Various alerts and spoilers pinged into my devices last evening (probably generated by ‘cookies’ and algorithms I’ve inadvertently racked up), so by the time I saw Rabbi Mirvis’s actual letter in the actual Times I already knew what was in it.
Let’s liken the fallout from the Enough is Enough demo to the mini-eruption of a volcano that has been rumbling away for years.
The letter from one mild-mannered grandpa to a different kind of grandpa at such a sensitive time has caused another eruption, the fallout from which is yet to unfold.
The fact that such a mild-mannered grandpa (Chief Rabbis traditionally steer clear of political interventions) felt compelled to speak out in this way has certainly caused a stir.
Craig has spotted a difference between the BBC’s and Sky’s reporting, but I couldn’t face picking either one apart this morning. There might be more on this topic later.
I glimpsed a snippet of Victoria Derbyshire sitting beside a female representative of the Muslim Council of Britain. On the studio monitor, a large talking-head shot of the editor of the Jewish Telegraph, Paul Harris, was ‘explaining’ the Chief rabbi’s concerns. When he’d finished, Ms Derbyshire questioned the headscarf sympathetically about Islamophobia in the Conservative Party.
That more or less sums it up.
The BBC is a kind of enabler. It’s all very well getting Nick Robinson to grill poor old Alf Dubs, but all that will do is hand (unsound) ammunition to the Labour Party’s many apologists and the ignoramuses in Momentum. This merely skirts around the problem and pays lip service to a bit of gossipy news that they see as ‘nowt to do with us’.
As well as the disingenuous conflation of antisemitism (racism) with a rational (non-phobic) anxiety about a disturbingly hostile religious ideology, we have the willful misrepresentation of all things to do with Israel. The giant woolly mammoth in the room.
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| Antisemitism is a poison. (So is Islamophobia) |
Unfortunately, Blogger wouldn't let me embed the clip above from the BBC's report. (They offer the code, but it doesn't work!)
If the BBC could somehow magic away all the errors and omission of the past 70 years that would clear up much of the mess. Failing that impossible and completely unachievable ask, a more realistic demand would be - at least to try, somehow - to mitigate the damage. I have no idea how. Maybe start modestly by showing some gripping Israeli-made drama on the scandi noir channel.
Yes, there are still pockets of traditional right-wing antisemitism around - the foreign office is riddled with it so I’m told, but it’s high time everyone acknowledged the hatred of Jews within the Islamic world, including Britain’s Muslim communities. Instead of airbrushing it out in its painful, politically correct, subservient, Islamophillic fashion, the BBC could promote “Muslims against antisemitism” groups.
Has the Muslim woman who stood up to the man on the tube been on the VD show yet? Isn’t that’s the kind of story VD usually wallows in? I can picture her with her head tilted, sympathetically ‘listening’. I'm not knocking it by the way. The opposite. Asma Shuweikh was brave and she acted honourably.
One of my comments today on the open thread:
ReplyDelete"9am news on Radio 4. Although it's definitely still news (having only appeared in the newspapers this morning), the Chief Rabbi's comments on Corbyn, Labour and anti-semitism are dealt with in a very cursory fashion, but the news bulletin lingered longingly over Alf Dubbs' denial of the Chief Rabbi's criticism and apologia for Corbyn. Also, the report referred to Alf Dubbs having been a Jewish refugee from central Europe just before WW2, to give the denial more authority.
I am sure the Jewish community is largely incandescent at Dubbs allowing himself to be treated as a "useful idiot", to deploy Lenin's phrase."
Dubbs has a track record of being an enabler of mass immigration with no quality control - hence the mess we find ourselves in. He's one of those "moderate" Labour MPs who is actually opposed to free speech, to having borders and to equality of opportunity.
On the larger question I don't see what else the Chief Rabbi could do...this is a crucial election which will decide our future in a very fundamental way. If Corbyn and Momentum gain power (forget ideas of "the Labour Party" gaining power - it wouldn't be like that at all) then they will create a hostile environment for Jews: by promoting Sharia law, removing Jews from the media, further mass Muslim immigration in the millions, close ties with Iran, friendship with Hamas and boycotting of Israel.
Yes indeed; both the BBC (and Sky) are maxing out on Lord Dubs. I suppose it’s understandable that anyone with bona fide Kindertransport credentials would feel obliged to defend immigration, otherwise they’d be accused of hypocrisy and ‘pulling the ladder up” behind them. But turning a blind eye to the a/s within the ‘refugee’ community is indefensible.
ReplyDeleteAnyway it’s ridiculous to compare the few refugees from Hitler to whom Britain was generous enough to give sanctuary with the unsustainable scale of mass immigration that has changed the face of the UK in recent times.
It's outrageous to compare those poor persecuted genuine children coming to this country back in the thirties to 30 year old men masquerading as 15 year olds and lying about their provenance - with the connivance of a weak and vacillating government who erected barriers so we couldn't see how old they really were. But that's what nearly all Labour "moderates" like Dubs did.
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