QuakerInfo.com Forum

[Pulpculture]

Have any of you seen the Frankie Boyle (comedian) issue in the media? This is Frankie's response, as a letter, to the biased BBC. His letter explains all so I won't need to recap.........



Frankie Boyle has lashed out at the BBC, branding them ‘cowardly’ and ‘cravenly afraid of giving offence’ after censuring one of his jokes.

In an angry open letter, the comedian hit back at the BBC Trust for apologising for a gag he felt drew some small attention to the ‘apartheid’ in Palestine.

The corporation’s governing body yesterday issued an apology for the joke Boyle made on Radio 4’s Political Animal two years ago. A listener took their complaint that the gag was anti-Semitic – although appearing on a show hosted by the Jewish Andy Zaltzman – all the way to the top.

They ruled that the gag was a ‘serious’ breach of BBC rules and said: ‘It said: ‘As a result, the committee wished to apologise to the complainant on behalf of the BBC for any offence the remark may have caused him and other listeners to the programme.’

However, Boyle says the Palestinian situation is a suitable topic for satire and defended the joke.

Here is the full text of his response:

Obviously, it feels strange to be on the moral high ground but I feel a response is required to the BBC Trust’s cowardly rebuke of my jokes about Palestine.

As always, I heard nothing from the BBC but read in a newspaper that editorial procedures would be tightened further to stop jokes with anything at all to say getting past the censors.

In case you missed it, the jokes in question are: ‘I’ve been studying Israeli Army Martial Arts. I now know 16 ways to kick a Palestinian woman in the back. People think that the Middle East is very complex but I have an analogy that sums it up quite well. If you imagine that Palestine is a big cake, well…that cake is being punched to pieces by a very angry Jew.’

I think the problem here is that the show’s producers will have thought that Israel, an aggressive, terrorist state with a nuclear arsenal was an appropriate target for satire. The Trust’s ruling is essentially a note from their line managers. It says that if you imagine that a state busily going about the destruction of an entire people is fair game, you are mistaken. Israel is out of bounds.

The BBC refused to broadcast a humanitarian appeal in 2009 to help residents of Gaza rebuild their homes. It’s tragic for such a great institution but it is now cravenly afraid of giving offence and vulnerable to any kind of well drilled lobbying.

I told the jokes on a Radio 4 show called Political Animal. That title seems to promise provocative comedy with a point of view. In practice the BBC wish to deliver the flavour of political comedy with none of the content. The most recent offering I saw was BBC Two’s The Bubble. It looked exactly like a show where funny people sat around and did jokes about the news. Except the thrust of the format was that nobody had read the papers. I can only imagine how the head of the BBC Trust must have looked watching that, grinning like Gordon Brown having his prostrate examined.

The situation in Palestine seems to be, in essence, apartheid. I grew up with the anti apartheid thing being a huge focus of debate. It really seemed to matter to everybody that other human beings were being treated in that way. We didn’t just talk about it, we did things, I remember boycotts and marches and demos all being held because we couldn’t bear that people were being treated like that.

A few years ago I watched a documentary about life in Palestine. There’s a section where a UN dignitary of some kind comes to do a photo opportunity outside a new hospital. The staff know that it communicates nothing of the real desperation of their position, so they trick her into a side ward on her way out. She ends up in a room with a child who the doctors explain is in a critical condition because they don’t have the supplies to keep treating him. She flounders, awkwardly caught in the bleak reality of the room, mouthing platitudes over a dying boy.

The filmmaker asks one of the doctors what they think the stunt will have achieved. He is suddenly angry, perhaps having just felt at first hand something he knew in the abstract. The indifference of the world. ‘She will do nothing,’ he says to the filmmaker. Then he looks into the camera and says, ‘Neither will you’.

I cried at that and promised myself that I would do something. Other than write a few stupid jokes I have not done anything. Neither have you.

Frankie Boyle
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I said don't forget Burma!

[Sylvanus]

Israel can hardly be regarded as an Apartheid state as it is a Democratic state which ensures the rights and freedoms of its citizens [a democracy that exists no where else in the middle East] and 14 of the 120 members of the Knesset are Arabs and all polls have shown that Arab Israeli citizens are quite happy being Isralie citizens and have no intention of being citizens of any artificaly created Palestinian state west of the Jordan river. However those Arabs who choose to remain stateless and refuse either Israelie citizenship or Jordanian [ie Palestinian, as was Jordans original name] citizenship in an attempt to maintain a state of friction and war with the state of Israel, are sensibly treated with suspicion and treated accordingly, and no other state would act differently if it had a resident population that was likewise so antagonistic to the peace of the state and the nation.

Frankie Boyle is just another Left wing liberal who is using his celebrity status to promote his own left wing liberal agenda, and as with all left wing liberals, who have blindly chosen to support the Arab worlds attacks on Israel, they only choose to see the consequences of this Arab war against Israel when it only effects Arabs, choosing to conveniently ignore the constant first offensive attacks made by Arabs against Israeli citizens men women and children and the trauma such attacks cause. Granted Israel is well equiped to defend itself, a situation that has developed through necessity, considering it has been attacked by the Arab League of Nations since the first day off its independence, and sometimes that retaliation is extremely heavy handed [which is not suprising after years of attacks], but the Arab nations are well aware of what will happen if they continue to attack Israel, yet they continue to do so, and refuse to negaotiate.

Personaly I am quite happy for Frankie Boyle to make his jokes, though considering that many such similar jokes are often left uncensored it is suprising that this has been censored. However just as Frankie Boyle should IMO be free to make his Leftist Liberal jokes, likewise those who would have a more balanced view regarding the Israel-Arab conflict should likewise be free to make their jokes, but it has been my experience that those who would condemn the Arab nations for their behaviour toward Israel are censored far more than those who would support the Arab nations. So let Frankie Boyle and those of his ilk continue their rage against Israel and the Jews, but likewise I would say stop censoring those [a censorship that is far more common] who would use humour to highlight the oppression and violence inherent in the Arab-Muslim world against any who do not immidiately assent to Arab-Muslim demands.

[Pulpculture]

Hi Sylvanus. You clearly know more about Israel than me so I would welcome your comments. I am struggling to see how Israel can be classed as a true democracy. To me the equivalent is to take the (say) black people in the UK, put them in Lincolnshire and build a wall round them and not let them vote (or am I missing something?) I appreciate there is a lot of negative history in the region however I have always been taught that the Palestinians and some Jews were living in the region when the state of Israel was created by the UK. Many Jews then moved en mass to the region. Many Palestinians were pushed aside and their land taken (land their families had had for centuries) and this started the tension.

I know that if (say) the French came into the UK took my house and land and made me and my family live in some scrubby bit of the UK with a wall round us like animals I'd probably cobble some homemade rockets together in a vain bid to get them out. Simplistic I know but these are ordinary people with AK47's and a few rockets against a whopping military power with an incredible arsenal.

Regards

Matthew
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I said don't forget Burma!

[james]

Pulpculture,

It is quite a bit more complicated than what you write, or what Sylvanus writes. I find that almost everyone who takes clear sides in this conflict, who divides it into right and wrong, doesn't understand the reality.

First, while "a Democratic state which ensures the rights and freedoms of its citizens" is an exaggeration, neither is your comparison accurate. You are confusing Palestinians living in the occupied territories with Arab Israelis. The former are citizens of Israel and may vote and run for office. In fact their presence and growing percentage of the population has implications for the future of Israel as a Jewish state. That said, there is a great deal of informal discrimination and also some minimal formal discrimination. Depending on your perspective, they either may not, or do not have to, serve in the Israeli military. Certainly they are widely and quietly discriminated against in hiring, in treatment by police, in social situations. Pretty much like recognizable minorities in the US today. This anti-Arab discrimination is serious, but far, far less extreme than anti-Jewish discrimination in most Arab countries, over the past century or to this date.

Palestinians in the occupied territories are not Israeli citizens and have been treated shamefully, by Israel and also (this part is rarely mentioned) by the Arab countries surrounding Israel and bordering the occupied territories. Most of these surrounding countries have done little to help or support the Palestinians, though many of them have exploited their suffering politically, and thereby prevented peace and exacerbated the suffering. Everyone knows that Palestinian refugees are not allowed to move to Israel, but few know that they are not allowed to move to Jordan or Syria, either.

How they ended up in the occupied territories is also more complicated than either side cares to admit. Some left out of well-justified fear, after hearing of massacres like the one in Deir Yassin in 1948 (itself a complicated massacre that the Israeli government and regular Army was horrified by). Some were compelled to leave by Israeli troops. Many left--again, a rarely recognized complication--because they fully expected the planned invasion by five Arab states to destroy the new Jewish state, drive out the Jews, and allow them to return victorious to their homes. It didn't happen that way.

Also, while the dying empire of Great Britain had a major, botched, cynical role in the establishment of Israel, Zionism itself has its roots in the Russian/Christian anti-Jewish murder parties known as "pogroms" pre-dating the holocaust by many decades.

I've barely touched on the complications of all this. The point is, almost any one-sided explanation is likely to be wrong. There are victims and villains all over this mess.
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James Riemermann
www.nontheistfriends.org
www.liberalquakers.org

[Pulpculture]

[james]

Pulpculture, maybe you need to read up on what Apartheid in South Africa was. As I've said there is much discrimination against Arabs in Israel, but South African Apartheid was not the same thing, was much worse by any reasonable measure. Blacks (and the separate classes of "Coloureds" and "Indians" until the 1980s) could not vote, could not live or go to school or buy property in white areas, could not marry or have sex with whites. They were not considered citizens of the White nation, though the were obligated under white law. None of this is true for Arab citizens of Israel.

One might make the argument that Palestinians in the occupied territories have an Apartheid-like status, as Jimmy Carter has claimed. But the status of Arab Israeli citizens is very different--troubled, but nowhere near Apartheid status.
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James Riemermann
www.nontheistfriends.org
www.liberalquakers.org

[Kiahanie]

When were you in Israel, Matthew? There have been times when Israel's Palestinian population was treated much as you describe, particularly during the First Intifada, but not in recent years.

That said, I would not want to be a Palestinian in Israel today any more than I want to be an African-American in Watts or a Mexican-American in Arizona.

And as an American citizen, I am deeply ashamed and penitent for the way my country used the Israeli need for security as leverage to get Israel to be frontman to our Cold War policies in the middle east, our forward base in the oilfields. We are so deeply complicit in creating the current situation that I find it difficult to single out regional actors for criticism while my own government avoids all opprobrium.
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"There is a field out beyond right and wrong. I'll meet you there." --Jellaludin Rumi

[Pulpculture]

Hi

I was there for most of 1992.

Matthew
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I said don't forget Burma!

[Kiahanie]

That would have been toward the end of the First Intifada. That was a bad time for Israelis, worse for Palestinians. It got worse for both after the end of the Intifada when the Hamas bombing campaign began, although random brutality against Palestinian "detainees" diminished considerably. Possibly because indefinite incarceration was used to keep suspected activists off the streets.

It was a terribly traumatic period for Palestinians and Israelis. The Palestinians had been screwed by every Arab nation in the region, were having their lands taken, denied the right to govern themselves, and were occupied by the IDF and lived under what was effectively martial law. Most protests were non-violent, but the bombings brought indiscriminate retaliation, often involving the shooting of nonviolent demonstrators.

The Israelis were fearful, never knowing when or where the next school bus, restaurant or public transport would be bombed, paranoid of the anti-Israel rhetoric of the neighboring Arab governments. Although the majority of Palestinian protests were non-violent, Israelis always saw the present from their view of the past that included pogroms and the Holocaust.

(To put Israeli suppression of Palestinians into perspective, Israel's actions are no more repressive over-all than the long war conducted by white government against African-Americans, including present incarceration practices, with much less provocation.)

Israeli oppression resulted in Palestinian frustration and reaction resulted in further Israeli brutality and oppression resulted in more militant Palestinian reaction.... and on ... and on ... and on.

And of course the US needed Israel's anti-communist muscle in the region, and anything that opposed US interests must be communist-inspired, so we gave Israel unqualified support for whatever it did to the Palestinians.

While US regional interests remain the same ("We have no permanent friends, only permanent interests") the context "justifying" US Cold War policy has changed, and it may now be the perceived self-interest of the United States to help create the conditions for a genuine peace between Israel and Palestine.

I think it amazing that a non-violent Palestinian peace movement could grow under these conditions, and that a vast majority of Israelis have come to favor a 2-state solution with amicable relations between the country.

The Israel-Palestine conflict is a textbook example that "The end does not justify the means; the means is the end," and that "War Is Not The Answer." The leadership of both peoples lags behind their constituencies. But then, so is ours in many ways. "Wage Peace."
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"There is a field out beyond right and wrong. I'll meet you there." --Jellaludin Rumi

[james]

Well said, Kiahanie. An interesting sidebar is, while the US considered Israel a bulwark against communism, there was a strong and healthy socialist impulse in early Israel and Zionism. Even today I suspect outspoken socialists are far easier to find in Israel than in America. The early kibbutzim were some of the most successful socialist experiments I know of.
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James Riemermann
www.nontheistfriends.org
www.liberalquakers.org

[michaeldavidjay]

What continues to confuse me is why the talks are related to Hamas and PLO and not returning land to Jordan... come to think of it -- is it not hostile to not accept your own refugees? Why do they restrict movement of Jordanian citizens in Jordan like that? (I know you are in a war Zone/occupied area... sorry, you cannot move to a safe part of your country.
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Do Friends speak to today's condition, or are we only a historical footnote?

[Kiahanie]

I'm confused, too. There are a lot of pronouns and indefinite antecedents in there, and I'm really not sure what you mean to ask.
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"There is a field out beyond right and wrong. I'll meet you there." --Jellaludin Rumi

[Pulpculture]

Here's an eye witness account by Dr. Ang Swee Chai to a small part of the past.....

here





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I said don't forget Burma!

[CelticNorth]

I wonder if recent moves by a couple of British unions to boycott Isreal academics have not lead to increased Israeli defensiveness in England. That Israel does not participate in and employ apartheid policies seems impossible to defend, and boycotting the hiring of Israeli intellectuals should be fair game. The illegal occupation and establishment of Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank speaks to the racism at the core of Zionist ideology itself. Do the supporters of Israel realize that the illegal Jewish West Bank and Gaza settlers vote in Isreali elections, receive subsidies and economic aid that their Arab neighbors are denied ? I think accusing someone of "anti-Semitism" is no longer an appropriate defense for those speaking out against the crimes of the state of Israel. Isreal itself is giving Semitism a bad name.

[michaeldavidjay]

@kiahine... I am trying to see if I can seperate facts from propoganda..

#1: Arabs in Israel are full citzens by law.

#2: Israel occupied land and treats the inhabitants as enemies.
#3: Jordan did not allow theircitizans to evacuate.????? why?
#rr lwhy another state?
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Do Friends speak to today's condition, or are we only a historical footnote?