BBC Reports ‘Anti-Muslim Slur’ May Have Preceded 1941 Farhud Baghdad Pogrom

“I’m sure there have been slurs by Israelis that preceded rockets from Gaza, and other terrorist attacks.”

Mass grave from the Farhud pogrom.

London, January 24 – The UK’s leading public journalism institution suggested today that the Nazi-inspired and Nazi-fomented riot in Iraq’s capital during World War II that killed hundreds of Jews and injured hundreds more occurred after the mob heard several Jewish youths speak disparagingly of their non-Jewish neighbors, thus challenging decades of research showing both planning and preparation on the part of the mob to identify, abuse, torch, pillage, loot, beat, and murder.

The British Broadcasting Corporation continued this evening its efforts from last month to prevent the public from perceiving Jews as victims of Muslim violence, building on an incident in which Muslim youths stoned a bus full of Jewish students in London, and BBC reporters insisted the Hebrew cries of distress and calls for assistance recorded in footage of the event in fact contained anti-Muslim slurs, an assertion that no acknowledged experts have backed up. A BBC item today mentioning the 1941 “Farhud” pogrom by Nazi-sympathizing and Nazi-supported rebels against British interests in Iraq at the time similarly raised the possibility that Baghdad’s Jewish community, and that of Iraq in general, brought the murderous, destructive riot on themselves by insulting Muslims.

Referring to unspecified “provocations,” BBC reporter Anne Tisemitt informed viewers that the Farhud differed from the historically peaceful relations that had prevailed in Iraq between Muslims and Jews for centuries, and that the aberration of the Farhud must have had an impetus that constant Nazi propaganda on the airwaves in the country, a coup by Nazi-backed insurgents, resentment of perceived Jewish closeness to hated British authorities, and longstanding underlying Islamic antisemitism cannot explain.

“As we saw in December, Jews can provoke violence by careless insults against people of color,” Tisemitt intoned. “That possibility has not seen adequate exploration by historians ho have studied this incident in the context of the Second World War.”

Several sources within the BBC also suggested the approach can apply to contemporary Israeli-Palestinian dynamics. “I’m sure there have been slurs by Israelis that preceded rockets from Gaza, and other terrorist attacks,” remarked a producer who declined to give his name. “If we fail to investigate that possibility, we fail in our duty as journalists to uncover the whole story.”

The producer also pointed to a new direction in the corporation’s coverage of history involving anti-Jewish violence in general, including the idea that Hitler’s ideology, writings, and rise to power occurred because he overheard a Jew saying bad things about Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

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