BBC News uncritically promotes an NGO’s political campaign

On August 5^th the BBC News website published a report by Paul Adams titled “Blindfolded, bound and beaten: Palestinians tell of Israeli jail abuse”.

Adams’ report is based primarily on uncritical amplification of unverified claims (preceded by a trigger warning) promoted in a report – a link to which was later added – that was put out by the political NGO ‘B’Tselem’ on the same day.

However, seeing as Adams’ report also includes interviews with two of the fifty-five people (not all of whom are fully identified) whose “testimonies” form the basis of B’Tselem’s uncredited report, it seems likely that he collaborated with that NGO prior to the publication of his article.

Given that Adams’ article relies so heavily on the material published by B’Tselem, one would have expected readers to be provided with an explanation of that NGO’s “affiliations, funding and particular viewpoints”, as required by BBC editorial guidelines on impartiality. However, the sole portrayal of that organisation provided to audiences reads as follows: [emphasis added]

“Israel’s leading human rights organisation says conditions inside Israeli prisons holding Palestinian detainees amount to torture.”

With Adams presumably having read the report that he chose to promote on a worldwide BBC platform, he should have been able to tell his readers that it includes the following:

“In compliance with the Israeli law that seeks to equate the receipt of international funding with disloyalty, please note that last year, more than 50% of B’Tselem’s funding came from foreign state entities. These are listed on the website of the Israeli Registrar of Associations (and elsewhere). Be that as it may, we remain loyal to dismantling the apartheid and occupation regime and to protecting human rights.”

In fact, most of B’Tselem’s 2023 funding came from foreign sources (including governments), as has been the case for years. Particularly significant sources of funding for that NGO include the UNDP and a Palestinian NGO called the NGO Development Center (NDC).

The conclusion to B’Tselem’s report states:

“We appeal to all nations and to all international institutions and bodies to do everything in their power to put an immediate end to the cruelties meted out on Palestinians by Israel’s prison system, and to recognize the Israeli regime operating this system as an apartheid regime that must come to an end.”

While B’Tselem is clearly not shy about describing the agenda that it seeks to promote by means of this uncredited report, Paul Adams has nothing to tell his readers about that aspect of the story. Like other BBC journalists before him, Adams fails to tell readers that B’Tselem is one of the NGOs (some linked to a Palestinian terrorist organisation) that initiated the “starvation as a weapon” narrative immediately following Hamas’ attack on October 7^th 2023. Neither does he clarify that B’Tselem is among the NGOs which for over a decade have engaged in ‘lawfare’ against Israel, including by lobbying for ICC prosecution of Israelis.

Denying his readers that obviously relevant context, Adams promotes interviews with two of those who contributed “testimonies” to B’Tselem’s report, one of which opens as follows:

“Firas Hassan was already in jail in October, held under “administrative detention”, a measure by which suspects – though it has overwhelmingly been applied to Palestinians – can be detained, more or less indefinitely, without charge.

Israel says that its use of the policy is necessary, and compliant with international law.

Firas says he saw with his own eyes how conditions quickly deteriorated after 7 October.

“Life totally changed,” he told me when we met in Tuqu’, a West Bank village south of Bethlehem.

“I call what happened a tsunami.”

Mr Hassan has been in and out of jail since the early nineties, twice charged with membership of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an armed group designated as a terrorist organisation by Israel and much of the West.

He makes no secret of his past affiliation, saying he was “active”.”

Firas Hassan was arrested in August 2022 at the ‘Container Checkpoint’ east of Bethlehem. Palestinian media described him at the time as belonging to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organisation.

Adams provides no evidence of Hassan having terminated his “affiliation” with that terrorist organisation during the past two years, meaning that his trip to the town of Tuqu’ to interview a member of a terrorist organisation proscribed by the UK government should have been the topic of a mandatory referral.

“11.2.6 Any proposal to approach an organisation (or an individual member of an organisation) designated a ‘terrorist group’ by the Home Secretary under the Terrorism Acts, and any proposal to approach individuals or organisations responsible for acts of terror, to participate in our output must be referred in advance to Director Editorial Policy and Standards.”

Readers of this report are not informed whether or not such a referral was made.

Adams’ failure to comply with editorial guidelines on impartiality by providing information about the “affiliations, funding and particular viewpoints” of NGOs – in this case another organisation receiving significant foreign funding – is again evident in the following part of his report:

“The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) has accused the government of “consciously defying international law”.”

Adams is of course by no means the first BBC journalist to provide unquestioning promotion for unverified claims put out by an NGO with a clear political agenda: that practice has been on display at the BBC for years. What the BBC’s funding public has not seen, however, is any evidence of attempts by the corporation’s management to ensure adherence to its own editorial guidelines concerning ‘contributors’ affiliations’ when BBC content is sourced from organisations that are inherently agenda driven.

The fact that an NGO self-describes as a ‘human rights organisation’ means absolutely nothing. When the BBC fails to provide relevant information concerning an NGO’s funding and political agenda – thereby denying its audiences the ability to put its claims and statements into context – then all the BBC is doing is acting as an amplifying mechanism for partisan political messaging – under the guise of journalism. 

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