Early on February 9th the BBC News website published a report by Sydney correspondent Helen Livingstone headlined “Israeli president lays wreath at Bondi at start of controversial visit”. Hours later that headline was amended to read “Police pepper spray protesters as Israeli president visits Sydney” and Katy Watson was added to the credits.
All four versions of that report quote the same fringe Australian group, with the current version stating:
“But other groups, including the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA), set up in 2024 to call out antisemitism and support Palestinian freedom, and the Australian National Imams Council, said Herzog should not have been invited.
“Inviting a foreign head of state who is implicated in an ongoing genocide as a representative of the Jewish community is deeply offensive and risks entrenching the dangerous and antisemitic conflation between Jewish identity and the actions of the Israeli state,” said JCA executive officer Sarah Schwartz last week. “This does not make Jews safer. It does the opposite.””
As readers may recall, on at least two previous occasions BBC journalists – including Livingstone – have promoted the Jewish Council of Australia, without providing audiences with the full information concerning its anti-Israel stance and without properly explaining its politicised approach to antisemitism.
BBC NEWS FAILS TO ADEQUATELY INFORM ON AUSTRALIAN ORGANISATION
BBC AGAIN FAILS TO CLARIFY ‘PARTICULAR VIEWPOINTS’ OF QUOTED ORGANISATION
The BBC report continues:
“On Monday, a letter organised by the JCA and signed by 600 Australian Jews was published in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age, saying Herzog “does not speak for us and is not welcome here”.”
However, the BBC has not bothered to update its report to inform readers that, as reported by the Jewish News, some of the signatures were not authentic.
‘An open letter organised by an anti-Zionist Jewish group in Australia opposing Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit – published in some of Australia’s leading papers today – includes the names of notorious Holocaust kapos, a Hebrew name which translated means “a**e licker”, and a self-described Australian Jew who believes “Hitler’s only mistake was stopping too soon.”’
Sky News Australia (and others) reported additional issues:
“On Monday, the small, anti-Zionist organisation called the Jewish Council of Australia published a list of more than 600 names which it claimed were Jewish signatories opposed to Mr Herzog’s visit. […]
Of Australia’s 117,000 Jewish people, this number represents about half of one per cent. […]
However, at least two people who were named on the list have come forward to say they never gave permission for their names to be used.
Melbourne couple David and Tammi Slade said they were, in fact, pleased President Herzog was in the country.”
The BBC’s report also tells readers that:
“Australia’s senior Jewish leaders hope that Herzog’s four-day visit will comfort a grieving community, but others have warned he should not have been invited due to allegations he has incited genocide in Gaza – a claim he denies. […]
A UN commission last year concluded that Herzog was among Israeli leaders who “incited the commission of genocide” against Palestinians in their speeches and statements.
It came after Herzog said “it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible” for the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, and was also pictured signing a shell to be dropped on Gaza. His comments formed part of the legal case brought by South Africa in the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
Herzog has condemned the UN report, which he said took his words out of context, while the Israeli foreign minister called it “distorted and false”.”
The first of those links takes readers to a BBC report from September 2025 which, like this one, fails to adequately inform BBC audiences on the topic of that discredited “UN commission”.
BBC NEWS JUMPS ON THE ‘GENOCIDE’ BANDWAGON ONCE AGAIN
Livingstone and Watson go on to promote another claim made by the same commission: [emphasis added]
“The UN commission said Herzog’s later clarification of his statement, that “there are many, many innocent Palestinians who don’t agree” with Hamas’s actions, was “provided to deflect responsibility for the initial statement”. Israel denies it has committed genocide in Gaza.”
As was reported by the Jewish News when the Pillay commission (members of which have since resigned) published its highly problematic report:
“Similarly, the Commission cited comments by Isaac Herzog, Israel’s President, who said “it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible” – failing to acknowledge that in the exact same press conference he made it clear that the targeting of innocents in Gaza would not be countenanced.”
Salo Aizenberg provided a detailed explanation at the time:
“The Commission cites a small portion of Herzog’s statement on October 14, 2023: “it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true, this rhetoric about civilians who were not aware and not involved. It is absolutely not true”—as evidence of genocidal intent. (Para. 170, 227) The report presents this quotation in isolation, ignoring the surrounding context in which Herzog repeatedly emphasized that Israel is acting against Hamas while taking extensive measures to protect civilians. […]
In response to the cherry-picked quote cited by the Commission, Herzog even clarified in the same press conference that he did not claim that all Gazans were responsible: “No, I didn’t say that I did not say that I want to make it clear. I was asked something about separating civilians from Hamas. But with all due respect, with all due respect, if you have a missile in your goddamn kitchen and you want to shoot it at me, am I allowed to defend myself? Yes that is the situation. These missiles are there, these missiles are launched, the button is pressed, the missile comes up from the kitchen and onto my children.”
By cherry-picking one line, the Commission ignores the broader context: Herzog was condemning Hamas’s deliberate use of civilians as shields, not advocating harm to innocent people. Immediately made clarifications don’t count either in this method of analysis. […]
The Commission even admits that “the statement of President Isaac Herzog did not expressly call for the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza” and also notes that Herzog said: “there are many, many innocent Palestinians who don’t agree” with actions of Hamas. (Para. 231) Nevertheless, it stretches any ambiguous wording to its breaking point, cherry-picking remarks that Herzog clearly explained, and elevating them to the “only” reasonable inference of genocidal intent. This is not impartial fact-finding but an exercise in forcing language to fit a predetermined narrative.”
Livingstone and Watson made no effort to provide that obviously relevant context, preferring instead to promote the discredited Pillay commission’s version of events. As readers may recall, this is not the first time that the BBC has misrepresented a speech made by Israel’s president:
BBC NEWS MISREPRESENTS ISRAELI PRESIDENT’S SPEECH
BBC NEWS CORRECTS INACCURATE ACCOUNT OF ISRAELI PRESIDENT’S SPEECH
Livingstone and Watson go on to cite the ‘genocide’ libel as promoted by one of the former members of that biased commission:
“Chris Sidoti, an Australian human rights lawyer and a member of the UN commission that wrote the report, on Thursday called for Herzog to be arrested, arguing the immunity traditionally granted to heads of state should not apply to “atrocity crimes” such as genocide.”
They however have nothing to tell their readers about the context of Sidoti’s long documented conflicts of interest on the topic of Israel, including his allegation that “accusations of antisemitism are thrown around like rice at a wedding”.
As the use of one of the BBC’s favourite adjectives when reporting on Israel in the original headline to this report demonstrates, the corporation had already chosen to frame as “controversial” an official visit by the president of the world’s only Jewish state to the country that recently experienced the worst massacre of Jews in its history, in which most of the fifteen victims were murdered by Islamist terrorists solely because they were Jewish.
Little wonder then that Livingstone and Watson relied on context-free amplification of a fringe organisation, a dubious letter and a discredited UN commission in order to support their framing of the visit that most of the Australian Jewish community welcomed.
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