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By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
A BBC reporter was ridiculed after saying that Jews have and will comprise Syria’s “diverse” population, the Jewish Chronicle reports.
Reporting live from Damascus, the BBC’s chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet said Jews will likely be comfortable returning to the Old City and to live among Muslim and Christian neighbors.
Doucet said, “This is one of the most diverse countries in the Middle East with multiple Christian [and] Muslim sects and you can see it here in the Old City, all the different quarters, Jewish, Muslim, Christian – they’re all here and they want to believe they have a space now as Syria embarks on this new chapter.”
The remarks were greeted with outrage and mockery with many pointing out that after an ethnic cleansing of Jews from Syria, there were just three remaining when Bashar Al-Assad was deposed.
Orly Goldschmidt, The official spokeswoman for the Israeli Embassy to the UK, wrote on X: “Jewish, Muslim, Christian, they’re all here, they want to believe they have a space now…”
“Good luck finding a Jew in Syria for an interview.’
The Board of Deputies’ Director of Public Affairs Daniel Sugarman wrote, “You may find a ‘Jewish Quarter’ in Damascus. You won’t find Jews to interview, though.”
Many commenters said Doucet was misleading the public about the history of antisemitism in Syria.
Her remarks follow a statement by BBC’s international editor Jeremy Bowen that Israel preferred a “weak dictator” like Assad to a “self-confident Islamist militia.”
Bowen also asserted Israeli strikes against chemical weapons sites and other military targets in Syria may have prevented a peaceful transition of power.
