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BBC News Promotes False and Defamatory Lies About ‘Genocide’ and ‘War Crimes’ in Gaza
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.
As previously noted here, on November 2, the BBC News website published a filmed report titled ‘”Israel-Gaza war: Three reasons Egypt tightly controls the Rafah crossing.”
Presented by Amal Saeed of BBC Arabic in Cairo, that item does not confine itself to the topic of Egypt’s policies concerning the crossing on its border with the Gaza Strip.
The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened on Wednesday to allow a number of civilians to leave Gaza for the first time since the war began on 7 October.
The crossing has been open and shut frequently over the years. Why is it so contentious for Egypt? And where does Egypt stand in the Israel-Palestinian conflict?
The BBC’s Amal Saeed in Cairo explains.
Saeed opens with a reference to the “Israel-Gaza war,” despite the fact that Israel is not at war with Gaza, but with the proscribed terrorist organization Hamas.
The three reasons cited by Saeed for Egypt’s tight control of the Rafah border crossing are security (she mentions the ISIS “militants” in Sinai), refugees (she states that Egypt does not have the ability to accommodate large numbers of Gaza Strip residents), and the “Palestinian cause.”
Saeed later presents viewers with her version of Egypt’s “complex history with Israel and Gaza”: “This goes back to 1948 when a war started between Israel and a handful of Arab countries, including Egypt, which ended in Egypt controlling Gaza.” [emphasis added]
That portrayal clearly whitewashes the fact that the war was initiated by those Arab countries with the intention of annihilating the nascent Israeli state and that Egypt illegally occupied — rather than merely “controlled” — territory assigned by the League of Nations for the creation of a Jewish homeland. Saeed goes on:
In 1967 another war started between Israel and some Arab countries, including Egypt, ending with Israel taking over Gaza among other areas.
Once again Egypt’s role in bringing about that second war intended to annihilate Israel is whitewashed by Saeed.
After erasing the fact that Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 as well as the violent nature of Hamas’ coup against the Palestinian Authority two years later, Saeed goes on: “In 2007 Hamas took over Gaza and the situation on the border between Egypt and Hamas became more complex.”
Viewers are not given any explanation of what “more complex” means, and are told nothing about topics such as Hamas’ cooperation with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Egypt’s imprisonment of Hamas operatives, or the 2008 infiltration of the border by tens of thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
Saeed fails to make any mention whatsoever of Hamas’ October 7 infiltration of Israel and the murderous rampages that sparked the current war throughout her entire almost four-minute-long report. Neither does she refer to the terror attack perpetrated by an Egyptian policeman against Israeli tourists in Alexandria the following day, before going on to tell viewers about opinions on the Egyptian street that include “condemning what Israel did with the harsh bombardment of civilians.” [her words]
A particularly notable part of Saeed’s report refers to al Azhar Institute: “On the ground you find al Azhar, which is the highest religious institute in Egypt, called what Israel is doing in Gaza a ‘genocide’ and a ‘war crime.’ Al Azhar is widely followed by Egyptians.”
Al Azhar — which is funded both by the Egyptian government and the UAE — is also widely followed by other Sunni Muslims elsewhere in the world, as the BBC surely knows full well. It is therefore particularly significant that BBC Arabic chose to amplify that institution’s redundant allegations of “genocide”and “war crime.”
As recently reported by the INSS:
The establishment that Egypt used to present as a beacon of “religious moderation” and the standard bearer of the ideological struggle against Islamic extremism has been revealed to be a supporter of terror. Since the outbreak of the war, al-Azhar has conducted a campaign designed to foment hostility in Arab-Muslim public opinion against Israel and its supporters in the West. […]
An initial response published by al-Azhar on the day of the October 7 attack, which saw the cold blooded murder of 1,400 innocent civilians and soldiers, Israelis and foreign nationals, and Jews and Arabs, as well as the rape of women and the abduction of elderly people, men, women, and children from their homes, stated that it “salutes with absolute pride the resistance efforts of the Palestinian people.” Al-Azhar also sought to “strengthen the proud Palestinian people who have breathed spirit and faith into us and restored us to life.” […]
…on October 18 al-Azhar issued a fatwa stating that “Zionist civilians on occupied land are not [at all] worthy of the description of ‘civilians,’ but they are occupiers of the land, usurpers of rights, deviants from the way of the prophets, who attack the historical holy places of Jerusalem.” The al-Azhar ruling that there are no “innocent’ Israeli citizens in effect makes it permissible to kill them.
Nevertheless, the BBC chose to provide worldwide amplification on its website for hate speech put out by that institution.
Saeed’s report closes with a tepid portrayal of anti-Israel demonstrations in Egypt: “There were also protests in Cairo and other Egyptian cities, with people raising the Palestinian flag, wearing the Palestinian scarf and chanting ‘free Palestine, victory for Gaza, open the border.’”
Saeed did not bother to inform BBC audiences that those demonstrations also included calls for Israel’s elimination. The topic of the Egyptian president’s unusual encouragement of demonstrations — and, relatedly, the upcoming presidential election in Egypt — was not addressed in Saeed’s account.
The BBC Cairo office’s uncritical amplification of talking points that are part of a propaganda campaign run by “the highest religious institute in Egypt” and the promotion of that messaging to world-wide audiences via the BBC News website and on BBC social media channels once again raises very serious questions about how the BBC interprets terms such as “trusted journalism” and “commitment to impartiality,” which it uses in response to criticism of its reporting.
A media organization that is on the one hand squeamish about using the term terrorism in entirely appropriate circumstances — but on the other hand has no problem irresponsibly bandying about words such as “genocide” and “war crimes” (and Saeed is far from the only BBC employee to have done so) — cannot expect to win public trust.
Hadar Sela is the co-editor of CAMERA UK — an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), where a version of this article first appeared.
The post BBC News Promotes False and Defamatory Lies About ‘Genocide’ and ‘War Crimes’ in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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New Orleans Attack Puts Spotlight on Islamic State Comeback Bid
A member of the Emergency Response Division holds an Islamic State militants flag in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 10, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani/File Photo.
A US Army veteran who flew a black Islamic State flag on a truck that he rammed into New Year’s revelers in New Orleans shows how the extremist group still retains the ability to inspire violence despite suffering years of losses to a US-led military coalition.
At the height of its power from 2014-2017, the Islamic State “caliphate” imposed death and torture on communities in vast swathes of Iraq and Syria and enjoyed franchises across the Middle East.
Its then-leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, killed in 2019 by US special forces in northwestern Syria, rose from obscurity to lead the ultra-hardline group and declare himself “caliph” of all Muslims.
The caliphate collapsed in 2017 in Iraq, where it once had a base just a 30-minute drive from Baghdad, and in Syria in 2019, after a sustained military campaign by a US-led coalition.
Islamic State responded by scattering in autonomous cells, its leadership is clandestine and its overall size is hard to quantify. The U.N. estimates it at 10,000 in its heartlands.
The US-led coalition, including some 4,000 US troops in Syria and Iraq, has continued hammering the militants with airstrikes and raids that the US military says have seen hundreds of fighters and leaders killed and captured.
Yet Islamic State has managed some major operations while striving to rebuild and it continues to inspire lone wolf attacks such as the one in New Orleans which killed 14 people.
Those assaults include one by gunmen on a Russian music hall in March 2024 that killed at least 143 people, and two explosions targeting an official ceremony in the Iranian city of Kerman in January 2024 that killed nearly 100.
Despite the counterterrorism pressure, ISIS has regrouped, “repaired its media operations, and restarted external plotting,” Acting US Director for the National Counterterrorism Center Brett Holmgren warned in October.
Geopolitical factors have aided Islamic State. Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has caused widespread anger that jihadists use for recruitment. The risks to Syrian Kurds who are holding thousands of Islamic State prisoners could also create an opening for the group.
Islamic State has not claimed responsibility for the New Orleans attack or praised it on its social media sites, although its supporters have, US law enforcement agencies said.
A senior US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there had been growing concern about Islamic State increasing its recruiting efforts and resurging in Syria.
Those worries were heightened after the fall in December of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the potential for the militant group to fill the vacuum.
‘MOMENTS OF PROMISE’
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned that Islamic State will try to use this period of uncertainty to re-establish capabilities in Syria, but said the United States is determined not to let that happen.
“History shows how quickly moments of promise can descend into conflict and violence,” he said.
A U.N. team that monitors Islamic State activities reported to the U.N. Security Council in July a “risk of resurgence” of the group in the Middle East and increased concerns about the ability of its Afghanistan-based affiliate, ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), to mount attacks outside the country.
European governments viewed ISIS-K as “the greatest external terrorist threat to Europe,” it said.
“In addition to the executed attacks, the number of plots disrupted or being tracked through the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Levant, Asia, Europe, and potentially as far as North America is striking,” the team said.
Jim Jeffrey, former US ambassador to Iraq and Turkey, and Special Envoy to the Global Coalition To Defeat Islamic State, said the group has long sought to motivate lone wolf attacks like the one in New Orleans.
Its threat, however, remains efforts by ISIS-K to launch major mass casualty attacks like those seen in Moscow and Iran, and in Europe in 2015 and 2016, he said.
ISIS also has continued to focus on Africa.
This week, it said 12 Islamic State militants using booby-trapped vehicles attacked a military base on Tuesday in Somalia’s northeastern region of Puntland, killing around 22 soldiers and wounding dozens more.
It called the assault “the blow of the year. A complex attack that is first of its kind.”
Security analysts say Islamic State in Somalia has grown in strength because of an influx of foreign fighters and more revenue from extorting local businesses, becoming the group’s “nerve centre” in Africa.
‘PATH TO RADICALIZATION’
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texas native and US Army veteran who once served in Afghanistan, acted alone in the New Orleans attack, the FBI said on Thursday.
Jabbar appeared to have made recordings in which he condemned music, drugs and alcohol, restrictions that echo Islamic State’s playbook.
Investigators were looking into Jabbar’s “path to radicalization,” uncertain how he transformed from military veteran, real-estate agent and one-time employee of the major tax and consulting firm Deloitte into someone who was “100 percent inspired by ISIS,” an acronym for Islamic State.
US intelligence and homeland security officials in recent months have warned local law enforcement about the potential for foreign extremist groups, such as ISIS, to target large public gatherings, specifically with vehicle-ramming attacks, according to intelligence bulletins reviewed by Reuters.
US Central Command said in a public statement in June that Islamic State was attempting to “reconstitute following several years of decreased capability.”
CENTCOM said it based its assessment on Islamic State claims of mounting 153 attacks in Iraq and Syria in the first half of 2024, a rate which would put the group “on pace to more than double the number of attacks” claimed the year before.
H.A. Hellyer, an expert in Middle East studies and senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, said it was unlikely Islamic State would gain considerable territory again.
He said ISIS and other non-state actors continue to pose a danger, but more due to their ability to unleash “random acts of violence” than by being a territorial entity.
“Not in Syria or Iraq, but there are other places in Africa that a limited amount of territorial control might be possible for a time,” Hellyer said, “but I don’t see that as likely, not as the precursor to a serious comeback.”
The post New Orleans Attack Puts Spotlight on Islamic State Comeback Bid first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Plans $8 Billion Arms Sale to Israel, US Official Says
US President Joe Biden speaks on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in this White House handout image taken in the Oval Office in Washington, US, April 4, 2024. Photo: The White House/Handout via REUTERS
The administration of President Joe Biden has notified Congress of a proposed $8 billion arms sale to Israel, a US official said on Friday, with Washington maintaining support for its ally.
The deal would need approval from the House of Representatives and Senate committees and includes munitions for fighter jets and attack helicopters as well as artillery shells, Axios reported earlier. The package also includes small-diameter bombs and warheads, according to Axios.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Protesters have for months demanded an arms embargo against Israel, but US policy has largely remained unchanged. In August, the United States approved the sale of $20 billion in fighter jets and other military equipment to Israel.
The Biden administration says it is helping its ally defend against Iran-backed terrorist groups like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
The post US Plans $8 Billion Arms Sale to Israel, US Official Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Releases Proof-of-Life Video of Israeli Hostage Liri Albag
Illustrative. An undated picture of (from left) Liri Albag, Agam Berger, Daniella Gilboa, and Karina Ariev held hostage by Hamas in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, that was made public by their families on July 16, 2024. Photo: Hostages and Missing Families Forum
i24 News – The Palestinian terrorists of Hamas on Saturday released a video showing signs of life from Israeli hostage Liri Albag.
Albag’s family requested media not to share the video or images from it, asking journalists to respect their privacy at this moment.
Albag, 20, is a surveillance soldier stationed at the Nahal Oz base, was abducted on October 7 by Palestinian jihadists.
The post Hamas Releases Proof-of-Life Video of Israeli Hostage Liri Albag first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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