Racist Lies on BBC Noticeboard

This kind of false Talmudic quote is a mainstay of the anti-Semitic internet age. I've seen the stuff quoted frequently. I once saw it in a letter to the editor of the Aspen Colorado Times. I called it to their attention and, lo and behold, they deleted the letter from their website and offered an apology. It would be nice if the BBC could muster the ethical strength of the local paper in Aspen, Colorado.

from Harry's Place:

BBC Radio 5 Live message board moderators have refused to remove a posting from the 5 Live website, which states that

“Zionism is a racist ideology where jews are given supremacy over all other races and faiths.
This is found in the Talmud.
There is a law called Baba Mezia which allows jews to lie as long as its to non-jews. many pro jewish supporters will cringe at this being exposed because they know it exists, yet they keep quiet about it, hey frip, jla and co
The Law of Baba Mezia!! Tsk tsk tsk! Its in the Talmud.”

When I brought the mailing to the attention of the moderator, “The BBC Communities Team” emailed back, stating

“we have decided that it does not contravene the House Rules and are going to leave it on site”.

Apparently, at least three others have also complained to the BBC.

The message was posted by “Iron Naz”. A brief Google search on this name suggests that he is unlikely to be a (bottom of the class) Jewish theological student.

Only “Iron Naz” himself knows how he came to hear of the supposed Law of Baba Mezia. The bastardisation of Talmud quotes, however, is normally rooted within “The Talmud Unmasked”, a classic core antisemitic text written at the end of the 19th Century by a Jew hating Russian Catholic Priest, Rev. Father Justin Praniatis, who gave evidence at the infamous Beilis blood libel trial in Kiev, 1913.

Praniatis argued that the Talmud advocated ritual murder, but was shown by Jewish and Christian scholars to be a charlatan with no knowledge of the Talmud. The all Christian jury found Beilis innocent. The influence, however, of Rev. Praniatis’ work has of course spread well beyond the confines of Imperial Russia.

Today, the core text, “The Talmud Unmasked” is distributed by neo-Nazi booksellers via the internet. It gained a brief surge of publicity in the UK in the early 1990s as part of a series of mass antisemitic mailshots by a coterie of veteran Jew haters led by the notorious Dowager Lady Jane Birdwood. She was eventually convicted in 1994 of distributing “threatening, abusive and insulting material” on account of an antisemitic compendium, “The Longest Hatred”, the contents of which included the Talmud material.

Attacks on the Talmud are also an increasingly routine component of Arab and Islamist antisemitism, anti-Zionism and Israel hatred. Until now, however, the BBC was not known to have joined this particular part of the club.

It is bad enough that it is up to readers to police what the BBC publish on their own websites, but it is far sadder that this public body should actively refuse to remove the filth, and give no explanation for their actions - or perhaps its just that “The BBC Communities Team” agree with the essential element of the posting:

“Zionism is a racist ideology where jews are given supremacy over all other races and faiths.”