Is the BBC anti Israel and/or antisemitic

[Newbutoldfather]

BBC coverage ‘institutionally hostile’ to Israel, say Jewish groups

https://www.thetimes.com/article/a4aa31e2-0084-4bf4-bb33-b93d02917440?shareToken=e38d95867859d345f297becf90753213

As a secular Jew who recognises that the current Israeli government has made many mistakes and is arguably racist, I still do find the BBC’s coverage to be horribly biased against Israel.

It isn’t just the words they use but the tone they use, the juxtaposition of the words and images, errors off omission, and also the time allocated to either side’s perspective.

As an example, when Nasrallah was killed, there was about 5 minutes about how Israel had killed a major leader of the Axis of Resistance, delivered in a stentorian and sad tone, pictures of mourning Lebanese and lots on whether this wouldn’t push the conflict over the edge (with lots of powerful images of the bombing, crying women etc). There was then a very brief cut to the IDF statement with very little comment.

Both Orla Guerin and Jeremy Bowen have been accused of antisemitism many many times over the years, but they are knowledgeable, clever and slippery. And, most importantly, very litigious with licence payer’s money. It is very hard to nail them as, as I mentioned above, a lot of it is about juxtaposition, tone and only telling half the story (see link attached).

But maybe I am wrong? I would love to hear others’ opinions. Remember this is about BBC bias only, not your overall view on Israel or the ‘Axis of Resistance’.

They report what they see.

Orla Guerin was reporting from a hospital in Beirut last night. Child with brain damage from Israeli rocket.

Should they not report what they see?

They say what they see. Isreal should stop bombing the shit out of civilians all over the place then whining when it's talked about, and god forbid, objected to.

Remember this is about BBC bias only, not your overall view on Israel or the ‘Axis of Resistance’.
Good luck with that. I'll give it until the fifth post.

All I know for sure is that pretty well everyone on the left in politics is convinced that the BBC is in the pocket of the Tory party, and everyone on the right is convinced that the BBC is staffed exclusively by woke lefty activists who want the UK to be taken over by a coalition of hostile foreign powers as soon as possible. Simply on that basis I think they're probably doing a pretty good job navigating between the two. I don't know of any other news organisation that is as transparent about how it operates or as able to critique itself.

Everyone with a position on any (geo-)political issue has confirmation biases and will feel uncomfortable when opposing views, or neutral views that include things that they have chosen to ignore, are put in front of them. This goes for all sides in any conflict. It helps keep us all honest. I'm a huge supporter of Ukraine, but I know that there is corruption there too and I'm glad the BBC reports on it sometimes.

This.

@MrsSkylerWhite ,

But they choose what they see.

There have been celebrations all over the Arab World when Nasrallah was killed. I saw none of them on the BBC.

Half of the North of Israel is a bombed out shell, due to missile attacks from Hezbollah.

If you put your correspondents in the right places, you can tell any story you want.

This.
BBC are absolutely biased.

Thank you for the article. It's obviously a very divisive issue but the article says this:

The Centre for Media Monitoring, set up by the Muslim Council of Britain, published its own report in March. It listed examples where it accused the BBC of failing to properly challenge “Israeli claims” about the war; of using more “emotive” terms to describe Israeli compared to Palestinian casualties; and of devoting more coverage to antisemitism than to Islamophobia.

David Jordan, the BBC director of editorial policy, told MPs at the time that complaints were evenly split, noting: “We had just under 4,000 people complaining that our … coverage was biased against Israel and over 4,000 that it was biased in favour.”

So it seems as though both sides are accusing the BBC of bias which can be interpreted as they're somewhere in the middle.

BBC has been criticised for the way they’ve described many of Israel’s actions and being quite anti Palestinian as well.

there is no unbiased newspaper

The other most glaring omission to me is how little time the BBC allocate to discussion of how and why Hamas and Hezbollah choose to operate out of major cities.

There was plenty of time spent showing Israel bombing the building in Beirut to kill Nasrallah but no discussion about what the hell he was doing in a reinforced bunker under a civilian building.

The BBC have also been accused of being 'pro-Israel' and minimising the damage inflicted on the Palestinians. They have been accused of bias by commentators on both sides of this conflict which is probably true to some extent.

BBC can’t win, can it?

My experience of British media is that it tends to be significantly biased against Muslims and creates narratives that skew perceptions of Muslims.

For example, the coverage of the death of Nasrallah has shown footage of sad and angry (mostly) men who are unhappy that he's dead, and talked about how this increases the threat posed to people by predominantly Muslim groups. This reinforces a narrative of Muslims presenting a threat and supporting terror. There was minimal coverage of the far more complex range of experiences that people have actually had - including relief, fear of what comes next, grief for people harmed, even happiness that he and others are gone.

I think, like many Western media sources, there is a tendency to criticise and stereotype the 'other', while emphasising how great Western interventions were/are. For example, talking about how it was US bombs that 'got him', while conveniently skipping over that bit while reporting on the children in critical condition in paediatric intensive care. I don't think the BBC or other sources treat Israel as they would the US or UK, but Israel is not alone in that - people with loved ones dying in Palestine and now Lebanon barely get their loved ones' deaths mentioned as statistics.

They could. They could choose to give equal weight to reporting, show the human costs with compassion and consideration, use equally respectful language. They choose not to.

I would say you read it as bias leaning because of your connection to Israel through your religion. Same as I think if a Muslim wrote your post I think overwhelmingly they would be saying the bbc are being bias against Muslims. I think when you have more of a connection your judgement can be clouded, so you read into more detail or question the intention as it seems an attack against your religion etc. As someone neutral I don’t think they are being biased at all and are actually leaning more pro Israel but that’s my opinion

@autumn1610 ,

Yes, no one can discount their own bias, but I am not religious and nor do I have a major connection with Israel (have very distant relatives there but none I am still in touch with).

But the Jewish bodies’ complaints in the Times article are evidenced.

It is interesting that you see Jews and Muslims as somehow opposites. A lot of the Muslim Middle East are currently firmly on Israel’s side-not that the BBC have given this much coverage.

Scirocco · Today 12:51

MrsSkylerWhite · Today 12:36
BBC can’t win, can it?
They could. They could choose to give equal weight to reporting, show the human costs with compassion and consideration, use equally respectful language. They choose not to

The documentary on BBC about Nova Music Festival and the aftermath was all of those things.

@Newbutoldfather no don’t see anyone as opposites or unequals etc it was very much a generalised comment, maybe I should have written it as some Jewish or Muslim people or parts of society etc.

Robbie Gibbs was sole shareholder of Jewish Chronicle Media Limited until last month. From today’s New York Times, “Mr. Rusbridger said that posed a conflict with Mr. Gibb’s role at the BBC, which includes sitting on the broadcaster’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee, and therefore reviewing its coverage of the Gaza war.” For context, Alan Rusbridger is a former editor of the Guardian. The Jewish chronicle was a respected family run weekly paper until the change of ownership in 2020 when Mr Gibb became the owner.

Mr Gibb resigned from the Jewish chronicle recently after allegations of publishing misinformation from the Netanyahu family and he divested himself of his shares to a shady group believed to a front for the Adelson funded RJC pro-Israeli US based lobby group.

So this tends to favour a pro-Netanyahu bias at a very high level in the organisation.
On the other hand “Camera” , described as an ‘extreme Israel advocacy group’, says that the BBC is “institutionally hostile” to Israel.

Personally I find it tends to balance personal stories one for one which is bad as the scale of Palestinian death and injury is about a 10 fold greater but good because they keep the hostages on the international agenda.

An example of how bbc also benefits Israel

@EasterIssland ,

It also doesn’t say that the reason Lebanon was being bombed was that Hezbollah had been firing missiles at Israel for months, and yet the reason Iran fired missiles at Israel was revenge for Israel killing a terrorist.

You are highlighting small things and forgetting the bigger picture.

I agree. The idea an editorial line can’t be taken is missing the power of narrative

As for the BBC I think it is somewhat biased

They’re the title. Probably they won’t provide every single detail in it.

It’s not the first time that it’s omitted By bbc who is the one killing people if it’s Israel doing it. The big picture is that Israel is killing thousands of innocent civilians

No

@EasterIssland ,

‘The big picture is that Israel is killing thousands of innocent civilians’

I think that is the symptom, not the cause.

But I know we could discuss this as infinitum, going back to the 1940s.

But right now, Israel is in an existential struggle with Iran and its proxies. Winning isn’t proof that Israel is the bad actor here.

If Iran wins this, there won’t be any safe place anywhere in the Middle East if you are Jewish, and the spilt blood would make what Israel is doing a pinprick,

No.