We, the undersigned, support the Jewish Chronicle’s demand for a parliamentary inquiry into the BBC’s coverage of Jews and Israel.

It follows deep concern in the Anglo-Jewish community regarding the Corporation’s output, including its coverage of the notorious Oxford Street Chanukah incident last December, and its response to complaints, which triggered an Ofcom investigation following our reporting.

On 8 September, we published an open letter demanding the BBC stop using Abdel Bari Atwan – who has repeatedly praised terrorist attacks and articulates a hardline Islamist worldview – as a high-profile pundit.

The letter was signed by 36 senior parliamentarians, public figures and communal groups. These included the former Conservative leader Michael Howard; the government’s former terror czar Lord Alex Carlile; former BBC governor Baroness Ruth Deech; former Labour minister responsible for the World Service Lord David Triesman; as well as historians Simon Sebag Montefiore and Andrew Roberts, playwright Steven Berkoff, actress Tracy-Ann Oberman and many more.

The Board of Deputies, Jewish Leadership Council, Community Security Trust, Campaign Against Antisemitism and the National Jewish Assembly also signed. The Chief Rabbi’s office was “watching with concern”.

The BBC has failed to reply to this letter, which was sent six weeks ago. Its sole response was an email to the JC from an official spokesman minutes before we went to press: “Apologies, but we won’t be sending our response this evening. We’ll get something to you in due course.”

The JC has also extensively covered instances where the BBC seemed to break its own impartiality guidelines in its Arabic language output, including a major investigation in February 2021, featuring evidence from whistleblowers. Since then, we have revealed subsequent examples of BBC Arabic’s apparent failure to uphold impartiality guidelines.

For these reasons, on behalf of the British Jewish community and the concerned public at large, we demand a comprehensive Parliamentary inquiry into the BBC’s coverage of Jews and Israel.