Israel Bashers Bash the Beeb

Over the years, the BBC has regularly found itself on the receiving end of HonestReporting’s critiques. Indeed, the BBC has something of a reputation for its slanted reporting on Israel. But the BBC has now come under attack from an unlikely source.

In an open letter to the BBC’s Director General, some 150 signatories have accused the BBC’s coverage of the Gaza flotilla of being “little more than an extension of Israel’s PR offensive.”

We do not wish to deconstruct the entire contents of a letter that barely deserves a response but five observations can be made:

1. The signatories attack the BBC for not automatically adopting the knee-jerk narrative of events that was debunked by the evidence that emerged in the aftermath of the flotilla incident. They unquestioningly hold to the position that the incident was an act of Israeli “piracy” and “in complete defiance of international law”.
2. The signatories accuse the Israeli evidence, mainly video footage, of being “tainted” simply due to its source and Israel of “resorting to crude forgeries”. This, despite there being no evidence that this is the case and logical and reasonable explanations for those cases where there were initial doubts.
3. The signatories accuse Israel of “attempted genocide” in Gaza and downplay the impact of Qassam missile attacks on Israel. The reference to ‘rockets’ placed in quotation marks indicates how seriously these people take deliberate terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. They throw the unsubstantiated figure of 7000 dead Gazans in 7 years attempting to use a comparison of casualty figures on either side to whitewash the intent to kill on the part of Palestinian terrorists.
4. The placement of the word ‘terrorism’ in quotations indicates that these signatories do not believe that attacks on Israeli civilians are anything of the sort and they make the laughable claim that Hamas would “accept a genuine two-state solution”.
5. The letter even claims that the BBC has been cowed by the Israeli government and its supporters and reporters have been silenced. A look at HonestReporting’s long-term studies of the BBC’s reporting on Israel would suggest that this is certainly not the case.

Needless to say, the list of signatories reads like a who’s who of Israel haters. For example:

• Professor Mona Baker: dismissed two Israeli scholars from a journal under her directorship as part of her campaign to boycott Israeli academics.
• Greta Berlin: co-founder and spokesperson for the Free Gaza movement responsible for the Gaza flotilla; a Hamas supporter.
• Dr. Susan Blackwell: prominent leader of the academic boycott of Israel campaign.
• Professor Haim Bresheeth: supporter of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and a campaigner against Israeli “apartheid”.
• Mike Cushman: one of the leaders of the boycott campaign in the University and College Union.  In the past he has pushed anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.   He has defended union members who passed material from David Duke’s website around the union.  He has rhetorically employed anti-Semitic stereotypes.   He has been feted by the Iranian state propaganda machine.  He has fawned over Hamas.
• Mark Elf: anti-Zionist who blogs and writes letters to the British press promoting hatred of Israel and its Jewish supporters.
• Deborah Fink: prominent member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians and Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods; referred to Israel as a “Satanic” state; disrupted live performance of Jerusalem Quartet at London’s Wigmore Hall. See Fink demonstrating at a pro-Israel rally before being taken away by the police.

• Tony Greenstein: “fantastic ignoramus” and “crank of the first order”; founding member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a member of Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods and in his personal blog absurdly styles himself as a “Socialist, anti-Zionist, anti-racist”. Unsurprisingly, his writings are virulently anti-Zionist espousing views that equate Nazism to Zionism and that the Jews have ethnically cleansed the Palestinians. For more on Mr. Greenstein see here.
• Abe Hayeem: director of Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine; claimed on Comment is Free that Tel Aviv was built on colonialism and conquest, a city that ethnically cleansed itself of its Arab residents.
• Professor Moshe Machover: founder of International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network; extremist Marxist ideologue.
• Roland Rance: member of Jews Against Zionism; Trotskyite anti-Zionist who campaigns for the “dismantlement of the Zionist structure of the state of Israel”.
• Professor Hilary Rose: one of the original initiators of the academic boycott campaign.

Other signatories include members and supporters of various anti-Israel organizations such as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the International Solidarity Movement and the Stop the War Coalition.

In short, this attack on the BBC is led not by concerned members of the BBC licence fee paying public but by a cadre of long-time anti-Israel activists and leaders of various campaigns to demonise Israel and to promote boycott campaigns.

[See this newly released document from the Reut Institute on how the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement promotes delegitimisation against Israel.]

This includes a number of Jews who use this part of their identity to justify their vitriol and serve as a fig leaf for the wider anti-Israel demonisation campaign. In reality they are but a tiny fringe that is wholly unrepresentative of mainstream Jewry or even mainstream political opinion.

Perhaps it is a sign of desperation that in the minds of this motley crew of Israel haters, even the BBC’s reporting on the Gaza flotilla has not been sufficiently negative once the genuine Israeli case has been heard. Are these signatories really that frightened of Israel’s efforts to present a compelling narrative?