The brand new By Vicky Smith newsletter
Welcome to my first newsletter and thanks for signing up! This will be a place to delve deeper into the big weekly stories.
Why the media cannot agree on calling Hamas a terror group
On Saturday Hamas (the terror organisation that governs Gaza) launched a horrific terrorist attack on Israel, killing and kidnapping civilians including women, children and elderly people. It was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, said US President Joe Biden.
Images and video have emerged of people fleeing in terror from a music festival as gunmen opened fire on festival-goers.
The Israeli military has been going town to town since the attack launched, pushing back Hamas fighters and finding bodies of civilians killed in their own homes.
So far the death toll in Israel is over 1,200 people. And at least 150 hostages, including children, have been taken into Gaza.
The response from the Israelis has been to declare a “complete siege” on Gaza. This means Palestinians living in the cramped and overcrowded Gaza Strip are experiencing bombings and their electricity has been cut off. Generators in hospitals are running out of fuel.
More than 1,300 people living in Gaza have been killed since the weekend. Many buildings, including homes, have been destroyed.
There is a human cost on both sides that is utterly devastating.
The UK government calls Hamas a terror organisation
The US government calls Hamas a terror organisation.
The BBC is calling Hamas a militant group.
For this the BBC is being heavily criticised by papers such as the Telegraph and Mail, as well as members of the Conservative Cabinet. While Labour hasn’t been outwardly critical of the BBC, Sir Keir Starmer is referring to the attack as a terrorist act.
Critics say to not refer to Hamas’ actions in Israel as terror is ignoring the facts. And for the most extreme critics they say it legitimises Hamas’s actions.
The BBC says not directly calling the Israeli assault a terror attack is part of the corporation’s need to avoid bias in its reporting.
It states that it is quoting sources calling the tragedy in Israel a terror attack, and that ultimately it is down to the viewer or reader to make up their own minds about what this was.
What is occurring in Israel and Gaza has been at the top of the news agenda all week. Understandably so, the scale of human suffering has been horrific.
But for those in Israel and Gaza that human suffering goes back much further.
There are deeply set issues here and longstanding arguments that the world has long struggled to resolve.
Israel has been in a state of conflict with the Palestinian people over borders and land since 1948.
Palestinians have been living in a blockade surrounded by walls in Gaza ever since Hamas seized power of Gaza in 2007. Even before then the borders were heavily controlled. Living conditions have declined and most of the population - half of which are children - lives in poverty.
Some refer to it as “the world’s largest open air prison”. Before the events of Saturday, 200 Palestinians have been killed this year by Israeli forces.
Hamas rejects the idea of a two-state solution for Palestinians and Israel, and under its own charter is committed to the destruction of Israel.
So deep-set and divided are the arguments around the background that any explainer I now share will likely be critiqued by one or both sides as not being fully representative of the facts.
However as people have asked to be pointed in the direction of backgrounders that can help them understand what has happened in Israel and Gaza in the last few decades I'll share a few that may help.
What’s the Israel-Palestinian conflict about: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-palestinian-dispute-hinges-statehood-land-jerusalem-refugees-2023-10-10/
What’s happening in Gaza? A simple guide: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67039975
How to think morally about the Israel-Hamas war: https://www.vox.com/world-politics/23911550/israel-hamas-war-gaza-palestine-leftist-democrats
What is the Gaza Strip: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/11/what-is-gaza-strip-the-besieged-palestinian-enclave-under-israeli-assault
Savile drama tells us nothing new
Steve Coogan does an award-worthy and extremely chilling job of bringing the dark side of Jimmy Savile to life in the new BBC drama The Reckoning.
The show is based on the reports into Savile’s offending, going back to the early days of his career as a DJ and on to the way he used his celebrity to abuse children and adults.
We already knew Savile was a monster who operated in plain sight. That’s no surprise to any of us, and few will find revelations in the show.
The reports on his offending from the BBC and hospitals where he frequented - using his charity work for them as a cover to stalk the wards and abuse patients and staff - were released a decade ago.
But what the show exposes is the ease with which Savile was able to use his quirks, his character, that deception and star power to push away questions. Time and again he was able to attack people and either use his celebrity to silence the victims or halt investigations.
So was the show worth making?
I said on Instagram stories ahead of watching it that I find dramas based on true crime to be a bit abhorrent. It’s making entertainment from other people’s suffering. They get made because people are fascinated by the macabre, by acts of evil, and so for the programme-makers they know they’ll draw in the viewers.
Having watched it and seen how victims of Savile were given a voice in the programme - with their true testimonies interspersed between the drama - I suppose I can see some usefulness in a show such as this.
It shows us how the unthinkable could happen. It gives victims who were disbelieved for so long a voice. It shows how the blinkers came off so gradually that no one thought to really call Savile out until after he had died and his legal threats were no longer a barrier to further investigation.
You would hope such a person would never be allowed to operate in such blatant plain sight again in the future. Although recent news reports suggest it’s perhaps not as unlikely as we would expect.
I recall working on the Savile story at various times while I worked for the Mirror and one line came up again and again in both official reports and from people I spoke to. “It was just how things were back then. These were different times.”
And you can see what they mean. The sort of blatant sexually inappropriate behaviour Savile displayed in public was laughed off as a “joke”, just boys being boys. There wasn’t such an awareness of how inappropriate behaviour impacts victims, or even decent safeguards in place to ensure victims could report what had happened to them. We are simply more aware today than we were then.
Could it happen again on such a scale? Savile abused hundreds of people, largely young girls. Perhaps returning to the past and exposing fully how Savile was able to get away with it for so long means that no one would allow such a thing to occur again. Or at least brings a level of awareness.
And while it was good to see the BBC showing this - for it’s the BBC through which Savile accessed many of his victims - they did skirt over a few things. Namely the Newsnight investigation being shelved after Savile’s death. It got a mention, but only in a written message on screen.
It’s worth watching for the performance from Coogan. It won’t tell you anything you didn’t already, sadly, know.
Also this week…
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was covered in glitter by a protester as he began to deliver a speech to the party’s conference. After ditching his jacket, although still covered in the sparkly stuff, he delivered a speech that tried to appeal to Tory voters who have become disenchanted with Conservatives since 2019. He vowed to do more to get funding to the NHS, to add 20% VAT to private school fees, recruit more teachers and build more new homes. In his speech he also condemned the attack on Israel. A general election could take place next year, and must take place by January 2025.
Holly Willoughby quit This Morning after 14 years. Her announcement - bizarrely announced on Sky News from Jerusalem in the midst of coverage about airstrikes on Gaza - comes after a kidnapping plot against her was thwarted. A man is on remand awaiting trial. She said she needed to make the decision for “me and my family”. https://www.standard.co.uk/insider/holly-willoughby-this-morning-exit-kidnap-plot-sexism-pressure-on-women-in-public-eye-b1112796.html
The daughter of NHS fundraiser Captain Tom has admitted she kept £800,000 from sales of three books he wrote. The prologue of one of them said the money would go to the charity in his name. Hannah Ingram-Moore told TalkTV her father had wanted the family to keep the profits from the books. The family also spoke of their "regret" over the spa built at their home. Ms Ingram-Moore told planners they wanted an office for the charity set up in Sir Tom's name but built the spa and pool complex instead. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/24370891/captain-tom-daughter-pockets-money-book-piers-morgan/
What I’ve been watching…
I thought it would be good to add some telly, movie and book recommendations as and when I come across some good ones to this roundup!
So for this week I’ve been watching:
Boiling Point (BBC). The follow-up TV series to the short movie about the stresses of working in a professional kitchen starring the amazing Stephen Graham. It’s great fun to watch, albeit slightly stressful too.
Beckham (Netflix). It’s a PR job for sure, but I think this four-part documentary is worth watching for the 90s nostalgia. The best bit is where Victoria tries to claim she grew up working class and David badgers her until she admits her dad drove her to school in a Rolls Royce.
Thanks so much for reading! The plan is to make this a weekly newsletter. A bit like the old Weekly Briefing I used to write over on Patreon for those who have been with me for a long time.
I hope you’ll find this a good space to explore topics in more depth and add something extra to my IG stories. Thanks so much for following along and supporting!