The BBC’s ‘both sides’ bullsh*t needs to stop. It’s toxic and reckless.

The examples of the BBC treating Israel’s settler-colonial genocide in Gaza like an unfortunate battle between two equal sides are countless. But the BBC also has a long record of treating the left as an equal danger to fascism. Just look at its loyal participation in the horrific five-year campaign to smear Jeremy Corbyn.

It wasn’t the left that carried out the Holocaust, though. Nor is it the left carrying out the genocide in Palestine today. And it’s not the left that’s been trying to minimise Israel’s crimes in the last 15 months. But one snide, toxic, and reckless comment from a supposedly veteran BBC journalist shows the contempt the public broadcaster feels for the left today.

The BBC in service of the British state

The BBC knows it has to criticise the far right, because most people in Britain disapprove of discrimination based on ethnicity or religion. But that doesn’t mean it can’t try and paint the antidote to fascism – i.e. left-wing policies – as equally dangerous. And that’s what the BBC‘s Katya Adler has just done.

In an article about the Nazi Holocaust, no less, Adler felt the need to subtly attack the left as she remembered the monumental crime of German fascists. The BBC‘s Europe editor asked:

what are we remembering today and which lessons have we already clearly forgotten?

The answer in her case, apparently, is that it was an anti-fascist alliance (including communists, anarchists, socialists, liberals, and even some conservatives) that beat the Nazis. Because in a throwaway comment, with no examples or justification, she said that today:

There’s a rise in support for political parties, often, but not exclusively on the far right and far left, that are quick to point at the Other. The outsider. The unwanted. Be they migrants, Muslims, LGBTQ+ people or Jews.

Her pointless and nonsensical inclusion of the ‘far left’ alongside the far right was perhaps ideological. Maybe it was for the benefit of right-wingers who might have complained about the BBC somehow exhibiting left-wing bias (which would be utterly ridiculous). Or possibly, it could be a mandate from the people at the top of the organisation demanding that BBC propagandists attack the people who are the biggest threat to the rich and powerful in British society.

Either way, people quickly pointed out the absurdity of this comment.

Gotta say I think a "learn the lessons of Auschwitz" piece would be better without a gratuitous, unevidenced horseshoe-theory swipe at an imaginary version of the Left that whitewashes the very real and urgent threat of the Far Right. Just imho

— Jack Seale (@jackseale) January 27, 2025

Keen to hear a number of examples of far left parties whose support is rising in Europe and who are demonising Others, ta in advance.

Or are we just doing centrist both-sides theatrics with no resemblance to reality? The BBC? Surely not? https://t.co/TsUOFVYvYX

— Priyamvada Gopal © (@PriyamvadaGopal) January 27, 2025

It was the Left who stood with Jews against the fascists at the Battle of Cable Street in 1936. It was the Left who organised against the National Front. And it is the Left organising against the far-right across Europe today. Equating the Left with the far-right is absurd. https://t.co/DG7OFFRZCp pic.twitter.com/KJhJc3ksCP

— Taj Ali (@Taj_Ali1) January 26, 2025

Oh, and protect Israel, of course

The BBC‘s pro-Israel bias has been clearer than ever during the last 15 months. And allegations of editorial manipulation to favour the settler-colonial power have been widespread. But Katya Adler is apparently an award-winning BBC journalist, who was previously the BBC‘s Middle East correspondent, working from Jerusalem, so surely she knows exactly what’s going on in occupied Palestine, right? The BBC certainly trusts her to give context on the decades of colonial oppression and brutality.

As a state propaganda tool, however, the public broadcaster would never give someone a role if they were going to challenge the establishment line. And that’s as true with Adler as anyone else. Because in April 2024, well into the genocide in Gaza, she talked about “6 brutal months of loss+conflict since the Hamas orchestrated 7Oct massacre in Israel”. See what she did there? Mentioning a ‘Hamas massacre’ but not an ‘Israeli genocide’ (or even suggesting that Israel was responsible for the brutality after 7 October 2023). That kind of linguistic gymnastics is a key strategy in the BBC‘s protection of the Israeli settler-colonial project.

And in the article on the Holocaust, she did the same thing, speaking of “Israel’s military response in Gaza which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians – after the Hamas-led massacre of 1,200 people”. So Israel was ‘responding by killing Palestinians’, but Hamas was ‘massacring people’. Here, she:

• Uses loaded language about Hamas (massacre), but not Israel (kill).
• Uses an inexact number for Palestinian deaths but an exact one for Israeli deaths.
• Doesn’t use ‘people’ to talk about Palestinians but does for Israelis.
• Provides context for Israel’s actions but not context (i.e. decades of brutal settler-colonial occupation) for Hamas’s actions.

Just as the BBC is a skilled propagandist for Israel, it also seeks to propagandise against the left wherever it can. And that’s why we need to be extra careful to avoid its manipulation, and to call it out at every possible opportunity.

Featured image via the Canary