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The BBC has chosen to lie and pick a fight with Jews

The JC Leader, 9 December 2021

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London, UK - July 3, 2014: BBC head office and square in front of main entrance with walking people

December 09, 2021 12:49

It is quite a feat for the BBC to have found two ways in recent day to antagonise the Jewish community, both of which appear to be entirely deliberate.

Last week BBC News produced a half-hour documentary about the resurgence of antisemitism in Britain. Bizarrely, it made no mention of Jeremy Corbyn or the EHRC’s report into Labour’s antisemitism, as if they played no role.

But that is almost the least of the problems with film. The reporter, Tom Brada, ended by giving a platform to Islamic YouTuber Mohammed Hijab, who notoriously filmed himself in Golders Green on Shabbat during the Gaza conflict in May in front of a billboard with the words “Did we not learn from the Holocaust?”

Before Mr Hijab, we heard from a representative from a fringe communal organisation which believed Israel was an apartheid state. The film was grotesque in its choices.

But at least the documentary did not make up words uttered by any of those filmed. In the BBC’s coverage of the Chanukah bus attack, however, it asserted as fact that “a slur about Muslims” could be heard on the recording from inside the bus (whilst describing the mob’s Jew hate as being merely “alleged”).

Independent analysis has, however, proved what the rest of us can hear: that the words “dirty Muslim” were not, as alleged by the report, said by anyone. The BBC has refused to apologise or remove the allegation of a slur. Mistakes happen.

If the BBC had said sorry, this one would now be forgotten. Instead, the BBC has chosen to pick a fight with the Jewish community and its representative body, the Board of Deputies.

And to do that by defending what must be considered a lie about Jews, rather than a mere mistake. We are now in serious territory.

December 09, 2021 12:49

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