Thread by @WeBelieveIsrael

Thread on Channel’s 4 news segment last night ‘Activist Akram Salhab on the Palestinian experience of British Colonialism:’ @Channel4News (1)

We were distressed to see C4 broadcast such a one-sided and inaccurate piece (2)

The programme aimed to portray the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a racial one comparable to the Black Lives Matter movement, ignoring that this is a conflict between two rival national liberation movements, both with legitimate claims to the same small area. (3)

The implicit message that supporting Israel is akin to supporting racism and colonialism is deeply offensive as Jews sought statehood partly because they had been victims of genocidal racism, and Zionism was a movement to overthrow British colonial rule. (4)

The programme attacks Lloyd George for being PM at the time of the Balfour Declaration (5)

The Balfour Declaration was not legally binding, nor did it signal the start of Jewish immigration. It preserved the rights of existing communities already in Palestine and was/is not incompatible with the national rights of Palestinians. (6)

The programme blames Britain for the Palestinian lack of Statehood in 1948 and wrongly suggests Britain gave Palestine to the Jews, when in fact the British Government was quite hostile to Zionism (7)

The UN partition plan offered two-states for two peoples. The Jewish people said yes. If Palestinians had accepted the offer they would have had a state for 72 years. In 1948 the state of Israel declared independence. A war was waged against them which they won (8)

The programme takes aim at the IHRA definition an internationally recognised definition of antisemitism adopted by both Labour & Conservative parties. The programme wrongly claims IHRA means censorship of pro-Palestinians when all it seeks to stop is use of antisemitic imagery(9)

It claims it isn’t antisemitic to call the existence of the State of Israel a racist endeavour. Declaring Jewish people don't have a right to self-determination whilst others do is antisemitic. Support for a Jewish state does not imply a lack of support for a Palestinian one (10)

Overall this piece was biased, mangled historical facts, and inaccurate. A piece should never have been allowed to air which tries to undermine the IHRA definition of antisemitism, with no counter views shared. (11)

If you would like further information or would like to lodge a complaint with channel 4 please email …. (12)