Anger at BBC debating Jews’ minority status
THE BBC has become embroiled in an anti-semitism row after debating whether Jews are an ethnic minority.
Benjamin Cohen, CEO of Pinknews, accused the BBC of producing “offensive” content following a debate on Politics Live where participants were invited to discuss whether Jews were a minority.
Following his appearance on the show, Mr Cohen tweeted: “I’ve just been on the BBC’S Politics Live where the BBC literally just asked four nonjews if they agreed with me that Jews are an ethnic minority. Imagine if I was Black and four white people were asked to judge if I was a member of an ethnic minority. It would be as offensive.”
The panel was made up of Tory MP Lee Rowley, Labour life peer Lord Wood, Miatta Fahnbulleh from the New Economics Foundation and the Spectator columnist Kate Andrews.
The panel was asked if Jews should be included in the forthcoming Census as a separate category, while Mr Cohen also questioned what he deemed to be a “bizarre suggestion” by Jo Coburn, the show’s host, about whether Jews do not require “recognition in the same way as others”, due to their political success.
He said: “Just to add that all of the panel gave fine answers to the ridiculous question and some of them have specifically got in touch with me about it.”
Following the show, David Baddiel, the comedian and author, tweeted a screenshot of a passage from his new book, Jews Don’t Count. “Money doesn’t protect you from racism,” the page reads.
It comes after Angela Rayner, the Labour deputy leader, tweeted on Saturday that Anas Sarwar, the new Scottish Labour leader, was “the first ever ethnic minority leader of a political party anywhere in the UK”.
Mr Cohen responded at the time: “I guess Jews don’t count Angela? You were first elected in a general election fought by a Jewish Labour leader.”
Last year Andrew Murray, who was a senior adviser to Jeremy Corbyn, said the former Labour leader had failed to empathise with British Jews because they are “prosperous”.
Following an investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission into anti-semitism within the Labour party, Mr Corbyn claimed: “The scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media.”
The comments resulted in his suspension from the party.
A BBC spokesperson said: “We invited Benjamin Cohen on to the programme to discuss his tweet which objected to Angela Rayner’s assertion that Anas Sarwar was the first ethnic minority leader of a political party in the UK.
“The discussion reflected the fact that many official ethnic minority monitoring forms do not include a category for Jews.
“The programme covers a variety of topics so our panel is not constructed specifically to address one story, but we ensured that Mr Cohen’s contributions were given appropriate prominence during this discussion.”