Footage from a meeting shows a senior BBC executive taking a position on Hamas that contradicts both UK law and the stance of the British government.
Confronted with proof that the BBC aired a ‘documentary’ narrated by a Hamas minister’s son, news head Deborah Turness attempted to reassure colleagues that
it’s really important that we are clear that Abdullah’s father was a deputy agriculture minister, and therefore was a member of the Hamas-run government, which is different to being part of the military wing of Hamas … Externally it’s often simplified that he was in Hamas, and I think it’s an important point of detail that we need to continually remind people of the difference.
Turness may have been echoing the advice of BBC Arabic staff—whose credibility has itself been questioned—but she would have known that UK law designates Hamas in its entirety as a banned terrorist group. The BBC’s initial refusal to call Hamas terrorists after the October 7th massacre was widely seen as the first of many Gaza-related controversies that have since damaged the broadcaster’s reputation.
As former Dudley North Labour MP Lord Austin put it:
It’s absolutely clear that after all the complaints and controversy and even after their own investigation BBC bosses still just don’t get it …The UK has proscribed Hamas in its entirety and it therefore absolutely unacceptable to pretend there is any meaningful distinction between members of Hamas. Deborah Turness presided over this mess and still tries to defend the BBC’s colossal mistakes. Surely her position is untenable.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy is also frustrated by the broadcaster’s recent “catastrophic failures,” which include a live transmission from the Glastonbury music festival of punk-rappers Bob Vylan leading the crowd in chants of “Death to the IDF” (Israeli Defence Forces).
