BBC Arabic interviewed Palestinian singer who appeared to defend Bibas kidnappers

This verse – which was not included in the broadcast – was mistranslated on Azar’s TikTok, where instead of stating Palestine will be “Arab”, the English lyrics said Palestine will be “free”.

It has since emerged that a series of posts written in Arabic shared on the singer’s social media accounts include apparent celebration after terror attacks against civilians in Israel. Azar also targeted an Israeli researcher online, referring to certain Arabs as “dogs of Jews”.

In 2021, a private message written in Arabic sent from her X account to Moran Tal, an independent researcher and social media commentator, said: “You are one rotten Zionist,” according to screenshots shared with the JC by Camera, a US-based media watchdog.

"All the Arabs who support you are suck-ups, dogs of Jews, you and all your thieving people are on my shoe. O Jew, hear this from us, pick up your dogs and get off of us. Tell this to your dogs in my name.”

Separately, an image shared on Azar’s X account in 2021, stated: “Zionists ran away since the first rocket fell... Because it is not their land! They do not know HOW to die for it!”

Azar’s X account subsequently disappeared. 

Reda El-Mawy referred to Azar as a singer who "celebrates" Palestinian spirit (Photo: BBC)[Missing Credit]

On Instagram, where the singer currently has over 300,000 followers, several stories appeared on her account the day of the Hamas massacre in southern Israel that appeared to support the attack.

A post on October 7 2023 stated: “For the first time the fear is not on us, for the first time the Palestinian strikes, for the first time the Palestinian storms, for the first time what is happening is something we didn't dream of, in less than half an hour, the resistance stops traffic, today is a new page in history. Here is Palestine, here is Gaza.”

One of the stories Azar shared on Instagram on October 7 (Photo: X)[Missing Credit]

A separate Instagram story compared a Palestinian woman being arrested by Israeli forces with Hamas’s kidnapping of Shiri Bibas and her young children, appearing to suggest that Israeli forces treat Palestinians worse than terrorists treated the Bibas family.

 “The difference between us and them," the post said. It also referred to the Bibas kidnappers as “the Palestinian resistance".

In another Instagram story, Azar shared an image of Hamas terrorists breaching the border fence in southern Israel on October 7 with the caption “God have mercy on the fence”.

The inflammatory social media posts stretch back at least a decade, according to Camera, which uncovered a Facebook post from 2014 in which Azar appeared to celebrate a terrorist attack against civilians in Jerusalem. "A suicide of five settlers" and "May God not bring them back", the post read.

One of Azar's posts from 2021 included a reposted claim that 'Zionists ran away since the first rocket fell... it is not their land! They do not know how to die for it!' (Photo: X/Twitter)[Missing Credit]

 

Camera accused the BBC of failing to meet the standards of its own charter in platforming what the group described as a figure “who condones violence and bigotry”.

Referring to the broadcaster’s decision to air a rapper’s chant calling for “Death to the IDF” in June, a spokesperson for the watchdog  said: “The BBC has already acknowledged that, ‘with hindsight,’ Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury performance should have been taken off the air. At the Arabic service, however, using the theme of arts and culture to platform figures who condone violence and bigotry appears to be the norm, not the exception – Rola Azar's case is just the latest example.

They added: “The BBC tends to [commit] one of two common errors when faced with the dilemma of whether to broadcast hate speech: either it edits the content out entirely and acts as though it never existed, or it airs it uncritically, without contextualising or challenging it. Neither approach reflects serious journalism, nor does it meet the standard set in the BBC Charter – to ‘help contribute to the social cohesion and wellbeing of the United Kingdom.’”

The BBC said: “BBC Arabic's Art for Life covers key arts stories from across the Arab-speaking world and the episode in question covered Shubbak Festival – the UK’s largest festival of contemporary Arab cultures.

“Rola Azar was the headline act at this year’s event at the Barbican and was thus interviewed about her performance. The interviewing of any artist on a BBC programme is not an endorsement of said artist.”

The JC approached Azar for comment.