In a blistering internal report that reads like an indictment of the BBC’s own integrity, whistleblower documents reveal that BBC Arabic deliberately downplayed Israeli suffering in the Gaza war while racing to air unverified, Hamas-sourced claims designed to cast the Jewish state as the villain. The memo, written by Michael Prescott, a former adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines Committee, accuses the Arabic service of systemic bias, misinformation, and a shocking tolerance of antisemitic voices.
According to the report, BBC Arabic repeatedly parroted Hamas talking points while omitting or minimizing Israel’s perspective — even when evidence contradicted militant propaganda. Allegations against Israel were rushed to broadcast “without adequate checks,” suggesting not mere carelessness but, as Prescott wrote, “a desire always to believe the worst about Israel.”
The BBC’s English-language coverage told one story; its Arabic wing, quite another. In July 2024, after Hezbollah rockets killed nine children in the Israeli town of Majdal Shams, the BBC’s English site mentioned the victims and Israel’s retaliation. BBC Arabic? It omitted the children’s deaths entirely, highlighted Hezbollah’s denials, and the next day suggested Israel might have faked the attack.
Prescott’s letter accuses BBC Arabic of providing a platform to extremists who openly glorify violence against Jews. One contributor, Samer Elzaenen — who once posted “We shall burn you as Hitler did” — appeared on the network 244 times. Another, Ahmed Alagha, who called Jews “devils” and “not human beings,” appeared more than 500 times. Yet BBC executives defended these individuals as “eyewitnesses,” not staff reporters. Prescott wasn’t buying it: “Most viewers would consider hundreds of appearances… to amount to being part of the BBC’s reporting team.”
The report also blasted the BBC for amplifying Hamas propaganda about Gaza’s death toll, long after the United Nations revised down its own inflated statistics. BBC Arabic continued to treat Hamas-run agencies as credible sources, even after internal reviewers warned that claims of Israeli “mass graves” and “genocide” lacked any independent verification.
In one instance, BBC coverage suggested Israeli forces buried thousands of Palestinians in hospital courtyards — a narrative later disproven, as the graves were dug by Palestinians themselves. Another blunder involved a claim that 14,000 babies were “hours from starvation,” when the real number referred to children at risk over a year. The BBC quietly corrected the article online — but repeated the falsehood the same night on “Newsnight.”
Perhaps most damning, the BBC misreported that the International Court of Justice had ruled Israel’s war a “plausible genocide.” That was false — and took months to correct. Former BBC television director Danny Cohen condemned the leadership’s response: “Having made such serious and misleading errors, BBC executives chose to hide them from the public rather than correct the record.”
When internal reviewers flagged these issues, senior managers brushed them aside. Jonathan Munro, the BBC’s news content chief, praised BBC Arabic’s “exceptional journalism” and even bragged it was “almost as trusted as Al Jazeera.” Prescott shot back: “Is Al Jazeera the new gold standard? The BBC exists to reflect British values — not echo Qatar’s propaganda outlet.”
The scandal follows another major credibility crisis for the corporation — a Panorama documentary that doctored a Donald Trump speech to make it appear he incited the Capitol riot. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy and media regulator Ofcom now face growing calls to launch a full investigation into the BBC’s bias and editorial collapse.
As the memo concludes, “The BBC is prone to claiming it gets equal complaints from both sides. But looking at the evidence, it’s hard to argue the BBC is biased toward Israel. Quite the opposite.”
At a time when Britain’s taxpayer-funded broadcaster is supposed to counter global disinformation, it is helping Hamas craft its narrative and eroding trust in one of the nation’s most sacred institutions.
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