The BBC’s refusal to broadcast a humanitarian appeal for Gaza on behalf of a group of charities is motivated by a desire to appease US advertisers for its commercial TV channel and website, and by Mark Thompson’s own political proclivities.
This channel relies heavily on advertisers from the United States who we understand have told the BBC in no uncertain terms that they would advertise with it only if the corporation changed its editorial line on the Arab-Israeli conflict in favour of Israel.
Related to this is the decision by the BBC to introduce advertising on its news website for users outside the UK, bbc.com. Although this had been in the planning since at least 2000, it was introduced only in November 2007. However, we understand that throughout this period BBC executives argued that the corporation must make further changes to its coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict in order to insure that it is on the right side of US advertisers when bbc.com goes commercial.
The first time I met Al Jazeera’s Gaza team lead, Tamer Almisshal, was in July last...
