BBC Apologizes for Broadcasting Segment With Hamas Terrorist Behind Jerusalem Pizzeria Massacre
An FBI ‘Most Wanted Terrorist’ poster for Palestinian terrorist Ahlam Ahmad al-Tamimi, one of the perpetrators of the August 2001 bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem. Photo: FBI.
The BBC has apologized for a recent segment in one of its programs that featured a Hamas terrorist convicted for the 2001 bombing of a Jerusalem pizzeria.
The British public broadcaster’s Arabic-language show Trending reported that Ahlam Tamimi — who helped plan and carry out the deadly attack on the Sbarro pizzeria in which 15 people were killed and dozens wounded — was appealing to Jordanian King Abdullah II to intervene after her husband’s Jordanian residency was revoked.
The report said: “The staff of the [BBC] programme Trending reached out to Ahlam to hear her request to the Jordanian king. Let’s listen.”
On Wednesday, the BBC conceded that the segment with Tamimi should not have been broadcast.
“Following an editorial review we found that this segment was in breach of our editorial guidelines and we removed the clip from our digital platforms last week,” a spokesman for the corporation told the London-based Jewish News. “We accept that the segment should not have been shown and apologize for the offence caused.”
But the parent of one of the victims of the Sbarro bombing slammed the “coldheartedness” of the BBC‘s apology.
Arnold Roth — whose 15-year-old daughter Malki was among those murdered in the attack — said that he had been “stunned by the coldness of the BBC’s formalistic, paint-by-numbers reaction to the torrent of criticism they received from an enraged public.”
“I urge everyone with a sense of justice to re-read the detached, distorted, disingenuous response they issued (not to me or my wife – we haven’t heard a word from them) and ask themselves whether this empty, cruel, pointless and evasive ‘sorry not sorry’ note ought to close the chapter,” Roth told the Jewish News.