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BBC Bowen’s Insidious ‘Analysis’ of Israel’s Media Battlefield
The BBC logo is seen at the entrance at Broadcasting House, the BBC headquarters in central London. Photo by Vuk Valcic / SOPA Images/Sipa USA.
The BBC’s international editor Jeremy Bowen barely conceals his disdain for Israel these days.
This is his latest “analysis“:
Let’s break this down.
Israel’s borders with Gaza are shut. Period.
Foreign journalists were previously able to enter the Gaza Strip through the Erez Crossing, which has been closed since October 7 for obvious reasons. There is no “business as usual” for passage between Israel and Gaza for anyone, including journalists.
The international media do, however, have the ability to attempt to enter Gaza through the Rafah Crossing on the Egyptian side.
But Bowen believes that Israel is preventing foreign media from entering because “there are things they don’t want us to see and that they want to master the media battlefield.”
It is arguably not to Israel’s benefit that foreign journalists are absent from Gaza. Because Palestinian stringers and agenda-driven Arab outlets such as Al Jazeera are currently the only ones supplying all of the coverage from inside the Strip.
HonestReporting has, on numerous occasions, documented how some Palestinian media workers in the employ of foreign media are, at best, clearly invested in promoting the Palestinian narrative, and at worst, expressing antisemitic views and support for Hitler.
Despite a steady flow of damaging footage from Gaza showing injured women and children while suspiciously never showing Hamas terrorists, Bowen still believes Israel is “controlling the media.”
Such conspiratorial thinking is dangerously close to a classic antisemitic trope.
But is Israel also controlling its domestic media in the cause of ensuring its people don’t see any Palestinian suffering?
Israel’s government may wish it had some semblance of control over the country’s newspapers and TV stations, but the reality is that Israeli media is fiercely independent.
The Israeli media also unsurprisingly caters to its domestic audience. And like any country at war, the nation, including its media, rallies behind the flag.
Jeremy Bowen might point out that UK and US media were highly critical of wars conducted by their own countries such as in Iraq. But Israel’s war against Hamas isn’t being conducted in a faraway land. It’s on the home-front, and it’s mostly Israeli civilians, not foreigners, who have been murdered, raped, and kidnapped on October 7 in their own homes and on Israeli soil.
Israel is a country still traumatized by those events, and for Bowen to expect Israeli media to be broadcasting the same sympathetic content on Gaza as his own BBC or other foreign media is both unrealistic and meant to portray Israelis as somehow immune to the suffering of ordinary Palestinians.
How dare Bowen make such a judgment. Israelis are still processing and trying to come to terms with October 7 and the resulting impact on the country.
Israeli TV news is now broadcasting footage of the funerals of Israeli soldiers, many of whom were reservists who left their families and day jobs to defend their country. Many may have lost their lives because the IDF has used ground troops rather than airstrikes precisely to avoid causing Palestinian civilian casualties.
But when the war ends, most Israeli media outlets will swiftly change tack, harshly criticizing the Israeli government as they did before October 7 and perhaps even more so. And that criticism will extend to how the war was conducted, including the military tactics and whether Palestinian (as well as Israeli) casualties could have been avoided. Israeli media outlets aren’t subservient to the Israeli government or considerations of patriotism.
The time for criticism and self-reflection will come in the Israeli media. But not right now, while Israeli soldiers are risking their lives, Hamas still holds hostages, and Israeli civilians are still under attack.
Jeremy Bowen is correct: there is a media battlefield. Israel has every right to fight on that battlefield especially when foreign journalists like himself weaponize their news reports to assault the Jewish state.
The author is the Editorial Director of HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post BBC Bowen’s Insidious ‘Analysis’ of Israel’s Media Battlefield first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.