BBC Radio 4 misleads on conscription in Israel

'The World Tonight' listeners were given an incomplete view.

The May 29th edition of the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘The World Tonight’ included a report (from 24:05 here) introduced by presenter Julian Worricker as follows: [emphasis in italics in the original, emphasis in bold added]

Worricker: “Now, political developments in Israel tonight. As we came to air the deadline passed for the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to form a new coalition government. His Likud party, along with its Right-wing and religious allies, won 65 seats out of 120 in the Knesset in the April election and victory celebrations followed. But coalition talks have not gone to plan, thanks principally to the demands of the former defence minister Avigdor Lieberman. He wants ultra-orthodox Jews to perform mandatory military service like other Jewish Israelis and he won’t bring his nationalist group of five parliamentarians on board unless he gets agreement on that. Ultra-orthodox parties, who control 16 seats in parliament, oppose that measure and Mr Netanyahu needs both groupings to back him to form a government.”

Of course “Jewish Israelis” are not the only ones in Israeli society who are conscripted to “mandatory military service”. Military service has also been compulsory for males from the Druze sector since 1956 and for Circassian males since 1958. In addition, members of other religious and ethnic groups can serve on a voluntary basis.

Listeners would be unlikely to be able to fill in that missing information for themselves. The last time BBC audiences heard anything about the fact that the IDF is made up of people from many different backgrounds and faiths was in 2016 in a programme which gave extensive promotion to an opponent of enlistment by members of Israel’s minority ethnic communities.

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