Hugh, meet Claire. Claire, meet Hugh. Claire has some guidance that might prove useful for you, Hugh. Should, that is, you not want to come across as any more of an ignorant buffoon than you do already.
The problem for Bonneville is that details do matter. And there is a big issue with the detail of his rant
To explain: over the weekend, Claire Foy – Queen Elizabeth in the first series of The Crown – had a message that some of her peers could do with taking note of: stick to reading scripts. The fact you might play the role of someone with insights worth listening to doesn’t mean that you actually have insights worth listening to, only that someone handed you a good script with some words to read out. Or, as she put it: ‘I have absolutely no authority to discuss or proclaim about anything other than what I do as an actor…If you’re just making noise for the sake of it, then you should probably shut up – so I tend to shut up.’
It’s wise advice – and the sagacity of her words was immediately highlighted by another actor, Hugh Bonneville of Downton Abbey and Paddington fame. Highlighted, that is, not because Bonneville restrained himself from sharing his views on a matter of global importance, but the opposite: Bonneville posted a rant on social media effectively demanding that the rest of us pay heed to his words. Conceding that, while he ‘may not be as well informed as you, I do think I have as much right as you to say what I think’. The object of Bonneville’s attention is, of course, Israel. In other words, Bonneville made the very noise that Foy warned against; a noise that is best known as brain fart.
Specifically, what attracted Bonneville’s ire is the Israeli government’s recent attempt to ensure that aid agencies which are involved in Gaza are not harbouring (whether intentionally or not) terrorist infiltrators – as was Unrwa, the UN agency which was found to have employed some of the terrorists who took part in the massacre of 7 October 2023. Israel’s aim is to prevent aid from being stolen by Hamas, as has happened too often. To that end, the Israeli government organisation overseeing aid distribution has required that aid agencies must provide a list of their personnel involved in Gaza, which anyone with even a cursory understanding of the issues would agree is a basic precaution.
But Bonneville knows what the real story is: ‘Israel’s decision to revoke the credentials of 37 NGOs currently working in Gaza is not only disgraceful, I think it’s an abomination. And I call on all my industry colleagues, and I call on all the people in my community, and that includes you, to speak up and appeal to our elected leaders and the UN to do more than just wring their hands.’
Bonneville doesn’t outline what, specifically, more than wringing their hands he is demanding that we – and that includes you, as he tells us – must demand that our elected leaders and the UN do. But heh ho, details, shmeetails.
The problem for Bonneville is that details do matter. And there is a significant issue with the detail of his rant. That issue being that it is drivel from beginning to end. Not that he is alone. Broadcaster Mariella Frostrup went a stage further, alleging on social media that ‘aid agencies are being banned because they won’t release lists of staff member for Israel to target.’ She really did write that Israel is demanding the names of aid personnel in order that Israel can ‘target’ them.
Never let it be said that these people are troubled by a need to learn the facts before parading what they think the rest of us will see as their virtue. Because fact one is that the latest demand for lists of aid personnel only applies to those aid agencies which have previously refused to be vetted by the Israeli authorities, most of which have been subject to allegations that they have indeed been infiltrated by Hamas operatives. None of the major players have any issue with Israel’s entirely sensible and basic requirement.
Neither the World Food Programme (responsible for the vast majority of UN-funded aid entering Gaza), nor the Egyptian Red Crescent (the largest non-UN NGO operating in Gaza), nor World Central Kitchen, nor any of the many other aid agencies which have carried on working in Gaza have created a fuss about supplying Israel with the names of its personnel. They have all done so.
That’s because of fact two: that the sum total of the aid contribution put together by those agencies which have refused to cooperate with the Israelis amounts to less than one per cent of the aid delivered during the previous ceasefire. In other words, the loudest noise is being made by and on behalf of those with the least involvement on the ground, and which have the most involvement with the very problems around aid delivery that Israel is seeking to tackle.
It would be wrong to label Hugh Bonneville only as a buffoon, who has waded into an area about which he clearly knows nothing and has neither the self-awareness nor the intelligence to realise that he should look at the facts before opening his mouth. He is certainly all that, indeed. But he is also a decent enough actor. Perhaps he should give Claire Foy a call.
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