A journalist repeatedly used by the BBC Arabic channel to report from Gaza has called for Jews to be burned “as Hitler did” and posted extremist slogans including “#WeAreAllHamas You Son of a Jewess”.
Samer Elzaenen, 33, has appeared on BBC Arabic more than a dozen times since the October 7 Hamas attacks on southern Israel, and has praised the terrorist group as being “resistance fighters.”
An investigation published in The Telegraph also uncovered a July 2022 Facebook post reading: “When things go awry for us, shoot the Jews, it fixes everything.”
The BBC confirmed they had not been aware of the posts and said there was “no place for antisemitism in our services.”
Freelance journalist Elzaenen reported for BBC Arabic last month and his dispatches have included reports from the Nuseirat refugee camp in June last year, after an Israeli military operation to rescue four hostages, held by Hamas, led to hundreds of Palestinian deaths.
But writing on Facebook in 2011 he said:“My message to the Zionist Jews: We are going to take our land back, we love death for Allah’s sake the same way you love life. We shall burn you as Hitler did, but this time we won’t have a single one of you left.”
Another BBC Arabic freelancer Ahmed Qannan described a 26-year-old Palestinian who killed four civilians and a police officer in a series of shootings in the Israeli city of Bnei Brak in March 2022, as a “hero”.
BBC sources emphasised that Elzaenen and Qannan were not members of staff.
But the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (Camera) who discovered the posts said:”“The BBC misleadingly frames freelance journalists used by the Arabic service as mere “contributors” so it won’t have to take responsibility for the hatred they regularly spew in social media.
“Providing live reporting from the Gaza Strip and other world locations, it is not their opinion that the BBC asks them to share with its audience but their eyewitness, based on their presence on the ground.
“Freelancers who divulge such egregious bias should not be covering Israeli and Jewish affairs for the BBC. Any individual whose social media activity indicates their support for violence targeting Israel’s Jewish civilians lacks the basic journalistic skill of distinguishing between combatants and uninvolved bystanders.”
A BBC spokesman said: “International journalists including the BBC are not allowed access into Gaza so we hear from a range of eyewitness accounts from the strip. These are not BBC members of staff or part of the BBC’s reporting team. We were not aware of the individuals’ social media activity prior to hearing from them on air. We are absolutely clear that there is no place for antisemitism on our services.”
