Sorry/not sorry

I stumbled upon the Media Show last night. 

A conversation between presenter Katie Razzall and Michelle Donelan turned to issues around the BBC’s impartiality.

Katie Razzall:

“…….Tim Davie the Director General has made it one of his main focuses…

Michelle Donelan

“…….however - I would also say that there is a difference between having a plan and delivering that change, and it is certainly not ‘job done’ by any stretch of the imagination, and we only have to look at a plethora of different examples that have come up to highlight that. But there is still a problem.

Katy Razzall

“What examples?

Michelle Donelan

“Well if we look at the incident of the bus with the alleged antisemitism, if we look at…….

Well, we didn’t ‘look at the alleged antisemitism’ because there were more pressing matters to discuss such as Prince Harry,  Jeremy Clarkson, and Gary Lineker. 

At the end of the interview, when Ms. Donelan had left the room, and who knows, the premises, Ms. Razzall read out a rebuttal writted on a piece of paper (© Spike Milligan)

“Well that was Michelle Donelan, Secretary of state for digital media culture and sport and she made reference to how the BBC had reported an antisemitic attack on a group of Jewish students in 2021. Let me just add to that what the BBC have said about reporting that incident which was in part based on a video of the incident filmed from inside the bus. The BBC has said that while Ofcom has found that our reporting was not in breach of the broadcasting code 

the BBC executive complaints unit ruled in January 2022 that more could have been done sooner to acknowledge the differing views about what could be heard on the recording of the attack. The BBC apologised at the time for not acting sooner to highlight the contents of the recording were contested.”

• Recollections may vary. 
• The scale of the problem was exaggerated

This wasn’t on the BBC but it’s another example of Sorry/not sorry.

The Media Show should have invited Shami Chakrabarti to investigate. 

Too even-handed

I should have called my previous post “If you didn’t laugh you’d have to cry.“ Was I being a bit too hard on the Guardian yesterday when I criticised it for giving equal credence to both sides of the antisemitism debacle during the Corbyn era? 

Who bears the blame for not grasping the fact that antisemitism is actually more troublesome than the retaliatory unpleasantness it engenders? The report itself? Martin Forde QC? The Guardian, Labour List?  One might even consider giving the Guardian a small Brownie point for being the first to mention the report at all. (When I was in the Brownies there wasn’t much emphasis on the badge-attaining side of it, but the uniform had a certain je ne sais quoi)

I see that the BBC has now weighed in. 

Anti-Semitism used as factional weapon within Labour, says report

Surprise. Firmly on the Guardian side of the fence. The Beeb’s version seems more Guardinista-like than the actual Guardian’s version. Illustrated with a massive Labour Party red rosette, the BBC’s emphasis is firmly placed on the principle known as “a plague on both their houses”.

"The dossier found "no evidence" of anti-Semitism being handled differently from other complaints and blamed "factional opposition" towards Mr Corbyn. "

This morning’s Times seems less equivocating and the picture they’ve used to illustrate the piece says quite a lot too. The uniform also has that je ne sais quoi.

So far the btl comments in The Times seem to be mainly from folk who abhor antisemitism. Their ‘takeaway’ from the report must be similar to mine. (That antisemitism is real and it’s not pretty)

I  don’t know if any of the aforementioned left-wing platforms allow comments, but I fear they would be as ‘even-handed’ about the matter as ever. 

The nub of the matter

The closing paragraph of Zoe Strimpel's Telegraph post today is worth quoting:

The BBC’s problem with Jews goes back several generations, and, as with Corbyn’s Labour, the reason lies in the slow but sure percolation of the most toxic parts of left-wing culture of the 1970s. Only when the BBC confronts its anti-Israel bias will it find that it makes fewer slips in its handling of Jews.

For Holocaust Memorial Day

As Sue notes in a post above, today is Holocaust Memorial Day. 

Before work today I was re-reading something I wrote for my old classical music blog Serenade to Music back in 2012: Scherzo triste - The Music of Pavel Haas. Pavel Haas was a Czech/Jewish composer, a pupil of the great Leos Janacek, and - in my view - an unsung master. His dates, alas, were 1899-1944. He was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau.  

I'm going to post one of his pieces for you: his String Quartet No. 2, 'From the Monkey Mountains', Op.7 of 1925.

If you were impressed by that then wait until you try Haas's String Quartet No. 2, 'From the Monkey Mountains', Op.7 of 1925, where the undoubted traces of Janáček's two great string quartets (The Kreutzer Sonata and Intimate Letters) don't in any way detract from a remarkable achievement. There are four movements, of which the first, Landscape, is closest throughout to the teacher's idiom. The second, Coach, Coachman And Horse, however, has a remarkably original main section that will surely get you pricking up your ears! The slow movement, The Moon And I..., is certainly mysterious - and very beautiful. As for the final movement, Wild Night, well that holds a surprise which I won't divulge. It's a musical first too, historically-speaking. I'll just say that if you were in any doubt about the Chinese inspiration behind the piece, you won't be after hearing this part of it! Yes, Haas certainly had a sense of humour. (There's more evidence for that in the rather inebriated-sounding second movement of the Wind Quintet, Op.10 of 1929). This superb work should be in the repertory of most string quartets, though I suspect I can guess why it probably won't be (as I'm sure you can too).

My teasers there still stand. You'll have to listen to it to find out!

But whereas many, like the BBC, are happy to confront antisemitism in Nazi Germany - and the rest of the past - the focus must also be on antisemitism now. This happened last night, in London, on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day:

2 Orthodox Jewish men were brutally attacked last night in London, on the eve of Intl. Holocaust Remembrance Day. How can this violent, hatred-fueled antisemitism STILL be in existence in 2022, nearly 80 years after the #Holocaust ended?#AntisemitismWatch 🌍 #UK #StandUpToHatred pic.twitter.com/XfUG8W7tU8

— StandWithUsUK (@StandWithUsUK) January 27, 2022

Rachel Burden, Jeremy Corbyn & antisemitism

A Survation poll back in 2018 found that 85% of British Jews believed that Jeremy Corbyn is antisemitic. And as Tam Heinitz writes:

Now it might feasibly be argued that such evidence as there is does not constitute conclusive proof that Corbyn himself is antisemitic. Certainly it would be right to acknowledge that he strongly disputes such an assertion.

But given the Mural, the Wreath, his comments about Hamas and Raed Saleh, his associations with Paul Eisen, his glowing Foreword to an antisemitic book, his comments about British Zionists lacking a sense of ‘English irony… despite having lived here a long time, probably all their lives’, not to mention the Labour Party under his leadership being found guilty of harassing and discriminating against Jewish members, there is, to say the least, a feasible case for the prosecution.

And that is why the Campaign Against Antisemitism has complained to the BBC because on 12 January, Breakfast presenter Rachel Burden interviewed businessman John Caudwell, who called Mr Corbyn  “a Marxist and antisemite”.  Later, towards the end of the programme, she apologised to 5 Live listeners:

I should have challenged him on the particular allegation of antisemite [sic] because there is absolutely no evidence that the leader of the Labour Party at that time, Jeremy Corbyn, was or is antisemitic. He had to deal with allegations of that within his party but there is nothing to suggest that he himself as an individual was. So I apologise for not challenging more directly, I should have done, and I want to emphasise there is no evidence for that at all.

Au contraire, Rachel. Au contraire. 

The doctor is in.

 

Tim Davies’s attempts to defend the BBC from the current tsunami of BBC-bashing inadvertently highlight the unsurmountable obstacle to reform.

As a self-appointed graduate of the famous Lucy school of psychiatry, I humbly submit my diagnosis - kindly regard this as my booth.

There’s something of the Greg Dyke about Tim Davie. If that sounds like some obscure rhyming slang, it’s not that.  The intended comparison merely concerns speech patterns and body language. Left-wing body language. You don’t need actual glottal stops to convey that certain je ne sais quoi. 

What I call ‘contrived lefty’ (calculated not-posh enunciation) communicates ‘institutional lefty’. All traces of acquired ‘down with the plebs’ articulation signals red flags danger. 

That’s enough subjective, snobbish and, if you like, bitchy analysis from this doctor.

I’d rather look at various articles about the latest terrorist incident at the Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas. 

I wondered if it was worth spending time addressing that issue on this blog at a time when all eyes are on Boris, and the media’s campaign to unseat him. Who knew that Beth Rigby was running the country? I think we all accept that the media is in the driving seat.

On first inspection, the BBC’s articles seem fairly innocuous. They merely iterate (some of) the facts. 

But 

Stephen Pollard begs to differ. “Well, he would,”  I hear you say. This is the Jewish Chronicle.

The BBC has a serious issue with Jews.

Take last night’s coverage of the Beth Israel shul siege in Texas, when a rabbi and three other Jews were taken hostage in the synagogue. Not once in its report on its flagship 10pm news did it mention antisemitism. Not once, at any point, did Ed Thomas, the BBC’s Special Correspondent, even hint that the gunman might even possibly, just perhaps, you never know, have had an issue of some kind with Jews. 

Mr Thomas began his report by asking: “What made Malik Faisal Akram leave Blackburn, the place he called home, to travel to Texas , arm himself with a gun and hold people hostage inside a synagogue?” A real mystery that, eh? I don’t know, Ed. I am really struggling to think what might have motivated him. But obviously it had nothing to do with Jews.

That’s funny. The FBI came to the same conclusion. Gotta laugh, eh? No. Not laughing.

I Am A Jewish Advocate And The Way The World Has Reacted To The Texas Synagogue Siege Is Terrifying

It's time for the non-Jewish world to actively free itself from antisemitism. If you're not Jewish and you think Jews are centring themselves in cries about media bias, you don't have a clue what it feels like to watch mainstream media serve your enemies and jeopardise your security. You have no idea the act of courage and resistance that it is to walk into a synagogue in 2022 and pray. America tells itself it's a safe place to do that. That is a lie. This could have happened at any Jewish institution in this country. Why don't more people care?

Here’s another weird thing:

The BBC has admitted to shortfalls in its initial coverage of the Colleyville siege.

More than five hours after Akram launched the siege that ended with his death, the BBC was still referring to his captives as ‘hostages’ - in speech marks.

Trivial maybe, but the cumulative effect….

Much more detail here.

In a chilling conversation with his brother in Blackburn from inside the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Malik Faisal Akram, 44, said: "I'm opening the doors for every youngster in England to enter America and f*** with them”.

Addressing fellow jihadists, he shouted: “Live your f***ing life bro, you f***ing coward. We’re coming to f***ing America. F*** them if they want to f*** with us. We’ll give them f***ing war.

It’s a bit odd that the most widely respected media organisation in the world was slow to pick this up. At first: “Probably not antisemitic, just generally deranged. You know, mentally ill.” chorused the BBC. Still, the emphasis is on Akram’s mental ‘elf, even though it’s now being grudgingly speculated that antisemitism might also be a factor.

Anti-Semitism is rife in the British Pakistani community

Last June, the Jewish Chronicle published an investigation into Urdu-language anti-Semitism on YouTube. Hundreds of hours of the vilest Jew-hatred is freely accessible on the video sharing platform, we revealed, racking up millions of views. 

In one particularly vivid clip, the Pakistani broadcaster Zaid Hamid said: “Hitler was an angel, the way he took action against Jews, the way he killed Jews.” In another, Imran Riaz Khan, a television personality with 1.6 million followers, said: “[The Jews] lobby a lot in America and have strangled America, have it totally controlled.”

Now, as your psychiatrist, I have no doubt whatsoever that Malik Faisal Akram was mentally ill. You’d have to be a bit off-colour in the brain department to travel to America from Blackburn to try to leverage the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist known as “Lady al Qaeda” who was convicted of trying to kill US troops in Afghanistan. And, to be frank, he even looks distinctly unhinged in the immediate lead-up to the event. 

But, was he much more mentally ill than any other devout Muslim from Blackburn?

News from America

The BBC's coverage of the hostage situation at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas drew considerable criticism overnight from British Jewish commenters on Twitter.

I first saw tweets about it from Sky News, but it was about an hour till BBC News got round to reporting it. We're used to the BBC being cautious about such things, but others sounded surprised:

Philip Rosenberg: Still nothing on @BBCNews or @BBCBreaking…

Bella Wallersteiner: Weird BBC still aren’t covering this…

When people saw the BBC's headline though their surprise turned to anger. It read: Texas police respond to synagogue 'hostage' situation. Here's a flavour of the response to that:

Tracy-Ann Oberman: What does ‘hostage’ mean @BBCNews? @BBCWorld? Are you suggesting they are not real hostages?

Gnasher Jew: Enter the BBC, trying to cast doubt on the fact that these Jews are being held HOSTAGE by placing inverted commas around the word. BBC News never knowingly missing an opportunity to insult Jews…
Alan Curtis: The above news was reported by 'journalists'.

A journalist who worked for the BBC, Leonid Ragozin, intervened with an attempted defence:

A. C. Kaminski: Why the quotation marks?

Leonid Ragozin: Because reporters can’t verify independently and quote the police.

A. C. Kaminski: Oh, right. But why does the CNN website not use quotation marks, then, when discussing same hostage situation? Does that mean that their reporters were able to verify independently?

Leonid Ragozin: Can only speak for the BBC, which I think has better standards than any network in America. Not that it doesn’t deserve criticism.

What Newssniffer shows is that, despite edits, the BBC News website still kept those quotation marks in their headline for five hours before removing them. 

Anyhow, this morning brought a new headline: Texas synagogue hostage stand-off not related to Jewish community - FBI. People who aren't inclined to believe the FBI assertion (given that the hostage taker was reportedly agitating on behalf of an imprisoned al-Qaeda-linked terrorist and entered a synagogue and took Jewish hostages) aren't impressed with the BBC's parroting of that either:

Gnasher Jew: And of course BBC World news once again attempts to downplay antisemitism, picking up on a ridiculous FBI statement. They really are an utterly repulsive organisation. 

Is it safe to say that BBC relations with British Jews are at an all-time low?

“Faceless - nameless- shameless”

That BBC article that so got my goat last night - BBC seeks swift response to bus anti-Semitism story complaints - remains unchanged. David Collier isn't impressed with it either and makes a further point:

This is part of the problem. Look at the article. A typical BBC report. Not a single name attached to it. The identities are all hidden - no byline, just an unnamed 'spokeswoman'... an anonymous article with no accountability. Faceless - nameless- shameless. That's the BBC.

Can Helen Mirren ever be an authentic Golda Meir?

Disclaimer. This is nothing directly to do with BBC bias. I’m sneaking it in under the heading “anything else that takes our fancy.’ I’m apt to stray off-topic.

*******

Criticising Jews online acts as a purgative. It opens the floodgates and releases pent-up ordure that’s been held in ever since Jeremy Corbyn’s downfall made it unfashionable to express antisemitism. Now they can let rip.

The topic is Brendan O’Neill’s article in yesterday’s Spectator about Maureen Lipman’s ‘AsaJew’ remark concerning Helen Mirren’s suitability to portray Golda Meir. The headline writer has titled it Maureen Lipman’s ‘Jewface’ criticism of Helen Mirren isn’t fair. 

Look below the line if you have access. Do you agree that something whiffy has been unleashed? Not overt antisemitism, but unabashed anti-Maureen Lipmanism, a form of antisemitism-by-proxy.

Another disclaimer: I haven’t a clue about the veracity of Brendan’s opening salvos but I trust his sincerity.

a) For instance, I don’t know what “Mo” has actually said  - maybe there was some sort of qualification to her remark - but let’s assume she really thinks no one but a Jew should play a Jew.

b.) I don’t know how well Tamsin Greig portrayed a Jewish character in the sitcom Friday Night Dinner (because I never watched it.) 

c.) I don’t know whether the actress playing Joan Rivers (who was neither Jewish nor the actual Joan Rivers) persuaded the audience to suspend its disbelief because I never saw the play/film/ show, nor (d.) can I say whether or not any of the other ‘Jewface’  shows that Brendan cites had managed to convince us  - by employing the deceptive art of ‘acting’ - of the authenticity of the characters they were pretending to be.

Anyway, Brendan O’Neill took a lot of trouble to give a variety of examples of actors playing characters they’re not, such as able-bodied actors playing disabled characters and heterosexuals playing homosexuals and vice versa, which, he posited, is, or has been up till now, acceptable.

“isn’t the point of acting precisely to portray someone other than yourself? It surely negates the art of acting to suggest that people should only play roles they have a direct identitarian link to. That Jewish characters should only be played by Jews, lesbian characters by lesbians, autistic people by autistic people, What next – only folks with a few gangster crimes under their belts should audition for a Scorsese movie?”

Except that some of the actors who did play ‘characters they were not’ subsequently became overcome with remorse and regret, and have actually apologised retrospectively.

However, isn’t Brendan arguing that no decent actor should be disqualified from having a shot at playing any character they choose, as long as they are good enough at their craft?

That sounds fine to me. If it’s a case of how good an actor one is, surely Helen Mirren has proved herself to be pretty well equal to the challenge; and the Gold Meir prosthetics look jolly convincing as well. But, as certain commenters have pointed out, there are limits. Black people playing white people and vice versa is quite an awkward one. Or, transplanting black characters into historical situations in an inauthentic and ahistorical manner looks like 'diversity taken quite a few steps too far.' See Bridgerton (I haven’t watched that either)

There’s also something of an apologetic tone running through Brendan’s piece. It reads as if he’s afraid of coming across as an antisemite -  because he isn’t an antisemite - but he is aware that any criticism of Maureen Lipman will be deemed antisemitic.  Sadly i suspect this is what has happened, and is what has given the green light to all that pent-up anti-Lipman sentiment that was there all along, patiently waiting for ‘permission to happen’ and I think he knew that. And I bet he hesitated before submitting the piece. 

The point I’m making is not about whether Maureen Lipman is right or wrong. On the face of it, it seems she’s a bit more wrong than right. But, and it’s a big but, look at the borderline antisemites that have come out below the line. They’re acting as if Brendan O’Neill has given them permission to metaphorically evacuate their bowels over Maureen Lipman.

Although on the face of it, she seems wrong on this one, and a bit ‘OTT triggered’, I wonder if there is something intrinsic within ‘Jewiness’ that’s ethereal and subtle, and not easy to fake. It’s not as clear-cut as the black and white issue,  but some non-Jewish actors will be less effective than others at convincing us that they’re actual Jews. 

One example of someone doing a pretty good job of playing a convincing (too convincing) Jew is Eddie Marsam, a non-Jew, who played the Jewish taxi-driver character in Ridley Road. He was so convincing in character that he received “relentless antisemitic abuse”,  and if that isn’t an endorsement I don’t know what is.

The BBC digs its heels in

As Charlie observes on the open thread, something very odd is going on...

The Jewish Chronicle has a main headline today, Outrage as BBC demands victims of Oxford Street bus attack reveal identities.

The BBC is refusing to respond to legal complaints about their coverage of the antisemitism bus incident on Oxford Street until the teenage victims on the bus are named. 

“We will be unable to substantively further progress your legal complaint until you identify your clients,” they say, adding it's an “uncontroversial principle of English law that a defendant is entitled to know the identity of the party or parties that are making a claim against them.”

Crossbench peer Lord Carlile - a barrister who was called to the bar 52 years ago - is not impressed. He strongly disagrees, saying: 

It is wholly unacceptable for the BBC to try to force frightened teenagers to reveal their names, particularly as there is film of the incident anyway. It is not part of a civil action. All they are doing at this stage is seeking answers from the BBC and an apology. The BBC is just wrong and it goes against public interest to insist that people who have been subjected to an attack should identify themselves at this stage.

The BBC has a very bad habit of digging its heels in when it's in the wrong about something. 

A BBC Islamophobia adviser shares an antisemite's writing

The Campaign Against Antisemitism reports that a Muslim media analyst who advises the BBC on its coverage of Islam has apologised for sharing an extract from a book by an antisemite. 

The analyst in question, Faisal Hanif, works for the Muslim Council of Britain-affiliated Centre for Media Monitoring and was the author of that report which claimed that Muslims are treated unfairly by the media which the BBC's Mark Easton helped launch and which Sue wrote about here. 

The author he shared was jazz saxophonist and Holocaust revisionist Gilad Atzmon. Mr Hanif says he was unaware of Mr Atzmon's antisemitic track record. Gilad's the sort of antisemite who blames the Grenfell Tower tragedy on “Jerusalemites”.

Dan Hodges: “I don't get what the BBC think they're doing here”

Here's another Twitter exchange:

Jake Wallis Simons: BBC has *serious* questions to answer. We reveal that the Board of Deputies commissioned independent, forensic report. Conclusion? Victims of Chanukah attack did NOT utter an anti-Islamic insult. And the Jewish kids themselves told us they didn't. You can read Board of Deputies president Marie van der Zyl's searing piece demanding an apology from the BBC here. She also demanded BBC staff undergo antisemitism awareness training, joining a host of MPs, peers and community groups to urge BBC to formally adopt IHRA definition of Jew-hate. Details coming soon...ENDS (for now).

Dan Hodges: I don't get what the BBC think they're doing here. Why are they dragging this out. It's simple. If they are standing by their report, they need to produce the evidence to substantiate their report. Or they need to retract and apologise.

Emily Kate: They see no reason to produce evidence because their model of journalism is about narratives, not facts, and an AS narrative is well-established in the BBC now. They also see no reason to explain because they don't see themselves as serving the public, but as instructing them.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, antisemitism in 2021 and the BBC

It's truly quite something when the world's most famous Nazi war criminal-hunting organisation, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, puts the BBC third this year on its annual ‘Global Antisemitism Top Ten’ list. 

Only Iran and Hamas beat the UK licence fee-funded broadcaster. 

The Mail on Sunday has the story. 

To its founder Marvin Hier's concerns about antisemitism and inaccuracy in BBC reporting including about Israel, a BBC spokesman is quoted replying in the usual BBC fashion: ‘‘Antisemitism is abhorrent. The BBC strives to serve the Jewish community, and all communities across our country, fairly with accurate and impartial reporting.’’

--------------

Rabbi Hier may have been too early to for the latest issue - a tweet from the BBC's Middle East reporter Tom Bateman on 23 December:

Israeli soldiers have shot dead a 26-year-old Palestinian man - Muhammad Issa Abbas, killed last night near al-Amari refugee camp. IDF says they fired on a gunman who’d shot at them from a car. Palestinian health ministry says he was shot in the back and died in hospital.

The way this was put provoked a strong reaction from many British Jewish commentators because of the tweet's ordering of events - putting the killing of a Palestinian man by Israeli soldiers outside a refugee camp first, and because the 26-year-old Palestinian man was quite literally a Hamas terrorist. There are even photos of him posing with his many guns. And the later 'one side says, the other side says' equivalence doesn't appear to be borne out by the facts which favour the Israeli version. 

Tom Bateman didn't respond to any concerns.

Dirty Secret

I can't find much coverage of the protest that took place outside Broadcasting House on Monday evening. The BBC rarely reports protests against itself (well, why would it?) but the only "mainstream' press report I can find so far today is in OMG The Daily Mail.

The protest, which was by all accounts well attended, was to register the anger about the BBC's biased and inflammatory reporting of an ugly incident that took place recently on London's famous Oxford Street.  Phone cameras inside the bus caught images of several angry young men spitting, banging shoes against the windows, and making hostile gestures at a group of young Jewish passengers who had just been celebrating Chanukah.

The BBC's report identified the victims as Jewish, but the identity of the perpetrators was left to the imagination. However, a specific religion was alluded to indirectly, in the form of a two-word insult that allegedly came from inside the bus, namely: "Dirty Muslims." 

The BBC chose to report this peculiar and quite unlikely (but allegedly overheard) exclamation in a way that suggested it was a provocation, impliedly an altercation between two evenly-matched rivals. That the Jews got what was coming. "They asked for it."

Originally the report read "racial slurs were heard from inside the bus" - later amended to the singular: "a racial slur."  Still a slur, but just the one.  

This allegation was vigorously denied, but let's get real. Even if someone did utter such a remark, would that amount to an irresistible provocation, whether it was uttered before, during, or after the incident? 

Come on, man!

The fact that the BBC insisted on keeping the 'racial slur' phrase in their report despite the lack of corroborating evidence was the primary reason for that protest. The whole thing has drawn attention to the BBC's covert hostility to the Jewish community and its history of one-sided, 'half-a-story' reporting of matters concerning Israel. People are once again asking to see the famous Balen report, the one that the BBC has devoted a few hundred thousand quidsworth of legal fees to keep secret.

They might as well stay quiet and ignore the protest and let the BBC keep it as "Our dirty little secret" 

Lord Grade criticises the BBC

The BBC is still keeping its mouth shut firmer than a member of the clam mafia but the pressure on the corporation over the Oxford Street antisemitic bus incident continues to grow. Now former BBC chairman Lord [Michael] Grade has joined the chorus of criticism, saying: 

Given the available evidence, or rather lack of it, it is worrying that the BBC has so far defended its report that there were ‘clearly’ anti-Muslim shouts from the bus, while the antisemitic gestures were only ‘alleged’. They need to provide the evidence to support their defence or rethink and issue an urgent correction and apology.

Someone senior at the BBC is surely going to have to say something sometime about this, you'd have thought?

Slur-gate

Don’t let’s get this out of proportion. Okay, so a few foreign youths did their thing, prancing, spitting, and gesticulating at Jews in a bus. As they do. But don’t let’s describe these mincing girlie-boys with their skinny jeans and immaculate white trainers, as ……thugs! They’re not thugs! They’re just a particular kind of naughty, mincing, girlie-boys who have a thing about Jews.

Seriously, this is in danger of sliding perilously into farce. So Arabs hate Jews! Who knew?

Please don’t elevate this ugly but relatively minor incident till it turns into Tahrir Square-style mob violence. Nobody died. (This time) Don’t let the Jewish press exaggerate the gravity of the actual incident. It makes us look over-the-top sensitive, bonkers and hair-triggered triggered! and will probably bounce back to bite us on the bum. 

No one likes to hear: ”it’s part and parcel of living in a multicultural society” but that’s what many people do say, and sadly, it seems to be the grim truth.

The genuine outrage, and much more a matter of concern, is that an unidentified BBC personage thought he heard two words uttered by one of the beleaguered passengers, and then decided to add them into the (already filed) report. 

It turns out that the “Racial Slur” he, she/they detected - and ramped up from singular to plural for good measure - was a call for assistance, albeit in an unfamiliar language - Hebrew. 

The BBC’s truth was that a passenger had uttered: “Dirty Muslims!” What a discovery! One can almost sense the glee! Unfortunately for the BBC, this threadbare fragment of moral equivalency seems to have been conjured up by wishful thinking.  Did the BBC assume that those two little words would signal that  ‘the Jews brought it on themselves. 

“Dirty Muslims” indeed! Oh, the horror! But not an actual racist slur, is it? It might even occur to some of us that in the circumstances ‘Dirty Muslims’ would have been an understatement. And it’s not a bit like “Dirty Jews”!  That was a genuine slur, and an insult casually bandied about on the streets of Britain in the 1900s. As a schoolboy, my father found this profoundly wounding and hurtful.

Following on from that, I must admit that I rarely watch the BBC any more. I prefer to get most of the stories that interest me from reading and watching what’s currently known as ‘right-wing media. (Not that I think that’s a fair or accurate description) I suppose that makes me a kind of bubble-dweller.  

However, I do sense a mood-swing of late - an undercurrent perhaps, something in the air other than the snowman. A slight whiff of a gradually shifting zeitgeist. Do you have to be very right-wing to be less favourably disposed towards Islam? And what ‘wing’ must you be from to be somewhat less hostile to Jews than is absolutely necessary?

It might have nothing at all to do with concerns over mass immigration, but I think the BBC has even begun mentioning Israel dispassionately - without having to actually hold its nose - if only in its reporting of the global pandemic journey. Covid, the great leveller.

However, I think it would be sad if the Jewish media squandered any advantage that sympathetic coverage of recent events may have given it by over-egging the egregiousness of ‘slur-gate’ itself. I feel like I’m behaving  like someone trying to restrain his companion from getting into a fight - “leave it mate, it ain’t worth it”

Instead, please concentrate on the BBC’s curious compulsion to add or invent stuff, probably “for the sake of cohesion.” It wasn’t nice and it wasn’t clever, and just as the BBC itself has been 'stressing' so much recently over a different matter, the ‘cover-up’ compounds the wrongdoing, bigly.

The Board of Deputies takes action against the BBC

The 261-year old Board of Deputies of British Jews has taken the remarkable step of writing to Tim Davie, Richard Sharp and Fran Unsworth at BBC, copying in Nadine Dorries, to complain in the strongest terms about the BBC's reporting of the antisemitic incident on Oxford Street. 

The letter comes directly from Marie van der Zyl, president of the organisation. 

The BBC appears to have gone to ground over this, so this will smoke them out if nothing else. 

Ms van der Zyl outlines five main charges against the BBC:

1. Your report of the incident refers to the obvious antisemitic acts as mere “allegations” while reporting an unsubstantiated allegation of “racial slurs about Muslims” as fact.

2. Your report treats racisms differently.

3. Your video news segment goes as far as to suggest the Jewish victims may have been responsible for instigating the attacks.

4. The allegations made against the Jewish victims are wholly without substance or merit.

5. The BBC’s refusal to retract and apologise to the victims has caused further distress and compounded the harm.

She says that the BBC...

...needs to take immediate action to repair the damage done, discipline those responsible and work with us to undergo training to improve the BBC’s ability to cover our community with due care for accuracy, understanding and respect. Most importantly, it is imperative that you correct your report to mitigate any further damage, and issue an apology to the victims for all the distress that has been caused.

Now the ball is in the BBC's court.

Further reading - 

[1] Nicole Lampert, CAPX: From Wiley to the Oxford St attacks, some people always think Jews deserve it.

[2] Melanie Phillips, Substack: The BBC has questions to answer.

Update - I hadn't picked up on this, but in another twist the BBC's Harry Farley told GnasherJew that it was his editors who 'picked up' on the 'racial slur about Muslims'. It was ''not me'', he said. And, in a very interesting turn of phrase, he then added ''...and they wanted to reflect that briefly in the piece''. And it appears as if it was these editors themselves who added it after his piece was filed. 

''Questions to answer''

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, former Labour MP Lord [Ian] Austin tackles the BBC's behaviour over the antisemitic incident on Oxford Street and says it has ''questions to answer'':

Was it attempting to draw an equivalence between a group of men intimidating children and their victims? And why did it report the abuse from thugs on the street as “alleged” but present the disputed allegation of a slur inside the bus by children as a fact? I have always defended the BBC, but can’t imagine an incident involving any other group being reported in this way. It needs to listen to people from the Jewish community and look at this very carefully. We can’t have people thinking that incidents of racism are handled differently depending on who the perpetrators and victims might be.

Chronicling other recent antisemitic incidents, his piece concludes:

Israel became an obsession on the Left, held to standards never applied to other countries, and Jewish people in Britain were expected to account for a government of another country. The demonisation of Israel leads to racist attacks against Britain’s Jewish community. Our national broadcaster should be shining a spotlight on that, exposing the racists and standing up for the victims, not bending over backwards seemingly to find an equivalence where none exists. 

Antisemitism on Oxford Street - Another Update

So it wasn't just Harry Farley on the BBC News website. I've found via TVEyes Thursday's BBC London report on the incident on Oxford Street [18:40, BBC One]. BBC reporter Guy Lynn said:

The Metropolitan Police are treating this as an alleged hate crime and I should say though that we at BBC London did watch this footage and you can hear some racial slurs about Muslim people which does come from the bus. It is not clear at the moment from the person that said that what role that may have played in this incident.

So from that, it's evidently far from being just a couple of BBC reporters who got this so badly wrong, It's ''we at BBC London'' who watched the footage, misheard and misinterpreted the footage, and then used it in the BBC's television and online coverage. 

You can imagine the scene: They watch the footage in a BBC London studio. Someone thinks they heard a particular phrase that casts a bad light on the Jewish people on the bus and others are persuaded that they can hear it too. They don't double-check and triple-check with experts before broadcasting it and others just take their word for it, and it spreads from BBC tv to the BBC News website. Then, for some reason, BBC reporters use the plural ''slurs'' both online and on tv - something they later have to row back on, at least online, given that it was palpably untrue. 

So what now? A lot of people are absolutely furious at the BBC, and I'm sure they won't let the BBC off the hook over this.

P.S. Someone on Twitter made a point that struck me too, writing ''The inclusion of the Jewish witness is worse as the unqualified BBC's assertion next to her denial makes it seem like she is being dishonest.''

This was that passage:

Guy Lynn, BBC: We spoke to someone who was on the bus. 

Tamara Cohen: Pretty scared for myself. The way that it was escalating, I didn't want there to be any violence but obviously we weren't in that mindset which is why we got on the bus and we were starting to leave and then the people that were mocking us, they got close to the bus and started hitting the bus, they starting shouting out rude slurs. It was escalating pretty quickly. 

Guy Lynn, BBC: The Metropolitan Police are treating this as an alleged hate crime and I should say though that we at BBC London did watch this footage and you can hear some racial slurs about Muslim people which does come from the bus.

A new BBC video about antisemitism

 

The most-watched video on the BBC News website this morning is a thoughtful piece by Jewish BBC reporter Tom Brada headlined Anti-Semitism: 2021 likely to be 'the worst year on record'. Oddly, the BBC is promoting it on Twitter under a different headline  - one with a question mark, British, Jewish: Is Anti-Semitism on the Rise? The report is interesting and timely, though it doesn't tackle the question of who is behind the rise in antisemitism and, curiously, tackles the subject of 'Israel and antisemitism in the UK' through a single voice: a Jewish critic of Israel.