Claims of anti-Israel Bias at the BBC

A recent BBC documentary about the war in Gaza was broadcast without informing viewers that the young narrator is the son of a Hamas official. That omission was not the only flaw with the programme. Complaints were made and the BBC has admitted there are questions to be answered.

Some of the flaws involved translation of what the documentary’s subjects said in Arabic. One example comes where the BBC subtitles quoted a Gazan as mentioning "fighting Israeli forces" when a literal translation would render it as "jihad against the Jews" - significantly different.

The Government has called for an urgent meeting with the BBC and the matter was raised with Director General Tim Davie and Chairman Samir Shah when they appeared before Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Tuesday 4th March.

The Times and Sunday Times posted a short clip from that discussion on YouTube, with Tim Davie admitting to serious failures in the making of the programme, which have resulted in a lot of frustration and disappointment within the BBC.

Later in the week, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy expressed the view that the BBC is not showing enough urgency in its review of the documentary. She has demanded answers from the corporation by the early part of this week and called on the BBC to act so that "a serious error of this magnitude is not repeated."

Meanwhile Ofcom has written to the BBC saying it has ‘ongoing concerns about the nature and gravity of these failings and the negative impact they have on the trust audiences place in the BBC’s journalism.’

David Collier is the journalist who discovered the failings. He is convinced the BBC didn’t attempt to look into the background of the documentary’s subjects and believes that error reflects systemic problems inside the BBC.

His view is supported by 200 stars who have added their concerns to the discussions, signing an open letter to the BBC calling for a full investigation into alleged anti-Israel bias at the broadcaster. They wrote:

‘It is time for the BBC to acknowledge that it has a systemic problem of bias against Israel,
of which this is the tip of the iceberg.
This is a true crisis for the broadcaster, which it is treating as a minor inconvenience
whilst its highest-paid presenter is allowed to openly deny there is an issue at all.’

That comment about the BBC’s highest paid presenter refers to Gary Lineker, who was joined two weeks ago by 500 other media personalities calling on the corporation to reinstate the documentary on its iPlayer platform.