August 6 2025 — A recent episode of BBC Arabic’s program Art for Life, featuring Palestinian singer Rola Azar, further highlights the network’s ongoing pattern of platforming figures who promote violence and bigotry.
Presented as a singer who “celebrates […] Palestinian spirit,” Azar was one of three performers featured from Shubbak 2025, a London-based Arab culture festival that ran from May 23 to June 15.
One of Azar’s songs included in the segment, Hey Hey Palestine, contains the line: “Palestine is Arab, from the water [river] to the water [sea].” The slogan is widely recognized as rejecting Israel’s right to exist within any borders. However, the BBC chose to omit this line from the segment, obscuring the extremism embedded in Azar’s lyrics and presenting her work without context.
Azar’s history of antisemitic speech is well documented. In 2021, she directed an explicit tirade at Israeli researcher Moran Tal, writing:
“All the Arabs who support you are suck-ups, dogs of Jews. You and all your thieving people are on my shoe. [Palestine emojis] O Jew, hear this from us: pick up your dogs and get off of us. Tell this to your dogs in my name.”
Azar has also glorified the October 7 Hamas massacre on social media, referring to the kidnappers of Shiri Bibas and her two children as acts of “the Palestinian resistance.” Her X account has been suspended since 2022.
“Not even a month ago, BBC acknowledged ‘with hindsight,’ that it should have cut the live broadcast of Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury performance in which the musician led a chant of led a chant of ‘death, death to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces],’ and engaged in additional incitement. But at the Arabic service, flattering and uncritical coverage of arts and cultural figures who call for violence and promote bigotry is the norm. Rola Azar is just the latest case,” said Tamar Sternthal, director of media research and analysis for CAMERA.
“BBC’s two-fold approach to dealing with hate speech is problematic on both counts. Either the media outlet omits reporting the vitriolic content entirely, ignoring that it even existed, or it airs it uncritically, without challenge or context. These approaches are incompatible both with ethical journalism and the BBC’s own Charter which requires its reporting to ‘help contribute to the social cohesion and wellbeing of the United Kingdom.”
About CAMERA Arabic
Founded in 2017, CAMERA Arabic seeks to ensure that Western media outlets’ Arabic-language coverage of Israel is factually accurate and adheres to professional codes of journalistic conduct. CAMERA staff regularly correspond in both Arabic and English with editors to prompt corrections and to ensure sound journalistic coverage. Its reports are an indispensable resource for journalists and researchers interested in professional journalistic practice within Arabic-language news reporting and have been cited on countless articles in media outlets including The Telegraph, Daily Mail, National Review, Times (London), Jewish Chronicle and more.