UK | HonestReporting https://honestreporting.com/uk/ Exposing anti-Israel media bias Wed, 19 Mar 2025 12:33:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://honestreporting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cropped-favicon-1-32x32.png UK | HonestReporting https://honestreporting.com/uk/ 32 32 BBC Ignored Complaints About Journalists’ Anti-Israel ‘Terrorist’ Posts for Over a Year https://honestreporting.com/bbc-ignored-complaints-about-journalists-anti-israel-terrorist-posts-for-over-a-year/ Mon, 18 Mar 2024 15:02:01 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=376332 The BBC ignored complaints about several journalists, including one who called Israel a “terrorist apartheid state,” for more than a year and even allowed them to report on the current Israel-Hamas war.

In 2022, HonestReporting uncovered social media posts written by journalist Marie-José Azzi, who is based in Lebanon and has worked for the corporation since 2019, that said Israel was a “terrorist” and “apartheid” state in tweets that were supportive of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

We also revealed a number of posts from an account belonging to Jordan-based BBC television and radio producer Layla Bashar Kloub, which described all Israelis as “terrorists” and suggested only Arabs have any right to be in Israel.

Meanwhile, UK-based BBC video curator Hala Hindawi labeled Israeli Jews “settlers” and accused the country of “targeting children” in remarks posted to her Twitter account (now X). The latter remark is reminiscent of ancient blood libels in which Jews were accused of killing children for their blood to be used in religious rituals.

We complained to the BBC in August 2022 that the posts breached the corporation’s impartiality and social media usage guidelines.

In response, the BBC said that while it could not comment on individual staff matters, such cases would be “dealt with appropriately” where its rules had been breached.

  

However, it appears the BBC failed to take action against any of the journalists named and, even more disturbingly, allowed them to work on the BBC’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

Marie-José Azzi was credited alongside fellow BBC Arabic journalist Soha Ibrahim in a BBC Verify piece published this month that alleged Israeli soldiers beat and humiliated Gazan medics after a raid on Nasser hospital.

According to the Daily Mail, Ibrahim, who is based in London and has worked for the BBC for 12 years, ‘liked’ videos of people in Lebanon and Tunisia celebrating the October 7 Hamas attacks, and Egyptian football fans chanting, “we sacrifice our souls, our blood for Palestine.”

She also “liked” another post that praised “the first of the martyrs of the operation.”

The BBC is under pressure to suspend the BBC Arabic journalists until an investigation has been completed following criticism from UK Conservative Party Member of Parliament Nicola Richards.

However, questions remain as to why no action was taken sooner: why did the BBC seemingly fail to discipline any of the staff when their social media posts were initially revealed and why has the BBC allowed them to report on the current Israel-Hamas war?

The broadcaster claims it is fully committed to impartiality and upholding editorial standards — outlined in its strict code of conduct for staff members — but has repeatedly ignored breaches of these rules.

The BBC’s credibility as it relates to Israel reportage is already at an all-time low. Further inaction from the corporation will destroy its floundering reputation.

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]]> Media Accused Israel of ‘Strike’ on Palestinians Who Died in Gaza City Aid Truck Stampede https://honestreporting.com/media-accused-israel-of-strike-on-palestinians-who-died-in-gaza-city-aid-truck-stampede/ Sun, 03 Mar 2024 15:47:41 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=375945 Early on February 29, crowds of Palestinians had gathered in Gaza City ahead of an expected delivery by a convoy of aid trucks.

Witnesses described scenes of pandemonium as hordes of people trampled each other as they swarmed the vehicles when they arrived at around 4 am.

According to the IDF, which released satellite imagery of the incident, dozens of Palestinians were killed in the stampede, while others died as a result of being hit by the aid trucks in the city’s Rimal neighborhood.

Israeli military officials said that up to 10 Palestinians died when the IDF was forced to open fire on a group that rushed toward them.

When officials in the Hamas-controlled enclave announced what had occurred, they did what they have done repeatedly since the outbreak of war on October 7: lied to an international media that they knew would uncritically broadcast the falsehood to millions worldwide.

And that is how it came to be that on Thursday — hours after the incident — the Associated Press failed to do even the bare minimum of fact-checking and announced in a headline that an Israeli “strike on Palestinians waiting for aid in Gaza” had killed and wounded dozens.

The report opened: “An apparent Israeli strike on a crowd of Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid in Gaza City on Thursday has killed and wounded dozens, according to local hospital officials.”

While the Associated Press later updated its story, the damage was done: countless people saw a headline that accused Israel of missile striking innocent Palestinians simply waiting for aid trucks.

Meanwhile, France 24 also ran with claims of an Israeli strike and rushed off a headline that claimed: “Dozens killed in strike on crowd waiting for aid in Gaza City.”

The effect of AP, which has partnerships with the world’s biggest media organizations — publishing such a wildly inaccurate claim cannot be understated.

Any inaccuracy by one of the major wire agencies is liable to be repeated by numerous newspapers and news websites everywhere.

When the incorrect stories were eventually updated to more accurately reflect what happened, including removing incendiary claims of an Israeli missile strike, some media outlets still insisted on falsely suggesting that Israeli soldiers firing at innocent people caused most casualties.

The Wall Street Journal, for example, failed to mention the stampede and crush in a headline that simply said Israel had opened fire on Palestinians who were “surrounding” aid trucks.

 

The Wall Street Journal

 

The Independent even tacitly defended Hamas in a headline that claimed “dozens of Palestinians” were “apparently” shot by the IDF.

It is only in the sixth paragraph of the piece that readers are told that Israeli officials explained that “many of the fatalities occurred in a chaotic crush to reach the food trucks, and that their troops fired because they believed the crowd posed a threat.”

 

The Independent

 

Delving into other reports published about the incident, it is clear that there is a much deeper problem with the international media reporting on these kinds of occurrences: gullibility.

Many wide-eyed journalists are far too willing to print the unverified claims of so-called eyewitnesses, presenting their invariably heartbreaking testimony as the unvarnished truth in news reports.

The result is stories like that published by The New York Times, which quotes several individuals.

As revealed by the Elder of Ziyon blog, at least one person quoted in the piece, who was described as a 22-year-old “journalist,” does not work for any accredited media outlet and whose only online presence is social media profiles.

The description by the NYT of Husam Abu Safiya as a journalist was, we can only guess, to give him credibility where there was none.

Similarly, a BBC Verify piece about the incident also quoted a “journalist” Mahmoud Awadeyah, who investigative journalist David Collier uncovered works for a news outlet linked to the Iranian regime.

Even though Awadeyah’s personal social media profiles were awash with praise for terror attacks against innocent Israelis, the BBC did not think twice about relying heavily on his testimony.

The most worrying part of the whole Gaza City stampede reporting debacle is how much it echoes the infamous al-Ahli Hospital explosion incident in which media outlets rushed to accuse Israel of a deadly missile strike that was actually the result of a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket.

Back then we were told that such mistakes would not be repeated; media outlets insisted they would be careful in the future and not make false and incendiary claims before the facts become clear.

How hollow those assurances have proven to be.

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]]> Ghoulish Media Praise ‘Humanity’ of Aaron Bushnell Who Set Himself On Fire Outside Israeli Embassy https://honestreporting.com/ghoulish-media-praise-humanity-of-aaron-bushnell-who-set-himself-on-fire-outside-israeli-embassy/ Thu, 29 Feb 2024 14:49:11 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=375875 The death of active-duty US serviceman Aaron Bushnell, who killed himself by self-immolation outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC, was met with a profoundly unsettling response.

Bushnell, 25, live-streamed his death on the broadcasting website Twitch, filming himself saying: “I am an active-duty member of the United States Air Force. And I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest. But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers—it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”

Outside the embassy, he put his camera on the ground, poured an accelerant over himself, set himself ablaze, and shouted, “Free Palestine!” until he collapsed.

Bushnell was taken to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.

Shortly after his identity was confirmed, details about Bushnell’s disturbing views emerged.

A review of his social media profiles found that he held extreme anarchist views and had posted numerous anti-Israel comments online, including one in which he seemingly condoned the October 7 Hamas massacre in which scores of Israeli civilians were raped, tortured and murdered.

According to posts seen by the ADL, Bushnell posted on Reddit earlier this month: “Israel is a white supremacist, ethnonationalist, settler-colonial apartheid state… it has no right to exist.”

In October 2023, he wrote: “Can you or I really say that Indigenous people are wrong for retaliating against colonizers who are rubbing their domination in their face?”

Worryingly, however, Bushell’s warped and antisemitic views that led him to set himself alight in front of horrified bystanders have not stopped some high-profile journalists from lionizing him.

The Guardian published an op-ed four days after Bushnell’s death — more than a day after his social media history was uncovered — in which he is described as a “person of such profound commitment and depth of feeling” who “could be much more useful to the world alive than dead.”

Written by Moira Donegan, the headline of the piece laments what she deems the “loss” to society that is Bushnell’s death.

 

The Guardian Aaron Bushnell op-ed

 

Sickeningly, Donegan scorns commentators who rightfully questioned the state of Bushnell’s mental health before he killed himself. Such questioning, she contends, should be extended to Israel and its “insane” war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

It is insanity (apparently) to wage war against a genocidal terrorist group that slaughtered and kidnapped more than 1,200 Israelis — but, we must assume, it is not insane to douse yourself in gasoline in the middle of the street in protest of a war happening 6,000 miles away.

Even worse, Donegan states it would be wrong to question what “struggles” led to Bushnell’s suicide because it is “the wrong question to ask, a way to avoid confrontation with the stated meaning of Bushnell’s self-immolation: that Israel is conducting a genocide in Gaza, one that is only possible with US money and US support, and that this moral catastrophe implicates all Americans in complicity.”

Of course, the article ignores that Bushnell had defended the Hamas massacre, which presumably would make him seem less heroic.

Later in the piece, Donegan suggests that “the [political] left,” which is used as a synonym for pro-Palestinians, is a “much less violent group” than the right.

Publicly-available hate crime statistics, however, tell a different story.

Antisemitism has surged globally, with almost daily reports of Jews being physically assaulted, synagogues attacked and antisemitic graffiti sprayed in public spaces.

The pro-Palestinian marches that have taken place in major cities all over the world have also featured antisemitism.

Donegan isn’t alone in her praise of Bushnell.

Fellow Guardian opinion writer Owen Jones, who previously cast doubt on whether Hamas terrorists carried out rapes or intentionally killed children during the October 7 invasion, posted online that Bushnell died “because he had too much humanity for a world run by people who don’t have any.”

For the likes of Jones, it is a mark of one’s “humanity” to justify the rape and slaughter of Jews, as Bushnell did.

Others who also suggested Bushnell’s actions were in some way laudable included Hamas, which praised him as a  “heroic pilot” and The Nation’s “Palestine correspondent” Mohammed El-Kurd, who defended violent actions such as plane hijackings and throwing Molotov cocktails.

Aaron Bushnell’s death is a tragedy — but not for the reasons the likes of Moira Donegan and Owen Jones believe.

No, the tragedy is that he was so radicalized to hate Israel that he ended up doing the unthinkable and took his own life in such a gruesome and public manner.

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]]> Journalists Using Israel-Hamas War as a Pretext For Claiming Tel Aviv is Israel’s Capital https://honestreporting.com/journalists-using-israel-hamas-war-as-a-pretext-for-claiming-tel-aviv-is-israels-capital/ Mon, 26 Feb 2024 13:57:26 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=375824 Just over a decade ago, HonestReporting achieved significant success in changing the way The Guardian reports on Israel, setting a journalistic precedent in the UK.

Following a complaint to the then-UK media regulatory body, the Press Complaints Commission (PCC)—which included launching legal action to pressure the PCC to enforce its own rules—The Guardian officially acknowledged that Tel Aviv is not the capital of Israel.

While it was, sadly, a stretch too far for The Guardian to recognize Jerusalem’s status, the newspaper nevertheless updated its style guide. Since then, we have only had to complain to Guardian editors on a handful of occasions when a reporter has erroneously stated that Tel Aviv is Israel’s capital in news copy (see here and here).

It is a similar story with other international media outlets which, depending on their editorial policies, normally either refer to Jerusalem as the capital or avoid mentioning Israel’s capital city at all.

Related reading: Deal With It: Jerusalem is Israel’s Capital

However, since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of publications “mistakenly” describing Tel Aviv as the capital.

Since October 7, media organizations including CNN, The New York Times, The Daily Mail, The Times of London, The Independent, and The Telegraph have all made this error. Worryingly, several of them have failed to issue corrections, citing specious grounds.

Although the majority of outlets have swiftly responded to HonestReporting’s request for a correction, the Daily Mail was one of the publications that refused to amend several of its pieces, arguing that Israel’s military headquarters are based in Tel Aviv, which is where decisions relating to the war have been made.

It is the very definition of the publication getting off on a technicality: the IDF’s HQ is physically located in Tel Aviv.

So even though Israel’s war cabinet headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu frequently convenes in Jerusalem and the holy city remains Israel’s capital, some journalists have asserted their use of “Tel Aviv” as a synonym for Jerusalem strictly refers to from where military decisions are emanating.

Of course, HonestReporting has disputed this point and secured numerous corrections in the process.

Concerning British media outlets, we have referred to the fact that the United Kingdom does not recognize Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital, while the United States officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital city in 2017.

In addition, no United Nations resolution has ever determined that Tel Aviv is, or should be, the capital of Israel.

The reality is that Jerusalem has always been Israel’s capital and the city is home to the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), the Supreme Court of Israel, the Prime Minister and President’s official residences, the Bank of Israel and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Capital cities are chosen by sovereign states — as is their right. They are not determined by interfering outsiders who think they can simply reimagine Israel’s geography.

It would be both baffling and inaccurate if Israeli journalists suddenly started referring to New York as the US capital in news stories, or used Manchester as a synonym for London when writing about British politics.

Why, then, do some journalists find it acceptable to make similar errors with Israel?

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]]> Media Distort Israel’s Refusal To Be Bullied Into Rewarding Unrepentant Terrorists https://honestreporting.com/media-distort-israels-refusal-to-be-bullied-into-rewarding-unrepentant-terrorists/ Mon, 19 Feb 2024 14:47:30 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=375604 Following indications by the likes of the United Kingdom and France that they could formally recognize a Palestinian state without Israel’s approval, the Israeli government issued a statement in response:

Israel outright rejects international dictates regarding a final status agreement with the Palestinians. The agreement, in so far as it will be reached, will be solely through direct negotiations between the parties, without preconditions.

Israel will continue to oppose the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Such recognition in the wake of the October 7th massacre would give a huge reward to unprecedented terrorism and prevent any future peace agreement.”

Israel’s message was explicit: it will not stand back and allow the perpetrators of the October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians to be rewarded with what effectively amounts to legitimacy.

What Israel’s statement about unilateral recognition did not do, was oppose Palestinian statehood in general. That is, Israel did not outright reject the idea that a Palestinian state could be formed as part of a larger peace agreement.

Why, then, did some media outlets distort the contents of Sunday’s announcement to suggest that Israel had said it would refuse to accept a two-state solution to the conflict?

The Telegraph, for example, characterized Israel’s position as Israel declining outright the possibility of two states existing side by side in a misleading headline that also hinted at Israeli aggression by linking the supposed rejection to a ground offensive in Rafah.

Taking a similar line was LBC News, which led with Israel’s plan to root Hamas from its last stronghold in Rafah — painting it instead as effectively an assault on the 1.5 million people sheltering there, and tying it to Israel’s allegedly stymying Palestinian aspirations for a sovereign state.

 

 

The New York Post chose to obscure what had occurred to suggest that the Israeli government was rejecting “all calls” for a Palestinian state.

 

 

Meanwhile, the Irish Times, the Financial Times and Voice of America all produced vague headlines that claimed Israel is opposed to a state as part of any resolution after the war against Hamas in Gaza, without noting that its objection was to unilateral recognition.

 

Irish Times

 

Financial Times

 

Voice of America

 

The fact is, Israel has shown time and time again that is willing to negotiate with Palestinians and is not opposed to the actualization of a Palestinian state.

Indeed, one only needs to look at the many occasions over the years in which Israel has come to the negotiating table offering the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state — only for the Palestinians to, invariably with violence, reject its creation.

From the UN partition plan to the Camp David proposals, Israel’s willingness to see Palestinian statehood is etched in the history books.

For the media to suggest otherwise is just historical revisionism.

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Photo credits: World Economic Forum via Flickr

]]> Media Ignore Anti-Israel Rocket Attack, Focus on Israel’s Military Response https://honestreporting.com/media-ignore-anti-israel-rocket-attack-focus-on-israels-military-response/ Thu, 15 Feb 2024 15:20:49 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=375578 On the morning of February 14, northern Israel was subjected to a barrage of indiscriminate rocket fire from Lebanon. Rockets reportedly landed in the city of Safed and an Israeli military base, killing a female soldier and wounding eight others.

In response to this attack, the Israeli air force undertook a “widespread” bombing campaign against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, killing several terror operatives as well as a number of Lebanese civilians.

This rocket barrage was the latest escalation in Hezbollah’s campaign against Israel, which it undertook in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 massacre in southern Israel. Due to the threat posed by the Iran-backed terror group, tens of thousands of Israeli civilians from the north have evacuated to other parts of the country.

Despite this latest violence stemming from the rocket barrage directed at Israel, several news outlets chose to frame the story in such a way as to portray Israel as the aggressor.

While some news outlets (like the BBC and Fox News) did properly convey the necessary information in their headlines, explaining that Israel’s airstrikes came in response to the rocket barrage earlier that day, several media organizations failed in this regard, with their headlines leaving out the vital context and turning Israel’s defensive campaign into one of aggression.

For example, The Washington Post‘s headline only mentioned Israel’s strikes in Lebanon, informing its readers that Israel was responding to a rocket barrage only in the report’s third paragraph.

 

 

As did CBS News‘ headline, which only mentioned Israel’s strikes in Lebanon.

Further, the report indicated that Israel’s strikes were “raising fears of a war” between Israel and Lebanon. It would appear that only Israel’s response raises fears of war, not attacks from Hezbollah against Israel.

 

 

Reuters‘ headline only mentioned Hezbollah’s vow that Israel will “pay price” for the “deadly day.”

It took 12 paragraphs for Reuters to even mention at all that Israel’s strikes in Lebanon were in response to a rocket attack.

 

 

For its part, two Sky News headlines failed to inform its readers that Israel was bombing Lebanon in response to an earlier rocket attack.

The first read: “Israel launches wave of deadly attacks on Lebanon – as Hezbollah vows revenge” while the second headline read: “Children among 11 people killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon, say security sources.”

While the sub-header for the second article did mention that Israel was responding to an earlier attack, it also used different language for each country’s casualties, claiming that Lebanese were “killed” by Israel’s strikes while an Israeli had passively “died.”

 

Several video reports also left out vital information, portraying Israel as the aggressor in the region.

For example, France 24 titled its report “Fears of escalation as Israel strikes hit southern Lebanon.”

 

 

Similarly, 9 News Australia’s video report was titled “Israel launches wave of air strikes in Lebanon as tensions escalate.”

 

 

The title for AFP’s clip of a State Department briefing on the clashes over Israel’s northern border not only failed to mention the initial anti-Israel rocket attack, but the barrage was also entirely missing from the video’s accompanying text.

 

 

For some news outlets, it was not the headline that was the issue as much as the content of the report itself.

For example, The Guardian‘s coverage (under the headline “Seven civilians killed in Israeli strikes on south Lebanon”) mentioned both the rocket attack from Lebanon and Israel’s strikes in Lebanon. However, it failed to inform its readers as to which occurred first, leaving them with the impression that both Israel and Hezbollah are equally to blame for tensions and violence along the border.

In its report, news agency UPI described Israel’s targeted air strikes as a “barrage of rockets” while the indiscriminate fire directed against Israel from Lebanon was described as an “attack” and a “strike.”

Perhaps the most egregious report was filed by The Times of London, which reported in two paragraphs on Israel’s strikes in Lebanon but not a single word about the earlier barrage against Israel or the fact that an Israeli soldier had been killed in that attack.

By leaving out vital information and context from their headlines and reports, these news outlets are not only failing to inform their respective audiences properly, but they are also helping to contribute to a false narrative that leaves Hezbollah’s belligerency out of the picture and portrays Israel as the primary aggressor along its northern border.

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Photo Credit: Tasnim News Agency reporter (uncredited)

]]> When Will the Western Media Realize the Grim Truth About Al Jazeera and Hamas? https://honestreporting.com/when-will-the-western-media-realize-the-grim-truth-about-al-jazeera-and-hamas/ Wed, 14 Feb 2024 14:49:19 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=375542 Two incidents came to light over the past week that should be the final nail in Al Jazeera‘s credibility coffin.

The first was the unmasking of one of the network’s journalists as a Hamas commander.

The IDF revealed evidence that was obtained from a laptop found in Gaza and showed Mohammed Wishah held a senior role in the terrorist group’s anti-tank unit, including photographs of him teaching young jihadis how to fire anti-tank missiles and making incendiary devices.

Unsurprisingly, Wishah’s terrorist background did not preclude him from securing a comfortable reporting job at the Qatari-owned network, which has previously been forced to take down fake anti-Israel stories and stands accused of repeatedly promoting Hamas propaganda.

The second incident involved another Al Jazeera journalist, Ismail Abu Omar, whose leg was amputated after being injured in an Israeli air strike in Rafah.

Around the same time that Al Jazeera was describing the injuries Omar sustained as proof of a “full-fledged crime [to be] added to Israel’s crimes against journalists,” it was revealed that Omar accompanied Hamas terrorists into Israel on the day of the October 7 massacre.

In footage that Omar himself posted online on the day of the attacks, he can be seen inside Kibbutz Nir Oz and even praised the Hamas terrorists carrying out the atrocities, saying: “The friends have progressed, may God bless.”

On October 7, he also boasted that Palestinian children would “play with their heads” in reference to massacred Israeli civilians.

Despite the trend of Al Jazeera employees moonlighting as either Hamas supporters or seasoned Hamas terrorists, which included another two journalists being revealed as terror operatives after their deaths in January, the media continue to ignore the unpleasant truth about Al Jazeera.

Indeed, the very same outlets that quite rightly balk at the idea of trusting media controlled by authoritarian regimes, such as Russia Today or the New China News Agency, seem worryingly comfortable with uncritically regurgitating Al Jazeera’s lies. Worse, they seem to actively cover for the network.

Take The Guardian, for example, and its repeated criticism of Russian state-owned media, which it has accused of being “Vladimir Putin’s fake news factories” and of promoting the “Kremlin message.”

But apparently, such ethical concerns don’t extend to uncritically reprinting the claims of an outlet that is effectively owned by an Islamic regime that is headed by the all-powerful Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

The Guardian failed to do a modicum of journalistic due diligence when it came to reporting Al Jazeera’s absurd claim that Omar was “directly targeted by a missile fired by a drone.”

Did the article state that Omar accompanied terrorists who murdered and raped civilians during the October 7 massacre? No. Did it reveal that he expressed a wish to see Palestinian kids play with the severed heads of Israelis? No. Did it mention that Al Jazeera is owned by the Qatari state and closely aligned itself with Hamas? Of course not.

The Guardian journalist who wrote the piece, Peter Beaumont, even had the audacity to lament how “Al Jazeera’s Gaza team has paid a particularly heavy price during the war” while referencing the deaths of Hamza Al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya and omitting the fact that they were terror operatives.

As for Al Jazeera journalist Mohammed Wishah, whose Instagram page includes photos of him with Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, The Guardian failed to cover his exposure as a Hamas commander at all.

Of course, The Guardian wasn’t alone in not reporting the damning revelations about Al Jazeera.

There was silence among mainstream Western news outlets — from CNN to The Washington Post — when the evidence against Mohammed Wishah emerged. It almost defies belief that not a single story was written about a journalist tasked with reporting the facts out of Gaza who was also a Hamas terrorist.

The Knesset has started advancing a bill that would give the government the power to close the offices of foreign media channels that are found to be likely to harm the security of the state, including, potentially Al Jazeera.

But the foreign press attitude toward Al Jazeera remains stubbornly positive.

How much more evidence of the network’s terror ties does the media need for that to change?

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]]> Media Reframe Israel’s Dramatic Rescue of Gaza Hostages https://honestreporting.com/media-reframe-israels-dramatic-rescue-of-gaza-hostages/ Tue, 13 Feb 2024 08:41:40 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=375486 Early on Monday, February 12, news outlets reported that Israel had rescued two hostages from Hamas captivity in Gaza.

But instead of sticking to the facts of the daring overnight raid in Rafah — which happen to justify Israel’s claim that the southern Gaza city is a Hamas stronghold — prominent news sites framed the story in a way that minimized the terror group’s role and presented Palestinians as the victims.

The result inverted reality: Positive news was portrayed as negative and good became evil.

Such framing, which subtly cast doubt on the worthiness of the Israeli rescue operation, was achieved by using one or more of the following tactics:

  • Selectively using the word ‘”freed” instead of “rescued.”
  • Uncritically emphasizing the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes during the raid.
  • Adding lengthy paragraphs focusing on the plight of 1.4 million displaced Gazans in Rafah, and their fear of a potentially imminent Israeli invasion.
  • Ignoring Hamas altogether.

Related Reading: Quick Guide to Media Literacy

The Guardian, for example, packaged the first two points in a headline that reads: “Two Israeli hostages freed in Rafah, says IDF, as Palestinians report dozens of deaths”.

Who freed the hostages? Hamas? Islamic Jihad? An invisible force? Unclear.

 

 

Using the word “freed” rather than the value-laden “rescued” muddies the dramatic nature of the Israeli operation and whitewashes Hamas. That’s because it blurs the lines between the two sides and can also be mistakenly attributed to the terror group, as seen above.

But what’s worse is the added framing of Palestinian casualties — some of whom are undoubtedly terrorists killed in the raid.

And it’s not just in the headline.

The first paragraph of the story leads with the Palestinian death toll, according to “Gaza health officials,” who don’t differentiate between terrorists and civilians:

At least 50 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on the southern city of Rafah, according to Gaza health officials, as the Israeli military said it had freed two hostages during a raid by special forces on the city.

The rest of the story, except for 2.5 paragraphs dedicated to the Israeli hostages — includes 18.5 paragraphs on the suffering of displaced Palestinians in the area, amid global warnings against a looming Israeli invasion of Rafah.

It is not clear why such background paragraphs don’t include any information on Hamas’ entrenchment amid or under the civilian population of the city, particularly in light of the fact that Israeli hostages had been held in an apartment building there.

“Deadly” Strikes

The Guardian’s story was partly based on a Reuters report, which also used “freed” in its headline and framed the Israeli operation with unverified casualty numbers that serve the Palestinian narrative:

Unlike Reuters, the Associated Press and the BBC did use the verb “rescue.”

But they framed their headlines similarly:

 

 

And the live coverage page of the BBC still led with the lethal Israeli strikes:

 

 

Voice Of America went further and did not even mention the Israeli rescue operation in its headline about the Rafah strikes:

VOA’s story starts with what seems to be random Israeli air strikes that killed tens of Palestinians sheltering in Rafah. Again, no context is provided nor any critical caveat about the problematic source for Gaza’s casualty figures:

Israeli airstrikes Monday hit the southern city of Rafah, killing at least 67 people according to local health officials in the area of the Gaza Strip where 1.4 million civilians have already fled to in order to escape the war.

Residents described heavy bombing, with the Israeli strikes hitting several houses and mosques.

It’s not until the third paragraph that VOA mentions the Israeli rescue operation, although it is almost glossed over as a mere coincidence:

“…the strikes coincided with a mission that rescued two Israeli hostages who were being held by Hamas militants.

NBC News also made the Israeli airstrikes look like an indiscriminate bombing of Rafah, unrelated to the fact that Hamas had been holding the Israeli hostages there.

 

Ignoring Hamas

Some media outlets didn’t just change words or add context.

National Public Radio, for example, completely omitted Hamas from its story about the Israeli rescue operation.

It did not mention Hamas even once, as if the Israeli forces had been fighting an unidentified enemy:

The Israeli military said on Monday that special forces rescued two Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

Heavy airstrikes were conducted during the operation and there were initial reports that Palestinians were killed in the strikes.

Related reading: NPR Whitewashes Palestinian Terrorists in Coverage of Israel-Hamas War

Disturbingly, NPR relied on a military report that clearly identified Hamas as the group that kidnapped the hostages on October 7, while its terrorists killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and abducted some 240 others.

Why did NPR ignore that?

Whatever the reason, the result is the whitewashing of the murderers responsible for taking the hostages in the first place.

Indeed, it’s possible to sum up by repeating the cliche that framing is everything.

But it shouldn’t be.

Journalists should avoid it and simply report the facts accurately.

They should also be aware of the ramifications of their words, especially when these words are used to minimize evil — the evil of a terror group that holds hostages while using innocent civilians as a human shield.

And when journalists fail to do so, news consumers deserve to know that they are being misled.

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]]> Media Muddle Reports on Israeli Rejection of ‘Over the Top’ Hamas Demands https://honestreporting.com/media-muddle-reports-on-israeli-rejection-of-over-the-top-hamas-demands/ Thu, 08 Feb 2024 15:25:13 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=375356 On February 8, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he had rejected the deal proposed by Hamas for a ceasefire to the current war between the Jewish state and the Gaza-based terror group.

Hamas’ proposal was in response to a long-term truce framework that had been crafted in late January by the United States, Qatar, Egypt, and Israel.

Although Hamas’ ceasefire demands have not been officially published, both Reuters and the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar have reported on its key elements, which ultimately include:

  • The return of Israeli hostages in exchange for thousands of Palestinian prisoners (including those serving life sentences for violent crimes involving blood on their hands).
  • The withdrawal of Israeli troops from populated areas of the Gaza Strip and ultimately the Strip itself.
  • An increase in aid to Gaza and the return of Palestinians to all parts of the Strip.

 

While the core principles of Hamas’ far-reaching ceasefire demands (leaving it in control of the Gaza Strip and the release of hundreds of dangerous Palestinian terrorists from prison) are anathema to many Israelis and have been deemed “non-starters” and “over the top” by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and President Joe Biden, several media outlets presented a skewed picture of Israel’s response to Hamas’ demands.

Several headlines portrayed Israel as the sole obstacle to a cessation of hostilities in the region while some reports even went so far as to diminish Israel’s acceptance of the original negotiating framework.

‘Netanyahu Rejects Ceasefire’: Headlines Skew Israel’s Response to Hamas’ Demands

Headlines set the context of a story.

In the case of Israel’s response to Hamas’ ceasefire proposal, the most vital information is that it was a Hamas proposal and that Hamas’ demands were in response to a proposal that Israel had agreed to.

For example, The Wall Street Journal’s headline neatly summarized these points, reading “Israel’s Netanyahu Rejects Hamas’s Response to Cease-Fire Proposal.”

However, several mainstream news outlets failed to properly convey these points, leaving their readers misinformed and with a poor understanding of Israel’s ceasefire stance.

The Washington Post, Newsweek, The Times of London, and The Guardian‘s headlines all failed to mention that Israel was responding to a ceasefire proposal presented by Hamas. Thus, the takeaway appears to be that Israel is a belligerent party that is opposed in principle to any ceasefire.

The Washington Post
Newsweek
The Times of London
The Guardian

For their part, The New York Times and NPR did include the fact that it was a Hamas proposal that Israel rejected. Yet, the tone conveyed by their headlines still made Israel appear to be the uncooperative and belligerent party in this conflict.

The New York Times
NPR

In addition, the titles of several news organizations’ video reports portrayed Israel as an uncooperative and belligerent state while simultaneously presenting Hamas in a sympathetic light.

For example, ABC News (Australia) gave the false impression that Hamas was negotiating in good faith with its headline “Israeli PM Netanyahu rejects Hamas’s offer of a ceasefire and hostage release.”

The title of American outlet ABC News’s video short omitted the fact that it was a Hamas proposal that Israel had rejected, making it appear as if Israel was against a good faith hostage deal.

This false portrayal of Israel as uncompromising and belligerent was also conveyed by the title of Channel 4’s video report, “Israel-Gaza: Netanyahu says no ceasefire and pledges ‘total victory’ over Hamas.”

Similarly, South African SABC News’ video title omitted the necessary facts, simply stating “Netanyahu rejects ceasefire proposal.”

Media Miss Context on Hamas’ Ceasefire Demands

For some media organizations, it wasn’t only the headlines that presented a false impression of Israel’s ceasefire stance and Hamas’ demands.

Several news outlets either diminished or completely ignored the fact that Hamas’ proposal was a response to a negotiating framework that had already been accepted by Israel a week earlier.

For example, in The New York Times’ report, the opening paragraph accuses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “dashing hopes” that a ceasefire might be close, seemingly placing the onus for continued hostilities on Israel. It’s only 24 paragraphs later that it mentions the fact that Hamas was responding to a framework agreed upon by Israel, the United States, Qatar, and Egypt.

Similarly, in its report, The Guardian opened with a condemnation of Israel’s rejection, writing that “Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the terms of a ceasefire in Gaza proposed by Hamas and rebuffed US pressure to move more quickly towards a mediated settlement to the war…”

Any reader would immediately be left with the impression that Israel is being uncompromising and not interested in a cessation of hostilities. They would have to read through 13 more paragraphs before discovering that Hamas’ demands were in response “to a proposal drawn up by the US, Israel, Qatar and Egypt.”

NPR omitted entirely the fact that Hamas was responding to an Israeli framework, leaving its readers woefully in the dark as to Israel’s true intentions and portraying the Jewish state as intransigent while simultaneously depicting the Islamic terror organization as more flexible and open.

By not accurately reporting on Israel’s rejection of Hamas’ “over the top” ceasefire demands in either their headlines or pieces, these media outlets are not only misinforming their audience but are also playing into Hamas’ propaganda tactic of falsely portraying Israel as bellicose and itself as a peace-seeking organization.

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]]> The Guardian Publishes Claim Terror-Loving Palestinian-American Woman Was ‘Kidnapped’ By IDF https://honestreporting.com/the-guardian-publishes-claim-terror-loving-palestinian-american-woman-was-kidnapped-by-idf/ Thu, 08 Feb 2024 15:03:27 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=375354

UPDATE: The Guardian amended its story on February 8 after HonestReporting revealed Samaher Esmail’s Facebook posts with the following paragraph: “The statement did not elaborate, but a Facebook profile that matches Esmail’s name and likeness – with fewer than 110 followers – contained an image of her smiling next to text spelling out the date of Hamas’ 7 October attack on Israel. At least two images displayed her posing with a rifle.”

“The IDF kidnapped my mother.”

That is the absurd claim from Ibrahim Hamed, a US-based man whose Palestinian mother was recently arrested in Israel.

Even more absurd, however, is the fact that The Guardian (and others) printed the allegation without doing even a modicum of journalistic due diligence — due diligence that would have shown precisely why she was arrested.

According to The Guardian, Hamed wants US President Joe Biden to intervene after Samaher Esmail, who is a US citizen, was taken into custody from a home in the West Bank town of Silwad, where she lives part-time.

Referencing the IDF’s statement that Esmail had been arrested for “incitement on social media,” the outlet detailed Hamed’s unsubstantiated claim that his mother was beaten, handcuffed and blindfolded, as well as his assertion that she was arrested merely for being “critical of Israel’s West Bank occupation” on social media:

He said he feared comments which she posted on social media that were critical of Israel’s West Bank occupation may have brought her unwanted attention from the IDF. But he said it was ‘bogus’ for Esmail to be arrested for them.”

 

The Guardian

 

However, a quick search of Esmail’s Facebook profile reveals the posts that most likely led to her arrest were those in which she praised the October 7 Hamas massacre, posted photos toting an automatic weapon, and glorified infamous Hamas terrorists who have murdered hundreds of innocent civilians.

Indeed, had The Guardian journalist who wrote the piece, Ramon Antonio Vargas, actually bothered to look at Esmail’s social media profile — something that took less than 20 seconds for HonestReporting to find — he would have found it awash with disturbing messages and imagery.

For example, on the day that Hamas terrorists rampaged through southern Israeli communities, killing and raping scores of civilians, Esmail wrote numerous comments online praising the terrorists responsible and calling for more violence.

In one post, Esmail, who describes herself as an educator within Louisiana’s Jefferson Parish Public School System, included footage of Hamas terrorists kidnapping an Israeli grandmother and asked for God to “bless” them, adding: “Don’t play with your tails, this day will be witnessed in the history, remember it very well 07/10/2023.”

In another October 7 post, she wrote: “7/10/2023, date of a rich history, we do not know when it will be repeated, whether it will happen in our time, or the time of our children, or the time of our grandchildren. But the victory is coming no doubt with God’s will. Victory or martyrdom. We are the children of Palestine who don’t know surrender. Don’t play with us, bastards the sons of Zion.”

In further posts, she warned that Palestinians will take the Israeli city of Tel Aviv “back from the hands of the rapists” and describes the “joy” of terrorists filmed breaking across the Gaza border.

Seemingly in the United States at the time of the massacre, Esmail also apparently graffitied her car in support of Hamas, showing off photos of a vehicle daubed in slogans including “Freedom to Palestine!” and “Today is the victory day, promised and memorable for Gaza 7/10/2023.”

Other posts written by Esmail include her praise for Yahya Ayyash, a Hamas terrorist dubbed “The Engineer,” who introduced the tactic of suicide bombings and orchestrated attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, and current Hamas spokesman Abu Obaida, whose picture she once used as her own profile photo.

Meanwhile, her son, Ibrahim Hamed, who painted a picture of his mother as a harmless woman to The Guardian, commented beneath one photo of his burka-clad mother aiming a rifle: “Walla, let me go hide kill em.”

Unfortunately, The Guardian wasn’t the only outlet to be taken in by what it described as Hamed’s “mother’s plight.”

The Washington Post published a piece that quoted the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization previously found to have ties to Hamas, and its demand that as “an American citizen, Samaher Esmail deserves the full protection and support of her government.”

And CBS News went even further, printing her son’s ludicrous claim that none of his mother’s posts “support Hamas specifically.”

Perhaps CBS News should have tried doing some actual journalism and checking to see if she had expressed support for Hamas.

Sadly, it seems that even the most basic journalistic standards have been abandoned by so many leading news organizations when it comes to reporting on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The latest tale of injustice toward Palestinians that has transpired to be anything but, is evidence of that.

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]]> Israel at War: The Media Battlefield – Briefing #18 https://honestreporting.com/israel-at-war-the-media-battlefield-briefing-18/ Wed, 07 Feb 2024 14:26:04 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=375336 HonestReporting has been working around the clock to identify and respond to the worst media bias since the appalling events of October 7 and the subsequent launch of Israeli military action against Hamas.

You can already see many of the posts that we’ve published on our website but here’s a roundup of just some of the issues and media outlets that we’ve flagged on social media over the past several days that didn’t make it into full articles.

Make sure to follow us on X/Twitter to get all of our content in real time during this period.

TAKE ACTION NOW: You can make a difference. We’ve included contact details for many of the examples of media bias below. Please send your considered comments to the media and hold them accountable.

Sky News Attributes ‘Vengeance’ to Israel’s Gaza Operation

Contact: viewerr@sky.uk

 

The New York Times Gets the Math Wrong on Gaza Hostages

Contact: nytnews@nytimes.com

 

Newsweek Refers to Hamas’ October 7 Atrocities as “Alleged”

Contact: support@newsweek.com

 

Reuters Reuses Photo Taken by Gazan Freelancer Who Infiltrated Israel on October 7

Contact Reuters Customer Support: https://liaison.reuters.com/contact-us

 

Reuters’ Historical Revisionism Blames Israel’s Creation For October 7

Contact Reuters Customer Support: https://liaison.reuters.com/contact-us

 

Associated Press Blames Argument, Not Pro-Palestinian Attacker, for Jewish Student’s Hospitalization

Open AP Customer Zone & select Editorial and News from the dropdown options: https://customerzone.ap.org/cz/s/contactsupport

 

The Times of London Sanitizes Arch-Terrorist Marwan Barghouti

Contact The Times at feedback@thetimes.co.uk

 

Washington Post Leaves Out Vital Context on West Bank Violence

Contact the Washington Post Readers Representative: readers@washpost.com

 

Associated Press Implies Second Intifada Terrorism Was Confined Only to West Bank

Open AP Customer Zone & select Editorial and News from the dropdown options: https://customerzone.ap.org/cz/s/contactsupport

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Photo Credits: Ayal Margolin via Flash90

]]> David Miller Is an Antisemite… Why Are the Media Pretending He’s Not? https://honestreporting.com/david-miller-is-an-antisemite-why-are-the-media-pretending-hes-not/ Tue, 06 Feb 2024 15:51:07 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=375286 David Miller worked at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom until his employment was terminated in 2021.

Before he was fired from his role as professor of political sociology, Miller had used his position within the prestigious higher education establishment to spread hatred toward Jews and the State of Israel.

Among the many disturbing remarks Miller made during his time at Bristol included his claim that Israel is a “violent, racist, foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing,” while suggesting any students who took issue with his view were “political pawns” of the Jewish state in a comment that echoed the antisemitic dual loyalty trope.

He also accused the Union of Jewish Students, which represents thousands of Jewish students across the UK, of being “a threat to the safety of Arab and Muslim students.”

After he was fired, Miller apparently saw no further need to cloak his anti-Jewish hatred behind a facade of so-called “anti-Zionism” and words like “Zionist” or “Israeli” in his vile online screeds were soon replaced with what we knew he had meant all along — Jew.

For example, last year, Miller tweeted that “Jews are not discriminated against” and claimed they wield disproportionate control in public life, arguing Jews are “overrepresented in positions of cultural, economic and political power.”

However, in what looks to be a precedent-setting judgment, Miller has won an employment tribunal against his former employer on the grounds he was unfairly dismissed and had experienced discrimination based on his anti-Zionist beliefs.

In a 108-page ruling, regional employment judge Rohan Pirani concluded Miller’s “anti-Zionist beliefs qualified as a philosophical belief and a protected characteristic” under the 2010 Equality Act.

It’s a judgment that is as equally depressing as it is baffling.

As Dave Rich, Head of Policy at the Community Security Trust, observed: “According to the Employment Tribunal, Bristol University’s defence against Miller’s claim accepted that ‘nothing the claimant said or did was antisemitic.’ There may be legal reasons for this that I don’t fully understand, but analytically it is preposterous. The way that Miller’s anti-Zionism is directed at diaspora Jewish communities, and the language and arguments he deploys, are inseparable from the core ideas and patterns of thought of antisemitic conspiracy theories and stereotypes.”

The truth is, simply printing Miller’s own words is enough to prove his antisemitism. One need not read between the lines when it comes to Miller’s undisguised contempt for Jews.

Seemingly aware of this fact, The Guardian opted to omit many of Miller’s past comments in a recent piece about his victory at the employment tribunal, instead paraphrasing some of his other offensive remarks.

The Guardian - David Miller

The piece, by Caroline Davies and Harriet Sherwood, states:

Miller initially caused controversy in 2019 when in a lecture he cited Zionism as one of five sources of Islamophobia, and showed a diagram linking Jewish charities to Zionist lobbying. Complaints that this resembled the antisemitic trope that Jews wield secretive influence on political affairs were dismissed by the university on academic freedom grounds.”

It also notes that Miller later described Israel as “the enemy of world peace.”

Likewise, the Telegraph reported that Miller had “successfully claimed discrimination based on his philosophical belief that Zionism is inherently racist, imperialist and colonial,” adding that he had “sparked anger among Jewish students in 2019 when a slideshow for one of his lectures described parts of the ‘Zionist movement’ as one of the ‘five pillars’ of Islamophobia.

A piece on the BBC News website similarly states that Miller “experienced discrimination when he was sacked from his university for comments he made about Israel.”

But Miller’s comments went beyond mere criticism of Israel or supposed “anti-Zionism” — they were unquestionably antisemitic.

An Iranian Stooge

Lastly, entirely absent from every single story about Miller’s tribunal was any mention of the fact that since his sacking, Miller has been accepting money from the Iranian regime through his work for the state-owned Press TV, including fronting a program alongside former British parliamentarian Chris Williamson, who was expelled from the Labour Party for antisemitism.

Miller and Williamson’s show “Palestine Declassified,” which once targeted HonestReporting in a dedicated program, repeatedly promotes antisemitic narratives, such as claiming “Zionists” control world events; that they have a “stranglehold” over the media and control UK institutions, and that they are “grooming young people.”

In excising the depths of Miller’s anti-Jewish hate from their reports, the media is helping rehabilitate the image of a man who once professed his belief that “every single Zionist organisation, the world over, needs to be ended. Every. Single. One.”

David Miller is an antisemite. The media shouldn’t pretend otherwise.

Liked this article? Follow HonestReporting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to see even more posts and videos debunking news bias and smears, as well as other content explaining what’s really going on in Israel and the region. Get updates direct to your phone. Join our WhatsApp and Telegram channels!

]]> Desperate Media Accuse Israel of ‘War Crime’ Over Killing of Terrorists in Daring Hospital Raid https://honestreporting.com/desperate-media-accuses-israel-of-war-crime-over-killing-of-terrorists-in-daring-hospital-raid/ Thu, 01 Feb 2024 15:27:44 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=375140 There is no denying that the CCTV footage is dramatic: a small squad of men and women sporting dubious doctor disguises as they sweep through the corridor of a hospital with automatic weapons drawn.

The striking clip of the Israeli special forces inside a hospital in the West Bank city of Jenin has now been seen by millions worldwide after being picked up by the international media, which invariably distorted the incident to suggest Israel’s actions were unlawful.

Here are the facts as we know them:

On Tuesday, January 30, a specialist Arabic-speaking Israeli counterterrorism unit entered the Ibn Sina Hospital in the city that has become synonymous with Palestinian terrorism.

In a “surgical” operation that lasted just 10 minutes from getting into the building and leaving, the team quickly identified their targets: three terrorists named Mohammed Jalamneh, Mohammed Ghazawi and Basel Ghazawi.

They were all neutralized.

Israeli forces were acting on intelligence that the men were planning an October 7-style massacre on Israeli soil.

Shortly after their deaths, Islamic Jihad claimed two of the terrorists, who were brothers, while Hamas confirmed the third was one of its “fighters.”

The three men had deliberately been using the hospital as a base to both plan their attack and hide from Israeli forces.

When the media came to report the incident, however, some of these facts were soon twisted beyond recognition or omitted entirely to, in some cases, suggest Israel had acted unlawfully by killing the three men.

The most outrageous examples of skewing the story came in the form of headlines from The Washington Post, CNN and the BBC which all obscured the fact that the Palestinian men were terrorists who were preparing to carry out an imminent attack against Israeli civilians.

The Washington Post’s was the most outrageous, with the publication ignoring that all three had been immediately claimed by terrorist organizations and instead reporting that Israeli agents “kill[ed] 3 in West Bank hospital,” which implicitly suggested the dead people were innocent patients.

CNN omitted entirely the fact that the men were confirmed as terrorists in a headline that stated Israeli special forces had “infiltrated” the facility to “kill Palestinian men.”

Meanwhile, the BBC referred to the terrorists as “fighters” in a headline, a choice that seemed to glamorize the deceased. In the same article, the hospital’s director, Dr. Naji Nazzal, made the contentious claim that the men were “executed… in cold blood…”

Read More: Spotlight on Jenin: Part Four: The 10 Most Notorious Jenin Terrorists

The most outrageous reporting, however, came from the media outlets that baselessly suggested Israel may have violated international law or perpetrated a “war crime” in its killing of three terrorists.

The Economist, for example, asked whether Israel had broken the “laws of war” on the basis that soldiers disguising themselves as doctors may be an act of “perfidy” — a protection invoked under the terms of the Geneva Conventions. Perfidy describes a form of deception in which one side promises to act in good faith with the intention of breaking that promise after their enemy has left themselves vulnerable on the reliance of their enemy’s assurance.

Of course, the real breach of international law should concern three terrorists misusing a hospital as a hiding place while they planned a large-scale terror attack against Israeli civilians.

 

The Economist

 

ABC News took a similar approach, having interviewed experts who said the raid may have “violated international law”: 

It’s a violation of international law to feign protected status, in this case, by dressing up as a doctor or patient, ‘in order to invite the confidence of the adversary and then proceed to kill or injure them,’ Aurel Sari, associate professor of public international law at the University of Exeter, told ABC News. This violates the prohibition to kill or injure the adversary by resorting to perfidy, Sari said.

Two points should be noted in response.

First, Israel’s arrest raids in Jenin do not now — nor have they ever — violated international law. Under the terms of the Oslo agreements, which gave the Palestinian Authority control in the area of the West Bank in which Jenin is located, the PA was bound to maintain security and combat terrorism.

The PA’s abject failure to combat terrorism emanating from areas under its control allowed Israel to legally operate in those locations to prevent the commission of attacks.

Second, Israeli forces did not “invite the confidence” of an adversary by dressing as doctors considering there is no evidence that the three men acted in the belief that the Israeli forces were actual medical professionals.

 

ABC News

 

The raid on Jenin’s Ibn Sina Hospital may have looked fairly jaw-dropping to observers.

But dramatics are not evidence of war crimes and certainly don’t mean terrorists are suddenly innocent victims.

Liked this article? Follow HonestReporting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to see even more posts and videos debunking news bias and smears, as well as other content explaining what’s really going on in Israel and the region. Get updates direct to your phone. Join our WhatsApp and Telegram channels!

]]> Israel at War: The Media Battlefield – Briefing #17 https://honestreporting.com/israel-at-war-the-media-battlefield-briefing-17/ Thu, 01 Feb 2024 13:28:58 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=375151 HonestReporting has been working around the clock to identify and respond to the worst media bias since the appalling events of October 7 and the subsequent launch of Israeli military action against Hamas.

You can already see many of the posts that we’ve published on our website but here’s a roundup of just some of the issues and media outlets that we’ve flagged on social media over the past several days that didn’t make it into full articles.

Make sure to follow us on X/Twitter to get all of our content in real time during this period.

TAKE ACTION NOW: You can make a difference. We’ve included contact details for many of the examples of media bias below. Please send your considered comments to the media and hold them accountable.

Guardian Op-Ed’s Speculative Military Analysis

Contact The Guardian readers’ editor: guardian.readers@theguardian.com

 

CNN’s Interviewee Isn’t an Impartial Commentator

(Note: CNN has removed its online feedback form, thereby denying its audience an easy way to contact the network. CNN can still be contacted at the following number: 1-404-827-1500)

 

NPR Creates Moral Equivalence Between Israeli Hostages and Detained Palestinians

Contact NPR Public Editor: https://help.npr.org/contact/s/contact?request=Ask-the-Public-Editor-about-ethics

 

CNN’s Cemetery Desecration Charge Turned on Its Head

(Note: CNN has removed its online feedback form, thereby denying its audience an easy way to contact the network. CNN can still be contacted at the following number: 1-404-827-1500)

 

Sky News Legitimizes Skewed Tweets

Contact: viewerr@sky.uk

 

Why Does The Washington Post Treat Israeli Claims With Such Disdain?

Contact the Washington Post Readers Representative: readers@washpost.com

 

Wall Street Journal Casually Claims Israel Conducted Strikes on Hospitals

Contact: wsjcontact@wsj.com

 

LA Times Op-Ed Indulgest in Thinly Veiled Antisemitism

Contact the Readers’ Representative: https://form.jotform.com/93047569731162

 

The Observer Turns Israeli Victims Into the Sole Aggressors

Contact: observer.readers@observer.co.uk

 

Associated Press Downplays UNRWA Employees’ Roles in Oct. 7 Massacre

Open AP Customer Zone & select Editorial and News from the dropdown options: https://customerzone.ap.org/cz/s/contactsupport

 

Newsweek Falsely Claims Israeli ‘Settlements’ Were Attacked on Oct. 7

Contact: support@newsweek.com

 

Washington Post Misrepresents BDS

Contact the Washington Post Readers Representative: readers@washpost.com

 

BBC News Says War Simply ‘Broke Out’ on Oct. 7

Follow the BBC’s complaints procedure: https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints/make-a-complaint/#/Complaint

 

The Guardian’s Explainer Fails to Explain Two-State Solution

Contact The Guardian readers’ editor: guardian.readers@theguardian.com

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Featured image: Yonatan Sindel via Flash90

]]> Media Outlets Continue To Conceal the Appalling Truth About UNRWA https://honestreporting.com/media-outlets-continue-to-conceal-the-appalling-truth-about-unrwa/ Tue, 30 Jan 2024 14:37:54 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=375055 Following the release of evidence by Israel that Palestinian UNRWA employees took part in the Hamas massacre on October 7, most of the organization’s major donors have suspended funding to the Palestinian refugee agency.

The United States, UNRWA’s biggest donor, was the first to announce its decision to withdraw aid in a statement that said officials were “extremely troubled” by the allegations that include Palestinian agency workers participated in the kibbutz atrocities, kidnapped Israeli hostages, and helped coordinate the movement of weapons that were used in the attack.

According to a dossier handed over to the U.S. State Department, at least 1,200 UNRWA employees were found to be members of either Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

None of these revelations, however, will come as a surprise to anyone who’s a bit more clued up about UNRWA’s chequered history.

What we (and other organizations) have repeatedly demonstrated over the years is how UNRWA is completely rotten to its core.

From UNRWA employees discovered to be members of terrorist groups, to teachers in its schools who encouraged students to murder Jews, and the agency’s facilities being used as terror bases, UNRWA has repeatedly shown that it is corrupt, inefficient, and, as the evidence indicates, exacerbating the plight of Palestinians.

Read More: Media’s UNRWA Love Affair: Evidence That Agency Teachers Have Encouraged Murder of Jews, Posted About ‘Filthy Zionists’ Goes Unreported

Despite all of this — specifically, the disturbing truth about UNRWA being laid bare — a peculiar incredulity emerged among media outlets regarding the latest revelations. This was followed by a rush to either downplay the findings or engage in excessive handwringing about the potential consequences for Palestinians without UNRWA.

The BBC, for example, obscured the horrifying accusations against UNRWA that resulted in it being defunded by referring to it as a “diplomatic storm” in the headline of a piece that suggested heartlessness by donor states that have removed the “lifesaving assistance on which two million Gazans rely…”

 

BBC News UNRWA

 

Indeed, the whole piece reads as a sort of press release for UNRWA, which is described in positively glowing terms as running Gaza’s “medical and educational facilities, including teacher training centres and almost 300 primary schools – as well as producing the textbooks that educate young Palestinians.”

While the BBC does reference some of UNRWA’s troubling history, it frames these issues as mere accusations from Israeli governments, which have “long denounced the agency’s teaching and textbooks for, in their view, perpetuating anti-Israel views.”

A note to the BBC: children’s textbooks that explicitly call for the genocide of Jews, encourage youngsters to become suicide bombers, and glorify Palestinian terrorists go beyond “perpetuating anti-Israel views.

The BBC also dismisses criticism of UNRWA as suggestive of the agency becoming “something of a political football” while its “very existence is criticised by Israel as entrenching the status of Palestinians as refugees, encouraging their continued hopes of a right of return to land from which they were driven in 1948 or during successive wars.”

Unsurprisingly, given its sympathetic tone, the piece fails to clarify that barely any of the 5.9 million Palestinians deemed “refugees” worldwide were actually alive in 1948. Additionally, it omits that UNRWA’s definition of refugee status diverges from all accepted definitions, being so broad that it allows inheritance of this status from parents and grandparents.

Read More: The UNRWA Refugee Controversy Explained

Likewise, Newsweek also steered its coverage away from the unmasking of UN workers as terrorists to focus on UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ plea for donors to carry on funding the organization on the grounds that humanitarian workers in the region “should not be penalized.”

While the piece quotes Guterres at length, including his praise of UNRWA’s Philippe Lazzarini, Newsweek doesn’t actually bother to go into any real detail about the latest allegations or any of the other claims made against UNWRA over the years.

 

Newsweek UNRWA

 

The Guardian went even further to emphasize how “outraged” aid agencies are at UNRWA’s defunding.

With no mention in the headline of what prompted the funding cut — details of which are buried toward the bottom of the story — the piece also ignores the many other accusations against UNRWA that stretch back years.

 

The Guardian UNRWA

 

Meanwhile, Sky News’ Diplomatic Editor Dominic Waghorn was apparently so desperate to rehabilitate UNRWA’s image that he desperately attempted to discredit one of the journalists who wrote a Wall Street Journal exclusive that revealed some 10 percent of UNRWA’s 12,000 staff members in Gaza have links to terror groups.

UNRWA benefits from the halo effect. We’ve repeatedly observed how the media portray UNRWA as a paragon of virtue while simultaneously failing to scrutinize it as rigorously as they would any other organization receiving substantial public funding.

However, the incredulity displayed by numerous news outlets in response to the latest allegations is astonishing.

What more could it possibly take for UNRWA’s halo to finally fall in the eyes of the international media?

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Photo credit: Yonatan Sindel via Flash90

]]> A Tale of Two Narratives: English-Language & Arabic-Language Reports Differ on Palestinian-American Teen’s Death https://honestreporting.com/a-tale-of-two-narratives-english-language-arabic-language-reports-differ-on-palestinian-american-teens-death/ Thu, 25 Jan 2024 15:41:33 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=375040 On Friday January 19, 2024, a Palestinian-American teenager, Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, was killed in the West Bank, allegedly following an altercation with armed Israelis.

The Israeli inquiry into this matter is still ongoing.

However, an investigation by the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) has found that the narrative surrounding the circumstances of Abdel Jabbar’s death in the English-speaking media is very different from that being put forward in several Arabic-language reports.

In various English-language reports by such media outlets as The Washington Post, The New York Times, the BBC, Reuters, the Associated Press, and others, Tawfic Abdel Jabbar is portrayed as a quintessential American teen who moved to the West Bank in order to improve his Arabic and to gain a deeper connection to the area where his Palestinian family is from.

By all accounts, from the media reports, Abdel Jabbar was fun-loving and outdoorsy, loved basketball and cars, and was planning on going to college to study engineering (or business administration, depending on the report).

While the circumstances surrounding his death are unclear, most reports have Tawfic Abdel Jabbar being shot to death by an Israeli settler and IDF soldier while out with friends (depending on the report, he was either having a picnic, attending a barbeque or simply driving around).

Although some reports do carry the Israeli claim that the shooting occurred within the context of a reported rock-throwing incident by Palestinians against Israeli vehicles travelling on the main highway that bisects the West Bank, most of these reports only include this information as tangential or include Abdel Jabbar’s father’s rebuff that his son was not throwing rocks and even if he was, “So what? If they were throwing rocks 150 meters to the street, what is it going to do to a tank? Or to a jeep? Or to a car full of soldiers? You’re gonna shoot the car 10 times because a guy threw a rock?”

It should be noted that there have been Israeli civilians (including children) killed in incidents where Palestinians threw rocks at passing vehicles.

Most of these reports about Tawfic Abdel Jabbar’s death also sought to contextualize his death with descriptions of rising tensions in the West Bank, an alleged surge in settler violence against Palestinians, and supposed Israeli heavy-handedness following the October 7 Hamas attack.

In sum, the narrative produced by the English-language media about Tawfic Abdel Jabbar’s death is that he was a typical American teenager who became another victim of continuing Israeli aggression against the West Bank’s local Palestinian population.

Related Reading: Media Fabricate Palestinian Deaths To Push ‘Settler Violence’ Smear

However, this may not be the whole story.

According to an investigation by JNS, Arabic-language media reports present quite a different picture.

In the London-based Al-Araby Al Jadeed, it’s reported that on the fateful night of Tawfic Abdel Jabbar’s death, he “was participating with boys and young men in throwing stones at the occupation vehicles…”

In that same article, Abdel Jabbar’s father is quoted as saying that “I was keen throughout their lives to consolidate the danger of the occupation in my son’s mind, and the necessity of resisting it.”

Similarly, his mother is quoted, “Since our return, Tawfic had been telling me that he loved the town and did not want to return to the United States, and he was always talking about martyrdom, but I thought he was joking with me.”

From his mother’s description further on, it appears that Tawfic regularly joined local youths in throwing rocks at passing Israeli vehicles.

The Palestinian news outlet Ultra Palestine also reported that Tawfic Abdel Jabbar was engaged in rock-throwing when he was shot and killed.

Related Reading: In Contextualizing Palestinian Terrorism, Media Miss the Big Picture

As the Israeli police continue to investigate this matter and as more details emerge, it is clear that the narrative being produced by the mainstream English-language media about this incident is incomplete and not wholly accurate.

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]]> ITV News’ Video Of ‘Possible Israeli War Crime’ Raises Disturbing Questions https://honestreporting.com/itv-news-video-of-possible-israeli-war-crime-raises-disturbing-questions/ Thu, 25 Jan 2024 13:51:49 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=375025 When ITV News speculated this week about whether Israel had committed “a possible war crime” during a tragic incident in which a man was shot in Gaza, it had a duty to present the accusation with ironclad evidence.

However, the video it aired — allegedly showing the lethal targeting of a Palestinian civilian walking among a group of people waving a white flag — raises serious questions that the UK news outlet should have asked in advance.

And after the Israeli army denied the report and criticized ITV News for broadcasting what it dismissed as an “extension of Hamas’s propaganda effort,” serious alarm bells should have been ringing over at ITV News about the circumstances surrounding the incident the footage purportedly showed.

Sketchy Editing

According to ITV News, the video was filmed by Mohammed Abu Safia, a Gazan cameraman who works for the network.

The footage was presented without any disclosure telling viewers that it had been edited.

Furthermore, at least one of the video cuts seems to occur at the critical moment when gunshots are heard and people can be seen running away. The editing cut is barely perceptible, and the next frame shows a body on the ground.

 

The video goes on to show people carrying the body and mourning in what seems to be an active combat zone.

Several key questions arise:

  • Why was there a cut between the frame showing people running from gunshots and the frame showing a body on the ground?
  • Can ITV News confirm what happened and how much time elapsed between the two frames?
  • Did ITV News probe the likelihood of Hamas terrorists in the vicinity who may have been shooting?
  • Did ITV News rely solely on the eyewitness testimony of the cameraman, and if so, was it him or the network that edited the footage?
  • The video shows one more person wearing a press vest, who was filming the scene on his phone. Why were journalists in this area to begin with and what were they filming?

Moral Vs. Journalistic Authority

These are not agenda-driven questions. They are questions that any journalist should have asked.

But apparently, ITV News was in too much of a rush to promote a “good story” than it was to do journalistic due diligence and investigate before presenting such an inflammatory accusation.

Related Reading: Media Commit Journalistic Crime in Coverage of Gaza Hospital Blast

Instead of acknowledging how little information was known about the incident, the network packaged it inside an emotional narrative showing an interview with the victim before he was shot before cutting straight to his anguished wife minutes later.

It also brought two lawyers to support its claims, although we suspect an interview with a video expert might have been money better spent.

ITV News also mentioned the accidental killing of Israeli hostages by IDF soldiers, as though this acts as further proof of the IDF targeting innocent civilians. What a shame the outlet did not balance this with footage of Hamas terrorists wearing civilian clothing and armed with suicide belts as they attempt to blend in with innocent civilians.

Evidence and questions aside, ITV News’ John Irvine felt more than comfortable reaching his conclusion after viewing just three minutes of footage:

I think this strips away at Israel’s moral authority and makes it more difficult for Israel’s allies to support this campaign.”

It’s incredible stuff. A supposedly reputable journalist claiming that a dubiously edited clip might prompt Israeli allies to withdraw their support.

As long as the questions above are left unasked and unanswered, the only thing that may be stripped away is the journalistic integrity of ITV News.

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]]> Sky News Airs Embarrassingly Simplistic Analysis Of Journalist Who Dismissed Houthi Threat As ‘A Couple Of Guys In Dinghies’ https://honestreporting.com/sky-news-airs-embarrassingly-simplistic-analysis-of-activist-who-dismissed-houthi-threat-as-a-couple-of-guys-in-dinghies/ Wed, 24 Jan 2024 16:47:17 +0000 https://honestreporting.com/?p=374987

So, let me get this straight… We are bombing one of the poorest countries in the world, a country that has been under a humanitarian blockade. There has been famine; these people have been decimated. We are bombing them because a couple of guys in dinghies, in support of the Palestinians who are having a genocide committed against them, are objecting to that, and we’re bombing them? Come on now. I mean, this is just an insane world for us to even think about. I’m so sorry your Amazon packages are delayed, I really am. I wish mine came on time, but you know, genocide, guys.”

This was the high school-level analysis offered by Myriam Francoise, a former BBC journalist, regarding the issue of Houthi attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea.

We say ‘high school level,’ but even that might be too generous for Francoise, as we suspect that the majority of teenagers would be capable of constructing a less rudimentary argument.

The three minutes of breathtaking inanity occurred on Yalda Hakim‘s new foreign affairs show on Sky News this week, just hours after the United States and the United Kingdom carried out new airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.

“There are many who are saying that, frankly, the Biden administration should’ve acted sooner and faster, that hundreds of billions of dollars have been put at risk because the Houthis have held this area in the Red Sea at ransom,” was the opening remark by Hakim that prompted Francoise’s simplistic assessment.

Of course, it is easy to pick holes in about every aspect of Francoise’s argument. It is straightforward to point out that she has reduced the complexities of international conflict, humanitarian crises and geopolitical dynamics to a single, linear cause-and-effect relationship.

But instead, why not consider those “billions of dollars” in lost trade that Francoise so casually dismissed as trivial compared to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza?

The fact is, those hundreds of billions of dollars also represent lives and livelihoods. That money amounts to lost jobs, income, and, as inflation soars, the very ability of people to put food on the table.

Read More: By Air & By Water: The Houthi War Against Israel

Furthermore, what about the Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists who have attacked dozens of vessels since October and launched long-range missiles at Israel that Francoise dismisses as a “couple of guys in dinghies?”

The Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, have wrought misery on Yemen and, ironically, were the group that exposed the country to the very foreign intervention that Francoise scorns through their relentless attacks on the ships and ports of US ally Saudi Arabia.

More importantly, the Houthis are not a few men on an inflatable boat somehow managing to hijack giant commercial vessels, as Francoise seems to think. They are a very well-funded terrorist group that is equipped with all manner of weaponry from surface-to-surface missiles to UAVs capable of traveling thousands of miles to Israel, and they are even using so-called exploding “drone boats” to attempt maximum damage.

And while it may have been a catchy soundbite, Francoise’s sarcastic quip about delayed Amazon packages was actually one of the more embarrassing moments of her appearance.

Again, we could point out the obvious: the reduction of geopolitical and military actions to a cause as trivial as the delay of consumer goods is indicative of a limited comprehension of the complexities involved in international conflicts and counter-terrorism efforts.

We could also point out that Francoise’s simplistic perspective ignores the myriad of factors that influenced the United States and the United Kingdom, including adhering to international law, humanitarian considerations and national security.

Instead, we will simply state that it is profoundly asinine to reduce, sarcastically or not, the reason for taking action against terrorists — who pose a threat to both the Middle East and the entire world — to something as inconsequential as delayed Amazon packages.

Hakim deserves some credit for pressing Francoise on whether she “genuinely believes” the Houthis will stop their attacks on Red Sea ships if there is a ceasefire in Gaza.

“They have literally said that’s why they’re doing what they’re doing,” Francoise condescendingly replied. “They have not previously blocked those routes for any other reason except this one.”

Except that’s literally not true.

The Houthis have been firing missiles at ships in the Red Sea as far back as 2016, such as when they attacked a civilian ship from Eritrea, and experts have been warning of the disruptions on this trade route as a result of the Houthis for years.

Myriam Francoise’s juvenile pronouncements added nothing to the conversation about Israel, Gaza and the Middle East. Why on earth did Sky News think they would?

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