BBC PM programme presents white supremacist and Iranian stooges

On the BBC Radio 4 PM news programme at 5:00pm this evening, through its coverage of the Iranian conference to "examine whether the Holocaust actually happened", a lengthy and indulgent platform was given to David Duke, who is to be one of the presenters at the conference.

What the PM programme didn't tell its listeners was exactly who David Duke is, allowing him instead to present his motives for taking part as being about defending free speech. They mentioned that he was an ex Ku Klux Klan member, but that was as far as it went.

As you can see from this BBC News website report,of April 2003 Duke is a former leader (Grand Wizard) of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan group who has been convicted for mail and tax fraud.

The Wikipedia entry for Duke also shows that in 2000 he published a book called Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening on the Jewish Question. The book purports to "examine and document elements of ethnic supremacism that have existed in the Jewish community from historical to modern times".

Nowhere in the programme was this information shared with the listeners. although both this evening's BBC News web site and the 6pm news programme identified him as a former Ku Klux Klan leader in reporting that he was taking part in the conference.

Nor was any reputable scholar invited to refute the whole enterprise of the Iranian conference or expose the totally discredited credentials of Duke and the other presenters. And the PM programme made no mention of the refusal of an entry visa to the Israeli Arab Khaled Mahamid, who runs a Holocaust Museum aimed at the Arab people of Nazareth. Instead, the report uncritically recycled the Iranian spin on its conference as being about honest enquiry, though it did acknowledge that there was little evidence that any of the speakers were going to argue that the Holocaust did happen.

Somehow, I can't imagine this information being omitted on any other occasion on which the PM programme might be reporting on the doings of David Duke. Nor can I imagine him being given such a helpful ride on any other topic.

Then the PM programme offered an even more extended platform to a Rabbi Moshe Friedman, presented as "the leader of a Viennese orthodox anti-zionist congregation", to describe the Iranians as a truth-telling, peace-loving nation with no wish to deny the Holocaust. Describing Rabbi Friedman in this way is roughly the equivalent of describing Hizb-ut-Tahrir as a group of Muslim political activists, something the BBC has been ready to do in the past.

Rabbi Moshe Friedman is in fact a leading member of the tiny Neturei Karta extremist strictly orthodox sect, whose numbers world-wide number no more than a few hundred. This Associated Press report does identify him as someone who met with a leading Hamas spokesman a few days ago to offer him support, assistance and "humanitarian fundraising". AP credulously describes him as the spokesman for hundreds of Viennese orthodox anti-zionist Jews.

It's left to Tel Aviv University's Stephen Roth Institute to explain exactly which organization Friedman belongs to and what company he's been keeping:

Extreme rightists, Islamists and Arab nationalists manipulate the anti-Zionist ultra-Oxthodox Jewish sect Naturei Karta for their own antisemitic/anti-Zionist/anti-Israel purposes. For example, the neo-Nazi site stoertebeker published in detail a speech made by Moshe A. Friedman, ‘chief rabbi’ of Neturei Karta in Austria, at an ‘anti-Zionist conference of rabbis’ held on 1 July 2004 and attended by prominent figures such as Martin Hohmann, member of the German parliament who was expelled from the CDU/CSU fraction because of an antisemitic speech, and former Austrian Foreign Minister Erwin Lanc (SPÖ). Friedman claimed the Zionists had not shrunk “from inciting and provoking pogroms in Russia,” had welcomed the Nuremberg laws and done everything possible to provoke antisemitism.

Let's leave aside the question of who is manipulating who when it comes to talking about the activities of Neturei Karta. Whilst there are a number of principled anti-zionist strictly orthodox groupings, such as the Satmar chassidim, the Neturei Karta are unique in being reviled and discredited right across the strictly orthodox spectrum as shown in this extract from a statement endorsed by every strictly orthodox grouping of any significance:

Their joining in vigils and 'prayers' for the arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat [may his name be blotted out] with Jew-haters of all manner, is an outrage that we cannot ignore and will not forgive. We again demand that rabbis and community leaders of all communities ensure that members of this group are refused entry to all houses of prayer. These nefarious associates of Jewry's enemies have unfortunately again succeeded in their crazed hunger for publicity and are being depicted in local and international media — outfitted in their religious attire — bewailing the impending demise of a mass-murderer — side-by-side with Palestinian Jew-haters. The shame and embarrassment to decent religious Jews worldwide is unbearable. We repeat: this contemptible and minuscule gang of traitors to Judaism, were decades ago barred from our Synagogues and communities... We urgently request all media outlets to highlight this fact in any report on this group's actions and to clearly state that the Neturei Karta and their advocates have been excommunicated by virtually the entire spectrum of Jewry.

If you care to look at the archives of the documents Israeli forces found in Arafat's muqata back in 2002, there's what appears to be clear evidence that Neturei Karta were taking funding from Arafat. Not surprising, since a Neturei Karta rabbi represented himself as Arafat's "minister for Jewish affairs"

I wonder who's funding them now? Readers might like to ponder their recent track record, which includes an enthusiastic visit to Iran in support of President Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be wiped off the map. In fact, it seems they're quite regularly turning up with delegations to Tehran. this year.

So who at the PM programme is making editorial decisions to present one of their leaders as just the rabbi of "an orthodox anti-zionist congregation in Vienna", to say nothing of concealing the virulently racist and anti-semitic track record of its other guest, the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan?

Comments

[Martin Morgan]

I heard the PM interview too, and am pretty sure they said he was an ex-Klansman - although not the former Grand Wizard. I agree that the rabbi chunk was particularly disgraceful, born of ignorance and lack of research. The buffoon pretty much condemned himself with every word, at least.

[Alan Connor]

Listening to it now.

Eddie Mair introduces the item, then says: "The conference has attracted a number visitors from around the world. Former Ku Klux Klan member David Duke denies that they're all Holocaust deniers."

There's then a 23s stock rant from Duke about political correctness, and an interview where Eddie Mair challenges Moishe Aryeh Friedman on Iran, Holocaust denial and the conference.

[Judy]

The BBC did not say anything about Duke's convictions for fraud or about the fact that he has published an obviously ravingly anti-semitic book. Nor did they indicate that he is an ex Grand Wizard of the Klan, not a mere member, and that he has continued to play a major role as a white supremacist activist.,

In the case of the Rabbi, they did not give any indication that he was from a particular miniscule sect which is universally reviled, even by anti-zionist strictly orthodox groups as being totally out of step in allying with the enemies of the Jewish community. His was the only Jewish input on the topic. As I suggested, rather like inviting a Hizb ut Tahrir leader to speak on the programme as a Muslim, without giving the listeners any insight into which organization he represented and what that organization stands for.

[Martin Morgan]

For me, the elephant in the room on this kind of reporting is the failure to ask why Iran is suddenly so interested in promoting Holocaust denial. It's treated as if it's just one of those things. I'd like to hear an interview with the Israeli Arab who wanted to tell them the truth, too.

[Lynne]

Martin:

There are probably a few reasons why the Muslim world is so obsessed with Holocaust denial and the dispossion of fellow Muslims to make way for a Jewish state is only one of them.

Underlying it all is the core belief of Islam that the Jews and Christians distorted the word of God and cannot be trusted; they must be subjegated at the least if not "reverted" to Islam or irradicated from "holy Muslim lands". Nearly 1400 years of religious doctrine is likely to have contributed profoundly to the negative perception of Jews in the Muslim world.

Then there's the element of seeking justification for persecuting their own Jewish populations in the last century, reducing it to virtually nil, and, as a result, directly increasing the Jewish population of Israel. (I guess nobody has pointed out to Mad Mahmoud that Israel is home to about 150,000 Persian Jews, including Shaul Mofaz and Moishe Katzov, so rather than creating a Jewish state in California or Europe...)

"fudging numbers" is certainly something that modern Muslim states like to indulge in, so perhaps there's also an element of projecting going on here too. The PA was recently exposed for having grossly exagerated its population (by about a third as I recall) and an accountant friend who was working in Afghanistan in the 1970s under the aegis of the Cdn government tells me that depending on the purpose, the Afghan government would claim a population of between 5 million and 15 million -- quite a range.

[Ripper]

Neturei Karta - the scum of the Earth.

[Martin Morgan]

Oliver Kamm succinctly stated what the BBC's coverage and that of others has missed:

"What is wrong with the Iranian conference is thus not that it's offensive, but that it's a fraudulent gathering designed to generate hatred through lies."

[JJM]

As a (Catholic) kid who used to cut the grass for a rabbi in the Toronto area many years ago (one of the nicest men I ever knew and a survivor of the Warsaw Uprising) -

As someone who walked through the gates of Auschwitz a couple of years ago on a very cold Polish morning to view where so many Jewish people perished (and the wall where one of my own, Father Maximilian Kolbe, was shot) -

As someone who is tired of the ranting and the ranters and their ludicrous "Global Zionist Conspiracy" as well as all the intellectual "fellow-travellers" and their thinly disguised anti-Semitism -

I have no use for the Holocaust-deniers whoever they are. A pox on them all.

Having said that, I'm off to Ljubljana, Slovenia for Christmas.

As a Canadian living in London, I would like you to know how much I've enjoyed reading your blog this year.

Je vous souhaite - vous et votre famille - un Joyeux Hanoucca et une Bonne Année.

JJM

[Tasylbekov]

Mary, I'm not sure where you live, but I live in Israel.1. All I said was that settlers shuold be paying attention.2. Not everyone out there is Netura Karta. Netura Karta is an organization, not a blanket phrase meaning anti-Zionist. 3. I, am a Zionist, but that does not mean I am not critical of the state. I am critical, and I am no fan.4. I believe very strongly that one shuold not believe ANYthing the mainstream media says about Haredim or settlers. We must have confirmation from other sources. For example, one Haredi paper charedi.co.il claims that the child in question was dying of a terminal illness.I am more inclined to believe a Haredi than a Torah-basher.5. The bulk of the Haredi community is not the enemy. The Eruv Rav is.6. The settlers must get together with the Haredim, and leave the mamlakhtim in the dust. The haredi youth is ripe for listening, and for learning halacha regarding the land. We must teach them.