Vincent Browne Censured For Calling Israel a “Cancer”
March 3, 2013 0:28 by Pesach BensonThe Broadcasting Authority of Ireland censured Vincent Browne, upholding a formal complaint filed against the veteran TV3 presenter.
Last October, Browne called Israel “the cancer in foreign affairs,” said that Israel “polarises the Islamic community of the world against the rest of the world,” and claimed that through the creation of the state, the Jews “stole the land from the Arabs.” The on-air bigotry earned Browne special recognition in last year’s Dishonest Reporting awards.
Responding to a complaint filed by Paul Rossiter, the BAI wrote in its ruling (pdf format):
However, it was the view of the Committee that the references by the programme presenter to the State of Israel during the programme were included without any apparent context or relevance to the discussion of the then forthcoming Presidential election in the United States of America, the focus of the programme.
Furthermore, it was the view of the Committee that the remarks constituted an editorial statement by the presenter that was not balanced by contributions from the programme guests. The item was therefore deemed to have failed to meet the requirement for fair, objective and impartial treatment of news and current affairs.
The ruling, however, didn’t agree with Rossiter that Browne’s comments were anti-Semitic.
A BAI spokesman told the Irish Independent that no further appeal is possible for TV3 and that the station must air an apology within 21 days.
Jeffrey
6:42 pm
Mar 03, 2013
Something is better than nothing and better late than never. However, should a man with such poisonous views be on television at all? I cannot help thinking that if he had said this about an Islamic state, he would have been taken off the air immediately.
Let us see whether TV3 takes the full 21 days to make its apology and at what time it is screened. Also, whether it is fulsome or minimal and grudging. That will tell us whether it is just Vincent Browne who is poisonous or whether he is simply reflecting a corporate hostility to Israel and the idea of a Jewish state. If so, perhaps the BAI will need to revisit the issue.
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Bryna Waltuch
1:57 am
Mar 04, 2013
I NEVER QUITE UNDERSTAND WHAT IT MEANS WHEN SOMEONE APOLOGIZES FOR A DISGUSTING ANTI-SEMETIC REMARK. WHAT ARE THEY APOLOGIZING FOR? THAT THEY THINK THAT THING? THAT THE DISGUSTING REMARK FELL OUT OF THEIR MOUTH? THAT SOMEONE HEARD? THAT NOW THE WORLD KNOWS THEY ARE JERKS AND INCOMPREHENSIBLE ASSES? WHAT GOOD DOES AN APOLOGY DO? WHY DOES HE REMAIN IN HIS POSITION? HE IS A BIGOT. AND NONE OF US IS SAFE WHEN BIGOTS ARE ON THE LOOSE.
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Larry
7:29 pm
Mar 03, 2013
If there was no Israel the Muslim world would still hate the Western world. Muslims kill more Muslims in 1 year then was killed in all the wars between the Arabs and Israel. Make no mistake, what’s going on in the middle east has little or nothing to do with Israel. It has to do with Muslim domination. Remember this well, with Islam outpacing Christianity and being the fastest growing religion what Christianity has done to the Jews in the last 2 thousand years Islam will do to Christians in the next 2 thousand years. The sad part is that the Christian world is aware of this.
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steven L
8:26 pm
Mar 03, 2013
After the apology or even without the apology he must be fired.
Example are the only way to be effective.
Apology for most is not sincere.
Israel & the Jews: a punching ball for the West & the Muslims.
It is time for Jews & IL to show their punch.
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Kate HA
2:24 am
Mar 06, 2013
@ steven L: “After the apology or even without the apology he must be fired.”
Nobody gets “fired” in the Republic of Ireland! It is a corrupt and backward society. A narrowly based RC education system guarantees majority apathy and ignorance. It is the only country in post-WWII W.Europe to run sexually abusive slave-labour camps for hundreds of thousands of its most vulnerable children and young women – the last euphemistically designated ‘Industrial’ Schools and ‘Magdalene’ Laundries were only closed in the 1990s.
Brown is typical of a small powerful media elite; loud, uninformed and bigoted. Rep of Ir is the most casually anti-Semitic/anti-Israel country I’ve ever experienced.
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Laura
12:43 am
Mar 04, 2013
islam is a cancer and so is increasingly europe. The islamic world is polarizing.itself against the rest of the world. The islamic world has been waging war against infidels for over a thousand years. I’ve had enough of the likes of this pathetic little weasel scapegoating Jews and Israel for muslim violence because they are far too spineless to tell the truth about muslims and islam. Provide this cretin with a copy of Andrew Bostom’s “The Legacy of islam jihad”.
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Kate HA
2:55 am
Mar 06, 2013
@ Laura: Provide this cretin with a copy of Andrew Bostom’s “The Legacy of islam jihad”.
Wouldn’t make any difference.The majority of the Irish (like Muslims) are immersed in a carefully indoctrinated victim mentality which allowed the Vatican and the same political party absolute control for 70+ years.
Irish ‘history’ is an immutable fable of folk heroism against a colonial power. They have no interest in conflicting, objective historical record. WWII was termed ‘the Emergency’ in Ireland. It is not taught even at secondary level in schools. The ignorance of world affairs is frightening. Hatred of Israel is grounded in RC dogma and mindless victim-identification with Palestinians.
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downtown dave
4:33 am
Mar 04, 2013
The Jews did not steal the land of Israel from the Arabs. God took the land of Canaan from its inhabitants and gave it to the Jews as an everlasting inheritance. The biggest problem I see on the world stage is that it does not look at the events in the Middle East through a Biblical lense. By not doing so, they are setting themselves up for judgment. God gave the land of Israel to the Jews and says He will judge the nations that divide it up.
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Irv Dain
5:50 pm
Mar 05, 2013
In the book of Exodus, G-d says to the Egyptians “Let my people go”
Amen
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Al Neuman
4:51 am
Mar 06, 2013
Can you imagine how different the response would be if someone had dared utter the slightest word against a Muslim or Islam? Not only would he be fired on the spot, he’d probably be drawn and quartered as well.
Or hunted down and beheaded by wacko Islamofascist radicals.
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Brent Pudsey
2:20 pm
Mar 10, 2013
Although it is a small concession by the Broacasting Authority of Ireland , as it is a step in the right direction. They have taken a stand against antisemetism by refusing to broadcast filth and hatred. A better move would have been to apologize and to suspend the journalist Vincent Browne with out pay for a couple of weeks.
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Augustus Silverton
1:15 am
Mar 14, 2013
HonestReporting is taking off from there, where “yahoo ended”, as I gotta call it. yahoo suddenly has no buttons anymore, no categories, terrible.
Those are DAILY incidents. People calling “ISRAEL A CANCER”. I know well-integrated officials in Europe who overlty say they’re against Israel.
But the good anti-racist conscience in People in the West DOES prevail.
Also, what happened here, is, IS terrible. “ISRAEL: A CANCER.” aha. I’d say those people who say that, have a cancer in THEIR VERY SOUL and HEART. the cancer of FASCISM.
this issue here sounds like DA SEVENTIES. back then, germany, some left-extremists were not good, but that’s used gainst the whole left. NO to CHINA GOV. PERIOD !
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Augustus Silverton
1:25 am
Mar 14, 2013
I have no shame to be one of the “many” Jews who say, I am SO happy to help to report what I have seem also to here (it’s only cuz Israel’s SO small, that we’re so “crowded together”, as I hear other modern, rather leftist, and successful Jews talk about Israel — ACTUALLY !!!):
Concerning YAHOO: The current chief of it is now a JEWISH FEMALE Miss. She IS LOVELY, AND a MULTI-MILLIONAIRE with an INSANE salary. BUT she IS cool. Good. That IS so.
Now, yahoo has technically fallen down to WAY below normal level. Now, as I wrote it above, it has even rendered any ordering of its articles by the reader impossible.
Some Anti-racists have rightfully called anti-yahoo-boss people antisemitic.
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Augustus Silverton
1:30 am
Mar 14, 2013
the worst case was one total brainwashed one I met online, he was from romania, and he said “I don’t think the jews to be a good people”.
listen to what some people say. when they say anything against jews, then, they betray the fact, that they’re nazis. antisemites. people who hate jews.
that is the real danger.
for the whole world.
and such people can look totally different, and it’s mostly clear what the false prejudices are, and what is the truth. but only to “enlightened”, “democratic”, let’s say “modern” people, who don’t lay any value on MONEY. money itself is then evil, when abused by fanatics. by nazis.
yea, göring’s YOUNGER brother saved lots of Jews. The rest was murdered.
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Augustus Silverton
1:34 am
Mar 14, 2013
I do blame the Americans for not having realised that göring’s younger brother was a REAL “SCHINDLER” indeed.
At the same time, the Americans back then let all gestapo and ss nazis escape to south american and arabian countries via the mufti of “jerusalem”, a fanatic muslim from jordan.
jordan’s now really better since tens of years. It won’t fall into “arab spring” of SCHITT, as I PRAY for. !!!!
RUCK N ROLL BABY !!! BE AMERICAN !!! DA FSA is NOT JIHAD, as we HOPE AND DEMAND.
And da FBI ain’t a ROCK band, and the TALIBAN not either, as Bush thought.
And the irish TV is totally system-controlled, haha, by SUM WHACKO IRA ANTISEMITES, and NOT by the GOOD BRIT GOV !!! BAM !!! fff IRA anyway
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