The BBC’s Tim Willcox has caused widespread dismay following his interview with a woman at yesterday’s rally in Paris. When she fearfully invoked memories of the 1930s and said people must recognize that Jews are the target for violent hate, he gratuitously introduced the Israel/Palestine issue.
‘Many critics though of Israel’s policy would suggest that the Palestinians suffered hugely at Jewish hands as well’.
She rightly points out that this is an ‘amalgame’ – conflation – but, unbelievably, Wilcox still presses the point.
“But you understand; everything is seen from different perspectives.”
As BBC Watch points out, the EUMC Working Definition of Antisemitism includes the following:
“Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.”
Willcox has form on this issue. Back in November, when he was hosting a BBC News Channel review of the papers, a guest made a reference to the ‘Jewish lobby’ being opposed to Labour’s support for recognition of a Palestinian state. Rather than picking her up on this, he chipped in with:
“Yeah and a lot of these prominent Jewish…ah….ah….faces will be very much against the mansion tax presumably as well.”
Readers are unlikely to need reminding of David Ward’s track record. Yesterday, after expressing his disgust at the presence of Netanyahu in Paris, he tweeted:
Je suis #Palestinian
This appears to have been his only response to the murders of four French Jews. Considering the amount of criticism he has received for a whole string of offensive remarks, he must know full well the impact and significance of this malicious intervention (which, needless, to say, does the Palestinian cause absolutely no good at all.)
Engage 
January 12, 2015 at 9:10 am
Tim Wilcox, like the rest of the BBC journalists whose ignorance of the true situation in the Middle East is mind-blowing, has to drag in Israel-Palestine at every opportunity. This is the EXACT counterpart of the accusation that Jews had become “too powerful and rich” in prewar Germany. I would like to suggest the handing out of a questionnaire to every journalist and opinion-former in the media. The questionnaire should consist of the most basic facts about Israel and its neighbours, such as “how big is Israel? Is it a), b) or c), or draw a map of the countries of the middle east without naming them and ask the people to name the countries and maybe some of the big cities. In a recent celebrity Mastermind, well-known graduates of two leading universities were unable to identify Bethlehem on a map, and one woman of Pakistani origin called it “Lebanon”!
January 12, 2015 at 11:30 am
Willcox now apologies on Twitter ‘for any offense caused by a poorly phrased question’. A weasel phrase – how does he think he should have phased it?
January 12, 2015 at 12:51 pm
The most depressing thing is that this is no longer shocking as it is now so familiar 😦
January 15, 2015 at 8:44 am
It’s an added reason why many Jews in England don’t believe they have a future there. (I am writing from America.)
January 12, 2015 at 10:13 pm
Nick Cohen discusses this Tim Wilcox incident and hits the nail on the head here:
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/01/the-bbc-blaming-the-jews-for-attacks-on-jews/
In particular:
“Wilcox is not some isolated and aberrant racist; his views are the standard opinions of the European left middle class…Wilcox like so many others does not understand that anti-Semitism is not a rational…critique of Israeli foreign policy but an insane conspiracy theory that has captured the minds of millions of fanatics”
January 15, 2015 at 8:46 am
Who is David Ward?
January 16, 2015 at 1:41 pm
A British Member of Parliament with a sorry track record of making antisemitic statements
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ward_%28politician%29
January 20, 2015 at 1:08 am
Since 2010, that is, and given that he has a majority of only 365, about to become the former MP for Bradford East as of May 7, 2015. The only serious question left is who is going to replace this borderline (or is he over the border) racist and antisemite?