Quote of the day 11th December 2021

“Given the available evidence, or rather lack of it, it is worrying that the BBC has so far defended its report that there were ‘clearly’ anti-Muslim shouts from the bus, while the antisemitic gestures were only ‘alleged’. They need to provide the evidence  to support their defence or rethink and issue an urgent correction and apology.”


Former BBC chairman Lord Michael Grade, urging the corporation to prove its claim that Jewish victims of an antisemitic attack on Oxford Street last week made an anti-Muslim slur, or retract it and apologise.

This intervention comes after a week of complaints from the Jewish community over the BBC's reporting of a sickening attack on a busload of Charedi youngsters, most of them teenagers, celebrating Chanukah in central London when their bus was attacked by a group of young men who appeared to be motivated by Anti-Semitism.

The BBC has published reports like this one of the incident which includes the allegation, as amended, that "A slur about Muslims can also be heard from inside the bus."

I've listened to the footage apparently referred to which has been widely shared on social media, and can hear no such thing in English. There is a comment in Hebrew, which I do not speak, 

Tikra lemishehu, ze dachuf” which I am told translates as "Call someone, it’s urgent”.

I agree with Lord Grade. If the BBC has any evidence that any of the Jewish victims of this dreadful incident really did use an Anti-Muslim slur, the corporation should produce it. If they cannot, the BBC should retract the statement and apologise. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

Image
I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more