A demonstration organised by groups including the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Friends of Al Aqsa and the Muslim Association of Britain took place in London earlier this month. As documented by the ITIC:
“On May 11, 2019, a demonstration and rally were held in central London to mark the Palestinian Nakba Day. The events were organized by several anti-Israeli organizations operating in Britain, whose objective is to demonize Israel and promote the BDS campaign. The Nakba Day events in London were attended by between 3,000 and 4,000 demonstrators. At the head of the demonstrators marched Ahed Tamimi, a young Palestinian woman from the village of Nabi Salih (near Ramallah), a serial provocateur who customarily clashes with IDF soldiers. Among the speakers was Zaher Birawi, a Hamas – and Muslim Brotherhood – affiliated operative who participates in organizing marches and flotillas to the Gaza Strip, and a member of the committee that prepared the return marches [Great Return March – Ed.]. Another speaker was Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian Authority (PA) representative in Britain. The demonstrators carried signs and chanted slogans calling for the [so-called] “right of return” of the Palestinians, which means, according to Palestinian perception, the destruction of the nature of the State of Israel as a Jewish state.”
Also among the speakers at that event was Glyn Secker of (among others) ‘Jewish Voice for Labour’ – a group frequently featured in BBC content. Secker was briefly suspended by the Labour party last year due to participation in a Facebook group promoting antisemitic material. As reported by the Jewish News:
“The “National Demonstration for Palestine: Exist! Resist! Return!” march – attended by several Labour MPs, including Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon – had placards claiming that “Israel provokes antisemitism”. […]
Glyn Secker, secretary of the Anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Labour, told the demonstrators that the 119 Labour MPs who were “friends of Israel” a “fifth column in the Labour Party led by [Dame Margaret] Hodge and [Tom] Watson and the Jewish Labour Movement.”
Claiming that the Zionist Federation was “embracing” the neo-Nazi English Defence League, Secker told the crowd gathered outside the BBC in Portland Place: “What on earth are Jews doing in the gutter with these rats?
“Here’s a warning to the [British] Jewish leadership, while you foment your campaign of allegations of antisemitism against [Jeremy] Corbyn and the left to silence Israel’s critics, while you cry wolf month after month, year after year in the Labour Party and remain blind to the explosion of the far-right and Islamophobia, you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.”
He added: “You serve to protect the poison that would destroy both our freedom and yours. Well brothers and sisters, we are on the side of the Palestinians. We are on the side of the freedom marchers of ghetto Gaza.””
Although that demonstration took place literally on the BBC’s doorstep, we have been unable to find any English language coverage of it.
However four days later, on May 15th, the BBC Arabic website published an article which opened:
“Today marks the seventy-first anniversary of the Nakba, the name given by Palestinians and Arabs to the humanitarian tragedy of the displacement of a large number of the Palestinian people from their homes and the destruction of most of their political, economic and civilisational features following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1984 [sic].”
The article went on to tell readers that Palestinians “continue to live in refugee camps” – but not why – before showcasing a number of posts on social media which “stressed the right of return” – but with no explanation of what that actually means. Among the Tweets chosen by the BBC was one from professional anti-Israel activist Ben White.
Referring to the ‘Great Return March’, the article told readers that “60 people were killed in last year’s major rally, coinciding with the transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem” – but not that the majority of them have been identified as having connections to terror factions in the Gaza Strip.
In a sub section titled “British sympathisers” readers were told that “[t]he British capital London witnessed a mass demonstration last Saturday to commemorate the anniversary and highlight the suffering of Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip”. No information was given concerning the organisers of that demonstration or the fact that its speakers included a Hamas-linked professional activist.
Readers were then told that an unnamed member of staff from BBC Trending (which, interestingly, did not publish an English language version of this article on its BBC News website blog) had met some of the demonstration’s participants in order to understand why they “give up on a day of relaxation and good times with the family to engage in political action…”.
Five participants were interviewed and their context-free and often inaccurate claims and statements were uncritically amplified.
“But things changed for her in 2012 when she visited the West Bank and witnessed the “inhuman treatment” of Palestinians by Israelis, especially in the city of Hebron.”
“The “Palestinian cause” has become a symbol of all forms of injustice and injustice in various parts of the world. Those who defend any just cause anywhere in the world must support the Palestinians in the face of Israeli injustice and aggression.”
“I was ignorant of what was going on there, but I started to research, read and listen to people, and I concluded that what was happening was terrible, but that it was racist.”
“Alicia considers that what is more important than demonstrating on Nakba Day or other occasions is “to engage in the campaign to boycott Israel. This is a method that has proved successful with apartheid in South Africa and will make a big difference to the Palestinian cause.”
BBC Trending also had no qualms about promoting antisemitic Nazi analogy from an interviewee named as ‘Jay’.
“I was very sympathetic to the victims of the Holocaust and I visited the Jerusalem Museum [sic] to know more about them, however the fact that the Israelis commit violent acts that bear the same level of atrocity against the Palestinians is beyond my comprehension” [translation CAMERA Arabic, emphasis added]
The IHRA working definition of antisemitism includes:
“Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”
At the beginning of 2018 BBC Arabic had a weekly reach of 43 million people. Apparently the BBC is quite happy for such an antisemitic statement to be promoted to that audience.
