The BBC has been criticised for hosting a Middle East commentator who claimed that Iranian aggression against Israel was “fairly rational” – moments after the dictatorship launched 180 ballistic missiles at Israel.
During an interview on BBC World News on Tuesday evening, Dr Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer in Security Studies at King's College London, suggested that the Jewish state was the aggressor in the region.
“Hezbollah and Iran have played it fairly rationally, trying to always be very cautious in how they respond, trying to leave off-ramps where they could,” Krieg said.
“The international community has to make sure that whatever Israel does is not upending the regional order as we know it. And the US has a responsibility. We've been in the course for 12 months now of constantly red lines being crossed, mostly by the Israelis.”
He added: “The Netanyahu government has kind of lost the opportunity at every junction to use an off-ramp that was given to them.”
Mike Tapp, Labour MP for Dover and Deal and British army veteran, condemned Krieg’s comments, telling the JC: “There is nothing rational about a regime that finances, trains, and arms terrorist groups with the goal of erasing Israel from existence.
“Sometimes, academics can be well-read yet still fail to grasp the stark realities of the world.”
Speaking to this newspaper after his interview on the BBC, the academic clarified: “I said that in comparison to the Netanyahu government, Hezbollah and Iran have always tried to play it more cautiously not to drag Israel into a direct confrontation. I did not describe these atrocious attacks on Israel yesterday as cautious. It was the worst attack on Israel in its history.”
He said he “fully condemned the attacks” but that by targeting IRGC officers in Damascus in April, eliminating Haniyeh in Tehran, and assassinating Nasrallah, Israel had “crossed red lines of a larger Iran-Israel conflict that had been going on for years. It was to be anticipated that Iran eventually retaliates.
“I would therefore say that Netanyahu has been just as much an aggressor in this conflict for his own political survival as the leaders of Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran. These comments are not anti-Israel but anti-Netanyahu.”
An associate professor at KCL, Krieg lived in Qatar between 2013 and 2016, where he trained the army as part of a contract between the leading London university and the Qatari military. The Gulf state and KCL have multiple connections, including a Qatar-sponsored research centre and a charity partnership.
Prior to his stint in the Gulf, he studied at Reichman University in Israel, where he converted to Judaism. The JC understands that he used to attend Chabad in London while a student in the capital.
He has been associated with KCL for 14 years, and currently works closely with the UK military in “professional military education for intermediate and advance-level officers of the British and overseas armed forces”, and providing research for the Ministry of Defence, according to his LinkedIn. In a strategic role at the Royal College of Defence Studies, he works with senior military leaders and diplomats from all over the world.
Writing for publications including the Guardian and the New York Times, his views about the Middle East have been widely published.
In articles for Middle East Eye, he has written about Qatar’s “decade of crisis and triumph”, as well as the “toxic discourse about migration and Islam” in Germany, which has created a fabricated “Islamist bogeyman”.
Addressing concerns about his time in Qatar, Krieg told the JC: “We at King’s are world leaders in professional military education, including senior Israeli officers over the years. To now frame me as a Qatari proxy is just as unfounded and ridiculous as people on the other side of this very polarised divide calling me an Israeli proxy because I lived and studied in Israel.”
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said of Krieg’s remarks on the BBC, “The fact that an academic in security studies is espousing such views about a proscribed antisemitic genocidal terror organisation is frightening.
“What's more, the BBC astonishingly allowed these views to air. British Jews and the general public should be able to expect better from our national broadcaster, but given its track record of refusing to call Hezbollah what it is – a terrorist group – we won't be holding our breath. We will be writing to the BBC and King's College London.”
His comments also spurred outrage on social media.
Fellow BBC commentator, Lee Harris, tweeted a clip of the exchange and called Krieg’s remarks “disgraceful”.
“Thought I would check out how the BBC is reporting on what's happening. I would say I can't believe what I'm hearing, but it's pretty much what you would expect from them. The anti-Israel bias is insane,” Harris claimed.
A spokesperson for the BBC told the JC that the corporation was “committed to reporting impartially and to featuring a wide range of different voices in its coverage of the complex political situation in the region.
“Dr Krieg is an academic who was analysing the military strategies of those involved in the conflict and we would encourage people to watch the interview in its entirety.”
