Last month, the BBC sent an email to the UK-based campaigning organization Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), which was almost comical in its arrogance. It was a response to a complaint made by PSC in October that BBC online reports were referring to the Gaza ceasefire as holding, despite the fact that by the end of October, Israel had breached the ceasefire numerous times since it was signed on 26 August. In fact, Israel has fired on Palestinians in Gaza almost on a daily basis. In its initial complaint, PSC referred to the website of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), which documents incidents of ceasefire breaches. These breaches had been collated in an article published by Middle East Monitor (MEMO), which reported that there was more than one Israeli attack on Gaza every day in September. The MEMO article was also included in PSC’s submission. At the beginning of November, the BBC emailed to say: “You direct us to a non-BBC online report as evidence that the ce...

The BBC has published a map on its website, which indicates that Jerusalem is not occupied by Israel. This graphic (see above) was used to illustrate at least two stories on the BBC website in recent months. It can be viewed online two thirds of the way down a story titled “Israel: Hamas ‘will pay price’ after teenagers found dead.” The map shows the city of Jerusalem as being wholly inside Israel. In reality, Jerusalem is under Israeli military occupation. The false map was also used at the bottom of a story from 23 September titled “Israel kills Palestinians suspected of teenagers’ murders.” However, following a complaint from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), made on 8 October, the map was altered, and Jerusalem is now depicted as nudging the Green Line — which separates present-day Israel from the territories it captured in 1967. Although those territories include East Jerusalem, the entire city is depicted as being within Israel even in the revised map. The BBC’s ...

The BBC and Sky News are to broadcast an appeal to help people affected by the Gaza conflict, after having refused to air a similar film four years ago. In 2009, the BBC and Sky News declined to broadcast the Disasters Emergency Committee’s appeal to tackle the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, claiming it would compromise their impartiality in reporting the conflict. But both networks as well as ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, which broadcast the 2009 appeal, have accepted the latest film meets the DEC’s “appeal criteria”, the charity body said. The DEC organised the appeal, which will air on Friday, to help the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled their homes in Gaza. Brendan Paddy, head of communications at the DEC, said: “We’ve made the case to all broadcasters that our appeal criteria had been met and all have agreed and have said they will carry the appeal.” The BBC’s refusal, along with other broadcasters, to air a DEC appeal for Gaza on 22 January 2009 sparked protests ...

Pro-Israeli broadcasters are finding it ever harder to defend Israel in the face of the large-scale massacres and destruction in Gaza, but the BBC is determined to do its best, sacrificing all claims to impartiality and journalistic integrity in the process. In addition to flooding its radio and television programs with Israeli spokespeople, while keeping Palestinian voices to a minimum, the BBC, as it did during Israel’s 2012 assault on Gaza, has taken to presenting pro-Israel commentators as independent. BBC audiences are, therefore, given strong doses of pro-Israeli propaganda — being told that Hamas is using civilians as human shields, that Israel has shown nothing but restraint in the face of constant rocket attacks, that it is defending its citizens and so on — while under the impression that they are hearing neutral, independent comment. These key Israeli messages are, of course, more likely to be believed by viewers and listeners if they think they are impartial observation...

Approximately 5,000 protesters brought the roads around the BBC’s London headquarters to a standstill on 15 July, forcing the news organization to confront its one-sided coverage of Israel’s current assault on Gaza. As the protesters shouted “BBC, shame on you,” Hugh Lanning, Chair of Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), handed in a letter to the BBC’s Director General, Tony Hall. The letter calls on the BBC to reflect the reality of Gaza’s occupation and siege in its reporting. The open letter had been signed by 45,000 people in under a week. Signatories include scholar Noam Chomsky, filmmaker John Pilger, film director Ken Loach, musician Brian Eno, journalist Owen Jones and comedian and filmmaker Jeremy Hardy. Protesters held up placards bearing statements from the letter, including: “We would like to remind the BBC that Gaza has no army, air force or navy” and “The BBC’s reporting of Israel’s assaults on Gaza is entirely devoid of context or background.” Speakers from organizati...

The BBC has admitted it breached its own editorial guidelines in presenting a pro-Israeli commentator as an independent analyst during Israel’s assault on Gaza in November 2012. Over the course of just two days, the strongly Zionist Jonathan Sacerdoti made four separate appearances on the BBC’s rolling news channel, BBC News 24, to give his assessment of the events leading up to Israel’s assault. On each occasion, he was presented as a neutral expert on Palestine and Israel, the director of an independent think-tank, The Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy. However, Sacerdoti is far from neutral on the subject of Israel. He previously worked as director of public affairs at the Zionist Federation and, in 2012, he was elected to the International Division of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. The International Division’s primary work is to promote Israel. In August 2011, the BBC’s “independent expert” spoke at a pro-Israel rally in Trafalgar Square organized by the British...

The BBC has admitted that a report it broadcast in January implying that only part of the West Bank is under occupation was inaccurate. The claim that there is a difference between “West Bank towns and villages and areas occupied by Israel” was made on the BBC’s heavyweight current affairs program, Newsnight. Introducing an item about the Negev (Naqab) desert, presenter Gavin Esler, said: “Israeli soldiers shot dead a 17-year-old Palestinian youth today near the barrier which separates West Bank towns and villages from areas occupied by Israel.” The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) wrote to the BBC to point out that the whole of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is under Israeli occupation and that a false distinction cannot be made between “West Bank towns and villages” and “areas occupied by Israel.” more

On Tuesday 26th March, the BBC has admitted that a reference it made to Israeli soldiers dying on the same day US activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza was not 'duly accurate'. No Israeli soldiers were killed on that day, Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) said in a press release. The claim was made by veteran BBC presenter, Martha Kearney, on BBC Radio 4's World at One programme, on the day an Israeli court ruled that Israel was not to blame for Corrie's death. PSC has been lobbying the BBC for seven months, since the broadcast in August 2012, to extract an admission that Kearney's false claim constituted a breach of the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on Accuracy. more

In a report last month on Israel’s racist “Judaization” policies in the Negev, BBC reporter Tim Whewell wrote that “Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel are guaranteed full equality by law”. Responding to my complaint, the BBC’s Middle East desk has acknowledged that this is not the case, and “agree the wording of the sentence in question is inaccurate.” The article has now been changed to say that “Israel says its Arab and Jewish citizens have equal rights under the law”, a claim followed up by testimony from a Negev Coexistence Forum activist that “in practice land policy in the Negev gives Bedouin fewer opportunities than Jews.” In my complaint, I pointed out that there is in fact no such guarantee [of full equality for Jewish and Palestinian citizens] by law, and I shared the following: - Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI): “the right to equality is not yet enshrined in law regarding most aspects of life” - Submission to UN Human Rights Committee by legal rights...

One of the most obvious examples of bias by the BBC is the taxpayer-funded broadcaster’s habit of inviting Israeli politicians or the Israeli government spokesperson, Mark Regev, onto its programs to speak without challenge. Meanwhile, Palestinians and those who would convey a Palestinian perspective are not given the same opportunity. Film director Ken Loach recently learned that for the BBC, Palestine remains a taboo. On 23 July, Loach was at the Royal Albert Hall in London to listen to a performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, performed by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. The orchestra consists of Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab musicians, and is conducted by Daniel Barenboim, who formed the orchestra in 1999 with the late Palestinian academic and activist Edward Said. So when Loach was asked during the intermission for an interview by BBC Proms, which was recording the concert for later broadcast, he considered it reasonable to air his thoughts on the nature of the orchestr...

From The Electronic Intifada Israel, already one of the world’s most negatively viewed countries, according to an annual BBC survey, has seen its reputation sink even lower in 2012. The result will come as a blow to Israeli officials and organizations who have been attempting to improve the country’s image through intensive hasbara – propaganda – campaigns. The 2012 Country Ratings Poll , conducted by GlobeScan/PIPA for the BBC among 24,090 people around the world, and published on 10 May, “asks respondents to rate whether the influence of each of 16 countries and the EU is ‘mostly positive’ or ‘mostly negative.’” The press release accompanying the full report notes briefly that “The most negatively rated countries were, as in previous years, Iran (55% negative), Pakistan (51% negative), and Israel and North Korea (both 50% negative).” ... ...Israel’s behavior shapes views Can all this be put down to “anti-Semitism” as Israel’s propagandists like to insist? Not according to the BBC sur...

By Amena Saleem The Electronic Intifada Watching, reading or listening to a BBC report on Israel’s occupation of Palestine is like stepping through the Zionist looking-glass and witnessing not the reality of the situation, but Israel’s totally distorted version of it. In this inverted world, presented to us by a broadcaster with a huge global reach, we were recently told that the besieged people of Gaza have become accustomed to the relentless violence and deprivation of Israel’s occupation and siege, while the residents of southern Israel continue to feel anxiety and dread when crude rockets are fired into their neighborhood. These extraordinary claims are made in two juxtaposed articles published on one page recently on BBC Online ( “Gaza-Israel clashes: The view from each side,” 13 March 2012 ). They perfectly encapsulate the BBC’s general attitude towards reporting on the occupation — reporting which, with sad regularity, lacks truth, honesty and integrity. Published just after Is...

From the Palestine Solidarity Campaign The BBC has admitted it was ‘overcautious’ in editing the word ‘Palestine’ from an artist’s performance on Radio 1Xtra and has said it is ‘looking to learn’ from the way it handled the situation. However, in a ruling released today (31/01/12), the BBC Trust said the final content that was broadcast on the Charlie Sloth Hip Hop M1X – a music programme – was not biased and therefore did not breach its editorial guidelines. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has spent eight months trying to find out why the decision was made to censor the lyrics of a freestyle performance by the rapper, Mic Righteous. Appearing on the Charlie Sloth show in February 2011 he sang : ‘I can scream Free Palestine for my beliefs’ (the edit comes about 3 minutes in). BBC producers replaced the word ‘Palestine’ with the sound of breaking glass, and the censored performance was repeated in April on the same show. Amena Saleem, of PSC, said: ‘In its correspondence with us...

Asa Winstanley - The Electronic Intifada 25 June 2011 Glasgow University Media Group’s ambitious new study of British TV’s coverage of Israel and the Palestinians, More Bad News from Israel, is the second edition of 2004’s Bad News From Israel. Led by academics Greg Philo and Mike Berry, this work is precise, fair-minded and detailed. It constitutes irrefutable evidence of endemic pro-Israel bias. Those of us regularly subjected to BBC and ITV news won’t exactly find this conclusion surprising but the importance of detailed documentary evidence like this book provides cannot be overstated. The team had originally analyzed approximately 200 bulletins and questioned more than 800 persons. This new edition examines coverage from the past few years (369). Samples of coverage were taken from the main news bulletins on BBC and ITV (the most popular TV news programs in the UK). The authors identify key themes, such as coverage of casualties on “either side,” justifications for violence and “p...

pictured above - protest outside the BBC MEDIA ALERT: WHEN FACTS AND PROPAGANDA COLLIDE - THE BBC BENDS OVER BACKWARDS TO ACCOMMODATE ISRAELI CLAIMS When a Thai kibbutz worker was killed in Israel by a rocket launched from Gaza last week, BBC News online gave the incident headline coverage flagged up on its home page. (BBC news online, ‘Rocket fire from Gaza kills man in southern Israel’, 23:42 GMT, Thursday, 18 March 2010 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8574138.stm ) By contrast, the killing of two Palestinian teenagers, Mohammad Qadus and Osaid Qadus, by Israeli soldiers on Saturday was buried at the end of a short news report on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's Middle East visit. Even worse, the BBC’s footnote simply echoed Israeli propaganda that “no live bullets were fired, only tear gas and rubber bullets”, despite ample evidence to the contrary. (BBC news online, ‘UN chief says Gaza suffering under Israeli blockade’, 11:26 GMT, Sunday, 21 March 2010, http://ne...

Despite the attacks of the pro-Israel lobby on the BBC it is in fact a wholeheartedly pro-Israel organisation and this is shown graphically through its use of Israeli sources in preference to Palestinian ones, a new research report shows. The refusal of the BBC to broadcast the recent Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for Gaza was but one episode among many. Senior Middle East reporter Jeremy Bowen was recently castigated by his bosses for sounding pro-Palestinian. What they mean is he reports the truth and tries to convey something of the suffering of the people in Gaza. More at the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/26/bbc-anti-israel-bias

Defend BBC’s Jeremy Bowen from Zionist lobby By Media Workers Against the War BBC senior management is on the offensive over Gaza. Stung by the widespread criticism of its refusal to broadcast the DEC Gaza aid appeal in January, it has singled out its key Middle East editor and is trying to bully him into silence. The BBC Trust’s preposterous attack on Jeremy Bowen last week is a crude attempt to push back the wave of protest inside the BBC over the DEC appeal decision. If Bowen is slapped down, they calculate that no other BBC journalist will dare to speak out. The Trust’s report itself has been massively spun by the right-wing press - in no way is it a demolition of Bowen’s journalism, let alone proof that he is in any way biased against Israel . We call on all our supporters to urgently: Scan the report summary ( pages 4-15 ) Read Robert Fisk’s superb comment on the report: 'How can you trust the cowardly BBC' Note the research showing BBC bias IN FAVOUR of Isra...

BBC national TV news is refusing to show the video of Ian Tomlinson being attacked by the police on the basis that it is 'only London news'. Initially the BBC, like the rest of the broadcast and print media, dismissed the killing as a disconnected incident of a bystander collapsing inexplicably from a heart attack. WTF - who are the right-wing idiots running the BBC? How much shame do they want to bring down on the head of this once world-respected news organsiation? Why is the BBC so scared of the truth - be it in Gaza or on our own doorstep? Ring 03700100222 to complain. See BBC's disgraceful performance over Ian Tomlinson killing at Leninology

Gaza Solidarity's G20 fun kicks off at the BBC Global Questions event tonight. Here are the details of when the broadcast goes out: Sunday 29th March Global Questions In front of an invited global audience, BBC World News is hosting 'Global Questions' at the London Stock Exchange to discuss the G20 summit of global leaders. A panel of high-profile international figures from the world of finance, industry, politics and civil society will answer questions from the audience on what steps they want the G20 to take, if the joint threats of global banking collapse, rapid deflation, poverty and climate change are to be overcome... Sunday at 0710, 1510 and 1910 GMT We 'Ordinary Joes' get to ask some questions of the erstwhile masters of the universe. Panel members will include: "a Minister from the UK Treasury; a Representative from the US Government; Christophe de Margerie, Head of Total Oil; Victor Chu, Hong Kong Businessman and Investment Banker; Alexander Lebedev...

From the BBC - If you live in the UK you can watch the report online on BBC iPlayer Few people know that thousands of Commonwealth war graves lie in the battlegrounds of the Gaza strip. BBC reporter Mark Urban's great uncle is buried there and he has made a personal pilgramage. During the recent campaign, the main Gaza War Cemetery suffered extensive damage as Israeli troops and Hamas militants fought nearby. Now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is seeking compensation from Israel , the BBC has learned. The organisation estimates the cost of repairing or replacing the 363 headstones damaged by recent Israeli shelling at £95,000.