In the days following the attack on Hatzola ambulances in Golders Green, North London, the BBC radio and TV reporting on the incident appeared to studiously avoid asking any questions about who or what is making life so difficult for British Jews. While talking vaguely about a rise in antisemitism, and “events in the Middle East,” journalists failed to provide any wider context for the situation British Jews find themselves in.
The question, as after the Bondi attacks, of whether this was somehow Israel’s fault came up more than once. On the Radio 4 Today program of March 23 Amol Rajan asked Community Security Trust Chief Executive Mark Gardner:
Rajan: “And do you worry that the longer this, sorry to interrupt, you worry that the longer this war goes on that we’ll see more and more of such incidents?”
And later the same day, on The World at One also on Radio 4, Jonny Dymond asked a similar question of Rabbi Ben Kurzer from Golders Green Synagogue:
Dymond: “How much do you worry about sort of effectively the, the, it’s a nasty phrase forgive me, the sort of blowback from the World around, from foreign affairs, from the wars in the Middle East, and how much of a concern is that for you and the connection that people make between those and the community here in Britain?”
As we pointed out after the Bondi Beach attack, this line of questioning lends the BBC’s considerable credibility to the unfounded notion that diaspora Jews should be expected to suffer when Israel is at war. The argument, as made in our comments section by Nick Robinson after he asked a similar question to Dov Forman on Holocaust Memorial Day, that this type of question is about “answer(ing) that concern/critique” and “addressing the concerns of those who don’t agree with us” falls down when we consider whether any other minority would be asked to answer for crimes against them. Would an attack on a mosque result in questions like “While the Islamic Regime is sponsoring terror proxies, do you expect more attacks like this?” Of course not. The notion would be rightly considered to be racist and outrageous.
It is possible to address this accusation of collective culpability without wholly lending credibility to it, as shown on Radio 5 Live by Nicky Campbell on March 23:
“But is there even more, more than ever before, a conflation which is going on which you wouldn’t apply, you know to any other group, a conflation of Jewish people with for example Israel, the Netanyahu administration, I have Jewish friends who are deeply worried about what is happening and have experienced it who are no supporters of Netanyahu and there’s lazy conflation Jonathan isn’t there?”
But this still subtly suggests that Jews who do support Netanyahu might be fair game, and even then, there is no discussion of who is responsible for putting Britain’s Jews under siege.
The BBC asked London’s Jews for their experiences but left out the perpetrators. Moving vox pops repeated on BBC One’s News at Six and News at Ten described the fears and experiences of the local community:
“I just took my kids. We were all barefoot. We just took the kids and we went out and we saw the big fire. I know what I’m talking about antisemitism because I live. I left France to come to the UK, so I thought it was safer to be here. But apparently, it’s the same thing all over Europe now, it’s very dangerous for us.”
And Lucy Manning reported:
Manning: “On the streets of Golders Green tonight, defiance and a demand for action. There have been strong words of condemnation and warm words of support for the Jewish community that still feels that the threat against them hasn’t been dealt with properly. With rising antisemitism and more frequent attacks, burnt out ambulances, broken synagogue windows, fear and anger that Jews still feel unsafe.”
While a report on the News at Six from Leyla Hayes highlighted the security fears in the local community:
Hayes: “At this Jewish community Centre in Hampstead, classes like this cooking session are continuing as normal stop but outside there is heavy security. Something that is now costing the centre around £600,000 a year.”
Raymond Simonson: “When I see how much money we have to spend just on security for one reason only, we have the word Jewish on our building. If we took that name down and we did the same kind of activities it would be £60,000 a year bill. But simply for the fact that we are Jewish in the year 2026 in London that we have to spend that amount on security and we have to have briefings and the police have to step up their visits, we shouldn’t have to be dealing with these things.”
Hayes: “The investigation is continuing to find out who was responsible for the attack, which police are treating as an antisemitic hate crime. But the community Security trust say this was not just an attack on ambulances, it was an attack on the whole Jewish community.”
Dave Rich: “It really does show the amount of hatred that lies behind these attacks. The fact that there seems to be no limits to what people will do. But also the fact that these ambulances serve everybody show that an attack on the Jewish community is an attack on all of us. It is an attack on Britain and London and what we all stand for”
Hayes: “The patrols have been stepped up but many are still fearful here and say they wonder whether they really are safe.”
The glaring gap in all of this reporting is the cause. While we do not yet know the names of those responsible for this latest attack, we do know the rhetoric and actions that are creating these fears and security concerns. The BBC however, while content to point fingers at Israel, does not seem to want to name them.
This post originally appeared at CAMERA UK.