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The debate over of the BBC’s refusal to air the DEC Gaza aid appeal has largely overlooked an important document. In 2006 a BBC investigation into the impartiality of its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict found that there was a “disparity” in favour of Israel because the Corporation failed to make clear that the Palestinians live under Israeli occupation.

Led by a panel of establishment figures chaired by Sir Quentin Thomas, it took evidence from all sides, including Greg Philo’s detailed research “Bad News from Israel” and a quantitative study by the Communications Research Centre at Loughborough University.

It also saw the top secret Balen Report – an unpublished internal report prepared for BBC management by its senior editorial adviser on the Middle East, Malcolm Balen, in 2003 – about which there has recently been speculation that it showed anti-Israel bias at the BBC.

Entitled “Report of the independent panel for the BBC governors on impartiality of BBC coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict“, the review was widely seen as confirmation that the BBC is biased towards Israel. The headline in the Times, for example, on the day after the report was published, read: “BBC news ‘favours Israel’ at expense of Palestinian view“.

The report itself concluded: “One important feature of [the BBC's problems telling a complicated story] is the failure to convey adequately the disparity in the Israeli and Palestinian experience, reflecting the fact that one side is in control and the other lives under occupation. Although this asymmetry does not necessarily bear on the relative merits of the two sides, it is so marked and important that coverage should succeed in this if in nothing else.”

It continued: “We recommend the BBC should make purposive, and not merely reactive, efforts to explain the complexities of the conflict in the round, including the marked disparity between the positions of the two sides, and to overcome the high level of incomprehension among the audience.”

Page 22 of the report states:

“Among the findings from the quantitative content analysis which the researchers judge to be most important for the Panel are these: …

that a disparity (in favour of Israelis) [brackets in original, ed.] existed in BBC coverage taken as a whole in the amount of talk time given to non-party political Israelis and Palestinians;

that a disparity (in favour of Israelis) existed in BBC coverage taken as a whole in the amount of talk time given to Israelis and Palestinians;

that there was a broad parity in BBC coverage taken as a whole in terms of the appearance of Israeli and Palestinian party political actors;

that a disparity (in favour of Israelis) existed in BBC coverage taken as a whole in terms of the appearance of non-party political Israeli and Palestinian actors;

that a disparity (in favour of Israelis) existed in BBC coverage taken as a whole in terms of the appearance of Israeli and Palestinian actors”.

The BBC is still seething in response to it’s director general Mark Thompson’s decision not to broadcast the Gaza aid appeal.

At least three BBC NUJ workplace branches have passed motions calling on the BBC to transmit the Gaza aid appeal. A petition is circulating within the corporation which concludes: “The victims of Gaza deserve the aid appeal like any other victims of humanitarian crises. The conflict they are caught in is as controversial as any other armed conflict in the world and singling them out is what harms the BBC’s reputation of impartiality.”

The latest issue of Ariel, the BBC’s internal staff magazine, carries 10 letters on the BBC’s refusal to air the Gaza appeal – all are critical of the decision.

Here is a selection posted on the Media Lens message board:

1. The director general’s comments defending the BBC’s decision not to broadcast the DEC appeal appeared timid and unconvincing.

The main reason given is that he doesn’t want to compromise our reporting impartiality, because the issue of aid to Gaza is controversial. The flaw in this argument is that we are allowing the combatants (or their allies) – in this case Israel – to define whether or not an appeal for aid is legitimate. It is a curious logic to argue that we are defending the principle of impartiality by caving in to Israeli pressure.

There is a smell of fear about this decision – fear of controversy, fear of criticism, fear of repercussions. Perhaps this is the true fallout from the Hutton report, Queengate and Jonathan Ross; an organisation so mired in fear that it finds itself able to sacrifice aid to the victims of war for a principle that nobody (outside the BBC higher echelons) seems to believe was at stake.

Staff member, London factual

2. For the first time in my career I am ashamed to work for the BBC. The Disasters Emergency Committee – made up of the 12 biggest aid charities including the British Red Cross and Save the Children – has asked for help in raising money for the people in Gaza. Even the government has pledged money. The head of the UN says the situation in Gaza is ‘outrageous’. People are dying because of a lack of food, medicine and basic sanitation. The BBC has decided not to broadcast the appeal because it believes impartiality would be at risk. I believe the message the BBC is sending out is clear. And it is not impartial.

Staff member, BBC London

3. Whatever the politics of the situation it is obvious that Gaza is in the middle of a massive humanitarian crisis, people are suffering and need help. The BBC’s own coverage of flattened homes and parents mourning lost children amid the rubble clearly demonstrates that. The decision not to broadcast the appeal opens the BBC up to justified accusations of bias towards Israel and implies that the people of Gaza only have themselves to blame for what happened.

Staff member, News interactive, Plymouth

4. The BBC points to question marks over how the funding would be delivered, but that hasn’t stopped us running other DEC appeals where the distribution of funds is far from straightforward – Goma for example. And anyway, surely the mechanics of the appeal aren’t our problem. We’ve run appeals for victims of conflict before, so why not these people? We don’t need to mention the cause of the conflict or assign blame when we run the appeal, or schedule it near a news or current affairs programme. We just need to get vital funds for people who have no food, water, shelter or medical supplies.

Staff member, TV news

5. The refusal to carry the Gaza appeal insults the intelligence of licence fee payers, implying that they are unable to tell the difference between a charity appeal and a political broadcast. It also undermines the BBC’s claims to impartiality. In almost every war there is contentious debate about who is responsible for the consequent humanitarian crisis. Why is it only in the case of Gaza and, previously, Lebanon that this debate has been used to justify refusing to broadcast an appeal?

Staff member, multiplatform productions