BBC bias raised again by vanishing programme on myth of Jewish exile


June 14, 2013
Sarah Benton

The article by Amena Saleem is followed by a Media Release from Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Notes and links at foot.

BBC questioned over why it pulled documentary on Jerusalem

By Amena Saleem, Electronic Intifada
June 12, 2013

The BBC is coming under increasing pressure from British Members of Parliament (MPs) and leading pro-Palestinian organizations over recent decisions that throw its impartiality in reporting on the Israeli occupation into serious doubt.

During a meeting in Parliament in April, MPs put Tony Hall, the BBC’s director-general, and Chris Patten, its chairman, on the spot about appointments of pro-Israel advocates to top jobs within the organization.

John Whittingdale, a member of the ruling Conservative Party, expressed his concerns about the appointment of James Purnell to the post of BBC director of strategy and digital. While a Labour Party minister, Purnell served for two years as chairman of the hugely influential Westminster lobby group, Labour Friends of Israel.

“Just in connection with James Purnell’s appointment, can you give any example previously of where a senior management position within the BBC has been filled by somebody who’s not just politically affiliated but has been a very active recent participant in party politics?” Whittingdale said.

Hall replied that he was “satisfied” that Purnell would “buy into [the BBC’s] impartiality.”

He added,“My judgment about James was that he’s hung his boots up at the door and left politics behind some two-and-a-half to three years ago.”

Checks and balances

Jim Sheridan, a Labour MP, was next. Citing The Electronic Intifada’s article, “Apologists for Israel take top posts at BBC,” he also queried the perceived pro-Israel tilt at the BBC.

Sheridan referred to the appointment of James Harding, former editor of The Times, to the post of BBC director of news and current affairs. In his previous role, Harding declared “I am pro-Israel. I believe in the state of Israel” and wrote a leader article defending Israel’s massacre in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009.

Sheridan told a hearing of a culture, media and sport committee hearing in Parliament, at which Hall and Patten were questioned, that he was concerned about the BBC’s impartiality.

He added: “Can I say that there is an organization … called The Electronic Intifada, and they have a headline called ‘Apologists for Israel Take Top Posts at the BBC,’ and they criticize [James Harding] as declaring he is a very firm supporter of Israel; they then criticize James Purnell as a former member of Labour Friends of Israel when he was a member of Parliament, and then they criticize Ceri Thomas [former editor of BBC Radio 4’s Today program] for repeatedly inviting Israeli politicians to be interviewed as opposed to the other side.

“Now I suggest you’d probably challenge those allegations, but what checks and balances are in place to ensure that when you’re covering things like Israel/Palestine, that both sides get an equal hearing?”

Hall replied: “When you enter the BBC you leave behind all those contacts you might have had, issues that you might have been involved with, and absolutely your job is about ensuring the impartiality of the BBC, and that means looking at all ranges of voices across all issues, including Israel.”

The answer did not satisfy Sheridan, who repeated: “What checks and balances are in place?”

Hall answered: “Well, there’s me, there are Complaints and there’s the [BBC] Trust. I can tell you now that James Harding and I will be absolutely clear about the impartiality when we cover Israel or Palestine or any other issue.”

Undemocratic processes

It was an unconvincing response. The BBC Trust is led by Chris Patten, while the complaints department typically responds to TV license-fee payers’ concerns with standard cut-and-paste responses.

This is the reply that Complaints generally sends to BBC audience members who write with concerns about pro-Israeli bias: “I am sorry to hear you believe the BBC’s reporting from the Middle East is biased. The Corporation is committed to due impartiality in respect of all its news reports and we are careful that this is maintained. The BBC is satisfied its coverage of events in Israel and the Palestinian Authority [sic] has been balanced, fair, and accurate.

“Nevertheless, I recognize you may continue to believe our reports from the Middle East are biased and in this respect your comments have been registered.”

And this is how Complaints, lauded by Hall in Parliament, dismisses the concerns of the BBC audience. The Trust may not even get to hear those concerns. A complainant has to spend months working up several levels before reaching the Trust, which is the final stage of an arduous complaints process.

However, if Leanne Buckle, a BBC editorial adviser, then decides that the Trust is unlikely to uphold a complaint, she can refuse to put the complaint before the trustees. Her decision on what the Trust will think is made without the Trust even seeing the complaint.

It is an arbitrary and undemocratic process. Together, Complaints and the Trust amount to the BBC governing itself, with no genuine independent oversight. It is certainly not the effective system of checks and balances that Hall claimed.

As if to prove the point, last month the complaints system threw out the concerns of license-fee payers who wrote to ask why a documentary which questioned whether the Jewish exile from Jerusalem 2,000 years ago ever happened was pulled from the BBC schedule.

Jerusalem: An Archaeological Mystery Story, due to be shown on BBC Four in April, throws into doubt the basis on which the Zionist claim to the Jewish “right of return” to Palestine, and the right to colonize Palestinian land, is based.

It was pulled from BBC Four at the eleventh hour, after being widely publicized. In May, the BBC complaints system dealt with viewers who wrote to ask why it was taken off the airwaves with the following response: “As this film was never aired on the BBC, it is not open to us to investigate it or the decisions made regarding it.”

As far as the BBC is concerned, that was that. Hall’s much-vaunted Complaints was telling the people who pay for the BBC that it had no intention of looking into their concerns or giving them answers about why a film, bought with their money, had disappeared from the schedule.

Political pressure

For the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and other pro-Palestinian organizations, this is not the end of the matter.

This week, they have written an open letter to Hall, demanding credible reasons for pulling Jerusalem.

The signatories, listed below, write: “With no comprehensible reasons being offered by the BBC, license-fee payers are left with the words of the documentary-maker, Ilan Ziv, who, in his blog detailing the BBC’s reasoning over pulling his film, describes ‘a mixture of incompetence, political naivete [and] conscious or subconscious political pressure.’

“It is the potential of political pressure, whether conscious or subconscious, being involved in the pulling of this documentary that most concerns us. If any has been applied, and succumbed to, then the BBC’s commitment to impartiality has been compromised.

“We write to ask if a reason can be provided for removing Jerusalem from the BBC’s schedule that can disprove the reasons given by Mr. Ziv.”

Hall has yet to answer the question, put by the PSC, Middle East Monitor, the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine, Friends of Al Aqsa and Jews for Justice for Palestinians.

As the pressure mounts on the BBC over its recent actions, it is to be hoped that he comes up with a more considered explanation than that provided to the MPs who have queried the BBC’s impartiality.


BBC Director General faces claims that political pressure led BBC to drop film on ‘Jewish exile’

Media release, Palestine Solidarity Campaign
June 11, 2013

Six leading pro-Palestinian organisations have written to the BBC’s Director General asking for answers over the pulling of a documentary which claims that the mass Jewish exodus from Jerusalem in 70 AD may never have happened.

The documentary, Jerusalem: An Archaeological Mystery Story, was due to be shown on BBC Four, but disappeared from the schedule at the last minute, leaving viewers confused.

Its director, Ilan Ziv, has accused the BBC of bowing to political pressure in its decision to suddenly remove a film which it had been promoting widely.

The supposed exile of nearly 2,000 years ago is used by Zionists to justify what they refer to as the Jewish ‘right of return’ to Palestine, and to colonise Palestinian land.

Publicising the programme, the BBC’s Radio Times magazine wrote: “… evidence revealed [in the programme], suggesting that the Jewish exile from Jerusalem in AD 70 may never have actually happened, has…severe ramifications for relations in the region.”

Jerusalem: An Archaeological Mystery Story was due to be shown on 25 April as part of BBC Four’s series on archaeology. After failing to receive any reason since then for its non-broadcast, other than a response from the Complaints Department that it “did not fit the season editorially”, the six organisations have now written directly to Lord Hall, the BBC’s Director General.

The organisations are: Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Middle East Monitor, British Committee for Universities for Palestine, Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine, Friends of Al Aqsa and Jews for Justice for Palestinians.

Sarah Colborne, Director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said: “We find it deeply disturbing that, despite a number of queries, the BBC has not seen fit to publicly answer Ilan Ziv’s accusations of political pressure being a factor in the disappearance of this documentary from the BBC Four schedule. The BBC is funded by licence-fee payers and has a duty to be open and honest about its decisions, but in this case there has been, and continues to be, a total lack of transparency.””

Text of the open letter to the BBC Director General:

Dear Lord Hall

It has now been more than a month since the BBC prevented the documentaryJerusalem: An Archaeological Mystery Story from being broadcast, and it has yet to provide a credible explanation for this decision.

Individuals who have written to the BBC have been told that the documentary did not fit ‘editorially’ with BBC Four’s season on archaeology, but have not been told in what way it did not fit, or why this was not noticed by BBC producers until almost the moment it was due to air.

With no comprehensible reasons being offered by the BBC, licence-fee payers are left with the words of the documentary-maker, Ilan Ziv, who, in his blog detailing the BBC’s reasoning over pulling his film, describes ‘a mixture of incompetence, political naivete [and] conscious or subconscious political pressure’.

It is the potential of political pressure, whether conscious or subconscious, being involved in the pulling of this documentary that most concerns us. If any has been applied, and succumbed to, then the BBC’s commitment to impartiality has been compromised.

We write to ask if a reason can be provided for removing Jerusalem from the BBC’s schedule that can disprove the reasons given by Mr Ziv.

Yours sincerely

Sarah Colborne, Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Daud Abdullah, Middle East Monitor
Jonathan Rosenhead, British Committee for Universities for Palestine
Abe Hayeem, Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine
Ismail Patel, Friends of Al Aqsa
Diana Neslen, Jews for Justice for Palestinians

Notes and links
Documentary that questions Israel’s myth of exile dropped by BBC, articles by Ilan Ziv and Memo, April 2013

Film-maker queries BBC reasons for shelving Jewish history documentary Guardian. 29th April, 2013.

Jerusalem: An Archaeological Mystery Story

Radio Times, Review by James Gill

Archaeology is politics in the Middle East. The precarious balance of Muslim, Jewish and Christian holy sites in the ancient heart of Jerusalem is informed as much by what’s below ground as what’s above. Which is why evidence revealed here, suggesting that the Jewish exile from Jerusalem in AD 70 may never have actually happened, has such severe ramifications for relations in the region.

Film-maker Ilan Ziv explores the archaeological challenges to the traditional narrative of the Jewish Diaspora, long buried in the sands of Galilee and beneath the streets of Jerusalem, and asks what this means for both Israelis and Palestinians today.

ABOUT THIS PROGRAMME
Documentary by Ilan Ziv looking at new evidence which suggests the majority of Jewish people may not have been exiled after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Travelling from Galilee, Israel, to the catacombs of Rome, he discovers whether the event that has played a central role in Christian and Jewish theology for nearly 2000 years really happened, raising ethical questions about its impact on modern Middle Eastern issues.

__________________

In the comments published after the above review, and after it was announced that ‘this episode is not scheduled for broadcast’, one contributor pointed out: “There is growing evidence from Israeli historians, such as Shlomo Sand, which casts doubt on the ‘Exile’ narrative; it’s in the public domain and worthy of debate.”

Most of the others claimed it was evidence 1) of the BBC’s antisemitism, 2) that, as one person put it, “If there was no exile then the Jews remained indigenous from time immemorial to the present day! The ‘documentary’ was pulled as it was contrary to the ‘Palestinian’ narrative. The Jews could never get the BBC to pull a film, only the Jihadists can do it.”

Jim Sheridan, Labour MP for  Paisley and Renfrewshire North, resigned his post as a defence minister in 2006 because he did not think the US and UK were serious about resolving  conflict in the Middle East.

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