The BBC admitted that the comment one of its presenters made in July that “Israeli forces are happy to kill children” was not impartial, the Jewish Chronicle (JC) reported on Tuesday.
Since BBC presenter Anjana Gadgil made the comment to prime minister Naftali Bennett during Israel’s massive military operation in Jenin in July of this year, the BBC has openly walked back the statement.
This week, the JC reported that a BBC statement noted that Gadgil’s remark “fell below BBC’s standards of impartiality”.
“The ECU accepted that, as phrased, the statement might have given viewers the impression that they were hearing the presenter’s personal view on a controversial matter, and that it therefore fell below the BBC’s standards of impartiality,” the statement from the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU).
It went on to note that the BBC had “already acknowledged a problem with the interview [on its online] corrections and clarifications page.”
Israeli soldiers clash with Palestinian youth following Military operation in Jenin, in the West Bank city of Hebron, July 3, 2023 (credit: WISAM HASHLAMOUN/FLASH90)The BBC’s corrections and clarifications page, as it currently appears, does not include a mention of Gadgil’s interview.
Among its corrections for 2023, the page does have a correction from May regarding an initial error in its initial coverage of the murder of members of the British-Israeli Dee family.
Previous BBC reflections on Gadgil’s remark
The following day after Gadgil’s remark regarding Israeli forces being happy to kill Palestinian children, the BBC issued an apology.
“While this was a legitimate subject to examine in the interview, we apologize that the language used in this line of questioning was not phrased well and was inappropriate,” the BBC said.
Still, the BBC insisted that it had covered the broader events in Jenin in an impartial and robust manner.
While large-scale, the Israeli operation in Jenin was brief, ending on July 5th. At the conclusion, Israel had eliminated 12 Palestinian militants and arrested roughly 100 other terror suspects.
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