Uncategorized
Bosnian Jews mourn Moris Albahari, one of Sarajevo’s last Ladino speakers
(JTA) — Moris Albahari, a Holocaust survivor, former partisan fighter and one of the last Ladino speakers in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s dwindling Jewish community, passed away at the age of 93 last month.
It is believed that he was one of four native Ladino speakers remaining in a country where the Judeo-Spanish language once flourished and was spoken by luminaries like Flory Jagoda, the grande dame of Ladino song, and Laura Bohoretta, the founder of a uniquely Sephardic feminist movement in Bosnia.
Bosnia’s small Jewish community — with barely 900 members throughout the country, 500 of whom live in Sarajevo — are mourning the loss of a living link to communal memory as well as a dear friend.
“From you, uncle Moco, I learned a lot about Judaism, about life, about nature and especially about people. About both the good and the evil,” Igor Kožemjakin, the cantor of the Sarajevo Jewish community, wrote in a memorial post on Facebook, referring to Moris as “Čika,” or uncle, a term of endearment in Bosnian.
“It is a terrible loss, especially for Sarajevo. Our community is very small, especially after the Holocaust,” Eliezer Papo, a Sarajevo-born Jew and scholar of Ladino language and literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We’re not speaking just in terms of prominent members of the community, we’re speaking in terms of family members. Everyone is like a family member.”
When Albahari was growing up in the 1930s, the Jewish community of his native Sarajevo numbered over 12,000. Jews made up more than a fifth of the city and it was one of the most important centers of Jewish life in the western Balkans.
In his youth, the city was part of what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Formed out of the borderlands between the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, it was a multiethnic state composed of Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, Slovenians, Macedonians, Hungarians, Albanians and more. Among them were many Jewish communities both Ashkenazi and Sephardic.
The unique mix of of Muslim, Jewish, Catholic and Orthodox Christian communities, with their mosques, synagogues and churches defining Sarajevo’s skyline, earned the city the nickname “Little Jerusalem.”
Speaking in a 2015 documentary made by American researchers, “Saved by Language,” Albahari explained that his family traced their roots back to Cordoba before the Spanish Inquisition, and through Venice, before settling in what would become Bosnia when it was part of the Ottoman Empire.
“We didn’t want to ‘just’ write an article about Moris or Sarajevo; we wanted [the audience] to see what we saw and hear what we heard,” Brian Kirschen, professor of Ladino at Binghamton University, who worked on the documentary with author Susanna Zaraysky, told JTA. “This resulted in a grassroots initiative to create the documentary.”
In the film, Albahari takes the researchers and their viewers on a tour through what was Jewish Sarajevo, giving glimpses of the thriving Ladino speaking community in which he was raised and explaining how ithe language would save him many times, when the Nazis and their Croat allies, the Ustaša, came to shatter it.
“In sharing your story of survival during the Holocaust, you opened doors that remained closed for decades,” Kirschen said in a memorial post on Facebook. “Some of your stories were even new to members of your family, but each survivor has their own timeline. While you experienced great pain during your life, from your story, we also learn about moments of kindness and heroism. Through your story, you also taught us about the power of language.”
Albahari wasn’t yet a teenager when, in 1941, Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy invaded Yugoslavia. The Nazis occupied the eastern portion of the country, including what is now Serbia, while they raised up a Croat fascist party, known as the Ustaša, to administer the newly formed “Independent State of Croatia” — often known by its Serbo-Croatian initials, NDH — in the western regions that included the modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Ustaša collaborated in the Nazis’ genocidal plans for Europe’s Jewish and Roma comunities, and they had genocidal designs of their own for the Orthodox Serb communities living in the NDH.
To that end they established the Jasenovac concentration camp, which would become known as the Auschwitz of the Balkans. By the war’s end it had become the third largest concentration camp in Europe, and behind its walls the overwhelming majority of Sarajevo’s Jews — at least 10,000 — were massacred. Including Serbs, Jews, Roma and political dissidents of Croat or Muslim Bosniak background, as many as 100,000 people were killed in Jasenovac.
Albahari was 11 years old when the Ustaša came to deport him and his large family to Jasenovac. A former teacher working as an Ustaša guard in the town of Drvar, where the train stopped, warned Albahari’s father, David, about their destination, and he was able to help his son escape from the train.
The teacher helped guide the young Moris to an Italian soldier named Lino Marchione who was secretly helping Jews.
This was the first case when Albahari’s Ladino came in handy. Ladino is largely based on medieval Spanish, with a mixture of Hebrew, Aramaic, Turkish and other languages mixed in. For speakers of Serbo-Croatian, a Slavic language, it’s entirely incomprehensible. But for a speaker of another Romance language such as Italian, it’s not such a stretch to understand, and Moris was able to converse with his Italian savior.
With his family gone, he was taken in by a Serb family, and changed his name to Milan Adamovic to hide his Jewish identity. Still, by 1942, it became clear that neither as Adamovic nor Albahari would he be safe in the town. So he fled to the mountains.
“If there was [a battle] I took clothes from a dead soldier to wear, I lived like a wolf in the mountains, you know. Visiting villages [asking for something] to give me for eating, it was a terrible time,” Albahari recalled in “Saved By Language.”
He would only feel safe in villages under the control of partisan forces. Yugoslavia was the only country in Europe to be liberated from Nazi rule by its own grassroots resistance.
During his time in the mountains, Albahari joined up with a partisan unit aligned with the movement of Josip Broz Tito, who would lead Communist Yugoslavia after the war. By the war’s end, Tito’s partisans numbered over 80,000 and included more than 6,000 Jews, many in prominent positions, such as Moša Pijade, who would go on to serve as vice president of the Yugoslav parliament after the war.
Moris was out on patrol as a partisan when he came upon a group of American and British paratroopers. They raised their weapons at him, thinking he was an enemy. Moris tried to communicate, but he spoke no English.
When he asked the soldiers if they spoke German or Italian, they shook their heads. When he asked about Spanish, one perked up: a Hispanic-American soldier by the name of David Garijo.
In Ladino, Alabahari was able to explain that he was not an enemy but could lead them to a nearby partisan camp where they would be safe.
“Ladino saved my life in the war,” Albahari recalled in the documentary.
At the partisan camp, Morris received even bigger news: The family that he had assumed had all perished after he left the train were in fact alive. The former school teacher and Ustaša guard who had warned his father had met them at the next train junction to help them escape. Furthermore, around half of the Jews in the train car were able to escape using the same hole Moris used during his initial escape.
Ultimately the family all survived the war, unlike so many other Jews of Sarajevo.
“Where is Samuel, where is Dudo, where is Gedala? They never came back,” Albahari lamented, listing missing neighbors while walking through Sarajevo’s old Jewish neighborhood in the documentary. “Maybe we are happy because we are alive after the Second World War, but also unlikely because every day we must cry for these dead people.”
When Moris returned to Sarajevo, it was an entirely different place from the bustling Jewish community he had once known.
Gone was the sound of Ladino in the streets and alleyways of Bascarsija, the market district where so many of Sarajevo’s Jews had once lived. Gone were the synagogues — only one of the many synagogues that had existed before WWII still functions. Gone was the robust Jewish life that was once a central part of Sarajevo.
Moris was still only 14 by the war’s end, so he returned to school and ultimately graduated at the top of his class. He became a pilot and later director of the Sarajevo Airport.
In this new world, Ladino was spoken, if at all, only in the home.
“Always, when I hear Spanish, I hear my father and mother, and all the synagogues, prayers in Ladino and rabbis who spoke Ladino. But that is in the past,” Albahari says in “Saved by Language.”
Eliezer Papo, who is a generation younger than Albahari, recalled that in his youth Ladino had long been reduced to a language of secrets.
“Mostly, Ladino was used when the elders didn’t want youngsters to understand,” Papo said.
Only later, in the 1980s, did community members realize what was being lost and begin to gather to maintain their language, recount what Jewish Sarajevo had been like and share their wartime stories of survival.
“He never took his story to the places of revenge, but he took it and his life experience to a place of ‘Never again,’ not just ‘Never again for Jews’, but never again for anybody,” said Papo.
Like many Sarajevans, World War II would not be the last major conflict Albahari would see. Less than 40 years later, war would once again come to Sarajevo with the break-up of Yugoslavia.
From 1992-1995 the city remained under constant siege by Bosnian Serb forces looking to break away from what would become Bosnia and Herzegovina. Moris joined with other Jews of Sarajevo in working to provide aid to their fellow Sarajevans during the harsh period.
Sarajevo’s synagogue was turned into a shelter and a soup kitchen. The community ran a network of underground pharmacies and a message service allowing Sarajevans to get word to family and friends outside of the city during what became the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare.
“Moris was an inspirational persona to many members of Jewish community and La Benevolencija,” Vlado Anderle, the current president of that local Jewish humanitarian organization told JTA. “He was a man with such inviting spirit and energy.”
When the dust settled on the breakup of Yugoslavia, and the new Bosnian state rose from its ashes, Moris found himself once again in a new role.
During the communist era in Yugoslavia, religious activity was discouraged. Sarajevo’s Jews emphasized the ethnic character of Jewish culture rather than the religious one. In the new Bosnia and Herzegovina, that was no longer true. So the community worked to reconnect with their religious identity as well.
“Everybody looked up to the people who had Jewish upbringing before the Second World War,” Papo recalled. “This doesn’t mean that they were rabbis. Just that they knew it better than anyone else.”
Moris, whose formal Jewish education ended in his preteen years, was appointed president of the community’s religious committee.
As such it often fell on him to represent Judaism to the Bosnian society at large, often in a very creative way, according to Papo, who in addition to being a scholar of Ladino is ordained as a rabbi and serves the Sarajevo community as a rabbi-at-large from Israel.
In one case, while being interviewed on a major Bosnian television station, Moris was asked why Jews cover their head with a kippah or other hat during prayer. Moris’ response, or rather creative interpretation, as Papo called it, was made up on the spot.
Moris’ interpretation began with the ancient temple in Jerusalem where Jews once had to fully immerse in a ritual bath before entering.
“Since the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed it was reduced to washing the uncovered parts of the body only, before entering a synagogue, similarly to Muslims: the feet, the head, the hands…” Papo recalled him saying. But in Europe, as Moris’ answer went, they began to cover more and more of their body. “In Europe they started wearing shoes, so the feet were not uncovered anymore, and then they started wearing a hat, not to have to wash their head… you know it’s Europe, one could catch a cold if going out with wet hair…”
“A few months later, I came to Sarajevo, and found that everyone has heard this explanation and is talking about it, not just people in the community, but in the street,” Papo said. “And you know, I let it pass, I couldn’t correct them, it was just so beautiful. That was his genius.”
“Identity is all about telling stories. And Moris was one of the great storytellers of the community,” Papo added. And through his stories he expressed an identity which was “made of the same contradictions that Sephardic Judaism is made of, that Sarajevo is made of, that Bosnia and Herzegovina is made and that Yugoslavia was and is made of and that the Balkans are made of.”
Albahari is survived by his wife and a son.
—
The post Bosnian Jews mourn Moris Albahari, one of Sarajevo’s last Ladino speakers appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
I Worked at a Palestinian Summer Camp: The Glorification of Terrorism Is Preventing Any Peace Deal
Women look at a mobile phone screen in Ramallah, in the West Bank, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
When I worked for a reconciliation organization and lived in the small, largely Palestinian Christian town of Beit Sahour last summer, there were multiple aspects of Palestinian society that disturbed me.
Yet, what I found to be most discomforting was its overwhelming celebration of martyrdom, or of glorifying those Palestinians who sacrificed themselves and died in the name of “Palestine.”
Shortly after witnessing a large crowd of young children (Christian and Muslim) chanting “we will die to make Palestine live” at a summer camp that I volunteered at, I had a conversation with a Palestinian teenager.
At one point, she asked me: “What have we [the Palestinians] ever done wrong?” I responded by mentioning the dozens of suicide bombings that took place in Israeli civilian areas during the Second Intifada. She replied: “But, those are acts of resistance.” Similarly, during a conversation that I had about Beit Sahour’s role in the Intifadas with a Palestinian colleague, she told me: “Our martyrs died here [in the Old City of Beit Sahour].”
Living in the West Bank taught me that most Palestinians, regardless of religion, have long bought into the Islamist celebration of martyrdom, which represents a portion of their largely omnipresent and extremist attitude of rejectionism.
The unique and celebrated Palestinian mindset of rejectionism, or a “resistance to all things Jewish and Zionist,” is sustained by various factors, including religion (Islamism), the global Left’s anti-Zionism, the Palestinian portrayal of Israel as a Crusader state, the Palestinian claim to a “right of return,” conspiracy theories, and so on.
According to a 2023 poll, over 80% of Palestinians believe that the armed wings of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad play somewhat to a very positive role, while 79% of Palestinians possess the same feelings about Fatah’s armed wing.
A 2025 poll found that 69% of Palestinians (87% in the West Bank and 55% in Gaza) are opposed to disarming Hamas to permanently end Israel’s war in Gaza, and 60% of Palestinians (66% in the West Bank and 51% in Gaza) are satisfied with Hamas. These surveys reflect the overwhelming extremism and rejectionism that remain regnant within Palestinian culture.
While Palestinian society’s (and especially Hamas’) extremism and fetishization of death are commonly criticized, it’s important to underscore the fact that these pernicious cultural features are encouraged (or mandated) by the Palestinian leadership. As the Middle East Forum’s Dexter Van Zile expressed to me: “Islamist leaders are consigning a generation of impressionable young men to death.” Accordingly, radical beliefs continually spill over into Palestinian society, starting with the school curriculum.
And this mindset is shared by both the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas. As a result, the PA has continued its repugnant “Pay-for-Slay” program, which pays imprisoned terrorists and grants stipends to the families of “martyrs.”
In Gaza, Hamas prevented (through scare tactics and by force) civilians from fleeing Gaza City in September 2025. Recently, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Gaza-born analyst, exposed that Hamas deliberately hid infant formula and nutritional shakes for children. In order to achieve its own goals, Hamas has perpetually mandated the martyrdom of Gazan civilians.
Even worse, Hamas’ celebration of martyrdom casts doubt on the prospect of lasting peace.
For example, Hamas has repeatedly rejected calls for disarmament. When I asked Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin, who played a central role in manufacturing the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, about Hamas’ ideology around two months ago, he told me that because Hamas’ “political-religious philosophy […] is based on the sanctification of death,” they’re more than happy to never surrender.
Rather, Hamas is willing to sacrifice civilian life in Gaza and fight to death: “Even yesterday, the Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad — who has been my primary interlocutor over 18 years — said: ‘To free Palestine, we are more than willing to have 20,000 dead or 100,000 dead.’ He meant it with total sincerity … The death and destruction of Gaza served their [Hamas’] interests as they perceived them.”
However, the radical beliefs dominant within Palestinian society are not guaranteed.
Since extremism is sustained by the Palestinian leadership, either a new Palestinian leadership needs to emerge, or Israel can make sure to destroy any regimes that wish its destruction, and then partner with true moderate Palestinians to create a new government.
There has always existed a noticeable sliver of Palestinians who have cooperated with Zionism, such as through supplying labor, selling land/arms, providing intelligence, and so on. Even during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, many Palestinians not only didn’t offensively fight against Jews, but also prevented foreigners and locals from mounting attacks.
The potential for working directly with Palestinian moderates is even more relevant today, especially because local Palestinian elections are scheduled for April 2026. One party that will participate in these elections is filled with moderates, who allegedly accept Israel’s existence and advocate for demilitarization and deradicalization.
The nearly universal celebration of martyrdom across different cleavages of Palestinian society, including among Muslims and non-Muslims, demonstrates that extremism is deeply entrenched within Palestinian culture. Consequently, Israel will never exist comfortably unless it changes course and strategically tackles this Palestinian issue.
Israel must not only work to obliterate Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, but also cooperate directly with moderate Palestinians to create a new government that will lead the Palestinians to forsake their extremist beliefs.
Richard McDaniel is an undergraduate political science student at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
Uncategorized
You Should Know About These Anti-Israel Developments on College Campuses and at K-12 Schools
Harvard University campus on May 24, 2025, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Photo: Zhu Ziyu/VCG via Reuters Connect
Despite notable holdouts, in particular Harvard University, university administrations continue to quietly settle Federal lawsuits regarding their treatment of Jewish students and faculty, and to limit the ability of pro-Hamas groups to harass and intimidate others.
University action against extremist faculty members also expanded in December:
- The University of California at Berkeley suspended a physics lecturer who had made anti-Israel comments during a class, which was completely unrelated to the subject matter;
- A tenured faculty member at San Jose State University was fired on the basis of her participation in a 2024 pro-Hamas encampment and involvement in a physical altercation between faculty and students;
- A lecturer at the University of Sydney, Rose Nakad, was arrested and indicted after an October incident where she called Jewish students and staff “parasites” and “depraved,” spat at them, and stated a “Zionist is the lowest form of rubbish.” The university terminated Nakad, stating, “Hate speech, antisemitism, and harassment have no place at our university and when our codes of conduct are breached we do not hesitate to take disciplinary action.” Nakad’s firing came only after the Bondi Beach massacre;
- At the University of Arkansas, Shirin Saeidi was removed as head of the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies after it was discovered she had used official letterhead to appeal for the release of an Iranian regime figure jailed in Sweden for mass murder in Iran. Saeidi had also repeatedly praised the Iranian regime and condemned Israel. A subsequent report indicated that she was also reportedly under investigation for plagiarism. The Middle East Studies Association defended Saeidi and complained about her dismissal.
In an unusual response to Columbia University’s crackdown on pro-Hamas protestors, five United Nations “special rapporteurs” warned about the university’s “human rights violations.” Their letter to the administration complained about “alleged arbitrary arrest and physical assault” and “surveillance, detention and attempted removal of noncitizen students and scholars.”
The letter also complained about the university’s adoption of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism and stated that while they “strongly denounce anti-Semitism,” they are “disturbed by the vague and overly broad use of the term ‘antisemitism’ to label, denounce and repress peaceful protests and other legitimate forms of expression of solidarity with Palestinian victims, calls for a ceasefire in Gaza or the legitimate criticisms of the Government of Israel’s policies and practices, including its conduct of the conflict in Gaza and allegations of genocide.”
Despite various lawsuits and settlements, anti-Israel bias continues to be deeply rooted within university hiring and appointment practices. Harvard recently hired a graduate who had been convicted of assaulting an Israeli student, according to National Review, during a 2023 protest, but had not been expelled. A Federal judge also dismissed the lawsuit by the Israeli student against the university. Another example is Northwestern’s appointment of a faculty member who supported the pro-Hamas encampment to the presidential search committee.
University complaints regarding the Trump administration’s continued, if slowed, crackdown on research funding also continued through the media. In one case, allegations were made that the Department of Justice had illegally pressured legal staff to find evidence of antisemitism at UCLA, where an encampment had disrupted campus and restricted the movement of Jewish students. Universities also complained that the Federal government’s expanded travel ban on 39 countries and the Palestinian Authority would constrict the flow of foreign students.
Overall it appears that universities are prepared to wait out the Trump administration by negotiating financial settlements when demanded in order to restore research funding and instituting minimal procedural changes to maintain campus stability. Changes in ideology, which can only be implemented in the longer term by creating balance in faculty through hiring and retention practices, such as those recommended in the fourth and final report on antisemitism at Columbia, remain difficult to conceive and are not being considered.
Policies regarding Jewish students appear designed to contain and minimize mistreatment without addressing fundamental structures, especially student and faculty demographics.
Faculty and Students
Reports continue to show that Israeli academics are being boycotted by European and American colleagues. While European Union funding remains available, opportunities for collaboration and publication continue to be withdrawn.
Ritualized abuse of Israeli and Jewish faculty has also continued. One example was the demand made of an Israeli mental health researcher that she read a prepared condemnation of Israel and “genocide” as a condition of her participation in an international conference in South Africa.
Individual boycotts also continue to expand. In one case, the University of East Anglia is investigating a faculty member who refused to facilitate the visit of an Israeli-Arab academic to campus. The justification given was that “Palestinian colleagues asked staff not to work with Israeli institutions.”
In another case, California State University, Los Angeles faculty member and BLM activist Melina Abdullah is being investigated after video emerged of her coaching students in her “Race, Activism and Emotions” class to oppose legislation that would mandate antisemitism instruction in California schools. She was also recorded making a litany of horrific anti-Israel comments.
Faculty use of university imprimatur to support the Palestinian cause was also displayed at New York University, at a conference entitled, “The Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement and Transcultural Solidarity,” which celebrated Hamas and other terrorists imprisoned by Israel. Participants, including at least one associated with the Palestinian Youth Movement, had defended the Hamas massacres of October 7..
A recent interview with Columbia professor Mahmoud Mamdani, father of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, typified individual faculty members. Mamdani alleged that pro-Palestinian students were “terrified” and “terrorized” by the university’s crackdown on pro-Hamas protests, and that his son’s election was an indication that American attitudes towards Israel were changing and were a key electoral issue.
Despite the apparent downswing in large-scale pro-Hamas protests and takeovers, Jewish students continue to report low level harassment and intimidation. Jewish students at schools with large Jewish populations, such as Rutgers and the University of Pennsylvania, have reported increases in antisemitic incidents.
K-12
Reports also continue to show that teachers unions are directly supporting anti-American and anti-Zionist groups with contributions and participation in interlocking boards. The Massachusetts branch of the American Federation of Teachers, for example, has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to National Students for Justice in Palestine, Palestinian Youth Movement, and Within Our Lifetime though Resist Inc., which is the fiscal sponsor of the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance.
Similarly, the presidents of the Chicago Teachers Union, the Illinois Federation of Teachers, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and the United Teachers of Los Angeles are all members of the Action Center on Race and the Economy’s (ACRE) activist arm,
New reports have noted the presence of CAIR members on school boards as well as a national strategy by the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) to identify opportunities to place candidates on school boards. The goal is to center “Arab history” from the kindergarten level onward and to teach”Palestine,” with the goal of “a better informed electorate that’s more likely to support and advocate for human rights of Arabs in and outside of the U.S.”
The strategy specifically recommends inserting “Palestine” into the English curriculum where it will avoid scrutiny.
A similarly subversive strategy is evident in “antisemitism training” conducted by PARCEO, whose curriculum, “Antisemitism from a framework of Collective Liberation,” is deliberately designed to detach Israel from Judaism and antisemitism by showing how “antisemitism is misused to serve an anti-liberatory political agenda” and denying Jews the right to sovereignty.
Overall teachers and unions continue direct organizing in schools, such as through student walkouts. And politics like that should have no place in the classroom.
The author is a contributor to SPME, where a different version of this article appeared.
Uncategorized
The Iranian People Are Demanding Their Freedom; Where Is the Media?
Protesters demonstrate against poor economic conditions in Tehran, Iran, with some shopkeepers closing their stores on Dec. 29, 2025, in response to ongoing hardships and fluctuations in the national currency. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
“What were the media doing when the regime led by Ali Khamenei finally fell?”
That is the question that will be asked if, as many Iranians now dare to hope, we are witnessing the final days of the Islamic Republic after more than four decades in power. It is also a question the Western press may struggle to answer.
How It Started
The current wave of unrest began in late December, when shopkeepers in Tehran went on strike amid growing fury over Iran’s collapsing economy. The rial hit record lows, while prices continued to soar under crippling inflation. Traders, wholesalers, and merchants took to the streets in protest, initially over economic mismanagement — but anger quickly turned toward the regime itself.
Within 48 hours, demonstrations had spread beyond the capital to major cities including Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad, Hamadan, Qeshm, and beyond. Videos posted by Iranians showed crowds chanting explicitly political slogans: “Death to the dictator,” “Mullahs must go,” and “This homeland will not be free until the mullah is gone.”
Iranian state-affiliated media have acknowledged several deaths. Independent estimates suggest the toll may be significantly higher. What is not in dispute is that the unrest has rapidly evolved from economic protest into a broad-based challenge to clerical rule.
The Story the Media Barely Told
And yet, on Friday, The New York Times ran not a single front-page story on the protests.
Not one.
This was unrest that — if it succeeds — could reshape Iran, the Middle East, and global security dynamics for decades. A regime that backs Hamas and Hezbollah, arms terrorist proxies across the region, threatens Israel’s destruction, and destabilizes international energy markets was facing its most sustained nationwide dissent in years. Still, the story barely registered.
The New York Times’ near silence was not an outlier. It was emblematic.
When the lack of coverage was challenged on social media, John Simpson, World Affairs Editor at the BBC, offered an almost comical defense: social media videos, he said, must be carefully verified before “reputable outlets” can use them.
That principle, in isolation, is uncontroversial. But its selective application is not.
This is the same BBC that has repeatedly broadcast unverified — or lightly verified — footage and photographs from Gaza. In Iran, however, verification suddenly became an insurmountable obstacle, even as dozens of videos from multiple cities showed consistent scenes, slogans, and patterns of unrest.
When Framing Does the Regime’s Work
Reports by the BBC and analyses from BBC Verify have repeatedly emphasized “cost-of-living protests,” despite verified footage of crowds chanting for the end of clerical rule and attacking regime symbols.
Where BBC Verify has undertaken the “verification” John Simpson said was so difficult, it has drawn criticism for focusing on debunking isolated instances of AI-generated imagery — rather than acknowledging the overwhelming volume of genuine footage documenting brutality against protesters.
Genuinely shocked to see BBC Verify have chosen now to be out there giving an impression we should not believe what we are seeing in #Iran based on one image (of a real event).
Amplification of this intensely organic revolution by Israeli social media accounts is making many…
— Omid Djalili (@omid9) January 2, 2026
Sky News, Reuters, FRANCE24, and others followed a similar pattern — leading with rising prices and economic stagnation while giving little attention to the unmistakably political slogans echoing through Iranian streets.
This framing matters. Protests about inflation suggest reform. Protests calling for the removal of the Supreme Leader suggest regime collapse.
In some cases, Western coverage has gone further, adopting the regime’s preferred framing outright.
When President Donald Trump warned that the United States would respond if Iranian protesters were massacred, Iranian officials condemned the remarks as “reckless.” Several outlets, including the BBC, led with that condemnation, centering Tehran’s outrage and implicitly casting the United States, rather than the Islamic Republic, as the destabilizing force.
Last week, The Guardian even published an opinion piece by Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, under the headline: “You’ll never defeat us in Iran, President Trump: but with real talks, we can both win.”
Put simply, this was The Guardian lending its pages to the propaganda of a senior official from the very regime Iranians are risking their lives to oppose — the same Islamic Republic that beat Mahsa Amini to death for allegedly wearing her hijab incorrectly, executed protesters, imprisoned dissidents, and ruled through fear for 45 years.
1/
Western media coverage of Iran’s escalating nationwide protests has been strikingly limited and cautious – despite widespread anti-regime demands across dozens of cities.Why the reluctance, when evidence is abundant?
pic.twitter.com/PWF9hgsdI3
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) January 3, 2026
So Why Is the Media Reporting This Way?
Western journalists do not lack information about Iran. The evidence is abundant and often supplied at immense personal risk by Iranians themselves.
What appears lacking is not access, but editorial willingness.
Acknowledging an evolving anti-regime uprising would force uncomfortable conclusions: that long-standing assumptions about “stability,” “reform,” and diplomatic engagement with Tehran were misplaced; that the Islamic Republic is not merely flawed but fundamentally illegitimate; and that Western governments and institutions have spent decades accommodating a brutal regime now being openly rejected by its own people.
It is easier — safer — to frame unrest as economic grievance, to hide behind verification rhetoric, or to platform regime voices as “context.”
But if this uprising succeeds, history will not be kind to that caution. And the question will remain: When Iranians were demanding freedom, why did so much of the Western media look away?
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.