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Monday 19 November 2012

The BBC - plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

The BBC is institutionally anti-Israel, of that there is little doubt. Israel is the only Jewish state in the world (albeit one that is over 25% Muslim in population), so does that make the BBC institutionally anti-Semitic? I am not sure about this but it is pretty clear that to the BBC a good Jew is one who doesn't fight back when attacked. The Jews who died in the holocaust were victims of terror and the BBC support them in their deaths, Jews who fight back against Islamist terror aren't looked upon so favourably by the BBC.

In 1942 it seems that the BBC attitude was rather similar. Your Jewish News reports that:
'The BBC intentionally failed to warn Jews about the imminent Nazi threat they face, according to newly discovered evidence, the news media reported. A recent documentary program aired on the BBC investigates whether the service of the British Broadcasting Company in Hungary could have done more to save Jews in the country during the Holocaust, but instead chose to turn a blind eye. In 1942, the Civil BBC was on the front lines of the war of propaganda, spreading across the continent in an effort to help the Allied forces war effort. "The BBC aired news reports every day, giving an update on the war, general news and opinion articles on Hungarian politics. But among all these issues, there are important things that were not said, things that could have warned thousands of Hungarian Jews from the horrors to come in case of a German occupation," explains a historian Professor Ladislaus Lob. The professor is also a survivor of the Nazi concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen. According to the report, a note that sets policy for the Hungarian BBC in 1942 clearly stated: "Not to mention the Jews at all." The memo was written by Carlile Macartney, an advisor to the Foreign office in Hungary at the time. "Macartney believed that defending the Jews will alienate the majority of the Hungarian population at that time, which according to him, were anti-Semitic," Lob said. "Since British directors of the BBC wanted to draw German troops into Hungary and call them an occupying force, the argument was that the anti-Semitic Hungarians would not help the Allied forces if they seem too pro-Jewish." "Since December 1942, the British government and the BBC Hungarian Service knew what was happening to European Jews beyond Hungary, and they knew the most likely destination for the Jews of Hungary when the Germans invaded," he continued.'
The BBC and Jews - 'plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose'

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