“Aligned With Israel’s Propaganda Strategy”: BBC Correspondent Challenges the BBC Director General
Last November, we reported on an incisive and courageous email that had been sent on 24 October 2023 to Tim Davie, the BBC’s Director General, by Rami Ruhayem, a Beirut-based BBC correspondent. Basing his arguments on considerable evidence and rational analysis, Ruhayem was highly critical of the BBC’s pro-Israel coverage of Gaza since the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023.
A former journalist for the Associated Press, Ruhayem has worked as a journalist and producer for BBC Arabic and the BBC World Service since 2005. He wrote:
‘Words like “massacre”, “slaughter”, and “atrocities” are being used—prominently—in reference to actions by Hamas, but hardly, if at all, in reference to actions by Israel.
‘When the BBC uses such language selectively, with the standard of selection being the identity of the perpetrators/victims, the BBC is making a statement—albeit implicit. It implies that the lives of one group of people are more valuable than the lives of another.’ (Our emphasis)
As we pointed out at the time, this is extremely serious. The state-mandated BBC News organisation is essentially channelling Israeli propaganda that excuses its war crimes while demonising Israel’s victims, the Palestinian people.
Similar points were made in a 2,300-word letter sent in November 2023 to Al Jazeera by eight BBC journalists who, fearing reprisals, requested anonymity. They accused the BBC of:
‘failing to tell the story of the Israel-Palestine conflict accurately, investing greater effort in humanising Israeli victims compared with Palestinians, and omitting key historical context in coverage.’
They said that the BBC is guilty of a ‘double standard in how civilians are seen’, given that it is ‘unflinching’ in its reporting of alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
They noted that the BBC’s interviewers regularly asked Palestinians whether they ‘condemn Hamas’, while interviewees putting the Israeli perspective were not asked the same about Israel’s actions, ‘however high the civilian death toll in Gaza.’
A notorious example was a BBC Newsnight interview on 9 October 2023 with Husam Zomlot, the head of the Palestinian Mission to the United Kingdom, who had lost several members of his family during the early days of Israel’s bombing campaign.
He told presenter Kirsty Wark of his emotional pain. He listed the relatives who had been killed, describing them as ‘sitting ducks for the Israeli war machine’.
Wark replied:
‘I am sorry for your own personal loss. I mean, can I just be clear though, you cannot condone the killing of civilians in Israel, can you? Nor the killing of families?’
No doubt taken aback, Zomlot, who is not a Hamas representative, said:
‘No we don’t condone, no we don’t.’
Wark recently bid farewell to Newsnight after thirty years and was predictably garlanded with praise from across the state-friendly establishment of ‘mainstream’ politics and news.
Currently, the reported death toll in Gaza is approaching 39,000. But this may be a considerable underestimate, with over 10,000 estimated to be buried under the debris caused by Israeli bombing. A recent study in the prestigious Lancet medical journal points out that there will be many additional indirect deaths caused by destroyed health-care infrastructure; severe shortages of food, water, and shelter; the population’s inability to flee to safe places; and the loss of funding to Unrwa, the UN’s relief agency for Palestinians. The Lancet authors estimate that the total death toll in Gaza may even exceed 186,000. As a result, reports TRT World, Gaza ‘is turning into an open air cemetery’.
Israel’s attempt to eradicate Unrwa, and the withdrawal of many Western countries’ financial support for the agency on the basis of non-evidenced Israeli claims that Unrwa staff took part in the 7 October attacks, is a major but under-reported scandal. Israel has hit nearly 70 per cent of Unrwa schools in Gaza since 7 October. Over 95 per cent of these schools were being used as shelters when bombed. 539 people sheltering in Unrwa facilities have been killed. The agency said:
‘Nowhere is safe. The blatant disregard for UN premises and humanitarian law must stop.’
On 1 May 2024, Ruhayem sent a follow-up email to the BBC Director General, which was also sent to several departments of BBC News. This email was leaked to the right-wing UK press and reported the following day (see below). It has now been published in full on the Jadaliyya website, hosted by the Arab Studies Institute, a non-profit organisation.
The essential conclusion about BBC News coverage of Gaza, wrote Ruhayem, is that of:
‘a collapse in the application of basic standards and norms of journalism that seems aligned with Israel’s propaganda strategy.’ [Our emphasis]
Moreover, Ruhayem has revealed that BBC management has failed to respond to ‘a mass of evidence-based critique of coverage’ from members of staff. The implication is that there may well be considerable disquiet among many BBC journalists that the broadcaster has been a largely uncritical conduit for Israeli propaganda.
Although undoubtedly made more stark over the past nine months, this basic feature of BBC News is nothing new. Over many years, we have pointed out the propaganda function of the BBC in books and media alerts, incorporating valuable work by numerous analysts including the Glasgow Media Group. A major figure here was Greg Philo who died recently and whose books with Mike Berry (‘Bad News From Israel’ and ‘More Bad News From Israel’) are vital reading.
‘A Dizzying Pace’
In his 1 May email to the Director General of the BBC, Ruhayem begins by saying that, since his previous email of 24 October 2023, he has examined more thoroughly the ‘editorial failings’ that have characterized the BBC’s coverage of Gaza, and questions whether management is serious about addressing those failings. The evidence of a collapse in BBC journalism standards, in line with Israel’s propaganda strategy, ‘has been pouring in for months at a dizzying pace’.
Ruhayem collated some of this evidence of pro-Israel bias in two papers (see below) which he sent to management’s feedback email in February. Other BBC colleagues have documented similar problems and presented them in various ways to senior levels within the BBC. What has been the response?
Ruhayem wrote:
‘Management has recognized that many of us have deep misgivings about coverage, and that these should be heard. That seems to be the implicit logic behind the “Listening Sessions” and the feedback emails. But irrespective of what the intention(s) behind this process may have been, it has amounted to little more than a short-lived venting exercise.’
He added:
‘I have participated keenly in every avenue proposed by management that I managed to involve myself in, and more. Silence has been a common response to a mass of evidence-based critique of coverage. Nothing I sent to “feedback emails” has received a response, except once to say that maybe someone will respond, maybe not. Others have had similar experiences.’
The BBC correspondent then noted that:
‘The exceptions to such silence have usually been worse. In one email chain, a senior figure did not answer a simple question: do BBC presenters not have a duty to interject when serious, unverified claims are made on air? Another, when asked about the reasoning behind editorial decisions, saw fit to inform a group of staff that “editors edit”, seemingly in the belief that this should be enough to brush off everything we’d said.’
Anyone who has ever submitted a complaint to the BBC about its coverage, whatever the topic, will not be surprised by such dismissive treatment. We have lauded all those brave people who enter the labyrinthine den of the BBC ‘complaints system’. This is a soul-crushing experience that even the former BBC chairman Lord Grade once described as ‘grisly’ due to a system that is ‘absolutely hopeless’. So, what hope for us mere mortals? Anyone who makes the attempt is surely forever disabused of the notion that BBC News engages with, or indeed serves, the public in any meaningful way. Long-time readers may recall that Helen Boaden, then head of BBC News, once joked that she evaded public complaints that were sent to her on email:
‘Oh, I just changed my email address.’
It is noteworthy that the Beirut-based BBC correspondent and his colleagues expressing serious concerns about BBC coverage have also been rebuffed. It is perhaps perversely refreshing to hear that BBC management treats its own journalists with similar disdain as it does viewers and listeners.
Ruhayem told Davie that senior BBC managers would occasionally offer one or two links as counterexamples to serious bias in its coverage:
‘The implicit logic would appear to be that a collapse in standards is ok if there are exceptions. Faced with specific examples, senior managers might say it’s inappropriate to comment on individual stories. Faced with analysis that goes back in time to examine content, they might ask for “specific” examples. One of them once referred a group of us back to the unresponsive “News board” feedback email. Another told me they wouldn’t address issues that had already been raised to the News board.’
Again, we note the Kafka-esque contortions performed by BBC management to avoid proper accountability even to their own journalists.
One senior manager replied to a group of staff that all the examples of serious pro-Israel bias provided by Ruhayem and colleagues are the result of ‘decisions taken by editors’. This risible response was seemingly intended to preclude further argument.
Of course, as Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky observed in Manufacturing Consent, senior editors and managers in ‘mainstream’ news outlets – which, as we have repeatedly demonstrated, very much includes BBC News – have been selected for conformity to state-corporate ideology. Chomsky made the point succinctly to a young, befuddled, pre-BBC Andrew Marr in a now-famous clip:
‘I’m not saying you’re self-censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you say. But what I’m saying is if you believed something different you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.’
In his email to Davie, Ruhayem asked whether BBC editors:
‘gave instructions to drop requirements for applying scrutiny regarding the most serious, unverified claims that were being repeated by propagandists for Israel? Would they be able to explain why, and offer a defence of such decisions based on BBC values and standards? If that is not the case, would the editors be able to explain why – upon observing these standards being repeatedly cast aside – they did not intervene? In any case, would upper management clarify what it thinks its own duties are in such a situation?’
Media Lens analysis of BBC News since we began in 2001 reveals that ‘BBC values and standards’ is a doctrinal phrase that has little basis in reality. ‘Impartiality’, ‘objectivity’, ‘balance’ and ‘accuracy’ are largely jettisoned when it comes to the brutal truths behind state and corporate power. The myth that ‘we’ are ‘the good guys’ in world affairs must be maintained at all times.
Ruhayem goes on to say that the latest trend among BBC editors being challenged by their own journalists about biased Gaza coverage is to ask for ‘recent’ examples.
‘This is usually in response to questions about the first weeks/months of coverage, during which Israeli claims about the events of October 7 were given an open, uncritical platform by the BBC. This ignores the fact that – in many cases – examples of this kind of thing were flagged as they were happening but not addressed at the time, or at any time. It also ignores the lasting harm such content is likely to have contributed to causing. In any case, many of us have offered – and continue to offer – feedback that covers all these categories; individual examples, systemic issues, recent examples, not-so-recent examples, without receiving a meaningful response in any instance, at any time, whatever the channel we use, and usually without receiving any response at all.’ [Our emphasis]
These considered revelations are damning. Senior BBC editors and management are simply not willing and/or capable of engaging with serious scrutiny of the broadcaster’s coverage, even when challenged by their own journalists. At this point, we have to recognise the courage and moral integrity of Rami Ruhayem in being prepared to challenge senior BBC figures; no doubt, with considerable animosity from his line management and some colleagues, resulting in personal discomfort and, indeed, significant risk to his continued BBC employment.
When his 1 May email was leaked to the right-wing press, the reports downplayed the seriousness and extent of his collated evidence and emphasised the ‘outrage’ of ‘Jewish staff’ with the inevitable and insidious deployment of the ‘antisemitism’ card: The Times (‘BBC correspondent questions “facts” of October 7 attacks on Israel’), The Telegraph (‘BBC may be “complicit in Israeli war propaganda” claims Beirut correspondent’), and The Daily Mail (‘BBC correspondent says the broadcaster has a pro-Israel bias and should be questioning the “facts” of October 7 – sparking fury among Jewish colleagues’). No other newspapers reported the leak, including the Guardian and the Independent.
In short, Ruhayem is adamant that the problems of BBC coverage of Gaza are ‘evident, unmistakable, and ongoing.’
‘Israel’s War on Context’
So, what are the specifics of Ruhayem’s charges against BBC coverage? The first of two papers that he presented in February 2024 to Davie and senior BBC News staff concerned what the Beirut-based correspondent termed, ‘Israel’s war on context’.
This was elucidated by Ruhayem’s analysis of 22 interviews with Israeli guests – mostly current officials, a few former officials, army officers, politicians, and a ‘human rights activist’. All the interviews were conducted between October 10 and October 25, 2023 on the BBC News channel. They do not necessarily cover every interview with Israeli guests on the channel during that period.
His main findings were:
- There was no challenge about different manifestations of what appears to be the Israeli government’s drive to destroy any chance of Palestinian self-determination, about Israeli officials in positions of power who had incited extreme violence against Palestinians prior to October 7, or what all of that might suggest about the motivations driving Israel’s conduct of the war.
- Ruhayem found one single reference by a BBC presenter to one of the statements mentioned above [i.e. the statements summarised in point 1]. It was the only such mention in 22 interviews that took place over a period of 15 days. In that exception to the rule, the issue was framed in terms of the potential legal and reputational harm to Israel. In other interviews, Israeli guests repeated claims that are at odds with such statements from top Israeli leaders, without the statements being mentioned by presenters.
- The Dahiya Doctrine is not mentioned in any of these interviews.
The so-called Dahiya Doctrine is essentially an Israeli military doctrine that overrides any sense of ‘proportionality’ in Israel’s attacks on Palestinians. It was articulated in the wake of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, and put into practice later in Gaza. Gadi Eisenkot, at the time head of the Israeli Northern Command and currently a member of the Israeli war cabinet, explained:
‘What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. […] We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases […]. This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.’
Recall that, after the attack by Hamas on 7 October, Israeli leaders, officials and army personnel made boastful statements about how brutally Israel intended to conduct its attacks on Gaza. Defence minister Yoav Gallant said that ‘we are fighting human animals and we act accordingly’ and that he ‘removed every restriction’ on the army. An Israeli army spokesman said that the ‘emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy’.
The above three findings are, Ruhayem wrote, part of:
‘a growing body of evidence indicating that the BBC may have been withholding vital information from the public, contributing to incitement against Palestinians, and spreading and reinforcing Israeli war propaganda.’
He added:
‘There appears to be a ceiling on questioning Israeli officials and propagandists, expressed in the consistent failure of presenters to use crucial evidence to challenge Israel’s west-facing propaganda. Lines of challenge which are obvious to pursue and which would cast doubt on Israel’s west-facing messaging are conspicuously and consistently not pursued by BBC presenters.’
Ruhayem continued:
‘Unfettered by proper challenge, propagandists for Israel can then paint a picture of a peaceful state that has the misfortune of existing alongside pure evil, and present it as the backdrop to the unfolding horror in Gaza.’ [Our emphasis]
BBC coverage is thus fundamentally compromised, noted Ruhayem:
‘The main assumption is that Israel is trying to avoid harming Palestinian civilians as it conducts a war of self-defence. Thus, discussions between BBC presenters and Israeli propagandists are centred on the question of whether Israel is trying hard enough, or acting intelligently enough, to achieve its goal of “crushing” and “dismantling” Hamas without harming civilians – or its reputation. This framework is cemented because evidence to the contrary is erased.’
Moreover, BBC management have made:
‘little meaningful effort to examine our coverage with urgency and transparency in pursuit of evidence-based conclusions.’
Ruhayem’s second paper sent to senior BBC News staff on 25 February 2024 examined BBC content relating to the events of 7 October. Considerable BBC coverage was devoted to claims of alleged horrific acts carried out by Hamas attackers. These claims included the alleged beheading of babies and the blood-curdling story of a pregnant woman who had her belly cut open, the baby removed from her stomach and beheaded in front of her before she herself was beheaded.
Ruhayem noted that:
‘Claims and testimony that encourage the most extreme portrayals of Israel’s enemies are allowed to be repeated without challenge – regardless of whether or not they’re backed by evidence. Claims and testimony that raise the possibility of Israeli disinformation around the events of October 7 are ignored – despite the evidence.’
The purpose of Israeli’s repetition of horrific stories, platformed by the BBC and other news media, was clear: to drill into the public ‘the idea that any action Israel sees fit to take is justified’.
Ruhayem continued:
‘By seeking to place Hamas on the most extreme end of the spectrum of evil, propagandists for Israel seemed to believe they’d be able to defend whatever Israel chose to do – and set the stage for more. The seeming suspension of basic standards of scrutiny on the BBC most likely encouraged that strategy.’
He added:
‘Such coverage is likely to have aided Israel’s efforts to ensure political support in the West for its actions, and to intimidate those opposed to them and portray them as supporters of the most hideous atrocities.’
In summary, the evidence in both papers presented to senior BBC managers and editors by Ruhayem:
‘indicates a collapse in editorial standards and values […] which complements, reinforces, and otherwise serves Israel’s messaging. BBC output appears to have aided two pillars of Israeli propaganda: the obliteration of vital context, and incitement against Palestinians.’
It has, of course, been clear to careful observers since 7 October that BBC News has been, and remains, complicit in Israel’s attempted genocide of the Palestinian people. The particularly noteworthy aspects of the BBC correspondent’s leaked emails is that there is likely significant concern, even dissent, among BBC News staff, and that BBC management refuses to engage in any meaningful way with staff expressing such views.
Since the full publication of the leaked emails last week by the Jadaliyya website (Part 1 and Part 2), there has been zero coverage in the UK national press, according to our media database searches. The silence sums up the insidious censorship by omission that characterises ‘mainstream’ media when it comes to uncomfortable truths.
As a closing example of the BBC’s ‘impartiality’, consider the headline of a BBC News online story last week:
‘The lonely death of Gaza man with Down’s syndrome’
The article, by BBC journalist Fergal Keane, only revealed in the 16th paragraph that Israeli soldiers had set a combat dog on 24-year-old Muhammad Bhar, leaving him to bleed to death. His decomposed body was found a week later by his family who had been ordered to leave their home while Muhammad was locked in a room inside with Israeli soldiers. Muhammad’s brother Jibril said the soldiers likely tried to stop the bleeding, but then left him ‘without stitches or care’.
After a tsunami of online outrage, the BBC updated its headline to:
‘Gaza man with Down’s syndrome attacked by IDF dog and left to die, mother tells BBC’
Even this headline blunted the horrible truth. Historian and author Assal Rad, who regularly provides more accurate headlines to ‘mainstream’ news stories on Gaza, observed of the updated headline:
‘This was one of the worst stories I’ve heard, and this is how the BBC covers it’
She suggested a more accurate version:
‘Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian man with Down’s syndrome after setting a dog on him and leaving him to die’
This is yet another example of how the BBC routinely sanitises Israeli crimes and helps to ‘normalise the unthinkable’, to use the phrase deployed by the late Edward Herman.
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