BBC reporter′s award stuns Israel

Israeli officials have expressed dismay that BBC reporter Orla Guerin, who has come under sharp attack for what some perceive as an anti-Israeli bias in her coverage, will receive an MBE honor from the British government for "outstanding service to broadcasting."

Diaspora Affairs Minister Natan Sharansky, who last year wrote a formal letter of complaint to the BBC over Guerin′s coverage, said it is a pity that the absence of anti-Semitism was not a criterion for the award.

If it were, he said, Guerin would not be receiving the honor. The MBE stands for Member of the British Empire, one of a number of honors issued each year by the queen.

"It is very sad that something as important as anti-Semitism is not taken into consideration when issuing this award, especially in Britain where the incidents of anti-Semitism are on the rise," Sharansky said.

Guerin, when contacted Wednesday, would not speak without receiving permission from her home office in London. A phone query to the BBC offices in London, followed – as requested – by an e-mail with a short description of the line of questioning, did not yield a response from either the BBC or Guerin.

According to the Sunday Times, the 38-year-old Guerin will be presented the award by Baroness Symons, the minister of state for the Middle East in the British Foreign Office. According to this report, Guerin, who has spent 10 years reporting from war-torn countries, was to receive the honor last year, but the ceremony was postponed so she could report from Ramallah on Yasser Arafat′s funeral.

In addition to Jerusalem, she has also reported from Kosovo, Grozny, Moscow, and the Basque country.

One Israeli official, who responded to the news by saying he was "shocked," said Guerin is among the most anti-Israeli journalists reporting from Israel today.

According to this official, granting her an award fits into a pattern that began in 2003 when the United Kingdom′s Political Cartoon Society awarded Dave Brown of the Independent its "cartoon of the year" award for a cartoon he drew depicting a naked Ariel Sharon biting off the bloodied head of a Palestinian child.

"It seems if you are anti-Israel, you will get an award," the official said.

Last year, in response to one of Guerin′s dispatches about Israel′s capture of a mentally challenged 16-year-old would-be suicide bomber, Sharansky wrote the BBC that it employs a "gross double standard to the Jewish state" that smacks of anti-Semitism.

Sharansky protested that Guerin, in her report, portrayed the event as "Israel′s cynical manipulation of a Palestinian youngster for propaganda purposes." He said this "reveals a deep-seated bias against Israel. Only a total identification with the goals and methods of the Palestinian terror groups would drive a reporter to paint Israel in such an unflattering light instead of placing the focus on the bomber and the organization that recruited him."

The report, he said, "has not only set a new standard for biased journalism, it has also raised concerns that it was tainted by anti-Semitism."

In his letter, Sharansky quoted Guerin as describing to viewers how the IDF "paraded the child in front of the international media," then "produced" the child for reporters, "posed" him a second time for the cameras, and then "rushed him back into a jeep."

Likewise, the Evening Standard, which interviewed Guerin in 2003, wrote that she "questioned Israel′s claim to be a democracy, compared its press freedom with Zimbabwe′s, and accused its officials of paranoia."

During that interview, Guerin, referring to a period that year when Israel refused to cooperate with the BBC, said "I can′t imagine any other government thinking like that – Zimbabwe is the comparison. I′m absolutely stunned that they think it′s appropriate."

"Israel talks regularly – at this point, in my view, with less justification – about being the only democracy in the Middle East," she said. "But how can you still be a democracy and try to harass the press? This is not how a democracy behaves."

Talkback (moderated). Please include your first and last names, your city and country.

David Bennett, Johannesburg, South Africa: This doesn′t surprise me in the least. I am sure that Barbara Plett (who famously cried when Yasser Arafat was airlifted out of the compound- talk about impartial) will be next.

Orla Guerin enrages me so much that when she came to South Africa to cover our last general elections, I considered tracking her down at one of the polling stations and throwing rotten eggs at her. But I decided I couldn′t do that to the eggs.

Zvi Ticker, Toronto: Churchill was wrong when claimed that there is not anti-Semitism in Britain. There always was and is deep current of anti-Semitism in the British society, although of the different kind than on the continent.

British establishment always disliked Jews because they are pushy and don′t want to know their proper station. The same attitude was and is practiced towards Zionism and the State of Israel.

In Orla Guerin this visceral anti-Semitism is masked by traditional leftist agenda. Since Marx and Lenin, the Left of all hues of red considers a nation-state and nationalism an evil destined to die.

Socialist-Zionists were always criticized as a nationalistic perverts, seducing then Jewish proletarians by nationalistic chimera, that′s why Zionism was totally whipped out by Bolsheviks, including the Jewish ones, in its birth cradle, the former Russian Empire.

There is one more problem to cope with, the Jewish traditional national self-identification is based on the Judaism, the only legal deed the Zionists had for Eretz Israel was Tanakh, which they widely used for their purposes.

In spite all efforts of secularists from the Left and the Right, Jabotinsky included, the State of Israel still has strong religious connotations. Today for the Left a religion, any religion, is even more dirty word than nationalism.

Orla Guerin can in full agreement with herself and her lofty principles to vent her dislike of Jews, put it mildly, through the criticism of this nationalistic, reactionary, religious, despicable state, and claim she is not anti-Semite.

Haim Kalontar, Atlanta, United States: Orla Guerin is a good journalist and deserves her award. In the territories she has managed to build good connections with the Al Aqsa terrorist brigade and Hamas. If Orla Guerin will report the real news and will stop demonizing Israel then there is a great chance that she will be killed because of this terrorist connection.

No matter what negative things she says about Israel, Orla Guerin′s dangerous connection to the terrorists must be understood. Despite her terrorist connection that could kill her one day I think she is a very courageous woman.

Orla Guerin reports in favor of Israel sometimes and this is very important because every time she reports in favor of Israel her life is on the line and interviews with terrorist groups as well.

Allan, United Kingdom Orla Guerins MBE award is par for the course. The UK is fast catching up to some other European countries modern Anti Jew record. Most larger UK cities have large Muslim populations. Indeed their vote is important in over 70 constituencies.

Moshe Brody, Kfar Sava, Israel What is disturbing is that this comes as a surprise. Why are the Israeli intelligentsia so shocked when Judeophobes are honored by the international media? Are they under the impression that showing disrespect to Jews is suddenly now considered improper throughout the Western world? Were they born yesterday?

Time for a reality check. Under what other naive and possibly dangerous misconceptions do Israel′s leaders and ruling institutions still operate?

Dmitry, Ipswich, England: I am not surprised in the least. BBC is notoriously anti-Semitic, and it is well known. Orla Guerin is not only anti-Semite, she is just a bad journalist, her reports are biased, one-sided and often plainly incorrect.

What bothers me is the silence of the Jewish community in the UK. It seems to be that Jewish leaders are more concerned with being "politically correct" and, God forbid, not offending the Muslim population of Britain than opposing the anti-Israeli attacks.

The usual cause for the protest by Jewish community is a stupid statement of some politician containing reference to Nazi, Holocaust or something of this kind. Forget about the Nazis! Most people distaste it anyway.

Don′t you get it - the worst type of anti-Semitism is the slander of Israel, attempts to demonise Israel, to justify the Arab terrorism. The worst enemies of Jewish people are not Arab terrorists and BBC′s anti-Semitic journalists, but those British Jews who publicly declare their disassociation from Israel′s policy of fighting the terrorists. I just hope this time they will not be silent.

Frederick Kroesen, Heidelberg, Germany (temporarily stationed in Israel): I wouldn′t get too upset about Ms. Guerin′s journalism award. She works, after all, for the BBC, the front for leftist everything, while sometimes also reporting news, albeit with the leftist agenda as the backdrop.

Socialists everywhere, these days, are anti-Israel (except Israeli socialists perhaps). I do not believe that necessarily makes them anti-Semitic, as your article implies, though I can understand your impulses to see it that way.

You′ll be hard-pressed to find freedom, democracy and capitalism-loving reporters winning these types of awards. But worry not, because there are plenty of them and they are finally being heard, though not much from the mainstream media.

Fight on by sticking to truth. Exaggerations of fact will not do your purposes any good because the anti-Israeli media will exploit the truth-stretching to suit their purposes, effectively countering allegations of the bias some of us can see.

Tim and Mel Thomson, Fife, Scotland: As a Christian who loves and prays for Israel, I have to say I am disgusted that this woman receives such an award., but I am not in the least bit surprised.

Britain is fast becoming anti-Semitic.

Last week we had the boycott of Israeli universities. Now the award for Orlas totally biased reporting. Where is it going to end?

The Christians and Jews need to unite to protest against these atrocities, before it goes any further.