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Kevin Barrett claims:

I remember it like it happened yesterday.

It was early October, 2001. I was driving through the Shorewood neighborhood of Madison, Wisconsin, listening to BBC News on WORT listener-sponsored community radio.

The BBC announcer reported on an Israeli cabinet meeting: Shimon Peres had been pressuring Ariel Sharon to respect American calls for a ceasefire, lest the Americans turn against Israel.

According to the BBC, a furious Sharon turned toward Peres, saying:

“Every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.”

The quote appears in this video with 10000+ views. It can also be found on several books scaned by google 1, 2, 3. Is this quote by Sharon?

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    The last two links are identical.
    – Golden Cuy
    Commented Jan 28, 2017 at 0:53
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    Whether the BBC reported this is on no importance, The claim is of little importance because it's a small detail of the larger anti Semitic claim that jews control America.
    – Sklivvz
    Commented Jan 28, 2017 at 9:39
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    @Sklivvz If Ariel Sharon believes he controls America I'd say that is pretty notable.
    – Avery
    Commented Jan 28, 2017 at 16:24
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    Ignoring the conspiracy of 'Jews control everything'. I would have also read this as 'We control America through international political power or coercion', not literally 'Israeli Jews are making direct US policy decisions'. If one or the other was interpreted from that line of text.
    – RomaH
    Commented Feb 1, 2017 at 17:04
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    @Sklivvz I don't think it's an inherently anti-Semetic claim, although it is hyperbolic. There's nothing wrong with discussing excessive and disproportionate Jewish influence in American politics, particularly foreign policy, and dismissing any such discussion as being anti-Semetic is against the ethos of democracy and freedom of expression. We discuss "white privilege" all the time, after all: surely many of these privileged and powerful whites happen to be of Jewish descent. This particular quotation happens to be quite relevant since it's from a very prominent Jewish Israeli politician.
    – MathematicsStudent1122
    Commented Aug 11, 2017 at 6:13

1 Answer 1

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No, Sharon never said this. This is a fabricated quote.

Kol Yisrael political correspondent Yoni Ben-Menachem, who reports on Cabinet meetings, confirmed to CAMERA that he never made such a broadcast and that Sharon never made such a statement. Nor was it reported by any other news service.

According to, Matthew Levitt, Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad (Yale University Press), the organization responsible for this false quotation, the Islamic Association of Palestine, was a well-known source of Hamas propaganda.

On the urging of the questioner, I have filed a request with the BBC about their October 2001 news stories. (update: It appears that radio news is not archived by the BBC itself. The British Library may have it, but the person responding to my query seemed to answer in the negative.)

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    Camera's purpose according to Wikipedia: "Pro-Israel Media Advocacy and Lobbying" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
    – Sakib Arifin
    Commented Jan 28, 2017 at 18:37
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    @MohammadSakibArifin, this doen't mean that they are wrong. Are you suggesting that they fabricated the report?
    – SIMEL
    Commented Jan 28, 2017 at 23:59
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    @SIMEL The reason dubious, partisan sources are trusted significantly less than more neutral sources is precisely because they have a tendency to fabricate or misinterpret claims. CAMERA is, frankly, not a reliable source, and this an unsatisfying answer. Given the information that seems to be available, the best we can say is "we don't know whether Sharon said this or not". It's quite ironic, actually, how you dismiss claims made by Hamas and Hamas affiliates as "propaganda", yet you tout right-wing Zionist hasbara sites as being reliable.
    – MathematicsStudent1122
    Commented Aug 11, 2017 at 5:55
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    @MohammadSakibArifin That is so inaccurate, to even describe CAMERA that way is propaganda. CAMERA correct anti-israel reports that they see in the media, and point out all the errors. They are often taking leftist israeli newspapers to task for errors. You'd be hard pressed to find any evidence of inaccuracy from CAMERA.. It's like with MEMRI, somebody could describe them the same way but it's not accurate, and one would be hard pressed to show inaccuracy from MEMRI.
    – barlop
    Commented May 18, 2018 at 19:02
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    @MathematicsStudent1122 The article didn't just dismiss claims made by hamas and hamas affiliates as propaganda. Read carefully. It quotes a yale press book that dismisses a particular claim on the basis that a particular organisation, a particular affiliate of hamas, made a lot of propaganda. The Yale source may give other examples of propaganda from that particular affiliate of hamas.
    – barlop
    Commented May 18, 2018 at 19:05

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