A reader has sent me the text of an altercation he has been having with the BBC over messages posted on its messageboards on the subject of Israel and the Palestinians. He complained that a poster was making comments about ‘apartheid Israel’ and ‘racist Israel’. In reply, the moderator told him:

‘Whilst we allow posters to provide their opinion on the policies of nations, we don't allow posters to generalise about whole nationalities as this sort of stereotyping can often cause offence’.

So to test it out, he posted up the following;

‘But they are defending themselves against the apartheid-seeking, racist Palestinians’

and

‘Indeed. So the apartheid-seeking, ethnic-cleansing Palestinians must be exposed for their policies.’

Both were removed. But the following was allowed to remain on the site:

‘It is easy to change facts!!! But the Israelis are obviously apartheid as they are doing ethnic cleansing with the Palestinian population. Peace will come when Israel comes to its reason and conscience, leaving the occupied territories as soon as possible, otherwise…’

This seemed to be a clear case of double standards. The moderator allowed the same generalisation about ‘Israelis’ as he had disallowed about ‘Palestinians’. In reply, the moderator said the following;

‘The distinction here lies between one post referring to a state (ie.
it's government and their policies) and another referring to a
population. If a user wishes to argue that Israel is a racist state based its government's policies, whether you agree with this opinion or not it is legitimate point for debate. To refer to Israelis as racists is a huge generalisation that cannot be justified and is likely to cause great offence to other messageboard users. As such, posts of this nature will be removed from the messageboards.’

The purported distinction is between official state policy and behaviour by populations. The moderator thus assumes that while Israel is capable of state policy, the Palestinians are not. While it is demonstrably true that the Palestinians are not yet a recognised state, it is demonstrably untrue that they do not have a state apparatus. The moderator totally ignores the fact that murderous prejudice and incitement to violence against Israelis and Jews have been regularly promulgated by Palestinian Authority-controlled media and religious leaders, that the eradication of Israel is implied in the omission of Israel altogether from the Middle East in official Palestinian maps, flags and insignia, and that the Palestine and Hamas covenants are committed to the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Jews.

In any event, the BBC moderator appears to have disregarded his own rules. The following post was subsequently allowed:

‘It is easy to play the victim, while the zionists are the victimizers. Israel has to leave the Palestinian territories right now, as Syria did in Lebanon. What goes around comes around!’

While the following post was removed:

‘It’s easy to be concerned when Islamists are the Terrorisers’.

Zionists, therefore, do not seem to fall within the definition of a population. Perhaps the BBC don’t think that Zionists can be people? Perhaps mindful of the demonstrable double standard, however, this time a different reason was given for deleting the post:

‘This is because the message seems designed specifically to anger, annoy or upset other messageboard users. Please don't continue to post messages with this intention’.

So to the BBC, to say that ‘zionists (sic) are the victimisers’ is not ‘designed specifically to anger, annoy or upset other messageboard users’, whereas to say ‘Islamists are the Terrorisers’ is.

‘Stereotyping that causes offence’ — or what?

Posted by melanie at May 2, 2005