Sauce For The Goose?

by Les May

TRACY Ann Oberman, the actress, has written to the BBC to complain about the appearance of Ash Sarkar, an editor of Novara Media, in the documentary ‘Rise of the Nazis’. The reason Sarkar is included is to illuminate the context and perspective of Ernst Thälmann who led the German Communist party from 1925 to 1933, and died in a concentration camp in 1944. Oberman’s objection was that Sarkar had defended two people who had sprayed ‘Free Gaza and Palestine’ on one of the remaining walls of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Once again we have a complaint about what someone has said, in this case about a third party’s actions; in other words guilt by association.

Would it be legitimate to claim that by objecting Oberman is guilty by association with the policies of Israel, because it is the Israeli state that the graffiti was directed against?

I am not a particular fan of Sarkar, but I don’t think she should be prevented from speaking in BBC programmes just because I don’t always like what she says.

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