The BBC’s head of news instructed staff to distinguish between bad Hamas (military) and not so bad Hamas (political). That’s illegal. The BBC’s response? Robotic waffle and wilful denial

The BBC treats journalistic inquiries with a level of contempt it would never accept if the roles were reversed.

Since footage surfaced of Deborah Turness, the BBC’s £400k a year head of news, telling staff it was “important” to distinguish between the political and military wings of Hamas – a proscribed terrorist organisation in its entirety – I’ve been asking Auntie a very basic question: is Turness still instructing staff to consider one part of Hamas less bad than another part of Hamas or has her previous guidance been formally corrected?

The robotic words I’ve received in response have been so evasive, so disconnected from my actual question, they’d make Jacob Rees-Mogg blush.

What makes this so frustrating – and, frankly, insulting – is that we’re not talking about a minor slip. This is the head of BBC News, misinforming her own journalists about a proscribed terrorist group, in direct contradiction of UK law.

It strikes at the very heart of everything wrong at the BBC’s coverage of the Middle East since 7 October. The wilful ignorance isn’t just embarrassing. It’s top-to-bottom institutional. And now we’re through the looking glass at Broadcasting House, where Hamas is nuanced and terrorists are rebranded as public servants – BY THE ACTUAL HEAD OF NEWS.

In the video, Turness makes clear that the father of the child narrator in the documentary How to Survive a Warzone was only the deputy agriculture minister in the Hamas-run government – not in the “military wing”. Oh, well that’s all right then. Perhaps he just spends his days humming Kumbaya and watering avocadoes.

Deborah Turness, CEO of BBC News, at BBC New Broadcasting House in London (Image: BBC)

Turness is not even remotely right. Hamas, in UK law, it is a single proscribed terrorist organisation. It doesn’t matter if it has an agriculture minster with an irrigation policy (which it doesn’t. Piping is used for Quassam rockets).

Turness instructed her employees to draw a distinction that doesn’t exist. Worse, she claimed it was “important” to keep reminding people of this non-existent distinction.

One of the BBC’s responses said Ms Turness “didn’t imply” Hamas’ military and political wings should be viewed differently. Except she literally did. Watch the video. Her whole point was that distinction

I’ve tried and tried and tried again over the past 24 hours to get a coherent response from the BBC – on or off record. Across five emails all I’ve received is a familiar fug of flimflam: “Thanks for getting in touch… The statement still stands… I would simply repeat… etc...” Vague, soporific soundbites you get when the person writing them knows that if they play the game for long enough the person on the other side will eventually lose interest before they lose their mind.

One of the BBC’s non-responses even had the brass balls to state Ms Turness “didn’t imply” Hamas’ military and political wings should be viewed differently. Except she literally did. Watch the video. Her whole point was that her staff should make that very distinction.

This scandal lies in the BBC’s institutional inability to admit when one of its top brass has made an appalling, even illegal error. Its evasiveness kicks in the second a non-BBC journalist dares ask a question it would rather not answer. The BBC’s response to outside media is many magnitudes less honest than the answers they would expect if one of their own was holding someone else’s feet to the fire.

Our public broadcaster is public in name only.