Final word from the establishment club: BBC's false headline claim on October 7 deaths upheld by BBC's Executive Complaints Unit

The BBC's Executive Complaints Unit have rejected my complaint over the BBC's headline claims that Hamas forces alone were responsible for the deaths of Israelis on 7 October 2023.     

The original complaint and preceding set of exchanges can be read here, here and here. 

The ECU's letter, followed by my observations:

British Broadcasting Corporation Level 1, 

Executive Complaints Unit

99 Great Portland Street, 

London W1W 7NY

Telephone: 020 8743 8000

Email: ecu@bbc.co.uk

BBC News

Our ref: CAS-7679120

13 December 2023 

Dear Mr Hilley

Thank you for your email to the Executive Complaints Unit. 

You complained about the BBC’s coverage of the 7 October attacks, which you said failed to cover claims that some of those who died in Israel had died because of IDF actions, and it was therefore misleading to report the numbers of dead (initially 1,400, revised to 1,200) as having been killed by Hamas.

As your complaint does not cite any one specific programme/online material, it isn’t possible to assess in detail here whether any particular output met the corporation’s editorial standards. 

We therefore considered yours as a “general” complaint, in line with the process set out in the BBC’s complaints framework.

The BBC’s guidelines describe a requirement to meet “due” accuracy – that which is “adequate and appropriate” in the context. Audiences should not be “materially misled”. 

As I say, you have not pointed to any single piece of content where this may have happened. 

Specifically, you have not shown how the idea that some (you do not say how many) of those who died in the Hamas attacks may have been victims of IDF actions would give audiences a misleading impression of what happened. 

Without specific content to investigate we can only consider your complaint in general terms, or look at the context of what was aired. 

It may, for instance, be that the figures which you dispute were assigned to the Israeli military, rather than presented as statements of uncontested fact.

It is a matter of fact the attacks occurred, as reported here and here and that many civilians died from Hamas actions. It is not clear to me how you feel audiences would be materially misled about those actions because some of the many hundreds who died may have been casualties of “friendly fire”, or how what you call the “public perception” of subsequent events in Gaza would be impacted on, given you do not appear to dispute that Hamas fighters attacked, killed, and kidnapped civilians including children and the elderly.

In support of your complaint you cite an article on The Electronic Intifada, a partisan campaigning website. By contrast I am not aware of any respected news organisation or impartial body which has cast significant doubt on the official figures – the UN referred to over 1,200 people having died. 

Haaretz quoted a police source as suggesting a helicopter may have hit some festival attendees, but this falls some way short of disproving the number to which you object.

Again, it is not clear to me how the idea that some (presumably, from the reporting you cite, a relatively low number) of the many hundreds who died and the thousands who were wounded might have been unintentional victims of IDF responses to the attack serves to materially mislead audiences. 

A distinction can be made between innocent people killed by terrorists in an attack and innocent people accidentally killed by forces seeking to repel a terror attack. 

I do not however believe this has the significance you assign to it, since in both cases the fatalities arise as a result of the attack and given it is in any case inarguable that many hundreds of people were brutally killed by Hamas fighters. 

That is the salient fact of the attack and you have not cast doubt on it.

This represents the final word of the BBC on this issue and general complaints of the kind you have raised would not usually fall within Ofcom’s remit. 

But you can, if you wish, ask for their opinion. Details of how they assess complaints about the BBC can be found here.

Yours sincerely

Richard Hutt 

Complaints Director

…………………………..  

Unsurprisingly, the ECU has not upheld my complaint. To do so would have been to expose the BBC’s lamentable journalism, its failure to report open source evidence, and its service to establishment power. In peddling this set of excuses for the BBC, the ECU shows that it is no less a part of the same establishment. 

Richard Hutt's convoluted reasons for rejecting my complaint starts with the falsehood that it included no specific example of BBC output. 

In fact, my original letter of complaint - which is what the ECU were tasked with considering - references two clear examples:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-67281166

and

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-67305304

I offered another linked reference in my second letter to the BBC.

And my final letter to the ECU itself referenced a further updated piece drawing together all the main sources and evidence to date, most importantly evidence drawn from Israeli media sources. 

So much for diligent observation and adjudication. 

  

The ECU letter states:

“In support of your complaint you cite an article on The Electronic Intifada, a partisan campaigning website. By contrast I am not aware of any respected news organisation or impartial body which has cast significant doubt on the official figures – the UN referred to over 1,200 people having died.”

The ECU may dismiss Electronic Intifada as “partisan”, but won’t address the actual evidence cited by it, or point to any faults in its journalism.  Likewise with the Grayzone and other notable journalists covering this story.  

Many reading this will also note the dark irony of the BBC itself being elevated, in supposed contrast, as a “respected news organisation”. 

Yes, Electronic Intifada is “partisan” in its defence of Palestine. In lodging this complaint, I too am “partisan”. But the BBC has also shown itself to be no less partisan in its selective reporting of this issue. And Richard Hutt for the ECU is equally partisan in his tortured reasons for defending it. 

The ECU letter goes on:

“Haaretz quoted a police source as suggesting a helicopter may have hit some festival attendees, but this falls some way short of disproving the number to which you object.”

So, at least a token acknowledgment of a report from the Israeli press, as cited by Electronic Intifada, but quickly dismissed as failing to “[disprove] the number to which you object.” 

Yet the point of my complaint wasn’t to ‘prove’ any actual number. It was to ask that the BBC investigate the claims behind the stated number, and report with due journalistic integrity any part of that number that may have included killings by Israel. 

Incredibly, the ECU letter proceeds to dismiss the actual significance of whether Israel killed other Israelis in the course of its military response on 7 October, and what relevance any such evidence would have for BBC audiences:

“Again, it is not clear to me how the idea that some (presumably, from the reporting you cite, a relatively low number) of the many hundreds who died and the thousands who were wounded might have been unintentional victims of IDF responses to the attack serves to materially mislead audiences.”

So it’s enough, apparently, for the BBC and ECU to take Israel’s word that it didn’t kill other Israelis. And even if it did kill its own civilians, the ECU concludes, this too must be laid at the door of Hamas. 

The issue here isn’t about Israel’s supposed “friendly fire”. It’s about deployment of Israel's “Hannibal Directive”, wherein Israeli forces took conscious decisions to sacrifice Israeli civilians in the course of their attacks

The BBC’s part in denying that this happened most certainly “serves to materially mislead audiences.”

Facing growing criticism from within Israel, its military now concedes that, indeed, it did kill Israelis “in immense and complex quantity”. Relatives of those killed in Israel are now calling for a formal investigation into the circumstances of 7 October. 

In another rigorous piece, Asa Winstanley for Electronic Intifada reveals more damning admissions that Israel killed many of its own people in Hannibal-type attacks. 

And a further key article from prize-winning journalist Jonathan Cook reaffirms the evidence of Israel’s Hannibal-minded killings, asking why major news outlets like the BBC have failed to investigate or highlight such evidence. 

As Cook notes, in refusing to question Israel’s unchecked atrocity stories, the BBC and many other journalists have allowed the regime a significant degree of ‘legitimacy’ for its horror attacks, and are thus complicit in the slaughter of Gaza. 

With strong and growing evidence that Israel deliberately killed many of its own people on 7 October, the ECU’s upholding of the BBC's false headline claims stands as yet another blatant deception, giving a further green light to the continued mass killing of Palestinians. 

Platforms of peaceful protest - no easy travel for the people of Gaza

Grand Central, NYC

Alongside the multiple millions marching across the world in support of Gaza, some of the most effective spectacles have been the protest and ‘die-in’ actions at train stations and other travel hubs. 

Some of the public may reasonably ask, “why here”? And the answer is very simple. 

It’s not actually about creating disruption or inconvenience to the public.  

It’s to invite people of good conscience to stop for a moment, to take a minute from their own travels, and reflect upon the trapped people in Gaza and the inhuman constraints on their basic ability to travel. 

Oslo Station

Many such demonstrations have now been held across major international cities, from New York's Grand Central to London's Liverpool Street, from Oslo Station to Edinburgh Waverley, from Manchester Piccadilly to Glasgow Queen Street. A similar display of solidarity has been staged inside the Europa Bus Station, Belfast.  

How easy it is for us to go to a train station, a bus station, an airport, a port, to do all the normal travel things that people do. Yet that right to travel and return, a fundamental human right, has been denied to the people of Gaza since 2006 under Israel’s brutal and illegal siege. 

Just think what that must be like, to be caged in a concentration camp, to grow up knowing that you may never get the chance to leave, to visit family, to have a holiday, to wander the earth and enjoy the same basic life experiences as others. 

What kind of regime could impose such wicked restrictions on an entire population?

And now, under Israel’s genocidal plan, the only direction of travel for Gazans is into the Sinai wilderness, to live in tent cities, 2.4 million people banished from their land, refugees again, back on the ‘Nakba road’, bombed to oblivion as they go. 

The known statistics (almost certainly underestimated) are truly staggering: over 15,000 people slaughtered in 7 weeks, almost half of them children, the greatest concentration of state-directed killing in modern times. Over 36,000 have been injured. Many more will die from lack of medical attention. Thousands more lives lie ruined. 1.7 million people are now completely displaced. 70 journalists have also been murdered by the regime.

Crammed into southern Gaza - the torture countdown to the end of Israel's 'humanitarian pause' now passed - the mass murder has started again, with over 175  more souls wiped out on the first day. The media make cursory note of the numbers, the 'normalisation' of mass victims - what's another 175 when set against the many thousands. Astounding levels of killing, all shrouded in criminal silence from the US/UK/EU, the regime's most complicit backers.  

Might moral-minded travellers take a moment from their own daily commute to stop and think what all this must be like - to try and comprehend the scale of such cruelty, the savage treatment of an entire people? 

Edinburgh Waverley

When travelling back to their comfortable homes and humble abodes at night, might they think about the apocalyptic scenes across Gaza: the scorched landscape of pulverised homes, refugee camps, UN schools, hospitals, mosques, churches and playgrounds, all reduced to rubble, so many children still lying under it. 

The scale of it all leaves many simply lost for words. The massacre of entire families in apartment blocks. In the West Bank too, the open slaying of small children in the street. Scenes of incomprehensible barbarism and suffering. The sheer wickedness of what we're seeing before our eyes is hard to even process. We can but echo those plaintive words from the heart of darkness: "the horror, the horror." 

For far-right religious zealot Bezalel Smotrich, party to Netanyahu's sordid coalition, Western countries should accept Gazan families 'wishing to relocate': "I welcome the initiative of the voluntary emigration of Gaza Arabs to countries around the world," he asserts.

Whatever the pain and carnage, whatever the historic loss of life, whatever this latest threat of mass ethnic cleansing, whatever the genocide, the people of Gaza will never heed this fascistic call to travel. They will never be forced into exile by their oppressor regime. There will be a return. Palestine will never die.  

These gatherings at stations are a statement of support for the caged, the bombed, the suffering of Gaza.

May homeward passengers on Western platforms with return tickets come to understand the existential fear Gazans have of never being able to return to their own homes, their streets, their land again.

Manchester Piccadilly

Let us show our concern, our empathy, our love for the trapped and heroic people of Gaza, for the occupied, brutalised and movement-restricted people of the West Bank, and for all Palestinians living under this ruthless apartheid system. 

Let us stand, and sit, and recite moving Gaza Monologues at train stations and anywhere else we have a ready platform to be the voice of the oppressed, calling-out this horror regime. 

Let us work to ensure that, from the ruins, a renewed Gaza will some day rise, where liberated people will be able to stand, like anyone else, at a train station - as they once did, long ago - and partake in the normal travels of life. 

And as we express our solidarity at these locations, let us follow them in their own ultimate direction of travel, towards their real destination, a land of justice and equality for all, where, from river to sea, safe to travel, safe to raise the children, safe from genocidal fear, Palestinians will all one day be truly free.

BBC headline claim on October 7 deaths is clear disinformation and a dangerous deception - Part 3

Further exchange with BBC (previous correspondence here and here). 

  

Enquiry now raised to Stage 2 level for consideration by the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU). 

From the BBC

22 November 2023 

Dear Mr Hilley,

Ref: CAS-7679120-B1Y1G2-1

Thank you for getting in touch again about BBC News.

The BBC’s Editorial Guidelines refer to due accuracy and due impartiality, which is to say the accuracy and impartiality must be adequate and appropriate to the output, taking account of the subject and nature of the content, the likely audience expectation and any signposting that may influence.

What other media outlets report is a matter for them, but we will monitor developments about the killings as the story unfolds.

 

This concludes Stage 1 of our complaints process. That means we can’t correspond with you further here. If you remain unhappy, you can now contact the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU). The ECU is Stage 2 of the BBC’s complaints process. You’ll need to explain why you think there’s a potential breach of standards, or if the issue is significant and should still be investigated. Please do so within 20 working days of this reply.

Full details of how we handle complaints are available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle-complaint/.

How to contact the ECU:

We’ve provided a unique link for you in this email. This will open up further information about how to submit your complaint. You’ll be asked for the case reference number we’ve provided in this reply. Once you’ve used the link and submitted your complaint, the link will no longer work.

This is your link to contact the ECU if you wish: 

Click Here

 

Best wishes,

Sean Moss

Assistant Editor

News Editorial Standards

www.bbc.co.uk/complaints 

…………………………………….

To the Executive Complaints Unit (ECU)

23 November 2023

Ref: CAS-7679120-B1Y1G2-1

The BBC have reported, without any apparent challenge, both of Israel’s claims that Hamas killed 1400/1200 people on and around 7 October. 

Two initial questions arise here. Aren’t both these numbers too precisely rounded, and therefore  suspect? And why take Israel’s claims alone without corroborating evidence?

The more specific point of my enquiry concerns the people who were not killed by Hamas on and around 7 October. It’s about the people killed by Israeli forces. 

Strong, available evidence indicates that Israeli forces killed a significant number of Israelis on and around 7 October. 

That key information is not stated in the repeated BBC headline that “Hamas killed 1400/1200 people”. 

Further to my previous references, please see this well-informed article, drawing together all the main sources and evidence, to date.

https://electronicintifada.net/content/evidence-israel-killed-its-own-citizens-7-october/41156

Whatever one thinks about what happened on those days, the claim that Hamas alone killed 1400/1200 Israelis has not been verified, and therefore cannot be justified as a BBC headline/statement. 

The BBC has clearly been reproducing a crucial untruth in publishing and broadcasting this unverified claim. 

I have written in my previous correspondence with the BBC about the key implications of this in terms of fostering public perceptions of the 7 October events, and, most crucially, what Israel has gone on to do in Gaza. 

In all such senses the BBC has a responsibility to convey clear and accurate information. This headline claim is clear disinformation. 

I wish the ECU to consider why the BBC decided to use, and continues to use, the wording “Hamas killed 1400/1200 people”. 

I wish the ECU to consider my request that the BBC withdraw this headline/statement with immediate effect. 

I wish the ECU to consider my request that the BBC issue a prominent statement conceding their culpability in producing and repeating this misleading headline, and issue a properly informed replacement headline/statement.