A senior Jewish BBC journalist was tonight accused of “killing babies” during a demonstration outside the corporation’s London HQ.
Approximately 40 individuals gathered to direct vicious abuse at the BBC’s Online Middle East Editor, Raffi Berg, with chants including: “Raffi Berg shame shame, all this lying in your name.”
“Killing children in your name. Killing babies in your name. BBC shame shame.”
Thursday’s evening’s protest was sparked by a long-form “investigation” initiated by Guardian writer Owen Jones into the BBC’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
In it, Jones claimed to have spoken to “13 current and former staffers, who mapped out the extensive bias in the BBC’s coverage”; he said that the focus of their complaints, all made anonymously “for fear of professional retribution”, was the BBC News online Middle East editor, Raffi Berg.
According to Jones, Berg “sets the tone for the BBC’s digital output on Israel and Palestine”, adding that the journalists to whom he spoke “allege that internal complaints about how the BBC covers Gaza have been repeatedly brushed aside.
A source close to Berg told Jewish News last month that Jones had “triggered the biggest torrent of antisemitic abuse against him which he had ever experienced in his life”.
As first reported by Jewish News, Berg is understood to be considering legal action.
The protestors, many of whom covered their faces, gathered with megaphones to hurl inflammatory abuse at hundreds of BBC staff exiting Broadcasting House in central London.
Additional chants included: “BBC you can’t hide, you’re supporting genocide. Raffi Berg you can’t hide.”
One individual who led this evening’s chants added: “To all the journalists at the BBC who have remained silent. Shame, shame, shame on you.
“You say nothing when children die. How do you go home and sleep at night? You work for an institution which is manufacturing consent for genocide among the British public… You have blood on your hands.”
Other inflammatory chants which could be perceived as inciting uprising included: “Gaza, Gaza, you will rise, Palestine will never die. West Bank, West Bank you will rise.”
“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” was also chanted on numerous occasions.
Police were in attendance but no arrests were made.
