The BBC's highest complaints panel has rejected the accusation that the use of the phrase "moneybags Rothschild" is antisemitic, the Jewish Chronicle reported.
A listener had submitted a complaint after the phrase was uttered during the Gardeners’ Question Time radio program. However, the Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU) ruled that the phrase would not “perpetuate prejudice" in the context in which it was used because “the Jewishness of the Rothschild family was not referred to."
The ruling was condemned by Jewish leaders. Lord Eric Pickles, the former chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), called the decision “beyond comprehension" and stated that the phrase was “inappropriate and antisemitic, almost comically so."
Conspiracy theories about the wealth of the Rothschild family have long been used by antisemites to justify actions against Jews. The Nazis used Rothschild conspiracy theories as part of their anti-Jewish propaganda in the 1930s.
The BBC has faced numerous accusations of bias and antisemitism in its coverage of Israel and Jewish issues in recent years.
In November of 2023, the corporation published an apology after falsely claiming that IDF troops were targeting medical teams in battles in and around the Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
Before that, the BBC falsely accused Israel of being responsible for an explosion at a hospital in Gaza, which the IDF proved was caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket. The network later acknowledged that “it was false to speculate" on the explosion.
Last year, the BBC faced scrutiny for using the son of a senior Hamas official as a narrator in its documentary “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone."
Following the criticism, the British broadcaster acknowledged that there were “serious flaws" in the program.
In January 2026, the BBC was forced to apologize after the introduction to its International Holocaust Memorial Day conference omitted the fact that the six million victims murdered by the Nazis were Jews, with the omission being condemned as "hurtful, disrespectful and wrong"