Actors and TV personalities are among those signing a petition calling for the BBC to restore a documentary on Gaza that has been pulled after complaints from pro-Israel activists.
BBC presenter Gary Lineker, as well as actors Ruth Negga, Juliet Stevenson and Miriam Margolyes, were among those demanding Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone be returned to BBC iPlayer.
Pro-Israel campaigners criticised the film after it was revealed that its 14-year-old narrator was the son of a Palestinian deputy agriculture minister.
Middle East Eye reported on Thursday that Dr Ayman Alyazouri, Gaza’s deputy agriculture minister, appears to be a technocrat with a scientific background who previously worked for the United Arab Emirates government and studied at British universities.
The letter pointed out Alyazouri’s position as a civil servant and said the criticism of the documentary stemmed from “racist assumptions and weaponisation of identity”.
“This broad-brush rhetoric assumes that Palestinians holding administrative roles are inherently complicit in violence – a racist trope that denies individuals their humanity and right to share their lived experiences,” it said.
It added that the attacks on the 14-year Abdullah Alyazouri disregarded “core safeguarding principles” and said that children must not be “held responsible for the actions of adults, and weaponising family associations to discredit a child’s testimony is both unethical and dangerous”.
Initially, the BBC added a disclaimer at the beginning of the documentary following comments from pro-Israel researcher David Collier, who earlier this month claimed Palestinian identity was invented in the 20th century as a “weapon against Israel”.
Last week a group of 45 prominent Jewish journalists and members of the media, including former BBC governor Ruth Deech, further piled on pressure by sending a letter to the broadcaster demanding the film be removed from the iPlayer.
The letter referred to the minister as a “terrorist leader”. Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in Britain.
But others have defended the film itself.
Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, told MEE that the film had been pulled following pressure from “anti-Palestinian activists who have largely shown no sympathy for persons in Gaza suffering from massive bombardment, starvation, and disease.
“This documentary humanised Palestinian children in Gaza in a way that gave valuable insights into what life is like in this horrific warzone day in, day out,” he said.
