Five of the rulings in favour of BBC Arabic on complaints since October 7

In a monologue lasting almost four minutes, Taha spoke about “the Israeli occupation” and made sweeping claims about the absence of Jewish history and culture in Israel, describing Jews in Israel as “human fragments” who had “landed in Palestine”.

Taha claimed: “This land, historical Palestine, is ours and ours alone.”

He added that the conflict had “three main fronts”: history, holy sites and what he termed “cultural appropriation”, accusing Israel of taking Palestinian food, songs and stories and translating it “under the rubric of Jewish heritage and folklore”.

In its complaint, Camera suggested that portraying Israeli or Jewish culture as artificial or stolen amounted to hate speech when left unchecked by the presenter, as it had been. After the BBC’s initial complaints stage defended Taha’s remarks as personal views broadcast within a “cultural discussion, not as a political debate”, the watchdog escalated the case to the Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU), the final stage for World Service output.

After 361 working days, five times longer than the BBC’s own target timeframe, the ECU rejected Camera’s complaint. The unit said Taha’s comments reflected “his personal views as a poet and intellectual”, that he was “entitled to state his opinions” and the presenter was not obliged to mount a challenge. The complaints unit claimed that “similar space is also offered to Israeli guests on our Arabic output.”

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Failure to name murder conviction in prisoner release report

The BBC rejected a complaint that its Arabic service omitted the crimes of convicted killers in reports on their release, saying the coverage fell within “the legitimate expression of the editorial judgement of journalists”.

The ECU dismissed a complaint about live coverage from October 2025, in which three released prisoners were named without noting their convictions: Ayman Sharbati, who shot a 26-year-old in Jerusalem in 1997; Jabr Nasasra, convicted of killing three civilians aged 14 to 17 in the West Bank in 2002; and Basem Khandaqji, who orchestrated a Tel Aviv suicide bombing that killed three adults. Another prisoner, Saleh al Qanna, had his conviction referenced.

The ECU declined to examine the cases individually, saying the complaint grouped “concerns about separate pieces of content” and must be treated as a “general” complaint rather than editorial complaints about specific items.

It noted the reports were live pages offering “short updates on news developments” during hostage and prisoner exchanges and argued that “the extent to which due accuracy would require these to give detailed background on the crimes of the prisoners involved is limited by that context”.

The unit added that general complaints “will not result in in-depth editorial investigations” and described its ruling as “the final word of the BBC on this issue”.

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Amsterdam complaint over ‘whitewashing’ anti-Israel violence rejected

The BBC rejected a complaint that its Arabic service “whitewashed” violence against Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters in Amsterdam by reducing the unrest to fans “chanting slogans against Israel”.

Camera said this wording obscured the fact that Israeli supporters were physically attacked with several hospitalised, and asked the BBC to amend the report to reflect the scale of the violence.

In its initial response, the corporation claimed the item was “a neutral and factual summary” and did not “delve into the specifics of the clashes”.

But Camera pointed out that the report did specify “chanting slogans,” but failed to cite the physical violence or subsequent arrests in the Netherlands.

The ECU rejected the complaint, concluding that audiences were not “materially misled” and the absence of detail about physical assaults did not amount to a denial that they had taken place.

The ECU noted that during the four-minute overview of the relationship between sport and politics, footage showed a man being led away by police, which it said indicated that incidents had gone beyond chanting.

“I don’t believe it was suggested violence did not occur because shouting did,” the ECU concluded, rejecting Camera’s complaint at this final stage.

Rejected complaint on omission of Jewish voices in student encampment story

The ECU rejected Camera’s appeal over a July 2024 report about Gaza encampments at UK universities. The story featured six pro-Palestinian protesters, but not a single Jewish student.

The BBC initially dismissed the complaint, claiming “the piece accurately reflected the purpose it was written for”. However, it recognised that fears about rising antisemitism on campus “might have been better heard more directly from Jewish students and representative groups”. Had the piece been longer, the corporation suggested that it could have “included many other varied elements, voices and angles, but it was a brief zoom-in into the situation”.

When Camera escalated its complaint to the ECU, the appeal was rejected, with the highest complaint authority claiming the item upheld the BBC’s impartiality principle because a sufficient range of views were in fact present.

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BBC Arabic failed to report that Hamas admitted executing at least one civilian hostage

In a January 2025 report, Israeli hostages were depicting thanking Hamas’s “shadow unit” for “good treatment”. The news item about the Qassam Brigades also stated: “Israel said previously that Hamas killed several hostages, while Hamas laid the responsibility for their deaths on Israeli military actions in Gaza.” Camera complained over this portrayal which failed to state that Hamas itself admitted that the same unit executed at least one hostage and abused others. Twenty-seven-year-old Ofir Tzarfati was killed by his captors from the unit. Camera complained that the video misrepresented Hamas’s role by claiming any deaths were due to Israeli military action rather than the unit’s own actions, which it admitted to.

BBC Arabic initially amended the video with “extra content and clarifications” but told Camera that the video was a short overview of the unit’s history, not a detailed account of the treatment of hostages or the unit’s crimes; editors believed it was “duly accurate” and gave due context for the issue it was focused on. The response added that Hamas’s statement blaming Israel for hostage deaths was presented as the group’s position, not an official endorsement.

Camera’s appeal to the ECU was rejected, the unit ruling that the video provided “sufficient context” to show Hamas committed war crimes and audiences would not be “materially misled”. It said that the circumstances of Tzarfati’s death did not need full detail in a brief overview.

A BBC spokesperson said: “BBC News Arabic strives for the highest standards of journalism and works to the same Editorial Guidelines as all other BBC News output,” adding: “The ECU operates outside of BBC News and assesses complaints independently on a case-by-case basis. The ECU uphold complaints where they consider there to have been a breach of editorial standards.”