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The BBC must be confronted for hosting a debate on whether Jews are an “ethnic minority” when the public broadcaster would never question the status of other minority groups in this manner.
Despite the fact that Britain’s quarter of a million Jews suffer close to four times the number of hate crimes per capita in comparison to other religious groups, the BBC hosted a discussion on Monday during which panelists debated whether or not Jews are an “ethnic minority.”
“To hold a debate on whether or not we ‘count’ as an ethnic minority is appalling,” responded the UK’s Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA).
The BBC2 show “Politics Live” hosted the panel after a Saturday tweet by Labour Party deputy leader Angela Rayner claiming that the new head of the party’s Scottish branch, Anas Sarwar, is “the first-ever ethnic minority leader of a political party anywhere in the UK.”
The Labour Party, for its part, has imploded during the past several years under the weight of an anti-Semitism scandal that culminated in a finding by the Equality and Human Rights Commission that Labour tolerated systemic Jew-hatred during the tenure of disgraced party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
“While Sarwar is the first major party leader of Asian descent, other leaders have had ethnic roots, including those of Jewish statesmen Benjamin Disraeli, Ed Miliband and Michael Howard,” JNS stated.
Jo Coburn, who is Jewish and hosted the talk, asked five panelists, “Should Jews count as an ethnic minority?”
Only one of the panelists, Benjamin Cohen, was Jewish.
“Many Jews have succeeded in reaching high political office, therefore don’t need to be seen as a group needing recognition in the same way as others,” said the BBC host.
In the explanatory statement of a petition launched in response to the offensive show, the CAA stated, “This is a question that the BBC would never presume to ask about any other British minority community.”
“It is outrageous that the BBC has aired a segment on whether Jews count as an ethnic minority,” said the CAA. “The show’s own guest rightly considered the debate to be ‘ridiculous.’ It is a question that the Corporation would never presume to ask of any other minority community in Britain, and it is telling that it does so in relation to the Jews.”
The CAA concluded, “These segments show why, according to our research, two thirds of British Jews view the BBC’s coverage of Jewish matters unfavourably.”
Demand that the BBC confront its double standard for Jews!
Sign the Campaign Against Antisemitism’s petition against the BBC by clicking here.
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