{"id":6501,"date":"2026-03-13T15:24:44","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T13:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/?p=6501"},"modified":"2026-03-13T17:08:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T15:08:30","slug":"bbc-editor-libel-owen-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2026-03-13\/bbc-editor-libel-owen-jones\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC editor’s libel case against Owen Jones falls at the first hurdle. Here’s why"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Raffi Berg may be fighting in court for damages, but it’s really the BBC in the dock \u2013 for being utterly wedded to an editor whose objectivity on Israel is so clearly in question<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The High Court\u2019s preliminary ruling this week in the libel case brought by the BBC\u2019s online Middle East editor, Raffi Berg, against journalist Owen Jones is highly significant. It doesn\u2019t settle the case \u2013 in fact, Berg\u2019s lawyers say they intend to continue<\/a> to a full hearing \u2013 but it does strike a blow against the Israel lobby\u2019s years-long lawfare campaign to crush any meaningful criticism of Israel.<\/p>\n

Berg is suing Jones for publishing an article that described \u201ccivil war\u201d at the BBC \u2013 largely between executives and managers, on one side, and journalists on the other \u2013 over the state broadcaster\u2019s efforts to obscure the criminal nature of Israeli attacks on Gaza.<\/p>\n

The United Nations, international human rights organisations, Israeli human rights groups, and leading Holocaust scholars have all agreed that events in Gaza amount to a genocide. The western media, and most visibly the BBC, have all but banned the word \u201cgenocide\u201d<\/a> from their coverage. That has doubtless been a great comfort to both the Israeli and British governments, the latter having served as an active partner in the Gaza genocide.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s ruling means that, should Berg continue the case, Jones will have to defend his article as an expression of his \u201chonest opinion\u201d \u2013 based on the evidence supplied by BBC insiders \u2013 about Berg\u2019s role in the corporation\u2019s coverage of Gaza.<\/p>\n

Berg and his lawyers had hoped to force Jones to defend the article on the basis it was a \u201cstatement of fact\u201d.<\/p>\n

This distinction is crucial. Had the judge agreed with Berg\u2019s team, responsibility would have fallen on Jones to prove what amounts to intent by Berg to skew BBC coverage \u2013 something that, in the absence of internal documents revealing what was being said behind closed doors \u2013 would have been nigh impossible.<\/p>\n

Now the onus falls on Berg to show not only that Jones\u2019 opinion was groundless but that Jones\u2019 intent was to unfairly malign him. This time Berg and his lawyers won\u2019t be able to rely simply on the usual antisemitism smears. They will actually have to produce evidence that Jones was acting in bad faith.<\/p>\n

Tall order<\/h3>\n

In other words, Berg\u2019s lawyers will need to show that Jones wrote the article out of malevolence towards Berg (and, doubtless his legal team would love to argue, towards Jews too) rather than the reality \u2013 that Jones wrote the article, first, because he takes seriously the duty of journalists, mostly honoured in the breach, to hold the powerful to account; and, second, because he believes, unlike Israel\u2019s apologists, that war crimes and genocide are wrong, whoever the perpetrator and whoever the victim.<\/p>\n

That is going to be quite a tall order for Berg\u2019s team. In normal circumstances, lawyers would probably advise him to withdraw.<\/p>\n

But notably, Berg did not choose normal defamation lawyers. He opted for Patron Law, led by Mark Lewis, a British-Israeli lawyer who moved to Israel in 2018 saying that, in his view, Britain and Europe were \u201cfinished<\/a>\u201d and that Israel was the only safe place for Jews.<\/p>\n

Lewis is the former director of a highly controversial pro-Israel group, UK Lawyers for Israel, that is known for using legal threats to silence critics of Israel<\/a>. His wife is the national director of Likud-Herut UK, effectively the British branch of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s rabidly rightwing Zionist party.<\/p>\n

\n

A UK tribunal cleared doctor Ghassan Abu Sittah of misconduct charges initiated by UK Lawyers for Israel, related to supposedly antisemitic social media posts. Yet, the media still sides with the utterly discredited apologists for genocide.<\/p>\n

My latest: https:\/\/t.co\/0Hi2BxhSyQ<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/dEJeW4jJbv<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) January 13, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n