If like me you occasionally and very reluctantly watch anything on the BBC, you will have noticed a profusion of incestuous promotional material. This is intended to remind us all of the “value” we receive from the licence fee because in approximately 42 days, the BBC will be coming to the country (the UK, that is) for an increase in its Licence Fee.

The actual date is April 1st which also happens to be April Fools’ Day, and that prompted me to wonder how foolish we are to currently fund the broadcaster to the tune of £3.6 billion in licence fee income annually and and how much more foolish to continue to do so at a higher rate. In other words to reward the broadcaster for its activities.

Ignoring its pandering to some sections of UK citizenry and apparent disregard for some other sections; ignoring its demonstrable anti-Trump prejudice and ignoring its apparent enthusiasm for the brutal, repressive, misogynistic, Islamist Iranian regime which led it to ignore the popular uprising until shamed into reporting it, we’ll jump straight to the broadcaster’s shameless zeal for promoting a virulently anti-Israel narrative and its parallel enthusiasm for promoting a pro-Palestine one. And not just since October 8, but for the previous 25-plus years when it actively helped disseminate and embed the fake, Soviet-fabricated Palestinian “narrative” of Jewish “oppression” and Arab “victimhood.” And did it so successfully that when an avalanche of anti-Israel lies, libels, disinformation and misinformation crashed across the globe on Oct 8 2023, it was gasoline on a tinder-dry forest. And the BBC didn’t just throw a lighted match, it poured on more petrol and fanned the flames, perhaps leading to the deadly terrorist attack on Heaton Park Synagogue or even –  given the broadcaster’s reach and reputation – to the Bondi attack, too.

We hardly need reminding of the ways in which the BBC fanned the flames of Jew-hate, but with that April Licence-Fee review fast approaching, let’s just review the highlights.

First there was the vocabulary. Within days of the invasion, massacre and mass abductions by Islamist, Jihadist terrorists inside Israel, the BBC began referring to the Iranian proxy Hamas –  designated a “terrorist” organisation by the UK and US governments –  as “militants”; their references to Israeli hostages became ever more perfunctory; and they quickly adopted other Hamas terminology such as describing convicted Palestinian terrorists as “hostages.”

But semantics were only the paper-thin end of a Grand Canyon-size wedge. Almost immediately the broadcaster began pumping out daily –  sometimes hourly –  “bulletins” on Gaza that were Hamas allegations thinly disguised as “news” yet presented as if they were verified facts. You may also recall that the studio anchors in London never failed to state –  without context –  that its journalists were “not allowed in Gaza” before declaring that its reports were from  “trusted correspondents”. As it later emerged, these “trusted correspondents” were Hamas-affiliated or Hamas-approved individuals – or simply Hamas militants donning Press vests. Yet their “reports” were dutifully delivered by BBC staffers in Jerusalem, and their videos were aired as if from legitimate, accredited journalists and anchors continued to piously intone the legend of  “trusted correspondents”.

They also immediately and invidiously began giving airtime to agencies, NGOs and individuals who were actively hostile to Israel. If they didn’t already know this – which is unlikely – they could have quickly discovered it, as many keyboard warriors did. Yet they presented these  “statements” or “reports” as if from a “neutral” or “objective” “humanitarian” sources. As well as the deliberate damage inflicted on a daily basis thanks to “press bulletins” and gaslighting via what was clearly a carefully timed, carefully co-ordinated campaign, there were far too many  “mistakes” – and always impugning Israel – to be attributable to anything other than active collusion. There are too many examples of this collusion – or off-the-scale stupidity – to mention here, so we’ll just recall the BBC slavishly repeating the Hamas claims of “no fuel”. Sorry, obviously, I meant  reporting the Hamas claims. Yet if –  as Hamas asserted –  there was “no fuel”,  how was Hamas able to fire hundreds of fuel-guzzling rockets into Israel on a daily basis for weeks on end? And how did its staffers in Jerusalem or those “trusted correspondents” fail to notice (or report) this massive anomaly?

And there was also – and please forgive the pun –  the ferocious feeding of the blood libel of Israel responsible for “famine in Gaza” because as those pulling the Jihadists’ strings/funding that campaign know, “starving” civilians –  and especially “starving children”  –  are endlessly useful for pushing an anti-Israel agenda. So, although any unbiased journalist could discover in a heartbeat that any shortages were due to Hamas’s large-scale theft of Aid or to the refusal by agencies to deliver Aid, or that the “shortages” were manufactured because, well “starving children” make good TV, those “trusted correspondents” just kept filing their heart-rending reports and the BBC just kept running them.  And it now seems possible  that “starvation” was entirely fake because last October, UNICEF confirmed that there had not been any deaths from “famine” in Gaza. Though, as far as I’m aware, that was not reported by the BBC. Ignoring the BBC’s headlines blaming Israel for a strike on a Gaza hospital that was actually by Hamas, let’s look at that “documentary”  that was in fact a Hamas-made propaganda film that it not only aired, but vigorously defended until a keyboard warrior in London revealed the role of Hamas in producing it.  And, of course, there was its failure –  on what was demonstrably a quiet news day –  to report even one minute of the funeral of Shiri Bibas and her infant sons taken hostage on Oct 7 and murdered in cold blood by Hamas whilst in captivity.  And although we can’t directly blame the BBC for the hateful, antisemitic chanting of “death to the IDF” at Glastonbury, we can certainly blame them for failing to cut the feed the very moment the vile incitement to Jew-hate began. Also, given that everyone at “Glasto” allegedly had advance warning of the anti-Israel demonstration, it seems inconceivable the BBC staffers on-site were unaware of it. Perhaps curious, too, that with that knowledge this little-known duo was covered at all.

But of course, the most egregious example of the BBC’s active complicity in virulent antisemitism is BBC Arabic. Some months ago, I expressed the view in The Jewish News  that the Arabic channel needed to be shut down entirely for inciting Israel hate and Jew-hate over many years –  perhaps being a factor in the Islamist slaughter of Jews in Manchester or Bondi.

Now we have assembled the evidence, it is clear that the BBC does not deserve to be rewarded on April 1st with an increased licence fee. In fact –  and I suspect I might not be alone here (yes, that is sarcasm) – it deserves to be punished for its willing collusion in fanning the flames of antisemitism, as well as all its other misdemeanours. That said, however, it would be sad to lose the whole BBC when the heinous, anti-Israel bias, the most egregious pro-Palestine, pro-terrorist, pro-Islamist narratives (and the promotion of that student-politics-Marxist-Leninist worldview) are to be found in News, Current Affairs and, of course the Arabic service.

So should we punish the entire BBC or should we choose a more refined punishment that would infinitely diminish its ability to promote its Leftist, pro-Islamist, anti-West narrative, while preserving the stuff we like. For example, by separating News, Current Affairs, etc from the Entertainment side, as I have previously suggested. Of course BBC execs and staffers who embody the corporation’s Leftist worldview will vigorously resist this. Partly they will kick and scream because all those dramas, comedies, etc, subsidise their often unprofitable endeavours. But also, I imagine, because those huge audiences for Traitors, Strictly and Would I Lie To You who remain on their sofa to watch the News, etc, help BBC News avoid the stigma of being perceived in the same way as other propaganda channels such as PressTV or Al Jazeera.

So ripping apart news etc from entertainment is one possible punishment. But there does have to be some punishment. Without it, we are all Fools. And not just on April 1st.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)