GMB and Sky let shameless war crimes apologists spout propaganda, as government and Labour are threatened with legal action over support for Israel

Madeley and Hotovely Israel Gaza


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Corporate television in the UK on Monday 16 October was a shameless display of apologists for Israeli war crimes in Gaza. From a host of breakfast television to the Israeli ambassador to the UK, there was repeated and inflammatory dismissal of Israel’s war crimes and attempted genocide against the Palestinian people.

However, this wasn’t going on without reaction – one organisation has now threatened criminal proceedings against the UK government and the Labour Party for doing similar.

Madeley: shamelessly invoking WWII

First, Good Morning Britain (GMB) host Richard Madeley stooped to new lows during a segment on the ongoing chaos in the Middle East. He posited over Israel’s genocide in Gaza that:

When they invaded Europe in 1944 and defeated the Nazis by going into Germany and in doing so… a lot of German civilians were killed. But nobody at the time made any excuses or apologies for that. They just saw that as a necessary evil. Is that a fair parallel?

Co-host Susanna Reid clearly saw the problem with this – as she immediately said that she thought we’d “moved on, haven’t we, from those times”. The guests didn’t seem to agree with Madeley’s comparison, either:

In case you needed to know what the problems were with Madeley’s comparison of Nazi Germany during WWII and Israel committing human rights atrocities in Gaza, people on X pointed them out.

Madeley’s ignorance of the history of international law wasn’t lost on some people:

 

Ultimately, as one person pointed out – and as the Canary has documented – commentators and politicians in the West have been actively endorsing Israel’s attempted genocide of Palestinian people in Gaza:

So, with that in mind – enter the Israeli ambassador to the UK on Sky News to double down on genocide apologism.

Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely

Tzipi Hotovely is the right-wing Israeli ambassador to the UK. When Burley asked for her view on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Hotovely said:

There is no humanitarian crisis

Burley questioned this, and Hotovely doubled down. The host once again pressed Hotovely, saying Sky News had shown the humanitarian crisis in Gaza on the show. So, Hotovely deflected, saying:

Are you a mother… What would you think if your children would have been executed in front of your eyes? Would you expect your government to think about those Nazis committing those crimes and say ‘wait a second, first of all we need to protect the enemy, and then to protect my children’. Your children come as priority to your prime minister.

Hotovely’s response to Burley repeating that Sky News showed the humanitarian crisis was to tell her to “blame Hamas”:

It’s hard to know where to begin with what Hotovely said. X reacted furiously:

People pointed to her “shameless” questioning of whether Burley was a mother:

X users also felt that Burley gave Hotovely an easy ride:

Hotovely’s far-right, inflammatory, and manipulative comments are not a surprise. As the Canary previously reported, during a Newsnight interview on Wednesday 11 October she claimed:

40 bodies of babies that their heads were cut off… we’ve seen… the bodies of those babies and children, and actually this is evidence-based.

We now know there was no ‘evidence base’ to the claim – but Hotovely chose to claim it, anyway. This has been a running theme during Israel’s onslaught into Gaza – with politicians like Tory minister Grant Shapps, Labour leader Keir Starmer, and Labour front bencher Emily Thornberry all effectively laying cover for Israel to commit war crimes.

Complicity in Israel’s Gaza war crimes may lead to prosecution

However, the UK-based International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) announced on Saturday 14 October that it believed the UK government was complicit in Israeli war crimes due to its support – and that it would prosecute it if needed. Bear in mind, also, that the ICJP isn’t some ‘woke, lefty’ group. One of its leaders is the right-wing Tory MP Crispin Blunt.

Now, the ICJP has also issued a formal warning to the Labour Party over its support for Israel’s actions in Gaza, too:

It specifically called out Starmer and Thornberry, as well as shadow foreign secretary David Lammy:

Of course, the likelihood of the ICJP getting a successful prosecution is slim. However, they are shining a light on what Western politicians and the media are doing by fuelling war crimes via the spread of propaganda and disinformation.

You might think that would be enough for this despicable whitewashing campaign to cease. Clearly not, though – as broadcast television in the UK has shown.

Featured image via Good Morning Britain – YouTube and Sky News – YouTube

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  • Show Comments

    1. Hotovely’s far-right hatred of Palestinians is nothing new.
      This is the sort of fascist rhetoric that our politicians are falling over themselves to support.
      That’s why tens of thousands of us demonstrated on the streets last Saturday to support the rights of Palestinian people and to oppose the dehumanising propaganda being pumped out by the Israeli state and their supporters in the UK media.

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    2. Please everyone and all do not watch MSM news outlets. Racist bullshitters like Hotovely get an easy ride whilst any Palestinian representative or sympathiser is hauled over the coals. Been that way for years on MSM and it ain’t going to change. Don’t watch. Don’t fund. Don’t listen either.

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    3. The references to WWII appear to be historically uninformed at best. With the development of air power capable of dropping high explosives on relatively undefendable cities, there was an enormous amount of public debate and fear in the UK from the 1920s. By the start of WWII in 1939, the British government had stated that attacking civilian areas was immoral and would not be a war fighting tactic. Of course, that changed so that by the end of the war in 1945, Britain was routinely levelling German towns and cities for no particular war aim other than that we had the capability to do so. But there was, during the war, a lot of public debate about how moral this was and whether it was justified.

      From my perspective, I see the Palestinian people as roughly equivalent to the resistance movements in Europe during that war. Mostly, they targeted uniformed German (and German-allied) soldiers and military installations, transport and so on. They did not, so far as I know, kill the families of German troops. But this appears to be part of the tactics of Hamas, and it is certainly a war crime and to be condemned. Hamas’s goals are mostly not those I can support.

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      1. @Airlane1979 : “. They did not, so far as I know, kill the families of German troops. But this appears to be part of the tactics of Hamas, and it is certainly a war crime and to be condemned.”

        Wouldn’t that be because German occupying troops were unlikely to have their families with them ?

        As for Hamas – we should look carefully at those who are telling us things about Hamas – the same people who gave us the propaganda lies such as “Hamas killed 40 babies” – as endorsed by Biden, who claimed to have seen photos of something that even the Israelis say they have no record of.

        Its been suggested on the Moon Of Alabama site that after Hamas broke through, they were followed by a lot of basically angry non-Hamas Palestinians looking for a bit of revenge, looting, etc, and that things done by them are being credited to Hamas. Other reports, including from Israelies, state that Hamas fighters have been generally more even-handed with civilians.

        But also, as I’ve stated before, the dividing line between civilians and military in Israel is a very unclear one – many, probably most, civilians have been in the military at one time, many are still reservists. Shooting a military-trained civilian who is trying to shoot you puts a different perspective on things.

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