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The BBC Is Severely Biased Against Israel: Here Are 10 of the Most Egregious Examples

Protesters outside the BBC headquarters in London on March 6, 2025. Photo: Nathan Lilienfeld/Campaign Against Antisemitism

Yet again the BBC has come under increased scrutiny in the fallout over alternative hip-hop duo Bob Vylan‘s incendiary performance at the Glastonbury Festival. Despite chants of “Free, free Palestine” and “Death, death to the IDF,” the UK’s national broadcaster continued airing the live feed and kept the recording on its VOD service for several hours.

That Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, was physically present at Glastonbury on the day has only added to the pressure he is facing. But this controversy is only the latest in a string of embarrassing Israel-related scandals to plague the BBC since Davie’s 2020 appointment.

As the UK culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, recently stated in the House of Commons, “When you have one editorial failure, it’s something that must be gripped. When you have several, it becomes a problem of leadership.”

As many question whether Tim Davie’s head should roll, here’s a reminder (in no particular order) of some of the most egregious examples of Israel-related controversies that have marred the BBC’s image during his tenure:

1. The BBC Refuses to Refer to Hamas as “Terrorists”

Since 2021, the UK has designated the entirety of Hamas as a terrorist organization, widening its 2001 terror designation of the Palestinian group’s “military wing.”

Despite this official designation by the UK, its taxpayer-funded broadcaster refuses to refer to Hamas and its members as “terrorists,” preferring the more neutral and legitimizing term, “militant.”

In an attempt to justify this policy, the BBC’s World Affairs editor John Simpson explained that it doesn’t refer to Hamas as “terrorists” in order to maintain an objective tone and does not tell people “who to support and who to condemn.”

However, as HonestReporting discovered, the BBC has no qualms about using that term when referring to Al-Qaeda, ISIS, or other international terror organizations.

It seems that for the BBC under Tim Davie’s leadership, you’re a “terrorist” if you attack American or British targets but only a “militant” if you target Israelis.

 

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2. Gaza Documentary Pulled for “Serious Flaws”

In February 2025, the BBC was forced to apologize for “serious flaws” in a documentary that it had commissioned on the lives of Gazan children during the Israel-Hamas war.

Titled “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone,” the documentary was pulled from the British broadcaster’s streaming platform after investigative journalist David Collier revealed that the film’s teen narrator was the son of a Hamas minister and that his mother had been paid by the production company.

It was also discovered that there were several instances of mistranslation in a bid to sanitize the interviewee’s language. This included translating the Arabic word for “Jews” as “Israelis” or “Israeli forces” and translating “Jihad” as “battle” or “resistance.”

3. Parroting Hamas on Al-Ahli Hospital Blast

On October 17, 2023, the BBC fell for Hamas propaganda when it uncritically parroted the terror group’s claim that an Israeli airstrike had killed 500 people at Al-Ahli Hospital.

Hours later, it was determined by Israeli and American intelligence that it was a parking lot that had been hit and not the hospital building itself, that far fewer than 500 people had been killed, and that the blast was caused by an errant Islamic Jihad rocket and not an Israeli strike.

While the BBC was not the only mainstream media organization to willingly spread Hamas’ falsehoods without a second thought, the broadcaster’s correspondent Jon Donnison was so certain in the veracity of Hamas’ propaganda, that he took it even one step further, authoritatively declaring for his international audience that it was “hard to see what else this could be really given the size of the explosion other than an Israel airstrike or several airstrikes because when we’ve seen rockets fired out of Gaza, we never see explosions of that scale.”

4. Al-Shifa Hospital: Vilifying Israel, Whitewashing Hamas

Another Gaza hospital and more BBC misreporting.

For years, it was known that Hamas was using the area of Al-Shifa Hospital as a command and control center and was breaking international law by embedding its terrorist forces within the civilian hospital complex.

However, when the IDF finally pushed to rout Hamas from the hospital grounds in November 2023, the BBC chose to misrepresent Israel’s actions and to whitewash Hamas’ criminal activities.

First, when initial reports were emerging that the IDF was operating in Al-Shifa, the BBC anchor read out the libelous claim that the military had announced that it was targeting medical professionals and Arabic speakers. In fact, the IDF had announced that it was bringing medical teams and Arabic speakers into the hospital in order to provide aid to the patients there.

The BBC later apologized for “this error, which fell below our usual editorial standards.”

5. The BBC Spreads 14,000 Babies Libel

In a May 2025 interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today program, UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher made the baseless claim that 14,000 Gazan babies would die within the next 48 hours if a flood of aid was not allowed into the blockaded enclave.

To the BBC’s credit, Fletcher’s statement was challenged during his interview, and the broadcaster conducted further investigation, proving that this claim was unfounded and was based on a gross misrepresentation of data about possible malnutrition in the coming year.

However, despite the appearance of journalistic due diligence, HonestReporting uncovered that the BBC was continuing to repeat Fletcher’s statement in various reports without any proper context or clarification.

When it comes to Israel, it seems that Tim Davie’s BBC prefers clickbait misinformation over proper journalism.

6. BBC News Presenter: “The Israeli Forces Are Happy to Kill Children”

Even before the current Israel-Hamas war, the BBC had no qualms about spreading misinformation and libels about Israel and the IDF.

In a July 2023 interview with former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett about an Israeli counter-terror operation in the Palestinian city of Jenin, BBC News presenter Anjana Gadgil questioned if the IDF had set out to kill children since four of those killed in the operation were under the age of 18 (while simultaneously ignoring that they were claimed as members by Palestinian terrorist organizations).

After Bennett ably handled her malicious question, Gadgil doubled down and accused the IDF of being “happy to kill children.”

Rather than asking serious journalistic questions, Gadgil seemed content to use her interview with Bennett as a means of amplifying her own anti-Israel libels.

7. The BBC Misrepresents Hebrew Cry For Help as Anti-Muslim Slur

In November 2022, the UK media regulator Ofcom castigated the BBC for its continued misrepresentation of a Hebrew cry for help as an anti-Muslim slur.

In December 2021, a bus full of Jewish youths celebrating Hanukkah was surrounded by a group of men performing Nazi salutes and spitting at them.

After footage from inside the bus was leaked, the BBC claimed that the phrase “dirty Muslims” could be heard from within the bus. However, it was determined that it was rather a Hebrew speaker saying to “call someone, it’s urgent.”

Even when the BBC’s report was called into dispute, the broadcaster refused to apologize and continued to hold that an anti-Muslim slur could be heard from inside the bus.

In its report, Ofcom observed that the BBC failed to “observe its editorial guidelines” and “made a serious editorial misjudgment.”

8. BBC Panel: Are Jews an Ethnic Minority?

In March 2021, the BBC came under fire for hosting a panel discussion of mainly non-Jews on whether the Jewish people were an ethnic minority.

The panel was a response to a mistaken tweet by the deputy leader of the Scottish Labour Party that her party’s new leader was the “first ethnic minority leader of a political party…anywhere in the UK.” This claim appeared to discount Ed Miliband and Michael Howard, both Jewish former heads of the Labour and Conservative parties, respectively.

Instead of simply reporting on the erroneous tweet, the BBC chose to turn it into a panel discussion on the Jewish people’s status as an ethnic minority and whether they could be considered as such due to their successful integration within the UK.

As HonestReporting noted at the time:

To their credit, none of the panelists belittled the issue or dodged the issue, uniformly criticizing Rayner for her ill-advised tweet. That the panelists could do so, but the BBC couldn’t grasp how to properly frame the conversation, made for a striking juxtaposition.

9. The BBC’s Coddling of Gary Lineker’s Anti-Israel Activity

Another embarrassment that has marred the BBC under Tim Davie’s leadership has been the broadcaster’s coddling of Gary Lineker’s anti-Israel social media activity.

Lineker, the BBC’s highest-paid star, had a long history of posting incendiary items on social media, receiving a light punishment for it, and continuing to enjoy the state-funded spotlight despite his crude antics.

In one notable example from January 2024, Lineker reposted a call by the pro-boycott Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) for Israel to be suspended from the global soccer federation (FIFA). Aside from the call to boycott Israel, the post also referred to the IDF’s fight against Hamas in Gaza as a “genocide.”

Ultimately, Lineker deleted the post following a public outcry and, despite the heinousness of the post, the BBC chose to ignore the episode and claim that it didn’t violate its social media guidelines.

In the end, Lineker left the BBC in May 2025, after reposting a condemnation of Zionism that featured an antisemitic motif.

Turns out that the BBC could only turn its back to Lineker’s social media antics for so long.

10. BBC Chair Met With Palestinian Envoy to Discuss Coverage

Under Tim Davie’s leadership, the Israel-related controversies haven’t only remained at the level of journalists and presenters but have even risen to senior management.

One example of the rot at the top is a 2022 meeting between BBC chairman Richard Sharp and Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian Authority envoy to the UK,  to “discuss the BBC’s reporting of developments in Palestine.” The meeting was commemorated with a photograph of the two men in front of a map of “Palestine” that encompasses the entire State of Israel.

Aside from this questionable photo, the fact that Sharp chose to confer with a man who whitewashes Palestinian terrorism, defends the PA’s pro-terror policies, and has been accused of denying the Holocaust shows a terrible lack of judgment at best and an explicit anti-Israel bias at worst.

Despite its claim to impartiality and accountability, the BBC’s coverage of Israel, the Middle East, and Jewish life has been plagued by an immense bias against the Jewish state, an uncritical reliance on Palestinian narratives, and a lack of sensitivity to the experiences of the British Jewish community.

Under Tim Davie’s leadership, this flagrant bias has become an embarrassment for the British national broadcaster, miring it in unnecessary scandals and controversies.

Will the latest scandal at Glastonbury be the final straw that ends Davie’s career at the BBC and leads to a rehabilitation of the media behemoth’s journalistic integrity?

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post The BBC Is Severely Biased Against Israel: Here Are 10 of the Most Egregious Examples first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Report: IDF Probes Whether Houthis Used Iranian Cluster Bomb-Bearing Missile

Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi addresses followers via a video link at the al-Shaab Mosque, formerly al-Saleh Mosque, in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

i24 NewsThe Israeli military said Saturday it launched a probe into the failure of its defenses to fully intercept a missile launched by Yemen’s Houthi jihadists, parts of which struck not far from the Ben Gurion airport on Friday night.

According to the Ynet website, one of the hypotheses being examined is that the projectile contained cluster munitions, similar to those used by Iran to fire at Israeli cities during the 12-day war in June. Cluster munitions pose a challenge to interceptors as they disperse smaller explosives over a wide area.

In June, Iran fired several missiles carrying scattered small bombs with the aim of increasing civilian casualties.

The IDF said on Saturday that its initial review suggests the ballistic missile from Yemen likely fragmented in mid-air. Five interceptors from various systems engaged with the missile, including THAAD, Arrow, David Sling & Iron Dome.

Authorities said that shrapnel impacted a house in the central Israeli moshav of Ginaton, yet no one was hurt, with the fragment landing in the house’s backyard.

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Iran Forces Kill Six Militants, IRNA Reports, Israel Link Seen

The Iranian flag is seen flying over a street in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 3, 2023. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Iranian security forces shot dead six militants in a clash in southeastern Iran on Saturday, a day after armed rebels killed five police officers in the restive region, the official news agency IRNA reported.

IRNA said evidence showed the group was linked to Israel and may have been trained by Israel‘s Mossad spy agency. There was no immediate Israeli reaction to the allegation.

Another two members of the militant group were arrested, the report said. All but one of the militants were foreign, it added, without giving their nationality.

Iranian police said this month they had arrested as many as 21,000 suspects during the 12-day war with Israel in June.

Iran’s southeast has been the scene of sporadic clashes between security forces and armed groups, including Sunni militants and separatists who say they are fighting for greater rights and autonomy.

Tehran says some of them have ties to foreign powers and are involved in cross-border smuggling and insurgency.

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Benny Gantz Urges Time-Limited National Unity Government to Further Chances of Hostage Deal

Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz attends his party’s meeting at the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, June 27, 2022. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

i24 NewsBlue and White Party leader Benny Gantz on Saturday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition politicians to form a temporary national unity government to further the chances of bringing home the hostages held in Gaza.

Addressing Netanyahu, Yair Lapid and Avigdor Liberman, Gantz said that the proposed government’s two supreme priorities would be the release of Israeli hostages held by the jihadists of Hamas and instituting universal conscription in Israel by ending the exemption from military service enjoyed by the ultra-Orthodox.

Upon attainment of the goals, the government would dissolve and call an election.

“The government’s term will begin with a hostage deal that brings everyone home,” Gantz said in a video address. “Within weeks, we will formulate an enlistment outline that would see our ultra-Orthodox brethren drafted to the military and ease the burden on those already serving. Finally, we will announce an agreed-upon election date in the spring of 2026 and pass a law to dissolve the Knesset [Israeli parliament] accordingly. This is what’s right for Israel.”

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