November 5, 2025 – A leaked BBC dossier acknowledges serious editorial failures in BBC Arabic coverage, confirming and overlapping with years of research by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting & Analysis (CAMERA).
The 19-page internal memo by Michael Prescott, a former adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee, accuses BBC Arabic of systemic anti-Israel bias, platforming extremist voices, and amplifying Hamas propaganda. The memo was reported by The Telegraph yesterday.
Prescott’s findings mirror and expand upon documentation first publicly exposed by CAMERA UK and CAMERA Arabic researchers throughout the two years that followed October 7, 2023.
These new revelations follow calls by Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch MP for wholesale reform of BBC Arabic after the publication of CAMERA’s widely-read March 2025 report examining the network’s promotion of extremist voices, whitewashing of violence against Israelis, and failure to enforce editorial standards over the past 5 years.
Promotion of Antisemitic Contributors:
The dossier identifies Ahmed Alagha, Samer Elzaenen, and Ahmed Qannan as frequent BBC Arabic contributors who have repeatedly praised terror attacks and posted antisemitic content.
CAMERA first exposed these figures and their social-media records in early 2025, prompting the BBC to quietly drop Alagha only after sustained public pressure. The Telegraph now confirms the true scale of their appearances—522, 244, and 217 times, respectively—hundreds more than the BBC originally admitted.
Whitewashing of Violence Against Israelis:
CAMERA’s earlier research highlighted BBC Arabic’s pattern of downplaying or obscuring attacks targeting Israeli civilians, such as a segment that presented the October 7 massacre at Kfar Aza as a “disputed claim,” for which the BBC has never publicly apologized.
Today’s leaked memo corroborates this research, showing how BBC Arabic minimised anti-Israel attacks, including by ignoring 12 child fatalities when reporting on Hezbollah’s rocket attack on Majdal Shams and by portraying a terror attack at Jaffa train station, which killed nine Israeli civilians, as a “military operation.”
Amplification of Hamas Narratives:
The dossier finds BBC Arabic gave “unjustifiable weight” to Hamas casualty figures, uncritically reported fabricated “mass graves” claims from Hamas-run agencies, and published a 582-word Hamas statement disputing the testimony of a rescued Yazidi woman held captive in Gaza.
CAMERA documented these same editorial patterns, including the selective translation of BBC English articles into Arabic to downplay Hamas crimes.
Institutional Complacency:
Despite repeated internal warnings, senior BBC editor Jonathan Munro praised BBC Arabic’s “exceptional journalism,” claiming its Hamas-aligned coverage merely reflected “what Palestinians may be hearing.” CAMERA Arabic complaints often faced months-long delays or formulaic dismissals.
Former BBC Television Director Danny Cohen has called for resignations, saying the corporation has “pushed Hamas lies around the world.”
Kurt Schwartz, CEO of CAMERA, said:
“CAMERA has repeatedly warned that BBC Arabic’s content violates the BBC’s own editorial standards and undermines its global credibility. This leaked dossier confirms what CAMERA’s Arabic- and English-language monitoring teams have consistently shown: a pattern of systemic bias, factual distortion, and ethical negligence that damages the BBC’s reputation and fuels antisemitism worldwide.
We are satisfied that people close to the BBC seem to be paying attention to our criticism and hope this will lead to real change in the corporation’s coverage of Israel and the Middle East after decades of failures, but it would be unwise to get our hopes up just yet.”
The mounting body of evidence against BBC Arabic is something we have been warning the BBC about for years, but management repeatedly chose to ignore it. They have failed to act against journalists who publicly celebrated the October 7 attacks and even assigned some of these individuals to cover Israel and Gaza.
These latest revelations now place the BBC’s most senior figures in an untenable position.”
CAMERA calls on the BBC Board to launch a full and transparent inquiry and to ensure that the BBC’s international services finally meet the impartiality standards required of a publicly funded broadcaster. We also call on the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, which co-funds BBC Arabic, to do likewise.
We also continue to demand a parliamentary inquiry, with real investigative powers, into BBC coverage of Israel in both English and Arabic – given the Corporation’s track record of failure and secrecy when it comes to internal investigations.
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To arrange additional quotes and media interviews contact, please contact: (+44) 7495 545174, georgia@camera.org
