Jun 18 2013

BBC gets it right – on matkot and Waze

Proving once again that it can produce accurate and impartial reporting about Israel when it wants to, the BBC recently published an article by technology reporter Katia Moskvitch on the subject of Google’s acquisition of the Israeli company ‘Waze’ for a reported $1.3 billion. Also worth reading is Moskvitch’s 2011 report entitled “How Israel turned itself into a high-tech hub“.

And then we have Yolande Knell’s engaging cameo of the world of ‘matkot’, which rightly received a lot of positive feedback on Twitter.

As we have noted before:

“Now of course none of these reports relates to ‘the conflict’, and so in these cases the BBC apparently does not feel the need to go beyond reporting news, but also to shape audience perception of it. But nevertheless these reports indicate that the BBC can report on Israel in a professional manner when it chooses to do so.”

Let’s hope to see more of this kind of accurate, impartial and – no less importantly – interesting reporting in the future.

Jun 18 2013

Groundwork and maintenance on BBC’s ‘From Our Own Correspondent’

The June 13^th 2013 edition of ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ – broadcast both on BBC Radio 4 and on the World Service – included an item by Bethany Bell (usually to be found in Vienna) reporting from the Golan Heights and a second item from Yolande Knell in the Gaza Strip.

The programme can be heard here, or as a podcast here. Bell’s report begins at 06:16 and Knell’s at 17:04.

Concurrently, an article based on Bell’s report appeared in the Magazine section of the BBC News website on June 14^th, as well as on its Middle East page.

Bell’s report focuses on the residents of the four Druze villages in the northern Golan Heights, currently busy with the cherry picking season. Like most journalistic forays into the area it presents a monochrome picture of the Golan’s Druze community, putting the accent upon their self-identification with Syria and – in the majority of cases – their support for the Assad regime, but obviously without understanding the background to those factors. Bell says:

“Traditionally the Druze have had close religious and political ties to the family of the Syrian leader Bashar al Assad. The secretive Druze religion, like Mr Assad’s Alawite sect, draws on branches of Shia Islam and strong Syrian nationalism has tended to mean loyalty to the Assads.”

Bell makes little attempt to dig deeper, apart from her brief paraphrasing of one interviewee.

“But lots of people in the Golan are still in the middle and they’re too frightened to take part in [anti-Assad] protests they’ve seen here because they’re worried that could hurt their relatives in Syria.”

Listeners to Bell’s report are left in ignorance of the fact that a proportion of the Druze living in the northern Golan already hold Israeli citizenship and that those numbers have risen since the beginning of the civil war in Syria. They are not told of economic aspects such as the free tuition in Syrian universities which the Golan Druze have enjoyed for years or that Druze apple farmers, who were convinced this last season that they were going to be left with a business-destroying glut of fruit, were surprised and relieved when the Assad regime once again purchased their produce despite the ongoing civil war. Neither does Bell appear to be in the least bit curious about the wider connections of the minority of activists who openly oppose the Assad regime.

Having laid the groundwork for homogeneous BBC audience impressions of ‘occupied Syrians’ on Israel’s north-eastern border, the programme later moves on to the job of maintaining existing impressions about its south-western one with Yolande Knell’s report from the Gaza Strip.

In that report audiences hear an introduction by presenter Kate Adie in which she says:

“Thousands of Palestinians marched from Gaza City to close to the Israeli border the other day to demand the liberation of east Jerusalem which was occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.”

The event to which Adie refers was actually one of the events organised by the ‘Global March to Jerusalem’ campaign: a conglomeration of Islamists from Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian regime, among others, but Adie’s reference to the event fails to inform listeners of that fact.

Adie also states in her introduction that:

“Israel continues to impose sanctions on Gaza. The blockade limits the movement of goods in and out of the Strip.”

Yolande Knell, however, opens her report with a tale of KFC fast food smuggled into the Gaza Strip from El Arish in Egypt and Hamas limitations on that enterprise – neither of which of course have anything whatsoever to do with Israel. But Knell is soon back on target, with references to “daily hardship” and “food rations” and explaining to listeners that:

“Their struggle’s largely caused by border restrictions that were tightened by Israel and Egypt in 2007 when Hamas – which refuses to recognise Israel – took control here.”

Knell’s meticulous airbrushing of the very significant subject of terrorism out of the picture continues throughout her report, compromising its impartiality and accuracy. Later Knell says:

“While border restrictions have been reduced, there are still regular power cuts and a ban on most exports. This constricts industry and unemployment is high at around 30%.”

The power cuts in fact have their roots in Hamas policies dating back to 2011:

“Meanwhile, Hamas has stopped buying fuel for the Gaza power plant from the Palestinian Authority. The fuel, which was itself purchased by the PA from Israel, is believed to have been replaced by a steady supply of fuel smuggled in from Egypt through the Rafah tunnels.

This is a significant coup for Hamas, from an economic point of view.

Hamas previously received 150,000 liters of fuel per day from Israel, via the Palestinian Authority.”

That Hamas plan went sour when Egypt began clamping down on smuggling through the tunnels, but Western journalists such as Knell still insinuate that power cuts in the Gaza Strip are Israel’s fault. Likewise, Knell’s banal claim that “most exports” are “banned” is simply a fabrication and fails to provide listeners with the context of the effects of terror activity upon the crossings.

Knell employs the same policy of omission of context in her story of Gazans “playing football on a field partly obliterated by an Israeli air strike” – without clarifying whether that same football field was one of those used to launch missiles at Israeli civilians. Her tales of “classic cars repaired for everyday use” and “Gazans resorting to donkeys when their cars ran out of fuel” naturally omit any mention of the latest craze for brand new Chinese cars in the Gaza Strip.

But Knell’s aim in this report is very clear: what listeners are supposed to go away with is not accurate and impartial insight into the situation in the Gaza Strip or new knowledge about it, but the much peddled emotion-directed message that:

“Gaza specializes in tales of creativity in overcoming adversity.”

Knell’s final story is that of Mohammad Assaf – a contestant in the ‘Arab Idol’ reality show who Knell claims is “a new hero” in the Gaza Strip, describing his participation in the show “another triumph in tough times”. Naturally, Knell avoids any mention of the fact that Assaf’s song, which she reports as being extremely popular in Gaza, eradicates Israel from the map of the Middle East.

“Oh flying bird, circling round,
My eyes protect you and Allah keeps you safe
By Allah, oh traveling [bird], I burn with envy
My country Palestine is beautiful
Turn to Safed and then to Tiberias,
And send regards to the sea of Acre and Haifa
Don’t forget Nazareth – the Arab fortress,
And tell Beit Shean about its people’s return
By Allah, oh traveling [bird], I burn with envy
My country Palestine is beautiful.”

‘From Our Own Correspondent’ claims to offer:

“Insight, wit and analysis as BBC correspondents, journalists and writers take a closer look at the stories behind the headlines.”

Neither of these items by Bell and Knell meets that description. In fact, both reports actually do more to hinder audience insight than to promote it. There is something fundamentally disturbing and condescending about the attempts by Yolande Knell – and to a lesser extent, Bethany Bell – to shoehorn local populations in the Middle East into their own pre-existing tendentious narratives either by deliberate omission of context in the case of the former, or a lack of curiosity to look beyond the obvious in the case of the latter. That is made even more grave by the fact that these are journalists supposedly obliged to adhere to standards of accuracy and impartiality.

Jun 17 2013

A BBC theme to watch

Over the past few days my Twitter timeline has been dominated by Iranian ex-pats tearing out their virtual hair at the portrayal of the new Iranian president-elect by much of the Western media (including the BBC) as a “moderate” and a “reformer”. This might be a good time to remember that not too long ago various talking heads were using the same terms to describe Bashar al Assad.

The indiscriminate use of such adjectives by Western journalists puts them in risky territory, clouding the fact that Hassan Rohani only managed to get where he now is because there is absolutely no chance of his initiating any kind of reform which will threaten the grip of the theocracy ruling Iran. As Sohrab Ahmari writes in the WSJ:

“So this is what democracy looks like in a theocratic dictatorship. Iran’s presidential campaign season kicked off last month when an unelected body of 12 Islamic jurists disqualified more than 600 candidates. Women were automatically out; so were Iranian Christians, Jews and even Sunni Muslims. The rest, including a former president, were purged for possessing insufficient revolutionary zeal. Eight regime loyalists made it onto the ballots. One emerged victorious on Saturday.”

Over half the word-count of an article about the opening of the new exhibition at Auschwitz last week, which appeared on the BBC News website’s Europe and Middle East pages on June 13^th 2013, was dedicated to what the BBC termed “Iranian ‘threat’” – complete with scare quotes.

“Earlier in Warsaw, Mr Netanyahu accused Iran, one of Israel’s strongest foes, of planning a new Holocaust.” […]

“Mr Netanyahu used a visit to the Polish capital on Wednesday to warn that Iran was now a major threat to the Jews.

Iranians are going to the polls on Friday to elect a new president, with the hard-line incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, not eligible for a third term.

Mr Netanyahu said the Iranian election on Friday would “change nothing” in the Islamic republic’s alleged quest for nuclear weapons.

“This is a regime that is building nuclear weapons with the expressed purpose to annihilate Israel’s six million Jews,” he said. “We will not allow this to happen. We will never allow another Holocaust.”

Tehran denies seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

Iran is viewed as a threat in Israel because of its aggressive rhetoric, its support for militant groups in the region, its arsenal of long-range missiles and its nuclear work.

However, critics of the Israeli prime minister have accused him of citing the Holocaust too frequently in the context of Iran.

Aluf Benn, editor of liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz, wrote in an editorial last week: “Shoah [Holocaust] warnings have taken over the political and military discourse.”

Another BBC article from June 16th was headlined “Iran election: Israel issues warning after Rouhani win” and opened:

“Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that international pressure on Iran must not be loosened in the wake of the election of reformist-backed Hassan Rouhani as president.

Mr Netanyahu said Iran’s nuclear programme must be stopped “by any means” and there should be no “wishful thinking” about Mr Rouhani’s victory.

The cleric won just over 50% of the vote in Friday’s election.

He said his election was a “victory of moderation over extremism”. “

Later in the report – presumably hiding behind the excuse of impartiality – the BBC once again promotes doubts about the Iranian regime’s nuclear intentions:

”Israel and some Western powers suspect Iran’s nuclear programme may be a front for making weapons, but Tehran insists it is purely peaceful.”

The synergistic themes in these two BBC articles are of a supposed new dawn of “moderation” in an Iran which the BBC is apparently not convinced has designs to develop a military nuclear capability, coupled with a message of Israeli over-reaction. Any objective assessment of those promoted themes must of course take into account that Iran’s president-elect is not the man ultimately in charge, as an article in The Tower points out:

“Rouhani’s win … should not be seen as a dramatic sign that Iran will change its line regarding either its nuclear policy or its involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts. Despite Rouhani’s declarations in the past that may suggest he seeks flexibility in the nuclear project, the reality in Iran is that these matters will remain in the hands of Khamenei and the men of the Revolutionary Guard.”

“Victory for a candidate who is perceived as more moderate yet still has the confidence of Khamenei, serves the regime in the best way. Externally, Iran today is in a very difficult situation with regard to sanctions and its international standing. A conservative president would only have increased Tehran’s isolation in the world. A victory for someone from the ‘moderate stream,’ however, will immediately bring certain countries in the international community to call for ‘giving a chance to dialogue with the Iranian moderates.’ They will ask for more time in order to encourage this stream, and it will take pressure off the regime.”

BBC speculations regarding a theoretical Israeli strike on Iran to prevent it from reaching military nuclear capability have been a regular feature for some years now – see for example here, here, here, here and here. Notably, the mirror question of whether Iran will attack Israel is not asked. The value of the BBC’s future coverage of the subject will of course depend upon how quickly it manages to disavail itself of the notion that anything significant has changed in Tehran since Rohani’s election.

Jun 17 2013

Jeremy Bowen’s pink shirt

Early in the morning of Tuesday May 23^rd 2000 – the day before the completion of the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon – a tank crew stationed on the border fence near Kibbutz Menara received an intelligence alert concerning the likelihood of terrorists firing anti-tank missiles at IDF tanks and armoured vehicles. Later in the day, the crew spotted a Lebanese vehicle transporting men in civilian clothing and suspected that these were Hizballah terrorists carrying equipment for firing an anti-tank missile. The tank crew was given permission to fire at the suspected terrorists.

Later it emerged that the men were actually a BBC film crew headed by Jeremy Bowen and that driver Abed Takkoush had been killed. The IDF investigated the incident and issued an apology. Understandably, that tragic incident appears to be still very much at the forefront of Bowen’s mind, although he does not appear to accept that it was possible to mistake three men travelling in a war zone in a car with Lebanese plates, and carrying camera equipment, for Hizballah terrorists dressed – as was very often the case – in civilian clothing.

One of Bowen’s repeated claims is that the IDF soldiers should have been able to identify him as a civilian because of his dress at the time.

“I was in sight of the Israeli settlement [Manara]. I thought it would be fairly quiet. I even waved my arms over my head to show we were civilians. I had no helmet and was wearing a pink shirt”.

In other words, Bowen apparently believes that Hizballah terrorists never wear pink shirts and that his safety should have been guaranteed because Israeli soldiers ought to have been able to identify him and his colleagues as members of the press on the basis of the colour of his clothing.

However, this recent picture (retweeted by Bowen) taken on a rooftop above Taksim Square in Istanbul suggests that Bowen does not have the same expectations with regard to the abilities of the Turkish riot police to recognise his pink shirt as a sign of his press credentials.

Jun 16 2013

BBC’s Knell uses F1 to amplify PA propaganda on Jerusalem

Israeli readers of the headline to a June 14^th report by the BBC Jerusalem Bureau’s Yolande Knell, which appeared on the Middle East page of the BBC News website, might logically have assumed that it referred to disgruntled Jerusalemites upset about two days of traffic restrictions in their city last week due to the Formula One event held there.

But they would have been wrong. Upon further reading we learn that Knell’s “controversy” predictably involves the usual one-trick phoney outrage from “Palestinian officials” and is in fact no more than a journalistic hook upon which to hang yet another BBC advancement of the PA’s political narrative.

“Tens of thousands of spectators have turned out to watch Formula 1 racing teams roar around the edge of Jerusalem’s Old City.

A showcase event over the past two days featured the Ferrari and Marussia teams.

The mayor said the idea was to promote peace and bring together people of different faiths.

However Palestinian officials saw it as an Israeli attempt to show sovereignty over the disputed city.

Both Israel and the Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital.”

Knell of course neglects to clarify for her readers that Israel does have sovereignty over the city, which – despite recurrent BBC claims to the contrary – is Israel’s capital.

Knell writes:

“However Palestinian officials did not share that enthusiasm.

“The Israelis are trying all different ways to project their own agenda, including through sport,” said the Palestinian Authority Governor of Jerusalem district, Adnan Husseini.

“They are trying to show the issue of Jerusalem is resolved and that there is peace and stability. Actually it isn’t true. It’s not the fact.” “

So, “Palestinian officials” are in fact one person bearing a fairly meaningless title – Adnan Husseini – who was described by Knell in the original version of the article as being the “Governor of Jerusalem”. That bizarre error was quietly amended several hours later.

In the interests of context, transparency, impartiality and accuracy, it would have been appropriate for Knell to inform her audiences that Adnan Husseini (yes, he is a descendent of the notorious former Mufti) has quite a history of denying Jewish and Israeli connections to Jerusalem.

“It’s not a simple matter. The excavations are being carried out [by Israel] in accordance with an entire political program of Judaization, falsification of history, exploitation of this falsification for Zionist propaganda in the West and throughout the world, to prove that they have some connection to Jerusalem.” (June 12, 2012, Palestinian TV)

“The Jerusalem district [administration] published an announcement yesterday under the heading ‘Jerusalem’s Archaeological Landmarks, Ancient History, and Israel’s Ongoing Assault’, to inform people about some of the many archaeological, religious and historical landmarks in Jerusalem. Jerusalem District Governor, Engineer Adnan Husseini, said that the announcement comes as the city is subject to an Israeli campaign of forgery, aimed at erasing its Islamic and Christian landmarks, and highlighting its Jewish character. Husseini declared that some of the active national institutions, including the Jerusalem District, the National Committee, and the like, bear the burden of focusing attention on feverish attempts at Judaization to which these landmarks are subject.” (September 18^th, 2012, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida)

“It cannot be that Jerusalem will someday be part of the State of Israel. Every inch of Jerusalem is always speaking the Arabic-Palestinian-Islamic-Christian language. The resolve of the residents of Jerusalem and their struggle against all the oppressive, settling and colonizing acts, prove this… The invasions of Al-Aqsa, for example, what do they prove? In other words, why do they want to drag us into a religious war?” (October 19^th, 2012, Palestinian TV) [emphasis added]

Oh dear! It seems that Mr Husseini is not even content to limit himself to demanding “East” Jerusalem alone as the capital of a Palestinian state. Perhaps that explains why he is so outraged by a sporting event which in actual fact took place in areas of the city he and his PA colleagues are not supposed to find remotely controversial – at least according to the narrative as it is understood by their Western donors.

How very revealing it is that Yolande Knell chose to politicise what could have been a factual and impartial report on a sporting event by showcasing Husseini’s baseless histrionics and that in doing so, she opted as a volunteer mouthpiece for the amplification of the opinions of a man who promotes the offensive racist trope of the ‘Juadization’ of Jerusalem.

Jun 16 2013

Photo caption on BBC Golan Heights profile page corrected

Before:

After:

Unfortunately, the other errors noted in that article have yet to be corrected.

Jun 15 2013

BBC R4 breaches editorial guidelines in ‘Today’ interview with Jack Straw

The Friday June 14^th edition of BBC Radio 4′s ‘Today’ programme included an item in which presenter John Humphrys spoke with Labour MP Jack Straw and Dr. Dore Gold about the election in Iran.

The relevant section of the programme can be heard here from 1:35:30 for a limited period of time.

Following remarks by Straw, including claims of demonisation and humiliation of Iran by the West along with doubts expressed with regard to the intentions of Iran’s nuclear programme, Humphrys says at 1:40:06:

“Let me put that to you Dr. Gold, because if anybody has demonised them, you could argue it has been Israel.”

After Dore Gold’s reply, at 1:41:30, Jack Straw says: [emphasis added]

“Well hang on a second. Israel has the most extensive nuclear weapons capability there [Middle East]. It has no territorial ambitions apart from stealing the land of the Palestinians and it’s not going to use nuclear weapons for that, but it has [a] very extensive nuclear weapons programme…”

Humphrys follows with:

“Right, well you can’t argue…let me put that to Dr. Gold. You can’t argue with that, can you Dr Gold?”

Actually, one can – and indeed should – argue with such a gratuitous, dishonest and inaccurate cheap slur – and that is exactly what John Humphrys should have done as the representative of an organisation committed to accuracy and impartiality. The BBC’s Editorial Guidelines on live broadcasts state:

“If offensive comments are expressed during live interviews, the interviewer should normally intervene, challenge the comments where appropriate and/or distance the BBC from the comments. If this doesn’t happen we should make an on-air apology at the earliest opportunity. Potentially offensive comments include remarks that may be interpreted as, for example, racist, sexist, homophobic, prejudiced against a religious group, or reflecting an unflattering national stereotype.”

And:

“If it is established during a live programme that a factual error has been made and we can accurately correct it then we should admit our mistake clearly and frankly. Saying what was wrong as well as putting it right can be an important element in making an effective correction. Where the inaccuracy is unfair, a timely correction may dissuade the aggrieved party from complaining. Any serious factual errors or potential defamation problems should be referred immediately to Programme Legal Advice.”

And:

“Due impartiality lies at the heart of the BBC’s standards. It is a core value and no area of programming is exempt from it. It is vital that any package or interview broadcast during a live event is impartial and fair. Care should be taken to ensure that there is no suggestion of bias. This can be achieved by careful casting and ensuring the presenter/interviewer is properly briefed to conduct a robust interview.”

But instead, we find that – apparently not content with the real time broadcast of that defamatory and libellous lie from Straw – the BBC actually amplified it further, despite the fact that those same Editorial Guidelines clearly state: [emphasis added]

“Live events are often repeated in highlights programmes and are increasingly available on various ‘On Demand’ platforms (for example on the Radio Player, Interactive Television, Video On Demand or the iPlayer). Programme Editors should ensure that any derogatory remarks which caused concern on transmission are edited from any repeat or online provision. Where a defamatory remark has been made, programme editors should ensure they comply with all legal advice given. It is also the responsibility of the programme editors to ensure that, where appropriate, programmes with unexpected legal issues are not repeated or made available ‘On Demand’.”

In addition to the programme being made available to listeners for a week on the programme’s webpage, on a separate “live” webpage we find an invitation to readers to “listen to the discussion” with a link leading to another webpage on the BBC News site featuring a recording of the item.

The ‘Today’ programme’s official Twitter account also promoted another audio version of the item.

So there we have it. Once again the BBC makes a laughing stock of its supposed standards of accuracy and impartiality by not only failing to challenge a deliberate inaccuracy spouted in a live interview, but by promoting it widely afterwards.

Jun 14 2013

Exceptional Middle East story ignored by the BBC

As we mentioned here a few weeks ago, Israeli doctors at the Wolfson Medical Centre in Holon recently operated on a four year-old Syrian refugee with a life-threatening congenital heart condition. The little girl and her mother left Israel this week and the Times of Israel has a compelling article on their story.

“Nadrah underwent heart surgery on May 8, Raha told me. The operation went smoothly, but she had to stay in the hospital for 10 days.

One day while Nadrah was recuperating, Raha took her daughter for a stroll down the hall. They didn’t walk long, as Nadrah was still weak from her operation. They reached their room and walked through the door.

A man she had never seen before was waiting by Nadrah’s bed. Raha noticed the pistol on his hip.

He began speaking in flawless Syrian Arabic. “I am Abu Salim,” he said, “and I heard you were here. You don’t know me.”

Raha was in shock.

How did Assad’s intelligence services track us to the hospital?”

Somehow, despite having an office less than an hour’s drive from the hospital, the BBC has managed to totally ignore this exceptional story of human and political interest. But it seems that Nadrah’s case will not be the last, so there may yet be a chance for the BBC to tell its audiences a story which defies the usual Middle East narrative – if it chooses to do so.

“Other Syrian families, nervous about entering Israel, were waiting to see that Nadrah returned safely, with her identity protected, before agreeing to send their own children. Raha and Nadrah made it home on Wednesday, and on Thursday, the visa request for a second Syrian child was submitted to the Israeli government, with an invitation to the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer.”

Jun 14 2013

BBC captions photo of tourist attraction as “army position”

An article appearing on the Middle East page of the BBC News website on June 11^th 2013 related to the withdrawal of Austrian members of UNDOF from the Golan Heights.

The article is reasonably impartial, but includes two inaccuracies. It describes the Quneitra crossing as:

“..the only open crossing between Syria and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights”

Quneitra cannot be accurately described as an “open crossing” as it is used on a regular basis only by members of UN forces and – with prior co-ordination and after the issue of the appropriate permits – by members of the Golan Druze community studying in Syria. It is also used on occasion by Druze from the Golan villages getting married in Syria or Syrian Druze getting married in the Golan, by Druze pilgrims to Syria and as a point of entry for the trade of apples grown in the Druze villages, with the coordination of the Red Cross. Tourists or civilians who do not belong to the Druze community cannot use the crossing.

The article also states:

“Syria’s deployment of tanks in the demilitarised zone violates ceasefire agreements in place since the Arab-Israeli war of 1973..”

Whilst the Yom Kippur war certainly began in October 1973, the ceasefire agreements only came into being at the end of May 1974.

On the Middle East homepage, the article was presented together with two ‘related articles’, one of which is the BBC’s profile of the Golan Heights.

We have already addressed the subject of inaccuracies in the “overview” section of that profile here, but in the “timeline” section we also find an inaccurately captioned photograph.

That photograph was in fact taken at Mount Bental, which is not “an army position” as claimed by the BBC, but a tourist attraction run by Kibbutz Merom Golan. The metal cut-out soldier on the left of the BBC’s picture can be seen in the photograph below from the opposite angle – with the site’s decidedly un-military coffee shop in the background.

Jun 13 2013

BBC R4 “Little Moscow in Israel” programme fails on accuracy and impartiality

On June 10^th 2013 BBC Radio 4 aired a programme made by Ladbroke Productions – produced by the company’s director Richard Bannerman, with presentation/narration by Dennis Marks (both former BBC employees) – entitled “Little Moscow in Israel”. Commissioned programmes are, of course, required to meet the same editorial standards as content produced by the BBC itself.

The programme can be heard for a limited period of time here or for those with access to iPlayer, here.

Whilst claiming (according to its less than accurate synopsis) that it “explores the life of the 1.2 million Israelis of Russian origin”, the programme actually has three levels. At first hearing, it may seem like a rather benign portrait, with sympathetic sketches of the Gesher Theatre Company and the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra. But underneath that level lies a second one made up of stereotypical generalisations about the Israelis who came from the former USSR and subjective individual experiences. Underneath that level, we find a third one consisting of the advancement of the programme makers’ own personal prejudices and stereotypes about Israel which are hung on the hook of the subject of USSR-born Israelis.

At 03:26 Dennis Marks informs listeners that:

“Practicing Jews don’t speak of immigration to Israel. They talk of making aliyah – going up.”

Of course the use of the Hebrew word aliyah has nothing whatsoever to do with the user’s level of religious observance and hence Marks’ claim is – in contravention of BBC editorial guidelines – inaccurate.

One of the programme’s interviewees is Lily Galili – a senior journalist at Ha’aretz for 30 years. We will never know what parts of the conversation with Galili were edited out of this programme, but what was left in creates a bland caricature of over a million people with sweeping claims such as “they hated the climate”.

Next, listeners hear from Elizabeth Tsurkov (with Marks conveniently forgetting to inform readers that she is a contributor to the radical far-Left ‘+972 magazine’) who claims that:

“There wasn’t much housing available, so Russians were pushed to the periphery”.

Housing was indeed a big issue, as it would be in any country with such a large number of new immigrants arriving in such a short period of time, and naturally much of the new building to accommodate their needs took place on cheaper land outside the Gush Dan metropolitan area –as indeed had been the case with previous large waves of immigration. But Tsurkov’s generalised observation ignores both the large communities of immigrants from the former USSR in places such as Bat Yam (just south of Tel Aviv) or Petah Tikva, the subsequent independent relocation of many immigrants in the following years and projects such as ‘First Home in the Homeland’ (Beit Rishon B’Moledet) in which new immigrants were housed in kibbutzim for their first six months in Israel.

At 12:37 Marks says:

“In the early nineties indigenous Israelis known as sabras stigmatized the new arrivals. They may have been invited to swell Jewish numbers to match those of the Palestinians, but for the sabras they also constituted a threat.”

Listeners are not given any factual evidence to support those highly politicised statements by Marks (or any information about the Law of Return) and the insinuation of stigma and discrimination is continued when Tsurkov says:

“Doctors, for example, managed to do exams and prove that they are real doctors even though they studied in the USSR”.

The facts, however, are very different. The wave of immigration in the early 90s included a very high number of doctors, with nobody doubting for a moment that they were “real doctors”, but not enough job openings for all of them. In common with the standard practice in most Western countries, immigrant doctors were required to take training courses designed to familiarize them with the local language in general, the local medical terminology and the very different methods of practicing medicine in Israel whereby doctors first qualify in general medicine and only then specialize in a certain field – in contrast to the system in the USSR. They then sat exams in order to qualify to practice medicine in Israel and those able to meet the required standards were absorbed into the medical system according to the quotas available.

At 14:22 Marks’ commentary moves into the sphere of the overtly political.

“One contentious prospect for ‘generation one and a half’ [people who immigrated to Israel as children] is offered by the settlements in the occupied territories. We’re driving down Route 5. Turn right out of Tel Aviv, cross a checkpoint and you’re in the West Bank. We’re on our way to Ariel – not so much a settlement; more a small town. It began as a hilltop encampment for a handful of settlers in 1978. Now it has light and heavy industry, new shopping centres and schools. It’s the archetypal fact on the ground. More than half its citizens are Russians.”

In Ariel, Marks meets an Israeli who immigrated to Israel from Ukraine in 1991 and who explains to him that his reasons for living there are primarily ones of convenience. Rather ironically, Marks continues:

“Another stereotype bites the dust. Moshe isn’t the Zionist settler of journalistic cliché. He isn’t an ideologue, he’s not even religious. He’s firmly secular like the majority of new Russians.”

It is revealing that Marks insists upon calling Moshe and other Israelis who have lived in the country for 22 years “new Russians”. One presumes that any attempt by a foreign journalist to describe British citizens of two decades’ standing in their own multicultural country as “new Pakistanis” or “new Jamaicans” would be met with fierce disapproval from most BBC editors and journalists.

The synopsis to the programme which appears on the BBC website claims (inter alia) that:

“He [Marks] hears of Russian/Israeli weddings which rabbis have refused to solemnise, because the bride cannot prove that she has a Jewish mother.”

Whilst Marks may have heard of such things, his listeners do not. His next interviewee – Dima Motel – states quite clearly that the rabbinate did recognize him as being Jewish when he went through the standard process of registration for a religious marriage. The insinuation that such a process is confined to immigrants from the former USSR is of course untrue and constitutes another inaccuracy.

The next notion which Marks tries to advance is that of supposed identification with the political right by immigrants from the former USSR. He interviews Arik Elman – a former spokesman for ‘Israel B’Aliyah’ – who explains to him that the ‘Russian vote’ can be found across the political spectrum, with concentration on the Right and Centre. Marks is not apparently curious enough to wonder if the reality of years spent under communist oppression might influence the political opinions of immigrants from the former USSR. Instead, the programme cuts directly to Elizabeth Tsurkov who says:

“I think Russians are…will continue to identify with the Right, but as the older generation dies out and becomes less influential there is room for other voices. Voices that are more liberal. People who don’t feel the need to prove that we are real Israelis by hating others, by hating Palestinians, by hating Arabs.”

Not only does that grotesque caricature of Israeli conservative politics and Israelis in general somehow get past BBC editorial standards of impartiality, but Marks adds his own ominous commentary.

“Elizabeth Tsurkov again, speaking for the young, liberal minority. But they are most definitely a minority.”

Marks continues:

“Back in Ariel’s Russian bazar, life may appear stable and comfortable. Secular Russians are free to eat their pork sausages. Today is Saturday and the shops in Jerusalem are firmly shut. Here the Sabbath opening hours are 9 a.m to 6 p.m. But scratch the surface and you’ll quickly remember that you are seventeen miles into the West Bank. Ariel is named after the former premier Sharon who coined the phrase ‘facts on the ground’. For Moshe these facts offer nothing but benefit to the Palestinians who once cultivated these hilltops.”

Marks’ claim that Ariel lies “seventeen miles into the West Bank” is not even supported by ‘Peace Now‘ : the western entrance to Ariel is some ten miles from the ‘green line’. His claim that the town is named after Ariel Sharon is only partly correct. It was actually originally named after one of Jerusalem’s synonyms, but in 2009, whilst keeping the same name, was ‘renamed’ after Sharon.

Immediately following his interviewee’s explanation of how many Palestinians from the surrounding area work in Ariel’s industrial zones, Marks interjects:

“Is that really the case? No Palestinians live in Ariel. You won’t see them in the Russian supermarket. Nor can they use the gym and the swimming pool in what Russians call Ariel’s country club. Its funding comes from American benefactors, but the water in the pool is diverted from the nearby Palestinian aquifer.”

No Israelis of course live in Nablus or Tulkarem and you won’t see them in the supermarkets or gyms there either, but that fact – or mention of the Oslo Accords and Palestinian Authority-controlled Areas A and B – does not fit in very well with the narrative of discrimination which Marks is trying very hard to promote. What Marks calls the “country club” is the Milken Sports and Recreation Complex. It does indeed receive contributions from benefactors abroad, but Marks neglects to inform his listeners why it was built.

“In reaction to the violence and terrorism that began with the Intifada … in the year 2000, Mayor Ron Nachman initiated the construction of a comprehensive sport facility. He envisioned a family center where Ariel residents could build themselves both physically and emotionally.”

And what of Marks’ claim of water diverted from some “nearby Palestinian aquifer” to Ariel’s swimming pool? As we know only too well, the BBC excels in weird and wonderful tales of ‘stolen Palestinian water’ – keeping a highly problematic permanent feature on the subject on its website. Apparently Marks and Bannerman – along with subsequent BBC editors – did not bother to fact check the veracity of their claim – but BBC Watch did just that.

Mr Yigal Rosental – Director of the Ariel Water Corporation – informed us that:

“The water in the swimming pool is received in the framework of the general town water supply which is supplied to us by the company ‘Mekorot’. The source of the water supplied by Mekorot’s pipelines is in the coastal lowlands.”

In other words, the water in Ariel’s swimming pool does not come from “Palestinian” sources at all and Marks’ claim that it does represents a serious breach of both accuracy and impartiality.

Mark’s next interviewee is Liza Rozovsky, whom he describes as a “Russian-born journalist and human rights worker”. Once again, Marks is not completely candid: Rozovsky is “Spokesperson of the OPT Department at Association for Civil Rights in Israel” and her organization is of course one of the many political NGOs operating in the region using the ‘apartheid’ trope to delegitimize Israel.

Towards the end of the programme Marks turns his attentions to the subject of multiculturalism.

“It goes back to the very beginnings of Zionism in the 1890s when the Austrian journalist Theodore Herzl imagined the Judenstaat - the Jewish state – as a multicultural rainbow nation. When the state was finally founded sixty years later, its first prime minister, Ben Gurion, had a very different vision. Israel would be a melting pot in which Jews from Western Europe, North Africa, the Levant and beyond would combine together to create a new national identity. But have they?”

Herzl certainly did not use the modern catch-phrase “rainbow nation” and Marks’ claim that he was a committed multiculturalist is arguably very far-fetched, with one of the few references to that subject in his pamphlet being little more than an afterthought.

“And if it should occur that men of other creeds and different nationalities come to live amongst us, we should accord them honorable protection and equality before the law.”

But Marks’ romanticized portrayal of the founder of Zionism serves as background to the point he really wants to make and that is that Israelis have supposedly betrayed the multicultural Zionist ideals as he perceives them.

Marks concludes:

“I first met Russian immigrants here almost thirty years ago. In the 1980s many of them seemed lost and confused. Returning in the early decades of the 21^st century, with Russians in the Knesset, with Russian towns in the desert, with Russian theatre companies and Russian technocrats dominating the new industries, I imagined that confusion would have given way to confidence. But I wonder. How many more generations will it take for the schism between melting pot and rainbow to be resolved? How long before Israelis address the much greater gulf between facts on the ground like Ariel and the people who can’t shop in its bazar and can’t swim in its pool?”

What exactly “Russian towns in the desert” are supposed to be is a mystery. There are Israeli towns in the desert in Israel, but “Russian” ones? Does Marks also make a habit of referring to ‘Pakistani towns on the moors’ in his own country? One very much doubts it.

But that is precisely the issue with this whole programme. Marks’ anachronistic intellectual colonialism allows him to be judge and jury, making sweeping generalisations and promoting jaded stereotypes and glaring inaccuracies in order to promote his own political agenda. Rather than making an honest attempt to explore and understand “the life of the 1.2 million Israelis of Russian origin” and to discover the ways in which Israel has succeeded in absorbing them, Marks is unable to resist using those people as a springboard from which to advance well-worn themes of Israeli racism and discrimination.

That is a pity, because had he actually approached the subject with an open mind and tried to learn something from the experience, he might have been able to provide Radio 4 listeners with some food for thought regarding approaches to the subject of immigration which have turned out to be considerably more successful than those with which they are familiar in their own country. Instead, Marks and Bannerman merely spoon-feed BBC audiences more fertilizer for their already warped impressions of Israel.

BBC Watch

Category Archives: BBC