This platform for anti-Israel bias and extremists is now beyond salvation

Yet even that indefensible deceit pales into comparison against the appalling track record of BBC Arabic laid out in unsparing detail in the leaked memo by independent adviser Michael Prescott.

His findings have confirmed what research by media watchdog Camera has documented for years: that the BBC Arabic service as it currently stands is a platform for routine extremism and antisemitism.

It operates with seeming entire disregard for editorial guidelines, utterly betraying the principles of public service which should underpin the nation’s broadcaster.

The cost is incalculable. In place of objective journalism, BBC Arabic parrots Hamas propaganda, surely only prolonging conflict in the region by bolstering the terror group.

The farcical pretence at reporting is a betrayal of the subjects of the stories it covers and the audiences it fails to inform.

The historic motto of the BBC is “nation shall speak unto nation”. How is that ideal served when BBC Arabic portrays the terrorist killer of 15-year-old Malki Roth in a sympathetic light, as her father Arnold Roth tells the JC today?

Our edition also reveals that BBC Arabic deceived audiences into believing that a Hamas terrorist was an innocent civilian who had died in an Israeli air strike. Sadly, such failings are entirely routine: BBC Arabic had to admit to more than two corrections every week for the two years of the Gaza war. The litany of error is likely even worse, but – as we reveal today – the BBC’s internal watchdog failed to uphold a single complaint against BBC Arabic over the same period.

The damage goes far beyond audiences in the Middle East. BBC Global News editor Jonathan Munro has not only robustly defended the BBC Arabic service that falls under his purview, he has made clear that he regards it as a source of expertise for English-language reporters to draw upon.

Little wonder the entire BBC’s coverage of the Middle East so often buys into an unthinking agenda that accepts every smear against Israel without challenge or due scrutiny.

The BBC being a platform for extremism is inimical to all of British society. There is little doubt that it feeds into the “demonisation of Israel” identified last week by Rabbi Daniel Walker as fuelling the antisemitism which led to the deadly Yom Kippur terror attack on his synagogue in Manchester.

For Britain, and for the Jewish community, the time has come to say no more. BBC Arabic routinely welcomes antisemites on air and employs staff who have shared social media posts celebrating October 7 and other terror attacks. It is an organisation beyond reform and must be shut down, as Arnold Roth demands to honour his daughter’s memory.

In time there can be an entirely new Arabic-language service on the BBC, made up of entirely freshly recruited personnel, and operating under a clear-cut policy of zero tolerance for antisemitism and extremism in any form.

This is only one part of the wider reform the BBC must undergo to remedy the systemic bias identified by Prescott.

With the fallout from the exit of Davie and Turness, the BBC faces an uncertain next few years, its very purpose and the principle of public funding in question as Charter Renewal in 2027 approaches.

Amid that turbulent future, if BBC Arabic is allowed to continue in any recognisable form, the all too real danger is that it will destroy the BBC from within.