BBC Mideast editor got death threats after Owen Jones article slamming ‘pro-Israel’ Gaza coverage, libel case documents show

The BBC’s Middle East editor Raffi Berg got death threats in the wake of an article in which hard-left commentator and activist Owen Jones accused him of interfering with BBC coverage of the Gaza war to make it more pro-Israel, according to documents submitted in a High Court libel claim.

Berg is suing Jones over the article, titled “The BBC’s Civil War Over Gaza,” which was published on the Drop Site website in December, the Jewish News reports.

According to the report, the Drop Site article claimed that BBC staff told Jones that Berg “plays a key role in a wider BBC culture of ‘systematic Israeli propaganda.’”

Jones’s article additionally claimed staff had told him that Berg “reshapes everything from headlines, to story text, to images” and “repeatedly seeks to foreground the Israeli military perspective while stripping away Palestinian humanity.”

Berg denies the allegations.

According to the Jewish Chronicle, the article led to a flood of comments online claiming that Berg, who is Jewish, worked for the Mossad. The outlet said online posts responding to Jones’s article called Berg a “pig,” “Zionist scum,” “Nazi” and “child killer” and accused the BBC journalist of being a child abuser.

In court documents seen by the PA news agency, Berg’s lawyer said the article’s claims caused his client to suffer “an onslaught of hatred, intimidation and threats,” including death threats, and “strike at the claimant’s professional reputation as a journalist and editor.”

Jones, a prominent ally of former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, said he looked forward to “vigorously defending” his reporting.