I've sent two complaints recently to LBC about Nick Ferrari's repeated suggestions that "Jews kill Arabs for no reason" (one about the 25 September programme and one on 13 October).
I have received a response which appears to be directed to the second complaint but it is actually a standard response sent to everyone who complained about that programme and misses the specific complaint I made.
Thanks for your email. We always appreciate people getting in touch to share their thoughts and views on our output.
In what has been a very busy week of domestic, UK-based news we have found time to report on recent events in Israel. As ever, our approach has been to adopt a very careful and cautious approach in our coverage, sticking to the facts. This was the approach taken by Nick Ferrari on Wednesday during his interview with a journalist from the Jerusalem Post and lengthy, sympathetic discussion with a caller from a suburb outside Tel Aviv.
Please be assured we will continue to analyse our output as we strive to make it as accurate and relevant as possible, given the often fast-moving and complex events we are covering.
We also appreciate there are many deeply held opinions about what is happening and will continue to aim to reflect a wide range of views.
Thanks again for taking the time to get in touch.
While LBC at least responded on this occasion (Sky News never do and nor do most newspapers) I have sent back a follow-up complaint.
Dear LBC
Thank you for your response but it does not address my specific complaint. It does not matter who Ferrari interviewed. I complained about the words Ferrari used to introduce the subject (and incidentally these were the ONLY words said about the subject for about 10 minutes, so many listeners would ONLY have heard those words). He said at about 8.40am:
"To Israel now. And a Palestinian has been fatally shot in Jerusalem. More on this later".
This was after multiple terror attacks that very morning in Jerusalem specifically against Jews in which four Jewish civilians were killed (mostly elderly) and dozens injured in shooting, knifing and car attacks.. The Palestinian who was 'fatally shot' is the man who committed the atrocity that you can actually see here:
https://youtu.be/wChXPbocWhw
For Ferrari to have used the words he did to summarise that morning's news from Israel was inexcusable and can only be put down to either him or whoever fed him this 'strapline' as being driven by antisemitic hatred and ignorance. It was disgraceful and shoddy journalism that requires a full on-air apology by Ferrari.
Moreover, I also bring to your attention the fact that Ferrari conducted a 30-minute antisemitic blood libel on 25 September when he accused Israelis of killing a 'tiny young woman' for no reason even though she had in fact attacked them with a knife after refusing repeated attempts to stop advancing.
See also:
- Nick Ferrari: Jews killing Arabs again for no reason
- Nick Ferrari: not enough dead Jews
- Perfect illustration of anti-Israel bias in the media
- LBC: a platform for the propaganda of Hizb ut Tahrir (2005)
- How LBC reported the massacre in Jerusalem (2008)
- LBC's Andrew Pierce: "Not enough dead Israelis for me" (2009)
- LBC's Nick Ferrari: "Not enough dead Israelis for me" (2012)
- LBC's 'pro-Israel' Nick Ferrari cannot understand why Israel picked on Hamas (2012)
- Why LBC's James O'Brien (like many other liberal commentators) is an antisemite (2014)
- More on LBC's James O'Brien and his claim not be an antisemite (2014)
- LBC's war against Israel (2014)
- LBC responds to my complaint about their war against Israel (2014)
- How the media sees the timeline of events in Israel
- Letters to MP and Downing Street about anti-Israel media bias
- Compare and contrast responses to terrorism in Israel
- Rules and Guidelines for Western reporting on Israel
- Media ignores or dehumanizes murdered Israelis
- BBC ignore attacks against Israel
- Martians attacking Jews again
- Arabs massacred by Americans on day of tit-for-tat violence
- Reporting attacks against ISIS and Hamas
- Another dedication to the useful idiots at CNN and the BBC
- If the response to Pearl Harbour had been the same as that of modern Islamic attacks.
3 comments:
EDGAR - I am posting to record my outrage with James O'Brien today on LBC. I was only able to catch the last 25 minutes and could not phone the radio station as I was driving but he released on air a hate fest against Israel spurred on by Netanyahu's comment. The Israeli PM claims that the Grand Mufti, and not Hitler, wanted the Jews dead.
Now I admit that Netanyahu's comment has inflamed the situation, but it takes little for O'Brien to climb onto his HATE ISRAEL podium and preach from there. He basically said that Netanyahu has 'lost the plot', that O'Brien is sick and tired of Israel being the 'only country in the world that you cannot criticise.' And when you DO, O'Brien is called an antisemite or the Jews that criticise are called self-hating Jews.
O'Brien says he is sick and tired of anti Palestinian propaganda. And he more or less excused the recent murders of Jews 'because the Palestinians live in camps under occupation.'
As I listened it became more sinister and deeply uncomfortable. O'Brien has always seemed to me to be humorous, clever, quick-witted and able to articulate in a simple way some very complex issues. So how then does he get Israel so wrong? How is he able to unleash an antisemitic tirade about Israel during a time when Jews are literally being knifed to death as they wait for buses and trains?
In Netanyahu's defence, I think what he was trying to say [and failed miserably as this has worsened Israel's street-cred standing] is that Arab antisemitism predates 1929, it predates 1947 & 1948, it predates 1967, it predates 1973, and so on.
But to BLAME the holocaust onto the Grand Mufti is ludicrous as all evidence confirms that Hitler wanted the Jews exterminated when he wote Mein Kampf in 1925; Hitler met the Grand Mufti [or corresponded with him] in 1939. On this fact O'Brien is right when he says it is impossible for the extermination to have been the Mufti's idea at such a late date.
After hearing O'Brien's tirade today I am in no doubt that the hatred for Israel is so endemic and deep-seated among the majority of so-called intelligent Brits that I fear for the Jewish community's future here and everywhere.
Furthermore there was not an ounce of compassion for the Jews that have been randomly murdered from either O'Brien or any of the callers.
fairbrit: I'd like to post your comment about O'Brien today in an article - are you OK with that? I didn't hear it.
O' Brien is a rabid anti semite and a died in the cloth Labour supporter. He is of a similar ilk to Comrade Corbyn. His producer on LBC vets all questions and if your name is not Ali or Muhammed you have little chance of a conversation with the oh so smug and smarmy O'Brien.
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