The former chairman of the BBC, Lord Michael Grade, has criticized the network for its recent biased coverage of Israel, The Jewish Chronicle reported Monday. Grade wrote a letter to the BBC’s director of news and current affairs regarding a recent dispatch by correspondent Orla Guerin.

Lord Grade said the report had implied “equivalence between Israeli victims of terrorism and Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli security forces in the act of carrying out terror attacks”.

He wrote: “An emotional interview is conducted with the father of a dead Palestinian youth who had been killed committing a fatal terror attack. However, the report failed to show the emotional distress caused to Israelis by any of these recent attacks. This is inexcusable.

“Additionally, it was improper of the correspondent to claim that ‘there’s no sign of involvement by militant groups’, before immediately showing footage of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) banners at the home of a 19-year-old terrorist who carried out a deadly knife attack at Lion’s Gate in Jerusalem on October 3.

Grade also wrote that the network had not fulfilled its obligation to viewers by failing to mention incitement by Palestinian leaders.

An parliamentary inquiry into British anti-Semitism during last year’s Gaza conflict found that “the media, and in particular the BBC, had a role to play in whipping up anger through emotive content in the news and analysis that was broadcast.”

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