A detailed dossier

The Jewish Chronicle has a leader column this week which surely ought to make the BBC sit up and take notice: 

BBC Arabic’s anti-Israel bias is a problem for the region  

What is the purpose of the BBC’s Arabic service? The answer might seem obvious — to bring the BBC’s editorial standards to coverage of Arab countries in their own languages. But its output reveals what seems to be a very different purpose: to promote a view of the Middle East with which we are all wearily familiar, in which Israel is the wicked enemy and those who fight it are heroes. That includes news coverage in which Jerusalem is called “the occupied city”, the Israeli army the “Israeli Occupation Forces” and the PLO “the Palestinian Resistance”. The anti-Israel bias of BBC news in general has long been an issue, but the specific failings relating to its Arabic service are of a different order of magnitude. As our investigation reveals, the BBC has itself admitted to 25 mistakes in its Arabic coverage in just over two years. But that figure barely scratches the surface of the problem.  

In this week’s JC Essay, David Patrikarakos shows how polling in parts of the Arab world show a move towards a more favourable view of Israel; a slow move, but a move nonetheless. One of the blocks to progress is the BBC’s Arabic service. Instead of being given the facts, impartially and without bias, viewers are often given barely more than anti-Israel propaganda. This matters because it means the BBC is itself part of the problem in the Middle East. Last year, the BBC published new impartiality guidelines, supposedly to be enforced by a senior executive. Ken MacQuarrie, the man appointed to the role, is paid £325,000 a year. We would suggest that he might now start earning it by turning his attention to BBC Arabic.

There's a lot of damning detail in Jonathan Sacerdoti and Gary O'Shea's JC accompanying investigation into BBC Arabic's "anti-Israel bias and inaccuracies" and it's quite something to learn that the BBC has been compelled to admit 25 "mistakes" in its Arabic coverage of Israel in just over two years, "issuing on average nearly one correction every month". It suggests at best that standards at the BBC's Arabic Service aren't what they ought to be.

The BBC has been given "a detailed dossier of apparent breaches" this week. 

As well as listing the inaccuracies and the forced apologies, the dossier accuses the BBC of "systematically downplaying terror attacks on Israelis; repeatedly using Hamas-inspired language; showcasing extreme views without challenge; and publishing a map in which Israel was erased". 

According to the piece, the BBC has apologised in recent years, among other things concerning BBC Arabic, for:

• A "fawning" portrait of a Hamas terrorist.
• Describing Jerusalem as “the occupied city”.
• Calling the Israeli army the “Israeli Occupation Forces”.
• Describing the PLO as “the Palestinian Resistance”.
• Referring to nine victims of a terrorist attack as “nine Jewish settlers”, though four weren't Jewish and none was a settler.

Also detailed is the fact that BBC Arabic repeatedly calls the West Bank, Gaza and even Israel “Palestine”, despite its own style guide outlawing the term.

Strikingly, the JC notes the service's employment (one as a correspondent, another as an editor) of two journalists who previously worked at the Hezbollah-owned TV station Al-Manar (a channel designated a “Terrorist Entity” by the US).

BBC Arabic are also accused of "regularly giving a platform" to blog favourite, Abdel Bari Atwan - though the BBC News Channel has been indulging his extreme views on Dateline London for well over a decade now. At least on Dateline, he was sometimes challenged. Apparently, BBC Arabic hasn't provided “appropriate challenge and / or other context”. 

One I'd not heard of came last May: BBC Arabic "showcased social media comments which celebrated a sci-fi drama that envisioned the destruction of the Jewish state". 

The article also says:

The corporation has also appeared to depart from editorial standards in its Arabic output with respect to reporting terror attacks. According to the BBC style guide, journalists must “report acts of terror quickly, accurately, fully and responsibly”. But while the BBC reported in English on 34 fatal terror attacks on Israeli civilians between 2015 and 2020, its Arabic service covered just 25 of these, analysts said, seriously downplaying the extent of Palestinian brutality.  

A BBC spokesperson has responded already: “BBC Arabic shares exactly the same principles of accuracy and impartiality as BBC News in English, and we strongly reject the suggestion that its impartiality is compromised.”

Instead of the usual kneejerk dismissal, however, the BBC would do better to thank the people behind the study for their efforts, and then go away and think about all that they've been presented with here. 

They've a really big problem if they don't see that there could be a big problem with the BBC Arabic service here that needs careful consideration and maybe serious action. 

"It should not have been shown and we apologise for the offence caused"

Three weeks ago we published a post about Melanie Phillips's strong criticism of the BBC for allowing BBC Arabic to broadcast a piece about Ahlam Tamimi - a notorious female Palestinian terrorist who murdered 15 people, including seven children, and injured more than 130 in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem. Melanie said that BBC Arabic "sympathetically presented" her story, titled it with her name and the words "Your voice is loud and clear", and "framed as a sentimental human interest story" which "whitewashed the murderous activities" of her and her terrorist husband and "presented them as victims of censorship and the Americans". It ended with a plea from the terrorist to Jordan's King Abdullah. 

Well, the BBC has now issued an apology on its Corrections and Clarifications page admitting that the segment breached BBC editorial guidelines and that it "should not have been shown":

BBC Arabic Trending BBC World Service, Monday 8 October 2020 

On 8 October, the BBC Arabic Trending programme broadcast an item on Ahlam Al-Tamimi’s appeal to the King of Jordan to be re-united with her husband. Ahlam Al-Tamimi is a Jordanian citizen who was convicted in Israel and sentenced to multiple life sentences after 15 people including 8 children were killed in a suicide bombing in Israel in 2001. She was released to Jordan in a prisoner swap between Hamas and Israel in 2011 but remains on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list for conspiring to kill US nationals. This segment of the programme was in breach of our editorial guidelines and we have removed the clip from all our digital platforms. It should not have been shown and we apologise for the offence caused.

23/10/2020

This, of course, is to be welcomed, but is removing the clip from its digital platforms the full extent of the the BBC's response to this? Shouldn't it be the subject of a proper investigation? Who was responsible for this report? Who authorised its broadcast? Has any disciplinary action been taken? Will any disciplinary action be taken?

"BBC incitement to baseless hatred"

 

Haifa

The headline of Melanie Phillips's latest piece sums up her point punchily:

The BBC's problem is worse than "wokeish" bias. 

When it comes to its approach to Israel, it incites baseless hatred

She doesn't believe that the next BBC chairman, whoever that may will, will make inroads when it comes to changing "the BBC’s appalling treatment of Israel":

For years, it has presented Israel in the most distorted way, portraying it falsely as the rogue state in the region while downplaying or ignoring the attacks on Israelis and the incitement and antisemitism that are daily features of Palestinian Arab life.

And she details an extraordinary piece of broadcasting from BBC Arabic that "whitewashed" Ahlam Tamimi - a notorious Palestinian terrorist who murdered 15 people, including seven children, and injured more than 130 in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem. The piece "sympathetically presented" the story wanted to tell about herself" and was titled with her name and the words "Your voice is loud and clear". Lasting six minutes, it was "framed as a sentimental human interest story" which "whitewashed the murderous activities" of her and her terrorist husband and "presented them as victims of censorship and the Americans". It ended with a plea from the terrorist to Jordan's King Abdullah. Melanie writes:

The media watchdog CAMERA UK has observed that the programme made no criticism of either of the Tamimis. None of those who were murdered in Ahlam Tamimi’s terror attack was mentioned. The item said she was merely “accused of involvement” in the Jerusalem bombing (despite her own public admission of the crime) and failed to mention the reason for her husband’s imprisonment at all. 

The true wickedness of the Tamimi item is that it was broadcast on the BBC’s Arabic service. The BBC’s foreign-language services have a global reputation for broadcasting supposedly factual, trustworthy information to countries where objective news is in short supply. 

Yet this item gave a platform to a heinous terrorist to spout her propaganda, thus confirming the lies about Israel and the west that incite the Arab world to hatred and violence. More specifically, it added to the mythology around her in Jordan which, despite its peace agreement with Israel, has a population consumed by hatred of Israel and the Jews and for whom the murderous Tamimi is a rock star.

"This is hardly an isolated example", she adds, citing other examples, before concluding:

These are but a tiny sample of the BBC’s institutionalised hostility towards Israel. For years, it has uncritically recycled Palestinian propaganda as innately credible and true, while treating demonstrably factual Israeli statements as mendacious propaganda.

It systematically downplays or disregards Palestinian attacks on Israelis and generally treats any eruption of violence as a story which only “kicks off” (as one BBC reporter said gleefully during an escalation of hostilities) when Israel retaliates with force. Israeli victimisation is simply not seen as a story at all.

When Israel is forced to defend itself, the BBC frequently portrays its armed forces —the most ethical and human rights-obsessed military in the world — as monstrous child-killers and aggressive destroyers.

The immediate and demonstrable effect on the British population is hatred of Israel and a spike in attacks on British Jews. It is no exaggeration to say that when it comes to Israel, the issue is not BBC bias. It is BBC incitement to baseless hatred.

The BBC is regarded around the world as a byword for objectivity and accuracy. That’s why its departure from those ideals is so pernicious.

Perhaps the most chilling thing about it, though, is this. BBC executives are genuinely, painfully aware of the news outlet’s unique power and reach, and of their duty under its founding charter to uphold objectivity and fairness and hold the line for the middle ground.

But they are simply unable to process the fact that they view Israel, among other issues, through a profoundly distorting ideological prism. And that’s because they believe implacably that the positions they hold are unarguably objective and fair, that they do represent the middle ground, and that therefore by definition those who claim the BBC is biased are themselves extremists and can be safely disregarded.

In other words, BBC group-think is a hermetically-sealed thought system. Which is why, if whoever takes over at the top wants to restore the once iconic BBC to elementary standards of objectivity, fairness and decency, they will have their work cut out for them.

The full article can be read here. 

And a further startling article on the background to the terrorist story above and the BBC's involvement with it can be read here.

Bated breath

The upcoming investigation into Iraq’s 'paedophile' Shia Clerics is a curiosity.

Working with an undercover reporter, BBC Arabic's Nawal Al Maghafi investigates Shia clerics at some of Iraq's holiest shrines.

We’ve seen and heard a few trailers for this unusual documentary already. It looks like a welcome breakthrough after the BBC’s longstanding fatwa against offending the Muslims, but sadly the BBC’s credibility has been undermined by the aborted ‘Tommy Takedown’ fiasco. It’s quite possible that Nawal Al Maghafi is BBC Arabic’s ‘John Sweeney’!! Can the BBC ever be trusted again?

Bated breath etc.

BBC Arabic

The Independent's interview with BBC Arabic head Tarik Kafala reminds us that BBC Arabic "is now fully funded by, and accountable to, the UK licence-fee payer." 

And what are Arabic audiences getting from us licence-fee payers?

Well, besides BBC Arabic's radio service, begun in 1938, there's a 24-hour BBC Arabic Television news channel, launched in 2008. BBC Arabic's global audience (on TV, radio and social media) is now 36.2 million. It has studios in London, Cairo and Lebanon. Mr Kafala, a British-Libyan, heads a team of about 200 staff at BBC Arabic’s base in New Broadcasting House.

According to the Indie's Adam Sherwin, 

BBC Arabic is tasked with providing “impartial, balanced and accurate news and information” across a region where reports on the Gaza war provoke cries of bias from all sides and one viewer’s “terrorist” can be another’s “freedom fighter”.

Did BBC Arabic show the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of Mohammad? 

Although BBC Arabic would not show Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed, which its audience would find deeply insulting, an exception was made for the post-massacre edition of the magazine. “The cover has appeared … on a banner or on a newsstand, on our screens. We haven’t shown it in full frame or real detail,” Kafala said.

“We’re trying to minimise the insult while telling the story. We considered in great detail the risks to staff. We have people in Somalia, Yemen, Beirut and Libya. There were very strong editorial reasons for the BBC to show the cover because it was right at the centre of a huge international story.”

What does Mr Kafala think of the BBC's coverage of the so-called Arab Spring?

“Sometimes we can be quite conservative and not as fast or close to stories as our competitors,” Kafala admitted. Viewing figures fell when the Arab Spring began, as rival channels took sides, but its Egyptian audience has since increased by 6.5 million.

“For good or ill, we had to stand back at the BBC,” Kafala said. “But I think we have been vindicated editorially because our audience began to grow strongly when the story turned into something more nuanced than it had appeared.”

I have to say that my experience of experiencing the Arab Spring on the UK version of the BBC didn't strike me as "standing back" and "not taking sides", especially in its early, heady days when the BBC seemed very slow to spot the wintry possibilities of their happy-clappy, 'Bliss it was to be alive!' revolutions.  

And what of the BBC's reporting of conflicts like Gaza?

BBC Arabic houses journalists whose families may be at the sharp end of conflicts in Syria or Egypt, and sometimes they have to rein in their emotions. “How do you keep your distance from a story? In some individuals, it becomes an issue. They’re journalists, they have to keep the professional line,” said Kafala.

During the Gaza conflict, he was insistent that BBC Arabic must “reflect the outrage and the suffering, but to adopt it would be wrong”, a distinction that frustrated some staff.

"A distinction that frustrated some staff"?...

Well, that pretty much tells you all you need to know about the views of many of the BBC Arabic Services employees. (Not that we couldn't have guessed that).

That frustration obviously went well beyond the confines of BBC Arabic. Many a non-BBC Arabic Service BBC reporter blatantly chafed against this injunction not to "adopt" "the outrage and the suffering". Jon Donnision has never stopped doing so.