March 29th, 2009 by NGO Monitor Staff | Category: Media, Medical Aid for Palestinians

For the past month, Caryl Churchill’s “Seven Jewish Children - a play for Gaza” has received significant media coverage, mostly surrounding allegations that it is anti-Semitic at its core (see ‘Seven Jewish Children’ provokes US debate - among Jews, The Eighth Jewish Child – for Caryl Churchill, Seven blonde Europeans).  Churchill has been accused of wanting to “present the narrative…of Holocaust survivors becoming holocaust committers.” The BBC refused to air the play “on the grounds of impartiality”.

Churchill made the rights to the play free to anyone, “provided that no admission fee is charged and that a collection is taken at each performance for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP)”. Minimal attention has been paid to the MAP connection and its politicization of the conflict. While Steve James, Chief Executive of MAP, claims that “[w]e don’t take a political view on what’s happening in Palestine, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he has blamed Israel for “denying” medical care to Palestinians. Similarly, on December 28, 2008, MAP’s head of advocacy Andrea Becker referred to the “collective punishment” of Palestinians.