Raw Jew-bashing on the BBC

Ray

Indeed, Substitute 'Jew' with 'Paki' and 'Palestinian woman' with 'white girl' and it could almost be a BNP rant. I wonder if the BBC would have broadcast that as an "incisive, unpredictable, and richly entertaining show".

Greg

"We either pay our license fee for this, or get sent to prison".

Actually there is another option. Get rid of your TV and your need to have a TV Licence. Replace it with a Media Centre PC (remove and eBay the TV card if it comes with one) and get a compatible computer style LCD/plasma screen (i.e. one without an in-built tuner). If there purchance happens to be any BBC show that you'd like to see (i.e. The Apprentice), use the iPlayer to download it. No licence required.

I believe you can download Channel 4 programmes too from their iPlayer equivalent but as yet I've never had the need.

If your withdrawal symptoms from broadcast TV prove too hard to bare, you can always purchase a TV card for the PC (try eBay!) and re-buy that licence.

Not paying the BBC gives a sense of satisfaction far in excess of the £120 saving (and more than makes up for not getting ITV!).

Jacko

Is this really and honestly "unambiguous anti-Semitism", Stephen? Or is it a legitimate criticism of the Israeli regime?

Surely it must be possible to say say negative things about Israel without always being branded as a Jew-hater in general?

(If not, you might just as well say that anyone who criticises the current Zimbabwean government is automatically a racist bigot who hates ALL black Africans!)

peter

Jacko is completely right.

The programme was completely impartial in the way it mocked everybody, INCLUDING the IDF.

What I found interestting about your post was how you complain ONLY about the programme's lambasting of Jews, but not a word of complaint about its lambasting of Muslims, who came in for a heck of a lot worse.
As a Briton, I would have hoped that you would be concerned about race relations in the UK first, and about your opinion of anti semitism second.

The only thing that will close down expressions of the public revulsion that is so widely felt worldwide against Israeli policies - will be a change in Israel's bahaviour.

Not some lopsided lambasting from you.

RUTH

I'm a Jew.
I heard the programme too.
To begin with I thought I bet they dont criticise Israel, just that they mock the Muslims again.

And then it came out - IDF brutality!

And I was shouting at the radio -Well done - More ! At last - say it like it is!

I live in London because the thought of living in murderous Israel horrifies me.

Perhaps if programmes like this point an accusing finger at the policies of a State I find so abhorrent, and something good comes out of it, I might want to go home.

Zkharya

The comedian was Frankie Boyle:

here is a link to Political Animal:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/mainframe.shtml?http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/artsdrama_promo.shtml?link

Zkharya

Ruth,

you don't live in Israel because you are privileged enough not to live in the kind of hostile society, European, Arab, Christian or Islamic most Israeli Jews originated in.

But well done you for thinking that something innately virtuous about yourself.

RUTH

Zkharya,

I had to read your post over and over to understand what you are trying to say.

Correct me if I'm wrong but in the end I think you are just trying to be rude for the sake of it.

I left Israel some years back - one of thousands turning their backs on that country - because I did not want to see the ideology of which I am proud be corrupted into a vicious dogma I want nothing to do with.

And if you are trying to imply that people who leave Israel do so for more safety, or luxury, then your assumptions leave you all the poorer.

patricia

Yo Mr P!

Never mind that pesky license fee...

I take it you'll be sending back that 'Any Questions' cheque then?

Eh?

Zkharya

Hi Ruth,

Well, good for you.

But leaving Israel is not an option for most Israeli Jews. They have to make the best of things where they are.

You cannot lecture them on how that. You are no longer there.

Yosef

Ruth, I think that it is your assumptions that leave you all the poorer. The overwhelming number of people leaving Israel that I know, leave for precisly the reasons that you discount. They leave for better jobs, they leave for family reasons, they leave for safety after experiencing trauma. Some like you, may turn their back on their people and country and leave, instead of opting to better the problems in Israeli society by staying.

London Calling

Stephen,

Raw Comedy is what it is,
Raw Racism it isn’t.

Accusation this is,
fact it isn’t.

Are you suffering with ASS?

Anti-Semitic Syndrome…

I'm suffering with GALS...
Get-A-Life-Syndrome,
May I suggest you do the same.

Mick

Zkharya
June 18th, 2008 12:56pm
" The comedian was Frankie Boyle"

Boyle was on HIGNFY recently. He was p*ss poor on it and his arm pit sweat stains were so gross I felt sorry for Paul Merton having to sit next to him.

S. Jackson

Ruth,
whatever your personal views of Israel are, don’t take an everlasting welcome in London for granted.
If the BBC and media keeps up the drip drip drip of anti-Israel and antisemitic reporting, innuendo and bias, we’ll all be packing our bags. Let’s hope we’ll still have somewhere to run to.

Zkharya

London Calling,

get a life yourself.

The purpose of Israeli Army martial arts is self defence against enemies of the Jewish state that are quite openly sworn to destroy her (in case you hadn't noticed).

The Jewish state of Israel is not 'an Angry Jew Kicking the Cake of Palestine'.

It is a legitimate state at war against enemies that have openly sought destruction from before her birth, who sought to prevent the Jews of a Palestine having any part of that 'cake'.

And who would do the same, given half the chance.

Zkharya

London Calling,

if you think that answering concerns over racist misrepresantions of complicated political situations with obscenities makes your case I fear you are very much mistaken.

It says more about you than the target of your insult.

'I'm a Jew.
I heard the programme too.
To begin with I thought I bet they dont criticise Israel, just that they mock the Muslims again'

Ruth,

you don't listen to many British comics, do you?

Adam B.

Jacko, he said an angry JEW. How is this criticism of a government policy?

Adam B.

Ruth, how smug you must be. All those Jews fleeing starvation in Ethiopia, or dhimmitude in Yemen, Syria, Iran and Iraq, what do they know? Thank goodness we have you to put them right.

Pity they can't all come and live with you in your smug existence.

Adam B.

Peter, that's right, question the loyalty of the Jew. How disgusting.

RUTH

Adam B.

Thank you for your insults.

Insults seem to be the standard fare of some of the posters here.

What is this, a thought site or a hate site?

The attitudes I have seen from Stephen Pollard and some of those who write in here is reminds me of the reasons I left Israel - the overwhelming arrogance the smugness, as you call it and intolerance of a large proportion of the people.

peter

Adam B....

How disgusting I am to question the loyalty of the Jew?

Sorry, we are in England, not in Israel.

Maybe you are in Israel, but we are in England. I'm sorry if you find that inconvenient.

Because by your standards, Islamicists coming here would have to put Islam first, and behave accordingly, and we in London do not want that, just as we do not want Jews putting Israel first.

Muslims, Jews, all, come here, and put this country first.

Can you understand that?
That's the deal.

Adam B.

Peter,

I am in England. I am English. Have you ever heard of Jewish Britons? Jews don't all live in Israel, so what on earth are you talking about? Questioning the loyalty of Jews is an anti-semitic canard as old as the hills. Can YOU prove your loyalty? What makes you so loyal that you have the right to question the loyalty of others? Why should a Jewish Briton have to prove anything to you? What makes YOU the arbiter?

By the way, I'm not Jewish. Does this give my words more credence in your hate filled mind?

Adam B.

So what WOULD you say to those Jews Ruth? Can they come and live where you do?

Lee Jakeman

The issue here is one of anti-semitism. Whether you live in Israel or in England is really quite irrelevant. Personally, I think a lot of these "anti Zionist" types are simply anti-semites that have found a new home. The Jews are a gifted people who make a disproportionately large contribution wherever they go. I have always said that of all the immigrant groups that have settled in England, the Jews have been the most productive, the most creative and the best behaved. But instead of giving credit where credit is due, the Jews are accused of exploiting the indigenous population and of being concerned only with their own group. English Jews are very English and are proof that it is possible to be both English and Jewish and proud of both. May they continue to be a part of our culture and heritage.

Ben-Tsiyon (ha rishon)

I applaud Lee Jakeman's oh-so-idealistic sentiments, and no doubt there are many Jews in England who consider themselves 'English', but they are deluding themselves. The Jews in Germany pre-WW2 were extremely patriotic and felt more German than the indigenous population. Look what happened to them!

billybremner

Ben-Tsiyon you make a good point, but the difference now is that if what occured in germany was to occur in england (however unlikely) this time the jews have a piece of land to go. This idea there for makes the words of ruth, the "jew" so much more diabolical, and if she is really what she claims then she is truly a nasty piece of work. ruth we had people like you in germany in the mid to late 19-30s, we called them nazis

Ben-Tsiyon (ha rishon)

billybremner, exactly so! I am third generation England born. So what! I hadn't bothered to comment on Ruth's "contributions". There are quite a few like her. That bunch who wrote to the Guardian on Israel's 60th, for example. Disgusting lot!