The Jewish Chronicle have been, quite rightly, making a fuss about this. Last week a bunch of Jewish kids were celebrating Chanukah in a bus on Oxford Street when they were abused and spat at by a bunch of - it has to be said - Asian youths. The BBC report shows the incident, as filmed by someone from inside the bus, but with the faces of the abusers blanked out.
A group was filmed approaching the privately hired bus on Oxford Street in central London on Monday.
Footage shows men spitting at the bus and apparently abusing passengers. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has described the video as "disturbing".
Det Insp Kevin Eade said police were treating the incident as a hate crime.
In the video, which was posted on social media, a man seems to make a Nazi salute and others wave their shoes - an insult in some countries.
And then:
A slur about Muslims can also be heard from inside the bus. The Met Police has said the incident will be looked at "in its entirety".
So there's guilt on both sides? The Met will be looking, we're led to believe, at the racism on display both inside and outside the bus.
But was there a "slur about Muslims" from inside the bus? At Gnasherjew they say that they asked the BBC journalist Harry Farley for proof, and he said the incident occurred 3 seconds in to the video: "We extracted the audio from the video & removed the background noise. What can be clearly heard (2.5 secs in) is "Tikra lemishehu, ze dachuf" (call someone it’s urgent). We are wondering why the BBC feels the need to demonize Jews at every turn?"
But of course, to the specially attuned ears of a BBC journalist, any Hebrew is going to sound like a slur against Muslims.
As the Board of Deputies tweeted: "It appears that the BBC has a very serious case to answer here. Incorrectly accusing those experiencing antisemitism of being guilty of bigotry themselves is adding insult to injury."
Last word to the JC:
As the reaction to this clip gathered pace and politicians (largely but not exclusively from the right) rightly queued up to condemn it, there seemed to be a fairly conspicuous absence. Those from the leftwing of the Labour Party and beyond seemed to have absolutely nothing to say about a pretty clear cut incident of racism on the streets of the UK. Nothing to say about a group of children having a holiday party ruined for the simple crime of being Jewish in London.
Now, to state the obvious, no-one has a moral imperative to comment on every abhorrent news clip that may or may not include all the necessary context. No-one should be forced at cancel-point to condemn anti-semitism or be labelled a Jew-hater, but it just seems a little bit strange that a group that is usually (and rightly) vocal about incidents of public racism, has very little to say.
But it’s not even just the progressive "anti-racists" who seem to have somewhat of a blindspot on this. Major media companies also seem to not know how to deal with racism stories when the victims are Jews. Whether it’s writing “anti-semitic’ when mentioning a nazi salute or even putting “spat at” in quotes when there’s clear video evidence of it, it seems like Jews are never quite the perfect victims.
And as the outrage subsides and the clip becomes just another piece of viral content for the usual players to react to, we’re just left once again with the feeling that Jews Don’t Count.
Update: from the JC today:
Parents of the Jewish victims of last week’s antisemitic incident on Oxford Street have accused the BBC of "demonising" their children, as outrage continues to mount in the community over the corporation’s reporting of the story.
A line in the BBC’s coverage read: “A slur about Muslims can also be heard from inside the bus. The Met Police has said the incident will be looked at ‘in its entirety’.”
“BBC News has demonised my son, who was on that bus, to serve their anti-Jewish agenda,” said Yechiel Wilhelm in a tweet. It also came to light that a packing crate was thrown at the children as they fled.
Rabbi Schneur Glitzenshtein, who organised the original bus trip, confirmed that none of the victims had used Islamophobic language. “Not one word,” he said....
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