Lately, I must confess, one or two of my columns have been just a touch critical of the BBC’s news coverage. Today, however, I feel compelled to defend it. Well, sort of. Because on Monday, pro-Palestinian activists sprayed blood-red paint all over Broadcasting House – in retaliation for what they called the BBC’s “pro-Israel bias”.
Yes, you read that correctly. That’s what they said. Which, in my view, prompts the following question.
What sort of idiot thinks the BBC is biased towards Israel?
For the life of me, I simply cannot figure out how these crazed paint-sprayers reached such a bizarre conclusion. Are they perhaps watching a different BBC from the rest of us? Is there, unknown to me, a channel named BBC Zionist, which fervently applauds Benjamin Netanyahu’s every move?
All I can say is: that’s not something I’ve ever witnessed on the BBC. Far from it. The BBC I’m familiar with is the one which has persistently refused to refer to Hamas as a terrorist group – even though this is precisely how Hamas is classified under UK law.
The BBC I know, furthermore, has had to apologise for mistakenly referring to Palestinian prisoners as “hostages”, and to Israeli hostages as “prisoners”. Meanwhile, its own former director of television, Danny Cohen, has said that the BBC is “at risk of becoming a Hamas propaganda mouthpiece”. He has also published a report which accuses the BBC’s coverage of making “false and damaging claims about Israel’s conduct of this war”, and claims that “appalling lapses in accuracy have served to fuel the flames of anti-Semitism that have spread across the world”.
And there’s more. Six weeks after Oct 7, 2023, the BBC’s best-paid presenter, Gary Lineker, urged his 8.9 million followers on X to watch a video in which an academic accused Israel of committing “textbook genocide”. Oh, and just this week, the BBC was accused of using the son of a Hamas official to narrate a documentary about the plight of “ordinary Palestinians”.
Do these paint-spraying activists consider the above to be evidence of the BBC’s “pro-Israel bias”? Or do they think that, from time to time, the BBC deliberately makes itself sound as if it’s anti-Israel, as a cunning ploy to prevent the public from realising that it’s actually pro-Israel?
Defenders of the BBC are of course entitled to argue that it’s incredibly difficult, if not outright impossible, to achieve perfect balance in coverage of this conflict. They’re also entitled to argue that, while the BBC makes the occasional mistake, it’s trying as hard as it can to be fair to both sides. Fine. What I can’t understand, though, is how anyone in his or her right mind could think the BBC is demonstrating rabid “pro-Israel bias”. Yet that, apparently, is the sincere view of the enraged pro-Palestinian activists who vandalised Broadcasting House.
I wonder what the BBC would have to do to satisfy these lunatics. Perhaps they’d like Sophie Raworth to present News at Six in a keffiyeh. Or Clive Myrie to sign off his bulletins by saying, “death to the wicked Zionist dogs, inshallah. And now here’s Tomasz with the weather.”
Lately, I must confess, one or two of my columns have been just a touch critical of the BBC’s news coverage. Today, however, I feel compelled to defend it. Well, sort of. Because on Monday, pro-Palestinian activists sprayed blood-red paint all over Broadcasting House – in retaliation for what they called the BBC’s “pro-Israel bias”.
Yes, you read that correctly. That’s what they said. Which, in my view, prompts the following question.
What sort of idiot thinks the BBC is biased towards Israel?
For the life of me, I simply cannot figure out how these crazed paint-sprayers reached such a bizarre conclusion. Are they perhaps watching a different BBC from the rest of us? Is there, unknown to me, a channel named BBC Zionist, which fervently applauds Benjamin Netanyahu’s every move?
All I can say is: that’s not something I’ve ever witnessed on the BBC. Far from it. The BBC I’m familiar with is the one which has persistently refused to refer to Hamas as a terrorist group – even though this is precisely how Hamas is classified under UK law.
The BBC I know, furthermore, has had to apologise for mistakenly referring to Palestinian prisoners as “hostages”, and to Israeli hostages as “prisoners”. Meanwhile, its own former director of television, Danny Cohen, has said that the BBC is “at risk of becoming a Hamas propaganda mouthpiece”. He has also published a report which accuses the BBC’s coverage of making “false and damaging claims about Israel’s conduct of this war”, and claims that “appalling lapses in accuracy have served to fuel the flames of anti-Semitism that have spread across the world”.
And there’s more. Six weeks after Oct 7, 2023, the BBC’s best-paid presenter, Gary Lineker, urged his 8.9 million followers on X to watch a video in which an academic accused Israel of committing “textbook genocide”. Oh, and just this week, the BBC was accused of using the son of a Hamas official to narrate a documentary about the plight of “ordinary Palestinians”.
Do these paint-spraying activists consider the above to be evidence of the BBC’s “pro-Israel bias”? Or do they think that, from time to time, the BBC deliberately makes itself sound as if it’s anti-Israel, as a cunning ploy to prevent the public from realising that it’s actually pro-Israel?
Defenders of the BBC are of course entitled to argue that it’s incredibly difficult, if not outright impossible, to achieve perfect balance in coverage of this conflict. They’re also entitled to argue that, while the BBC makes the occasional mistake, it’s trying as hard as it can to be fair to both sides. Fine. What I can’t understand, though, is how anyone in his or her right mind could think the BBC is demonstrating rabid “pro-Israel bias”. Yet that, apparently, is the sincere view of the enraged pro-Palestinian activists who vandalised Broadcasting House.
I wonder what the BBC would have to do to satisfy these lunatics. Perhaps they’d like Sophie Raworth to present News at Six in a keffiyeh. Or Clive Myrie to sign off his bulletins by saying, “death to the wicked Zionist dogs, inshallah. And now here’s Tomasz with the weather.”