BBC debate on ‘whether anti-Zionism should be a protected characteristic’ is a gross insult, says Board - The Jewish Chronicle

The BBC has come under fresh fire from the Board of Deputies for hosting a debate on whether anti-Zionism should be a protected characteristic.

Board President Marie van der Zyl called the debate, planned for Radio 4’s Sunday programme, a “grotesque insult to an overwhelming majority of British Jews”.

The programme risks further souring relations between the BBC and the Jewish community amid an ongoing row over its reporting of the antisemitic attack on Jewish teenagers in Oxford Street.

Director General Tim Davie is due to meet with the Board this month as the BBC faces a barrage of criticism over its handling of the November 29 attack in which students out celebrating Chanukah were spat at, forcing them to take refuge in their hire bus from a gang of thugs who were filmed banging on the widows, shouting abuse and making Nazi salutes.

BBC London’s reporting of the attack claimed a racial slur could be heard from within the bus but that claim is widely disputed and has been categorically denied by the teenagers themselves.

The latest controversy will do little to improve strained relations. Board of Deputies President Marie van der Zyl said: "Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination in our ancestral homeland. The BBC's intention to host a debate on whether vocal opposition to that belief should be a 'protected characteristic' is a grotesque insult to an overwhelming majority of British Jews.

"Those on the fringes of our community have every right to express their views; we are fortunate to live in a country which values freedom of speech. Yet for our national broadcaster to invite such people to give their view, and then ask a representative of one of our communal organisations to ‘debate’ this view, places these opinions on an equal footing and gives listeners an utterly inaccurate impression of the general view of British Jews.

"This was something done repeatedly during the Corbyn era, when representatives of key Jewish communal organisations were asked to ‘debate’ the existence of antisemitism in the Labour Party with people from a small far-left fringe group full of conspiracy theorists, as if for the entertainment of the general population.

“Our community is not here to dance for your amusement.”

Among the guests due to debate the controversial issue is Jewish Voice for Labour member Diana Nelsen, who was given a formal warning by the governing NEC body last February.

Ms Nelsen, who is Jewish, has denied that former Labour MPs Luciana Berger and Dame Louise Ellman were “hounded out” of the party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and has posted on social media there is a “symbiotic relationship between Zionism and antisemitism”.

She has also posted: “Zionism is not Judaism. It is blasphemy.”

Jewish Voice for Labour was formed in 2017 by Jewish members of the party to support then leader Jeremy Corbyn amid growing concern about widespread antisemitism within the Labour party.

Despite Labour’s adoption of the international definition of antisemitism, the aims of JVL included opposing “attempts to widen the definition of antisemitism beyond its meaning of hostility towards or discrimination against Jews as Jews.”

Co-chairman Leah Levane was turned away at last year’s Labour party conference in Brighton because of her support for Labour in Exile Network and Labour Against the Witch Hunt, two groups which had been banned by the ruling NEC last July.

A BBC spokesperson said: "We are always exploring a range of possible topics but there's no planned item about anti-Zionism on the Sunday programme."

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