Please thank the Guardian for an excellent commentary in its March 4 edition by London mayor Ken Livingstone entitled "This is about Israel, not anti-semitism". He condemns Israeli policies against the Palestinians, supports refugees' rights and describes Ariel Sharon as a war criminal. This has caused uproar among pro-Israel lobbyists, so he should be thanked for his staunch support for human rights and justice, and the Guardian should be thanked for publishing the commentary.
Also, please complain to BBC Radio 4's Today programme for a very misleading item on illegal Jewish settlements on March 3 at 8.30am, in which Israeli Housing Minister Isaac Herzogg was allowed to speak unchallenged almost 9 times longer than Afif Safieh, Palestinian general delegate to the UK and Holy See.
Write to letters@guardian.co.uk, today@bbc.co.uk, malcolm.balen@bbc.co.uk and steve.mitchell@bbc.co.uk (head of radio news). To assess response rates, please Bcc your letters and replies (which will remain confidential) to info@arabmediawatch.com.
If you want the Guardian to consider your letter for publication, say so and provide your full name, address and contact details (the latter two will not be published).
Livingstone's commentary is at:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/gla/comment/0,9236,1430185,00.html
Extracts:
"...I opposed Israel's illegal invasion of Lebanon, culminating in the massacres at the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila."
"Israel's expansion has included ethnic cleansing. Palestinians who had lived in that land for centuries were driven out by systematic violence and terror aimed at ethnically cleansing what became a large part of the Israeli state. The methods of groups like the Irgun and the Stern gang were the same as those of the Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic: to drive out people by terror."
"Today the Israeli government continues seizures of Palestinian land for settlements, military incursions into surrounding countries and denial of the right of Palestinians expelled by terror to return. Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, is a war criminal who should be in prison, not in office. Israel's own Kahan commission found that Sharon shared responsibility for the Sabra and Shatila massacres."
"Sharon continues to organise terror. More than three times as many Palestinians as Israelis have been killed in the present conflict. There are more than 7,000 Palestinians in Israel's jails."
"To obscure these truths, those around Israel's present government have resorted to demonisation. Initial targets were Palestinians, and have now become Muslims. Take the Middle East Media Research Institute, run by a former colonel in Israeli military intelligence, which poses as a source of objective information but in reality selectively translates material from Arabic and presents Muslims and Arabs in the worst possible light."
"Today the Israeli government is helping to promote a wholly distorted picture of racism and religious discrimination in Europe, implying that the most serious upsurge of hatred and discrimination is against Jews."
"For 20 years Israeli governments have attempted to portray anyone who forcefully criticises the policies of Israel as anti-semitic. The truth is the opposite: the same universal human values that recognise the Holocaust as the greatest racist crime of the 20th century require condemnation of the policies of successive Israeli governments - not on the absurd grounds that they are Nazi or equivalent to the Holocaust, but because ethnic cleansing, discrimination and terror are immoral."
The Today item first had Safieh, who was given 40 seconds, from 20 seconds until 1 minute. He correctly stated the current number of Jewish settlers in illegal settlements on Palestinian land as 440,000.
Herzogg was then given 5 minutes 50 seconds, from 1 minute 8 seconds until 5 minutes 58 seconds. He said Safieh was making an untrue statement about the number of Jewish settlers. Herzogg claimed incorrectly that the total number of West Bank settlers was 200,000 with 120,000 in East Jerusalem.
He claimed that under the Geneva Accords, the Jerusalem settlers would be able to stay where they are, with no indication that the Israeli administration had been hostile to the Accords. This gave the wrongful impression that the Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem had some sort of legitimacy.
He also misled the audience on the current level of construction of settlements and settlement expansion in the West Bank, claiming this is only a very small number of contracts that are currently being finished. Recent and current visitors to the West Bank report that settlement construction is highly visible and ongoing.
The BBC presenter gave further credibility to Herzogg by saying she had heard he was a likely contender for future premiership of Israel.
You can listen again by going to www.bbc.co.uk/today and clicking on "listen again".
The most accurate statistics on the number of settlers can be checked with the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, which undertook a major and very detailed report in May 2002. They listed the history of the number of Jewish settlers, and the number of settlers in each settlement. It stated that there were 380,000 settlers, and since then there has been massive settlement building activity.
Israeli Jewish peace activist Jeff Halper, of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), confirmed the number of Jewish settlers in lectures.
The telephone details of Bt'selem is (Israel) (02) 6735599, their email address is mail@btselem.org You can ask them for a copy of their 2002 report entitled "Land Grab". Alternatively, you can look for a summary of the report on www.btselem.org/English/Publications/Summaries/Land_Grab_2002.asp
ICAHD have a UK office and can be contacted on 07906 201 574.
The complaints are as follows:
Firstly, in a BBC programme on such a contentious area, the presenter should have first looked at reliable statistics from a respected organisation and been fully informed on the issue of the number of Jewish settlers living on occupied Palestinian land before conducting the interview. She should also have been aware of the UN Security Council resolutions that relate to settlements so that she could refute inaccuracies that were presented by either side.
Secondly, Safieh was not given the right of reply to Herzogg after the Israeli Housing Minister accused him of not giving accurate statistics.
Thirdly, Herzogg had 8.7 times more time than Safieh.
Fourthly, the BBC presenter, by flattering Herzogg, gave further credibility to his statements.