Letters to the Editor, November 14 2025

Melanie Phillips warned us of the forces that precipitated the ban on Israeli fans in her 2006 book Londonistan, which was praised at the time by the Daily Telegraph as “timely”, while the Observer dismissed Phillips as a “crazed boxer”.

Why are these sectarian demonstrators not protesting about the mass slaughter of their co-religionists by their co-religionists, in Sudan?

Stan Labovitch

Windsor

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No confidence motion

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Your readers may know that a vote of no confidence in Northern Ireland’s Education Minister was held this week — the result of backlash over a fact-finding trip to Israel sponsored by its Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

As a lifelong supporter of Israel who worked to strengthen ties during my time in Northern Ireland politics, I find this episode deeply conflicting. My heart says Israel should seize every chance to build friendships; my head says this trip was ill advised due to its partisan appearance. The local fallout — even among Unionists — shows how poorly judged it was in bringing only Unionist participants on this visit.

During my years as an MLA, I joined several delegations to Israel, all organised by NGOs and including representatives from every side of Northern Ireland’s political spectrum. Back then, my own enthusiasm risked being one-sided — and I’m grateful to Ambassadors Taub and Regev for steering me away from that.

Northern Ireland can offer valuable insight into conflict resolution. But in a deeply divided society like Northern Ireland, sending a delegation drawn solely from one community handed Israel’s critics an easy target, and broke the MFA’s long standing position on Northern Ireland that if all sides are not represented, no sides should be represented.

Whoever advised the MFA on this misread Northern Ireland’s sensitivities — or worse, ignored them — and in doing so, caused serious reputational damage.

David McIlveen, Former MLA for North Antrim

Belfast

[Ed: the no confidence motion was unsuccessful]

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BBC resignations

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The resignations of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness cannot gloss over the fact that the BBC has suffered from deep ideological capture. Its news arm has become so dominated by left-wing orthodoxies on issues as diverse as American politics, gender, race and immigration, that it cannot see the systemic bias in its own reporting.

This is especially a glaring problem with its coverage of the Middle East. It has refused to label Hamas a terror organisation without attribution, failed to provide sufficient context for Israeli actions in Gaza, jumped to conclusions about the al-Ahli Hospital attack in October 2023 and accused Israel of being happy to kill children.

In short, its starting point is to see Israel as the primary aggressor in that region, demonstrating its lack of balance in reporting. Unless there is an attempt to shift perspectives away from woke thinking and anti-Israel narratives, the BBC is doomed to be a compromised broadcaster that lacks basic journalistic integrity.

Dr Jeremy Havardi

Director, B’nai B’rith UK Bureau of International Affairs

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The inevitable departure of the BBC director-general was not a result of marches and banners, but of good old investigative journalism. The only question is why just the BBC? Channel 4 has shown far more bias on its Gaza reporting, and ITV, not only by succumbing to almost every Hamas handout, but also by what was not actually said, by the sighs, grimaces and manner of presentation by announcers.

Barrington Black

London NW3.

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I note that the BBC response on their website to the Daily Telegraph exposé of bias is to ignore the main issue, pro-Hamas anti-Israeli bias, and they have concentrated on anti-Trump misinformation. We, in the Jewish community, need to pursue this issue, it is making us more vulnerable to attack.

Ruth Rosenthal

London N5