{"id":298515,"date":"2025-07-14T12:38:02","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T11:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=298515"},"modified":"2025-07-14T12:40:32","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T11:40:32","slug":"burying-genocide-the-bbc-gaza-and-the-role-of-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/07\/burying-genocide-the-bbc-gaza-and-the-role-of-the-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"Burying Genocide: The BBC, Gaza and the Role of the UK"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Keir Starmer onboard a Royal Air Force plane.
Photo: Stefan Rousseau.<\/p><\/div>\n

14 Jul 2025\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0One might naively think that a national public-service broadcaster would inform the public about matters of national interest. Surely no reasonable person would deny that the public has a right to know what the government is doing in our name. But, over and above this basic requirement, a responsible public-service broadcaster should also scrutinise<\/em> the government\u2019s actions and statements, and challenge<\/em> them robustly.<\/p>\n

Instead, as Declassified UK has reported<\/a>, Britain\u2019s \u2018obedient\u2019 defence correspondents, including BBC journalists, are covering up British spy flights for Israel. The RAF has carried out more than 500 surveillance flights over Gaza since December 2023. The Ministry of Defence insists that the flights, undertaken by aircraft based at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, are solely to assist in providing information about Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on 7 October 2023. But the British \u2018mainstream\u2019 media \u2013 which largely serves state-corporate interests, not the public interest \u2013 have not carried out a single investigation into the extent, impact or legal status of these flights.<\/p>\n

Action on Armed Violence<\/a> (AOAV), a London-based charity that records, investigates and disseminates evidence of armed violence against civilians worldwide, has analysed flight-tracking data over or close to Gaza. They found that between 3 December 2023 and 27 March 2025, the RAF carried out at least 518 Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) flights in or near Gaza\u2019s airspace.<\/p>\n

AOAV found that the RAF conducted 24 flights in the two weeks leading up to and including the day of Israel\u2019s deadly attack<\/a> on the Nuseirat refugee camp on 8 June 2024, which reportedly killed 274 Palestinians and injured over 700.\u00a0Four Israeli hostages were rescued in the operation.<\/p>\n

Iain Overton, the Executive Director of AOAV, noted<\/a> that:<\/p>\n

\u2018This is not the only instance where UK ISR flights have coincided with major Israeli military assaults. In the two weeks leading up to Israel\u2019s attack on Rafah on 12 February 2024, which killed at least 67 Palestinians, the RAF flew 15 ISR missions over Gaza. Flights continued<\/a> even during the so-called \u201climited ceasefire\u201d in early 2025, with six flights recorded in February alone.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He added:<\/p>\n

\u2018With no parliamentary oversight or public scrutiny, it remains unclear how much British intelligence gathered from these flights has been shared with Israel.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is surely a significant question that responsible journalists should be raising; particularly, the national broadcaster. But, as Declassified UK has observed<\/a>, the BBC has essentially remained \u2018silent\u2019 on whether these flights are contributing to the UK\u2019s complicity in Israel\u2019s genocide and war crimes in Gaza.<\/p>\n

In an article jointly published by Declassified UK and The National newspaper in Scotland, Des Freedman, Professor of Media & Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London, wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018thanks to dogged work by campaigners, independent journalists and pro-Palestine MPs, we know both that the flights are continuing to operate (as they did even throughout the ceasefire) and that spikes in the number of flights have coincided<\/a> with especially deadly Israeli attacks on Gaza.<\/p>\n

\u2018The lack of curiosity on the part of mainstream media is perhaps not surprising but it is deeply troubling.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He added:<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s hard to reconcile this silence with the energy with which mainstream media have investigated Russian spy planes<\/a> flying over Ukraine and other military manoeuvres related to Putin\u2019s invasion.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On 7 July, we challenged<\/a> Jonathan Beale, the BBC\u2019s defence correspondent via X, linking to Freedman\u2019s article:<\/p>\n

\u2018Hello @bealejonathan<\/a>,<\/p>\n

\u2018As @BBCNews<\/a> defence correspondent, why are you covering up British spy flights for Israel?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Beale was clearly irked and posted this reply<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018Why are you claiming \u201ccover-up\u201d \u2013 without a shred of evidence of what\u2019s supposed to have been covered up? I\u2019m curious as to how a media lecturer at Goldsmiths seems to have knowledge of \u201cintelligence\u201d that no other journalist has seen?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A few minutes later, having now been alerted to the Declassified UK article, he confronted<\/a> Freedman:<\/p>\n

\u2018Please tell us Des as to how we can get the classified intelligence only you seem to know about. Why teach media studies when you can clearly scoop us all?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Freedman responded<\/a> reasonably:<\/p>\n

\u2018As you know Jonathan, I don\u2019t have access to classified files but to open news databases. Is any of the story incorrect? Instead of a snippy response, surely it would be better to use your contacts to investigate a story that\u2019s in the public interest?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Declassified UK said in a follow-up post<\/a> on X:<\/p>\n

\u2018In a bizarre admission he [Beale] suggests that open source information on military flights is \u201cclassified\u201d, raising the question \u2013 how do BBC journalists investigate the British military?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The answer, of course, is that BBC journalists, along with other state stenographers, have learned not<\/em> to investigate too deeply if they are to retain their privileged position.<\/p>\n

When Declassified UK challenged Richard Burgess, the BBC\u2019s director of news content, he gave this response<\/a> befitting a senior news apparatchik:<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t think we should overplay the UK\u2019s contribution to what\u2019s happening in Israel.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why did Burgess say, \u2018in Israel\u2019? Did he just erase Palestine? Is he actually unaware that Gaza is an occupied Palestinian territory?<\/p>\n

As if that was not already a bizarre and misleading form of words, consider this. Nobody is asking the BBC to \u2018overplay\u2019 what the UK is doing; but simply to report it, rather than bury it to the point of invisibility. Whitewashing genocide as \u2018what\u2019s happening in Israel\u2019 is wretched BBC newspeak.<\/p>\n

Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour party leader, has called for a public inquiry to determine what the UK government is hiding about its role in Israel\u2019s genocide, including RAF flights from Cyprus. In an article<\/a> for the Morning Star, he wrote:<\/p>\n

\u2018We have also repeatedly asked for the truth regarding the role of British military bases in Cyprus, concerning the transfer of arms and the supply of military intelligence.<\/p>\n

\u2018When the Prime Minister visited RAF Akrotiri in December 2024, he was filmed telling troops: \u201cThe whole world and everyone back at home is relying on you.\u201d He added: \u201cQuite a bit of what goes on here can\u2019t necessarily be talked about all of the time. We can\u2019t necessarily tell the world what you\u2019re doing.\u201d What does the government have to hide?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Corbyn continued:<\/p>\n

\u2018Over the past 18 months, our questions have been met with evasion, obstruction and silence, leaving the public in the dark over the ways in which the responsibilities of government have been discharged. Transparency and accountability are cornerstones of democracy. The British public deserves to know the full scale of Britain\u2019s complicity in crimes against humanity.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the British public-service broadcaster, along with the UK\u2019s other major news outlets, should have been reporting this since October 2023. As Mark Curtis, co-director of Declassified UK, commented<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018Britain\u2019s national media are doing a wonderful job covering up the extent of British support for Israel during a genocide. It\u2019s their most impressive performance since destroying the prospects of a decent government under Jeremy Corbyn in 2015-19.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Devastating Indictment of BBC \u2018Impartiality\u2019<\/h2>\n

The BBC\u2019s Richard Burgess, quoted above, was speaking in parliament at the launch of a study by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) into the BBC\u2019s coverage of Israel and Gaza. The report<\/a> examined BBC content from 7 October 2023 to 7 October 2024. A total of 3,873 BBC articles and 32,092 segments broadcast on BBC television and radio were analysed.<\/p>\n

CfMM\u2019s key findings<\/a> were:<\/p>\n