The BBC has apologized after broadcasting footage of an Israeli city while discussing “settlements” in the Golan Heights, according to The Jewish Chronicle. In a BBC Arabic video from December 2024 on the Golan Heights’ “strategic importance,” the network aired aerial footage of Tiberias, a city located firmly within Israel’s internationally recognized borders. The video’s voiceover discussed Israeli “settlements” in the Golan Heights, while subtitles on the screen stated, “There are more than 30 Israeli settlements in the Golan.”
Tiberias, situated on the western shore of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), has had a Jewish majority since the early years of the British Mandate in 1922. The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) raised the issue with the BBC, which subsequently re-uploaded the video with the proper footage.
A CAMERA spokesperson shared with The Jewish Chronicle, “Tiberias is a city with a continuous Jewish presence since the 1700s at least. By implying that it is a ‘settlement’ while regularly referring to nearby Arab communities, some far newer, as ‘villages’ or ‘towns,’ BBC Arabic fuels the antisemitic stereotype according to which Israel’s Jews can never be truly indigenous to the land.” The spokesperson further remarked, “More broadly speaking, given the BBC’s longstanding and disproportionate focus on Jewish ‘settlements,’ one might expect BBC Arabic editors to at least know what they look like.”
In a response to CAMERA, seen by The Jewish Chronicle, a BBC News representative wrote, “We apologize for the errors but also do not accept the interpretation of these errors as ‘racism.'”
This incident adds to the BBC’s ongoing controversy regarding its coverage of Israel. The network has faced intensified scrutiny, particularly after the release of its documentary “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone,” which featured the son of a senior Hamas official as its narrator. The BBC later admitted to “serious flaws” in the program, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer expressed concern about the documentary.
The BBC has long been accused of anti-Israel bias, with criticism becoming more pronounced following the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas and the subsequent Gaza war. In November 2023, the BBC issued an apology after erroneously reporting that Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) troops had targeted medical teams during battles around the Shifa Hospital in Gaza. Prior to that, the BBC had falsely attributed an explosion at a Gaza hospital to Israel, a claim that the IDF later disproved, showing it was caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket. The network later acknowledged that “it was false to speculate” on the explosion’s cause.
In August, more than 200 members of Britain’s TV and film industry called for an urgent investigation into accusations of antisemitism at the BBC. A month later, a report revealed that the BBC had breached its editorial guidelines over 1,500 times during the first four months of the war, highlighting a “deeply worrying pattern of bias” against Israel. Just weeks ago, BBC News presenter Nicky Shiller caused a stir by referring to three hostages released by Hamas as “prisoners,” a term also used for terrorists detained in Israel. The backlash led the BBC to apologize.
{Matzav.com}

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