BBC ‘breached guidelines 1,500 times’ over Israel-Hamas war
Coverage was heavily biased against Israel, report into corporation’s output finds

Camilla Turner, SUNDAY POLITICAL EDITOR and Patrick Sawer, SENIOR NEWS REPORTER

The BBC breached its own editorial guidelines more than 1,500 times during the height of the Israel-Hamas war, a damning report has found.

The report revealed a “deeply worrying pattern of bias” against Israel, according to its authors who analysed four months of the BBC’s output across television, radio, online news, podcasts and social media.

The research, led by British lawyer Trevor Asserson, also found that Israel was associated with genocide more than 14 times more than Hamas in the corporation’s coverage of the conflict.

On Saturday, Danny Cohen, a former BBC executive, warned that there was now an “institutional crisis” at the national broadcaster and called for an independent inquiry into its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

Two leading Jewish groups, the Campaign Against Antisemitism and the National Jewish Assembly, added their voices to calls for an independent review, while Lord Austin, a former Labour minister, accused the BBC of “high-handed arrogance” for continually dismissing questions over its impartiality.

The Asserson report analysed the BBC’s coverage during a four-month period beginning Oct 7, 2023 – the day Hamas carried out a brutal massacre in southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking another 251 into Gaza as hostages.

A team of around 20 lawyers and 20 data scientists contributed to the research, which used artificial intelligence to analyse nine million words of BBC output.

Researchers identified a total of 1,553 breaches of the BBC’s editorial guidelines, which included impartiality, accuracy, editorial values and public interest.

“The findings reveal a deeply worrying pattern of bias and multiple breaches by the BBC of its own editorial guidelines on impartiality, fairness and establishing the truth,” the report said.

It also found that the BBC repeatedly downplayed Hamas terrorism while presenting Israel as a militaristic and aggressive nation.

It claimed that some journalists used by the BBC in its coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict have previously shown sympathy for Hamas and even celebrated its acts of terror.

Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s international editor, is accused of excusing Hamas’s terrorist activities and comparing Israel to Putin’s Russia, while Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s chief international correspondent, is also cited for allegedly “downplaying” the October 7 attacks on Israel.

The report singles out the BBC’s Arabic channel, saying that it is one of the most biased of all global media outlets in its treatment of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

It identifies 11 cases where it claims the BBC Arabic’s coverage of the war has featured reporters who have previously made public statements in support of terrorism and specifically Hamas, without viewers being informed of this.

Researchers analysed the BBC coverage over the four-month period to assess the portrayal of war crimes.

“Hamas members filmed and publicised themselves committing acts which appear to constitute war crimes,” the report said, including the taking of hostages, wilful killing or murder, torture or inhuman treatment and rape or sexual violence.

But despite this, the report’s analysis of BBC coverage found that Israel was associated with war crimes four times more than Hamas (127 versus 30), with genocide 14 times more (283 versus 19) and with breaching international law six times more (167 versus 27).

The report’s authors noted that during the time period examined by researchers, Israel was accused of committing war crimes by South Africa in the International Court of Justice. In the aftermath of the October 7 massacre, the BBC was widely condemned for failing to call Hamas “terrorists”. In late October, the BBC said it would describe Hamas “where possible” as a “proscribed terrorist organisation”.

However, the report identified Hamas being described as a “proscribed”, “designated” or “recognised” terrorist organisation just 409 out of 12,459 times (3.2 per cent) over the four-month period.

The BBC said it would “carefully consider” the report, which has been submitted to Tim Davie, its director general, and Samir Shah, its chairman, as well as all its board members.

A spokesman for the corporation added that it had “serious questions” about the report’s methodology.

On Saturday night MPs, peers and several Jewish groups expressed their concern at the report’s findings.

Sir Oliver Dowden, the shadow deputy prime minister, said: “The BBC is one of the premier news services in the world, and to hear that standards may be slipping in such a severe way like this, risks tarnishing the reputation of our news service.

“Serious questions should be asked as to why this has been allowed to happen, and licence-fee payers should expect to see the BBC stick to its own editorial guidelines.”

Julia Lopez, the shadow culture secretary, said: “Truth is the BBC’s currency in a world of increasing mis-and-disinformation. If viewers start to believe there is any agenda beyond its pursuit, they will rightly question ever more noisily whether the licence fee makes any sense in today’s rapidly changing media landscape.“

Greg Smith, another Tory frontbencher, said: “We knew in the aftermath of October 7 that the BBC was struggling to call a terrorist a terrorist.
“There are now clear grounds for Ofcom and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to use every tool they have in their arsenal to bring about greater compliance with the rules around neutrality and fair coverage in the BBC charter.”

Lord Austin of Dudley, a former Labour minister who now sits as a crossbench peer, said that after spending decades defending the BBC, he is now “convinced” that its coverage of the current Israel-Hamas conflict “fails to meet the standards of impartiality and independence on which its public funding is based”.

Lord Polak, the honorary president of the Conservative Friends of Israel, said: “There’s a clear pattern. Other broadcasters have also made errors, but the BBC keeps getting it wrong. It’s shameful, it’s wrong and what’s worse – the BBC knows it.”

Laurence Julius, vice-chairman of the National Jewish Assembly, called for an independent review of BBC’s Israel coverage, saying: “The BBC as the world’s most influential media company with a global audience of over 500 million including influential thought leaders has a duty to report news accurately without bias or distortion and to explain the context. The BBC has failed abjectly and this is nurturing an anti Israel and anti-Semitic narrative across its network. It has to change.”

Gideon Falter, chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “This report vindicates with empirical data what we have said – and the Jewish community has known – for a long time.

”Despite its persistent claims of impartiality and stubbornness in the face of complaints, the BBC’s ideological bias is now shamefully clear.

“The BBC should apologise for its biased and inflammatory reporting, but since the BBC has so stubbornly closed ranks and denied that there is a problem over the decades, the fundamental reform that is plainly necessary must come from outside. The answer to this report must begin with a transparent and unconstrained public inquiry.”

Russell Langer of the Jewish Leadership Council said: “Many in the Jewish community have become increasingly concerned by the BBC’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict. In particular, the BBC’s refusal to clearly label Hamas as a proscribed terrorist group continues to cause great offence.

From @carbonlogix My visit to Leeds yesterday on a counter demo to the hate marches . I’ll state right away I’m not Jewish , but was there to support my Jewish friends . I’ve seen clips of these hate marches but this was something else . From beginning to end Jew hate . I’ll go to the speeches The speeches where a constant call for the destruction of Israel . Not 1 call for the hostages to be released , not 1 banner . The group I was standing with , all day faced a barrage of abuse . They took it all in there stride . The worst of the speeches even got blood libel in

@nicolelampert ‘Proportional’ is a misnomer, it doesn’t mean ‘like for like’ It means the required amount of force for any country to keep its own civilians safe. So if Israel bombed Gaza indiscriminately killing thousands of civilians... @nicolelampert Which other countries have been seen to do, they would be condemned, quite rightly for a lack of ‘proportionality’. Because they use military intelligence to identify where the missiles launchers, factories, arms caches, underground tunnels, engineers, Hamas commanders....