Why does BBC find it hard to apologise to Jews?

The corporation reacted so differently when confronted with antisemitism and homophobia

LAST JULY, with the assistance of CAMERA Arabic, the Daily Mail revealed that BBC Arabic’s Trending programme has been broadcasting openly homophobic content without criticism or the provision of necessary context. On multiple occasions over the past two years it featured, for example, hateful social media comments calling for the sentencing of homosexuals to life imprisonment, blaming them for the emergence of Covid-19 and arguing that raising “their” rainbow flag is a sign of “moral decline”. All the comments were presented as legitimate voices of the “Arab street”, as though their authenticity somehow absolved them from being challenged on air.

In response to the Daily Mail’s inquiry, the BBC issued the following apology (italics by me): “These broadcasts did not meet our editorial standards and we apologise to our viewers. The format of BBC Trending is to reflect debate across the Arab world and examine opposing views on social media. While it is appropriate that we reflect a range of views and debate in our coverage, we should have challenged some of them robustly or provided context around them. On these occasions we failed to do this and should not have broadcast the tweets in full. We will be implementing further staff training with a focus on LGBTQ coverage.”

Two months later, again with CAMERA Arabic’s help, the JC revealed that the same BBC Arabic programme indulged in the same offensive practice towards Jews and Israelis as well. In April 2020, Trending broadcast a comment celebrating the future elimination of Israel by means of war and the subsequent mass expulsion of its Jewish citizens. Another comment, from September 2019, suggested that “Zionist terrorism […] masters the German government”.

The exposé also demonstrated how additional hateful comments were edited by BBC Arabic in order to make them appear less violent. For example, a claim that “the Jews [...] control the world’s resources” had been removed from a comment prior to its showing on screen. Another manipulated comment originally included praise for Suleiman Khater — an Egyptian soldier who killed seven unarmed Israeli tourists in 1985 — which was omitted in the broadcast version.

This time, however, the BBC took a different tone: “The format of BBC Trending is to reflect a balanced cross section of comments across the Arab world on a specific trending subject and examine views on social media. It is not unusual to edit a tweet or Facebook post to show the most relevant points for the discussion. On occasion we have removed content that is inappropriate to broadcast and goes against our editorial guidelines. We are currently reviewing whether tweets broadcast on 28 April 2020 and 26 September 2019 breached our editorial guidelines and could have been edited.”

Note the gap between July’s acknowledgement of the BBC’s failure — complete with an apology and the fashionable promise for “staff training” — and September’s reserved statement.

Both relate to the same topic, with the sole significant variable being the identity of the community suffering from the commentators’ bigotry.

Not only did the BBC choose not to apologise to its viewers in the second instance, its spokesperson even said that the question of whether its editorial standards were truly breached to begin with (in the cases of the comments cheering for Israel’s destruction and asserting that Zionists are controlling Germany), is merely under review.

In comparison, when homophobic comments were discussed in the July apology, the BBC acknowledged right away that such breaches had taken place.

Although the BBC admitted that its editors had removed antisemitic content from some comments before broadcasting them, it saw nothing wrong with whitewashing the commentators as though they had never held antisemitic or murderous views in the first place. This is particularly alarming given that the spokesperson said in July that the homophobic comments should not have been broadcast “in full”. Did the BBC imply that it intends to whitewash homophobic commentators as well so that they look more acceptable?

Judging by an example from August 2021, it would appear so. Less than a month after the Daily Mail publication, Trending broadcast an edited comment where the phrase “perverts and homosexuals” was replaced with just “homosexuals”.

Would BBC’s double standards on antisemitism and homophobia apply here? Will it apologise for editing the originally homophobic comment? Or will it adhere to its position that there is nothing wrong with whitewashing Arab commentators to make the discourse seem less infested with bigotry than it actually is?

Any BBC Trending format that does not critically examine Arabic-speaking social media for what it actually contains is necessarily influenced by racism of low expectations, holding Arabic speakers to lower standards than those who speak English. By no means can such a format come under the category of “professional journalism”.