“Antisemitism is actually a Jewish creation”: Ofcom puts Ahlebait TV on notice following breach of hate speech regulations

Ofcom has put the television channel Ahlebait TV on notice following its breach of hate speech regulations.

The media watchdog made the ruling against Ahlebait TV, which offers “current affairs and entertainment programming with an Islamic perspective”, following a complaint from CST.

The breach occurred on an edition of the programme 20th Hour entitled Money Power, Islam and a Just Order in March of last year when David Pidcock, one of the guests on the programme, said: “This is why the Jews have been expelled from 47 different countries and city-states in the last 1,000 years and as they recognise…their antisemitism comes from their actions of impoverishing people and they then respond and then they call it antisemitism but we know that it’s because they do and they get punished and as Allah says, you know, he will expel [sentence incomplete] – send them to all corners of the world to be an excoriation and a hissing and a booing to wherever he had sent them.”

Following this comment, fellow guest Clive Menzies remarked that “It’s worth just noting that antisemitism was created by Theodor Herzl at the back end of the nineteenth century in order to frighten and create the circumstances that would encourage Jews to migrate to Israel so antisemitism is actually a Jewish creation”. 

Ofcom stated that it “considered these breaches to be serious and therefore we are putting the Licensee on notice that we will consider them for the imposition of a statutory sanction.”