BBC defends train documentary Why Panorama went off the rails
THE BBC has rejected claims its Panorama documentary on the trainline running through Jerusalem was “biased and misleading” against Israel.
The corporation said that i t received 24 complaints after The Train that Divided Jerusalem was aired on BBC1 on July 20.
The 30-minute film, presented by British Jewish documentary-maker Adam Wishart, was billed as exploring how the light rail, opened in 2011, had deepened resentment between Israelis and Palestinians.
One viewer, Edward de Mesquita, complained that the the programme “presented a heavily skewed impression that the Israeli administration of Jerusalem was divisive, racist and unfair to Arabs living there”.
He added: “It repeatedly interviewed an Israeli woman who held totally unrepresentative views, and carefully selected information to incite the British public against Israel.”
In its response to Mr de Mesquita, the BBC said it believed “the film was balanced and fair” and was “careful to represent the views of both Israelis and Palestinians living in Jerusalem”.
It added: “The film was largely observational in style with Adam spending time with two main contributors, Rivka Shimon and Baha Nabata” — one Jewish, the other an Arab.
It also noted that Mr Wishart was an experienced filmmaker and that the programme took care to explain his background as a British Jew and how his grandparents had campaigned for the establishment of Israel.
M r d e M e s q u i t a said he was “grossly disappointed” with the response, “whic h i mplies because t h e p r o - gramme presenter is a British Jew, it makes the entire content acceptable”. He said: “Whether he is a Jew, an Arab or whatever else cannot be used as an excuse to justify misleading and dishonest reporting.”
The BBC told the JC that the The Train that Divided Jerusalem had been “watched by over a million and half viewers and explored the tensions in Jerusalem through the eyes of a British Jewish filmmaker, reflecting what he witnessed in the city and hearing from a range of voices expressing alternate views”. THE BBC’S
programmeonthe Jerusalem light rail wanted to convince us that “the train is dividing Jerusalem”.
Ignoring the huge success of the project in bringing closer its Jewish and Arab neighbourhoods, we were told that “the Palestinians who live [in East Jerusalem] remain angry at being under Israeli control, while the train adds to their grievances”.
This sweeping generalisation is at odds with surveys showing that a clear majority of Arabs in East Jerusalem would prefer to live under Israeli sovereignty than under the rule of any future Palestinian state.
Filmmaker Adam Wishart built an Israeli narrative around a marginal group called “the new temple movement”, which he ludicrously presented as “mainstream”. Covering the Jerusalem Day Parade, he referred to the Western Wall as “the place that borders the Muslim holy site, where [Israelis] want to build
Jerusalem’s light rail system links Arab and Jewish neighbourhoods their temple”, an idea which is, apparently, gaining support.
And in a final warning, he said: “I can’t help but think that if Jews push much further, this surely would be the last stand by the Palestinians.”
Themetaphorwascomplete—we werein , the apocalyptic moviestarringBradPitt,andtheJews arethezombiesclimbingtheWestern Wall to devour the Palestinians.
Wishart declared that he couldn’t believe this was the place his grandparents dreamt of all those years ago.
I can’t believe it either, and nor should anyone else, because his skewed narrative resembles a fictional good guys/bad guys film rather than the reality of one of the most complex cities on earth.
The light rail enables 140,000 people a day to cross the city; Christians, Jews and Muslims riding together, increasing commercial and cultural interaction. Surely the train is part of the solution, not the problem.
Response ‘implied that because the presenter was Jewish the content was acceptable’
Yiftah Curiel is spokesperson of the Embassy of Israel, London. A longer version of this piece is available at www.thejc.com