logo
The BBC has alienated everyone with its Gaza coverage. After this latest failure, who will be left to defend it?

The BBC has alienated everyone with its Gaza coverage. After this latest failure, who will be left to defend it?

The Guardian15-07-2025
For a genocide to occur, everything that people think is wrong has to first be turned on its head. There have been endless examples of this gruesome phenomenon in the past 21 months; Monday's report on the BBC's scrapped documentary about the plight of children in Gaza is just the latest instance.
Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone was a rare example of the unbearable experiences of Palestinians being properly investigated by Britain's public broadcaster. But within the media, this documentary has become a bigger scandal than the suffering of Palestinian children.
When a researcher named David Collier, who has written widely in defence of Israel, discovered that the 13-year-old narrator of the film, Abdullah, was the son of the deputy agriculture minister in Hamas's government, all hell broke loose. After a deafening chorus of condemnation from pro-Israel lobby groups, British newspapers and the government, the documentary was taken off iPlayer.
Monday's review states that the failure to disclose this connection violated the BBC's editorial guidelines, which stipulate that the corporation must 'provide full transparency to its audience'. But it concludes that Hoyo Films, the independent production company that made the film, did not intentionally mislead the BBC. It says Hoyo's view had been – rightly – that Abdullah's father had a 'civilian or technocratic' position within Hamas as opposed to a political or military role, and that it had simply 'made a mistake' in not informing the BBC.
Here is the crucial point. All of Abdullah's words were scripted by the production company, since he was the narrator. The report '[does] not consider that anything in the narrator's scripted contribution to the programme breached the BBC's standards on due impartiality', and found no evidence that Abdullah's father or family influenced the script in any way. In other words, it was completely irrelevant who his father was.
There was no substantial justification for taking this documentary off air. The immediate repercussions were that the young narrator and his family were inundated with abuse and harassment, with Abdullah declaring that the BBC was to blame if anything happened to him. Such fear is hardly baseless: thousands of children have been slaughtered by Israeli troops, including the 12-year-old Mohammed Saeed al-Bardawil, one of the only witnesses to Israel's killing of paramedics and first responders in March.
In the past few days, Israeli forces have killed Palestinian children waiting to collect nutritional supplements and others waiting for water. The latter incident, they claimed, was a 'technical error'. Is this the explanation for how one of the world's most sophisticated militaries, with technology allowing it to know exactly who it is about to kill in its strikes, has plausibly killed tens of thousands of children since October 2023?
Still, in Britain there is infinitely more scrutiny of this documentary than of these historic crimes. The culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, has even demanded to know why no one has been sacked at the BBC after its decision to air the documentary. In Nandy's upside-down world, a single detail in a documentary that exposes the killing of children should destroy careers. What about her colleagues who have supported the continued supply of military equipment for Israeli forces as they commit a livestreamed genocide?
The media backlash against this documentary prompted the BBC to pause another documentary, Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, which investigated Israeli attempts to destroy Gaza's healthcare system (so far, this has killed at least 1,580 healthcare workers). The BBC pulled the film despite it having been approved at every level, with no factual objections to anything in it (the documentary was ultimately broadcast on Channel 4). According to Ben de Pear, the documentary's executive producer and a former Channel 4 news editor who wrote about the decision in the Observer, BBC script meetings were dominated by discussions about potential objections from Collier and the lobby group Camera. Collier's pro-Israel social media output is instructive: he has written that 'Jewish people have every reason to see the Palestinian flag as a flag of genocidal hate', and that 'the Palestinian identity, and especially the 'refugees' were developed ONLY as a weapon against Israel'.
The furore has been used to justify the idea that the BBC is biased against Israel, yet the exact opposite is true. In a damning report, the Muslim Council of Britain's Centre for Media Monitoring found that the BBC gave Israeli deaths far more coverage in its articles when measured on a per-fatality basis – and using the overly conservative official Gaza death toll. The vast majority of emotive words, such as 'massacre', 'atrocities', 'slaughter', 'barbaric' and 'brutal', were reserved for Israeli victims. Israeli voices were heard far more often than those of Palestinians. This has angered many within the BBC, too, who want to report fairly on the conflict: more than 100 have signed a letter criticising the choice not to air Gaza: Doctors Under Attack.
Meanwhile, the historic context for Israel's crimes against Palestinians has been ignored and erased. The numerous statements of genocidal and criminal intent by Israeli leaders have barely been acknowledged. Like other western media outlets, the BBC has stripped Palestinian lives of their worth, ignored and whitewashed Israeli crimes and repeatedly treated Israeli denials of atrocities as credible, even when those denials are repeatedly exposed as lies.
Morality has been turned on its head. The BBC must be perceived as pro-Israel, despite the overwhelming evidence of its crimes. The scandals must be reserved for documentaries about Palestinians, rather than the horrors those Palestinians endure. But here lies the problem. Thanks not least to the work of Palestinian journalists, much of the world has already witnessed the atrocities that are being committed by the Israeli state. They can see the mismatch between what they know to be true and what media outlets such as the BBC report.
The BBC has alienated its natural supporters and is detested by the right because it's a public broadcaster. Its journalistic failures in the Conservative years increasingly undermined faith in its editorial standards. Now, its failure to accurately report on the great crime of our age has only deepened that outrage. Who, then, will be left to defend this ailing beast?
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Reeves can raise taxes as much as she likes, but it won't bring in any more money
Reeves can raise taxes as much as she likes, but it won't bring in any more money

Telegraph

time12 minutes ago

  • Telegraph

Reeves can raise taxes as much as she likes, but it won't bring in any more money

The IMF has warned Chancellor Rachel Reeves that she must make tough choices to cut the UK's deficit, potentially including some combination of raising taxes on working people, abandoning the pensions triple lock or charging for the NHS. The first of these options – raising taxes – is considered politically the most likely. After all, Labour MPs didn't even agree to cuts to winter fuel payments. It's impossible to imagine them agreeing to cut the NHS, and abandoning the triple lock seems like political suicide. Yet it's highly doubtful whether raising tax rates further will produce any more tax revenue out of the UK economy. Even as matters stand, taxes are scheduled to go higher than they've ever been since World War II, and to be around 37½ percent of GDP for the rest of this Parliament. But that considerably understates the situation. Prior to 2021/22 they'd only ever once been above 35 percent of GDP since the 1950s, in 1969/70, and then for only one year before falling back sharply. Thereafter, until the 2020s, it was rare for them to be above 33½ per cent of GDP. We aren't merely at a record. We are at an out-of-the-park record scheduled to be sustained for an absolutely unprecedented period of time. The chances of the UK economy delivering even the tax levels already scheduled are slim, let alone imagining taxes could be raised a lot further. Yet despite these astonishing record-high taxes, the economy is still running a large deficit of over 5 per cent of GDP. Remember the 'Maastricht Convergence Criteria' requiring budget deficits to be no higher than 3 per cent of GDP? Well, we're way above that. When the deficit exceeded 6 per cent of GDP in the 1990s we had a significant fiscal consolidation under Norman Lamont and Kenneth Clarke. Yet at that time the UK's national debt was under 40 per cent of GDP. Now it's over 100 per cent. Our situation is way worse than it was in the early 1990s. We need a fiscal consolidation to address that 5 per cent deficit. But the current thinking appears to be that all of that deficit cut will come from tax rises. Indeed, possibly more than all of it, because spending will probably go up further. To balance the books we'd need to rise from that record 37½ per cent of GDP spending to over 42½ per cent. Add in a percentage point for further spending rises and we'd be over 43½ per cent or fully 10 percentage points of tax higher than the UK has ever produced on a sustained basis in well over 80 years. One key reason tax takes top out at some point relative to GDP is that they destroy growth. Over the long-term having a high share of tax in GDP damages long-term growth – each 10 per cent rise in tax reduces the growth rate by around 1.2 per cent – which in the UK's case would mean reducing its sustainable growth rate to zero. In the short-term, raising taxes often triggers recessions, bringing down tax revenues. That loss of tax revenues as growth peters out, or outright recession ensues, means that tax-based fiscal consolidations typically don't work. If you have a high deficit, raising taxes is almost never a way to cut that deficit – even if it were a Good Thing to have higher tax in itself, it simply doesn't work in that situation. The normal advice the IMF and similar bodies used to provide in fiscal consolidations was that they should be predominantly spending cuts-based. The IMF often used a rule of thumb of about two thirds spending cuts to one third tax rises. The EU used much the same rule of thumb in the Eurozone crisis era austerity programmes. However, the most successful consolidations – the ones where the deficit falls and stays down, with debt dropping away relative to GDP over time – tend to have higher ratios of spending cuts, of around 75 to 80 per cent to 20 to 25 per cent tax rises. We need at least that ratio in the UK now, if not higher. But that is not what Labour backbench MPs will ever agree to.

Tens of thousands at risk of poverty despite Labour's benefit U-turn, MPs warn
Tens of thousands at risk of poverty despite Labour's benefit U-turn, MPs warn

The Guardian

time19 minutes ago

  • The Guardian

Tens of thousands at risk of poverty despite Labour's benefit U-turn, MPs warn

About 50,000 people who become disabled or chronically ill will be pushed into poverty by the end of the decade because of cuts to incapacity benefit, despite ministers dropping the bulk of its welfare reform plans, MPs have warned. The work and pensions select committee report welcomed ministers' decision earlier this month to drop some of the most controversial aspects of its disability reforms in the face of a parliamentary revolt by over 100 Labour backbenchers. These included the wholesale scrapping of proposed major changes to personal independence payment (Pip) eligibility that would have seen around 800,000 people no longer qualifying for the benefit by the end of the decade. The government also ditched plans to freeze the value of the incapacity element of universal credit for existing claimants, affecting over 2m people by 2029-30, though it kept in place proposals to half the weekly rate for new claimants. Labour had 'in the end' made the right decision, the committee said in a report. But it reiterated calls for the remaining planned cuts to universal credit to be delayed until their impact on poverty, health and jobs were fully understood. Ministers been left badly bruised by the enforced gutting of its bill, which was intended to save £5bn a year by the end of the decade. Keir Starmer, the prime minister, admitted subsequently that No 10 'didn't get the process right'. Although all existing universal credit claimants and new claimants with severe or terminal conditions will now be protected, from next year other claimants with limited health capacity for work will see monthly awards cut from £423.27 to £217.26. The committee chair, Labour's Debbie Abrahams, said, 'We welcome the concessions that the government made to the niversal Credit bill; but there are still issues with these welfare reforms not least with the cut in financial support that newly sick and disabled people will receive.' Abrahams said that on the government's own analysis approximately 50,000 people who claim universal credit from next April after developing a health condition or becoming disabled will be plunged into poverty by 2030 as a result of cuts. 'We recommend delaying the cuts to the universal credit health premium, especially given that other policies that such as additional NHS capacity, or employment support, or changes in the labour market to support people to stay in work, have yet to materialise,' she said. 'We agree in a reformed and sustainable welfare system, but we must ensure that the wellbeing of those who come into contact with it is protected. The lesson learned from last month should be that the impact of policy changes to health-related benefits must be assessed prior to policy changes being implemented to avoid potential risks to claimants,' added Abrahams The report also urged ministers to drop plans – currently out for consultation – to prevent young people aged 18-22 from claiming incapacity benefit. 'We share the minister's concern about young people being trapped in economic inactivity before their working lives have even begun, but we do not see why this means they should lose entitlement to universal credit health,' the report said. The cross-party committee welcomed the government's plans to review the much-criticised Pip assessment process, which it said was in 'desperate need of reform.' It applauded ministers promise to 'co-produce' the review with disabled people. A government spokesperson said: 'Our welfare reforms will support those who can work into jobs and ensure there is always a safety net for those that need it. The impact assessment shows our reforms will lift 50,000 children out of poverty – and our additional employment support will lift even more families out of poverty. 'The reforms will rebalance Universal Credit rates to reduce the perverse incentives that trap people out of work, alongside genuinely helping disabled people and those with long-term health conditions into good, secure work – backed by £3.8bn in employment support over this parliament.'

Donald Trump in Scotland LIVE as President set to meet John Swinney
Donald Trump in Scotland LIVE as President set to meet John Swinney

Daily Record

time41 minutes ago

  • Daily Record

Donald Trump in Scotland LIVE as President set to meet John Swinney

07:27 Emma O'Neill Donald Trump has said he wants to see Scotland 'thrive' during his visit to the country. The US President – whose mother was born in the Outer Hebrides – spoke of his 'love' for the country during a visit to his golf course in Ayrshire. Flanked by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, the 79-year-old was asked if changes could be made to the UK-US trade deal, which would benefit Scotland. READ MORE 07:25 Emma O'Neill US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer met at the Trump International Golf Links, the president's Menie golf course in Aberdeenshire. U.S. President Donald Trump is visiting his Trump Turnberry golf course (Image: Getty Images)

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store