Category Archives: Antisemitism

Solihull Sojourn

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Bio has already linked to this article by Israelinurse, everyone’s favourite contributor to blogs Harry’s Place and CiFWatch. She describes appearing on The Big Questions, in the third and last topic on the show, antisemitism. The format of this programme is bound to lead to frustration all round, and true to form, this one ended just at the point when they were getting down to some delicate nitty gritty.
Israelinurse’s original post might be a tad too long for the sensitivities of this site, but here are some of the juicy bits.

“[I]in my initial telephone conversation with the programme’s assistant producer I raised the subject of the BBC’s suppression of the publication of the Balen Report at an estimated cost of some £200,000 so far to the license-fee paying British public. Despite this, they decided that they wanted me on the show. Then, a couple of days before the journey to Birmingham, I received a further phone call instructing me that I must not mention The Guardian on air. My protests that this rather Fawlty Towers-style ‘don’t-mention-the-war’ restriction was absurd were met with the explanation that as no representative of The Guardian would be present at the time of broadcast, and therefore that organisation would not have the right of reply, there was a danger of legal action being taken against the BBC which they were keen to avoid.

I decided that there was in fact no need to mention the ‘G’ word, and so decided to go ahead despite the gag-order.

Upon arriving at the broadcast venue early on the Sunday morning, I considered it prudent to check with the assistant producer exactly under which ‘tag’ (the potted description under one’s name when one appears on screen) I would be appearing. Yet another moment worthy of the Fawlty Towers script writers ensued when I was informed that they did not wish to define me as being connected to CiF Watch as “the public will not know what that is”. So much for the media’s duty to inform; apparently if the public doesn’t know, the BBC isn’t going to tell them!

Having already sacrificed my weekend, there was nothing to be done at this point but just get on with it. Imagine then my joy, dear reader, when I discovered that the ‘expert contributors’ on the opposite side of the debate were none other than Haim Bresheeth and our old friend Tony Greenstein – the latter complete with a ‘Boycott Israeli Goods’ lapel badge the size of a jam jar lid, which fortunately did not make it into the studio. Interestingly, at some point during the programme, both of the above had their ‘tag’ written as ‘Vilified by Zionists’. Now that you really could not make up!

One does have to ask oneself if a TV programme such as this can in fact make any worthwhile contribution to highlighting the worrying trend of rising antisemitism in Britain. Personally, I very much doubt it. The claim made by the show’s host Nicky Campbell whilst we were in the ‘Green Room’ before the broadcast that the Balen Report is merely a ‘journalistic’ issue serves only to strengthen my view that the ‘group-think’ within the media industry is so well rooted that business – in all senses of the word – will continue as usual until some brave and pioneering producer will stand up and question the commonly held premises which currently prevent the media from tackling the real truths behind the increase in antisemitism in Britain and many other countries.

As long as broadcasters are afraid of legal actions on the part of other media organisations and more concerned about gaining PC credibility by ‘giving a balanced view’ than doing any real analysis …… I’m not holding my breath.“

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Protocols of the Elders of Oborne

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I await tonight’s Dispatches programme on C4. with that familiar dread and sinking feeling.
It’s no good saying wait and see before getting upset because there’s plenty there already…

The inevitable baying mob on the C4 website sets the scene. The gist is that the Jewish lobby is a sinister secretive conspiracy influencing political decisions and forcing our trembling government to support the brutal Zionist entity against the interests of the UK. Furthermore, Jews will try silence such accusations with charges of anti-Semitism, so remember to ignore whatever Jews say in their malevolent attempts to shut down this perfectly reasonable and well-intentioned debate.

Peter Oborne has written some explanatory notes, (takes forever to load) which make his position quite clear. He airs his views on Jonathan Dimbleby, Jeremy Bowen and the Balen report, and concludes that the BBC is muzzled by this crippling Zionist stranglehold.

(Take the influential and intimidating words you are reading right now as proof of this. Sense the powerful ominous Jewish threat impliedly lurking behind them and wonder at the unimaginably emasculating effect they are having on the BBC)

So the lobby is uncovered, but wait. There is another disturbing Jewish tactic. People are asking “So what?” “So what if there’s a lobby group? Aren’t there countless other lobby groups?” For example the Muslim, Palestinian, Gay and Lesbian, Hunting/anti hunting lobbies?

Anyone who saw the report Our World by Emily Buchanan on BBC News 24 the other day extolling the benefits of Sharia in the UK, not just for family courts, but for Sharia friendly finance, might have pondered over the government’s keenness to establish London as the World hub of Sharia finance. The film was at pains to point out that the little things we ignorant Islamophobes might fear about this development are mere overreactions to the threatening behaviour of a few unrepresentative radicals and pure racist scaremongering. Surely, if there was anything to worry about, Peter Oborne would be onto it? Fatwa permitting.

A sole dissenting voice came from an Iranian lady whose apostacy had drawn death threats. She explained that, amongst many other unenlightened principles, under Sharia a woman’s word is worth half a man’s .

Now it seems, under the UK’s newly unenlightened principles, a Jew’s word is worth nothing at all.
It’s the lobby, the evil sinister lobby; it’s in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and you’d better believe it.

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Daddy’s Girl

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Simmering below the surface at the BBC is the very thing the Guardian practices overtly. What restrains the BBC from outright denunciation of Jews and their shitty little country is the wretched obligation for impartiality written into the pesky BBC charter. The Guardian has no such obligations (other than to remain saleable enough to keep going, which rumour says might not be for long.)

When it was launched I passed on a press release about CiFWatch, the website set up specifically to monitor the antisemitic comments and the moderation policy of Comment is Free at The Guardian online. I took a lot of criticism then, and no doubt I’ll get the same again but this time I know what to expect. I couldn’t resist.

Ever since, I’ve visited it every day, and it’s quite an eye-opener. Collecting all the evidence and pinning it down in its undiluted form is more tricky with the wider ranging but more thinly spread BBC bias, but we all know that the Guardian is closely connected to the Beeb, and familial influences interchange and criss-cross.
If you haven’t seen it already, today’s latest post is a scoop. Not quite cheesy peas, but if you like nepotism, and you like antisemitism, you’ll love nepotintisemitism.

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That Sinking Feeling

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If exposure on the telly or the radio wasn’t the most valuable publicity available to mankind there would be no advertising – and authors and publishers wouldn’t spend so much time and effort doing the rounds on the circuit plugging their book.
I’m sure some agents and publicists have to pull all sorts of strings to get a slot on the One Show or Start the Week, but Shlomo Sand wouldn’t have met much resistance.
The BBC doubtless bit his hand off when, as one of their favourite types of people, the Israel hating Israeli, he offered to come and advertise his new book.
I’m not in a position to examine the dodgy science behind it, but others are, and surely for an impartial broadcaster it would have been only fair to mention that his theory was highly contentious, instead of treating the author with the fawning admiration that was bestowed upon him from assorted guests and presenter Andrew Marr, none of whom were in any position to examine or query the content of this book.

A phrase I frequently use myself is cropping up more and more these days.
It’s ‘that sinking feeling.’ That’s the feeling everyone gets when the topic of Israel, the Jews, or Islam comes up in relation to the BBC.

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Party Posturing?

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I listened with astonishment to the interview with David Miliband and William Hague on Today.

Halfway through the interview about the uselessness of having a referendum after ratification, they started chatting about the spat over the Tory party’s partnership/ alliance with Poland. David Miliband is furious because he thinks remarks made by Polish MEP Michal Kaminski are antisemitic, even though the Chief Rabbi of Poland has come to Mr. Kaminski’s defence.
I don’t know whether Mr. Kaminski is antisemitic by Polish standards, and I know very little about the implications of David Cameron’s relationship with his new best friends, but was surprised about Mr. Miliband’s outrage.

Considering the the government’s pro Muslim position – in general, and regarding immigration, not to mention their non vote on the Goldstone resolution, his outrage looked a bit disingenuous. I couldn’t find the promised statement on the Today website either. Can anyone help?

John Humphrys might have given them a more penetrating grilling than James Naughtie’s limp questioning, though maybe not in a good way.

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One in Five?

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Are one in five really considering voting for the BNP?
If so, and Nick’s appearance on QT was the catalyst, some thoughts belatedly occurred to me.

It’s generally accepted that QT exposed him as a holocaust denier and racist. Yet despite that, and despite the fact that being a racist is perceived as the ultimate wickedness, one in five have somehow managed to push Nick’s racism to the back of their minds. Or should that be the backs of their mind.

The thing QT exposed was the very thing the BNP has been trying to hide. But imagine if Mr. Griffin really wasn’t a racist, what if he opposed mass Muslim immigration because he genuinely loved Britain’s values?
Or, what if someone else who wasn’t Nick Griffin and who wasn’t a racist, did so; say a politician from one of the mainstream parties? Dream on.

If the BBC thinks that simply revealing the BNP’s racism is enough to discredit it, what about the type of racism that the BBC itself tacitly peddles. Can we have that revealed in a custom made question Time? Can we have a panel of multi-party pro-Zionists versus Helen Boaden?
Someone needs to ask why Islington antisemitism is alright, but confronting genuine concerns about Islamism is all wrong.

We see how the BBC portrays the Jewish state, and we observe that the mud they’ve slung has stuck to diaspora Jews. We haven’t yet reached the stage where it’s okay to openly espouse antisemitism, but anti Zionism does have a full seal of approval even when it’s demonstrably a mere cloak.
Not even Jack Straw’s unnecessary “As-s-Jew” outburst was enough to deter potential BNP voters from assuming that it’s permissible to turn a blind eye to a a bit of harmless holocaust denial.

I don’t know whether my grandparents came to the UK from eastern Europe intentionally, or whether they ended up here by accident, as many did. But they assimilated, and their descendants are respectable members of British society. They made no demands and adapted.
There is a world of difference between racism and objection to Islamification of Europe. But neither our government nor the BBC will admit that.
If there is a genuinely benign interpretation of Islam that accepts and respects others, no problemo. Muslims that follow that variation on a theme should be welcome to live wherever they’re prepared to assimilate. Reiterating that Islam is the religion of peace is not enough, nor is trying to normalise cultural practices that are antithetical to ours.

What angers the potential BNP voters is that their understandable objections to demands for Sharia law, 12,000 seater mosques, belligerent burka wearing, refusal to integrate, Asian-on-white racism and demonstrations against British soldiers are branded Islamophobic, and considered beyond the pale, too taboo to discuss.
So the BBC is the flagship of hypocrisy on that score, and has played a considerable part in creating this ‘one in five’ sorry state of affairs.

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Good Beeb/Bad Beeb

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I was delighted to hear two items on radio 4 this morning in which neither Israel nor Jews were shown in a bad light.

1. Israel has the moral high ground in this unusual report by Christian Fraser, and on Today R4 0.42.23 (too early for Listen Again.)

The antisemitism of Egyptian intellectuals who are virulently opposed to any normalisation of cultural relations with Israel has prevented little if any Hebrew literature from being translated – lest it infect Egyptain readers with the Jewish virus. The few translations they will allow are to be prefaced with a “warning.”
In 1994, out of curiosity, playwright Ali Salem spent 23 days in Israel, but was “completely alienated” on his return.

2. “In our Time” Radio 4. Melvyn and three Oxbridge academics discussed the Dreyfus affair. A fascinating case. Startling parallels could be drawn. One odd moment – “Socialism and antisemitism went together in a kind of powerful populism that we might find difficult to understand” ……………….Not really.

3. I thought the BBC hadn’t made such a meal out of the Goldstone report as it normally does with negative news about Israel, but I’m sure there’s a lot more in store. “UN Body to Debate Gaza Crimes”
If you have been following the story on other websites as I have, and you live in the UK or are an expat, you might like to sign this petition.

4. Must-read critique of Guardian Editorial Bias. Letter to the managing editor of the Guardian, but could equally be addressed to the BBC – arguably less overt than the Guardian, but with a broader reach.

5. “One in Four is Muslim, Study Says” I find this alarming. Having said that I wait for the usual cries of Islamophobia from those that know nothing about the subject.

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Never Happened

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Holocaust denial is in the news again.
Firstly, the one I prepared earlier, Hamas and the text books.
Secondly, Facebook’s policy of allowing free speech for Holocaust denial groups, arguably in contradiction to their policy of banning hate-speech.
Thirdly, the publication in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, of a ‘major interview’ with David Irving, to balance the previous day’s interview with Avner Shalev, the chairman of Yad Vashem.

What’s this got to do with the BBC?
Don’t shout! A thread on fivelive……
Commenter “Cookie Cutter”on Harry’s place (2:39) says:

“a few years ago there was the “Iron Naz” incident[..] representation was made to BBC Management who saw the error of their ways and a whole slew of antisemitic posts were renewed with a supposed hot-line between BOD and BBC to alert the moderators. A BBC department head argued that it was free speech.
“If the moderators are the same today as there were then, then I happen to believe I know something about where the moderators are recruited from (based on the management of the moderating company) and these are not people sympathetic to Jewish and Israel issues, correction, not even neutral.[…] My guess is that the BBC moderators have turned-over staff since “Iron Naz” days and the current crew are taking complaints as mendacious. They can ban you if you complain too much.”

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Press Release

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I’m sharing the following press release with B-BBC readers, and I hope it’s of interest to some of you.

“CiF Watch Website Launched to Combat Antisemitism on the Guardian newspaper’s ‘Comment is Free’ blog

CiF Watch.com, a website dedicated to monitoring and exposing antisemitism on the Guardian newspaper’s ‘Comment is Free’ blog, announced its launch this week.

Created to address the endemic problem of antisemitic discourse on the Guardian newspaper’s ‘Comment is Free’ blog, one of the most popular mainstream blogs of its type, CiF Watch documents manifestations of antisemitism both “above the line” in the Guardian-approved articles and “below the line” in the post-moderated comment threads.

“The proliferation of antisemitism in mainstream media platforms has become a growing phenomenon as media outlets like the Guardian attempt to reinvent themselves in the online world” says Hawkeye, founder of CiF Watch. “CiF Watch has been launched as a consequence of the complete and utter failure of Guardian management to adequately confront the problem of antisemitism on ‘Comment is Free’, this despite the submission last year to the UK Parliamentary Committee Against Antisemitism of the report on antisemitism at ‘Comment is Free’ compiled by Jonathan Hoffman.”

CiF Watch primarily functions as a blog that provides a platform for discussion of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish articles posted on ‘Comment is Free’, free from Guardian censorship. At the same time, CiF Watch features separate areas where antisemitic writings of both contributors and commenters alike are documented.”

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Little Things Mean a Lot

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Honest Reporting has noticed how the BBC slants headlines to demonise Israel and excuse Palestinians.

Trivial things, some might say, but all part of the drip drip.

Antisemitism. My favourite subject, you’ll say. The Sunday programme, radio 4, reports that it’s rearing its ugly head on campus.

Two Jewish students describe the serious intimidation they are subjected to at student rallies and ‘Gaza protests.’ Other students, adamantly deny ‘any trace’ of antisemitism, but are not confronted with those allegations. None of these students acknowledge that their behaviour is antisemitic, and are deeply offended that anyone should think it is. Roger Bolton did tackle the subject, I admit, but was much too easily satisfied with leaving the subject hugely unresolved.

What has inflamed the students and exploited their youthful sense of injustice to the point where they choose to side with Islamic ideology, and concentrate their energies into condemning Israel? Could it be anything to do with incessant outpourings from the BBC and the rest of the media? An intelligent sounding girl said “There are currently people DYING out there – children – and not only that – they’re also having their homes taken away from them!”
Tony Benn has said the same thing on air often enough, (so it must be true.) Does that fully explain why intelligent students are supporting an Islamist outfit like Hamas and maligning and blaming Israel? Have keffiah-clad lecturers put paid to independent thought altogether? Has the BBC over many years achieved an enormous conjuring trick, that of turning reason on its head?
It would seem so.

 

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