Cindy Sheehan said Facebook deleted an invitation to the CIA Drone Protest in Langley, Virginia, scheduled for Jan. 16, 2010. Sheehan said "the CIA is becoming overly involved in terrorizing populations." Sheehan joins a powerhouse of women activists to lead the CIA Drone Protest, including Cynthia McKinney, Ann Wright, Kathy Kelly and Debra Sweet.

"We had an event with over 250 confirmed guests and it was deleted by Facebook," Sheehan said. "We are going to the source of one of the big problems in the US Empire -- the CIA -- to protest its extra-judicial killings of people in Pakistan. We are against the use of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) and manned aerial vehicles, but we believe that it is very dangerous that the CIA is becoming overly involved in terrorizing populations," Sheehan said.

The protest will focus on the civilian deaths from drones in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and the role of private contract mercenaries in the killing of civilians, carried out in the name of the US.

The defection of The Sun from New Labour to the rats of Toryism has depressed the brothers. Their ire would be more credible if they hadn't spent 15 years wallowing in the guttersnipe's support.

What did Murdoch and his Sun ever have to do with Labour - or common decency - anyway? No other country would allow a foreign tax-avoider to build up such a multi-media empire. New Labour could have done something about that.

But they prefered to lie down with dogs - and now, predictably, they have fleas.

Al Jazeera: Just days before Al Jazeera English makes its debut on television airwaves in the US, Al Jazeera’s Josh Rushing hosts a town hall meeting in Washington DC. The show goes behind-the-scenes at Al Jazeera English and allows the audience to engage in a hard-hitting discussion with panelists Sir David Frost, Marwan Bishara and Ghida Fakhry about Al Jazeera, the stories it covers and its coverage of the US.

But I am mincing my words.

The trust – how I love that word which so dishonours everything about the BBC – has collapsed, in the most shameful way, against the usual Israeli lobbyists who have claimed – against all the facts – that Bowen was wrong to tell the truth.

Let's go step by step through this pitiful business. Zionism does indeed instinctively "push out" the frontier. The new Israeli wall – longer and taller than the Berlin Wall although the BBC management cowards still insist its reporters call it a "security barrier" (the translation of the East German phrase for the Berlin Wall) – has gobbled up another 10 per cent of the 22 per cent of "Palestine" that Arafat/Mahmoud Abbas were supposed to negotiate. Bowen's own brilliant book on the 1967 war, Six Days, makes this land-grab perfectly clear.

Anyone who has read the history of Zionism will be aware that its aim was to dispossess the Arabs and take over Palestine. Why else are Zionists continuing to steal Arab land for Jews, and Jews only, against all international law? Who for a moment can contradict that this defies everyone's interpretation of international law except its own?

Even when the International Court in The Hague stated that the Israeli wall was illegal – the BBC, at this point, was calling it a "fence"! – Israel simply claimed that the court was wrong.

UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 called upon Israel to withdraw its forces from territories that it occupied in the 1967 war – and it refused to do so. The Americans stated for more than 30 years that Israel's actions were illegal – until the gutless George Bush accepted Israel had the right to keep these illegally held territories. Thus the BBC Trust – how cruel that word "trust" now becomes – has gone along with the Bush definition of Israel's new boundaries (inside Arab land, of course).

The BBC's preposterous committee claims that Bowen's article "breached the rules [sic] on impartiality" because "readers might come away from the article thinking that the interpretation offered was the only sensible view of the war".

Well, yes of course. Because I suppose the BBC believes that Israel's claim to own land which in fact belongs to other people is another "sensible" view of the war. The BBC Trust – and I now find this word nauseous each time I tap it on my laptop – says that Bowen didn't give evidence to prove the Jewish settlement at Har Homa was illegal. But the US authorities said so, right from the start. Our own late foreign secretary, Robin Cook – under screamed abuse from Zionists when he visited the settlement– said the same thing. The fact that the BBC Trust uses the Hebrew name for Har Homa – not the original Arab name, Jebel Abu Ghoneim – shows just how far it is now a mouthpiece for the Israeli lobby which so diligently abused Bowen.

Haaretz gave considerable space to the BBC's findings yesterday. I'm not surprised. But why is it that Haaretz's top correspondents – Amira Hass and Gideon Levy – write so much more courageously about the human rights abuses of Israeli troops (and war crimes) than the BBC has ever dared to do? Whenever I'm asked by lecture audiences around the world if they should trust the BBC, I tell them to trust Amira and Gideon more than they should ever believe in the wretched broadcasting station. I'm afraid it's the same old story. If you allow yourself to bow down before those who wish you to deviate from the truth, you will stay on your knees forever.

And this, remember, is the same institution which said that to broadcast an appeal for medicines for wounded Palestinians in Gaza might upset its "neutrality". Legless Palestinian children clearly don't count as much as the BBC's pompous executives.

The BBC Trust yesterday called into question the corporation's reporting of the most sensitive news story of modern times, publishing findings that the BBC Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, had breached guidelines on accuracy and impartiality. The ruling will be seized upon by campaigners who claim that BBC News is prejudiced against Israel in its coverage of the Middle East.

But the decision to censure Bowen caused anger within the BBC, with some alleging that the trust, which oversees the corporation, was undermining the credibility of its news.

"There's no love lost between staff and the BBC Trust – we see them as a hostile body and they seem to be in competition with [broadcasting regulator] Ofcom to see who can kick us the hardest," said a senior BBC journalist.

Speaking to The Independent last night, the BBC's former director general Greg Dyke said it was wrong for the trust to spend months investigating individual reports by journalists which had been compiled under pressure and tight deadlines.

"The problem is that journalism is not an exact science. I remember Jon Snow saying to me that if most of his journalism was put under that degree of scrutiny, then it wouldn't stand up. I think we all know that to be true."

The BBC said it had no intention of taking any disciplinary action against Bowen. Nonetheless, the findings were made by the BBC Trust's editorial standards committee – which includes such figures as Richard Tait, the former editor-in-chief of ITN, and David Liddiment, the former director of television at ITV – and will cause great concern within the BBC newsroom.

Bowen was censured for a piece which he wrote for the BBC website last June under the headline "Six days that changed the Middle East", attempting to give context to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by analysing the events of the 1967 Six Day War. The Middle East editor referred to "Zionism's innate instinct to push out the frontier". He wrote that Israel showed a "defiance of everyone's interpretation of international law except its own" and that its generals felt that they were dealing with "unfinished business", left over from the 1948 War of Independence.

I have been asked to provide more proof that the Sufi Muslim Council is funded by the Karimov government and the CIA. Well, to some extent you have to take my word that as British Ambassador in Uzbekistan I had my informers and sources. But let me give you some strong supporting evidence.

Strangely, despite the leading charities with experience of working in disaster situations being confident that they can deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, the BBC senior management believe they know better; and argue that they cannot publicise the appeal as they are not sure that any aid would get through. This claim comes from Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC, who has absolutey no experience of aid work, but knows better than those who do. By making this claim he is of course actively discouraging people from giving money to the appeal, and insulting the competence of the staff of the charities.

The BBC are also concerned that their repuation for impartiality could be damaged by showing the scale of the crisis.

But hang on, do they have a GENERAL responsibility for impartiality?  Their “impartiality” certainly escaped me during their consitently biased, anti-Chinese coverage of the riots in Tibet last year. Are they going to stop showing the scale of the crisis in Zimbabwe out of concern for impartiality, and not upsetting Robert Mugabe? Are they going to stop highlighting the crisis in Dafur? Do they have a duty to be impartial between criminals and the victims of crime?

The Disasters Emergency Committee's Gaza Crisis Appeal was screened on Monday by ITV, Channel 4 and Five.

The BBC's explanation that airing the film would threaten its impartiality was described in one of the motions as "unconvincing and incoherent".

Protests over the issue have taken place at BBC Broadcasting House.

Mr Burden tabled one Early Day Motion - used by MPs to demonstrate parliamentary support for particular causes - after Sky announced it was joining the BBC in refusing to show the appeal.

John Ryley, head of Sky News, said that broadcasting the film would be "incompatible" with its objective role.

This echoed BBC director general Mark Thompson's concern that the corporation should not give the impression it was "backing one side" over the other.

But Mr Burden said such arguments had been shown to be "more unconvincing and contradictory as time has gone on", claiming the BBC had broadcast appeals from other war zones.

Another motion calls on "Sky and the BBC to reverse their decision and broadcast the campaign, publicising the details of the DEC appeal and the means whereby members of the public may donate to it".

The corporation has come under fire from archbishops, government ministers, charity leaders and thousands of viewers.

The Disasters Emergency Committee, which represents more than a dozen aid agencies, is appealing for money to buy food, medicine and blankets following the Israeli assault on Gaza.

A string of politicians, including International Secretary Douglas Alexander, Communities Secretary Hazel Blears and opposition spokesmen, have urged the corporation to reconsider its position.

Their comments drew criticism from BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons who said some were "coming close to constituting undue interference in the editorial independence of the BBC".

The UN Relief and Works Agency, the largest humanitarian organisation working in Gaza, said there was a "huge and overwhelming need" for aid.

It described the situation as a "political crisis with grave humanitarian consequences" and estimated the cost of "rehabilitation and repair" at $345m (£257m), with two-thirds currently unfunded.

Last week, the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) requested an aid appeal for Gaza to be aired by British television and radio channels. Channel 4, Channel 5 and ITV all agreed to screen the aid appeal for the innocent victims of Israel’s brutal attacks, but the BBC Director General, Mark Thompson, blatantly refused and confirmed the claims of many that he is a notorious supporter of Zionist Israel.

Nobody can deny that the people of Gaza are undergoing a humanitarian catastrophe as an immediate consequence of Israel’s indiscriminate attacks. More than 1300 people have been killed and countless homes, schools and hospitals have been razed to the ground. Moreover, people are continuing to die as a result of these dire conditions. Despite this fact, Mark Thompson justified his refusal by claiming that such an appeal for aid could be interpreted as anti-Israel bias! Just why this humanitarian disaster would be different from other disasters remains unclear. The BBC managed to raise £10m for the Congo and £18m for Burma. Are the lives of Palestinian children worth less than the lives of African or Asian children? Mark Thompson’s Zionist worldview seems to think so.

That Mark Thompson has been supporting Zionist leaders is no secret. In fact, Mark Thompson’s wife, Jane, is Jewish and a fanatic supporter of Zionist policies. Is Mark simply trying to appease his wife? If he is, then this has to be one of the most outrageous acts in the history of British media. The glaring disregard for human suffering, however, can only be explained by Mark Thompson’s close relationship with Israeli leaders. In 2005, Mr. Thompson broke all rules of independent journalism when he travelled to Jerusalem and met former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in order to “build bridges” between the BBC and Israel. This unprecedented move was not covered by Western media, but the Israeli press gave it significant importance.

Mark Thompson’s decision has caused widespread public anger across the globe. Protests have been staged by around 5,000 people in London and many people in the United Kingdom are boycotting paying the BBC license fee.

THE BBC's admirable reporter Alan Johnston was rescued from his cruel incarceration in Gaza by the Palestinian government led by Hamas.

At the time, the BBC thanked the people of Gaza, and Hamas Prime Minister Ismael Haniya in particular, for breaking the criminal gang of extortionists who had seized their man - at the risk of their own lives to save his.

Now in the winter of their hardships, as 61,000 families shiver in the ruins of their bombed-out houses, in rags and hungry, the same BBC has stabbed them in the back. The achievement of the corporation's management, in uniting the Government, the opposition, the churches, the press, right and left, the anti-war movement, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, on one side and they and the Israel lobby on the other is almost unparalelled in modern public relations.

After a 22-day attack which has left thousands of children dead or orphaned and left the Strip looking like a moonscape, the publicly funded, bloated, arrogant, insensitive bosses who've presided over the Beeb through scandals from Blue Peter to Jonathan Ross have now launched their own airwave strike on the refugees.

And their smokescreen of "impartiality" will prove as deadly to these refugees as any cloud of white phosphorous gas.

The BBC, once the proud emblem of Britishness, is now branded around the world, and dangerously the Muslim world, as an arm of Israeli propaganda.

Its journalists - new Alan Johnstons - have been imperilled. Its reputation for "impartiality" shot full of as many holes as a UN compound under Israeli bombers. Its arguments against broadcasting the Disasters Emergency Committee Appeal for Gaza are an insult.

First to the intelligence of the people who pay their licence fees and second to the British charities within the DEC, the likes of Christian Aid, Save the Children (Patron HRH the Princess Anne), Oxfam and the rest.

The BBC's claim that they can't be sure the aid will get through is aclear accusation against the very humanitarian organisations we trust to deliver aid from Britain in every other world disaster around the world.

In any case, Gaza is a tiny place, now, though not when it most mattered, moving with western journalists. Gaza is sealed shut.

Where could Christian Aid's deliveries of medicines and nappies go if not to the suffering?

The mouthpiece of the corporation in this miserable scandal is a Scot, like Alan Johnston.

She is Caroline Thompson, the daughter of Dundee's highest political achiever, the late Lord George Thompson, a member of Harold Wilson's cabinet in the 1960s and a former European Union Commissioner.

'Once an emblem of Britishness, the BBC is now branded around the world - and the Muslim world - as an arm of Israeli propaganda'

Email her at caroline.thompson@bbc.co.uk and let her have apiece of your mind.

The BBC has rejected pleas from the Government to air the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal which aims to raise millions of pounds for food, medicines and shelter for Palestinians suffering as a result of Israel's three-week military activity in Gaza.

There were protests outside the BBC's Broadcasting House HQ in central London, and an MP began collecting colleagues' signatures for a motion to be tabled in Parliament condemning its refusal to transmit the TV and radio appeal.

<>> argument's was dismissed as "completely feeble" by Government minister Ben Bradshaw – a former BBC journalist – who branded the decision "inexplicable".

Mr Bradshaw told BBC Radio 4's Any Questions that the Corporation should "stand up to the Israeli authorities".

Protesters including former Cabinet minister Tony Benn joined a rally called by the Stop the War coalition outside the BBC's Broadcasting House in central London. Mr Benn earlier hijacked a Radio 4 interview to broadcast his own appeal on the BBC, reading out the address and Post Office account through which listeners can donate.

Labour MP Richard Burden, a member of the Commons International Development Committee and chairman of the Britain-Palestine All-Party Group, was gathering MPs' signatures on a motion to be tabled in Parliament.

Mr Burden said the BBC explanations were "both unconvincing and incoherent".

"This is not about taking sides in the conflict," he said. "It is about providing urgent help to people in desperate need. More than 400 children have died, thousands are homeless and nothing short of a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Gaza.

"The important thing is to get aid in to Gaza. This is recognised by almost everyone – including the Government. I don't see why the BBC has such a problem."

But the BBC's chief operating officer Caroline Thomson said: "It is important to remember that broadcasting appeals like this is a unique thing we do and we have to be clear about two things when we do it.

"Firstly, that that money will go to the people it is intended for, but secondly that we can do it within our own impartiality principles and without affecting and impinging on the audience's perception of our impartiality."

The DEC has stressed that its aid agencies are non-political and working on the basis of humanitarian need.

TV channel Al Jazeera English said it would broadcast the DEC's appeal, as would the channel Five.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) branded the BBC's refusal to do the same "a serious dereliction of its public duty".

In a statement, the MCB said: "In sabotaging the DEC appeal broadcast, the BBC is clearly acting against the public interest. As custodians of the public trust in the BBC, its Governors must act immediately to avoid the blame of being complicit in denying humanitarian aid to the desperate people of Gaza."

Speaking at the demonstration Mr Benn said the protest was about saving lives in Gaza rather than about the BBC.

The former Labour MP and Stop the War president said: "We're trying to save lives. That's what it's about. We're just here to save lives. People are dying in Gaza and if the appeal was made they would get the resources they need. "

George Galloway, MP, told the crowd that the decision marked a "new low" for what he called the "Bloody Biased Corporation". He said: "This smoke screen of impartiality is as deadly and fatal to the Palestinian people as a cloud of white phosphorous gas."

As the rally passed Broadcasting House in central London a small number of protesters threw shoes at the doors.

Staff inside the building could be seen looking out as the crowd chanted: "BBC, shame on you."

I watched BBC World News for a timed hour yesterday. In that time I saw:
Pro-Israeli (including US government) speakers - 17
Pro-Palestinian speakers - 2

Mentions of Hamas Rockets as reason for war - 37
Mentions of illegal Israeli settlements - 0
Mentions of Palestinians killed by Israel during "ceasefire" - 2
Mentions of Sderot - 12
Mentions Sderot used to be Palestinian - 0

If you don't believe me, try it yourself.

The Interpal facebook group, of which I am a member, was sending out information on demonstrations and on relief aid to Gaza. Facebook yesterday closed down Interpal, with the following message:

The group "Interpal" has been removed because it violated our Terms of Use. Among other things, groups that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed. We also take down groups that attack an individual or group, or advertise a product or service. Continued misuse of Facebook's features could result in your account being disabled.

Now I frequently pull up people commenting here if I feel they are being anti-Jewish or supporting terror, but I received all Interpal's messages and saw nothing at all that could be characterised as "Hateful, threatening or obscene", except in that they are labels which the powerful continually manage to apply to anyone opposing Israeli military aggression.

It is Facebook's closing the Interpal group which might more correctly be characterised as hateful, threatening and obscene, in view of what is happening in Gaza.

According to sources, radio station phone in's have been screening out any callers wanting to talk about the Israeli air strikes and ground offensives in the Middle East.

The BBC's Have Your Say comment sites are being heavily moderated - its main board 'How can a truce be achieved in Gaza?' has had half of its 4,500 comments rejected on the basis of defamation, incitement to crime and hate, harassment, abuse, threats, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, homophobic or racially offensive language.

On the board 'Are the Israeli strikes on Gaza justified?' Half of the 5,000 comments have also been removed for breaking the House Rules stated above.

Radio ban

Producers and presenters have been told to 'stay away' from the subject despite thousands taking to the streets the past few weeks in protest and support of the military action that has seen 600 killed and just recently 40 dead from an air strike at a school.

For example, Condoleezza Rice, having observed that more than 300 Gazans were dead, said: "We are deeply concerned about the escalating violence. We strongly condemn the attacks on Israel and hold Hamas responsible."

Someone should ask her to comment on teenage knife-crime, to see if she'd say: "I strongly condemn the people who've been stabbed, and until they abandon their practice of wandering around clutching their sides and bleeding, there is no hope for peace."

The Israeli government suffers terribly from this confusion. They probably have adverts on Israeli television in which a man falls off a ladder and screams, "Eeeeugh", then a voice says, "Have you caused an accident at work in the last 12 months?" and the bloke who pushed him gets £3,000.

The gap between the might of Israel's F-16 bombers and Apache helicopters, and the Palestinians' catapulty thing is so ridiculous that to try and portray the situation as between two equal sides requires the imagination of a children's story writer.

The reporter on News at Ten said the rockets "may be ineffective, but they ARE symbolic." So they might not have weapons but they have got symbolism, the canny brutes.

It's no wonder the Israeli Air Force had to demolish a few housing estates, otherwise Hamas might have tried to mock Israel through a performance of expressive dance.

The rockets may be unable to to kill on the scale of the Israeli Air Force, said one spokesman, but they are "intended to kill".

Maybe he went on: "And we have evidence that Hamas supporters have dreams, and that in these dreams bad things happen to Israeli citizens, they burst, or turn into cactus, or run through Woolworths naked, so it's not important whether it can happen, what matters is that they WANT it to happen, so we blew up their university."

Or there's the outrage that Hamas has been supported by Iran. Well that's just breaking the rules. Because say what you will about the Israelis, they get no arms supplies or funding or political support from a country that's more powerful than them, they just go their own way and make all their weapons in an arts and crafts workshop in Jerusalem.

But mostly the Israelis justify themselves with a disappointing lack of imagination, such as the line that they had to destroy an ambulance because Hamas cynically put their weapons inside ambulances.

They should be more creative, and say Hamas were planning to aim the flashing blue light at Israeli epileptics in an attempt to make them go into a fit, get dizzy and wander off into Syria where they would be captured.

But they prefer a direct approach, such as the statement from Ofer Schmerling, an Israeli Civil Defence official who said on al-Jazeera, "I shall play music and celebrate what the Israeli Air Force is doing."

Maybe they could turn it into a huge nationalfestival, with decorations and mince pies and shops playing "I Wish We Could Bomb Gaza Every Day".

In a similar tone Dov Weisglas, Ariel Sharon's chief of staff, referred to the siege of Gaza that preceded this bombing, a siege in which the Israelis prevented the population from receiving essential supplies of food, medicine, electricity and water, by saying, "We put them on a diet."

It's the arrogance of the East End gangster