BBC: bias from the heart

On Monday night, it will be the first night of Succos, one of the most important Jewish festivals. So I won't be able to watch the second episode of the current BBC series “Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs,” , but I'll record it. Having watched the first episode last week, whilst I could see why some commentators might have detected bias in the selection of key figures as spokespeople, I didn't myself see it as obviously biased against either Israeli or Palestinian perspectives.

It showed Barak and the Israelis as less unambiguous in pursuing the particular peace agenda the US was pushing than had previously been revealed. But so what? Most behind the scenes programmes about negotiations show that. And it did (in my eyes) present Barak and especially his team as undoubtedly committed to trying to negotiate peace. It showed that at times they were being conned by Clinton's team, too, and thus had to appear to back track in order not to avoid being dragged into concessions they'd never agreed in the first place.

In my eyes, the two players who emerged with least credit were Jacques Chirac and Yasser Arafat. Chirac's role as portrayed in this first episode appears to have been truly malign. He obviously had some sort of back channel dealings with Arafat which fed into the totally manipulative way he used diplomatic protocol to wreck some stage of the peace negotiations in Paris that were previously making progress.  Madeleine Albright's rueful comments about the impact of his interference seemed to me heartfelt and convincing.

I've tended to see Saab Erekat was one of the most compliant and reliable defenders of Arafat over the years. His television statements after almost any given occasion over the years can be seen as a mine of endless variants on "Israeli is to blame/The occupation is the root cause", whatever the situation. But in this programme he did not attempt to cover up or justify key instances of lying and evasion by Arafat, particularly his insistence on waking Madeleine Albright during the night for no very good reason. He frankly described his own incredulity at seeing Arafat feign ignorance when pressed to rein in such leaders amongst his own side who were fuelling the second Intifada.

But what's really of interest to me is Jerry Lewis' , Jerusalem Post account of complaints to the BBC about this programme, and how they were responded to.

As the report makes clear, there are two types of responses to be found amonst the BBC paid personnel reported on. As with the police, the more senior you get, the more you will find some sort of reasonable response to complaints about bias and racism or anti-semitism. But it is at the level of "the person behind the counter" that one finds that very different attitudes take over.

Consider this situation that Lewis describes: a UK Jewish activist emailed a complaint about the publicity summary for the programme because the last sentence seemed to include a biased comment about Sharon having a key role in destroying the peace process:

The trailer in question heralded, “The story of how Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Barak persuaded President Clinton to devote his last 18 months in office to helping make peace with Yasser Arafat. But Barak got cold feet twice. Then Ariel Sharon took a walk around Jerusalem's holiest mosques, and peacemaking was over.

Malcolm Balen, the BBC ombudsman for Middle East coverage took this seriously and the publicity was rewritten thus:

The story of how Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Barak persuaded President Clinton to devote his last 18 months in office to helping make peace with Yasser Arafat. But after tense negotiations the deal was never made.”

Fair enough, and commendable of the BBC. But look what had previously happened. Here is the response that Lewis got from consulting the people actually involved in handling complaints:

A senior BBC source derided the complaint, telling The Jerusalem Post that such is the situation with constant and often inaccurate complaints that many inevitably are given perfunctory replies and little or no notice is taken of them. The Jewish community does itself no favours with these interventions, the source added, and as for writing in before a program has even been shown, that takes quite some hutzpa.

This is an appalling combination of arrogance, self-importance and just plain dereliction of duty. Firstly, there is the notion that if one is a repeated complainant, one's complaints can safely be ignored and treated cusorily. Secondly, and ominously, this senior BBC official clearly sees such complaints as the collectively organized action of the Jewish community. Thirdly the Jewish community is seen as driven by "quite some chutzpa."  Would this senior BBC source use the word chutzpa to describe the actions of any other community? Has he or she ever used that word other than as an epithet for Jews?

What action has been taken about this particular official and what seem to me like some unrepentantly anti-semitic statements?

Comments

[Huldah]

I read this too, Judy, with some annoyance. I am one of the people who takes the time and trouble to write and comment on BBC coverage of the Middle East.

I have been annoyed to receive what are evidently standard letters in response. Needless to say, the Beeb's replies in no way address any of the points which I raise in my letters.

Now I know why. The BBC have a POLICY of treating me and others like me as "Mrs Trellis of North Wales" - simply as an irritation, our concerns to be brushed off like flies.

They are SO arrogant!

[Judy]

Do remember that you can take your complaint further. You can write to the complaints unit and express your dissatisfaction with the response to your complaint, and a demand that it be taken further. Every time you get a brush off answer, refuse to accept it, and ask for it to be taken to the next step up. That's how Malcolm Balen got involved in the originallly rejected complaint about the BBC trail of its programmes.

[Huldah]

Thanks, Judy.

I'll try that.

[Al-Hack]

Ahh, but that is how the J Post prefers to reflect on how the BBC responds to complaints. You think they don't do the same with others, ala the MCB's recent tirade against Panorama? Given the amount of complaining the Jewish and Muslim lobby constantly do over anything close to them, I'm not surprised the BBC have to deal with them quickly.

[Peregrine]

Judy
I hope you do watch the second episode, it seemed much more balanced than the usual BBC anti-Israeli diatribe.
With regards to regular complainants (?), most organisations take the same view as the BBC, that is that they are antagonistic towards the organisation as a whole rather than the specific topic being complained about. As a regular reader of Biased BBC (a blog I highly recommend) I am aware that the antipathy of its commentors towards the BBC affects their ability to see the positives from its output.

PS I note you have already linked to BBBC, good for you!

[Pankaj]

I'm an American and I wouldn't give the Red Cross a dime... Several years ago we had a naaturl disaster here in Texas, a tornado wiped out a small town in central Texas and the survivors needed help and supplies and they needed them NOW...The Red Cross was on TV crying for donations to help the people in need...At the time, I owned a trucking company and I called the Red Cross and offered them a truck, a trailer and a driver, AT NO CHARGE, I would pay for everything, the fuel, the drivers pay, ALL OF IT, and they could use my 18 wheeler to transport much needed supplies to the effected area...I was told, VERY impolitely, "We don't NEED you or your truck, all we NEED is your money, if you can't make a financial donation, we don't need you..."Since that day, I have NEVER given ANYTHING to the American Red Cross or any cause that they support...We all do what we can to help our fellow man and there are MANY other good organizations I CAN help...