The former boss of the BBC’s World Service has been accused of appearing to defend Hezbollah by minimising the terror group’s presence in Beirut.
Liliane Landor, who was in charge of the corporation’s respected international arm until the end of July, claimed it was wrong to talk about Hezbollah controlling “strongholds” in Beirut or having “embedded” itself in Lebanon.
The terror group has tens of thousands of fighters under its command and thousands of rockets and missiles under its control and is understood to be militarily stronger than the Lebanese army.
However, Ms Landor described Hezbollah as just one of a number of political parties which had become “deeply woven into Lebanon’s political, social, and military fabric”.
She also denied there were any Hezbollah-run areas which were closed to outside observers, in a series of social media posts.
Her statements came despite evidence that Hezbollah had established several weapons manufacturing facilities and infrastructure in Beirut’s Dahiya neighbourhood alone.
Ms Landor’s comments have been denounced as misleading and irresponsible by critics, who say they also expose the procedures which allowed her to become head of the BBC’s World Service to be deeply flawed.
The row over her comments came within days of the publication of a damning report by Danny Cohen, the former BBC director, which claimed the corporation’s “institutionally hostile” coverage of Israel has made Britain unsafe for Jews.
Among Ms Landon’s comments were a number made on Sept 27, when she reacted on social media to some of the descriptions of the terror group’s operations in Lebanon. She posted them as news emerged of the Israeli air strike on residential buildings just south of Beirut targeting the underground headquarters where Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, was convening a leadership meeting.
Hezbollah later confirmed Nasrallah had been killed in the strike.
Ms Landor wrote: “Hezbollah has not ‘embedded’ itself in Lebanon, as a TV presenter just suggested. Hezbollah is a Lebanese political party and a core component of the country’s sectarian political system. It is deeply woven into Lebanon’s political, social, and military fabric.”
Later on the same day she wrote on X: “Referring to Dahiyeh, S Beirut, & S Lebanon as Hezbollah ‘strongholds’ is lazy & misleading. Hezbollah does not hold an absolute monopoly over these areas. Political parties opposed to Hezbollah operate there & elect their own MPs to parliament. Context is crucial.”
That evening Ms Landon – who was formerly head of foreign news at Channel 4 News, criticised suggestions that Hezbollah was controlling who entered its zones in Beirut and southern Lebanon and was placing restrictions on reporters operating in those areas.
“Al Dahiyeh South of Beirut or the South of Lebanon have never been closed to outsiders contrary to what’s just been reported. Two days ago Western reporters were live from the heart of Al Dahiyeh in full view & with full access. Such claims are not only lazy, they’re inaccurate,” she wrote on X.
Her comments came despite reports that foreign journalists were being shadowed and escorted by fighters from Hezbollah as they reported from areas hit by Israeli air strikes and in some cases prevented from talking to eyewitnesses.
The broadcaster’s own CEO of BBC News, Deborah Turness, has appeared to contradict Ms Landon’s assertion, saying this week that “as the conflict spreads to Lebanon, we are being blocked there too – by Hezbollah – from independently reporting.”
Ms Turness added: “Our correspondents have been barred from entering some areas hit by Israeli air strikes, and in some cases are being denied access to hospitals to interview injured civilians and verify the numbers of dead.”
Ms Landor’s social media posts have been criticised by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (Camera), which lobbies for “accurate and balanced” coverage of Israel.
Camera told The Telegraph: “For a recent senior BBC figure to describe Hezbollah so misleadingly in a tweet, and 30 minutes later preach to other journalists that ‘context is crucial’ on another Hezbollah-related matter, is yet another vivid red flag indicating the national broadcaster’s institutional problem.
“A necessary part of the long-awaited independent inquiry into the BBC should be looking into the flaws in the procedure that brought a person with such partisan views, not to mention a compromised understanding of what ‘context’ in journalism is, to hold such a high position within the organisation. Then, any serious BBC reform should be addressing these flaws so that her ilk won’t follow her there.”
‘Minimising and downplaying’
Oliver Dowden, the Conservatives’ shadow deputy prime minister, said: “It is very worrying that someone who was so recently in charge of the BBC World Service output is apparently minimising and downplaying Hezbollah’s malevolent grip on Lebanon. This is why so many people now question the BBC’s once respected international voice.
“The BBC must never forget that it is a tax-payer-funded service and that requires rigorous, balanced and fair coverage.”
As senior controller of BBC News International Services, Ms Landor was the director of the BBC World Service, BBC Monitoring, as well as the BBC’s international charity, BBC Media Action.
She was on a salary of more than £215,000 before she left the corporation and was also part of the executive team leading BBC News and Current Affairs.
The daughter of a Lebanese father and a Cuban mother, Ms Landor was born and raised in Lebanon and educated in France and Switzerland, first joining the BBC in 1989.
She has robustly defended her statements, telling The Telegraph that it would be “perverse and irresponsible to construe them as endorsements of Hezbollah”.
Ms Landor said: “Regardless of opinions on Hezbollah, an organisation for which I have no regard, understanding history and context is essential in any journalistic effort especially when it comes to reporting Lebanon, a country smaller than Yorkshire, with 18 religious denominations represented by 41 political parties in parliament.
“Hezbollah as a political party is deeply entrenched in Lebanon’s sectarian system. I refer you to an excellent article by your own Middle East correspondent, Adrian Bloomfield, published on 21 Sept, where he writes, ‘With the state collapsing, Hezbollah is pretty much the only coherent entity left,’ and further highlights how ‘it supplies welfare, operates schools and runs municipal services, such as providing water and collecting rubbish’.
“The purpose of the tweets you referenced was to attempt to provide in 140 characters an accurate reflection of Lebanon’s complex realities, based on well-established verifiable facts.
“Namely that political parties opposed to Hezbollah do operate in Shia areas such as Dahiyeh and that access to these areas has never been restricted – information which as I say your own correspondent should be able to verify.”
