The BBC Trust once again proves its moral cowardice. Its editorial standards committee (ESC) has bowed to Israel lobby pressure and apologized for jokes made by Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle on BBC Radio 4’s Political Animal about Israel’s brutalization of the Palestinians. Boyle isn’t taking it lying down. He has struck back with the following open letter: (courtesy of Chortle).
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.
Continue reading “Frankie Boyle socks it to the ‘cowardly’ BBC”
