Tell it how it is

It has not been a good week for the Jews.  At Glastonbury festival one of the acts to the pleasure of their fans shouted ‘Death to the IDF’.  Condemnation has been widespread and one of the issues which needs to be resolved is how the BBC permitted this to be broadcast.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews moved into action and informed the world of what they did in relation to the BBC as follows:

Countless music fans and BBC viewers will have shared the shock and outrage of British Jews at seeing chants for death being led from the Glastonbury stage this afternoon, alongside other hate-filled messages broadcast uninterrupted in BBC coverage. The Board of Deputies has responded swiftly by engaging directly with government, senior figures at the BBC, and the police. We welcome the BBC’s confirmation that the hateful material broadcast today will not be available on demand. We will continue to seek answers from the BBC about how that hateful content was allowed to be broadcast and to ensure there can be no repetition of this in the future.  We thank the Culture Secretary for her speedy intervention in demanding an explanation from the BBC.

An explanation might be interesting as to how calls for death to Israelis came to be broadcast.  I don’t know if it would have been possible to prevent it, unless there is a delay between the action and the broadcast.  I am aware that often radio shows run a delay just to be on the safe side, so perhaps the BBC do this with television.

All of this though misses the point, which is why are we being so nice, or more accurately why are the Board being so nice?  It may be on this occasion that the BBC are not to blame, but it does bring to mind the attitude of the BBC since October 7.  I am not alone in believing that the BBC has in part been responsible for the increase in anti-Semitism over the last 21 months.  Their bias against Israel and indifference to the impact this has on British Jews is palpable.

The BBC cheerfully accepts information from Hamas as being true and only makes changes when they absolutely have to.  The incidents of where the BBC has mis-reported are too many to mention.  This has been going on for months and months.  So I ask again, why are the Board being so nice?  I cannot think of an answer other than they have ready access to senior people at the BBC and wish to retain that, so a proper complaint might scupper that relationship.

Having thought about this, it seems to me that we need to abandon the ‘let’s be nice to everyone’ approach and start getting real. The starting point is a letter to the BBC setting out our position.  When I say ‘our’ I mean most of us in the Jewish community who are weary with the BBC bias and angry at their intransigence.  The letter might read something like this after the usual opening formalities:

You, the BBC are a disgrace.  Your conduct in relation to reporting the war in Gaza has been and continues to be reprehensible.  Your bias against Israel is so obvious as to be embarrassing.  You blithely accept Hamas figures without question and yet treat Israeli information with suspicion.  You refuse to acknowledge that Hamas is terrorist entity and skirt around the fact that this is an existential fight for Israel given the open calls for death to Jews made by Hamas.

Your abandonment of proper journalistic principles now means that we call into question other reports you produce.  Since you don’t bother with getting to the truth with Israel, where else do just make up stories?  I don’t know, but if you are so wrong about Israel and the Jews – and you are – then it’s a good chance you are wrong about so much more.

And finally, your conduct has had the result of increasing hostility towards British Jews.  Citizens going about their normal business now have to hide their ‘Jewishness’ lest they are harassed or physically attacked.  That’s down to you.  We are not going to complain since the complaints process is a sham, a complicated mechanism designed to put off those but the most determined to press on and complain.  What we will do is highlight your bias, your blatant acceptance of Hamas press releases as pure truth and as we have said, your responsibility for British citizens being nervous about leaving their homes.

Be aware, that we will now be watching and reading, and when you report the next lie from Hamas and claim it to be true, we will be ready, only this time with lawyers ready to bring private prosecutions against your senior executives.  You cannot believe that you can allow so much dishonesty into publication without some form of reckoning.  That is what we will be bringing your direction, every time you step out of journalistic line.

Yours etc.

I think a letter like that would work so much better than asking for explanations.  A letter that tells it how it is and is then published to the outside world for others to write their own letters of support is the way to go.  Let us raise the profile of the complicity of the BBC in increased anti-Semtism and at the very least provoke the Government to think about how the BBC’s invulnerability might now be challenged.  It really is way, way overdue.