The Green Party’s deputy leader Zack Polanski has been a fierce but righteous critic of Israel’s far-right government during its genocide in Gaza and now expanding assaults across the Middle East. However, he came out against several organisations, not least the UK Board of Deputies, over their stance on the BBC’s coverage of Israel’s atrocities.
BBC: biased AGAINST Israel, apparently
The Guardian posted that:
Many British Jews see BBC as hostile to Israel, community leaders say https://t.co/OQEJkNNzEu
— Guardian news (@guardiannews) September 30, 2024
It was regarding a report on BBC bias post-7 October. As the Guardian noted:
The organisations were responding to a report authored by the former BBC executive Danny Cohen and the former governor of the BBC Ruth Deech.
The report said: “Whenever the corporation is faced with the choice of whose account or narrative to believe, it seldom points in Israel’s direction. For Hamas in this war, proof is rarely necessary. For the IDF and Israel, proof is rarely enough.”
The authors cited several cases where its authors said the BBC had erred in its reporting or used language that demonstrated an anti-Israel bias.
They wrote: “We recognise that reporting complex stories in a war zone and verifying claims and counter-claims can be difficult, but it is clear there is systematic bias against Israel across all BBC platforms, with the vast majority of that bias pointing in the same direction.
So, who were these Jewish organisations that were conflating the state of Israel with all Jewish people? (Something we thought was antisemitic, by the way). Moreover, just who were these organisations that agrees the BBC has been anti-Israel?
Right-wing Israel lobbyists
Predictably, they were right-wing Israel lobbyists The Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council, and the Community Security Trust. They opined that:
Inaccurate media reporting on the conflict contributes to the delegitimisation of Israel in the public sphere, which in turn fuels anti-Jewish hatred, and has made British Jews and Jews around the world less safe and secure in their communities. As a global media leader, the BBC carries extra responsibility in these regards.
Of course, this is all a nonsense to anyone who doesn’t have skin in the game when it comes to Zionist Israel. As Byline Times wrote regarding another report claiming BBC bias against Israel:
This ignores the many studies that have been carried out, such as the one produced by the Centre for Media Monitoring, that concluded that Palestinian deaths were reported using ‘passive language which omits the perpetrator (Israel)’.
The CMM Report found that more than 70% of the use of terms like ‘atrocities’, ‘slaughter’ and ‘massacre’ referred to Israeli victims while ‘emotive language’ was deployed when speaking about Israeli, rather than Palestinian, victims.
The Canary has repeatedly documented this, also.
BBC bias – but for Israel
Only in the past few days, the BBC opened itself up to another perfect example. Sorry, BBC – whose air strikes?
'The bombs were everywhere' – the people fleeing Lebanon air strikes https://t.co/hYOvOstg7u
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) September 26, 2024
But we sure know whose missiles they are, don’t we?
Looks like someone found the active voice. pic.twitter.com/T8kIsuD4Qa
— David Veevers (@DavidVeevers1) October 1, 2024
So, as Polanski posted on X:
A reminder many Jewish people – including myself – are saying loud & clear these organisations have utterly failed to represent us as British Jews.
Their focus could be creating a space for Jewish communities to navigate differences rather than co-opting us to justify genocide. https://t.co/R314oLy5PD
— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) October 1, 2024
He continued by saying:
As a group of Jewish people they are of course entitled to represent views of *some* Jewish people.
I may find those views sociopathic at this point – but that’s a legitimate transparent aim.
They’re oft presented in media though as representing all Jews & that’s just not true.
Meanwhile, the idea that the BBC is biased against Israel goes against, for example, the corporation’s own admission about its coverage of the International Court of Justice hearing. The BBC fessed up it coverage was biased towards Israel – but it wasn’t on purpose.
In short, the report that the Board of Deputies et al have jumped onto is demonstrable nonsense. Yet, the Guardian didn’t have the bottle to call it out. So, it took Polanski to do it – risking a personal backlash himself in doing so. That says it all about the state of the corporate media – and not just the BBC.
Featured image via the Canary
