In December 2025 the outgoing BBC Director General Tim Davie announced the launch of new antisemitism training for BBC staff. As was reported at the time:
“In his letter to staff Mr Davie said: “The BBC is for everyone, and we are clear that everyone working here should feel they belong. As an organisation we stand united against any form of discrimination, prejudice or intolerance.” […]
A description of the antisemitism module available to staff via a link said: “This training provides a framework of understanding for staff to spot and call out antisemitism. It is compulsory training for all staff.
“The BBC Academy has worked closely with the Jewish Staff Network, the Antisemitism Policy Trust and the Community Security Trust to produce this training. […]
Current staff have been given six months to complete the training, new joiners will have the statutory 28 days.”
Unsurprisingly, that announcement was soon criticised by the Qatar linked outlet ‘Middle East Eye’ and others. More recently, on January 7th, another article in the same vein appeared on the anti-Israel ‘Electronic Intifada’ website.
Remarkably, the writer of that article – which, among other things, promotes the bizarre claim of a “Zionist takeover of the BBC” – is a former BBC journalist who until 2024 also worked as an instructor at the very BBC Academy that has now co-produced the BBC’s new antisemitism training module.
In an article he wrote in June 2025 for the pro-Hizballah Lebanese paper Al-Akhbar, Martin Asser told readers that:
“There’s a long list of ways in which western media have run cover for the genocide taking place in Palestine today. Uncritically repeating lie after lie from one side when it is so frequently shown as untrustworthy. Undermining reliable sources that happen to be “Hamas-run.” Propaganda by omission when Zionism shows its ugliest face.”
In the same article he described the BBC as “my former employer which, I am proud to say, stopped hiring me last year after a national newspaper “exposed” my pro-Palestine postings on social media…”.
In his Twitter bio, Asser now describes himself as “Mainly cancelled for my pro-Palestine X account”.
Readers may recall that the Telegraph report to which he refers noted that:
“The Telegraph can also reveal that a trainer at the BBC Academy is also facing allegations of bias.
Martin Asser liked a tweet quoting a former Israeli soldier saying the Israel Defense Forces “should not exist”.
He also liked a tweet suggesting that Israel had “trained” Western opinion to view them as “just a bunch of little angels”.
Mr Asser was commissioned in December to write an analysis on the BBC Arabic website about the possibilities of a two-state solution to the conflict.”
As was noted here at the time, no small amount of content that Asser produced during his twenty-two years as a BBC employee is still accessible online.
“Asser’s claim concerning “Israel’s genocidal war”, his promotion of the notion of “a concerted campaign to suppress legitimate criticism of Israel by its die-hard supporters” and his self-declared “support for freedom and justice for Palestinians everywhere” put a fresh perspective on that BBC content, which includes a series of supposedly factual backgrounders…”
There is of course no small amount of irony in the fact that the BBC Academy, which parted ways with Martin Asser only after his problematic social media activity was exposed by a national newspaper, has now co-produced antisemitism training. But what this story shows is that it will take far more than just that training module to tackle the bias that so often shapes and compromises Israel-related BBC content.
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The UK Government is only interested in pro Islam and this ethos has been transmitted to the BBC.
Listening or reading the BBC web pages one finds disproportionate attention is deliberately given to events where Israel is concerned to the detriment of any other international news. It as if the the BBC has taken over the role of the Inquisition and wishes to restart auto de fe against anybody who is Jewish