BBC bows to pro-Israeli lobbyists

Gaza documentary withdrawn amid slurs over Hamas

- SERENA WYLDE

THE BBC, an organisation funded by the public yet controlled by the government and influential lobby groups, finds itself at the centre of yet another storm.

This time though, it is not about presenting biased news, or half-lies that feed the narrative of their most favoured influential lobby groups, but is about airing a documentary that simply presents a view of life through the eyes of children in Gaza.

The documentary, at the centre of the storm, is Warzone. The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) took out full-page advertisements in The Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday, calling for the suspension of licence fees for the BBC.

The claims made against BBC centre around Abdullah, a thirteen-year-old Gazan boy, fluent in English, who was hired by the BBC as a narrator to introduce children who were finding ways to survive the Israeli war in Gaza.

Abdullah, who worked for nine months during the making of the documentary, was allocated $1,000 for personal expenses. The money was paid into his sister's account. The claim made is that in paying out these expenses, the BBC were funding Hamas.