Since Israel started committing genocide in Gaza in October 2023, Declassified UK has provided essential information about Britain’s involvement in the atrocities. And now, it has revealed in a new report the extent of the BBC‘s failure to supply the public with the information they need to truly understand what’s going on with Israel.
Declassified‘s Mark Curtis writes that the analysis looked at the BBC’s “online coverage of 16 aspects of UK policy towards Israel and the pro-Israel lobby” from October 2023 to January 2025. And he concluded that:
The BBC is failing to report the various ways in which the UK government has supported Israel’s brutal war on Gaza
The release of this investigation comes as the BBC faces increasing criticism for the clear pro-Israel bias in its reporting, particularly online. The police have even felt it necessary to try and prevent protests outside the BBC‘s headquarters in London, but have faced a significant backlash for doing so.
Declassified‘s research is also important because there are now international arrest warrants out for top-level Israeli politicians in relation to their war crimes in Gaza, but despite this Britain’s participation in the genocide continues, it has welcomed Israel’s army chief to the country, and just this week its foreign secretary went to schmooze with controversial political figures in Jerusalem.
BBC: propaganda by omission on behalf of Israel
The Declassified report insists that it found no online coverage from the BBC of:
- Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi’s visit to the UK in November 2024.
- British intelligence presence in Israel, and the possibility of GCHQ and SAS support for Israel’s crimes in Gaza.
- Britain providing Israel with military equipment “after announcing limited sanctions last September”; the use of British airspace for supplying weapons to Israel; Britain sending components for F-35s to the US, which the latter could then pass to Israel; and groups bringing legal action against the British government in relation to arms exports.
- Important context, like the 2023 ‘Roadmap’ agreement regarding UK-Israeli military collaboration, a secret 2020 military agreement, and ongoing free-trade negotiations.
- The arrest and intimidation of pro-Palestinian journalists and campaigners in the UK
- The influence of the pro-Israel lobby in parliament, in particular via the Conservative and Labour Friends of Israel.
Minimal coverage of key issues
Coverage of UK arms exports to Israel, meanwhile, gained a lot of coverage. But headlines were almost never critical, and were often “conciliatory towards the UK and Israel”. There was also some minimal coverage of “RAF spy flights over Gaza in aid of Israeli intelligence”, but only once since December 2023.
Both the current Labour government and the previous Conservative government have used RAF Akrotiri (the unique colonial relic on occupied Cypriot land which is part of the “largest Royal Air Force base outside the United Kingdom”) to lend a helping hand to Israeli war criminals.
So far, RAF Akrotiri has supported covert US flights to occupied Palestine, sent dozens of British warplanes to both Israel and Lebanon, and facilitated British spy flights and the passing of intelligence from officers on the ground to Israel. And as Declassified co-founder Matt Kennard has insisted, these are the actions of “a country which is participating” in Israel’s genocide – “a direct participant”
Britain’s use of RAF Akrotiri to participate in Israel’s genocide has increasingly come under the spotlight in recent weeks and months.
“Utterly failing to inform the public”
The BBC told Declassified it has reported on Israel’s genocide “impartially”, but both in what it has reported and hasn’t reported, it has shown clear bias in favour of Israel.
Declassified quotes Goldsmiths, University of London professor Des Freedman saying:
The BBC is clearly utterly failing to inform the public about how the UK military and government is complicit in the horrors of Gaza. This is a national scandal, showing how far away the corporation is from being a public service broadcaster.
He adds that:
Mainstream media like the BBC will never meaningfully challenge those governments who are aiding the destruction of Gaza because they are overwhelmingly tied to existing foreign policy interests that see Israel as a crucial watchdog for Western power in the region.
And the BBC‘s record since October 2023 has indeed shown where it stands. It is not a public service broadcaster. It is very much a mouthpiece of the interests of the British state.
You can see the full Declassified report on the BBC’s “Gaza cover-up” here.
Featured image via screengrab
