Staff accuse BBC of anti-Palestinian bias in Israel-Hamas war coverage - report

BBC Director-General Tim Davie has been conducting meetings in recent weeks aimed at giving employees space to voice their concerns about the corporation’s coverage of Palestinians throughout the Israel-Hamas war, which they claim is biased, sources in the BBC told news site Deadline last week.

In one memorable meeting on January 12, employees blamed the Broadcasting Corporation for using “dehumanizing” language with regard to the Palestinians in Gaza, while others accused the BBC of omitting specific stories that other networks, such as Al Jazeera and Channel 4, reported. 

The complaints are based on a broad examination of some 4,600 BBC stories, which have been characterized as having “disproportionate bias towards Israeli deaths rather than Palestinian ones,” as per Deadline.

During the meeting, Davie stated that he had been the target of security threats, forcing him to need security and temporarily travel to work in a private car instead of his diurnal tube ride, Deadline said.

In addition, sources claimed Davie had said that the pro-Palestinians were less organized than the pro-Israel lobby was in dealing with the Corporation.

In parallel, Davie has been holding meetings with members of staff who accuse the BBC of anti-Israel bias, Deadline noted. 

According to Deadline, the 8,000 complaints the BBC has received over its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war are divided almost equally between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian.

The BBC's previous cases of anti-Israel bias

Following October 7, the BBC has come under fire for its anti-Israel bias. In a recent letter to The Telegraph, Dannie Cohen, former BBC director, enumerated the cases in which “institutional bias” and outright "antisemitism" can be perceived in the BBC's coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. 

These include, among others, not referring to the October 7 massacre as a terrorist attack; falsely accusing Israel of a rocket attack in Gaza; claiming that "Israeli forces were 'targeting medical teams and Arab speakers' in Gaza’s largest hospital"; and reporting “unverified claims by Hamas that the Israeli army was carrying out 'summary executions' of Palestinians in Gaza."