CAABU condemns Maureen Lipman's racism

CAABU, the Council for the Advancement of Arab British Understanding, has issued the following press release in protest at some grotesquely racist remarks made by Maureen Lipman on the BBC's This Week programme:

CAABU Director, Chris Doyle has written to the BBC to condemn the comments on the BBC television programme, This Week, by leading British
columnist, Maureen Lipman.

Unchallenged by the presenter, Andrew Neil, Lipman commented on the situation in the Middle East and denied that the Israeli actions were disproportionate "What's proportion got to do with it. It's not about proportion, is it? Human life is not cheap to the Israelis. And human life on the other side is quite cheap actually because they strap bombs to people and send them to blow themselves up."

The idea that somehow Arabs, whether Palestinians or Lebanese, do not value human life as much as anyone else is disgraceful.

In the letter Doyle wrote, "Is it acceptable that what most people would consider a racist comment is merely allowed to pass like this? It is simply outrageous. The comments were made in the context of discussing proportionality, and that therefore implicitly she is saying that you could not measure proportion because there was no equivalence between an Israeli or an Arab life. All Arabs like all peoples value human life.

I ask, if an Arab had stated on this programme that Jews did not value life as much as Arabs, and therefore disproportionate killings were acceptable, what would have been the reaction?"

For comment and further information please contact the CAABU information office 0207 832 1323 - doylec@caabu.org

Date: 14 July 2006

Chris Doyle
Director

Lenin (at the Tomb) picked up on this earlier yesterday. Here's a little piece of dialogue:

Diane Abbot: But the Israeli response as we speak does look disproportionate. Where is Israel going with this?

Maureen Lipman: What's proportion got to do with it though Diane? It's not about proportion is it? I mean human life is not cheap to the Israelis, and human life on the other side is quite cheap because they strap bombs to people and send them to blow themselves up.

I'd say she owes a few people an ology.