The BBC tells us that:
“The Editorial Guidelines are the BBC’s values and standards. They apply to all our content, wherever and however it is received.”
And: [emphasis added]
“The Royal Charter and the accompanying Framework Agreement establish that it is a duty of the BBC Board to set the standards for the BBC’s editorial and creative output and services. The BBC must publish, review periodically and ensure the observance of guidelines designed to secure appropriate editorial standards for our UK Public Services and safeguard the editorial integrity and high quality of the World Service and maintain high standards of editorial integrity and quality for BBC Monitoring.
Producing and upholding these Editorial Guidelines fulfils those requirements; making our content to the standards in them is an obligation on all of us, led by the Director-General, as the BBC’s editor-in-chief.”
One of the sections of those editorial guidelines which is most frequently ignored by the corporation’s journalists concerns ‘Contributors’ Affiliations’:
“4.3.12 We should not automatically assume that contributors from other organisations (such as academics, journalists, researchers and representatives of charities and think-tanks) are unbiased. Appropriate information about their affiliations, funding and particular viewpoints should be made available to the audience, when relevant to the context.” [emphasis added]
Mustafa Barghouti has been a regular contributor to content on all BBC platforms for many years. Since October 7th 2023 he has been invited to make numerous appearances on both domestic and international BBC radio channels and on BBC television. Barghouti has also been quoted in written content published on the BBC News website and on all those platforms he is usually presented as a doctor, a Palestinian politician and/or the leader of the Palestinian National Initiative. For example:
A TASTE OF THE BBC’S SHIFA-WASHING
BBC RADIO 4 PLATFORMS PERNICIOUS PARITY FROM MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI
BBC NEWS TOUTS ‘PALESTINIAN UNITY’ WHILE IGNORING SUMMARY EXECUTIONS
In December 2023 the BBC’s international editor Jeremy Bowen profiled Barghouti in an article which included uncritical amplification of Barghouti’s falsehoods concerning the current war against Hamas:
“I am 100% sure that their main goal right from the beginning was the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza, trying to push people to Egypt, a terrible war crime.”
Just two days after Hamas invaded Israel and perpetrated the worst massacre in its history, the BBC News TV channel provided Barghouti with a platform from which to ‘contextualise’ those atrocities while promoting ‘apartheid’ smears.
Despite his frequent contributions to its content, the BBC repeatedly refrains from informing audiences of Mustafa Barghouti’s “particular viewpoints”, including the fact that he is a ‘one-stater’ whose vision for the future does not include a Jewish state. Barghouti’s support for the anti-Israel BDS campaign is likewise not mentioned in introductions and neither is his 2022 participation in a discussion on a Hizballah linked channel in which “wise” Israelis were advised to leave their country.
Speaking via video at the ‘People’s Conference for Palestine’ last month in Detroit, Barghouti expressed support for the atrocities of October 7th.
On June 15th a Palestinian media outlet Tweeted pictures from a demonstration in Ramallah showing Mustafa Barghouti (pale blue shirt) among the marchers.
A video of the same event shows that despite Bowen’s claim that Barghouti supports “non-violent” resistance, he had no problem marching at the head of a procession of people chanting the following:
“You, who has a rifle
hiding it for weddings
Either shoot a Jew
Or give it to Hamas” [translation: CAMERA Arabic]
BBC journalists, who are obliged to inform their audiences about contributors’ affiliations, consistently avoid the topic of Mustafa Barghouti’s “particular viewpoints”, while presenting him as some kind of ‘non-violent’ alternative on the Palestinian political scene.
Presumably the BBC would nevertheless have its funding public believe that it takes its own supposed editorial standards seriously.
BBC Editorial Standards only apply to activities and events concerning non -Jews. For Jews and Israel these Standards conveniently are ignored – one wonders why the UK Government allowed this and the UK Jewish “leadership” remained and still remains silent!