The BBC has questions to answer

Dec 7, 2021 by Jill

by Melanie Phillips:

Did the broadcaster draw false equivalence between Jewish antisemitism victims and their attackers?

It is now six days since the BBC produced a report on its website accusing Jewish victims of an antisemitic attack in London of themselves uttering a bigoted slur during the attack. No-one else has been able to hear this alleged slur. Yet the BBC has still not produced evidence or explanation for this claim. And much about its story cries out for explanation.

The attack happened on the evening of November 27. A group of ultra-orthodox Jewish teenagers, on a trip organised by the Chabad religious movement to celebrate Chanukah, got off their bus in central London’s Oxford Street and danced on the pavement. They were promptly spat upon and abused by a group of men who performed Nazi salutes, punched the bus with a fist and hit it with their shoes (an insult in some Arab countries). The men shouted “Free Palestine,” and a packing crate was reportedly thrown at the children as they fled.

The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, called the video of the attack “disturbing” and the Metropolitan Police are treating the incident as a hate crime.

When this attack was initially reported on the BBC News website on December 2, the story by Harry Farley included the line:

some racial slurs can be heard from inside the bus.

Since this was exceedingly unlikely behaviour by ultra-orthodox Jewish youngsters who would regard such language as forbidden — and since, even if they had made such remarks, this would have been a response to being attacked by antisemitic thugs — the suspicion arose that the BBC was trying to distribute moral opprobrium between the attackers (of whom at least some appeared to be Muslim men) and their teenage victims themselves.

The adults accompanying the youngsters are adamant that no anti-Muslim slurs at all were uttered inside the bus. The JC reports:

Read here

Read also: From Wiley to the Oxford St attacks, some people always think Jews deserve it by Nicole Lampert, CapX