BBC reveals half-hearted stance on bigotry as top UK comedian remains unrepentant at “angry Jew” slur
Frankie Boyle: He's a funny guy
Now, there are two substantive elements to this story: Frankie Boyle’s views on Israel and the Jews; and the nature of the BBC’s response to them which came last week. First Boyle’s views on Israel and the Jews. I will let him speak for himself.
This is another remark he made during the same show which was first broadcast in 2008: “‘I’ve been studying Israeli Army martial arts. I now know 16 ways to kick a Palestinian woman in the back.” And here is a selection of remarks he made in an open letter to the BBC published yesterday in which he protests against the BBC Trust’s apology (more about which in a moment) for his use of the word Jew.
“I think the problem here,” he said, “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.”
And:
“It’s tragic for such a great institution but it is now cravenly afraid of giving offence and vulnerable to any kind of well drilled lobbying.”
And:
“The situation in Palestine seems to be, in essence, apartheid. I grew up with the anti apartheid thing being a huge focus of debate. It really seemed to matter to everybody that other human beings were being treated in that way. We didn’t just talk about it, we did things, I remember boycotts and marches and demos all being held because we couldn’t bear that people were being treated like that.”
And:
“A few years ago I watched a documentary about life in Palestine. There’s a section where a UN dignitary of some kind comes to do a photo opportunity outside a new hospital. The staff know that it communicates nothing of the real desperation of their position, so they trick her into a side ward on her way out. She ends up in a room with a child who the doctors explain is in a critical condition because they don’t have the supplies to keep treating him. She flounders, awkwardly caught in the bleak reality of the room, mouthing platitudes over a dying boy.
“The filmmaker asks one of the doctors what they think the stunt will have achieved. He is suddenly angry, perhaps having just felt at first hand something he knew in the abstract. The indifference of the world. ‘She will do nothing,’ he says to the filmmaker. Then he looks into the camera and says, ‘Neither will you’.
“I cried at that and promised myself that I would do something. Other than write a few stupid jokes I have not done anything. Neither have you.”
So, to sum up he regards Israel as a racist, genocidal, terroristic pariah and thinks there is a moral imperative to become an activist against it. In the context of a complaint made by a single listener, he is also convinced that the BBC is cowering before a “well drilled” Zionist lobby. Overall then, he’s pretty much the complete neo-anti-Semitic bigot with that particular form of Judeophobic bigotry being buttressed in his “angry Jew” remarks by a rather older form of anti-Semitism to boot.
But much more important is to recognise the emotional condition which his bigotry drives him to. Anti-Israeli propaganda actually makes him cry. Just stop and think about that. No really, stop and think about that, and try to visualise the scene with him sitting in front of his TV set and watching a mainstream British documentary about Israel that literally moves him to tears.
That is what I mean when I talk about the anti-Israeli agenda in Britain having the character of a group hysteria. Boyle’s attitude and behaviour is simply inaccessible to reason since it is not his rational faculties that are driving him. He, like the agenda which has consumed him, is out of control.
So what of the BBC and its response to this man? The BBC’s response, of course, was to his initial remarks in which he referred to the Israeli army kicking women in the back and to the “angry Jew” destroying Palestine.
Referring to the latter but not the former the BBC Trust’s editorial standards committee said the remark was “inappropriate and offensive”. It made its complaint more specific by making it clear that what was really wrong with Boyle’s comments was his inappropriate use of the word “Jew”.
“As a result,” the BBC said, “the committee wished to apologise to the complainant on behalf of the BBC for any offence the remark may have caused him and other listeners to the programme.”
The BBC added that “it was very sorry that the breach of editorial standards had occurred in this case, but was satisfied that no further action was required.”
No further action? If he had made similarly contemptuous remarks about black people he’d never be allowed on the BBC or any other mainstream broadcast outlet again. If he’d said something unpleasant about the Prophet Mohammed he’d be risking his life. And in modern Britain that is how the hierarchy of
values breaks down.
But there is one more thing to say about this affair, and it may be the most important. Did you notice what was identified by the BBC as Boyle’s real offence? It was his use of the word “Jew”. If he’d said “Israeli” — as he did in the back kicking joke — or if he’d said “Zionist” there wouldn’t have been a problem. In other words, it was not Boyle’s mentality — the entire bigoted edifice of hatred for the people of the State of Israel — that bothered them so much as his tactical ineptitude.
He broke the cardinal rule of the neo-anti-Semitic agenda: bigotry is acceptable if it is against “Israelis” and “Zionists”; it is unacceptable, because it is embarrassing in post-Holocaust Europe, if it is openly disdainful of Jews per se.
The mask slipped, and the BBC has told Boyle to put it back on again. As long as he does that he will be safe and secure inside an environment where the substance of his views is now considered normal. Welcome to the extremist mainstream, but remember one thing: don’t mention the “Jews”.
Tags: Israel
May 2nd, 2010 at 3:07 pm
My guess is that Mr. Boyle has never been to Israel.
One of my interests is how people hold irrational ideas in the face of contravening facts. In most cases it comes down to what information people leave out of their arguments or how people fill in the empty spaces in their theories. The ability to be exhaustive in one’s considerations is limited in the humans. That is why we require “theories.”
What catches our eye and mind is that which is dramatic. Clearly, the mass media like BBC have learned this lesson in order to stay in business. Laughter as elicited by comedians such as Mr. Boyle has a great attention-getting strength based upon the paradoxes inherent in jokes. The truth of his utterances is irrelevant to depth to which they penetrate our thinking. However, stimulus strength cannot be the exclusive tool for making decisions.
That is why, in order to survive, humans will become dependent upon computers to determine optimal outcomes among myriads of possibilities for action. It is not people who will rule people. In the end (about twenty-five years), we will be ruled by machines that think better than we do. HAL is coming and frankly the sooner the better so that we can laugh at Mr. Boyle without being forced to consider destroying the Jews as a consequence of his humor!
May 2nd, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Robin, thanks for this. I’m the complainant who took the issue to the BBC Trust. You have, as usual, summed up the whole situation perfectly.
I can confirm that’s the first time I’ve ever been referred to as “a well drilled lobby.”
The assumption that I am part of a lobby reveals more about Mr Boyle than it does me. I do not belong to any organization, nor do I hold any senior position.
But then I guess facts aren’t Mr Boyle’s strong point. His letter consists of the most ignorant drivel. I find it very funny that he now paints himself as an innocent victim. Boyle is known for his nasty and deliberately offensive “jokes”, and here is seems that Mr Boyle is good at dishing it out, not so good at taking it on the chin. Such bullies often have glass jaws. And it is rather hard to take moral lessons from someone who thinks dead children with Down’s Syndrome are great comedic material.
I’m not going to be told I should pay a mandatory licence fee to hear anti-Semitic jokes from the public broadcaster. Boyle makes several crass and unsubstantiated allegations to desperately try to find some moral high ground. I usually find that when the Boyles of this world make allegations through hysterical slogans their so-called arguments soon crumble. I suggest that if Mr Boyle is truly interested in apartheid, rather than looking at democratic Israel with its free elections, free press and independent judiciary, he turns his attention to the despotic and oppressive regimes of Hamas, Saudi Arabia and Iran. It may involve delving a little deeper than a documentary seen several years ago.
The idea that he has a newly discovered concern for humanity is of course ridiculous, and his way of demonsrating such concern is by telling an antisemitic joke. That really is a sick joke – except this time it’s on him.
These are just the hateful rantings of a self-pitying man with a bruised ego. The guy’s an idiot.
May 2nd, 2010 at 4:45 pm
The only real response to the mind set of uncontrollable hate of the ‘Jewish Zionist Apartheid entity’ seems to be to make as available as possible, filmed excerpts of abominations that Palestinians do to each other.
Apart from the abominations committed against Jews even before the establishment of the state of Israel. This does go against the grain as it is can be termed dehumanizing the Palestinians, (And Arabs), but I don’t see any real available alternative.
Frankie Boyle is obviously ‘too far gone’.
I wonder if he comments on CiF?
There are still plenty of sane people on the Left.
May 2nd, 2010 at 4:47 pm
I had never heard of this Mr Boyle before reading the publicity he received from this episode. Judging from the quality of the words he used and his images he doesn’t pack much intellectual or humorous punch. I don’t recognise his style as humour and I don’t recognise the behaviour he attempts to describe as Israeli. Cake describes him well, rather too sweet and without much substance.
There’s a lot of tension between Israelis and Palestinians but his description doesn’t fit. I suggest that projection is the answer: perhaps he himself fantasises behaving in this way.
May 2nd, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Frankie Boyle may or may not have been to Israel. I have, and I agree with every word he said on the subject. Israel is the most unpleasant place I have ever visited, with aggression and bigotry on every side. I have seen for myself how Palestinians are treated in the West Bank and Gaza. I have been spat at by settlers while monitoring their abuses on the stolen land. If it is an irrational idea to believe that the Jewish State is in contravention of international laws in it’s occupation of Palestinian land, then so be it. If it is irrational to witness an elderly couple being evicted from their legally owned home and believe that this is an injustice count me in. I don’t want to destroy the Jews or anyone else. I think they are quite capable of doing it themselves, however.
May 2nd, 2010 at 7:00 pm
I’ve seen this geezer Boyle on the telly a few times. He’s smug, right-on trendy and not particularly funny. And also it appears, a complete moron. He fits well into the modern dumbed-down BBC. Robin, your analysis is spot on.
May 2nd, 2010 at 7:47 pm
He is as funny (and sanctimonious)as a migraine and as politically mature as a 14 year old member of the Komsomol in the USSSR in 1938 or the Hitlerjugend circa 1941.
May 2nd, 2010 at 7:50 pm
Are there not enough taxpayers in Britain who object to the anti-Semitism and unjust bias against Israel who would band together and demand change? Thank you Mr. Sheperd for the wonderful work you are doing to shed light on this ugly darkness.
May 2nd, 2010 at 10:19 pm
Brilliant dissection, excellent exposé. Too bad there’s no evaluation facility on the blog, you know the usual onw with the little stars. I would’ve given a 6 out of five. The man is clearly an antisemitic bigot imo as is the BBC. Worse, he is a deluded primitive who is impervious to multi-faceted reality, reason and even logic. His “knowledge” comes directly from pro-Palestinian propaganists’ lies and deception. I have a hunch the film he refers to is John Pilger’s film. That man also cannot be accused of reporting in an “inpartial, objective and fair manner” (BBC PR talk in advertising on BBC World). Besises he is just a tool. Tool for the Hamas-supporter “filmmakers” and “reporters” and “journos”. (Let’s not forget please that as Noam Bedein – Sderot Media Center elabaorated in an op-ed piece in the JPost, during the Gaza war a BBC journalist specifically told him that he shouldn’t be surprised since Sderot was the former place of a “Palestinian” hemlet called Nadj, where some by and large less than 100 people lived. So here we are – this is served as outright justification for murder, attempted mmureder os children in kindergartens and others… The face of the BBC in its clearest form).
Yes, I would hope that gradually more people see through the trick of the supplicant Israeli, Zionist. For me as an East-European is readily transparent in less than a second since here the neo-Nazis more often than not also couch their texts in these terms. Ridiculous. Britain disgusts me!
May 2nd, 2010 at 11:37 pm
Good guess, Jerry.
This chump is content to regurgitate all the anti-Israel propaganda he might have heard (and he unthinkingly conflates Israel with Jew as do so many chumps of his ilk) without thinking about it at all critically.
May 2nd, 2010 at 11:49 pm
Dear Robin,
The point is surely, and why the BBC apologised, is precisely because, by using the word ‘Jew’, Boyle let the cat out of the bag. If there is any, albeit very limited, humour in the original ‘joke’, it lies solely in the singling out of the Jew, as opposed to the ‘Zionist’, or plain ‘Israeli’. The entire point of the ‘joke’ was to portray the Jew as evil, a reference to the old theme of the Jew as the personification of the world’s wickedness.
In other words, one is supposed to laugh at the image of the evil Jew, simply because Jews per se in the world of the new anti-Semite are uniquely evil figures whom we can best combat first by naming and shaming them, and then laughing at what has been revealed.
The line Boyle crossed was, as it were,to name names, call spade a spade, and a Jew a Jew, and in doing so he broke the code of the new anti-Semitism, which relies on obfuscations such as ‘Zionist’. Boyle revealed the true agenda of such people, and thus aided the enemy, i.e. those that object to anti-Semitism.
May 3rd, 2010 at 1:36 am
Boyle is a nasty piece of work. In a live show at Reading he made a succession of hateful jokes about Downs Syndrome children – much to the disgust of a mother of a Downs child who was in the audience.
Insults the handicapped and weeps at Palestinian propaganda? There’s a PhD thesis somewhere in there for a smart graduate in psychiatry.
May 3rd, 2010 at 10:19 am
Let us not forget one of the main points of the article: Boyle like many others have picked up the hatred from the main stream media and he and like so many others are influenced by the regular drip drip misinformation
May 3rd, 2010 at 10:31 am
Alice Malone? The most unpleasant place? I guess you haven’t been to Iran lately, where you could have witnessed an “immodest” woman being raped by the basiji prior to being stoned to death in public. Or how about a public beheading in Saudi Arabia? You could have seen Hamas in Gaza banning women wearing jeans and throwing Fatah members to their deaths from the rooftops. Or the genocide taking place in Sudan and the DRC. Boyle doesn’t think any of these are worth comment. And do you condone his blatant antisemitism?
I would hazard a guess from your writings that you didn’t exactly approach Israel with an open mind.
May 3rd, 2010 at 10:41 am
“Overall then, he’s pretty much the complete neo-anti-Semitic bigot with that particular form of Judeophobic bigotry being buttressed in his “angry Jew” remarks by a rather older form of anti-Semitism to boot.”
Yep.
Luckily for us in Oz we can watch Britain and Europe unfold, sad though that is; but our people will learn from your mistakes.
May 3rd, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Is Mr. Boyle a Catholic? Or a Protestant? With an Irish name would hope he is a Christian … does he forget that Jesus was a Jew? Maybe he’s Islamic …
May 3rd, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Excellent analysis. Even before reading what Shepherd had to say about all this, I said to myself the mistake that Boyle made was his use of the word Jew, ie his honest bigotry. He should have just said Zionist and then he would be fine, and there wouldn’t have been a ripple of protest, no outcry.
The mask slips as it always does though, since the truth with bigotry always outs eventually. The mask is slipping all over the place now. Many anti-Zionist Leftists, increasingly consumed with Judenhass, can no longer even bother to pretend to hide their hatred behind cover terms. I prefer this honesty to the anti-Zionist mask which is simply infuriating. The tactical ineptitude will continue and I reckon intensify but after awhile it won’t even be seen to matter, and naked Jew-hatred will come to be increasingly more accepted by the Left. I for one think that’s preferable to to all this pretence and flimsy disguise.
May 3rd, 2010 at 5:39 pm
I’m mildly curious – did Alice Malone’s experiences of aggression and bigotry in Israel occur before or after she told the people she met that they were guilty of murder, genocide, etc., etc.?
May 3rd, 2010 at 9:33 pm
Alice Malone’s hysterical rant is a first-class example of the new anti-semitism.
May 3rd, 2010 at 11:30 pm
Andy Gill, precisely. You will also notice that when challenged she does a disappearing act.
May 4th, 2010 at 7:12 am
Naomi,
I’d say it would have been worse as alice was there to protest israels supposed land theft Palestinians. In that regards she (or he) most likely had her mind made up before she got there that Israel is a bigotted country.
Mailman
May 4th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Boyle is clearly a dummy – the kind ventriloquists use to say something funny. In this case, this dummy is used to say the vulgarities of those who hate. But what about the BBC – once venerated, once important, now not even noticed. Surely there are better sources of information in the day of the internet. In the US such meaningless so-called news organizations are going down the drain. Too bad in Britain, that is not possible. I used to have a high regard for the British nation – of course generalizing is unfair – but the more I read about the government, the anti-Semitism, the politically correct ways of dealing with anti-democratic groups, just leaves me cold and with no interest about Britain, and most of Western Europe. I just don’t care about it at all.
May 4th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
Alice (Malone). You mention West Bank, Gaza and your monitoring of the settlements. Clearly you visited Israel for a specific purpose – whether self-funded or with some form of organisation – since you make no mention of the life experience of Israeli Arabs who comprise some 20% of Israel’s population.
Perhaps you might pause to reflect on why that percentage is so high. Surely, if Israel was that awful, they would be pretty keen to get out and into West Bank and Gaza? If they aren’t, what conclusions might we possibly draw?
As for your last remark – “I don’t want to destroy the Jews or anyone else. I think they are quite capable of doing it themselves, however.”. That’s pretty awful, Alice.
Alice, people get legally evicted in the UK and abroad, and for numerous reasons. Are you suggesting there was no court ruling on the matter of the couple you mention? Might there be sound reasons that you are simply unaware of but, instead, choose to interpret as unlawful?
Why is there no thoughful consideration of the Palestinian leaders and their role in the on-going situation of their people? Who, incidentally, I do care about. The difference being that there’s no ‘either/or’. Both sides have had enough, but this constant one-sided apportioning of blame will never help the everyday Palestinians to regain their lives and their self-determination. It is, in my view, delaying it.
Finally, have you actually read Resolution 242?
May 4th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
One wonders whether this will be the end of Boyle on the BBC, or whether he will continue as a guest on Mock The Week. Given the show’s history of offensive jokes, including one about the Queen by Boyle himself, the BBC should take its cue from the sacking of Jonathan Ross and scrap both Boyle and Mock The Week. But don’t hold your breath.
May 4th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Alice Malone – spoken like a true eliminationist anti-Semite: The destruction of the Jews is their own fault. Always has been, always will be, isn’t that right Alice? But kudos for wanting to keep your own hands as clean as your conscience.
May 6th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7808231.stm
Here is something in a similar vein : (celebs emoting about Israel’s ‘crimes’ and making strident demands for boycotts; George Galloway contributes-as always).
May 6th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
wendy, thanks for the link. You may be interested to know that Annie Lennox has since distanced herself from this stance. But one has to wonder why people like Simon Callow would go to a rally which defends Hizbollah (in 2006). Does he have any clue what Hizbollah and other Islamists would do to him (being gay)?
May 8th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
This article and follow-up comments illustrates an observation I made to Robin a couple of months ago that anti-Zionism seems to be more pronounced on the Celtic fringe of Britain, as evidenced here by the surnames … Boyle, Malone, Galloway, Lennox.
This follows a tiresome exchange I had with a Scottish cave dweller called S.Wood (“The Big Man”) who goes round leaving comments and rants beneath Amazon book reviews he considers pro-Israel. I’ve also noticed the Celtic tendency on several phone-ins on issues such as the Middle East and Iraq. As an aside, the pronunciation of the word “Iraq” is a solid giveaway of someone’s views on that war.
So anti-Zionism is a sociological phenomenon, not just a political stand. As Robin’s book argues, if the aforementioned had spent their formative years in Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe, chances are their perspectives on life would be very different. Although no doubt Galloway would have worked for the Stasi, so probably no change there.
Anyone interested in conducting deeper research into the socio-geographical spread of anti-Zionism, might use the following online petition in support of Baroness Tonge as a starting point :-
http://www.mpacuk.org/story/040310/action-alert-sign-petition-support-baroness-jenny-tonge.html
Just a warning. A Zionist agent (not me) has been indulging in a spot of mischief here. Dotted amongst the many earnest signatories you’ll find Ms Nuttyasa Fruitcake, Herr Adolf Hitler of Berlin, Dr R Sole, Mr J. Erkopf of Apfelstrudel, Austria, Professor Nazi Bitch, Mr Hugh G. Rection of Penistone (Sheffield), Dr Rick Himmla, Dr Julius Streicher, Mr Hans Frank of Poland … I’m sure there are tons more. Well done whoever it was. I’ve haven’t laughed so much in years !
May 9th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Thanks Jonathan, I had a good laugh at that!
May 11th, 2010 at 11:55 pm
“This article and follow-up comments illustrates an observation I made to Robin a couple of months ago that anti-Zionism seems to be more pronounced on the Celtic fringe of Britain” J.K.
I suspect that’s because they are insecure and have inferiority complexes mostly and “England” (quotation marks because of what they actually make out of England) is their eternal bogeyman.