Journalist Tom Bower has hit out at the BBC for their “ignorant” coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, claiming they “don’t understand what is going on in the Middle East”.
It comes as Hamas and Israel continue to rain bombs on each other after the latter faction responded to the former’s terror attack in their country last week.
The BBC have opted against branded Hamas a terror group, despite it being proscribed as such by the UK Government.
Speaking on GB News, Bower hit out at the broadcaster, branding them “anti-Israel”.
Tom Bower has hit out at the BBC's coverage of the conflict
PA / GB NEWS
Bower, who previously reported for the BBC, told Mark Dolan about his experience of covering the Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur war in 1973 for the broadcaster, adding that things have changed “massively” since.
“There was always a balance, what is remarkable is that balance has gone”, he said.
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“The most important efficiency of the BBC was, we had experts on the Middle East, now we have Clive Myrie with his potted history of Israel saying the Jews expelled the Palestinians or they fled in 1947-48.
“He didn’t say they fled because they were ordered to by the Arab governments.
“The BBC never explains, they don’t understand this very complicated history, when I was there, we did understand because we spent weeks, months there soaking it all in.”
Bower pointed an impartiality row which erupted after BBC journalists appeared to justify the killing of Israeli civilians by Hamas.
Mark Dolan spoke to Tom Bower about the BBC's coverage of the war
GB NEWS
An “urgent investigation” was launched by the corporation after several of their BBC News Arabic reporters appeared to celebrate the attack.
Bower told GB News that the incident exposes a “bias” at the broadcaster.
“Richard Burgess, the director of BBC News, couldn’t answer why they won’t use the word terrorism”, he said.
“He’s a sports reporter. He doesn’t know anything about the Middle East, it’s absolutely astonishing.
Smoke rises following Israeli strikes in GazaReuters“They’re anti-Israel now, there’s no doubt. Why are the BBC Arabic service having reporters investigated for supporting Hamas?”
Questioned by Dolan as to whether a whole institution could be labelled “anti-Israel” due to comments of a select few, Bower said “they’re biased”.
“The bias has definitely been anti-Israel in the past week”, he said.
Speaking on the reporters who appeared to celebrated Hamas’s atrocities, a BBC spokesman said: A BBC spokesman said: “We are urgently investigating this matter.
“We take allegations of breaches of our editorial and social media guidelines with the utmost seriousness, and if and when we find breaches we will act, including taking disciplinary action.”
The broadcaster has remained steadfast in its commitment to not brand Hamas terrorists.
A spokesperson said: "We always take our use of language very seriously.
"Anyone watching or listening to our coverage will hear the word 'terrorist' used many times - we attribute it to those who are using it, for example, the UK Government.
"This is an approach that has been used for decades, and is in line with that of other broadcasters.
"The BBC is an editorially independent broadcaster whose job is to explain precisely what is happening 'on the ground' so our audiences can make their own judgement."
