Pro-Palestinian legal centre calls on BBC to remove Robbie Gibb over Jewish Chronicle scandal

A Palestinian legal defence group has called on the BBC to sack board member Robbie Gibb over his links to the Jewish Chronicle newspaper, which is embroiled in a scandal over false reporting on Gaza.

The International Centre for Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) accused Gibb of “failing to uphold editorial standards” during his time as director of the Jewish Chronicle.

In an open letter published on Friday, the London-based group said the recent scandal “casts serious doubts on its ability to maintain the BBC’s standards”.

“His continued tenure as a non-executive board member exposes the BBC to reputational damage,” the ICJP said.

“Moreover, his partisan politics in relation to his well-documented pro-Israel sentiments make him unsuitable to influence the BBC’s editorial standards at a time when its coverage of Israel’s war with Hamas is so controversial.”

Earlier this month, the Jewish Chronicle was forced to retract a series of articles that allegedly contained made-up quotes from Israeli officials.

One article, published by an independent reporter named Elon Perry, contained shocking revelations from a document allegedly discovered in the Gaza Strip.

The document allegedly details plans by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to escape from the Palestinian enclave along with Israeli prisoners taken in the October 7 attack.

However, the Israeli army has stated that it has no knowledge of such a document, and many Israeli media outlets have begun to question Perry’s identity and professional experience.

The leftist +972 Magazine has questioned his claims of serving as a commando during Operation Entebbe and of having been a professor at Tel Aviv University for 15 years, as there are no documents to support these claims.

Several high-profile columnists, including the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland, have announced they will no longer write for the newspaper.

In response to the allegations, the Jewish Chronicle said in a statement that it had terminated its relationship with Perry and removed his articles from its website.

The article said: “The Jewish Chronicle maintains the highest journalistic standards in a highly controversial news landscape and we deeply regret the sequence of events that led to this point. We apologise to our loyal readers and have reviewed our internal processes to ensure this does not happen again.”

BBC under pressure to take action

However, the Jewish Chronicle, the oldest Jewish news source in Britain, came under fire after the revelations.

Gibb, who until recently was the sole owner and director of the Jewish Chronicle, was at the centre of a scandal.

The BBC has also faced questions about the links of Gibb, a member of the station’s board, with the Jewish Chronicle newspaper.

In addition to being a non-executive board member, Gibb currently chairs the BBC Remuneration Committee and the England Committee, and serves as a member of the Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee under the ICJP.

Alan Rusbridger, a former Guardian editor who previously investigated the ownership of the Jewish Chronicle, questioned Gibb’s position on the BBC’s editorial standards committee.

“I don’t understand how he can sit on this committee and present himself as a model of impartiality, judging BBC journalists,” Rusbridger told LBC radio.

A similar view was expressed by Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu).

Doyle told MEE: “The fact that one of the most senior figures in the BBC was involved in the takeover of the Jewish Chronicle calls into question his impartiality.”

Doyle said the Jewish Chronicle, under its editor Jake Wallis Simons and his predecessor Stephen Pollard, had promoted a “very active right-wing agenda”, which was a marked departure from the paper’s history as a newspaper that had been much more reflective of the various positions taken by the British Jewish community on Israel and Palestine.

On Wednesday, the Muslim Council of Britain said it had sent a letter to the BBC expressing “deep concerns” about Gibb’s role and calling on the corporation to consider whether it would be appropriate to keep him on the Editorial Standards Committee.

“We believe that Sir Robbie Gibb cannot objectively assess the BBC’s impartiality on such a sensitive issue as the Israel-Gaza conflict, while his role at a newspaper that has clearly demonstrated bias against Palestinians remains at best unclear and at worst wholly supportive,” Zara Mohammed, secretary general of the MCB, wrote in a letter to Samir Shah, chairman of the BBC.

MEE previously contacted Gibb for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

A BBC spokesman told MEE that Gibb resigned as director of the Jewish Chronicle in August.