A welcome new blogger, Adloyada, rightly excoriates an article about Israel on the BBC website which displays once again the BBC's astounding ignorance and lethal prejudice towards that country. Martin Asser presents Israel’s relations with the Arabs both inside and outside its borders as animated by an aggressive racism. Taking as his paradigm the wholly atypical village of Beit Safafa, which is half inside Israel and half over the Green Line, he quotes Arab voices — and only Arab voices — to present an entirely one-sided and embittered view. The picture he paints is of Israelis who were once friendly and sympathetic to the Arabs of this village but whose atitudes have recently changed to hostility. Pondering why this change might have occurred, he comes up with this:

‘It is hard to say whether Israel's current efforts to make itself more Jewish has any bearing on this deterioration in relations.’

‘Israel's current efforts to make itself more Jewish’? What on earth does that mean? Such an imputation of racial exclusivism is no less unpleasant for being entirely fact-free. The facts, of course, suggest a different explanation. Five years ago, the Palestinian Arabs launched their most devastating existential war against the Jewish state by targeting innocent Israelis for death and using their own bodies to do so, thus turning any Israeli relationship with them into a potentially suicidal exercise. Might that not perhaps have something to do with this ‘deterioration in relations? Wouldn’t it be fair to say that it is entirely reasonable for people under such genocidal assault to be less than friendly to the enemy side, rather than demonise the Israelis as racists for doing so — unless of course you uncritically take the part of the people who support the murder of Jews and then blame Israel for defending itself?

Asser ploughs on ever deeper into his demonology of the victims and sanitising of their aggressors:

‘But there are some tell-tale signs that Arab citizens are not valued by the state in the same way as their Jewish counterparts.’

And what might they be? Well, problems with getting residency in Jerusalem, visas. That sort of thing.

"It is true there are no Arab democracies," the man says. "But when Israel claims to be the only democracy in the region it should add, 'it is the only democracy for Jews'!"

(sic)

Asssuming he means ‘it is only a democracy for Jews’, he’s wrong, of course — Israeli Arabs have full democratic rights. But if Asser knows this, he isn’t saying. He allows this libel to remain unchallenged. Yes, any discrimination against Israeli Arabs is deplorable. But is it really any worse than discrimination in any other country, such as the UK — or in Israel itself, for that matter, against the Jewish Sephardim? On and on Asser goes nevertheless, rehearsing one Arab whinge after another. Ludicrously, he even complains that Israeli Arabs are not forced to serve in the Israeli defence force to avoid them having to bear arms against other Arabs, an exemption to be criticised because — wait for it —

‘there are financial benefits from being in the military, such as improved credit ratings and national insurance rebates.’

And then finally there is this heart-rending account:

‘A young visitor from the north of the country describes how her behaviour has changed since two shooting incidents in which eight Israeli Arabs and Palestinians were killed by Israeli settlers trying to disrupt the Gaza pullout. "I have never been afraid of being an Arab before, but I am now. I was on a train the other day talking to this Jewish girl. She asked where I did my army service, and I had to lie, saying I hadn't done it yet because I've been away, but I'll do it soon.I don't want to be recognised as an Arab, because at any time someone could put a gun to my head, and it would be all over for me."’

Yes, the killing spree by a Jewish terrorist was appalling. But to date, there have been three isolated incidents of Jewish terrorism against Arabs in Israel, all carried out by nutcases and all overwhelmingly denounced by the country – but literally thousands of unprovoked attacks by Arabs on Israelis with thousands killed or maimed, a fact which Asser does not even mention. So for the BBC, the existential attack upon Jewish Israel which has been taking place for the past half century and which is the actual cause of the Middle East conflict might as well never have happened. Instead, the victims in the Middle East are the Arabs and their oppressors are the Jews.

And for this inversion of history and morality, which will have incited murderous hatred of the Jews among a few more million Arabs and others, we actually pay a licence-fee.

Posted by melanie at September 1, 2005