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Can the BBC Ever Be Trusted Again After Israel-Hamas War?
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.
In summarizing its mission as the publicly-funded broadcaster in the United Kingdom, the BBC states it must “provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them.”
This involves — the corporation promises — providing accurate and impartial news, current affairs and factual programming that conforms to the highest editorial standards.
The commitment to impartiality is — or should be — what sets the BBC apart from other media organizations that nail their political colors to their mast.
While the BBC has staunchly defended itself against criticism that it has a deep-seated bias against Israel, its critics have pointed to many examples over the years of the broadcaster’s journalists brazenly breaking the corporation’s impartiality guidelines.
But the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7 has seen criticism of the BBC reach a climax amid accusations of an abject failure by the organization to report on the Israel-Hamas war fairly, accurately, and transparently.
Spreading Misinformation
There is an irony in the BBC’s publishing a piece one week after Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel that asked: “Who’s behind Israel-Gaza disinformation and hate online?”
The article, by the corporation’s so-called “disinformation and social media correspondent” Marianna Spring, reported how social media was “awash with false claims, conspiracy theories and hateful content surrounding what’s happening in Israel and Gaza.”
This, Spring warned, was resulting in successful attempts to distort and confuse the online conversation, which “can have serious implications for the international community when it comes to investigating allegations of war crimes, providing aid and figuring out what’s happening where.”
Yet, the BBC itself has been guilty of spreading distortions and false claims about the Israel-Hamas war online.
One of the most damaging was undoubtedly the corporation’s reporting on the Al-Ahli Hospital explosion in Gaza, which saw the BBC print unverified (and later debunked) claims by Hamas-linked officials that hundreds of Palestinians had been killed in an Israeli airstrike at the hospital.
Even as Israel said it was investigating the blast and as facts were still emerging, the corporation doubled down on its misinformation when BBC correspondent Jon Donnison announced live on air that he thought it was most likely that Israel was to blame.
And when conclusive evidence emerged that a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket was responsible, the BBC still sought to defend its coverage on the basis that while it made a mistake, it was a “fast-moving story,” where there were “claims and counter-claims” and where its journalists were “reporting in difficult and dangerous conditions.”
.@BBCNews likes to tell us that Israeli videos “cannot be verified.” But they’ve got no problem broadcasting footage featuring a Palestinian who has appeared in multiple videos playing different characters, including one where he fakes his own death. https://t.co/BaGMchjUxn
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 3, 2023
The Obsession With Balance
Balance is important when it comes to the news: outlets have a duty to report both sides of the story.
However, the BBC has been accused of having a fetish with its attempts at balance in its reports on the current war.
But giving equal weighting to claims made by an internationally recognized terrorist group to those of a democratic state such as Israel is simply absurd.
The absurdity of this was perfectly encapsulated in the BBC’s refusal to call Hamas what it actually is — a terrorist organization.
The BBC’s world affairs editor, John Simpson, even defended the decision not to call Hamas terrorists because, “terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. It’s simply not the BBC’s job to tell people who to support and who to condemn — who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.”
While the corporation eventually walked back from its insistence that it would refer to terrorists as “militants” following a considerable backlash — announcing that in future coverage it would make clear that Hamas is a UK-proscribed terrorist organization — the fact that the BBC couldn’t decide who was the good guy and the bad guy between Israel and Hamas speaks volumes.
Another example of the BBC trying to offer “two sides” in a report where none exists was during the IDF’s raid on Al-Shifa Hospital, which for many years has been used as a Hamas command center.
The IDF clearly states it is bringing medical teams & Arabic speakers into Al-Shifa Hospital to help patients.@BBCNews reinterprets it to libel the IDF as *targeting* medical teams & Arabic speakers.
Just how much lower can the BBC go? https://t.co/I9kVy3MC87
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 15, 2023
When the IDF provided real-time evidence of how Hamas had embedded itself within the hospital, the BBC seemed to work overtime to try and undermine and discredit as much of the IDF’s proof as possible.
In one the many instances of its disturbing tendency to give weight to the claims of a bloodthirsty terror group, the BBC’s international editor, Jeremy Bowen, suggested that the caches of weaponry uncovered by Israeli soldiers inside Al-Shifa may have belonged to the hospital security team.
Utterly incredible. @BowenBBC trying to “normalize” the presence of weapons in a Gaza hospital. Anything to avoid acknowledging that Hamas could be using Al Shifa for nefarious means.
Keep going, Jeremy. Maybe you’ll end up on Israel’s favorite satirical comedy show next week. https://t.co/jN3kZ40rPc
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 17, 2023
The BBC is also facing what appears to be growing anger from within its own ranks at how the corporation is covering the Israel-Hamas war.
HonestReporting recently revealed that the head of the BBC’s Global Service, Liliane Landor, was forced to address allegations from reporters based in the Middle East that the corporation is biased in favor of Israel.
Yet, rather than robustly challenge staff who threatened to walk out in protest, Landor reportedly promised to set up a special team to handle staff complaints and receive opinions on rectifying harm caused by the alleged pro-Israel bias.
Meanwhile, bosses at the BBC’s London HQ denied permission for journalists to attend a massive march against antisemitism using guidelines that prevent employees from attending demonstrations deemed “controversial.” This despite the BBC having a policy that allows staff to demonstrate in “opposition to racism [which] is a fundamental democratic principle.”
As mentioned, allegations of an anti-Israel bias have dogged the BBC for years.
But the barrage of criticism aimed at the BBC over its coverage of the current Israel-Hamas war has shown that the corporation cannot continue burying its head in the sand where this issue is concerned.
The BBC will lose all credibility if it does not.
The post Can the BBC Ever Be Trusted Again After Israel-Hamas War? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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German Intelligence Labels BDS ‘Hostile to Constitution’ Amid Alarming Rise in Antisemitism in Berlin

Anti-Israel demonstration supporting the BDS movement, Paris France, June 8, 2024. Photo: Claire Serie / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect
A German intelligence service has condemned the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel as “hostile to the constitution” as a newly released report highlighted a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents across the capital city of Berlin.
On Tuesday, the Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution — the agency responsible for monitoring extremist groups and reporting to the German Interior Ministry — released its annual report on threats to Germany’s democratic system and national security.
For the first time, Berlin’s BDS chapter was designated a “proven extremist endeavor hostile to the constitution.” According to the report, the campaign’s “anti-constitutional ideology, which denies Israel’s right to exist,” plays a central role within the city’s anti-Israel movement.
Der Berliner #Verfassungsschutzbericht (VS-Bericht) 2024 zeigt einen Anstieg extremistischer Bedrohungen – von islamistischen Gruppen über rechtsextreme Jugendkulturen bis hin zur israelfeindlichen Boycottbewegung #BDSBerlin, die erstmals als verfassungsfeindliche Bestrebung… pic.twitter.com/6PknYKrBcr
— Senatsverwaltung für Inneres und Sport (@Innensenatorin) May 20, 2025
The study said that BDS supporters in Berlin glorified the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which approximately 1,200 people were murdered and 251 taken hostages, portraying it as a “liberation struggle against settler colonialism” or an escape from the “open-air prison” of Gaza.
The report also found that multiple BDS protests across the city featured signs with stereotypical antisemitic imagery, fueling anti-Jewish hatred and even calling for the destruction of the Jewish state.
In 2019, Germany became the first European country to officially declare the BDS movement as antisemitic.
Last year, Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency, classified BDS as a “suspected extremist case.” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser issued a report by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), which found that the movement has links to “secular Palestinian extremism.” The intelligence agency also said there were “sufficiently strong factual indications” that BDS “violates the idea of international understanding” by challenging Israel’s right to exist.
BDS seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination. Leaders of the movement have repeatedly stated their goal is to destroy the world’s only Jewish state.
This week, the country’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS) released its annual report documenting antisemitic incidents in Berlin 2024, revealing an alarming increase in anti-Jewish hatred.
RIAS recorded 2,521 antisemitic incidents in Berlin last year, marking a staggering 98.5 percent increase over 2023 in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.
According to the study, anti-Jewish hate crimes averaged 210 per month in 2024 — around seven per day — with nearly 44 percent directly linked to the Oct. 7 attacks and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war.
There has also been a sharp rise in attacks against individuals, reaching the highest levels since RIAS began documenting such incidents — often triggered by visible Jewish symbols or the use of Hebrew in public spaces.
In Berlin, public demonstrations have become one of the most visible manifestations of antisemitism. The study argues that these protests go beyond political expression, serving instead as platforms for antisemitic rhetoric, the glorification of terrorism, and acts of violence.
RIAS has documented a significant rise in open calls for violence, Holocaust trivialization, and the justification of Hamas terror attacks permeating mainstream discourse and public spaces, both online and offline.
According to the report, anti-Israel activism was the leading identifiable background for antisemitic incidents for the second consecutive year, with classic antisemitic stereotypes being redirected toward Israel and the term “Zionist” used as a coded way to reintroduce long-standing antisemitic tropes under the guise of legitimate political criticism.
The post German Intelligence Labels BDS ‘Hostile to Constitution’ Amid Alarming Rise in Antisemitism in Berlin first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Antisemitism in K-12 Private Schools a Major Challenge Across the US, New ADL Report Finds

Pro-Hamas activists calling themselves the United Front for Liberation lead march through Valley Plaza Mall. The ‘Ceasefire’ rally began at Wilson Park in Bakersfield, California, on Dec. 16, 2023. Photo: Jacob Lee Green via REUTERS CONNECT
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has launched a new initiative to reduce antisemitism in K-12 schools, a growing problem that has, since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, prompted a slew of lawsuits and federal civil rights complaints.
Announced on Wednesday, the effort has its roots in new ADL research — produced by its Ratings & Assessment Institute and the Center to Combat Antisemitism in Education — showing a surge of antisemitic incidents on K-12 campuses in recent years. As mentioned in the organization’s annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, 1,162 such incidents occurred in 2023 and 860 occurred in 2024. Since 2020, antisemitic outrages at K-12 schools have increased by 434 percent.
As parts of its research, the ADL conducted surveys and focus groups to get a better sense of the problem in K-12 private/independent schools, which are the main focus of the civil rights group’s new initiative because they “operate outside of the direct oversight of public education systems, meaning they typically have greater autonomy in shaping their curricula, policies, and disciplinary procedures, which can lead to inconsistent responses to antisemitism.”
Among surveyed school parents, 25.2 percent said their children had experienced or witnessed antisemitic symbols in school since Oct. 7, 2023, according to the ADL’s newly unveiled findings. Perhaps more striking, 45.3 percent of surveyed parents reported that their children had experienced or witnessed some form of antisemitism since the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, and 31.7 percent said their children had “experienced or witnessed problematic school curricula or classroom content related to Jews or Israel.”
Parents are displeased with schools’ handling of the issue, the ADL said. Focus groups told its experts that schools decline to denounce antisemitism or resort to denying altogether that it is fostering a negative learning environment which causes student discomfort and precipitous declines in academic performance. In a poll, over a third of parents have said their local school’s response “was either somewhat or very inadequate.”
Moreover, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, which were purportedly meant to improve race relations, abstain from recognizing antisemitism as a form of hatred meriting a focused response from administrators. The Algemeiner has previously reported that many of those programs also ignore antisemitism because they actively contribute to spreading it. Due to this, schools lack authority figures who understand antisemitism, its subtle and overt variations, leaving Jewish students with no recourse when they become victims of hate.
The ADL said on Wednesday that it will address K-12 antisemitism by expanding its offering of “parent advocacy resources,” which include forging networks of advocacy the ADL calls Jewish Leaders in Schools (JLS), counseling parents on methods for combating antisemitism in their home districts, and even providing them free legal counsel through the K-12 Antisemitism Legal Line.
“These independent schools are failing to support Jewish families. By tolerating — or in some cases, propagating — antisemitism in their classrooms, too many independent schools in cities across the country are sending a message that Jewish students are not welcome. It’s wrong. It’s hateful. And it must stop,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “ADL is partnering with parents to demand change.”
ADL vice president of advocacy, Shira Goodman, added: “School administrators and faculty have a duty to ensure safe, inclusive environments for all. ADL will fully invest in bolstering the families who are demanding that their schools meet this obligation.”
Antisemitism in K-12 schools is receiving increased attention, notably in California, after years of falling under the radar.
In April, a civil rights complaint filed by StandWithUs and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition alleged that the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) in California allows Jewish students to be subjected to unconscionable levels of antisemitic bullying in and outside of the classroom.
The 27-page complaint, filed with the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), describes a slew of incidents that allegedly fostered a hostile environment for Jewish students after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel set off a wave of anti-Jewish hatred across the US. SCUSD students, it says, graffitied antisemitic hate speech in the bathrooms, vandalized Jewish-themed posters displayed in schools, and distributed stickers which said, “F—k Zionism.” All the while, district officials enabled the behavior by refusing to investigate it and blaming victims who came forward to report their experiences, according to the complaint.
“SCUSD has allowed an egregiously hostile environment to fester for its Jewish and Israeli students in violation of its federal obligations and ethnical responsibility to create a safe educational space for all students,” Jenna Statfeld Harris, senior counsel and K-12 specialist at StandWithUs Saidoff Legal, said in a statement at the time. “SCUSD leadership repeatedly disregards the rights of their Jewish and Israeli students. We implore the Office for Civil Rights to step in and uphold the right of these students to an inclusive education free from hostility toward their protected identity.”
In March, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed a civil rights complaint which recounted the experience of a 12-year-old Jewish girl who was allegedly assaulted on grounds of the Etiwanda School District in San Bernardino California — being beaten with a stick — told to “shut your Jewish ass up,” and teased with jokes about Hitler. According to the court filings, one student admitted that the behavior was motivated by the victim’s being Jewish. Despite receiving several complaints about the treatment, a substantial amount of which occurred in the classroom, school officials allegedly declined to punish her tormentors.
“While an increasing number of schools recognize that their Jewish students are being targeted both for their religious beliefs and due to their ancestral connection to Israel, and are taking necessary steps to address both classic and contemporary forms of antisemitism, some shamefully continue to turn a blind eye,” Brandeis Center founder and chairman Kenneth Marcus said in a statement at the time of the filing.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Antisemitism in K-12 Private Schools a Major Challenge Across the US, New ADL Report Finds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jordanian School Textbooks Still Promote Antisemitism Even as State Maintains Peace With Israel, Study Finds

King Abdullah II of Jordan attends an official welcoming ceremony at the Monument to the Unknown Soldier in Sofia, Bulgaria, on April 3, 2025. Photo: STR/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
Jordan’s textbooks in schools continue to promote antisemitic ideas and justify violence against Israel, including the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, according to a new report.
The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), an international research group which analyzes schoolbooks and curricula around the world, released a new study this week revealing the extent to which hateful beliefs against Jews and other groups have penetrated the Jordanian educational system.
Applying the analytic standards of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), IMPACT-se reviewed 294 textbooks used in Jordan during the 2023-2025 school years spanning such subjects as Islamic education, Arabic, social studies, civics, history, and geography.
“The Jordanian curriculum continues to fall short of UNESCO-derived standards of peace and tolerance in education,” the report states. “While some content promotes general concepts of tolerance and moderation often citing the Amman Message (a statement calling for tolerance and unity in the Muslim world) and highlighting Christian-Muslim harmony — the curriculum continues to proliferate anti-Jewish narratives and justify violence against Israel.”
The report’s findings are “disappointing” given Jordan’s role as a Western ally that has maintained a peace treaty with Israel since 1994, according to IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff.
“It is therefore particularly disappointing and concerning that Jordan’s curriculum includes some of the oldest antisemitic tropes, glorifies martyrdom, and portrays Israel with such hostility,” Sheff said in a statement to multiple news outlets. “Oct. 7 was the most brutal attack against Jews since the Holocaust, yet it is described in textbooks as legitimate resistance.”
The report describes one textbook for students as downplaying the Oct. 7 onslaught, in which Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during their invasion of southern Israel, and labeling those taken captive as “settlers” living in “Israeli colonies which surround the Gaza Strip,” thus offering justification for their captivity, torture, and murders.
While the Jordanian curriculum emphasizes religious moderation, tolerance and peacemaking, “these values are generally not applied to Jews or Israel, either historically or in the present day,” according to Impact-se. Instead, the textbooks generally cast Jews in a negative light, “particularly in the context of early Islamic history, using antisemitic messages that depict lying, treachery, deceitfulness, and hostility as ‘natural qualities’ and inherent ‘traits of the Jews.’”
Antisemitic ideas about Jewish involvement in the economy also predominate. The report notes that textbooks accuse Jews of “exploitation” and usury, and the religious curriculum accuses Jews of acting on behalf of Satan and fomenting conflicts between Muslims. The books also deny Jewish connections to Israel and dispute the facts underlying Jewish religious beliefs.
The textbooks embrace silence when it comes to the Holocaust. A lesson on World War II reportedly “ignores the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities, and excuses actions of Nazi Germany.”
This animosity toward Jews juxtaposes with more positive depictions of Christians who are characterized as “an integral part of the Jordanian social fabric” while “other religious groups are rarely represented.”
Israel’s history comes in for demonization and distortion in Jordanian schools. The texts analyzed characterize the Jewish state as illegitimate, racist, colonialist, and expansionist while Arab peace deals with Israel are cast as begrudging concessions rather than genuine bridgebuilding. Poetry taught in the classroom celebrates violence and expelling Israelis. Interpretations of the Islamic doctrine of Jihad emphasize violent interpretations and martyrdom.
The curriculum also casts LGBTQ individuals as threats, according to Impact-se’s report. One book describes homosexuality and “homosexual propaganda” as a threat to humanity while another condemns those who “imitate” the other gender. Women generally receive respectful portrayals, though some religious textbooks contain stereotypes of wives submitting to their husbands and deferring to their decisions.
“The Jordanian curriculum persistently falls short of UNESCO-derived standards of peace and tolerance in education. While certain content promotes broad principles of tolerance and moderation, it continues to reinforce anti-Jewish narratives and legitimize violence against Israel,” the report states in its main findings. “Recent textbook revisions have not only failed to rectify these issues but, in some cases, have exacerbated them by incorporating even more extreme antisemitic tropes, homophobic rhetoric, and a heightened hostility toward the peace treaty with Israel.”
On April 23, Jordan banned the Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood and confiscated its assets, a response to the arrest of 16 members after determining its involvement in a foiled terrorist plot linked to Iran. The banning makes it a criminal offense to promote the Brotherhood’s Islamist imperialist ideology or to publish its books. Political analyst Mohammed Khair Rawashdeh described the move as “a final divorce between the state and the Brotherhood after decades of fluctuating between co-opting them and merely tolerating their presence.”
In August 2024, a “high-ranking” Jordanian source told Israel’s Channel 12 that the Hashemite Kingdom had agreed to allow the Jewish state the use of its airspace to repel attacks from the Islamic regime in Iran.
The post Jordanian School Textbooks Still Promote Antisemitism Even as State Maintains Peace With Israel, Study Finds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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