Talking? Hardly

Yesterday, the BBC’s “HardTalk” programe hosted Temple Mount activist and assassination attempt survivor Yehudah Glick.

The interviewer, Stephen Sackur, who also once interviewed me (I have appeared twice on the program), true to the show’s format and raison d’etre, pressed hard, brought up irrelevant issues and, well, was provocative.

But what truly galled me was his repeated attempts to paint Glick as a “provocator”.  As if his actions on behalf of the rule of law and to achieve full human rights were causing violence. Instead of asking a question such as ‘why do you think the Muslims oppose your activity?‘, his badgering was framed as ‘you’re the extremist who is bothering a bunch of peaceful persons’.

Yehudah, unfortunately, did not insert enough descriptions of the Islamist violence, verbal and physical, that Jews – and Christians – suffer although he tried valiantly.  The damage done to archaeology.  The spitting, show-throwing and more.  The official Palestinian Authority support, as well as that of Jordan, for this hostile activity.  The essence of what the assassination attempt symbolized was quickly lost.

Also, the entire effort of ‘Jerusalem & Temple Mount Denial’ wasn’t dealt with to illustrate just how irrational the reality is at that sacred site.

Worse, Sackur was let off because the attack of Charlie Hebdo’s editorial staff and the murder of people for their satiricall comments of Islam occured after the show’s taping and broadcast.

For if otherwise, Sackur should have been pressed back and asked, ‘sir, your questions are actually justifying murder in the name of religion as has just happened in Paris‘.  Yehudah did insert a sense of that contradiction – Sackur exploiting his role to accuse the Jew while, through ignoring what that “Denial” really represents as to the aims of Muslims vis-a-vis not only the Temple Mount but Zionsim and Israel – but the effect would have been more obvious to the viewer had the show been one day later.

Jordan and the Palestinian Authority should have been on trial here, not Yehudah Glick.

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