By: Fern Sidman – Jewish Voice News

In a scandal that has sent shockwaves through Britain’s most prestigious broadcasting institution, a series of explosive revelations has cast severe doubt on the editorial integrity of BBC Arabic, the network’s foreign-language service. According to a leaked internal memo obtained by The Telegraph of the UK and later analyzed in depth by Israel’s Maariv, the BBC’s Arabic-language branch stands accused of systematically minimizing Israeli suffering in its coverage of the Gaza war while lending disproportionate credence to Hamas propaganda.

The claims, made by a whistleblower and corroborated by a separate 19-page letter submitted by former BBC standards adviser Michael Prescott, allege an appalling pattern of bias, negligence, and what Prescott describes as “a persistent desire to believe the worst about Israel.” According to the report in Maariv, the allegations suggest not merely journalistic failure, but a fundamental betrayal of the BBC’s founding charter of impartiality.

The internal memo, written by an employee within the BBC’s Arabic division, paints a disturbing picture of editorial malpractice and ideological manipulation. According to the information provided in the Maariv report, the memo asserts that allegations against Israel were “rapidly broadcast” without verification, while claims issued by Hamas and other militant sources received amplified coverage.

“BBC Arabic’s editorial stance has become substantially different from the core values upheld by the main BBC network,” the whistleblower wrote, warning executives that the Arabic service had developed into an echo chamber for anti-Israel narratives.

The memo accuses BBC Arabic of not only distorting the facts of the Gaza war but also of intentionally “minimizing Israeli suffering” to “paint Israel as the aggressor.” This narrative, the whistleblower claimed, was sustained even when evidence pointed unequivocally to Hamas culpability for atrocities and civilian deaths.

Maariv reported that the whistleblower’s account aligns with earlier concerns expressed by internal reviewers who noted that BBC Arabic had given “undue weight” to casualty figures supplied by Hamas’s so-called “Ministry of Health” — statistics that Western intelligence agencies have long regarded as inflated for propaganda purposes.

The result, as the Maariv report noted, was an Arabic-language broadcast stream that effectively diverged from BBC’s English-language reporting, undermining the network’s global credibility.

The controversy deepened when Danny Cohen, a former senior BBC executive, excoriated his former employer in a column published by The Telegraph and cited extensively in the report in Maariv.

Cohen accused the BBC’s leadership of betraying its public trust by concealing errors and protecting its brand rather than acknowledging wrongdoing. “Having made such serious and misleading journalistic errors, BBC senior management chose to hide them from the public rather than correct the impression,” he wrote. “Protecting the BBC’s reputation comes before the duties and principles enshrined in the British Broadcasting Charter.”

Cohen went further, declaring that “it is now beyond doubt that the BBC helped push Hamas’ lies around the world and fueled antisemitism at home.”

As the Maariv report observed, Cohen’s statement represents an extraordinary denunciation from a figure once considered among the BBC’s most respected executives — a sign that disillusionment within the organization’s ranks has reached crisis levels.

The most damning revelations came from Michael Prescott, a former independent adviser to the BBC’s Journalistic Guidelines and Standards Committee, who resigned earlier this year in protest. In his scathing 19-page letter to the BBC board — later obtained by The Telegraph and reviewed by Maariv — Prescott accused BBC Arabic of hosting individuals with a documented history of antisemitic speech and incitement.

Among them was Samer Al-Zaan, a guest commentator described as “pro-Hamas,” who had publicly written that “shooting Jews fixes everything” and praised more than 30 terrorist attacks on Jewish civilians as acts of “heroism.” According to Prescott’s findings, Al-Zaan appeared on BBC Arabic 244 times in just 18 months.

Another commentator, Ahmed Kanan, who described a Palestinian attacker who murdered four Israeli civilians and a police officer as a “hero,” appeared on the network 217 times between 2023 and 2025. Meanwhile, Ahmed Alaga, who characterized Israelis as “less than human” and Jews as “demons,” was given airtime 522 times during the same period.

“These are not isolated lapses,” Prescott wrote. “They constitute an institutional rot — a normalization of antisemitism that is fundamentally incompatible with the BBC’s mandate as a public broadcaster.”

As the Maariv report emphasized, Prescott’s documentation — detailing hundreds of appearances by openly antisemitic voices — illustrates a systematic breakdown of editorial oversight, one that cannot be dismissed as mere error.

Perhaps the most striking example of editorial bias cited in the reports involves the July 2024 rocket attack on a children’s football match in Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Golan Heights, which killed nine children.

The BBC’s English-language coverage acknowledged the attack, citing evidence that Hezbollah had bombarded other nearby locations, while noting that the group denied responsibility. Yet according to Prescott’s findings — reviewed by Maariv — BBC Arabic’s version of the story omitted any reference to Hezbollah’s parallel rocket strikes and gave disproportionate weight to the group’s denials.

The following day, BBC Arabic broadcast a segment alleging that Israel had “staged the attack” — a claim wholly unsupported by evidence. Prescott concluded bluntly: “It is difficult to conclude anything other than that the BBC’s handling of the story in Arabic was intended to minimize Israeli suffering and portray Israel as the aggressor.”

The Maariv report described the incident as emblematic of “a dual-track propaganda model,” where the BBC’s Arabic coverage operates with its own ideological bias and selective framing, effectively telling two different stories to two different audiences.

The whistleblower’s memo also addressed one of the most persistent falsehoods circulated by BBC Arabic and later amplified by social media: that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) had found Israel “probably guilty of genocide” in Gaza.

As the Maariv report recounted, this claim — repeatedly aired by BBC Arabic in early 2024 — was flatly refuted by Joan Donoghue, the ICJ’s former president, who later told the BBC’s own “HardTalk” program that the court had made no such finding.

In fact, the ICJ’s preliminary ruling dealt only with whether South Africa’s accusations fell under the Genocide Convention, not whether genocide had occurred. The BBC’s internal review later confirmed that “the court does not make any determination on the substance” of the claim.

Nevertheless, it took months for the BBC to issue a correction — by which time the false narrative had taken root across Arabic media and social networks. The delay, coupled with the initial misinformation, significantly amplified Hamas’s global disinformation campaign and deepened public hostility toward Israel.

As Maariv reported, BBC Arabic receives partial funding from a grant issued by the British Foreign Office, which mandates the network to uphold the principles of impartiality and accuracy in international broadcasting. Prescott’s letter, now circulating among government offices, raises pointed questions about whether the BBC has violated both the spirit and the letter of that agreement.

Prescott argued that BBC Arabic’s conduct “renders it unfit for the purpose for which the British government supports it,” urging Parliament and the Foreign Office to launch a formal inquiry.

“The Arabic service has become a tool not for journalistic inquiry but for ideological agitation,” Prescott wrote. “It is being used to launder propaganda under the banner of public broadcasting.”

Senior British lawmakers, speaking anonymously to Maariv, acknowledged that the allegations “cannot be ignored” and suggested that government oversight of the BBC’s foreign-language operations may soon be tightened.

For many observers, the revelations mark not merely a scandal but a turning point in the BBC’s long and once-storied history. As the Maariv report noted, this crisis threatens to erode one of Britain’s most powerful soft-power tools — its international broadcasting network, which reaches hundreds of millions across the globe.

“The damage goes far beyond reputational harm,” wrote one Maariv analyst. “If BBC Arabic’s coverage of Israel and Hamas is shaped by ideology rather than evidence, then its entire journalistic mission collapses. The network ceases to be a source of truth and becomes a vector of propaganda.”

Former executives have echoed this sentiment. Danny Cohen, in his Telegraph piece, argued that the BBC’s failure to act decisively represents “an existential threat to its credibility.” His call for senior management to “hang their heads in shame and resign” has resonated across media circles in both London and Jerusalem.

What emerges from the combined reporting of The Telegraph and Maariv is not an isolated lapse of editorial oversight, but a comprehensive indictment of systemic rot. From allowing virulently antisemitic guests to shape its narratives to distorting court rulings and sanitizing terrorist rhetoric, BBC Arabic appears to have succumbed to precisely the form of ideological activism that its charter forbids.

The implications are profound. The network’s Arabic service, which commands millions of viewers across the Middle East and North Africa, operates in a media landscape already saturated with anti-Israel sentiment. By lending its institutional authority to Hamas talking points, the BBC has not merely misled its audience — it has legitimized propaganda and exacerbated antisemitic hostility across the Arab world.

This distortion of truth carries real-world consequences: it shapes international diplomacy, fuels street protests, and undermines efforts toward coexistence. It emboldens extremists while silencing victims.

The BBC has thus far declined to comment on the specific allegations raised in Prescott’s letter, while promising an “internal review.” But as the Maariv report noted, critics see such inquiries as little more than bureaucratic self-defense. “The pattern is familiar,” wrote one columnist. “Each time the BBC is caught in misconduct, it pledges transparency — and then buries the findings.”

For many within and beyond Britain, that cycle of denial can no longer continue. The whistleblower’s testimony, Prescott’s letter, and the corroborating evidence leave little room for ambiguity: BBC Arabic has failed its mission, betrayed its standards, and endangered its credibility.

As the Maariv report observed, “This is not merely about one division or one broadcaster. It is about the sanctity of truth in an age of disinformation. The BBC’s Arabic service has crossed a line — from journalism into propaganda — and only a full, public reckoning can begin to restore the integrity that once defined the world’s most trusted name in news.”