Leaked report exposed BBC’s great betrayal

The truth is no longer deniable. The leaked Prescott Report was the final, damning confirmation of what so many of us have said for years, that our national broadcaster has been doing exactly what we’ve accused it of doing all along.

It is the inevitable conclusion to one of the most shameful chapters in the BBC’s history, a story of how a minority community was gaslit, lied to, and endangered from the top down. The results are not abstract. They’ve made Jews less safe, not only here in Britain, but anywhere the BBC’s influence reaches.

The report shows, in black and white, that BBC coverage “minimised Israeli suffering” while “painting Israel as the aggressor.” That it “raced to air allegations against Israel without adequate checks,” driven by a “desire always to believe the worst about Israel.”

And then comes the truly sickening part: BBC Arabic, part of the World Service, gave a platform to journalists who had publicly called for Jews to be burned “as Hitler did.” One appeared 244 times in 18 months. Another, who described Jews as “devils,” appeared 522 times.

This is not “balance.” This is complicity. “Balance” has become the word used to justify bigotry, to excuse bias, to disguise hate as nuance.

But perhaps worst of all, these lies, broadcast to millions, have breathed new life into one of the oldest and most poisonous antisemitic tropes: That Jews control the media, run the world, sit in smoke-filled rooms, plotting misfortune and manufacturing consent.

In other words, the BBC’s failure to confront antisemitism has amplified the very myths that have justified our persecution for centuries.

It is the same intellectualisation, the same genteel rationalisation, that Louis Theroux indulged in during his recent podcast with the clown from the Glastonbury stage, the man who shouted “Death to the IDF,” who dismissed Jewish pain, who equated Zionism with white supremacy.

Theroux didn’t challenge him. He legitimised him. He found empathy and justification for hate.

And the same stalwarts of our industry, the people who applauded him, who rushed to defend the indefensible, will tell you that calling this antisemitic is “ludicrous.”

They’ll whisper about “those people driving this.” Those people. Always those people.

Every other minority is afforded the right to call out hatred when it’s directed at them, without being accused of shutting down “legitimate criticism.” Every other minority is afforded empathy when attacked, not analysis about why such attacks are somehow understandable.

But Jews?

We are offered neither. We are treated as fair game for conspiracy and contempt, used as a dog whistle by politicians from Your Party and the Greens, by NHS doctors, by academics, and yes, by many in the creative industries. We’ve all heard the lines: “You know who’s behind this.” “We all know who we’re talking about.” And so, we learnt to hide. But the time for hiding is over.

The inversion, the cruellest twist of all, is that in naming the prejudice, we are accused of embodying it. That by calling out antisemitism, we somehow prove the existence of the “Jewish lobby.”

That old trope, perfected by Nazis, refined by the Soviet Union, exported by Islamists, and now recycled by the far left: the idea that Jews operate as a secret cabal, pulling strings and silencing critics. It’s not just false, it’s lethal.

Because it turns us from victims into villains, from a people fighting for safety into the monsters in your bedtime stories.

So, let’s strip away the euphemism. If you’re going to point the finger at “the Zionist lobby,” at “those people,” at “the ones behind this,” then have the courage to say what you mean. You mean the Jews. And here we are. Unhidden. Unafraid.

I have every right, every right, to call out racism, Jew-hate, antisemitism wherever and whenever I see it, and by whatever name I choose. We will no longer walk into your traps. We will no longer play your games.

I am what I’ve always been, a Jew who cares about his community, who worries for his children, who still dares to believe we have a future in this country.

I’m not your insidious myth. I’m a minority standing here, telling you I won’t be silenced. I’m not plotting your downfall. I’m demanding our dignity.

And I’m not going anywhere.

• Leo Pearlman is a TV and film producer