Kemi Badenoch, the head of the U.K. Conservative Party, has called for an inquiry into the BBC’s recently aired documentary about the war in Gaza, narrated by the son of a Hamas minister.
Badenoch also questioned whether the public broadcaster had made any payment to the Gaza-based terrorist organization, British media reported on Monday.
In an excoriating letter to BBC Director-General Tim Davie and obtained by the Daily Mail, Badenoch demanded the launch of a probe into any “potential collusion with Hamas” and “the possibility of payment” to terrorists.
“It is now clear to me that you should commission a full independent inquiry to consider this and wider allegations of systemic BBC bias against Israel,” the Conservative Party leader wrote, per the Daily Mail.
“It is well known that inside Gaza the influence of the proscribed terrorist organization Hamas is pervasive. How could any programme from there be commissioned, without comprehensive work by the BBC to ensure that presenters or participants were—as far as possible—not linked to that appalling regime?” she asked.
“Would the BBC be this naive if it was commissioning content from North Korea or the Islamic Republic of Iran?” the letter continued.
The hour-long documentary film, “Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone,” was broadcast on Feb. 17 on BBC2. It follows the conflict through the eyes of three children, and is narrated by Abdullah, 14, who is listed in the film’s credits as Abdullah al-Yazouri.
Abdullah’s father appears to be Ayman Alyazouri, deputy minister of agriculture in the Hamas-run government. The child’s family ties were not revealed to viewers, The Telegraph reported.
The BBC initially tried to defend the film, accusing London-based production company Hoyo Films of not revealing the child’s link to Hamas.
However, the contract between the BBC and Hoyo, uncovered by Daily Mail, read as follows: “We will address editorial compliance issues as they arise by having regular updates and phone calls with the commissioning editor. … Permission will be sought from the parents’ guardians every time we film with them. … The producers will act and work as we would in the UK.”
With regard to the allegations of bias against the Jewish state, Badenoch wrote that “Israeli interlocutors are robustly interrogated and Palestinian officials can speak with little challenge” in BBC interviews.
“These are not isolated incidents. … The BBC must recognise how serious these allegations are for its public standing,” she added.
The Conservative Party leader warned that while her party has long backed the BBC, its support for the “current licence fee-based system” will be pulled if “serious action” is not taken.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer accused the broadcaster during a press briefing on Monday of “actively shaping the narrative to undermine Israel and to embolden Hamas.
“What the BBC is doing is they are amplifying Hamas’s voices while censoring Israeli suffering, giving airtime to children of Hamas operatives while neglecting the horrific testimonies of Israeli hostages,” Mencer said.
“The BBC’s Sebastian Usher actually had the audacity to say that the released hostages looked in good condition,” the spokesman noted. “The pattern is clear: The BBC’s reporting doesn’t just misinform. It serves Hamas’s interests by obscuring the truth. The BBC shields Hamas from accountability and supports its goal of Israel’s destruction.”
Investigative journalist David Collier, who was the first to expose the controversial nature of the film, questioned how the filmmakers, and particularly the two local cameramen, could not have known of Abdullah’s family ties.
“The two photographers followed these children around for months. They absolutely knew who he was. Did either of the producers?” Collier asked. “How did the BBC let a son of a Hamas minister walk around looking for sympathy and demonizing Israel for an hour in a BBC documentary?”
A BBC spokesman defended the film, saying it “was produced in line with BBC editorial guidelines and the BBC had full editorial control,” and that “the children’s parents did not have any editorial input.”
Collier told JNS: “It is about time that the BBC understood that the only organization that has editorial control over what we see come out of Gaza is Hamas. This latest failing is perhaps the worst yet. There needs to be an urgent investigation into how the BBC are continually getting all this so badly wrong.”