The Refusal to Mention Israel’s Failure to Vaccinate Palestinians is an Example of the BBC’s Racism

 The BBC Rejected My Complaint of Bias – They Pointed to 4 Examples Where They Had Mentioned Israel's Refusal!

Please Sign the Petition to the BBC

The BBC’s pro-Israel/Zionist bias is well known. However its gushing commentary on Israel’s rollout of COVID vaccinations exceeds all its previous crimes of omission and commission.

Last Saturday I was listening to BBC News 24 when it became apparent that the BBC was broadcasting a lengthy segment on how wonderful Israel’s vaccination programme was.

Not once was there any mention of the fact that not only were Palestinians in the West Bank not being vaccinated but that they had stopped vaccinating refugees and asylum seekers in South Tel Aviv in addition to the sparse vaccination of Israeli Palestinians, in particular the Bedouin who live in largely ‘unrecognised villages’ in the Negev.

Israel is now agreeing to vaccinate Palestinians who work in Israel or the West Bank settlements. But this is because of the need to protect Israeli Jews not because of any concern for the Palestinians.

Israel is now exporting their surplus vaccines as diplomatic rewards. This is seen as more important than fulfilling their obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention. I therefore submitted a complaint ‘The disgusting racism of the BBC’.

I am currently listening 2.08 a.m. to a disgusting report on Israel's COVID-19 vaccination programme. Not once did your racist reporter comment on the refusal to vaccinate 5 million Palestinians whilst exporting vaccines as a bribe to countries who are diplomatically useful.

Your useless racists who masquerade as reporters couldn't even be bothered following up today's Ha'aretz report

Israeli Decision Makes COVID Vaccines Off Limits to Thousands of Foreign Residents

https://tinyurl.com/y6w2xjwp

Yes Israel is deliberately refusing to vaccinate refugees and asylum seekers. It barely bothers to vaccinate the Bedouin in the Negev.

It's like a report on Nazi Germany which fails to mention the situation of the Jews. But then come to think of it that is exactly what you did in the 1930's.

You are in clear breach of your statutory duty of balance. THe only balance the BBC knows is between one racist and another racist, one right-wing bastard and another right-wing bastard.

I have no confidence whatsoever in your complaints system so I am simply not going to pay the license fee anymore as I object to paying for racists to propagate their foul output.

Perhaps if Britain only innoculated Christians you'd find nothing wrong in that?

The BBC is a bunch of disgusting racists and establishment toadies 

The BBC Complaints Service is not there to investigate complaints but to justify BBC behaviour. They can be trusted to go the extra mile in order to exonerate their colleagues. It is only on the rarest of occasions that they will partially uphold a complaint and that is when the offence is so obvious that it is impossible to justify.

Unusually I got a  reply at 10.00 a.m. the following morning. Clearly my accusations of racism had stung them into responding: 

Reference CAS-6568783-N7Y3J5

Dear Mr Greenstein,

 

Thank you for contacting us about BBC News.

 

Our coverage has highlighted that Israel has a very high rate of vaccinations, and looked at the strategy of the rollout.

 

We have also explored the situation faced by Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza strip. Tom Bateman has reflected calls from human rights groups for Israel to take responsibility for Palestinians in the area in his coverage of Israel’s rollout of the vaccine. Andrew Marr challenged Israel’s Health Minister Yuli Edelstein on the availability of the vaccine to those in occupied areas on his BBC One programme. Shaun Ley has also questioned Jonathan Sacerdoti on the Israeli Government’s responsibility for those in the West Bank and Gaza on Dateline London.

 

In addition, Yolande Knell’s report on vaccine supply for the occupied West Bank and Gaza was aired across BBC television, radio and digital: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-55771823

 

We consider that we have reflected all sides of this news story across our output.

 

This is an ongoing story and we will continue to provide fair and accurate reporting on it as it develops.

 

Kind regards,

 

Aoife Nugent

 

BBC Complaints Team www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

 

The programme I complained of on BBC News 24 was part of an hourly rolling broadcast. This was just one of numerous times I have heard the same story on the BBC of how Israel is leading the world.

I fired back a response the following morning. It reminded me of when British Police in the 1930s used to have exchange visits with German Police. The news organisations of the day, the BBC included, would cover such visits without mentioning uncomfortable facts such as German Police responsibility for implementing the Jewish policies. From 1936 the German police were incorporated with the SS into the RSHA under Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler’s deputy. Of course the BBC of the day would occasionally mention Hitler’s anti-Jewish policies but not in a way to disturb the ‘news story’ of the German police. I wrote:

The racism of coverage of Israel's vaccine rollout

Case number CAS-6568783-N7Y3J5

An ambassador is expected to lie on behalf of their country. The BBC is not funded by the public to lie and lie again.

Aoife Nugent states that he considers that the BBC 'have reflected all sides of this news story across our output'. This is a straightforward lie. 4 instances are pointed to where the BBC has questioned Zionist spokesmen regarding Israel's outright refusal, in contravention of Part IV Geneva Convention to eradicate infectious diseases in a captive population.

And for the 99.9% of the time when you are praising Israel's efforts as prompted by my particular complaint you don't mention it at all.

You have an obligation to mention it EVERY time that you mention Israel's vaccine rollout. Imagine in Britain that Jewish people were exempted. T here is no excuse for your racist bias. It is relevant to EVERY news story.

EVERY time you mention the % of Israelis vaccinated you should put that in the context that 50% of the population Israel controls is denied a vaccine. This is killing people and you have blood on your hands by propagating the myths that Israel spreads.

You have also failed to mention the fact that the 50% of Arab villages that are 'unrecognised' mainly in the Negev do not have vaccine clinics and it was only the threat of legal action that forced Israel's health authorities to print information in Arabic. Remember? Arabic was downgraded from an official languge to one with 'special status' under the Jewish Nation State Law.

By propagandising for Israel over this you are DISGUSTING RACISTS

This is not a one-off. The BBC has a pattern of one-sided support for Israel which has got worse over the past two decades. It is unlikely to change with the recent appointment of former Goldman Sacks banker Richard Sharp to the post of Chairman of the BBC.

Not only has Sharp given £400,000 to the Tory Party but he is donating his £160,000 salary to his Sharp Foundation which has given £35,000 to the pro-Israel Quilliam think tank run by Maajid Nawaz (who has been associated with Israel supporter Tommy Robinson).

That is why I have set up a petition on the BBC’s refusal to mention, that Israel’s vaccination programme has refused to distribute the vaccine to all inhabitants of what is now Greater Israel.

Because of the growing criticism of its coverage, the BBC commissioned the 2004 Balen Report which was never published despite court action by the Israel supporter, Steven Sugar.

In 2006 the BBC commissioned a panel headed by Sir Quentin Thomas which commissioned a statistical analysis which showed, ‘That a disparity (in favour of Israelis) existed in BBC coverage’. They also found that more coverage was given to Israeli fatalities than to Palestinian. Despite the report’s recommendations, the BBC did absolutely nothing to remedy the situation.

In 2011, Prof. Greg Philo and Mike Berry of Glasgow University Media Group stated in More Bad News from Israel:

“While the broadcast media give a clear account of the Israeli perspective on this conflict, many journalists and especially in the BBC still find great difficulty in doing the same for the Palestinians. This is in spite of the report originally commissioned by the BBC Governors, which made clear the weaknesses in the BBC’s approach to presenting the history of the conflict and the nature of the military occupation imposed by Israel on the Palestinians.”

Below are just a few examples of the consistent BBC Bias which I have taken from the On Richard Sharp, the BBC and Israel/Palestine Coverage from Bella Caledonia.

1.           The use of ‘terrorism’ has always been used to describe actions by Palestinians but the BBC have never applied that term to the murder of Palestinians by the IDF. Thus lending Israeli security forces an unwarranted legitimacy.

2.           The BBC has consistently failed to differentiate between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism resulting in the inference that criticism of Israel is ostensibly racist. The BBC has also invited proponents of Israel, whether they be Israelis or not, to appear on television with people who were less forceful or capable of presenting the opposite view. In addition to the fact that Israeli propagandists are often invited to appear alone.

3.           The failure to present ‘the other side of the debate’ particularly on the accusation of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, was conspicuous. You might have thought that Jewish victims of the ‘anti-Semitism’ witchhunt would have been invited to appear but this simply didn’t happen.  Instead their persecutors appeared monotonously.

4.           To end reports by saying, ‘The Labour Party was invited to appear but refused.’ was not credible. There are many advocates, including Jews, who would be more than willing to take part and present the argument of how anti-Semitism was being exploited by right-wing members of the Labour Party and the Israel lobby. They were never invited.

The most obvious example of this was the BBC Panorama programme by John Ware, an out and out Islamaphobe with a track record of hostility to Jeremy Corbyn. The programme was entitled ‘Is Labour Anti-Semitic?’ but as the response to my own complaint admitted, the programme proceeded from the assumption that the Labour Party was anti-Semitic.

The Panorama programme featured Jews complaining of anti-Semitism. All of them were officers from the Jewish Labour Movement. No attempt was made to interview for example Jackie Walker or myself, Jews expelled from the Labour Party. That would have spoilt the narrative.  See my own report on the programme.

5.           It’s not only what the BBC says but what it doesn’t say. Margaret Hodge MP made accusations against Jeremy Corbyn for being anti-Semitic but was never challenged by interviewers. In 1987, Islington Council tried to sell a historic Jewish cemetery to property developers and was opposed by Jeremy Corbyn who successfully campaigned against the sale –who was the council leader? Margaret Hodge. This story has been out there for some considerable time so why was she not questioned on this?

6.           In the Al Jazeera exposé of how the Israeli embassy planned to ‘take down’ Foreign Office minister, Sir Alan Duncan because of his Palestinian sympathies, Newsnight did not report on it. Had it been Iran it would have been a never-ending story.

7.           Perhaps the greatest public reproval the BBC has ever faced was their decision not to broadcast the DEC Gaza appeal in 2009 when every other broadcaster obliged. Robert Fisk, wrote,

“And this, remember, is the same institution [the BBC] which said that to broadcast an appeal for medicines for wounded Palestinians in Gaza might upset its “neutrality”. Legless Palestinian children clearly don’t count as much as the BBC’s pompous executives.”

8.           The recent (19th Jan) BBC Radio Scotland show, The Kaye Adams Programme discussed the issue of Israel’s vaccination distribution. She started by saying that the ‘political’ issue would not be raised. That issue was Israel’s decision to deny the Palestinians receiving the vaccine.

The BBC’s Jerusalem correspondent did raise the issue and Kaye again censored it by saying, that she did not want to ‘diminish’ the issue but did so by not allowing any discussion of it.

Had the British government denied an ethnic group the vaccine wouldn’t that have been important enough to discuss? You can’t isolate an issue when it has major health and wellbeing consequences for a section of the population. Kaye Adam’s decision to not allow the ‘politics’ to be discussed was in itself – political. This was clearly an editorial decision to censor any criticism of Israel.

Some of the worst offenders at the BBC were:

James Harding – Director of News & Current Affairs, BBC News (2013–2018) and past editor of the Times said at a Jewish Chronical event,

“I am pro-Israel. I believe in the state of Israel. I would have had a real problem if I had been coming to a paper with a history of being anti-Israel. And, of course, Rupert Murdoch is pro-Israel.

Danny Cohen – Controller of BBC 1, 3 and Director of BBC television (2007-2015) wrote a letter while still a BBC executive condemning the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement which campaigns to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian West Bank and Gaza.

James Purnell – BBC Director of Radio and BBC’s Director of Strategy (2013-2020) was the chairman of Labour Friends of Israel during his parliamentary career.

Raffi Berg – BBC online News Middle-East Editor (2013-) had written emails to his BBC staff asking them to be more lenient towards Israel in their reporting on Gaza.

Tony Greenstein

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO THE BBC

Campaign for Free Speech holds Packed Zoom Meeting - 'Say No to Labour McCarthyism

400 people listen to Norman Finkelstein, Tariq Ali, David Miller, Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Tony Greenstein and Chris Williamson

For the past 5 years the Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council and other Zionist groups have intimidated venues and the owners of meeting halls into cancelling meetings on Zionism and Palestine. Only a brave few, like the Rialto Theatre in Brighton, have withstood the threats and abuse that those standing up to these racist freaks bombard them with.

Notoriously last September Waterstones bookshop cancelled the book launch of Bad News for Labour (whose co-author Prof. David Miller was a speaker tonight) because of the threats and abuse they received – all in the name of fighting ‘anti-Semitism’. The CEO of Waterstones, James Daunt later admitted that Waterstone’s decision had been wrong and that customers had reacted strongly against the decision.

Anthony Silkoff - the Board of Deputies Censorship Officer

The Board of Deputies even had a full time worker, Anthony Silkoff, doing little else but attempt to close down free speech on Israel and Palestine. It was called ‘interfaith’ work.

Last year in Brighton the MP for Hove, Peter Kyle and a host of Zionist trolls abused and threatened 3 venues – the Brighthelm Centre, the Holiday Inn and the Quaker Friends Centre – into cancelling a meeting with Chris Williamson. In the end we were forced to hold an open air meeting with Chris in Brighton’s Regency Square where over 200 people turned up.

The Board of Deputies Tweet Attacking the Rialto - everything they attack is 'hate' - yet these opponents of 'hate' tweeted in support of Israeli snipers killing unarmed demonstrators in Gaza - nothing hateful there!

So the Zionists must be gnashing their teeth in fury as meetings double and triple the size of our normal meetings on Palestine and Zionism are being held with almost monotonous regularity featuring international speakers like Norman Finkelstein. 

All of the Zionist efforts to close down free speech were in aid of the fight against ‘anti-Semitism’ of course.  Naturally their targets were on the Left not the Far Right.  So eat your heart our Zios! 

The COVID-19 crisis has at least had one good side-effect.  People have turned to Zoom in the absence of physical venues and meetings and far more people have tuned into listen to our ideas.

I won’t even attempt to summarise last night’s meeting, but everyone who went said that it was excellent.  It was ably Chaired by Tina Werkmann of the Labour Left Alliance/ Labour Against the Witchhunt and it featured 7 speakers in all.  Ken Livingstone was forced to pull out for medical reasons but we hope to feature him in a future meeting.

Tina has slightly edited the video but we hope that if you didn’t attend last night that you will take the time to watch it. Norman Finkelstein was his normal controversial self and there was a vigorous debate between the panellists. Unlike Zionist meetings we do debate and aren’t afraid of the free exchange of ideas.

We were also not opposed to Zionists attending and maybe learning something but when Luke Stanger, a troll who is currently suspended from the Labour Party for harassment of women and calling Gypsies and Travellers ‘a nasty blight on society’ began abusing everyone as ‘anti-Semites’ he was removed.

Petition

We are also sponsoring a petition for Labour Party members to sign saying that they will not abide by the Board of Deputies’s 10 Commandments, the 5^th of which is that

‘Thou shalt not speak on the same platform as anyone who has been expelled or suspended as part of the ‘anti-Semitism’ witchhunt.  Those disobeying the Zionist gods will be suspended forthwith from the Labour Party.’

All those who believe in freedom of speech on Israel and Palestine and who reject the idea that we should not criticise Israeli Apartheid should sign. Starmer’s support for censorship on the question of Palestine, all in the name of combating ‘anti-Semitism’ stands in stark contrast to his refusal to discipline and remove from the Shadow Cabinet Rachel Reeves, a Labour MP who tweeted praising Nancy Astor, an MP who openly supported Hitler’s persecution of the Jews, whom she called ‘killers of christ’.  It seems that the only form of anti-Semitism that Keir Starmer has nothing to say about is the kind that consists of hostility to or hatred of Jews.  Strange that!

Tony Greenstein

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=GzqTWpPI5Qw&feature=emb_logo

Sign the Petition to Labour’s National Executive Committee

Stop the Expulsion of Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker & Marc Wadsworth

‘most of the people who have been suspended from the Labour Party seem to be Jewish’ Alexei Sayle Sky TV interview

 

Please sign the petition below.  The Right, led by Iain McNicol, Labour’s detested General Secretary, the Compliance Unit and Sam Matthews aided by Anne Black Chair of the Disputes Committee, are determined to restart the False Anti-Semitism Witch-hunt.

Even the Daily Express, takes time out from attacking asylum seekers and migrants in order to oppose 'anti-Semitism'

Why is it false and faked?  Because you only have to look at who supports it.  

If the Labour Party were overrun by anti-Semitism does anyone seriously think that the Daily Mail, the Sun and the Tory tabloids would be concerned?  Why is it that the most racist newspapers in Britain are ‘concerned’ about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party?  How is it that the Daily Mail and the Express, which supported Hitler in the 1930’s, which campaigned against the admission of Jewish refugees from Nazism are now so concerned about ‘anti-Semitism’?  Why is it that those papers that vilify asylum seekers and refugees, which employ columnists like Katie Hopkins and Richard Littlejohn, are concerned about anti-Semitism? 

The anti-Semitism witch-hunt has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. 

Of course there may be a few individuals with anti-Semitic ideas in the Labour Party. Most of them come from a reaction to Zionism’s claim that Jews, all Jews, support what Israel does.  Is it surprising that some people take them at their word?  It would be surprising if, in a party of 600,000 members there was no one with anti-Semitic ideas. 

Iain McNicol - Labour's Detested General Secretary - in league with Britain's secret state

a 'semi house trained polecat' a good description of McNicol

Solicitor's letter to Crooked McNicol after he tried to keep Corbyn off the ballot paper in 2016

However when we do come across racist ideas the way of tackling them is by means of education and discussion not through expulsions and disciplinary actions.  It should only be in the rarest of cases that people should be expelled for racism. 

Despite this threat of violence by the Jewish Labour Movement's thuggish Director, Ellas Rose, Iain McNicol refused to take any action against her 

If we are going to expel anyone for racism it is Jeremy Newmark, Ella Rose and those who support the world’s only Apartheid state, Israel.  It is the Jewish Labour Movement which consciously supports the racist Israeli Labour Party.  [see Meet Avi Gabbay, Israeli Labour's Racist New Leader]

Labour’s conference at Brighton was a great disappointment to the Right.  Despite 2 years of incessant headlines about ‘anti-Semitism’ delegates were not persuaded that anti-Semitism was a problem in the Labour Party. 

When Corbyn mentioned Palestine delegates were enthusiastic. When Jewish anti-Zionists Naomi Wimborne-Iddrissi and Leah Levane called out this fake anti-Semitism campaign, delegates responded with standing ovations.  The JLM responded with calls for Naomi’s expulsion.

Warren Morgan has received no support in Brighton for his attack on Labour as anti-semitic

That enlightened paper The Scum used Warren Morgan's attack on 'anti-Semitism' to attack Corbyn

When Warren Morgan, Progress leader of Brighton and Hove Council threatened that Labour wouldn’t be welcomed back in Brighton because of ‘anti-Semitism’ he was condemned by members of Brighton and Hove Labour Parties.  Not one Ward, not even his own in East Brighton supported him. 

Theresa May uses Warren Morgan's attack on Labour's 'anti-semitism' to attack Corbyn

When Moshe Machover’s expulsion was withdrawn, the Jewish Chronicle was immediately informed that the proposed expulsion of Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker and Marc Wadsworth would proceed.

It is a mystery why Kangaroo courts like the NCC should be named after his lovable creature

On November 2^nd I was informed by email that December 11^th had been fixed for my expulsion hearing. At the time I was in hospital. It was not until November 5^th, 5 weeks before the proposed hearing, that I signed for the Bundle that constitutes the ‘evidence’ against me. Despite supplying confirmation that I had only just been discharged from hospital, the National Constitutional Committee refused to change the date of my hearing.

The Garston 3 are pensioners with years of service to the Labour Party who have been 'auto excluded' by the despicable bureaucrat Sam Matthews

I was suspended on March 18^th 2016, 20 months ago.  My Investigation Hearing was on May 30^th 2016, over 17 months ago and yet I was given 5 weeks to prepare a response.  Why?  Because the Right is determined to get the expulsions over as quickly as possible.  They want to move quickly before we can organise.

The next meeting of Labour Against the Witch hunt is on December 2nd

It is our duty to stop them.  The witch hunt isn’t about Jackie, Marc or me – it is about the future direction of the Labour Party.  Is the Right in the Labour Party going to be allowed to pick off socialists in the interests of US Foreign Policy, which is what support for Israel is about? Israel receives more military aid per year ($4 billion) than every other country put together. Support for the alliance with the USA means supporting the world’s only Apartheid State.

We need to stop the witch hunters in their track.  Please sign this petition and share as widely as possible.

Tony Greenstein

Kafka would have had a field day with Labour's witch hunt

Stop the witch-hunt of socialists in the Labour Party - let's turn our fire on the Right

It was for speaking at a meeting of the Communist Party of Great Britain that Moshe Machover was 'auto-excluded' - strangely this is not one of the charges against me!

On 3^rd October 2017, Professor Moshe Machover, an Israeli anti-Zionist was ‘auto-excluded’ from the Labour Party. Moshe’s offence was to write an ‘apparently anti-Semitic’ article quoting Reinhardt Heydrich in praise of the Zionist movement.  The article itself was true.

Moshe’s principal crime had been to write for Weekly Worker, paper of the Communist Party of Great Britain and speak at their conference. According to Sam Matthews of Labour’s Disputes Committee this indicated support for another organisation.  If Moshe had, like many Labour MPs, written for the Daily Mail or the Sun there would not have been a problem.

Because of the fierce reaction to Moshe’s expulsion, with dozens of Labour Party branches and CLPs passing motions condemning this exercise in McCarthyism, Machover’s expulsion was rescinded. According to Matthew’s ‘logic’ Jeremy Corbyn, a columnist for the Morning Star for 10 years, should also have been expelled! After Labour’s successful conference and its successes in the General Election, members were not prepared to tolerate a renewed witch hunt by Labour’s General Secretary Iain McNicol or the Compliance Unit.

David Watson, Walthamstowe's fundraiser has been suspended for 18 months as a result of the Stella Creasey's family efforts - seen here with Jeremy Corbyn

Members have made it very clear that they are sick and tired of supporters of the Palestinians and opponents of Israeli Apartheid being labelled as anti-Semitic. 

McNicol’s witch hunters haven’t given up though. On October 31^st the Jewish Chronicle  as a result of a leak from Labour HQ, wrote that Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker and Marc Wadsworth were going to be facing expulsion imminently. 

On November 2^nd Tony Greenstein, a Jewish anti-Zionist and an active anti-fascist, author of the Fight Against Fascism in Brighton (reviewed here) was informed that he would be going to the National Constitutional Committee within 5 weeks. 

It is over 20 months since Tony was suspended and 17 months since his Investigation Meeting yet the NCC have refused to allow him more time to respond to a 190 page dossier despite having been in hospital when he was notified of the hearing.

Tony has been targeted by the Jewish Labour Movement, ‘sister party’ of the Israeli Labour Party. One charge is posting on his blog ‘offensive and derisory’ comments accusing Louise Ellman MP of being a “supporter of Israeli child abuse”.  

On January 16 2016 there was a debate in the House of Commons on Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children. The debate revolved around a UNICEF Report which recorded that Palestinian children experienced treatment akin to torture as well as sexual abuse. During the debate Ms Ellman intervened three times to justify the Israeli Military’s behaviour in gaoling children as young as 9, using physical coercion and depriving them of access to their parents or a lawyer something no Israeli Jewish child would face.  The military courts trying them have a 99.7% conviction rate.

Tony Greenstein is accused of ‘anti-Semitism’ but his charges relate to his criticism of Israel not Jews. According to Professor Brian Klug of Oxford University ‘‘antisemitism is a form of hostility to Jews as Jews, where Jews are perceived as something other than what they are.’  Anti-Semitism has nothing to do with criticism of Zionism or Israel.

We demand that the principles of natural justice and due process, as recommended by the Chakrabarti Report, are adhered to and that the proposed expulsions of Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker and Marc Wadsworth are withdrawn. 

As Alexei Sayle noted: 

 ‘most of the people who have been suspended from the Labour Party seem to be Jewish’ Sky TV interview