Hadar at BBC Watch has written an important piece about a World Service programme on "anti-Semitism in Europe", following up on the Islamist terrorist attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels in 2014.
The WS programme, On Background, co-hosted by James Harding, the BBC's Director of News (no less), featured a report from Kevin Connolly, and then a joint interview with Kevin Connolly and novelist Howard Jacobson.
Very oddly, however, Kevin Connolly's report gave no clue whatsoever that the suspect (Mehdi Nemmouche) is a Muslim or that there was an Islamist motive for the antisemitic terrorist attack on the museum. He simply didn't mention that. Instead, he focused on the history of antisemitism in Europe in the first half of the 20th Century.
That set the stage for what followed (click to enlarge):
And not only were they severely playing down the Muslim element of modern European antisemitism while deflecting attention onto Christian antisemitism, because James Harding also asked this:
Yes, it's the "Muslims are the new Jews" card being played by the BBC's Director of News.
Both Kevin Connolly and James Harding clearly knew exactly what they were about here.
It's still absolutely extraordinary though.
Maybe it is the mood I am in (reading that children and grandchildren of people born in Germany can apply for a German passport post Brexit, what an insult to our parents and grandparents and the circumstances of their leaving) but the idea of Connolly suggesting that Christian anti Semitism in Europe being 'fixed' by being acceptable or not, I think shows an acceptance of anti Semitism on his part.
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