BBC Middle East editor at centre of 'bias' row said Mossad made him 'proud'

The BBC's online Middle East editor said in 2020 that it was "wonderful" to be in a "circle of trust" with current and former Mossad agents while writing a book, and that the agency's "fantastic operations" make him "tremendously proud".

The comments made by Raffi Berg have surfaced following the revelation last week that he is suing prominent journalist Owen Jones over an article alleging Berg is biased towards Israel. 

Berg's book Red Sea Spies was published in 2020 and details the 1980s secret Mossad operation to transport thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel.

Its blurb says it was "written in collaboration with operatives involved in the mission, endorsed as the definitive account and including an afterword from the commander who went on to become the head of the Mossad".

In an October 2020 interview with Vilna Shul, which describes itself as "Boston's Center for Jewish Culture", Berg was asked what he learnt most from writing the book.

"There's a lot to choose from," he said.

"As I've already stressed, 100 percent, the admiration for Ethiopian Jews which I didn't have before, and I'm quite ashamed that I've spent half a century of life on earth without knowing enough about Ethiopian Jews. Thank God this opened my eyes to them."

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Berg continued: "But it's a wonderful thing to - I mean how often do you get to be accepted into a circle of trust among the people who belonged to, some of who still work for, the Mossad, and sit across the table from them, and learn the most incredible stories of modus operandi and tactics and subterfuge and, I mean we don't have the time.

"I'd love to spend another half an hour talking about tremendous... James Bond style methods which were employed. Cash hidden in chocolate boxes - I'm not sure if that was true or not, but it was told to me.

"Or things like that which really - as a Jewish person, an admirer of the state of Israel, then, to know that these people carry out these kinds of fantastic operations, it's really, it's what makes you tremendously proud. Absolutely.

"Talking about it still gives me goosebumps."

In August 2020, Berg posted in celebration that his book was pictured on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bookshelf.

😲 First time I've been on a prime minister's bookshelf! I know I've got one of 🇮🇱 #Israel PM @netanyahu's books on mine - but wow! 📖 #RedSeaSpies #Mossad @IsraeliPM @LikudUK @IsraelinUK @IsraelinNewYork @KasaBHarbor @jonnygouldpod @iconbooks https://t.co/Bg7LWAAssD pic.twitter.com/NlcggJGgwx

— Raffi Berg (@raffiberg) August 23, 2020

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

Berg joined the BBC in 2001 and has been Middle East editor for its news website for 12 years.

He is suing Owen Jones over an article published by Drop Site last December headlined "The BBC’s Civil War Over Gaza".

In the story, Jones said he spoke to 12 BBC staffers who said Berg "plays a key role in a wider BBC culture of 'systematic Israeli propaganda'".

Berg has denied the claims.

BBC in crisis

The piece quoted staffers saying Berg "reshapes everything from headlines, to story text, to images" and "repeatedly seeks to foreground the Israeli military perspective while stripping away Palestinian humanity".

Jones said that "facts unfavourable to Israel have been stripped out of Berg’s reports" and that he played a "crucial role" in "conduct that imperils the integrity of the BBC".

Berg's lawyer said the piece strikes "at the claimant’s professional reputation as a journalist and editor", and has led to "an onslaught of hatred, intimidation and threats", including death threats.

Jones said: "I strongly disagree with Mr Berg’s claims, and, if necessary, I look forward to vigorously defending my reporting in court."

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Drop Site reporter Ryan Grim said the organisation has spent $40,000 on legal costs relating to the case so far, but has raised over $100,000 from the public in just over a day since launching an appeal.

The BBC is currently in crisis after its director general, Tim Davie, and the head of BBC news resigned over the weekend.

This came in response to a letter to the public broadcaster's board from Michael Prescott, a former advisor to the BBC, criticising the editing of a speech by US President Donald Trump on 6 January 2021 for the BBC's Panorama show.

The edit suggested Trump had said: "We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell." In fact those words were taken from different sections of Trump's speech. 

A study published in June by the Muslim Council of Britain-linked Centre for Media Monitoring (CFMM) claimed the BBC’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza is “systematically biased against Palestinians”, according to an analysis of over 35,000 pieces of content.

The study found that the BBC gives Israeli deaths 33 times more coverage than Palestinian ones, uses emotive terms four times as much for Israeli victims and applies “massacre” 18 times more to Israeli casualties than Palestinian ones.

The BBC pulled a documentary on children in Gaza, Gaza: How To Survive a Warzone, in February after it emerged that the boy who narrated the film, Abdullah al-Yazuri, was the son of a deputy minister in Gaza's government.

This followed an intense campaign by pro-Israel groups and the Israeli embassy in London.

The BBC then came under fire in June for dropping a second film on Gaza, this one on doctors, after delaying its broadcast for months.

Officials at the broadcaster said that "broadcasting this material risked creating a perception of partiality that would not meet the high standards that the public rightly expect of the BBC". 

The film was aired instead by Channel 4 and other news organisations.