BBC lying for the Zionist Federation?

I'm not long back from a walk in the snow covered forest with my dog and a friend. The friend isn't particularly political but he told me that there had been a meeting about Israel at which a guy wasn't allowed to speak when the people found out he had a "Jewish name, Hoffman or something". He'd seen the report on BBC 1 TV teletext. I told him that I knew of a Jonathan Hoffman and he has a reputation for noisily disrupting meetings and that he may not have been allowed in or to speak because of that. Knowing my commitment to the Palestinian cause my friend was more sceptical about what I was saying than about the report he read.

When I got home I had two emails telling me about a BBC website report on the same thing together with what one of them thought was a video clip of the meeting in question.

Here's a piece of the BBC report under the headline, Jewish man jeered at Soas university debate:

Footage has emerged of a man being told he is "not welcome" after revealing his Jewish name at a School of Oriental and African Studies debate on Palestine.

The film shows Jonathan Hoffman ask why Soas university allowed a man condemned as an anti-Semite by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHR) to talk.

Upon revealing his name there are boos and shouts of "Jewish!"

Whoever wrote the piece could find "Raheem Kassam, of student anti-racism campaigners Student Rights", who said:

"The overpowering racist jeering as displayed by some audience members at the event is a stark and chilling revelation of what can happen when extremism is allowed to take root in universities.

But they don't seem to have been able to find any of the people, including Jews other than the Zionist Federation's Jonathan Hoffman, who actually spoke at the meeting. Nor did they take the time to watch the youtube clip they said "emerged" as if it hadn't been on youtube since two days after the meeting:



Maybe I've been too hasty, maybe the clip isn't the one in question. Maybe I'm being too hasty in wondering what's the agenda of this "Student Rights" chap, Raheem Kassam? I googled him and he appears to be an activist with a group called Conservative Future, the youth wing of the Conservative Party in the UK. It doesn't mean he can't be anti-racist but it's very strange to seek a comment on a meeting about BDS from a Tory. Especially when you don't seem to have sought any comment from people who actually spoke at the meeting, except for the notorious Jonathan Hoffman.

Woops, I just remembered there's something about this on Jonathan Hoffman's own blog on the Jewish Chronicle's website. What a way to run a blog post - that's mine, not his. Sorry but I'm going to have to reproduce the whole thing here because it reveals the sheer dishonesty, on many levels, of the BBC posting. So, heeeeeere's Jonny:

Antisemitic meeting at SOAS



By Jonathan Hoffman December 13, 2009

On 4 December Bricup held a meeting at SOAS. There were around 300 there. The Chair was Tom Hickey(UCU, UCU NEC, BRICUP). Other speakers are listed here:

http://www.bricup.org.uk/

There were many antisemitic statements about Israel as an apartheid state.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27t9MP5uuF0&feature=player_embedded

The video of the Q+A is here. At 4:50 I ask why UCU had invited a speaker (Bongani Masuku of COSATU) who had been found guilty of hate speech by the South African Human Rights Commission. I read out the last paragraph of the HRC finding. I was shouted down but managed to ask the question. When I had finished asking the question Hickey said that no-one should answer my question - not in the lecture theatre and not on the Panel. It is all in the video on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNEJGoe9G8s&feature=player_embedded

http://www.inminds.co.uk/case4boycott.4dec09.php

The rest of the meeting is on videos, click on the above link

This must be one of the things that makes Hoffman such an embarrassment to the Zio establishment. See his post from four days before the BBC post. He doesn't mention anything about being hassled about his Jewish name or of suffering any antisemitic abuse himself. He also alludes to the video that was posted by supporters of BDS and the Palestinian cause whereas the Beeb made out that the video "emerged" as some kind of embarrassment for the organisers.

The BBC has something to answer for here. What are they playing at colluding with a ZF activist in a smear campaign?

Complaints to the BBC can be fobbed off, I mean made here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/