Israeli MK Ohad Tal is demanding an urgent update in the BBC guidelines on Israel following the murder of Rebbetzin Lucy Dee and her daughters, who were British citizens, in a terrorist shooting attack during the Passover holiday.
In a letter to BBC Director Tim Davie, Tal wrote that terrorist groups routinely “justify” their heinous attacks as a “natural response” to “crimes” committed by Israel. Enclosing “a shockingly long list” of such statements, Tal then blasted the BBC for “trumpeting (alleged) settlement illegality” overly frequently. “I challenge you to point to any other (alleged) fact which is repeated as frequently in BBC news texts. We have even identified two settlement illegality messages on a single day,” the Israeli legislator wrote.
MK Tal said BBC guidelines demand “Incessant, overemphasized messaging about settlement illegality” but do not demand that terrorism be described as illegal. The BBC”s guidelines even prohibit the very use of the word “terrorist”, the MK said, adding that “Nothing could be more ironic than the BBC repeatedly insisting settlements are illegal while refusing to stipulate that terrorism is illegal”.
The Israeli legislator concluded that “BBC guidelines appear to, inadvertently I am sure, be fanning terrorism” and made several requests going forward including using wording to “reflect that Israel”s resettlement policy relies on supportive legal opinions by experts on international law” such as Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz and the late professor Eugene Rostow, who served as Dean of Yale Law School. Tal also said that “BBC wording should reflect that the UN Security Council”s view on settlement illegality relied on “a legal opinion which has since been discredited”, referring to the Hansell Memorandum , an internal legal document generated by the US State Department in the 1970″s which asserted settlement illegality but was rescinded in 2019.

MK Tal said his recommendations to the BBC would be “beneficial to the wellbeing of British Jewish citizens as well incessant attribution of alleged lawlessness to the only Jewish state in the world, by the UK”s national broadcaster, cannot but create a self-righteous tailwind in the UK, fanning latent prejudices against British Jews to overt and dangerous levels”.
Tal gave examples of BBC reports which “actually assert that certain communities are illegal simply because they are Jewish (not Israeli)”.