The BBC has issued an apology for publishing a video that claimed observant Jews spit on Christians in a “holiday ritual”.
On 5 October 2023, BBC Arabic released an article entitled “Sukkot: Spitting and Assault on Christians and Harassment of Muslims on the Jewish Holiday,” alongside a similarly titled video.
During the clip, a caption made the claim about how observant Jews celebrate Succot in Israel by spitting on Christians.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (Camera) complained to the BBC about the caption, which was corrected days later to say: “Some observant Jews consider spitting on Christians a holiday ritual.”
There have been arrests in Israel related to spitting on churches, with the suspects mainly from certain strict Charedi sects, but the practice is not an accepted part of mainstream Jewish celebrations.
But it took the broadcaster 19 months to issue a written apology to Camera.
“We apologise for the errors and thank you for your patience in waiting for this reply/confirmation of corrections that were made in October 2023,” a BBC spokesperson said.
BBC Arabic took over 400 working days to rectify a separate article that linked “fanatical Jews” to the 9/11 terrorists – exceeding the maximum limit of 65 working days.
The article, published on the 22nd anniversary of the attacks, sparked outrage at the time with Lord Carlile, the government’s former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, issuing a warning to the BBC about publishing “deliberate and sometimes even casual antisemitism”.
The article purported to trace the “story of suicide attackers throughout history”, from a Jewish group living under the Romans, the Sicarii, to today’s jihadists.
The article referenced a famous episode when the Sicarii — named after their small daggers which they used to attack Romans — seized Jerusalem with other forces during the Jewish revolt, before retreating to Masada, where they are said to have eventually committed mass suicide to avoid capture.
These actions, according to the article, were the first suicide attack in history.
In a complaint submitted to the BBC on September 15, 2023, Camera wrote: “Since the Sicarii's attacks weren't suicidal, and their mass suicide was not an attack, they do not fit a narrative about suicide attacks at all. Yet, they are the only ones labelled ‘fanatics’ and ‘extremists’ in the entire article.”
The article went on to say that, after the Second World War, suicide attacks were “almost” non-existent until Israel’s incursion into southern Lebanon in 1982.
This account omits “an important exception”, Camera said in a complaint seen by the JC, citing the Japanese Red Army's 1972 Lod airport massacre which, it claimed, “was planned as suicidal from the start”.
It wasn’t until April 10, 2025, after Camera issued two further complaints, that the Executive Complaints Unit issued its final resolution and agreed to revise the article.
“Although the Sicarii may have preferred suicide to capture, there was no evidence of their using suicide as a means of an attack,” the ECU’s statement, published online, said. “In the ECU’s judgement, this was a material inaccuracy in the context of an item which set out to sketch the history of suicide attacks,” it added.
But it then took a further week for the BBC Arabic article to be revised, according to Camera, meaning in total it took over 400 days for the issue to be resolved.
The headline was changed from “The story of suicide bombers throughout history: from the fanatical Jews, through the Assassins, to the Jihadists” to “The Story of Suicide Bombers Throughout History: From Assassins to Jihadists”.
A Camera spokesperson told the JC: “With a procedure taking more than 19 months, this is another striking example of the BBC's failure to handle timely complaints about bias in the Arabic service when covering Jewish and Israeli affairs.”
As of June 9, 2025, there are still six pending complaints relating to BBC Arabic submitted by Camera before October 7, 2023.
The JC contacted the BBC for comment.
