Asked on a recent Zoom meeting with members of the community what he thought about the idea that the BBC was helping to worsen antisemitism in this country, Richard Burgess, the corporation’s director of news content was sanguine.
"Obviously it is not the BBC’s intention to make that any worse," he said. "I don't believe we have but, I mean, obviously, that’s unknowable."
But the thing is, it isn"t an unknowable.
The BBC regularly trumpets itself as the nation’s most trusted news brand. And if the nation"s most trusted news brand is intent on demonising Israel, focuses on stories about the bombing of schools in Gaza without explaining they are Hamas holdouts, never queries people when they call the Israel-Gaza war "genocide" and positions stories so that it seems that even when children in Israel are killed, somehow it is the fault of Israel for being there (and they are no longer children but young people) doesn’t it stand to reason that the people who support this "genocidal baby-killing" must be monsters?
And isn't it then practically incumbent on good caring people to despise these Israel-supporting Jews who turn out to be just as bad as everyone said?
I don't know a single Jewish person who isn’t concerned about BBC bias. The people who are most critical of all, are the Jewish people who work at the Beeb. They have concern not only about the output but – for at least some of them – a hostile work environment. Mostly they whisper painfully, "It's an absolute sh*t show". A few are still wondering whether they can stay.
For some Jewish BBC staff, the corporation has an unconscious bias to always see Israeli as the aggressor, and the Palestinians the victims.
We see that in the way they usually fail to examine the wider picture of Iran's aggression (and it's no surprise it has barely touched the war in the North). One recent example, a long primer about Hezbollah and the war in the north, omitted a key fact: that the terrorist organisation is breaking UN Resolution 1701 which compels Hezbollah to remain ten miles away from the border, behind the Litani River. It is the omissions, as well as the wrong emphasis, which adds to this picture of aggressive Israelis.
It is no surprise to me that when BBC staff are trained to examine the idea of unconscious bias in racism workshops, antisemitism is often missing, let alone antizionism.
Writing this gives me no comfort. As an entertainment journalist, I have worked closely with the corporation for 25 years. I love the history of the BBC – from the first pop DJs to the fact that in World War II people all over occupied Europe used to secretly listen to it as an act of defiance. I'm proud to be an occasional contributor to their radio and TV shows. I am writing this not because I hate the BBC but because I love it. Or at least, I love the best parts of it.
I know the allegation of bias at the BBC has long been thrown at it. As with its most recent contentious headline "Ten dead in rocket attack on Israeli-occupied Golan," it is often so subtle it can feel a bit pathetic to bring it up –antisemitism-mania. But the constant drip drip drip partiality feeds into the tsunami of antisemitism we are all experiencing.
While I’ve felt this about the BBC for a while, the veil was truly lifted on an incident that had nothing to do with Israel at all.
It was what became known as the Chanukah bus story. In short, when a group of Chabad youngsters went to light a chanukiah and sing Chanukah songs in Oxford Street in 2021 they were set upon by a group of young men who hurled abuse and spat at them. Most outlets reported this as seen. But for the BBC this wasn’t good enough: it decided that it had heard people on the bus making anti-Arab slurs (something that no one else heard). When I asked one of the reporters behind the story why they had done this they told me they had to explain why the antisemitism had happened. They wanted to show the Jews deserved it.
That attitude has been sprinkled liberally all over their reporting on the latest Israel-Hamas war. Even as early as October 7 the BBC news coverage included an interview with Refaat Alareer, a lecturer at Gaza"s Islamic University who described the attacks by the "Palestinian resistance" as "legitimate and moral" and "exactly like the Warsaw ghetto uprising".
They would never have allowed mouthpieces for 7/7 terror attacks to explain that we deserved it.
The BBC’s foreign service – in particular its Arab service – has, meanwhile, become the inverse of the anti-fascist message which made the corporation loved and respected around the world in World War II. The Arabic service – a service we all pay for ostensibly to spread British values - continues to employ people who appeared to celebrate October 7; it is little wonder that since 2021 it has had to make 130 corrections in its reports on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Of course, the BBC isn't the only broadcaster to get things wrong. There has been a big question mark over Sky’s output and its celebrated veteran reporter Alex Crawford, in particular, has shown undeniable bias, not least with her comment to this newspaper"s editor on X earlier this week that Israel had shown a "lust for revenge as demonstrated over the last nine months". She is breaking Sky"s own social media rules.
But the BBC is the one we all pay for. The BBC is our most trusted news brand. The BBC is where changes must start.
The BBC is well used to criticism on this subject. It has batted off even its former Director of Television Danny Cohen; closing ranks and accusing him of betrayal. That is what the BBC does when it feels attacked. It means it closes its ears to some true scandals – we saw just another this week.
It can feel like we are yelling into a void but none of us can let it stop us from speaking up about this. We are stakeholders too. And for all its wonderful qualities, the BBC is a danger to British Jewry
