How your licence fee paid for ‘Gaza’s Got Talent’ star Abdullah

The demo was about the perceived anti-Israel, hard-left, antisemitic bias of my soon-to-be erstwhile employer. There were a few hundred people assembled, extolled by the intense activists Gideon Falter and the brilliant comedian/GB News presenter Josh Howie to shout out:

“Shame on you, BBC. We won’t pay our licence fee.”

There was a speech by a young woman survivor from October 7, Natalie Sanandaji. She brought the cause of the war so close we could hear each other breathe.

I don’t think the demo made a single newspaper.

I mounted the stage and spoke passionately about BBC impartiality. The issue was the Gaza documentary, How to Survive a War Zone, which the BBC was forced to withdraw due to huge journalistic flaws.

The film had been fronted by a poised, 13-year-old Arabic boy, Abdullah, whom independent fact-checker David Collier discovered had form.

Channel 4 had previously interviewed Abdullah, several times. He was oddly professional. His English was Eton perfect. He said phrases such as: “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have your world destroyed?” and “I didn’t choose my fate, the Israelis did.”

He’d also been seen on Channel 4, with his father, who turned out to be his uncle. There was a strong whiff of cat-fishing in the air.

In contrast, the excellent BBC documentary, We Will Dance Again, made by Fulwell Entertainment, about the Nova festival, had shown the actual horrors of the slaughter and abductions on October 7 with disturbing videos shot by the marauders themselves.

Unlike the Gaza film, We Will Dance Again was meticulously fact-checked by the BBC.

The Gaza film, made by independent Hoyo Films, was scripted and rather well acted. When the boy’s sister got married in a bombed out street, Abdullah asked plaintively: “Why are they getting married when everything around is ruined?” Why indeed? As Trump said of his Zelensky ambush: “It’ll make great television.”

Every mention of jihad in the interviews was changed to resistance to the Israeli army. Every time they called out Jews it was changed to Israelis. If you read the damning Trevor Asserson report, it could have been made as Hamas propaganda via BBC Arabic service.

This was paid for, dear reader, by your licence money, to the tune of £400,000 to the makers and an extra thousand to the mother/sister of “Gaza’s Got Talent” star Abdullah.

So far the documentary remains removed from iPlayer – while they do one or even three internal investigations. To the fury of the 500 outraged people, some employees, who signed the letter demanding the BBC reinstates it.

Meanwhile, the BBC is ignoring the independent Asserson report, allegedly because some of the data findings were done with AI. Show me a data findings report in 2025 that isn’t aided by AI.

You will realise this has gone on for years. Look, the BBC has always dressed to the left. I used to like that during the poll tax marches. I had my own Tories Out general strike placard. But that was before the far right leaned so far into the far left that their only agreement is hating Zionism. The Beeb’s fancy new promo, somewhat defensively, says: “The fight for truth is on”… but who’s truth?

Do you want Jeremy Bowen’s opinions on the war? Me neither, but I am forced to hear them nightly. Bowen, before fact-checking, blamed Israel for a rocket fired by Hamas on their own hospital. To this day he has never apologised. He never fails to mention, though, that Israel refuses media access to Gaza, but – in breach of yet another guideline – fails to mention that Hamas keeps brutal control of reporting from Gaza and inflates casualty figures.

Do you want Gary Lineker’s social media opinions to be aired as he continues to be one of their highest-paid presenters? Me neither. But for three years he has expounded his anti-Israel bias to his millions of followers. Why, instead of enforcing their guidelines, does the Beeb curve the ball to suit Lineker?

Do you want to watch a travel documentary fronted by Miriam Margolyes, Lady Maw-Maw, who posted on Facebook: “It seems to me that Hitler has won. The Jews used to be known for compassion and caring... now they are vicious, genocidal, nationalist people.”

Do you want to listen to presenter Anita Rani who signs the letter imploring the BBC to put back the flawed documentary? Because to do otherwise is racist to Palestinians. “Children,” said the letter, “must not be held responsible for the actions of adults, and weaponising family associations to discredit a child’s testimony is...unethical.”

Let’s get that straight: if you don’t allow a possibly radicalised child presenter, whose father/uncle is in the terrorist government that started the war, to present “his” view of that war, then you are weaponising that child. And by investigating the documentary’s flaws, you are creating a racist trope. Jonathan Swift could not do this justice.

And so I rasped out my views for Times Radio – and, as far as I know, one person, Gideon Falter’s mother – heard it. She said I sounded like I had a frog in my throat but I got all the points across.

A frog? I sounded like the love child of Harvey Fierstein and Carol Channing – with chronic pharyngitis. Independent, not internal review required, BBC, please. Now ! Oh… and “gizza job”.