In its working definition of anti-Semitism, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance states, correctly, that criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.
But the criticisms leveled at Israel, all too often, are not at all ‘similar to that leveled against any other country’. Uniquely among the many countries in the region currently at war, Israel is singled out for strident attacks. Far deadlier conflicts are simply ignored by the anti-Israel lobby.
Worse, the ‘pro-Palestine’ mobs routinely engage in openly anti-Semitic behaviour, such as, denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
When it comes to another ironclad example of anti-Semitism, applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation, the mainstream media are openly anti-Semitic.
Camera, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, has extracted some corrections and apologies from large US media groups in the past month.
The New York Times on August 12 corrected an opinion piece that claimed Israel had imposed “a blanket blockade on food entering Gaza”. Camera pointed out that on August 7, the day before the publication of the false blockade story, 158 aid trucks entered Gaza. On August 8, 271 trucks of humanitarian aid crossed into the city.
In July, 4629 trucks with 23,240 tonnes of food entered Gaza. In fact, as this column reported on April 7, food supplies have been higher than before the war, even using UN figures.
Camera said an average of 150 trucks a day of aid and food had entered Gaza since October 7, compared with 75.3 trucks a day in the nine months before October 7.
On casualties, Camera reported on August 21 that 80 separate US news outlets had published a correction in which Associated Press admitted claims of 40,000 Palestinian civilian deaths should have mentioned that this number, which the IDF does not accept, actually includes 17,000 dead Hamas fighters. The total figure is supplied by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health ministry.
Don’t expect our ABC to correct that or the false claims about starving Gazans.
When it comes to mainstream media anti-Semitism, though, few stand condemned as slavering Jew-haters more than the BBC. Anti-Semitism is not just too common at the taxpayer-funded behemoth: it’s routine.
The BBC breached its own editorial guidelines more than 1,500 times during the height of the Israel-Hamas war, a damning report has found.
The report revealed a “deeply worrying pattern of bias” against Israel, according to its authors who analysed four months of the BBC’s output across television, radio, online news, podcasts and social media.
The research, led by British lawyer Trevor Asserson, also found that Israel was associated with genocide more than 14 times more than Hamas in the corporation’s coverage of the conflict.
This, despite Hamas’s stated intention of wiping Jews from the map, first in the Middle East then the world. And despite Hamas’ open vow to repeat October 7, over and over and over again.
The Asserson report analysed the BBC’s coverage during a four-month period beginning Oct 7, 2023 – the day Hamas carried out a brutal massacre in southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking another 251 into Gaza as hostages.
A team of around 20 lawyers and 20 data scientists contributed to the research, which used artificial intelligence to analyse nine million words of BBC output.
Researchers identified a total of 1,553 breaches of the BBC’s editorial guidelines, which included impartiality, accuracy, editorial values and public interest.
“The findings reveal a deeply worrying pattern of bias and multiple breaches by the BBC of its own editorial guidelines on impartiality, fairness and establishing the truth,” the report said […]
Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s international editor, is accused of excusing Hamas’s terrorist activities and comparing Israel to Putin’s Russia, while Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s chief international correspondent, is also cited for allegedly “downplaying” the October 7 attacks on Israel.
The report singles out the BBC’s Arabic channel, saying that it is one of the most biased of all global media outlets in its treatment of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
And that’s in a world that includes Al-Jazeera.
“There are now clear grounds for Ofcom and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to use every tool they have in their arsenal to bring about greater compliance with the rules around neutrality and fair coverage in the BBC charter.”
Don’t hold your breath, though, with a likewise institutionally anti-Semitic Labour government in charge.
