This article just appeared in Spiked (click headline below to read), but you can see a similar piece in the Times of Israel. The upshot is that the BBC, which has long bridled at using the word “terrorists” for Hamas, is now bridling again when the Beeb itself shows a documentary about the Nova Music Festival. I haven’t seen the film yet (it’s has the great title “We Will Dance Again”), but the trailer is below. And, of course, the Nova festival is where the butchery of October 7 began. Yes, the butchery was largely by Hamas, and Hamas are, for anyone with two neurons to rub together, TERRORISTS. But not to the Beeb, so the word “terrorist” has been expunged from the film.
It’s not clear whether that bowdlerization was at the request of the BBC, or whether the filmmakers were just cowed by the BBC’s long-standing refusal to apply the “t-word” to Hamas, but either way it’s a blot on the BBC, though the network at least partly redeems itself by showing the film. But really, a film on terrorism that won’t use the “t-word”???
I’ll give excerpts from the Spiked piece below.
An excerpt:
The BBC has reached a new low. It has tumbled further down the well of moral relativism. This week, it will broadcast a new documentary about Hamas’s massacre at the Nova music festival on 7 October last year. But according to the doc’s director, the version the Beeb is showing ‘won’t describe Hamas as terrorists’. If this is true, if the BBC can’t even park its weird aversion to calling Hamas terrorists when it is airing a film about Hamas’s butchery of the young at a festival in the desert, then that shames Britain.
We Will Dance Again tells the story of what the pogromists of Hamas did when they happened upon the Nova festival in the Negev desert during their invasion of Israel on 7 October 2023. Combining harrowing testimony from survivors with graphic footage of Hamas’s barbarism, it paints a grim picture of arguably the worst event of the pogrom: 364 people were slaughtered at Nova. Yet according to the director, Yariv Mozer, one thing will be missing from the version us Brits will see: the T-word.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter on ‘what they kept’ and ‘what they cut’ from their disturbing film, Mozer says ‘the version [the BBC will] air won’t describe Hamas as terrorists’. Hinting at his irritation at this alleged omission, Mozer says ‘it was a price I was willing to pay so that the British public will be able to see these atrocities’. Then Brits can decide for themselves, he says, ‘if this is a terrorist organisation or not’. Some of us have already decided, of course. The BBC might be reluctant to call the mass murderers of Jews ‘terrorists’, but others are more than happy to do so.
It is not clear from the interview with Mozer if the BBC explicitly instructed him to take out the word terrorist, or if Mozer and his team pre-empted the Beeb’s odd concern about that word and decided to take it out themselves for an easier life. The Jerusalem Post assumes it’s the former: the BBC ‘told director’ to ‘not describe Hamas as “terrorists”’, it says. Yet even if it’s the latter, even if there are tellers of Israelis’ stories out there who get the vibe that you shouldn’t call Hamas ‘terrorists’ if you want to appear on the BBC, then that’s still epically embarrassing for Britain.
If this was self-censorship, it’s understandable. After all, for the past year, ever since Hamas visited its racist terror on Israel, the BBC has been pathologically resistant to calling Hamas ‘terrorists’. Even though that’s what they are. There was a storm in the aftermath of the pogrom over the BBC’s linguistic cowardice. Just four days after the pogrom, Beeb big gun John Simpson offered a thin explanation for the corporation’s dodging of the T-word. ‘We don’t take sides’, he said. ‘We don’t use loaded words like “evil” or “cowardly”. We don’t talk about “terrorists”.’
And yet O’Neill points out how the BBC has no hesitancy about applying the term “terrorist” to “far-right terrorists”! It’s only when the terrorists kill Jews that the Beeb pulls back. (“Terrorism” is commonly used to refer to illegal and deliberate killing or intimidation of civilians in pursuit of political aims, so of course Hamas is a terrorist organization and the Nova festival is an example of terrorism.)
The Time of Israel is a little bit more forthcoming, as its article is called “BBC airs Nova massacre film after insisting references to Hamas as terrorists removed”, and also says this:
“We Will Dance Again,” a full-length documentary film about the Hamas massacre of over 360 people at the Supernova music festival during the terror group’s October 7, 2023 assault on southern Israel last year, aired on Britain’s BBC2 on Thursday evening, though only after filmmakers agreed not to refer to Hamas as terrorists.
The word “insisting”, as well as the notion that there was an “agreement”, both imply that the BBC demanded that the word not be used. Well, it doesn’t matter: what matters is the BBC’s craven historical reluctance to use the word “terrorist” to refer to Hamas. Of that O’Neill says this:
One year after 364 young Jews were murdered by anti-Semitic terrorists – yes, terrorists – Britain’s public broadcaster won’t call their killers by their proper name. You couldn’t ask for better proof of how Israelophobia rots the brain and warps the soul.
Does anyone doubt that the BBC has an anti-Semitic slant?
Well, the ToI says a bit about the movie:
Mozer, Zirinsky and others have stressed that the film is apolitical. An opening title of the film notes, “The human cost of the Hamas massacre in Israel and the war that followed in Gaza has been catastrophic for both Israelis and Palestinians,” adding: “This film cannot tell everyone’s story.”
Nevertheless, similar efforts to tell the story of the attack on the Nova festival have been protested against, including a New York exhibit of personal artifacts from the festival that drew expressions of open support for Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as chants endorsing the attack.
Here is the trailer (there’s also a 32-minute video that includes interviews with the director and producers).
My answer to this question: “Does anyone doubt that the BBC has an anti-Semitic slant?” is No. (I can only answer for myself.) I have read articles on BBC.com for many months, paying close attention to the headlines and pictures they use for articles on the war in Gaza. The headlines and pictures seem always to portray Israel in a bad light. Very disappointing.
I would never go to BBC for coverage of anything related to Israel.
The BBC and much of the UK media has spent years trying to make out that “right wing extremism” (which doesn’t really exist, other than a handful of loners) is more of a terrorist threat than Islamism. They always big-up anything terrorism-related that can be labelled “far right” while downplaying anything such related to Islam.
The Labour Party, now in government, is similar. It is currently trying to concoct a definition of “Islamophobia” that it wants to put into law.
Also relevant is that Labour’s biggest donor (also a donor to Keir Starmer personally, and thus influential) is the wealthy Muslim Waheed Alli, aka Lord Alli.
“The Labour Party, now in government, is similar. It is currently trying to concoct a definition of ‘Islamophobia’ that it wants to put into law.”
May I suggest “Accurately describing the tenets of Islamism and the behaviors of its adherents in such a way as to make it clear that it is incompatible with Enlightenment values.”?
Sorry, with the anniversary of October 7th approaching, craven behavior on the part of major news organizations, and Hamas supporters marching in the streets of New York City, I’m feeling decidedly testy these days.
I’m sure you’re right about this, but perhaps you could post and quote a couple of articles where the BBC does this. Because I’ve never seen it.
If the BBC’s reporting is antisemitic one wonders why it is putting on this documentary at all. My view is that it if it properly describes the actions of Hamas at the festival it will be plain to viewers exactly what they are. I will be watching it to see.
I don’t know about this documentary, but all BBC news reports regarding Hamas use the wording “which the UK government labels a terrorist group”. I’ve often wondered why they don’t just say “Hamas is a terrorist organisation”, but it’s not a word they avoid entirely.
For what it’s worth, the Beeb’s own editorial guidelines say:
“We should convey to our audience the full consequences of the act by describing what happened.
“We should use words which specifically describe the perpetrator such as ‘bomber’, ‘attacker’, ‘gunman’, ‘kidnapper’, ‘insurgent’ and ‘militant’.
“We should not adopt other people’s language as our own; our responsibility is to remain objective and report in ways that enable our audiences to make their own assessments about who is doing what to whom.”
In addition to the quote in the original report, John Simpson’s article said:
“Terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. It’s simply not the BBC’s job to tell people who to support and who to condemn – who are the good guys and who are the bad guys”.
He added: “During World War Two, BBC broadcasters were expressly told not to call the Nazis evil or wicked, even though we could and did call them ‘the enemy’.
‘Above all,’ said a BBC document about all this, ‘there must be no room for ranting’. Our tone had to be calm and collected”.
Make of this what you will. It does, however, give some context to the BBC’s position.
I watched this film last night. It was on BBC2. Very, very moving – gut-wrenching at times. It brings tears to my eyes now as I remember the young woman at the very end of the film saying, “We will dance again.”
It is very strange that this article says the word terrorist has been expunged from the film. The young people fleeing or hiding in terror many times shouted to others, or whispered while in hiding “Terrorists are here.” You could hear the word sometimes, otherwise it appeared a lot on sub-titles when people spoke in Hebrew. One driver, with a carload of friends, driving past Be’eri was told something like “Don’t turn in there. There are terrorists there.” There are many clips labelled “Hamas body cam” so the two words do appear many times near each other.
So, I’m rather confused. Did I watch something the BBC has not censored or did Spiked see a film that had been interfered with?
Most likely they just wanted to find something to beat the BBC with. A lot of the media do because the BBC is talking their audience and also providing a more unbiased product.
I am dumfounded by all the pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah stances in UK, USA, etc.. Islam is a real and present danger to a large part of Europe and an actual existential threat to Israel.
I can only hope that the intelligence, creativity and sheer bloody-mindedness of Israel is up to the task.
I’ve just watched the documentary. It’s on BBC iPlayer but it probably can’t be seen by people in the US unless they have a VPN. It’s quite a long programme, about 75 minutes. The whole thing is the testimony of the young Israeli people who were at the festival. The pictures are from their phones and also there is some footage shot by Hamas. There was almost no other commentary apart from the occasional written words on the screen. The people who were there describe those who attacked them as terrorists many, many times in the documentary. I would recommend that, if you can, you watch this. It is very moving. I think the spiked piece is a hit job on the BBC by someone who clearly hasn’t watched the programme.
Hear, hear! Especially your last sentence, Mal.
+1
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I have registered to attend a Zoom webinar on the BBC coverage of Israel since October 7th. If you are interested, you should be able to register here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_K4zfp-WkSS2lxZ3JjbxK7Q#/registration
Here is the info about the webinar:
Trevor Asserson on The Asserson Report
Date & Time Oct 9, 2024 01:00 PM USA East Coast
Description -UKLFI Charitable Trust invites you to a webinar on
Trevor Asserson on The Asserson Report
With Trevor Asserson and Natasha Hausdorff
On Wednesday 9 October at 6pm (UK time)
7pm Europe, 8pm Israel, 1pm USA East Coast
The Asserson Report on the BBC’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war runs to 199 pages with 190 pages of schedules plus 80 megabytes of appendices. It includes detailed analyses by human researchers as well as artificial intelligence. Its publication was reported on the front page of the Sunday Telegraph of 8 September 2024. It concludes that the BBC’s coverage of this war has not complied with the BBC’s legal obligations of accuracy and impartiality. However, veteran BBC Editor, Jeremy Bowen, was quick to dismiss it, describing it on 13 September 2024 as a “deeply flawed document”.
In this webinar, Trevor Asserson, who led the research, will discuss the analyses and conclusions with Natasha Hausdorff. The webinar will also explore what is being done and can be done to ensure that the BBC complies with its legal obligations
“Terrorist” seems to be an objective description of the terrorists. “Murderers”, “rapists”, “killers of children”, “body mutilators”, “torturers”, “thieves”, “gunmen”, “stabbers”, “people who hate and do not think Jewish people should be alive on the face of the earth based on their religion and as a result see themselves as morally obligated to maim, harm, and kill Jews without remorse under a delusion that this will allow them to obtain the kingdom of heaven” are also acceptable as objective descriptors.
If you are able to watch the movie you should rate it on IMDB. You can see the ratings are all either very high or 1’s–the latter mostly include comments about ‘poor acting’ or ‘bad lighting’ and other such to make them seem real but considering it’s a documentary based on real footage and interviews that seems a tad obvious. Interesting how some people are so vehemently opposed to actual evidence about that day.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31556612/reviews/?ref_=ttrt_ql_2
“Interesting how some people are so vehemently opposed to actual evidence about that day.”
To me such people are on a par (mentally and morally) with Alex Jones declaring the Sandy Hook massacre a hoax.
Or “mostly peaceful protests”.
I can’t even view the trailer above. I just see “not available in your country.”
Hi, I don’t know your nationality but if you are an American, I believe that the documentary is also available on Paramount plus (whatever that is!). The trailer is on YouTube
Thanks. I can definitely access YouTube.
One last remark on this whole story. It is probably not advisable to take too seriously any attack on the BBC by the right wing media in the UK. They have been doing it for years, they don’t like the competition from a generally objective and balanced news source. I’m not saying that the BBC has been without fault in its coverage of the Israel Gaza conflict but they’re definitely is not any deliberate slant one way or the other. I don’t favour either side personally but I support Israel‘s right to exist. When I watch the BBC News coverage, it’s not evident to me that they are favouring either side. The BBC is an institution which is attacked by both the right and the left and this is one of the indicators that is doing its job right.
This film, which I don’t believe is even a BBC production occasionally shows the behaviour of the Hamas terrorists. They come across as religious fanatics completely out of control..
Remember, though, there’s a similar article in the Times of Israel, which implies that the Beeb put pressure on the filmmakers. Nobody seems to have noticed that there are TWO links to this report.
There is no commentary in the programme so it seems strange that the BBC should be asking to exclude the word terrorists. In fact the first bit of a written commentary comes in at 17 minutes and quotes the IDF describing the incursion by “terrorists”. Also, the young people describe their attackers as terrorists many times.
Thoughts and prayers for those at FreeThoughtBlogs in these difficult times, after the announcement from the IDF that they have killed the leader of Hezbollah.
/s
Yes, I doubt it. It’s possible that they have an anti-Israel/pro Palestinian stance, but that is not the same thing.
I haven’t seen the film yet. The two people who have posted here that have seen it are suggesting that the Spiked article is a hit piece. So I’ll reserve my judgement until I have seen it. I’d also be interested in seeing your review of it.