Anti-Palestine bias wasn’t enough, pro-Israel BBC coup plotters want more

Pro-Israel right-wingers were reportedly at the heart of this weekend’s coup at the BBC. And they may well have put the final nail in its coffin.

The BBC had tried to please or appease its far-right critics by consistently underplaying Israeli crimes, echoing Israeli propaganda, omitting key information, and displaying strong anti-Palestinian bias. But genocide-apologists will not settle for crumbs. They want total submission to their dystopian billionaire agenda.

This attack on the BBC is highly concerning as Britain’s dominant source of news. But let’s not pretend that the situation before the coup was anything other than state propaganda with a smiling face.

The BBC‘s extreme bias amid Gaza atrocities

During Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the BBC has really shown its true colours more clearly than ever before. It has systematically chosen not to call crimes by their names. Earlier this year hundreds of media workers accused it of disseminating racist “PR for the Israeli government and military”. The “opaque editorial decisions and censorship” relating to Israel’s atrocities, they said, had been a huge problem.

Through an ostensible commitment to impartiality, the broadcaster has not only treated a genocidal colonial occupier and the people whose territory it occupies as equal combatants. It has also gone out of its way to foreground Israel’s side of the story, treating Israeli lives as more important than Palestinian lives. One report, for instance, showed that Israelis who died got 33 times more coverage, despite Israeli occupation forces killing at least 34 times more Palestinians. That was just the tip of the iceberg.

Not extreme enough for the far right

Now, the coup that has toppled two key players at the BBC — director general Tim Davie and News CEO Deborah Turness — has had the nerve to suggest there was too much ‘anti-Israel’ bias at the organisation. And Turness dared to insist upon leaving that “BBC News is not institutionally biased”. She’s wrong. It absolutely is. It’s just not the kind of bias her enemies were talking about.

One such enemy is board member Robbie Gibb, who the Observer called “the central character in this” steering this development. Gibb is a pro-Israel right-winger with links to both the Conservative Party and propaganda outlet the Jewish Chronicle. He has long sought to push the BBC to the far right or, alternatively, “blow the place up”.

Government-appointed directors supported Gibb’s interference. And his friend Michael Prescott, a far-from-neutral ‘adviser’, backed up the assault with an extreme memo saying the BBC had:

• Focused too much on the suffering of Palestinian women and children during the Gaza genocide
• Been too critical of Israel on BBC Arabic
• Been too critical of fascist billionaire sex pest Donald Trump
• Reported too much about racism
• Been too sympathetic on trans rights
• Not pushed immigration stories enough

In short, the BBC wasn’t supportive enough of a divisive, genocidal, far-right agenda.

BBC Arabic had failed to water down Israel’s crimes or prioritise Israeli suffering over Palestinian suffering in the way that its English counterpart had. As Prescott lamented, it almost seemed like BBC Arabic wanted to “paint Israel as the aggressor”, in other words, give an accurate impression of the colonial occupier’s genocide in Gaza.

Give fascists an inch, they’ll take a mile

The BBC has always been subservient to the interests of the British establishment, and has moved further and further rightwards over time (consider its copious platforming of Nigel Farage and attempts to court Reform voters). But it has usually sought to maintain at least a veneer of professionalism, impartiality and objectivity. And it genuinely has done some good work in its time.

Impartiality, however, doesn’t mean treating everyone equally. Murderers aren’t the same as their victims. Fascists aren’t the same as anti-fascists. And colonisers aren’t the same as the people they colonise. Impartiality means looking at the evidence honestly, and sharing what you find. You can mention that fascists, colonisers, and murderers deny their crimes, but that denial shouldn’t be the main focus of the story, especially if there’s clear evidence of their crimes.

Too often, the BBC has sought to please powerful critics rather than doing real journalism. By giving in now, it has only emboldened the far right further. And it may just have sealed its own descent into oblivion too.

Image via the Canary