Ofcom clears Channel 4 on Iran message

Ofcom, the broadcast watchdog, has rejected a complaint against Channel 4 for choosing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to deliver its Alternative Christmas Message last year.

This week Ofcom said that it had received 295 complaints from viewers that the Iranian leader was an “offensive and inappropriate” choice because of his views on the Holocaust, women and homosexuals.

But it stated that the actual content of the broadcast could be “described as non-confrontational, comprising as it did a message of goodwill to the UK audience”.

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Churchill returns fire over play

Playwright Caryl Churchill has lashed out at writer and columnist Howard Jacobson after he claimed her latest work was antisemitic.

In last week’s Independent and subsequently in the JC, Mr Jacobson criticised Ms Churchill’s 10-minute Royal Court Theatre play, Seven Jewish Children, as “one-sided” and “Jew-hating. The play, billed as a short history of Israel, finished last Saturday.

But Ms Churchill, a patron of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, described Mr Jacobson’s criticism as a “usual tactic”.

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Board asks for help for Iran Bahá’is

The Board of Deputies president, Henry Grunwald QC, has written to Foreign Secretary David Miliband with a renewed call to the government to support the persecuted Bahá’i community in Iran.

The Board made representations to the government last May when six community leaders were arrested and detained. The group, including a seventh leader already in custody, has now been charged with various crimes including “insulting religious sanctity”, “undermining the Islamic Republic of Iran” and even “espionage for Israel”.

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A Who’s Who of world politics

The main players at the first London Conference on Antisemitism read like a who’s who of world politics. There were a dozen ministers from different governments and different continents, the president of the Austrian parliament, the vice-president of the Bundestag, the state prosecutor for Argentina and British government ministers and MPs. The conference differed from previous such events because they were usually occasions for Jews to speak to Jews. In London, deliberately, the majority of the participants were non-Jews.

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Airline silent on flight cancellation claims

Thomsonfly have refused to deny suggestions that they will be scrapping flights between Manchester and Tel Aviv.

Rival airline Jet2 last week announced they will be making weekly flights to Israel from May.

The no-frills airline, now flying to 40 destinations from six UK airports, launched its Tel Aviv route with the claim that it will be “the only airline to offer a direct route from the north of the UK, following the demise of other services”.

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Boycott targets kosher shops

Moves to boycott Israeli goods have taken a turn described as “sinister” with the publication of a 68-page report ‘outing’ companies and individuals that sell goods from West Bank settlements.

The report, published by the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, has been condemned by Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies, as “sinister and misleading”.

One of the report’s key sources is a known pro-Hizbollah website, Innovative Minds.

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Outrage as SOAS invites Hizbollah-linked speaker

Jewish groups have attacked plans to bring a Hizbollah-linked journalist to Britain for a conference on Islam.

Ibrahim Mousawi is expected to speak at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) next month, after a similar appearance in November.

He edits Lebanese newspaper Al Intiqad and previously worked for the Shi’ite TV station, Al Manar.

The Board of Deputies and the CST said that his presence would cause great concern to the Jewish community.

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Britain and Italy threaten to drop out of Durban II

Britain and Italy could join Canada and Israel in refusing to attend the Durban II Review Conference in April unless they receive cast-iron guarantees that it will not turn into an antisemitic, anti-Israel arena of hate.

The conference, to be held in Geneva, is a follow-up to the UN World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.

The Durban conference became notorious for its unbridled attacks on Israel, led by Iran and a number of other Arab states.

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