London, March 23, IRNA – Britain’s broadcasting standards watchdog has rejected complaints of unfairness against a television investigation into the influence of the “Israel lobby” in Britain.
“We considered that the program included views from the organisations and individuals highlighted in the program as being active as lobbying in sympathy to the Israeli state,” Ofcom said.
“In Ofcom’s view, this was a legitimate investigation into the activities of lobby groups, which approached the subject with ‘due impartiality,” it ruled.
The program, Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby broadcast on Channel Four last November, exposed the extent of the Israel lobby in the country’s main political parties and suggested that the UK would become even more pro-Israeli under a Conservative government.
The Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) was described as “beyond doubt the most well-connected and probably the best funded of all Westminster lobbying groups” after finding 50 per cent of the shadow cabinet were members.
Ofcom said that it received 50 complaints, including claims that the program was biased against Israel or was ‘anti-Semitic’ but none were from a member of one of the organisations concerned or affected.