An Oscar-winning Jewish producer in the United Kingdom said in an article published on Sunday that the BBC had agreed to pay her more than $500,000 in a settlement involving her departure from the broadcaster in connection with her Jewish identity and positions on Israel.
Lucie Kon, an executive producer of the Oscar-winning documentary “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” told The Telegraph that her settlement of 400,000 pounds ($535,0000) followed a formal complaint she’d filed with BBC managers about her treatment. She’d been sidelined at the BBC until her departure last year, she said.
Following the complaint, Kon was told to stay at home for months, sidelined and eventually let go, she added. The BBC has made no admission of liability and refused to apologize or admit she was a victim of antisemitism, according to the report.
A BBC spokesperson told the Telegraph that the broadcaster would not comment on the case, but added that antisemitism was not tolerated at the BBC.
Kon said she was told that “if you want to call Hamas terrorists then you have to call Israel terrorists, too,” and that she should “think about what drove Hamas to do what they did.”
Kon, 57, recalled that at the BBC after Oct. 7, 2023, “It was like having Jew stamped on my forehead.” She had worked at the BBC for 22 years, she said, and her Jewish identity had never been an issue.
In conversations with colleagues about a documentary on the murder, rape and mutilation of hundreds of Israeli civilians at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, one of them told her she should “contextualize” the terrorist attack and empathize with what had driven the perpetrators, she told the Telegraph.
A colleague told her it was “disgusting” that former British prime minister Rishi Sunak had visited a Jewish school to express solidarity with Jews in the United Kingdom. After pitching an idea for a documentary about the Oct. 7 attack, she was told she was “too partial” to make it. “They tried to stop me doing my job because I’m a Jew,” she said of her bosses.
An internal BBC investigation dismissed Kon’s formal complaint. Her role was then made redundant, the Telegraph reported, and she was turned down for a similar position that replaced it.
“I think I became a problem. I think I made too much noise about being a Jew inside the BBC. I stood up for my community. I was open about being a Zionist. The BBC says, bring your authentic self to work. And I did. And I lost my job as a result,” she told the newspaper.
According to Kon, other Jewish staff left the BBC because of the way they were treated by colleagues.“I know that nothing’s changed because I’ve spoken to quite a few people since I left,” she said. “Friends who are still struggling, still suffering, who feel embarrassed to say that they’re Zionist or that they’re a Jew.”
Avi Nir-Feldklein, Israel’s ambassador to the European Union, on X called the Telegraph article “a must-read to realize that the BBC’s coverage of the Gaza war wasn’t journalism; it was narrative engineering,” adding it showed “antisemitism in the BBC.”
Antisemitism in the BBC.
— Avi Nir-Feldklein (@avraham_nir) October 26, 2026
A must-read to realize that the BBC's coverage of the Gaza war wasn't journalism, it was narrative engineering. https://t.co/oS9CPF63aL
The BBC has a history of biased reporting on Israel and on Jews, an approach that critics say had bled into human resources affairs, as well.
In November 2025, the BBC effectively allowed its employees to participate in a national day of action for Gaza, where Israel was fighting Hamas. Earlier last year, a report found that the BBC had violated its own editorial guidelines 1,553 times during the four-month period beginning Oct. 7, 2023, repeatedly downplaying Hamas terrorism and presenting Israel as an aggressor.
In February 2026, a senior BBC journalist defended an editorial decision not to capitalize the Holocaust, arguing “other holocausts” existed. The error was eventually corrected.
Other scandals involved the BBC’s reporting of the deaths of 53 terrorists in Gaza as those of “journalists,” according to details exposed last month.
Some journalists used by the BBC to cover the current Israel-Hamas war previously expressed sympathy for Hamas and even celebrated its terrorism, according to the November 2025 report.
BBC Arabic has seen several scandals as well, including 11 cases in which it featured reporters who had previously made public statements in support of terrorism and specifically Hamas, without informing viewers.
