The BBC ignored a warning not to “parrot Hamas propaganda” in reporting on a Gaza hospital strike, a lawyer has claimed. The Telegraph has more.
Barrister Natasha Hausdorff says her complaints about the broadcaster’s impartiality regarding the war in Gaza have led to her being “stonewalled” by the corporation.
Writing exclusively for the Daily Telegraph, Ms. Hausdorff, Legal Director at U.K. Lawyers for Israel charitable trust, said the BBC ignored her concerns about the attribution of the attack on the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City on Oct 17th.
Ms. Hausdorff had been booked by the BBC for an interview on the evening the hospital was hit to discuss the situation in Gaza.
With reports of the blast starting to filter through, she says she was “bumped” from the live broadcast by an assistant editor of the BBC News Channel, so they could cover the “Israeli airstrike” on the hospital.
Appeals to wait for clarification and not rush to attribution “fell on deaf ears” Ms. Hausdorff said.
“I could predict the impact that spreading disinformation about the hospital would have on the Arab world.
“I was told the BBC’s story had been confirmed by multiple sources. Yet we know that any ‘Palestinian official’ in Gaza is a Hamas official, and not a source that any self-respecting journalist can take seriously.
“Parroting Hamas propaganda is not journalism. I was told there wasn’t time to discuss this further.”
Hamas claimed an Israeli airstrike led to the blast and killed at least 500 people.
However, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was caused by a misfired rocket from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group and released imagery and communications intercepts to support their case.
The British Government later concluded the Israeli version of events was more likely to be correct.
Hamas’s claims were further questioned when it emerged the hospital building was intact and any explosion had centred on the car park, claiming far fewer casualties than the first reports of 500 dead.
In the first report on the BBC, correspondent Jon Donnison suggested Israel was behind the blast. Speaking shortly after 8pm on BBC News, he said: “It’s hard to see what else this could be really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli airstrike or several airstrikes.”
Mr Donnison’s comments prompted the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Campaign Against Antisemitism to complain to the corporation.
Worth reading in full.
You can read Natasha Hausdorff’s article about this episode here.
Stop Press: It’s too late to complain to the BBC about spreading Hamas’s disinformation – it has already considered the complaint and exonerated itself. But it’s not too late to complain to Ofcom about another example of anti-Israeli bias – Kay Burley’s opening question to Eylon Levy, an Israeli Government spokesperson, about a hostage-prisoner exchange on November 23rd in which she said:
I was speaking to a hostage negotiator this morning. He made the comparison between the 50 hostages that Hamas has promised to release as opposed to the 150 prisoners that are Palestinians that Israel has said that it will release. And he made the comparison between the numbers and the fact that does Israel not think that Palestinian lives are valued as highly as Israeli lives?
You can see a clip of that interview on X here:
To complain to Ofcom about this, you need to fill out a form on its complaints portal here. Here’s some guidance about how to do that and some suggested wording for the ‘Subject’ and ‘Description’ of your complaint:
Programme title: Breakfast with Kay Burley
Date of broadcast: 23/11/2023
Time of broadcast: 08.39
Channel/Station: Sky News
Subject: Kay Burley’s interview with Israeli Government spokesperson Elyon Levy
Description: I am writing to complain about Kay Burley’s interview of Eylon Levy, an Israeli Government spokesperson, at 8:39am on Sky News on November 23rd in the programme Breakfast with Kay Burley. In Ms. Burley’s opening question to Mr Levy, she said: “I was speaking to a hostage negotiator this morning. He made the comparison between the 50 hostages that Hamas has promised to release as opposed to the 150 prisoners that are Palestinians that Israel has said that it will release. And he made the comparison between the numbers and the fact that does Israel not think that Palestinian lives are valued as highly as Israeli lives?” This was a baseless, antisemitic allegation. Although Mr. Levy answered it effectively, it still planted the idea in the minds of people inclined to antisemitism that Israel – not the Israeli authorities, but Israel in general – values the lives of Israelis more highly than Palestinians, thereby exacerbating the serious hostility faced by British Jews in contemporary Britain. According to the Metropolitan Police, antisemitic hate crime in London is up by 1,350% since the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7th. In my view, this interview fell below generally accepted standards. Please treat this as a formal complaint under section 2 of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code.
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Israelis antisemitically accused of valueing their own people more than their enemies !!1
Is this a malfunction of some kind of automated text annotation system?
How many of this vast increase have been report-worthy by outlets such as the Daily Sceptic? Not many it seems. Are they mainly reports of no substance or no actual crime or of a lesser degree to what other Brits might be facing day-to-day?
How is it known what effect this had on the minds of those watching? Should we also be concerned of the potential rage it may cause in those who uncritically support the Israeli regime?
Well there’s no shortage of posters on here ”parroting Hamas propaganda” either. Keep on confirming that bias though and believing everything you hear from those ‘authorities in Gaza’, who are most certainly NOT controlled by Hamas and their supporters….
Meanwhile, the definitely *not* impartial Human Rights Watch even seems to be conceding that it wasn’t an Israeli rocket in this rather long-winded assessment here;
”(Jerusalem) – The explosion that killed and injured many civilians at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza on October 17, 2023, resulted from an apparent rocket-propelled munition, such as those commonly used by Palestinian armed groups, that hit the hospital grounds, Human Rights Watch said today.
The rockets that are extensively used by Palestinian armed groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad have only rudimentary guidance systems and are prone to misfire, making them extremely inaccurate and thus inherently indiscriminate when directed toward areas with civilians. All such rockets launched toward populated areas violate the laws-of-war prohibition against intentional or indiscriminate attacks against civilians. Those who order or carry out such attacks with criminal intent – deliberately or recklessly – are responsible for war crimes.
Human Rights Watch has previously reported on rockets that have misfired and struck areas in Gaza. Research citing data released by the Israeli military has suggested that between 10 to 20 percent of rockets launched from Gaza have failed.”
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/26/gaza-findings-october-17-al-ahli-hospital-explosion
I haven’t seen anyone here do anything but criticise Hamas. Can you name any?
Most here take a balanced view, but some people who are vehemently pro-Israeli tend to parrot their propaganda and interpret balance to suit their argument.
Neither side is without sin, and being partisan only hardens opinions and perpetuates violence which didn’t start just a few weeks ago.
Yes I can name a few posters actually, as can anyone with a pair of functioning eyes. There’s a few on here that seem to proudly take a pro-terrorist stance and from their hostile, vitriolic posts they appear to be immeasurably gleeful about the actions of Hamas, or at best they justify it, while making a very lame attempt at masking ( or not, in a few particular posters’ cases ) their disdain for Jews. Yes there’s very enthusiastic Jew-hating going on in these comments sections, or have you all of a sudden been afflicted with a case of ‘selective amnesia’? And I’m pretty certain they’ll be along anytime soon. Agree about both sides being at fault, to varying degrees.
But you failed to highlight any. If you are unwilling to name names at least give verbatim quotes of what they said as I haven’t seen vitriolic posts that glorify Hamas activities, which you claim proliferate here.
Interestingly I’m not willing to name names because it is patently obvious who I’m talking about because they’ve been very prolific in their nasty, antisemitic remarks, and plenty of people have pulled them up on this previously. Also, I’m calling you out in your blatantly obvious attempt at manipulating me into starting a bitchfest on here, where the comments section will once more descend into one tedious, predictable spat. Your objective is as transparent as clingfilm and I’ve got your number, just so’s you know.
Here’s a novel idea though; why not just trawl through the comments sections from yesterday and prior and knock yourself out with all the ‘evidence’ you need. I’m not doing your dirty work for you, and frankly, have better things to do now.
I reiterate.
I am and have been against mass immigration and the importation of the 3rd world in to our country for many many years, supporting Farage et al I have on many counts been accused of being a racist, however I am no racist.
I am extremely concerned regarding the global control of the narrative(s) that the Zionists have acquired, however I am not anti-Semitic.
I refuse to conflate what I am expected to conflate.
Raising historical facts that the Bolsheviks were Ashkenazi Jews who were responsible for the murder of 67.5 million (estimates of possibly up to 200 million) of us European Gentiles between 1917 and 1950s and that there are only “memorials” to the six million Jews lost to the nazi regime during the Holocaust and not one to the lost tens of million gentiles is not “Anti semitic” but a historical fact certainly worthy of recognition not ridicule..
And once we can recognise this (conveniently) unspoken fact without being labeled as “Anti semitic ” we can then talk about why this occurred and the subsequent complications that we all endure.
Nothing you can say is there downtickers … Only that one very useful word… “Anti semitic”
Even assuming this was the case, the overwhelming majority of so-called Ashkenazi Jews had certainly no part in this and since the majority of people don’t belong to this group, a huge, indiscriminate or rather, class-discriminating, killing spree will necessarily have a majority of people who don’t belong to this group as victims. Ethnicalising this event in the given way is neither helpful nor appropriate.
How about the following? Bolshevists, mainly, Bolshevists under Stalin, murdered between 13 and 40 times as many people as the Nazis are said to have. If this is about morals, ie, good vs evil, and not about opportunity, ie, us vs them, how come they’re still getting a free pass for this and that people Stalin’s nanny (Susan Mitchie) are still in positions of power and still preaching in favour of this thoroughly murderous ideology?
I very well remember one frequent commenter on DS, who remarked around six months ago, that he rejoiced at the thought of Iranian rockets nuking Tel Aviv.
I guess that makes him a likely candidate for the genuinely “far-right” category of lunatics.
Apologies to lunatics that might be offended by my comparison.
The proximity of Jaffa and indeed Gaza to Tel Aviv might even worry Hamas for a moment or two.
Although I guess the barsteward in Qatar would doubtless put a brave face on the concept.
I very well remember one frequent commenter on DS, who remarked around six months ago, that he rejoiced at the thought of Iranian rockets nuking Tel Aviv.
I guess that makes him a likely candidate for the genuinely “far-right” category of lunatics.
The right – left distinction is one specific to domestic politcs under ‘western’ parliamentary systems. Applying it to this conflict makes absolutely no sense. One could try occident – orient with Israel being the most south-eastern occidental outpost. OTOH, that would thoroughly confuse our American bethren who probably believe ‘Orient’ is a city in Thailand. :->
Agree about both sides being at fault, to varying degrees.
To maybe put something new into this discussion: We are not the (armchair) judges of these people who get to – well – judge their actions without any real knowledge about their affairs based on our superior moral standing, something which came to us very cheaply as we’re just watching (insofar we’re watching) from the sidelines without having any skin in the game.
As usual with these kinds conflicts, both parties are absolutely convinced that a divine right (literally in this case) is on their side and the outcome of this clash of the divine rights will be settled by (armed) violence. That’s how mankind has handled such issues since time immemorial and this immature 20h century moralising about wars is really just a secondary effect of some people’s fear that they may – one day – find themselves as soldiers in a war they’d prefer to have avoided by virtue of conscription — the pacifists who really enjoy boxing matches, to paraphrase Ernst Jünger¹.
¹ “Der Pazifist, der auf Boxkämpfe geht”, Jünger: Der Kampf als inneres Erlebnis.
Are you joking? Off the top of my head I can name four terrorism-in-context-whataboutery peddlers on this site.
Jeremy Bowen and his BBC pals on the Middle East Desk have acted as Hamas PR unit for 15 years.
The systematic demonisation and misrepresentation of Israel by the world’s best funded news organisation has played a signific part in inciting the antisemitism we’re seeing now.
Blood on their hands.
The above article is another piece of evidence for the prosecution and I hope and pray it comes soon.
The Al-Ahli hospital explosion was NOT “Hamas propaganda”.
All the evidence pored over by independent analysts points to the explosive projectile coming from Israeli territory.
The Israeli version is the “lies and propaganda”.
Surely the obvious riposte is that these terms were insisted on by Hamas – they are the ones who value an Israeli hostage as worth three Palestinian prisoners.
JFK… CIA/Israel
911…CIA/Israel /Mossad
7/10/23 CIA/Israel/Mossad
Some more “antisemitism” for you, can’t possibly be fact can it now…
Never mind
If there is a single contributor on here that has’nt cancelled their TV licence, then shame on you.