Oxfam's Gaza propaganda

Spectator

7 hours ago

An astonishing email from Oxfam, one of Britain's oldest and biggest humanitarian charities, dropped into my inbox this week.
Dramatically titled (in blood scarlet) 'Red Lines for Gaza', it demanded that if I am as outraged by the 'horrors that Israel is inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza' as Oxfam is, and I want to do something about it, I should scrawl a red line across the palm of my hand and send the image to the charity. They will then use it to make a striking design for their campaign on the Gaza issue in the coming days.
The email simply assumed that I must share Oxfam's one sided, extreme and unbalanced views, and would automatically lend my support to their absurd and sinister propaganda stunt
Nowhere in the angry text of the email was there any attempt to explain or explore why there is a conflict in Gaza. There was no mention either of what happened on 7 October 2023. Nor was there any indication that the Strip is controlled by Hamas – an armed jihadist terrorist group banned in Britain, which is sworn to the destruction of Israel and the death of its Jewish citizens. A terrorist group who are still holding more than 50 of the hostages they abducted during their invasion of Israel on that deadly October day.
The email simply assumed that I must share Oxfam's one sided, extreme and unbalanced views, and would automatically lend my support to their absurd and sinister propaganda stunt.
Oxfam has always been a leftist and anti-western organisation, but it's a swift moral decline when the charity ignores the actions of a ferocious and murderous bunch of terrorists so it can focus on Israel.
It is not the only household name to take up the anti-Israel cause this week. On Tuesday, the Co-op food retailer announced it would no longer stock produce from Israel or 16 other countries that it deemed guilty of serious human rights violations. The Co-op claimed it made this move as a result of pressure from their members. I hold a Co-op loyalty card myself – but have never once been asked by them for my views on Israel, Gaza, or any other 'human rights' issue.
Like Oxfam, the Co-op is a venerable British institution with deep left-wing roots (it was affiliated with the Labour party and even sponsored many of their MPs), but its open support for one side on such a controversial issue is not what I expect from my grocer, and clearly limits its customers' freedom of choice in selecting what they can and cannot buy from the supermarket chain. International politics and buying toilet tissue should be kept firmly apart.
Founded in Oxford in 1942 in the midst of the second world war, Oxfam began life as an initiative by a bunch of bien pensant local Quakers and university academics to bring food to people ravaged by the global conflict. After the war, as it grew into an industry and expanded with branches across the world, Oxfam doubtless did much worthy good work in alleviating hunger in famines and relieving suffering caused by wars, earthquakes, floods and similar natural and manmade catastrophes.
But in doing so, the charity conglomerate became drawn away from disaster relief and into politics over issues such as national debt and climate change (inevitably on the 'progressive' leftist side). It also has been embroiled in several scandals, leading to suggestions that the once-upstanding institution had become irredeemably tainted. Oxfam workers in Haiti and Chad were accused of sexual abuse and exploitation of the very people they were supposed to be helping; the charity's higher executives drew obscenely high salaries; and in 2017 Oxfam was fined under the Data Protection Act for misusing private information naively entrusted to them by donors.
But in its Gaza propaganda, Oxfam has plumbed new depths. That may give the naturally generous and fair-minded British public second thoughts, the next time they are asked by the charity to reach into their wallets.