Sharp criticism in the UK over the BBC's coverage of the war in Israel and Gaza – Britain's chief rabbi, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and others attacked the way the network covers the difficult events in Israel. The main criticism is directed at the use of the word 'militants' - meaning fighting forces - instead of 'terrorists.'
Read more:
"I noticed that the BBC has a reluctance to use the term 'terrorist,'" said Britain's chief rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, during an interview with the network. “If one doesn’t use the term 'terrorist', it is as if one is providing a window of opportunity for justification, and nothing can justify this," he said.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also attacked the way the war between Israel and Hamas is covered in the British media. " They (Hamas)are not militants. They are not freedom fighters. They are terrorists," Sunak said in a speech in front of about 1,700 people at vigil for solidarity with Israel which was held Monday at Finchley United Synagogue in the north of the capital. Another 12,000 people watched the event, which was broadcast live online. Since 2021, Hamas has been officially designated as a terrorist organization in the UK.
Others have also spoken out against the BBC's coverage. Member of Parliament Steve McCabe, the chairman of the pro-Israel lobby in the British Parliament, told the Jewish Chronicle that the BBC should cover "in a proper and respectful way the shocking and terrible events in Israel. Those who defend or justify terrorist attacks must not have a platform to spread their hatred on our public broadcasting."
Member of Parliament Alicia Kearns, from the Conservative Party, also criticized the conduct of the BBC and said that "there is never any legitimacy or protection for the rape and murder of civilians. Any insinuation that the terrorist organization Hamas is not a terrorist organization, or that its actions are not the actions of terrorists, dishonors the memory of those whose lives were taken and were irreparably damaged."
In recent days, since the attack by Hamas, Marie van der Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, has begun criticizing the BBC's biased coverage. In an interview with the Jewish Chronicle she said that she complained to BBC Dir.-Gen. Tim Davie, who admitted that he should not have broadcast an interview with a Hamas supporter who claimed that the attack on Israel was the same as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. However, even after the criticism, the BBC has refused to change their systemic directive, under which members of the Hamas organization are called "militants" and not "terrorists."
The interview for which the BBC director apologized was broadcast on Saturday evening, less than a day after the start of the Hamas attack on Israel, with Refaat Alareer, a lecturer at the University in Gaza, who claimed that Hamas's actions were "legitimate and moral." He compared them to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, "the heroic battle in which the Jewish resistance fought." Alareer claimed in the broadcast that the Hamas attack is "the uprising of the Gaza ghetto against centuries of European and Zionist colonialism."