‘Why Are You Laughing?’: Question Time Guest Melanie Phillips Denies Famine In Gaza, Cites ‘YouTube Videos’
Times columnist Melanie Phillips was laughed down by BBC Question Time’s audience after she pointed to “video pictures” she’d seen on YouTube that showed “food markets in Gaza” were “stocked” in denial of official reports of famine.
Phillips’ remarks came in a heated back and forth with Scottish National Party Westminster leader Stephen Flynn, requiring host Fiona Bruce to intervene in an attempt to challenge some of the writer’s claims.
Phillips: “What’s happening in Gaza is indeed a tragedy. War is terrible. Civilians are killed. But what Stephen has just said is so distorted and so untrue. Let me just take you through one or two points that he has said. He says that the Gazans are being denied by Israel access to food and humanitarian supplies. This is completely untrue. There have been hundreds and hundreds of trucks going through Gaza. There have been hundreds of trucks stopped from going through Gaza because the food is being stolen by Hamas. The Gazans themselves are saying this.”
[Audience laughter]
Phillips [cont’d]: You laugh because you don’t know. I am telling you.
Bruce: “Hang on. Melanie, in fairness, the UN says that not enough trucks are being allowed in and that… Children are dying of salvation. You’ve got UNICEF saying children are dying of salvation.”
Phillips: “The UN has had its own operatives in UNRWA, the Relief and Welfare Organisation, who are members of Hamas, dozens and dozens of them. They are entirely compromised.”
Bruce: “OK, so just a minute, and I’ll let you speak, I promise, but just to be clear what you’re saying, when you’ve got the WHO and the UN and the EU humanitarian chiefs saying there is famine in Gaza, you’re saying that’s not true? Is that what you’re claiming?”
Phillips: “You can go on YouTube… and see pictures of the stocked food markets in Gaza. Why are you laughing? Because it’s outrageous. Have you seen them?
[Audience laughter]
Phillips [cont’d]: “Why are [the audience] laughing? Have you seen these video pictures?”
Bruce: “Melanie, I have looked at some of them. They don’t have timestamps on them. I’ve got to point that out. So I don’t know when these pictures were taken. I mean, if you have proof that they were taken [since] October…”
Flynn: “If you want to look at pictures, Melanie, I’m quite happy to send you some pictures and videos of civilians being bombed and slaughtered…”
A general backlash both preluded and followed the right-wing columnist’s appearance on the show. Phillips, who writes for The Times and The Jerusalem Post. She is author of several books, including the 2006 Londonistan, which critiques growing Islamism in the UK.
Several voices within British media were shocked and unhappy with Phillips inclusion due to her views.
Journalist Monisha Rajesh criticised the BBC for providing a platform to “one of the most Islamophobic, hateful columnists in existence.”
Byline Times’ political editor Adam Bienkov mused how Phillips was invited on panel the day that Secretary Michael Gove unveiled his new definition of extremism, noting Phillips influence on Norwegian neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Bering Breivik, whose manifesto cited her work before his 2011 attack, killing 77.
