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A BBC editor has sued Owen Jones, the journalist, over an article claiming the corporation is biased towards Israel. The article about coverage of the conflict in Gaza has caused the BBC’s online news editor for the Middle East to receive death threats, documents in a High Court libel claim allege. Raffi Berg, who joined the BBC in 2001 and has been Middle East editor for its news website for 12 years, is suing Mr Jones over an article titled The BBC’s Civil War Over Gaza published on the Drop Site website in December last year. Mr Jones spoke anonymously to 13 BBC staffers who claimed Mr Berg “plays a key role in a wider BBC culture of ‘systematic Israeli propaganda’”. Mr Berg denied the claims. The article also said that staff had told Mr Jones that Mr Berg “reshapes everything from headlines, to story text, to images” and “repeatedly seeks to foreground the Israeli military perspective while stripping away Palestinian humanity”. In court documents seen by the PA news agency, John Stables, barrister for Mr Berg, said the claims in the article “strike at the claimant’s professional reputation as a journalist and editor”, and had caused Mr Berg to suffer “an onslaught of hatred, intimidation and threats”, including death threats. Mr Jones said he looked forward to “vigorously defending my reporting”. The article said that the corporation was facing an “internal revolt over its reporting” of the conflict. It continued that journalists claimed Mr Berg “sets the tone for the BBC’s digital output on Israel and Palestine”, and that complaints from staff about the corporation’s coverage had been “repeatedly brushed aside”. Mr Jones’s piece also claimed that “facts unfavourable to Israel have been stripped out of Berg’s reports” and that he played a “crucial role” in “conduct that imperils the integrity of the BBC”. Mr Stables said that following the article’s publication, an online petition was launched calling on the BBC to suspend Mr Berg, who was targeted by protesters at the corporation’s premises in January this year. The barrister continued that the BBC had since put “workplace security measures” in place for Mr Berg and that police were investigating death threats made towards him. He said: “The claimant’s reputation has been seriously damaged and he has been caused substantial fear, anxiety, humiliation, upset and distress.” Mr Stables also said that the “upset and harm” allegedly caused to Mr Berg had been “greatly exacerbated” by Mr Jones not apologising or removing the article. Seeking damages Mr Berg is seeking damages, an injunction preventing Mr Jones from republishing the article, and an order requiring websites to take down the piece. Mr Jones is yet to file a defence to the claim, but said in a statement: “I strongly disagree with Mr Berg’s claims, and, if necessary, I look forward to vigorously defending my reporting in court.” Meanwhile, a leaked 19-page internal whistleblowing memo seen by The Telegraph this week revealed the BBC’s Arabic news service chose to “minimise Israeli suffering” in the war in Gaza so it could “paint Israel as the aggressor”. BBC Arabic, which is funded partly by a grant from the Foreign Office, gave large amounts of space to statements from Hamas, making its editorial slant “considerably different” to the main BBC website even though it is supposed to reflect the same values, managers were warned.
