amazon player and I’d be like, “Just play jazz,” and I don’t even know what it’s playing. And it’d just be playing some shit. And I’d look every now and then, I’m like, “Oh, okay. It’s Ornette Coleman.” But I was listening to jazz at that time.

That’s real. I think that’s another one of those things that people don’t really talk about—when you work in music or when you work with music, by the time you get home or by the time a project is done, you just want to put on a podcast about World War II that’s seven hours long.

That’s what it was, too—a lot of podcasts in my life. That’s probably why I’m doing it now and shit. But I was listening to podcasts more than I was listening to music at that time.

Speaking of podcasts, it feels like a really unexpected but perfect fit for you to have a show. It’s always been strange to me why more musicians don’t try that, once you’ve been on the other side of the interview and you know how weird it can be having someone firing questions at you and putting you on the spot. How did your show come about?

Me and Tom [Segura] used to talk a lot. He always used to be like, “You should be on podcasts.” And I was like, “Man, anybody can set a fucking camera up in a room and say they have a podcast.” But when I went to do it with him, he had a full staff, a studio. They would be in there working hard. So I would be like, “Man, if I do it, I would do it with you more than anything.” But they was in LA at the time, and I was in Detroit and I wasn’t having any intentions of going to LA and doing anything.

And then I was dating a girl here in Austin. I was coming here a lot, going back and forth from here to Detroit because me and her was getting more serious. Then one day [Tom] was like, “We moving to Austin. We moving everything to Austin. We about to be out there now.” And a light bulb went off like, “Fuck it, I’m moving to Austin too then.” We started working on the podcast that day. It took years before we even shot the first episode. I was already here, I want to say, a year and a half before we even started filming for it, almost three years ago. And we’ve been doing it for a year now.

With that—even though you’ve said you’re dealing with the imminent release of the album by not really thinking about it too much—while you’ve been doing interviews for it, is there anything people aren’t really asking you about Quaranta that you wish they would pick up on?

For the most part… I think this album is the most musical, the production bit. It’s not just weird-ass beats or traditionalist boom bap hip-hop shit. This is the most live instrumentation shit of an album I’ve done. I don’t think no one really said anything like that.

Is that something you’re going to want to do more of in the future?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, sampling shit is fun, but paying for it… you know? If you can get with people that can make this shit sound like samples, then it’s just better on my pockets.

It also probably opens up your options. I’m just thinking about you being in Austin now, there’s so many bands down there that I’m sure would love to.

I know. I need to meet more instrumentalists, motherfuckers that play instruments. But I feel like it’ll happen when it needs to happen. But yeah, definitely I’m putting more live instruments into my production.

If you could talk back to your 30-year-old self putting out XXX from where you are today, what would you want to say? What would be the big thing you would tell your younger self from where you are now, in this moment?

To be happy and not stress about it. Because I think back then in general with my career, I never had the chance to embrace it and feel happy or feel proud of myself. So I guess in my sobriety, I’m realizing how blessed I am, to be honest.

I always felt like one bad album, one bad mistake and everything was going to be over with in a flash. Almost because I felt like I got on at such a late time—and so I was bitter. I wish I just would’ve been happy for myself instead of coming with this attitude like the game owe me something, because it didn’t. And the fact that I got on at such a late age, I would’ve told myself I need to work five times harder than the young guys, instead of feeling like everything was owed to me because it took so long for it to happen, and people didn’t respect how talented I was. Because don’t nobody owe me shit. So yeah, I would tell myself to be proud, because I was never proud of myself or never felt like I made it—but in all actuality, I did.

I just have a whole new outlook on it. Like I said, during this album, I didn’t even know if I would be alive to see it come out. I was pretty much in a suicidal stage. I didn’t care about myself. I was killing myself to live in some sense. And seeing the fact that I made it out of that, I feel like I don’t own it. This is a god-given talent, so who am I to say when I’m going to stop? It’s when He wants me to stop, it’ll stop, you know? As long as I’m blessed to be able to come up and do songs and write music, I’m going to do it.

Now, I want to make music to make people feel happy, because before, it was like a therapy and trauma dump, you know? And now I want to make music to make people feel happy or inspired. In some sense, I’m cleaning up the mess I made; where a younger kid probably heard songs I did before, and it probably made them experiment with drugs because they heard me rap about it and now they think it’s cool, now it’s just cleaning up my mess with that. Instead of people hearing my music and getting sad, I want them to hear my music now and be happy and dance—escape their problems, and not have to hear mine.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Meredith Graves.

Until recently, a close confidante of former US President Donald Trump and his pro-Israel circle, Haley wants to be the next United States president. On February 14, she officially declared her candidacy and, starting February next year, she will be officially competing against her former bosses in the Republican primaries.

It is true that her popularity among Republican Party supporters hovers between 3-4 percent, but Haley still feels that she stands to win, if she plays her cards right. Though a victory in a party that is neither keen on women nor minority politicians, she has enough success stories to give her the needed confidence.

“Even on our worst day, we are blessed to live in America,” Haley said in her campaign launch video. Though such a statement may appear somewhat typical by US politicians on such occasions, Haley’s statement carries hidden, if not troubling, insinuations.

Haley considers her life a testament to the ahistorical claim that “America is not a racist country”, a chant she led to the cheers of thousands of her supporters at her first campaign rally on February 15 in Charleston, South Carolina.

For Republicans, the Haley profile is critical because it is uncommon. They understand that a Black candidate will not perform well among their constituency or that of the Democratic Party. Still, they desperately need any ‘person of color’ who would appeal to disenchanted minority voters, if that candidate reaffirms the pre-existing beliefs of most Republicans: that America is a great country free of racism and inequality, with many dangerous foreign enemies and that Israel is its most trusted ally. Haley, for years, has enthusiastically played that part.

“I was the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. Not Black. Not White. I was different,” she said. This seemingly innocuous statement has served as Haley’s central message in her political career since she left her family’s Exotica International clothing business in 2011 to run for the Governor’s office in South Carolina, and won.

In 2017, Haley’s success story continued. She became the US Ambassador to the UN. This position has historically been far more relevant to Israeli interests rather than the US’, because the UN is one of a few international platforms in which Palestinians and their supporters attempt, though often in vain, to hold Israel accountable for its illegal practices in occupied Palestine.

For decades, the US has opposed any attempt by Arab and other countries to punish Israel for its military occupation and continued human rights violations in Palestine. The dozens of vetoes used by the US to block any attempt at condemning Israeli colonialism or war crimes at the UN Security Council only tell part of the story.

Within the relatively short span of two years of diplomacy that catered mostly to serve Israel, Haley managed to successfully help in the blocking of US funding of the UN Palestine Refugees Agency (UNRWA). She also engineered her country’s exit from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) due to its criticism of Israel.

She is also credited for being part of the decision that led to the US’ abrupt withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and was a crucial member of the Trump team behind the so-called ‘Deal of the Century’, which has ultimately fizzled into empty rhetoric.

Now Haley is hoping to cash in – literally – on her dedication to Israel and to her country’s hawkish foreign policy in the Middle East. One claim that she has repeatedly made to her donors, who consist mostly of pro-Israeli billionaires, is that she has kept all the promises she made to Israel at the 2017 AIPAC conference. Indeed, she has.

Her performance at the lobby group’s annual policy conference ‘thrilled the crowd’, the Times of Israel then reported. In her speech, Haley, intoxicated by the political potential of winning standing ovations from 18,000 AIPAC conference attendees, declared herself a “new sheriff in town”, who will make sure that “the days of Israel-bashing at the UN are over.”

As far as Israel was concerned, the sheriff delivered, ushering in Israel’s golden age at the UN, and forging lasting friendships between Haley and top Israeli officials and donors.

Haley became a “source of pride for hawkish supporters of Israel for leading the fight against anti-Israel resolutions,” the Jewish weekly newspaper, the Forward, wrote on February 14.

Notably, a four-second footage in Haley’s campaign launch video was in Israel, specifically near the fence with besieged Gaza. Walking alongside her is the former Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon. While at the UN, they developed a “unique working relationship – and a lasting friendship”, the Forward reported, citing Danon, currently a member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.

Significantly, the former Israeli ambassador believes that if “Haley was running for president in Israel she would have won easily”. Considering her poor performance among US voters, one must raise the question: why would an American presidential candidate be far more popular among Israelis than Americans?

Haley’s strategy, however, is paying dividends, at least financially. Jacob Kornbluh elaborated on the sources of funding for Haley’s super PAC, Stand for America. Much of the $17 million raised in the last election cycle came from “prominent Jewish donors”. They include Miriam Adelson, wife of late pro-Israeli casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, along with money from Paul Singers, Bernie Marcus and Daniel Loeb, among many others.

It may seem strange that such funds are invested in a candidate who has, at least for now, little chances of winning the Republican nomination, but the money is not wasted. Tel Aviv is simply rewarding Haley’s many favors, knowing that, regardless of her exact position in government, Haley will always continue to prioritize Israel’s interests in her political agenda, and, if needed, even ahead of her own country’s.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Ramzy Baroud.

Like several members of the Illinois Democratic Party Central Committee, Rep. Danny Davis pulls from two campaign coffers: a state committee and a federal one. But Davis’s state committee has far outspent those of his peers, including on itemized spending for “campaign work” as recently as last quarter.

Some of that work falls under Davis’s role as a member of the state central committee, where he works alongside Reps. Bobby Rush, Chuy Garcia, and Robin Kelly, who chairs the state party. Some is less clear cut: An ad buy from Davis’s state committee touted his federal work, and some of the same staff run Davis’s state and federal offices.

This year, Davis is up for reelection to both the state committee and his federal office, which he has held since 1997. At the federal level, the 13-term representative faces two challengers in a June 28 primary fueled by criticism over a perceived lack of urgency. While the Illinois Democrat has voted with his party on major issues and racked up progressive bona fides, his long tenure has eroded the pressure many other officials face to push for more aggressive action on the biggest issues facing Chicago, from gun violence to poverty. Some have criticized him for what they view as an out-of-touch perspective on social issues. At a forum last month hosted by a local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Davis waded into the debate over transgender people’s participation in sports, saying, “I think that women who say they’re women should play in women’s sports, women leagues; men who say they’re men should play in men’s leagues. I don’t think that women should be trying to play football with the Bears.”

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This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Akela Lacy.