"There's No Hunger In Gaza"

The BBC Radio 4 Today programme were discussing Gaza and all three voices were.... not Palestinian. Of all the creeds and colours, BBC Today appears to serve up limited parameters of presentation.

“There's No Hunger In Gaza”, stated Israeli spokesman David Mencer. The BBC have seemingly embraced the concept of DIE, Diversity, Inclusivity and Equity, but the other day, it was certainly not three Palestinians on the BBC R4 Today flagship news programme. Of course, noticing risks accusation of anti-you know whatism.

Funnily enough, there is also the ex-BBC news show on LBC, owned by Global, called The News Agents which also features two not Palestinians Jon Sopel and Emily Maitlis. Their third colleague Lewis Goodall is married to Tone Langengen, a Senior Policy Advisor at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), significantly involved in net-zero initiatives. They all hate Brexit, Donald Trump and Reform UK, but I digress.

You require a license to access, but for the record….
BBC Radio 4 Today 14.05.2025
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002c35h
At about 8.12am, 2 hr 12 mins. in, Nick Dick Dobbyson Robinson introduced David Mencer, a former director of Labour Friends of Israel, a self-described ‘communications specialist’, and as of March 2024 an Israeli Government Spokesman. He was, perhaps still is, a member of Labour Friends Of Israel, so I’m not sure if he’s English or Israeli or of duel citizenship. The conversation was extraordinary, though as we’ve become used to, expected by now.
‘Israeli Government Spokesman for the National Public Diplomacy Directorate in the Office of the Prime Minister. Proud to serve my people and my country’:
https://x.com/DavidMencer
Dobby: The UN and aid agencies say there is a risk of famine in Gaza. Does the Israeli government dispute that fact or is it a consequence of a war the Israelis need to fight?
Mencer: We don’t dispute there is hunger in Gaza, but it is hunger caused by Hamas.
Ned Note: Mencer immediately references the 07 Oct. massacre. The BBC never refer to the reports that Israel killed it’s own people that day too, as recorded by Israeli media.
They Did It Themselves
https://nedpamphilon.substack.com/p/they-did-it-themselves
Israel’s goals are specific and non-negotiable: all hostages must come home, Hamas stripped of its military and political power and Gaza can no longer be a launchpad for terror against his country. We must make sure 07 Oct. never happens again. This war is not about territory, it’s about removing a genocidal death cult.
Ned Note: Of course it’s about territory and this is the pot calling the kettle black.
Dobby: The cause of the hunger is the blockade of food aid, which according to your Defense Minister Israel Katz, is ‘The main pressure lever against Hamas’. It’s an Israeli government decision to deny food aid.
Mencer: Israel is certainly not starving Gaza. Hamas is profiting from the aid while the UN, despite the nice words of Tom Fletcher there (Part of Fletcher’s speech to the UN was broadcast earlier), looks the other way. There is food in Gaza. During the last ceasefire pause, over 25,000 food aid trucks went in, even today markets are open in Gaza, so there is food, there is no famine…
Dobby: It’s something like €50 to buy some tomatoes, so food only for those who are wealthy and looting is taking place because there is so little food, so if you want looting to stop, deliver food to Gaza.
Mencer: We are working on such a plan with our American allies, but let me correct you. Hamas is looting and selling the aid. They’re taxing it, diverting it to terrorists. Our US allies have devised a new mechanism designed to by-pass Hamas. The UN are refusing to cooperate because, as UNRWA was effectively doing, they want Hamas to stay in business. There’s no hunger in Gaza, it’s hunger because Hamas have created that hunger…
Ned Note: There is no hunger, but there is hunger?
… there’s a hunger of truth.
Dobby: We’ve seen pictures of a child starving, severely malnourished, because of the absence of basic humanitarian aid… you can blame Hamas and 07 Oct., but the immediate cause is no deliveries of aid.
Ned Note: The story of Siwar Ashour
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjdznz727z8o
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/11/there-is-suffering-everywhere-you-look-says-mother-of-emaciated-baby-girl-trapped-in-gaza
Mencer: That baby, which you’ve named, is a political PR tool of Hamas. The US has proposed a new aid mechanism designed to by-pass Hamas…
Dobby: That baby’s a starving child. Of course, it may be being used as propaganda… we can’t make our own decisions because you refuse to allow journalists to go into Gaza to film things for themselves. The reality is the child is starving. Why not allow aid in?
Mencer: The US is working on a plan to allow aid in. Our assessment is there is still aid in Gaza, but when it comes to the media, our priority is getting hostages out, not sending journalists in. Hamas control everything, every media image that comes out of Gaza, so real journalists enter with the IDF. Hamas journalists, unfortunately, never leave. Many of these so-called journalists in Gaza are Hamas operatives wearing Press vests… check their social media, it’s full of praise for…
Dobby: As much as I’d like your advise on journalism, I’ll stick to my job and you stick to yours. I think the BBC knows how to judge real journalists from not real journalists…
Ned Note: Hilarious. Dobby the real journalist!
Dobby: Let’s focus on what matters here…
Mercer: This is an important point. You talk about the veracity of journalists, the importance of journalist, which for us as a free country very much recognise. Isn’t it now time for the BBC as journalists to recognise, to call Hamas what they are, as terrorists, as your government does…
Dobby: Is this a neat way to try to change the subject Mr. Mercer…
Mercer: No, no, no, no…
Dobby: You’re a skilled propagandist and we know what you’re doing…
Mercer: You’re a skilled journalist… let me give you the opportunity Nick to call Hamas a terrorists organisation, break with the powers that be, that sit upstairs from you right now, and say right now that Hamas is a terrorist organisation.
Dobby: It’s an enjoyable game for you Mr. Mercer. It’s not for people who worry about starvation…
Mercer: You set the agenda, the BBC sets the agenda…
Dobby: Israel Katz says, ‘The main pressure lever against Hamas’. Bezalel Smotrich the Finance Minister said, and I quote, ‘Gaza will be entirely destroyed’. Can you say this morning, on behalf of the Israeli Prime Minister for whom you speak, that the starvation of people in Gaza is not deliberate policy by Israel to win the war?
Mencer: Why on earth would Israel have sent in 1.8 million tons of aid, enough to fill Wembley Stadium, why would we do that if, as the accusation that you’re making against me? Look, we’re facing a moral paradox, it is a broad government, Benjamin Netanyahu sets policy and I can share with you right now that Israel faces a moral paradox, it’s been created by Hamas. We have an opportunity to strike every military target, but when we do, we get condemned. Or we don’t strike them and we reward the use of human shields. Hamas are deliberately embedding its commanders underneath hospitals knowing that any Israeli airstrike, however legal or precise, will generate headlines as they have on your programme Today, which they can weaponise. It’s textbook case of asymmetric warfare, the idea being that Israel is punished for acting and Hamas is rewarded for hiding.
Dobby: Can I ask you about your Prime Minister then, because he has said the military will enter Gaza with full force to complete the operation of destroying Hamas. How soon will there be an escalation in the military assault and, I ask you for clarity, is the view inside the PM’s office, that any level of civilian casualty is a price that will have to be paid?
Mencer: Again, that’s an accusation I do not accept in any form.
Dobby: It’s a question.
Mencer: The PM has confirmed that with the release of our latest hostage, we’ve sent a delegation for negotiations in Doha. They’re there on the basis of the original Witkoff framework. Israel has accepted it. Hamas, unfortunately, the terrorist organisation, has refused to accept it. The reason we received our hostage in the last couple of days is because we put this military threat onto Hamas. Now when Hamas, who are a genocidal death cult, don’t care about Gazans, they only wish more were killed. Hamas hate to lose ground. When Hamas refused to release hostages, we increased the pressure. This war will end when Hamas are no longer in power, they leave Gaza and our hostages are back.
Dobby: Thank you for joining us. Listening to that, our international editor, Jeremy Bowen…

About 8.23am Bowen explains the last hostage deal was done because America spoke directly with Hamas. Israel was not involved in those negotiations. Bowen reiterates that Hamas killed 1,200 people on 07 Oct., and took 221 hostages. He also states Netanyahu wants the war to go to avoid his corruption trial.

I recall Piers Morgan questioning the extent of the devastation in Palestine.

So, 3 not-Palestinians gave us analysis on the genocide of Palestinians. Now to the weather and climate change…. I jest.

David Mencer referenced the speech at the UN by Tom Fletcher. Later the same day at 5pm BBC R4 PM mentioned David Mencer being on the morning’s Today programme and broadcast the speech by Tom Fletcher in full. It’s over 12 minutes. Rarely have I heard the 1 hour flagship evening news programme PM broadcast a speech for 12 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002c36g

Additional reference
Worse than AIPAC
https://x.com/RyLiberty/status/1900818572546633781

-o0o-

As a wag once said,
‘The artist must go very far, so that the ordinary man will go far enough. Arsenal!’
‘There are few things more dishonourable than misleading the young.’
Thomas Sowell
Yurtta Barış Dünyada Barış : Peace At Home, Peace İn The World… if only.
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