BBC genocide denial is getting beyond old

In an interview with Green Party leader Zack Polanski, BBC presenter Nick Robinson insisted on amplifying the voice of genocidaires and genocide-deniers. He even claimed it’s the BBC‘s job to do so.

With the overwhelming weight of expert opinion calling Israel’s mass murder in Gaza genocide, however, people expressed serious concern about the BBC still clinging to its longstanding efforts to downplay the genocide.

BBC wants to be “fair” to the people committing genocide

In the interview, Robinson interrupted Polanski to say:

I don’t want to have a debate about the word, but I do want it noted that no court has said it’s genocide and Israel completely rejects the idea it’s genocide.

Criticising the BBC‘s pro-Israel bias in 2025, actor Liam Cunningham asked:

Are we saying, due to impartiality, that if this was 1944 or 1945 when we discovered the horrors of Auschwitz, would we be contacting Heinrich Himmler for his take on the genocide? Because that’s what’s going on now.

Fast-forwarding to 2026, Robinson did just that. Because after emphasising the genocidaires’ denial, he insisted:

it’s only fair to point that out.

And when Polanski challenged him on X after the interview, Robinson doubled down:

As the Canary has documented in depth, UN legal expert Francesca Albanese absolutely has called Israel’s actions genocide, as has the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.

Countless genocide scholars, legal professionals, human rights groups, and humanitarian organisations have joined them. Even prominent Israeli genocide scholars have reached the conclusion that Israel has committed genocide. And a Dutch media report summarised that “leading genocide researchers are surprisingly unanimous”.

This overwhelming consensus is why so many people are sick of BBC figures trying to explain away their shocking ‘both sides‘ approach to genocide:

Giving genocidal allies an equal say is complicity

Genocide expert Martin Shaw has previously called media outlets avoiding the word genocide “tame“. And he highlighted that the BBC has hardly been rushing to amplify his voice, saying:

But Nick you don’t “interview those who use the word genocide”. I’m one of the most prominent British genocide scholars and I called Israel’s genocide in October 2023. I’ve had a lot of international media attention but my BBC total in 30 months is one interview on Radio Ulster.

He also suggested that the BBC probably wouldn’t jump to highlight the voices of genocidaires in other cases:

And as experts have highlighted, genocidal campaigns would struggle to get off the ground without favourable media coverage:

Polanski: “it feels like it’s getting a lot worse”

Polanski, meanwhile, shared a speech that he thinks is appropriate to consider:

whenever a BBC journalist denies the evidence in front of our very eyes in the name of “balance.”

The speaker was former BBC presenter Emily Maitlis, who spoke about the famous ‘boiling frog’ scenario, where a frog will jump out of already boiling water but stay in water that gradually boils around it. She said:

we have to stop normalizing the absurd.

And in a critique of the kinds of attitude that lead the BBC to both-sides genocide, she explained that:

we don’t have to be campaigners, but nor should we be complacent, complicit onlookers. Our job is to make sense of what we’re seeing and anticipate the next move. It’s the moment, in other words, that frog should be leaping out of the boiling water and phoning all its friends to warn them. But by then, we’re so far along the path of passivity, we’re cooked.

The BBC has a history too. In the past, for example, the broadcaster’s director of news and current affairs had to admit that its climate-change coverage was “wrong too often”, insisting that:

You do not need a ‘denier’ to balance the debate.

The speech from Maitlis, Polanski said, “should have been a turning point”. Instead, he stressed:

it feels like it’s getting a lot worse

And it really is hard to get much worse than constantly straining to emphasise the denial of genocidaires when experts overwhelmingly conclude they’ve been committing genocide. We know the BBC is state propaganda. But this is just nauseating.

Featured image via YouTube screenshot/BBC Politics