BBC News fails to clarify agenda of featured organisation

On the evening of November 13th a report by the BBC’s community affairs correspondent Ashitha Nagesh appeared on the BBC News website’s ‘UK’ page and in the ‘updates’ section of its ‘Middle East’ page under the headline ‘British-Palestinians ask PM for urgent meeting over Gaza’.

Readers of that report are told that:

“A British-Palestinian group has written to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, asking for an “urgent meeting” about Gaza.

The letter also urges the UK government to “use its influence” to call for a ceasefire.

It was sent, earlier on Monday, by the UK-based International Centre of Justice for Palestinians.

The ICJP said it was speaking “on behalf of members of the Palestinian community in the UK with families and loved ones living in Gaza”.

The group said it wanted a meeting “to express our concerns, similar to the meetings you have had with other British communities who have families in the region who have experienced distress similar to ours”.

Calls for humanitarian pauses were “inadequate”, it said. And the government’s failure to call for a ceasefire “is putting our loved ones in danger and is contributing to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis”.

“It also ignores our voices as British citizens with friends and family under attack in Gaza,” the ICJP said.”

The report also mentions a press conference held by the ICJP and promotes quotes from some of the speakers.

One of the quoted participants is Omar Mofeed:

“Accountant Omar Mofeed accused the UK government of “double standards” in its treatment of those evacuating Gaza.

Non-British family members of British nationals who have fled Gaza and are now in Cairo currently need to apply for British family visas from Egypt.

And Mr Mofeed pointed to the visa schemes available to those fleeing war in Ukraine, including the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme – also known as Homes for Ukraine – and the Ukraine Family Scheme, both of which are free for those applying.”

As readers may recall, Omar Mofeed previously appeared in at least four recent items of BBC content. As was the case in those written, filmed and audio reports, Nagesh similarly failed to inform her readers of the ‘affiliations’ of that particular contributor, including his record of anti-Israel activism.

Likewise, Nagesh failed to provide readers with any information concerning the organisation which is the topic of her report. As was noted here in May 2022, the ICJP has previously submitted complaints against Israel to the International Criminal Court. Its director is Tayab Ali of Bindmans LLP whose clients have included Raed Salah, the family of a Hamas leader, the parents of an ISIS fighter and CAGE. Ali was also involved in an attempt to have Israel’s former foreign minister Tzipi Livni arrested. The ICJP’s advisory board includes Sarah Leah Whitson (formerly of ‘Human Rights Watch’) and Wadah Khanfar (former director general of Al Jazeera).

In other words, the ICJP is not merely “a British-Palestinian group” as claimed by Nagesh, but an organisation with a clear anti-Israel agenda that should have been made clear to BBC audiences.

In addition, Nagesh did not inform her readers that, as reported by others, the ICJP press conference was opened by a representative of the unabashedly anti-Israel NGO, ‘Human Rights Watch’:

“Human Rights Watch’s UK Director, Yasmine Ahmed opened the conference by accusing Israel of war crimes, adding that the UK risked complicity in its support for the country.”

Similar messaging to that of Ahmed was delivered at the same event by the ICJP’s director.

In short, Ashitha Nagesh’s report on the ICJP’s request for an “urgent meeting” with Britain’s prime minister and its related press conference makes no effort whatsoever to inform BBC audiences of the highly relevant wider political agenda of those she portrays as simply wishing “to express our concerns”.

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2 Comments

  1. says: Neil

    Israel has been blindsided by the world and its institutions since 7th October. The Red Cross and Red Crescent have consistently refused to check on the 240 hostages taken by Hamas. How is it that Hamas are allowed to hold them providing no information to relatives contrary to International law.? Why does the UK Muslim society think their irresponsible anti Jewish hate protests and the desecrating of British monuments will persuade the PM to interfere with what non most Muslims think is the requirement to eliminate as much as possible of a proscribed terrorist organisation? Islam is the problem, it brainwashes them five times a day to hate non-Muslims and thus emboldens them to think they can control the indigenous infidel of the UK. By allowing illegal immigrants to enter the UK this takeover will happen much sooner and the BBC is complicit in all this deception and anti- British jihad. #defundthenbc

  2. says: Sid Levine

    BBC stirs up anti Semitism/Israel and its behavior resembles or indeed worse Goebbels Nazi propaganda.
    The UK Jewish community must call for this organization to be dismembered and closed down before it causes riots in the streets of the UK because of its inbuilt hatred.

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