A damning new report accuses the BBC of violating its own editorial guidelines more than 1,500 times during the first four months of the war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization, the Telegraph reported.
The report, which was led by British lawyer Trevor Asserson, “deeply worrying pattern of bias" against the Jewish State during that period immediately following the massacre of 1,200 people by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023.
Among the instances of bias, the report found that the BBC associated Israel with "genocide" 14 times more than Hamas, despite Israel's efforts to avoid causing civilian casualties and the genocidal nature of Hamas' stated objectives of wiping out the Jewish population of Israel. Israel was accused of war crimes four times more than Hamas despite the fact that Hamas terrorists filmed themselves committing war crimes.
In addition, the term "terrorist organization" was used to describe Hamas only 3.2% of the time, despite Hamas being defined as a terrorist organization by the British government.
The BBC's Arabic-language channel was particularly biased against Israel in its reporting and featured reporters who had praised terrorism against Israelis and Hamas without informing viewers of this fact.
BBC International Editor Jeremy Bowen and international correspondent Lyse Doucet were both accused of downplaying Hamas terrorism, with Doucet accused of downplaying the atrocities committed on October 7.
Conservatives in Parliament criticized the BBC following the publication of the report. Shadow Deputy Prime Minister Sir Oliver Dowden said, “Serious questions should be asked as to why this has been allowed to happen, and license-fee payers should expect to see the BBC stick to its own editorial guidelines.”
MP Greg Smith said, “We knew in the aftermath of October 7 that the BBC was struggling to call a terrorist a terrorist. There are now clear grounds for Ofcom and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to use every tool they have in their arsenal to bring about greater compliance with the rules around neutrality and fair coverage in the BBC charter.”
A BBC spokesperson said the organization would "carefully consider" the report, but added that it had "serious questions" about the methodology used in the report.