BBC – ‘Institutionally hostile to Israel’

As reported in The Times on 30^th September, Jewish groups are accusing the BBC of making ‘false and damaging claims’ about the conflict in the Middle East.  This appears so demonstrably true that it is hardly worth comment, because from the start on 7^th October, when Hamas out of the blue massacred around 1,200 Israelis and took 251 people hostage, including defenceless women and children, the BBC appears to have taken the line that, deplorable though the attack was, it was actually all Israel’s fault. Subsequent news coverage thereafter seems consistently to have maintained that, while Israel is in theory entitled to defend itself, any such action must be strictly limited to enemy combatants.  Meaning that Hamas terrorists, cowering with their weapons amongst the civilian population, must remain safe from reprisal.

This is both ridiculous and openly biased, and the truth is that the BBC has breached its own guidelines of impartiality.  Consistently, for example, BBC reporters have refused to label Hamas fighters as terrorists, entirely ignoring statements that the group want to wipe Israel off the face of the map, and that they regard rape as a weapon of war.  Similarly, the BBC has failed to report that the main reason for the high number of civilian casualties and deaths in Gaza is not just that Hamas deliberately uses civilians as human shields, deliberately placing command centres and networks of tunnels under hospitals, schools and similarly densely packed civilian areas, but that they have also refused permission for the construction of any bomb shelters.  Equally, when shelling started, they would not allow civilians any access to the tunnels, though this would undoubtedly have saved them.  In fact, all the evidence indicates that Hamas has deliberately and cold-bloodedly exploited civilian vulnerabilities in order to win the propaganda war, but there is minimal, if any, reference to this by the BBC.

The suffering of the civilians in Palestine and Lebanon is indeed terrible and to be deplored.  But let us rightly apportion blame and not be complicit in the lie that attributes all the wrong to Israel.  Let us be clear.  Israel did not seek this conflict, and they find themselves now surrounded by terror groups that want only their annihilation.  Terror groups that hate not just Israel, but the West as well!  The reality is that Israel is fighting for its survival and, to ensure that, it must finish the job.  Both for their sake, and our own, we must support them, and resist the lies being promulgated by pro-Palestinian activists – that indeed have led to such an appalling and unprecedented rise in anti-Semitism in our land.

If a poisonous snake takes up residence in your house, in order to protect those living there, you have to get rid of it.  There are snakes now surrounding Israel, that want only to destroy it, so the question must be asked, why is the BBC so hostile to the Jewish people?  The Charter for the BBC states that the broadcaster must, “act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain”.  It is no part of the Corporation’s mandate to tell people what to think or to manipulate public opinion.  They are a disgrace.