More Than 100 BBC Staffers Complain of Its ‘Pro-Israel Bias’

It’s not possible to take this complaint seriously. If you have over the years listened to the likes of John Simpson, Jeremy Bowen, Barbara Plett, Orla Guerin, Yolande Knell, and so many other BBC reporters and editors who display their deep anti-Israel animus in every other sentence, you know that the BBC is unshakably on the side of the Palestinians and completely unsympathetic toward Israel. But in our bizarre age, apparently for 100 of its staffers, the BBC has been insufficiently hostile toward Israel, and they have signed a joint letter of protest, demanding that the BBC do even more of what it has been doing all along.

More on this ludicrous demand can be found here: “BBC staff sign letter accusing broadcaster of pro-Israel bias,” by Craig Simpson, Telegraph, November 1, 2024:

More than 100 BBC staff have signed a letter accusing their employer of pro-Israel bias.

Anonymous signatories have joined former Tory party chairman Baroness Sayeeda Warsi and pro-Palestine actress Juliet Stevenson in demanding that the corporation report “without fear or favour.”

In an open letter to Tim Davie, the director-general, they accused the BBC of failing to provide “fair and accurate” coverage of events in Gaza and of “dehumanising Palestinians.”

Doesn’t the BBC report, without properly attributing to their real source, Hamas, the figures on casualties that are supposedly provided by the “Gaza Health Ministry”? Doesn’t the BBC describe a building that the IAF hits as “a school,” without once pointing out that the “school” is a school no longer, but a place where Hamas fighters and weapons are placed? Doesn’t it inaccurately describe as a “hospital” a building that may still have some doctors and patients but also contains, hidden in wards and basements and behind MRI machines, up to a hundred armed Hamas fighters and their weapons?

In over a year of fighting in Gaza, why has the BBC not once described the IDF’s elaborate system of warning civilians away from areas and buildings that are about to be hit? The BBC has so singularly failed to mention the millions of leaflets dropped over areas of Gaza, never mentions the millions of text messages sent or the millions of robocalls made by the IDF, all in order to minimize civilian casualties. Why not? And why does the BBC not clearly explain how Hamas uses its fellow Palestinians as human shields, is indifferent to their fate, and even tries to increase civilian casualties so that they may be invoked as part of Hamas’ anti-Israel propaganda.

The letter sets out a series of demands, including that the BBC provide “historical context predating October 2023” when reporting on the war which broke out when Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,000 civilians and took 251 hostage.

By all means let the BBC provide the historical context. Let it describe the Arab attempt to snuff out the young life of the Jewish state in 1948, and then the Arabs’ attempt to try again in 1967 and 1973. Let the BBC audience know what land — “from the river to the sea” — was intended by the League of Nations’ Mandate for Palestine to be included in the future Jewish state. Let that audience know how many times Israel has tried to make peace with the Palestinians with a territorial compromise, as offered by Ehud Barak to Yasser Arafat in 2000 and by Ehud Olmert to Mahmoud Abbas in 2008, only to be turned down flat on both occasions. Let the BBC audience know about the Arab leaders who encouraged the Arabs of Palestine in 1947-48 to flee the area, assuring them that they would soon be returning with the victorious Arab armies, and about the Jews who urged the Arabs to remain. Let the Hamas Charter be read aloud online. Let the BBC listeners hear about the “Pay-For-Slay” program of the Palestinian Authority, that both promotes and incentivizes terrorism. Let the BBC audience hear about the $14 billion stolen by just four Hamas leaders from the aid money donated to Gazans: Mousa Abu Marzouk and Khaled Meshaal ($4 billion apiece), and the late Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar ($3 billion apiece). Let the BBC audience hear about the invention, in the 1960s, of the formerly unknown “Palestinian people,” and what Palestinian leader Zuheir Mohsen told a Dutch journalist in 1977:

The Palestinian people does not exist … there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese. Between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese there are no differences. We are all part of one people, the Arab nation […] Just for political reasons we carefully underwrite our Palestinian identity. Because it is of national interest for the Arabs to advocate the existence of Palestinians to balance Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons[…] Once we have acquired all our rights in all of Palestine, we must not delay for a moment the reunification of Jordan and Palestine.

Yes, BBC, there’s a great deal of “historical context” that you have a duty to provide. Here’s an idea — why not start with what is suggested in the preceding paragraph?