What do British Jews think of the BBC?
We have now released new polling on how the British Jewish community views the BBC.
The results will not make pleasant reading for the denizens of Broadcasting House.
- A staggering 93% of British Jews are dissatisfied with the coverage of the Hamas-Israel war over the past two years in the British media.
- 95% of British Jews believe that there should be an independent investigation into the BBC regarding alleged bias in its coverage of matters of Jewish interest, and 72% believe that the licence fee should be suspended, pending such an investigation.
- A majority of British Jews (57%) have considered withholding payment of the BBC licence fee due to concerns about the BBC’s coverage of matters of Jewish interest.
- 83% of British Jews said that complaints regarding BBC coverage should go straight to Ofcom, rather than through the BBC first.
The Jewish community’s trust in the BBC has been completely shattered. From functioning as some sort of mouthpiece for Hamas, paying licence fee money to the family of a Hamas terrorist, refusing to label violent Islamists who massacre Jews as ‘terrorists’, broadcasting calls for death and destruction from Glastonbury into our living rooms and pumping endless biased reporting to the public, it is no surprise that British Jews demand fundamental change to our national broadcaster.
We continue to call for the suspension of the licence fee pending an independent investigation. The BBC must be held to account.
The full polling results, as well as information about fieldwork and methodology, can be found here.
Our Chief Executive, Gideon Falter, wrote about the polling for The JC.
“In the decade since CAA started polling British Jews, we have never seen such unanimity. This is our community crying out,” he writes. He calls out the “betrayal”, “failure” and “incitement” from those in positions of influence and power, and urges the authorities to action.
You can read the full article here.
We have also continued to discuss the findings, originally published on the front page of The Sunday Telegraph, in the media.
Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, also spoke to TalkTV about our polling, which you can watch here.
Another extremist arrives in the UK
Over the Christmas break, the Prime Minister and numerous senior cabinet figures congratulated themselves after an Egyptian national, Alaa Abd El-Fattah, was reunited with his family in Britain after a period of incarceration in the Middle Eastern country.
He had been granted British citizenship by the previous Government in an effort to increase pressure on Egyptian authorities to release him, a campaign supported by both sides of the aisle and continued by the current Government.
The news of his return, however, led to revelations of a long history of extremist rhetoric about Jews, white people and Britain, including:
- “I consider killing any colonialists and specially zionists heroic, we need to kill more of them [sic]”
- “I must confess i want a drone of me own, promise to only use it to shoot zionist weddings [sic]”
- “seriously hate white people”
- “dirty homosexual”
- “random shooting of white males should convince them racism costs lives”
- “can we get back to killing zionists people [sic]”
- “I rejoice when US soldiers are killed, and support killing zionists even civilians [sic]”
- “police are not human” and they “don’t have rights, we should just kill them all”
- “I am a racist, I don’t like white people.”
He has issued an apology of sorts.
We have also uncovered footage of him referencing a historic massacre of Jewish people.
The failure of the authorities to do due diligence on Mr El-Fattah before giving him citizenship represents another total failure of the system. It also betrays an extraordinary illiteracy in relation to Middle Eastern politics that has for so long characterised British foreign policy, which rewards extremists and lets antisemitic ideologies go unpunished.
Now, in the wake of lethal terrorist attacks on Jews from Manchester to Bondi, the UK has yet one more resident who, at least at one time, wanted to see ‘Zionists’ murdered. Thanks to the ineptitude of two successive governments, we are left to pin our hopes on the prospect that the passage of time and a spell in Egyptian prison have led to a radical rethink by Mr El-Fattah, beyond his desperate apology.
If politicians are finished patting themselves on the back for bringing Mr El-Fattah to Britain, they can now turn their attention to working out how to deport him. There are enough extremists spouting antisemitic rhetoric in this country already before we import yet another.
Stephen Silverman also spoke to TalkTV about Alaa Abd El-Fattah.
Convictions of ISIS supporters show Bondi could have happened here
Two men have been found guilty of planning a deadly terrorist attack against Jews in Manchester.
Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, were found guilty at Preston Crown Court of planning an attack involving the use of nearly 50 firearms and 1,200 rounds of ammunition.
Mr Saadaoui’s cousin, Bilel Saddaoui, 36, was also found guilty of failing to disclose information about the planned attack.
These terrorists must receive the most punitive sentences.
Britain just came within a hair’s breadth of its own Bondi Beach mass shooting of Jews. But this case is not a one-off. Right now, Islamist organisations are operating with impunity in the UK, while our defenders have to try to keep track of innumerable extremists and plots, with more being radicalised by the day
How many terror attacks are being plotted on British soil that we are not aware of?
As the Yom Kippur attack in Manchester painfully reminds us, terrorists only need to be lucky once; our police and security services do not have that luxury.
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Chief Executive Gideon Falter spoke to GB News about the convictions of ISIS supporters who plotted massacre of British Jews.
Co-founder of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign convicted
Mick Napier, co-founder of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC), has been found guilty of abusing a Jewish man at a Palestine demonstration.
Sammy Stein, a member of Glasgow’s Jewish community, told Glasgow Sheriff’s Court that he was filming a SPSC demonstration when he was approached by Mr Napier, who “asked me what I think about the chief spiritual leader of the Israeli Defence Force who supports the rape of comely gentile women and would I like to comment.”
Mr Stein said: “I believe he asked me as he knows I’m Jewish – he would have wanted me to possibly agree with what he was proclaiming this man does…I think he wanted to put me on the spot as a Jewish person to say that [it] was okay to rape gentile women.”
Sheriff John McCormack found Mr Napier guilty of behaving in a threatening or abusive manner, with behaviour “aggravated by prejudice relating to religion or, in the case of a social or cultural group, perceived religious affiliation” and ordered him to pay a £600 fine.
Lawyers will reportedly be challenging the verdict.
You can read more about Mr Napier’s record here.
Kuwaiti refugee alleged to have shouted “I love the 7th of October” in Swiss Cottage protest is finally charged
Mohammed Hassn (also known as Mohammed al-Mail) has been charged with intentionally causing racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress.
The charge comes after footage circulated online in which he is alleged to have shouted “I love the 7th of October” at a Palestine demonstration in Swiss Cottage in September 2024.
Mr Hassn, a Kuwaiti national who in 2017 was granted refugee status, is reported to have later appeared on an Arabic-speaking podcast, in which he apparently said: “Not every day is like October 7. If an opportunity arises, we must fully exploit it. If you strike, make it hurt.”
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) reportedly twice determined that no charges could be brought against Mr Hassn, despite evidence supplied by Scotland Yard.
However, after the police challenged the CPS’ decision, charges were brought against Mr Hassn under Section 4A of the Public Order Act 1998 and Section 31 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.
Mr Hassn has denied supporting Hamas and has said that “none of his statements target any protected group, including Jewish people, or promote violence.”
He is due to appear in court in the coming weeks.
Nowhere to hide for West Midlands Police
After CAA and parliamentarians wrote to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) about the West Midlands Police ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans at a recent Aston Villa match, the IOPC has ordered the force to explain its decision.
Although the IOPC usually only investigates a police force following a self-referral, on this occasion the watchdog has threatened a full investigation.
We must make particular mention of Nick Timothy MP and Lord Austin for their dogged public advocacy on this issue.
It has also emerged that West Midlands Police overruled UEFA’s own security advice for the Maccabi Tel Aviv fan ban. UEFA told the authorities that Israeli supporters should not be banned. West Midlands Police excluded UEFA from the next meeting, reversed course and built their case on false claims Dutch police have since dismissed and on bogus “intelligence” — including an AI-generated match that never happened.
The Chief Constable of West Midlands Police has also been summoned to return to the Home Affairs Committee in the new year.
Really, the police chiefs should be resigning before then, but regardless more information must emerge about what pressure was brought to bear on the police and by whom, in order to ban Israeli fans from Birmingham due to a baseless and all but unprecedented decision.
We must have accountability for the force’s outrageous decision and cover-up.
We recently sent our van to West Midlands Police headquarters to underscore our point.
Avon and Somerset Police close case against Bob Vylan
Avon and Somerset Police have concluded their investigation into on-stage comments made by rap duo Bob Vylan at Glastonbury Festival. The force has decided not to bring charges.
The force said that it had “sought all the advice [it] could to ensure we made an informed decision”, and that in this case there was “insufficient evidential for there to be a realistic prospect of conviction.”
So there we have it: Avon and Somerset police found no way to penalise Bob Vylan’s horrendous rant about “Zionists” or violent chants calling “Death Death to the IDF”, which were broadcast into our homes by the BBC.
This is the same conclusion as was reached by their colleagues at the Met, who also dropped their own investigation in November, also citing “insufficient evidence” with which to take any action.
British Jews will be furious but not in the least surprised. Over the last two years, trust in the authorities has collapsed. According to our representative polling, fewer than one tenth of British Jews believe that the authorities are doing enough to address and punish antisemitism. A staggering 84% believe that they are not doing enough.
With most British Jews now considering whether they have a future in the UK at all, over and over again it falls to us to explore all legal avenues to take action because the authorities will not.
A year of unprecedented challenges – but also successes
2025 has been another terribly difficult year for British Jews and their friends. From bias at the BBC reaching epic proportions with the payment of licence fee money to the family of a Hamas official to attempts to de-proscribe Hamas, the broadcast of calls for death and destruction at Glastonbury to a terrorist attack on a synagogue that left two dead, we have seen Britain descend to new and awful depths.
With your support, the staff and volunteers at Campaign Against Antisemitism have been working tirelessly to fight the oldest hatred, and we are proud of the successes that we have achieved this year and the major developments to which we have contributed.
These include several successful private prosecutions, with others ongoing, as well as other investigative work and litigation, which, for example, landed a Hamas-linked Gazan who arrived on our shores in prison.
On policy, there was the proscription of Palestine Action – essentially the first proscription of an extremist far-left organisation in the UK – and the defeat of the attempt to de-proscribe Hamas, as well as publishing groundbreaking polling on the front pages of national newspapers.
On media, they include bringing considerable pressure to bear on the BBCin the national media, contributing to the departure of Gary Lineker and subsequently of Director General Tim Davie and the CEO of BBC News, Deborah Turness.
These efforts are in addition to bringing tens of thousands out on Britain’s March Against Antisemitism, raising awareness of antisemitism to millions of people across several social media platforms, and, above all, the work that we have done day in and day out supporting Jewish students on campus and other victims of antisemitism.
You can read more about our work over the past year here, and you can make a donation to ensure that we can continue this work in the new year here.
Watch our video where we look back at 2025.
Support your Jewish friends
It’s the most wonderful time of the year to show support to your Jewish friends.
Visit antisemitism.org/shop to show your support.
Watch as we spread this message around London.
This past year has been not only another exceptionally difficult year, but a uniquely deadly one for British Jews.
We are praying for a better 2026 – and we will continue to work every day to try to make that prayer a reality.
We wish you a much happier New Year.
