#british antisemitism

[jewish-vents]

I wanted to share some hope alongside a vent, if that's okay?

My Synagogue has been the target of antisemitic attacks and vandalism for months. Since October 7th the men from the local mosque have stood guard every Saturday. Chasing off antisemites and protecting us. We did the same when right wing EDL nutters turned up at their mosque recently. We invited them to a Seder meal, they invited us to break fast during Ramadan. We all marched together on a peace rally a few months back.

Lots of them are Palestinian, lots of us Israeli. Together we have laughed and cried and held each other. When a family from the mosque lost cousins and grandparents in an air strike in palestine we all attended the funeral, we buried empty shrouds with them. We wept with them for the lost lives. Many of them young

When one of our families still in Israel lost a cousin to suicide after he was drafted into the army they came to our funeral, they wept with us. They held us. They cooked food for us and celebrated his life with us.

In a world that seems to hate both our communities we've managed to create our own strong, loving community. I feel so very lucky.

I don't feel safe here in the UK, neither do they. Walking down the street I am scared, so are they. But we've all got each other and that's enough to make it feel a bit safer, a bit more like home

.

[blunderpuff]

not Mr Fafo appearing in a photograph published by Telegram!!! lmao more proof that these international media outlets are breathless with excitement at publishing whatever fucking bullshit Hamas tells them

[former-leftist-jew]

“Jews are willing to give up land for peace.” Bull fucking shit!!! Have you seen what’s happening to the West Bank??? Are you aware of how many Palestinians have lost their homes to Israeli settlers? In settlements that are internationally recognized as illegal!!! This isn’t just an Israeli thing either. Diaspora Jews are being recruited to move to the West Bank but Israeli real estate agents.

“We are NOT willing to bare our necks before the executioner's axe just because Islamists demand it.” But you expect Palestinians to bare their necks for the executioner’s axe because Israel demands it.

Jews are not the fucking victims here. I know Jews have been the victims of a lot of violence throughout history but the situation in Palestine is perhaps the one time in history Jews are the perpetrators.

I see you didn't read or watch a single source I gave to back up my claims, and didn't cite any sources to back up your claims either.

Since you're not going to bother to read, I'll keep it brief:

Are you aware of how many Palestinians have lost their homes to Israeli settlers?

And are you aware of how many Jews were violently driven out of their homes due to Islamic aggression after WWII--mostly in retaliation for Israel being formed?

Are you aware that Jews were living in and around the "West Bank" (historically Judea and Samaria) for centuries before Arab Jordinians invaded and violently expelled all the Jews living there in 1948?

Are you aware that most so-called "illegal settlements in the West Bank" are places where previous Jewish communities were forcibly expelled by Arab armies or militia, and many "Israel? (Or slaughtered, like Jewish community of Hebron in 1929?)

Are you aware that about 2 out of 9 million Israeli citizens are Israeli Arabs--most of whom are descended from Arabs who chose not to leave to make it eas

Meanwhile, most of Israel's current 2.2 million Israeli Arabs are descended from Arabs who chose not and annexed

But you expect Palestinians to bare their necks for the executioner’s axe because Israel demands it.

No, I just want them to stop attacking and trying to kill all Israelis/Jews already.

Like the so-called "moderate" Palestinian Authority's infamous "pay to slay" Martyr Fund, which incentivizes West Bank Arabs to attack and kill Israelis/Jews, since they get more money for every act of violence they commit against "the state of Israel."

Like Hamas firing rockets Israel non-stop after the latter completely withdrew from Gaza and effectively gave them a Palestinian state to run as they please, without Israeli.

Jews are not the fucking victims here. I know Jews have been the victims of a lot of violence throughout history but the situation in Palestine is perhaps the one time in history Jews are the perpetrators.

I want you to stop and think about that for a moment.

What logical sense does that make? "Yeah, Jews were victims of violent persecution throughout history, but THIS TIME all the evil things people say about you and do to you are totally justified!!"

a) Isn't that what antisemites say every time they attack Jews?

b) Have you ever considered that maybe the said extensive history of violent antisemitism might have contributed to Palestinian Arabs being complete hostility towards and refusal to accept a Jewish homeland?

For example: After the Ottoman Empire lost against the European Allies in WWI and ceded territory to the victors, France gained control of "Greater Syria" while Britain gained control of Palestine and Mesopotamia (now Iraq).

About the same time that Britain thought about dividing Mandatory Palestine into an Arab State for the Arab Muslim majority to the east and a Jewish state for the (existing) Jewish minority to the west...

France was ALSO dividing Greater Syria into a larger Arab State for the Sunni Muslim majority, and a smaller state for the Maronite Christian and Druze minority.

Yet, no one ever questions why Arabs grudgingly accepted a state for the Maronite Christian/Druze minority, but threw a raging bitch fit against a homeland for the Jewish minority?

No one ever accuses Maronites/Druze of "stealing Syria land!" but they do constantly accuse Jews of "stealing Palestinian land!"

Speaking of, roughly 3/4 of the original Mandate for Palestine became what is now Jordan, yet no one ever accuses Jordan of "stealing Palestinian land"?

IF NOTHING ELSE, I would like you to AT LEAST read this detailed and well-researched article about historical attitudes and treatments towards Jews in Islamic lands, and how those same attitudes and treatments carried over into the Islamic world's reaction to Jews emigrating to and eventually creating Israel.

[autistic-katara]

leftist youtubers when queer jews who aren’t burning every magen david they see exist: “p-pinkwashing?!?!”

[campfire-politics]

Saying Israel took Palestine’s land is both a lie and antisemitic

[jewish-vents]

I’m so sad. I think innocent Muslim people being targeted in racist attacks is horrible and the UK riots are so scary. there’s no excuse for it. it’s wrong.

but we don’t get that same consideration from the progressives rightfully condemning that? every Jew is evil, every Jew is guilty of genocide, every Jew is a thief, every Jew deserves to be shunned and punished. they might hide that behind “Zionist” sometimes, but I’m seeing “Jew” outright more and more.

we can care endlessly about others. I just don’t understand why nobody seems to care about us.

.

[ayeforscotland]

You will *never* guess what tweet this labour councillor is replying to.

Like, take a deep breath.

[girlactionfigure]

the British

SEPTEMBER 18, 2024

For many years, there has been a concerted effort to delegitimize the State of Israel as a British colonial project. These people decontextualize one single paragraph-long, non-binding statement -- the 1917 Balfour Declaration -- and ignore everything that happened before and since. 

The fact of the matter is that by the time the British actually occupied the territory that now encompasses the State of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, they actively worked with the Arabs against the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state. 

Anyone familiar with the complicated history of the conflict beyond the same tired propaganda talking points knows this. Our own grandparents know this, because it was they who suffered under British curfews, detention camps, unfair laws, and more.

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION: IN CONTEXT

In 1897, at the First Zionist Congress, the Zionist movement decided that “Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Eretz ­Israel [the Land of Israel] secured under public law.” In other words, the Zionist movement sought to accomplish its goals through legal means, rather than through violence. To do this, the Zionists tried lobbying a number of world powers, most significantly, the Ottomans, who then ruled over what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories. They were unsuccessful. In fact, the Ottoman Empire tightened its anti-Jewish restrictions in the Land of Israel in response.

Meanwhile, as the Ottoman Empire weakened, a number of Indigenous religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East, as well as the Arabs, began vying for their own independence. This was especially true during World War I, after it was revealed that the British and the French had conspired to take over the spoils of the vast Ottoman Empire once the Ottomans were defeated. Other groups that made public -- though ultimately unsuccessful -- bids for sovereignty included the Assyrians and the Kurds. In other words, given the context of the period and the region, Zionism was not an anomaly, but rather, it fell in line with what other national groups were doing at the time.

In 1916, the British promised the Arabs a unified Arab state in Greater Syria, which included what is now Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Jordan, and parts of Turkey. A year later, in 1917, the British signed the Balfour Declaration, supporting the establishment of a “Jewish national home,” which, in the eyes of the Arabs, contradicted the promise the British had made just the previous year.

“His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

WHAT WAS THE BALFOUR DECLARATION?

The Balfour Declaration was a statement issued in 1917 by the British government supporting the establishment of “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. 

There are two important things to keep in mind: (1) in 1917, Palestine was not yet under British rule; thus, the British had no actual power to assign it to anyone, and (2) by the time the British were given administrative powers over Palestine, they’d already changed their tune in favor of the Arab aspirations. It’s also important to note that the Balfour Declaration never specified the exact nature of this “national home for the Jewish people,”and, as such, the British felt that this promise did not actually contradict the earlier promise they had made to the Arabs in 1916 regarding a unified Arab state in Greater Syria. 

The causes for the Balfour Declaration are subject to speculation. Some historians believe the British wanted to reward Chaim Weizmann, one of the most active proponents for a Jewish state, for producing acetone, which was critical to the British war effort during World War I. Others believe the British were desperate for the Americans to enter World War I, and because they held the antisemitic view that Jews had a great deal of power over the American government, they thought that in rewarding the Jews, the Jews would reward them. Others claim Lord Balfour was a Christian Zionist -- not to be confused with a Christian who is a Zionist -- and he felt that the returning of the Jews to the Land of Israel would hasten the Second Coming of Jesus. Finally, others think the British “embraced” Zionism because they felt that it would justify their colonization of Palestine over the French colonization of Palestine, as the French were also vying for control of that strip of land.

BRITISH RESPONSE TO ARAB VIOLENCE

British rule over Palestine was characterized by appeasement to -- and oftentimes outright support for -- the Arabs, even when the Arabs carried out antisemitic massacres against the Jews. After the 1920 Nebi Musa pogrom in Jerusalem, for example, the Jews accused the British of complicity, as they had actively prevented the Jews in the Old City from getting help. In fact, it was this riot that led to the formation of the Haganah, the first Zionist paramilitary in Mandatory Palestine, as the Zionist movement realized that the British could not -- or were not willing to -- protect the Jewish population of Palestine.

In 1936, the Arab Higher Committee, the Arab leadership in Mandatory Palestine, called for a general strike and boycott of Jewish products. This quickly escalated into violence and terrorism, leading to the massacre of some 500 Jews and hundreds of British. Due to their inadequacy in protecting the Jewish population, once again, the British reluctantly agreed to arm the Haganah.

In 1937, the British issued the Peel Commission to investigate the causes of unrest in Palestine. The investigators decided that partitioning the land into one Jewish state and one Arab state was the best option -- putting partition on the table for the first time. The Jews agreed to the plan reluctantly -- the terms weren’t great, though Chaim Weizmann said the Zionist movement was prepared to accept a state “even if it’s the size of a tablecloth” -- but the Arabs rejected it vehemently. Wishing to appease the Arabs, the British immediately discarded the 1937 Peel Plan and instead rewarded the Arab perpetrators of the violence with the 1939 White Paper.

THE 1939 WHITE PAPER

Given the results of the 1937 Peel Commission, which found that it was the Arab leadership that had instigated the violence of the Arab Revolt (against Jewish immigration), the Jews in Palestine were absolutely dismayed when the British issued the 1939 White Paper.

The White Paper, in direct contradiction with the findings of the Peel Commission, called for the establishment of a singular Palestinian Arab state. The Jews felt that, in light of previous promises, hundreds of years of Arab subjugation of Jews, and Arab violence against the Jews in Palestine, a single, Arab-majority state would shatter any illusion of Jewish self-determination. 

Most damningly, the White Paper also almost entirely banned Jewish immigration, while Arab immigration continued to flow freely and without restriction into Palestine. The White Paper limited Jewish immigration to up to 75,000 people within a period of 5 years, and any further immigration would be subject to the approval of the Arabs. Keep in mind that this was on the brink of World War II, when millions of Jews were desperate to escape Europe.

Jews were also banned from purchasing any lands owned by Arabs, save for 5% of the Mandate territory. 

The Jewish Agency for Palestine issued a statement saying that the British were denying the Jews their rights in the “darkest hour of Jewish history.”

ALIYAH BET

Aliyah Bet is the code name for the wave of Jewish illegal immigration and illegal rescue missions to Mandatory Palestine between 1920-1948, and particularly after 1939, after the British passed the 1939 White Paper. Aliyah Bet happened in two phases: phase one (1934-1942/1944) and phase two (1945-1948).

The rescue missions were carried out by a network of Zionist organizations. Some 62 missions were carried out between 1937-1944, the majority of them unsuccessful and often ending with catastrophic results. 

Some 70,000 Jews, aboard 62 or 66 vessels (sources differ), attempted to reach Palestine via ship during World War II. Only ~15,000 made it safely, as most were unable to penetrate the British blockade. Five ships sunk, resulting in nearly 1,600 casualties.

After the war, the Haganah continued its illicit operations, now smuggling Holocaust survivors out of Europe. Overall, some 70,000 Jews arrived to Palestine in over 100 ships throughout the course of Aliyah Bet. This was a modest number considering the high number of Jews that attempted to travel to Palestine unsuccessfully. 

Aliyah Bet created a conundrum for the British. On the one hand, they were trying to appease the Arab Higher Committee, which decried Jewish immigration. On the other hand, the world saw the British as cruel, keeping Holocaust survivors trapped in detention camps and banning them from Palestine.

Had the British supported the Zionist movement, there would have been no need for Aliyah Bet, nor would 1600 Holocaust refugees have died at sea en route to Palestine.

DETENTION CAMPS IN CYPRUS

The 1939 British White Paper remained in effect until 1948, with the establishment of the State of Israel. After the end of the Holocaust, Aliyah Bet continued in full force. Most of the would-be immigrants -- Holocaust survivors -- were detained by the British and placed in prison and internment camps. The largest of the camps were located in Cyprus, which was a British colony at the time.

Between 1946 and 1949, some 53,510 Jews were held prisoner in these camps. The majority had arrived from the Balkans and Eastern Europe, though a small number of Moroccan Jews were imprisoned as well. 80% of the prisoners were between the ages of 13-35, and 6,000 of them were orphans. Some 2,000 Jewish children were born in the camps. After Israel’s independence, Israel evacuated the last 10,200 prisoners into Israel.

The conditions at the camps were atrocious and inhumane.Jews had to face obstacles such as poor sanitation, overcrowding, lack of privacy, and a shortage of drinkable water. The American Joint Distribution Committee, which provided medical aid, extra food rations, and more, stated that the British treated Jewish refugees in Cyprus worse than they treated Nazi prisoners of war in adjacent camps. 

Tents and barracks were overcrowded. There was a severe clothing and shoe shortage. The food was bad quality. Undoubtedly the biggest issue was lack of water, particularly during the summer, which resulted in poor sanitary conditions and the spread of disease. The British officers responsible for the refugees were unwilling and indifferent. The barbed wire and watchtowers reminded the Jewish refugees of their time in Nazi concentration camps, which was retraumatizing. Additionally, the camps had been built by Nazi POWs, which understandably upset the Jewish detainees.

Some 400 Jews died in the internment camps in Cyprus.

Jewish children in a British detainment camp in Cyprus after the Holocaust. Some 400 Jews died in these camps, due to lack of sanitation, malnutrition, subpar medical care, ill-treatment, and other poor conditions.

ATLIT

Atlit was a British concentration camp near Haifa used to hold Arabs and Jews under administrative detention (i.e. without a trial) during the period of the British Mandate. It was built in the 1930s and was primarily used to imprison Jewish refugees who arrived in Palestine. Some 10,000 Jewish refugees were held there. 

Men and women were separated upon arrival and sent to showers to be deloused with dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. Since many of the prisoners were Nazi concentration camp survivors, the showers were especially frightening and traumatic. Barbed wire formed a barrier between the men and women in the camp and the perimeter was surrounded by watchtowers eerily reminiscent of the Nazi camps. Children were separated from their parents. 

A nurse at Atlit described the conditions in 1947: “"...when the Jewish Agency asked me to come here, I felt maybe at last I could do something for the survivors. Then I saw the things that you're seeing now. The results of the Nazi dehumanization. People with no belief in the future, apathetic, quarrelsome, no morals...”

JEWISH INSURGENCY AGAINST THE BRITISH

Had the British been “on the side of the Zionists,” then there would have been no need for the Zionists to launch an insurgency against the British.

Zionist non-violent and violent (including terrorism) resistance to the British began after the 1939 White Paper. It was temporarily put on hold with the outbreak of the Holocaust, when the head of the Jewish Agency and future first prime minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion, announced, “We must assist the British in the war as if there were no White Paper and we must resist the White Paper as if there were no war.”

Towards the end of the Holocaust, however, the Irgun resumed its anti-British operations, when its leader and future prime minister Menachem Begin announced in February of 1944: “There can no longer be an armistice between the Jewish Nation and its youth and a British administration in the Land of Israel which has been delivering our brethren to Hitler…Our nation is at war with this regime and it is a fight to the finish.” 

The Haganah, which was under the jurisdiction of the officially recognized Jewish leadership in Palestine, remained mostly cooperative with the British, while putting pressure on them to open up Jewish refugee restrictions.

 Perhaps most infamous of all Irgun operations was the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946, where the British held administrative quarters. Begin had warned the British of the bombing in advance, giving them ample time to evacuate their staff and hotel guests, but they didn’t listen. In the end, 91 people were killed in the bombing.

Following the bombing, the Irgun and Lehi continued attacking British police and military targets. In retaliation, the British imposed a number of restrictions on the Jewish population of Palestine,such as martial law, military curfews, random searches, and mass arrests. Tensions grew between the Haganah — which condemned the bombings — and the Irgun and Lehi.

BRITISH ANTISEMITISM

The unrest in Palestine reignited widespread British antisemitic sentiment, both within the Mandate and in Great Britain. 

For example, after the Irgun kidnapped and hung two British sergeants, British soldiers went on a rampage in Tel Aviv, indiscriminately attacking the Jewish community and killing five Jews. In Great Britain, the outraged population rioted against the Jewish community, a riot which devolved into a pogrom, with many carrying signs with messages such as “Hitler was right.”

Jews were consistently put under curfews and subjected to ill-treatment.

Winston Churchill himself wrote that the British soldiers in Palestine were strongly pro-Arab. The Jewish Agency issued frequent complaints that the soldiers made antisemitic remarks, such as “bloody Jew,” “pigs,” or even vowing to finish the job that Hitler had started. 

It was the British officers in Palestine that first engaged in Holocaust inversion; that is, the depiction of Jews as Nazis. In March of 1945 — about two months before the Nazis even surrendered — the High Commissioner of Palestine, Lord Gort, told the Colonial Secretary in London that “the establishment of any Jewish State in Palestine…will almost inevitably mean the rebirth of National Socialism [i.e. Nazism] in some guise.”

Sir John Bagot Glubb, who later became the British Commander of the Jordanian Arab Legion during the 1948 war, called Jews “unlikeable, aggressive, stiff-necked, vengeful, and imbued with the idea of [being] a superior race.”

1948

The British abstained from voting in the 1948 United Nations Partition Vote. Some British officials, most notably British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, openly opposed any partition or establishment of a Jewish state.

The British fought in both official and unofficial capacities alongside the Arabs in the 1948 war. In other words, they fought against the establishment of a Jewish state and in favor of an Arab state. Most importantly, British officer John Bagot Glubb commanded the Jordanian Arab Legion in 1948.

After the British withdrew from Mandatory Palestine on the eve of Israel’s independence, they handed their arms over to the Arabs, not the Jews. In fact, it was British intelligence that convinced the Arabs to invade in 1948.

At one point in 1949, the British even considered invading the State of Israel to protect their own interests in Egypt.

In conclusion:

Before the British even set foot in Palestine, they had made contradictory promises of sovereignty to Jews, Arabs, and other Middle Eastern minorities.

However, by the time that the British actually were in Palestine, they actively did everything they possibly could to appease the Arabs, thus working to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state.

Had a Jewish state not become a reality in spite of the British, the Balfour Declaration would have long been forgotten, just like the unfulfilled promises the British made to the Assyrians and Kurds.

The fact of the matter is that virtually every border in the Middle East was carved up by the British and French, yet only the Jewish state is delegitimized on that basis. In fact, some countries were invented by the British entirely. For example, the British aided in the creation of Saudi Arabia by funding and supporting the Al Saud family, which, with their help, came to dominate a large chunk of the Arabian Peninsula. The British quite literally invented Iraq when they created the Mandate of Iraq in 1921 in part of what had long been known as other regions, including Assyria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia. And, of course, the British created Jordan when they handed an enormous piece of the Mandate of Palestine over to the Hashemites in 1922. The Hashemites are from Arabia, not Transjordan.

For a full bibliography of my sources, please head over to my Instagram

rootsmetals

EDIT - 1948 slide - partition vote was in 1947! Sorry typo 😅

the British put Jewish children (Holocaust survivors!!!!) in concentration camps to appease the Palestinian Arab leaders, but the BaLfOuR dEcLaRaTiOn, right? 🙄 Crazy how certain people think it’s totally fine to whitewash this horrid history when this whitewashing comes at the expense of Jews and Jewish trauma. Genuinely wondering if you’d treat another minority’s history like this.

[former-leftist-jew]

Sorry zionist but I don't care that Iraqis punished British collaborators

LMAO "British collaborators"?

You see this guy?

Promoted to be the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem under the British Mandate for Palestine (over several far more qualified candidates) specifically because of his antisemetic views, which by antisemetic British generals.

Meanwhile:

Funny how the vast majority of massacres carried out by Arabs/Muslims in the British Mandate for Palestine were against Jewish civilians (including Jews who'd lived the area for centuries), while Arabs almost never attacked British Imperialist officers directly.

However, the vast majority of paramilitary attacks launched against British colonial officers/buildings were by Jewish paramilitary groups.

Showing that y'all didn't REALLY care about "British occupation."

Y'all meekly accepted British changes to the "unified Arab kingdom" (Albert Londres), like the creation of Transjordan and Iraq from what had been known as Syria and Mesopotamia for centuries...

Until the second the Brits proposed something that would benefit filthy dhimmi like Jews or Kurds via the proposed Jewish homeland or Kurdish homeland (or Mandate for Mesopotamia) suddenly y'all cared enough about "British changes" to take up arms.

By the way, remember this famous quote by Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam Pasha, the first Secretary-General of the Arab League, just before the 1948 invasion of Israel by Five Arab Armies from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Transjordan:

I personally wish that the Jews do not drive us to this war, as this will be a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Tartar massacre or the Crusader wars. I believe that the number of volunteers from outside Palestine will be larger than Palestine's Arab population... [it wasn't]... You might be surprised to learn that hundreds of Englishmen expressed their wish to volunteer in the Arab armies to fight the Jews.

Funny how ya'll weren't against "British collaborators" when it came to Arab leaders accepting more British guns, cannons, and generals in the planned "War of Annihilation" against Jews.

[stupidjewishwhiteboy]

An interesting thing I've noticed amongst leftist types when talking about world politics is a total refusal to acknowledge that Jeremy Corbyn's actions and statements when he was Labour leader were genuinely interpreted as antisemitic by British Jews and their allies. Not even having to admit that he was an antisemite, or that he and his allies did antisemitic things, but to even admit that British Jews genuinely viewed (and view) him and his ilk as being hostile to British Jewry is beyond them. At best you can get them to admit that there was a smear campaign that duped people, and usually not even that.

[dogmalilith]

Lizard people is one of the most famous antisemitic conspiracy theories. lizard people = Jews who are secretly running the government from behind the curtain. KEEP AN EYE ON SECRET SOCIETIES. these go hand in hand. THIS IS ALSO ABOUT SHAPESHIFTERS.

#MyJewishLearning

[jewish-vents]

Uk anon here

people are helping rebuild a mosque in south of England after a few days of racism and violence

I love how people are helping but...I can't help but be angry over the hycropsy.

There are shuls being defaced and Jewish monuments being defaced and destroyed. We have received little to no support from the public or the police.

Instead we have been belittled and laughed at. Our problems are not important enough. But the Muslim communities are.

I have no hate for them. I just have hate for those who support them and not us.

I am angry that my holy places are apparently not holy enough for support and protection. My holy books and garments are not holy enough to be protected and respected.

I am angry at the lack of support that has been given to us by the police.

.

[eretzyisrael]

by Rory Fleming

The BBC has reportedly issued an apology to a Rabbi over the 'grotesquely unfair' line of questioning adopted by anchor Ben Brown during a BBC News interview.

Rabbi Gideon Sylvester, of the British United Synagogue in Jerusalem, appeared on the network on December 23 for a discussion which he claims was pitched to him as focusing on the Jewish holiday of Chanukah.

BBC News had interviewed multiple other faith leaders from Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the lead up to Rabbi Sylvester's segment, including a Christian reverend and a leader of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The network stated when introducing Rabbi Sylvester that they had been interviewing these various religious figures to see how the 'shadow of war' had impacted their local communities.

BBC anchor Ben Brown began the interview by asking Rabbi Sylvester about the prospect of a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine to help put an end to the current war in Gaza and the West Bank. 

Speaking to the Jewish Chronicle after-the-fact, Rabbi Sylvester blasted the question as 'outrageous' and accused Brown of implying that Israel had started the war.

In his response on air, Rabbi Sylvester stated that 'most Israeli's are very nervous' about a potential two-state solution and added that the prospect could only be considered if Palestinian's adopted a leadership 'willing to have a liberal democracy'.

In his remarks to the Jewish Chronicle, Rabbi Sylvester also accused the BBC of promoting anti-Jewish attitudes and spreading misinformation about the Middle East.

'Their words carry weight and provoke evermore antisemitism, sometimes leading to physical attacks on the street. So I was happy to talk about the current situation and to correct the misinformation which is spread about Israel,' he said.

Ben Brown went on to quote former Israeli political advisor and Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy who has been outspoken in his criticism of the Israeli military's actions in both Gaza and the West Bank.

Balking at the mention of Levy's name, Rabbi Sylvester accused Levy of being on the extreme left in Israeli politics and said that he didn't speak for the majority of Israelis. 

With time running out in the interview, Brown cut Rabbi Sylvester's final answer short. 

The Jewish Chronicle also reports to having seen an email from a senior BBC news editor which offered an apology to Rabbi Sylvester for 'focusing a little too much on politics'.

The BBC has since confirmed to the MailOnline that it has been in contact with Rabbi Sylvester in the wake of the interview. 

Accusations of anti-Jewish bias were also levelled at the BBC by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), who labelled the interview 'absolutely despicable'.

'Not a single question about Chanukah or Jewish suffering in the region right now. Absolutely despicable. The only silver lining is that Rabbi Sylvester acquitted himself very well in the circumstances,' a CAA spokesperson said.

This answer prompted a follow-up question from Brown who interjected that the responsibility over reaching a peace deal must also be borne by the Israeli government, and not solely Palestinian leadership. 

A BBC spokesperson, reacting to these allegations, told the MailOnline: 'The BBC News channel interviewed leaders of different faiths seeking to reflect how the ongoing conflict is having an impact on their communities, as well as looking ahead to their hopes for 2025. 

'We interviewed the leaders live from the Middle East and challenged their views where necessary. 

'While the interviews intended to cover recent news events as well as matters related to faith, we acknowledge that we should have allowed more time to speak with Rabbi Gideon Sylvester about his religion and the impact of the conflict on Hanukkah. 

'We deplore antisemitism, and we are committed to reporting the conflict with accuracy, impartiality and transparency'.

[hero-israel]

its just criticism

oh david miller has gone full mask-off now. i told you this would happen

[justarandombrit]

If anybody ever wants to know anything about the state of British politics, just show them this song and they'll instantly get it

(It's genuinely really good - the song and the satire, even if you don't give a shit about British politics I highly recommend it)