The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen has denied being antisemitic in a Twitter comment about the Israeli prime minister, saying he found such allegations “untrue and offensive”.
Bowen was covering Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress on Tuesday when he tweeted that the leader had mentioned Elie Wiesel, a survivor of Nazi concentration camps. He added: “Once again Netanyahu plays the holocaust card”.
#NetanyahuSpeech He acknowledges Elie Wiesel in audience. Once again Netanyahu plays the holocaust card. don't repeat mistakes of the past
— Jeremy Bowen (@BowenBBC) March 3, 2015
Bowen immediately faced attacks on Twitter over his comment:
@BowenBBC Mr Bowen says @netanyahu "plays the holocaust card". It's b/c of ppl like Bowen that Elie Wiesel has to remind people of the 1930s
— a s (@AndyLondon7) March 3, 2015
@BowenBBC "plays Holocaust card"? Avoiding a repeat of genocide some cynical game to you, is it? #NetanyahuSpeech
— Shimon Chaim (@ShimonChaim) March 3, 2015
On the Jewish Chronicle website, Alan Johnson wrote that Bowen’s comments were a “bloody disgrace”. He said:
“Mr Bowen’s idea is that when an Israeli leader mentions the Holocaust he is being tricksy, manipulative, acting in bad faith, ‘playing a card’ to get narrow advantage in contemporary politics, not really expressing a genuine thought about the Holocaust itself or a genuine fear about a second, nuclear, Holocaust.
And that idea, of the Bad Faith Jew, is unmistakably dripping in the assumptions and myths of classic antisemitism...
Benjamin Netanyahu had every right — nay, a duty — as Israel’s prime minister, to remind the world what happens when we appease murderous tyrannies that promise genocide against the Jews.
To sneer and attack him for doing so, to dismiss his words as ‘playing the Holocaust card’; well, it was a bloody disgrace.
Shame on you, Jeremy Bowen.”
Bowen responded on Twitter on Wednesday morning, saying comments that he was antisemitic or a Holocaust denier were “untrue and offensive”:
Have been reading some recent tweets sent my way. Suggestions I'm an anti semite, or a denier of the Holocaust, are untrue and offensive.
— Jeremy Bowen (@BowenBBC) March 4, 2015
A BBC spokesperson said: “Jeremy was using Twitter and journalism shorthand whilst live-tweeting PM Netanyahu’s speech. The context of his comment is that a major part of PM Netanyahu’s critique of the proposed Iran deal was based on the spectre of another holocaust. Jeremy’s tweet was designed to reflect that context. He absolutely refutes any suggestion of antisemitism.”
