A supposed journalist often featured on the BBC’s Arabic channel reportedly praised Hamas terrorists and called for Jewish people to be burned “like Hitler did”.
Samer Elzaenen, 33, a regular contributor who reports from the Gaza Strip for BBC Arabic, has been found to have a long history of anti-semitic posts online, according to The Telegraph.
In a post from 2011, Elzaenen reportedly wrote on Facebook: “My message to the Zionist Jews: We are going to take our land back, we love death for Allah’s sake, the same way you love life. We shall burn you as Hitler did, but this time we won’t have a single one of you left.”
More recently, in 2022, he is said to have written: “When things go awry for us, shoot the Jews, it fixes everything.”
The broadsheet said that across his various social media platforms, the BBC contributor praised over 30 terror attacks on Israeli civilians, and branded the terrorists as “heroes” and “martyrs” who would ascend to “heaven”, while revelling in the deaths of innocent Jews.
Following the October 7th terror attacks, which left over 1,200 Israelis dead and hundreds more taken as hostages, Elzaenen allegedly praised Hamas Islamists, including those who attacked young people at the Nova music festival, as “resistance fighters”.
BBC Arabic has frequently faced accusations of propping up anti-semitic voices, including when another contributor branded the October 7th attacks as an example of “taking an initiative” and hailed footage of Israeli hostages as a “proud scene”.
BBC's 'Palestine Specialist' Posted 'Hitler was Right', Compared Israel to Nazi Germany https://t.co/gd4URHOG91
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 24, 2021
However, anti-semitism scandals at the British public broadcaster have not only come from BBC Arabic. Last year, a top staffer at BBC3 was sacked after she reportedly wrote on social media that Isrealis were a “subcontinental Caucasian invader coloniser species with zero indigenous/blood” and that Jewish people were “Nazi apartheid parasites”.
Last month, the BBC faced calls for an anti-terror investigation after it emerged that it had paid a family member of a high-ranking Hamas official to appear in its documentary Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone.
The BBC admitted to paying Abdullah Al-Yazouri, the 14-year-old son of Hamas agricultural minister Dr Ayman Al-Yazouri, who was portrayed as an average civilian despite having familial connections to one of the founders of the Islamic terror group.
In response to the latest scandal, the BBC noted that contributors are not considered staff members.
A spokesman said: “International journalists, including the BBC, are not allowed access into Gaza, so we hear from a range of eyewitness accounts from the strip.
“These are not BBC members of staff or part of the BBC’s reporting team. We were not aware of the individuals’ social media activity prior to hearing from them on air. We are absolutely clear that there is no place for anti-Semitism on our services.”
Reports: Top BBC Staffer Branded White People ‘Melanin-Recessive Parasites’, Called Jews ‘Nazis’ and a ‘Coloniser Species’https://t.co/q8FJCVA12C
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 3, 2024
