It’s very difficult to characterize this as an isolated incident of anti-semitism by the BBC considering it’s far from their first incident, and considering further that the BBC has spend 20 years and well over £300,000 keeping the 20,000 word Balen Report into their perceived anti-Israel bias buried.
How can we be expected to believe that there is no anti-semitism at play when the BBC claim that they refuse to call Hamas a terrorist organization because ‘Terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. It’s simply not the BBC’s job to tell people who to support and who to condemn […] We don’t take sides. We don’t use loaded words like “evil” or “cowardly”. We don’t talk about “terrorists”.’ despite the fact they actually do that constantly, and have for decades?
Rajib Karim: The terrorist inside British Airways
Brussels: Epicentre of the terrorist threat in Europe?
Built at a time when IRA terrorist attacks were a constant threat, High Point was built to be bomb-proof
Securing and maintaining reliable funding is the key to moving from fringe radical group to recognised terrorist organisation
Eighteen years after the Brighton bombing, former IRA terrorist, Patrick Magee, has continued to defend his role in the blast
[Lisa] Smith was, however, found not guilty of financing terrorism by sending money to a man for the benefit the terrorist group.
Sudesh Amman: From troubled schoolboy to terrorist
Between 1969 and 2001 over 3,526 people were killed in terrorist violence in the UK. ↑ this one is from BBC Bitesize, educational material the BBC writes for children. I guess editorializing to children doesn’t count as taking sides.
The BBC clearly has no problem naming and shaming terrorism when Jews aren’t the target. This assertion of “Jewish wealth” isn’t only an obvious Elders of Zion appeal, it’s the latest in a long, long line of Isolated Incidents of the BBC suddenly altering its established reporting standards for only the situations where they address the one country in the world full of Jewish people.
I was reading about new antisemitism the other day and I thought it was interesting.
Most canny antisemites have turned to the old (and formerly totally fine) canard “criticizing Israel is not antisemitic” to shield their actual antisemitic criticism. Not wanting to call Hamas a terrorist organization is a perfect example. They’re only terrorizing Israel, which isn’t inherently antisemitic! /s
But yeah it’s really everywhere now. Sometimes it’s mask off as in this incident. But frequently it’s mask on.
Are you claiming anyone criticising Israel is antisemitic? Despite the fact that many people doing that are jews?
No, they’re not. Antisemites hiding behind “we’re just criticizing Israel” does not mean everyone criticizing Israel is an antisemite.
I also doubt that a statement made by a jew can’t be antisemitic just because it was made by a jew. That’s like saying a statement can’t be misogynistic because it was made by a woman.
And this bullshit argument is exactly why this debate is so absurd.
Every critic of Israel’s policies will be called antisemitic. And you know why? Because it’s an awesome shield, if you don’t want to engage with an argument. And people like you believe it immediately and call everyone an antisemite. That’s not helpful at all.
Israel is measured by double standards. Nothing they do will ever cause the international outrage any other country’s actions would cause.
If we (that is, the West) are truly Israel’s friends, we have to call them out on their errors. That’s what friends are for.
How in the world did this person call anyone an antisemite? Are you responding to the right post?
Nothing they do will ever cause the international outrage any other country’s actions would cause.
Israel has 45.9% of all UNHRC condemnations ever passed, passed at it. Do you believe Israel is committing 45.9% of all human rights atrocities on Earth right now?
You are right Israel is measured by double standards, but it’s not that its actions produce less outrage than other countries’ – they produce far more. This is new antisemitism.
It’s not actually necessary to rake Israel over the coals more than other countries. Doing so is a double standard. Sierra Leone has roughly the population of Israel; If you aren’t holding it to task for its human rights abuses as much as you are Israel, you are engaged in that double standard.
The UN are not really a fair comparison, since it’s one country one vote. And there are a lot of not exactly democratic countries.
Sierra Leone is also a bit of a different case, simply because it’s not a liberal democracy as Israel. Of course I’ll have higher expectations.
Higher expectations is reasonable! Would you say two times higher? Ten times higher? A hundred times higher?
As a baseline, how much have you posted about Sierra Leone and the human rights abuses there in the last year?
So you want whataboutism?
Africa is simply assumed to be constantly abusing human rights. That’s the baseline the news is setting. Why haven’t I written anything about Sierra Leone? Because it’s not in the public discussion. Simple as that.
You’re setting unreasonable expectations here. I’m not a news outlet. I’m under no obligation to be “balanced” in my reporting. And if you would be honest to yourself for 5s, you’d notice, that I’m posting here as a reaction, I did not start this discussion.
Your second point is entirely correct; see also self-hating gays in the Log Cabin Republicans.
I think the shield for your first point is pretty narrow these days. About a decade ago that point held a lot more salience, but as my “new antisemitism” link discusses, the position has been adopted so vigorously by antisemites that I think the position is indeed very close to antisemitic unless deployed extremely carefully.
Yes, criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic. But since this canard is so often invoked by idle and ignorant spectators, with no real understanding of Israeli or Palestinian politics, inserting themselves into a fraught and unhappy situation, usually specifically to criticize or delegitimize only Israel… it’s tough to see how that isn’t a special standard applied only to Israel. Or, worse, it’s invoked by real antisemites hoping to get bystanders on-side with actual antisemitism by cloaking it as criticism of Israel.
As a concrete example of this new antisemitism – in 2017, Hamas altered its charter, which was wildly and outright antisemitic, to specifically state that it doesn’t actually want to kill all Jews as previously stated, but only the occupiers of Palestine. Given their actions, the huge amount of specifically anti-Jewish sentiment in Gaza, and even the incredibly virulent language in their old charter, do you think they actually changed their minds about Jews? Or are they simply cloaking their antisemitism in a package that more people might agree with these days? A new kind of antisemitism?
The issue is: where’s the line? What can we say about israel that won’t be see as antisemite?
Edit: nvm, i read the article, the answer is very obvious.
@sarsaparilyptus That still doesn’t beat the owner of the most popular footbal club here’s take:
FCSB owner Gigi Becali has commented in characteristic style on the conflict situation in Israel, which has declared a state of war after rocket attacks by the Palestinian Hamas movement. “The events in Israel… Excluding the fact that people are dying and it’s not good, any war is to our advantage. And in football, and economically. They won’t be in the mood for football,” said Gigi Becali, referring to the fact that Romania is in a group with Israel in the Euro 2024 preliminaries. “And economically, there are 500,000 Jews who will come to Romania. They are afraid. They have money, they have that… They’ll buy houses,” Becali added. "But it won’t last long. The Jews rule the world and you start attacking them? You attack their children over there? They leave them and they’ll be wiped out in five months. The Gaza Strip will be dust! That’s how I see it. They’ll wipe them out. They’ve got billions. They rule the world! How do you deal with them? It’s like me fighting Manchester City," added the FCSB owner.
Translated with DeepL https://www.deepl.com/app/?utm_source=android&utm_medium=app&utm_campaign=share-translationAnd here i am, struggling with rent.
Just for clarification, in case anyone is in the same situation as me…
Clicking on that link just takes me to the MSN front-page for some reason… The French version, because I live in France. This article is from The Jerusalem Post and the lead is:
The BBC’s Spanish-language service released a program claiming that “Jewish wealth and influence” in the United States is the reason behind the United States’ ongoing support for Israel, according to a translation produced by Jewish News on October 20.
If you speak Spanish you can see the program in question here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G16Mnq93qL0
Article: https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-769435
Conclusion is that of OP: BBC are in hot water.
As a Canadian, as much as I like it when news providers stick to their guns, I think the CBC will also probably need to make some updates to the way they use the “T” words in the future.
Thanks for correcting that, my browser rejects most redirects so I didn’t know there was an issue.
