Aletho News

BBC journalists accuse organization of pro-Israel bias

The Cradle | November 23, 2023

BBC journalists wrote a letter to Al-Jazeera to express their dissatisfaction with the British broadcaster over its coverage of Gaza, the Qatari news organization revealed on 23 November. 

“The BBC has failed to accurately tell this story – through omission and lack of critical engagement with Israel’s claims – and it has therefore failed to help the public engage with and understand the human rights abuses unfolding in Gaza,” the letter reads. 

“Thousands of Palestinians have been killed since October 7. When will the number be high enough for our editorial stance to change?”

The journalists accused the BBC of repeatedly humanizing Israeli victims over Palestinians, abandoning vital historical context in their coverage. 

BBC journalists continued to slam the UK public broadcaster by saying that terms such as “massacre” and “atrocities” have been exclusively used “only for [the actions of] Hamas, framing the group as the only instigator and perpetrator of violence in the region. This is inaccurate but aligns with the BBC’s overall coverage.” 

“In comparison, humanizing coverage of Palestinian civilians has been lacking. It is a poor excuse to say that the BBC could not better cover stories in Gaza because of difficulties gaining access to the [Gaza] Strip … This is achieved, for example, by telling and following individual stories across weeks. Little attempt has also been made to fully utilize the abundance of social media content from brave journalists in Gaza and the West Bank,” the journalists wrote. 

On 10 October, Husam Zomlot, the head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK, spoke to presenter Kirsty Wark about his familial losses due to Israeli bombings of Gaza; Wark responded, “I am sorry for your own personal loss. I mean, can I just be clear, though? You cannot condone the killing of civilians in Israel, can you?” 

Al-Jazeera spoke to one of the letter’s co-authors, who said, “For me, and definitely for other people of color, we can see blatantly that certain civilian lives are considered more worthy than others – that there is some sort of hierarchy at play. That is deeply, deeply hurtful because actually, none of us struggle to empathize with Palestinian civilians.”

Other BBC journalists have been critical of the broadcaster’s coverage since start of the war. Rami Ruhayem, Beirut correspondent for the BBC, wrote to the news organization’s director-general, saying there are “indications that the BBC is – implicitly at least – treating Israeli lives as more worthy than Palestinian lives and reinforcing Israeli war propaganda.” 

The BBC has shown bias in other cases; during the early days of the war, the London-based organization suspended and investigated several of their West Asia journalists for social media activity that they claimed to be “pro-Palestinian.”

November 23, 2023 - Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | BBC, UK, Zionism