UPDATE 2
Following our complaint, limited action has been taken by the BBC, which has acknowledged the deficiency in summing up the entire conflict in the sentence: “There’s been a dispute between Israel and the Palestinians about Jewish settlements within Jerusalem for decades.”
The sentence has been updated to read: “Israel and the Palestinians have been in conflict for decades, as both peoples claim the same piece of land.”
UPDATE
A complaint about the story as a whole has been submitted to the BBC, which usually takes a famously long time to process. In the meantime at least, the inaccurate photo caption has been changed, as a result of our request, from “Jeremy Corbyn as part of a group against Israeli settlement of the Palestinian territory of Gaza in 2009” to the accurate “Jeremy Corbyn as part of a group against Israeli military action in the Palestinian territory of Gaza in 2009.”
BBC’s Newsbeat, produced by BBC News, is specifically geared towards a younger audience. This does not mean, however, that the BBC should treat its youth demographic in an infantile manner as it does when attempting to explain the ongoing row over Jeremy Corbyn and UK Labour Party antisemitism.
Newsbeat
tries to answer the question “What’s the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism?”
Many people would argue that there is very little or even no difference between the two but according to the BBC:
Typically people in the Zionist movement support creating a Jewish state in the Middle East.
Not all Jewish people support this.
Anti-Zionism is broadly defined as an opposition to the establishment or support of creating a Jewish state.
This is a rather simplistic definition of Zionism that probably belongs in an era prior to Israel’s creation in 1948 and fails to acknowledge a broader definition that encompasses Jewish self-determination and the development of Israel. Given Israel’s existence for the past 70 years, anti-Zionism is no longer about opposing the creation of Israel – it’s about advocating for its dismantling.
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Zionism: “Not all Jewish people support this”
And while it is true that not all Jews consider themselves to be Zionists, the BBC should have pointed out that a majority of British Jews (72%) defined themselves as Zionists according to a 2010 study. Even then the report’s authors noted: “Many of those who define themselves as non-Zionist are using the term to mark their disagreement with contemporary Israeli government policy, rather than to signal a lack of support for the concept of Israel as an expression of Jewish nationhood.”
More recently, in 2015, even a poll for a progressive left-leaning Jewish group found that 90 percent of British Jews support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, 84 percent feel a “deep sense of pride” in its achievements in art, science and technology and 93 percent say Israel plays a part in their Jewish identity.
By failing to note the views of mainstream UK Jewry, the BBC gives far too much weight and credibility to the small minority of anti-Zionist Jews on the fringes who claim that the the problem of antisemitism is exaggerated or made up.
Labour and left-wing antisemitism: It’s all about Israel
It’s hardly surprising that so many young people in the UK appear to believe that the charge of antisemitism is being “weaponized” to shut down criticism of Israel when the BBC gives them this kind of sub-standard analysis:
Anti-Semitism – prejudice against Jewish people – is definitely not just a problem in the left wing of British politics.
But accusations of it being within the left goes far back, partly because of its long association with anti-Zionism.
Making left-wing antisemitism about “its long association with anti-Zionism” is to excuse those manifestations that have been apparent during this Labour Party crisis such as Holocaust denial and revisionism, and the promotion of Jewish conspiracy theories that have nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with outright Jew hatred.
“Jewish settlements within Jerusalem”
Typically, the left would associate itself with standing up for oppressed minorities in the UK and around the world.
There’s been a dispute between Israel and the Palestinians about Jewish settlements within Jerusalem for decades.
If the BBC is saying that the left is typically associated with “standing up for oppressed minorities,” who is the oppressed minority in this case? That becomes clear in the next utterly idiotic sentence – “There’s been a dispute between Israel and the Palestinians about Jewish settlements within Jerusalem for decades.”
Is the BBC trying to say that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is central to antisemitism and/or anti-Zionism? Either way, to explain the conflict in one sentence as being “about Jewish settlements within Jerusalem” is mind boggling.
Even for a youth audience, this is insultingly shallow and misleading. There are numerous reasons why there is an ongoing conflict. Settlements are but one and do not relate to events prior to 1967 when Israel gained control over the disputed territories and the eastern part of Jerusalem. Why has the BBC fixated on this one factor?
And if there were no settlements anywhere before 1967, how then can the BBC hold this up as the primary example of Israeli government policy linking to anti-Zionism? Furthermore, the sentence in the story makes it not just about settlements but “settlements within Jerusalem.” Is the BBC implying that any Jewish residential structure in any part of the city, west or east, is a settlement?
Feeding a false narrative
Some members of the left are critical of Israeli government policy and are supporters of the Palestinians.
Some people view anti-Zionism as a thinly-disguised front for anti-Semitism – especially because if anti-Zionists target or attack Jewish people over their support for Israel, the lines between the two can blur.
As for the statement that “Some members of the left are critical of Israeli government policy and are supporters of the Palestinians,” this feeds into the false narrative that allegations of antisemitism are all about shutting down legitimate debate over Israeli policies.
Let’s be absolutely clear – nobody in the UK Jewish community is claiming that to criticize the Israeli government or its policies is inherently antisemitic. After all, millions of Israeli citizens criticize their government every day.
Photo caption fail
The lack of care and attention on the part of the BBC even extends to an accompanying photo that includes not only Jeremy Corbyn but other nasty characters such as George Galloway and Ken Livingstone.
How could this possibly be “a group against Israeli settlement of the Palestinian territory of Gaza in 2009?” Israel evacuated all of its settlements from Gaza during the 2005 Disengagement. This photo is actually about protests over Israeli actions during the 2009 Gaza conflict.
Ultimately, if the BBC was trying to clear up any confusion for a younger demographic unsure of the differences between or nuances involving antisemitism, anti-Zionism and legitimate criticism of Israel, it has completely failed.
This, to the extent that the BBC has instead added to the deliberate smokescreen that antisemites and anti-Zionists have used to excuse their behavior – namely that of merely criticizing Israeli policies.
The BBC’s youth audience deserves better and so does the UK Jewish community.
