The BBC’s lack of sympathy for Israel is not exactly a secret but a listen to its “World Update” program this morning (generally available on your local NPR station) provided listeners with some interesting perspective on the conflict, even though that may not have been the intention of the show’s host.
“World Update” host Dan Damon seemed determined to put Iran in a positive light during a discussion with the BBC’s Tehran correspondent John Light.
It is widely understood that Iranian support for Hamas has encouraged the terrorist group in their extremism and propensity for violence as well as providing them with the money and the weaponry to pursue those aims. But Damon’s take on the recent fighting is that Iran’s role has been largely passive if not downright moderate. When asked by Damon as to what the reason might be for Iran’s “restrained response” to the situation in Gaza, Light was somewhat flummoxed and could provide no proof for such restraint.
Not satisfied with this response, Damon declared that the Iranians “haven’t been as loud in calling for the destruction of Israel” as they usually are.
To this, the BBC man in Tehran merely replied that he “wouldn’t say it [Iran] was less strident” and then mentioned that evidence of Iranian involvement in the current battle had been made clear by the upgrade in weapons fired by Hamas. The inconvenient fact that Hamas has graduated from the more primitive locally-built Kassam missiles to longer range weapons which can reach as far into Israel as Beersheba was, he said, probably Iran’s doing. Though they were independent groups, Hamas and Hezbollah were being used by Iran to promote its Islamist agenda.
But that humiliating exchange wasn’t the end of Damon’s foray into Israel-bashing. Later in the program he interviewed an Israeli who was critical of his own country’s decision to defend itself against Hamas.
This is, of course, one of the standard clichés of Israel-bashing journalism so often provided by NPR and the BBC. Their idea of fairness is generally to balance an Arab denouncing Israel with an Israeli who does the same. In this case, the Israeli was Omri Evron, who was identified as a student and a member of the Israeli Communist Party. Evron considered the attacks on terrorist bases and missile launchers as “war crimes.”
As absurd as Evron’s critique of his own country was, it did provide some perspective on the conflict. Though Damon didn’t choose to explain it, the groups to which Evron belongs are explicitly anti-Zionist. In fact, Evron gained some notoriety for his refusal to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. The Communists don’t believe there should be a Jewish State though they would probably not be too happy about its conversion into the sort of Islamic republic that Hamas envisions. That is, of course, more or less, the same reason why so many critics of Israel think its counter-attack into Gaza is wrong. After all, if you have no right to exist, what right do you have to defend yourself?
