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Hamas Counted on Biased Western Journalism — and They Got It
CNN’s International Diplomatic Editor, Nic Robertson, recently authored an analysis (“Hamas gambled on the suffering of civilians in Gaza. Netanyahu played right into it,” Jun. 11) castigating Israelis for foolishly falling for Hamas’ tricks.
Instead, Robertson’s piece ironically illustrates the failure of CNN’s journalism. Rather than successfully depicting Israelis as fools caught in Hamas’ trap, the analysis instead exemplifies how Western journalists have become Hamas’ “useful idiots.”
The gist of Robertson’s analysis is that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has masterfully manipulated Israelis. “Netanyahu has played right into” Sinwar’s trap by waging a “brutal” war against Hamas, thus turning public opinion against Israel.
But in crafting his argument, Robertson unwittingly demonstrates how it is himself, and the media at large, that have played into Hamas’ hands. In doing so, he shows that it’s not the conduct of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) that has turned public opinion against Israel — but rather, the media’s portrayal of the IDF’s conduct.
That portrayal involves spreading propaganda and narratives crafted by Hamas, which are entirely detached from reality.
Perhaps the most glaring example of this is when Robertson declares, without qualification or attribution, that the number of Palestinians killed so far in the war is more than 36,000. This number comes straight from Hamas’ media office, and has been widely discredited, to the point that even the United Nations quietly backtracked on repeating the media office’s figures.
It is publicly known that Hamas has a cynical strategy to deliberately exploit global sympathy for civilian casualties. That is why Hamas doesn’t just engage in the most sophisticated and systematic exploitation of human shielding, but also regularly inflates the casualty figures for media consumption, which CNN falls for — hook, line, and sinker.
And CNN is known to not just uncritically repeat these propaganda figures, but to deceptively obscure the source in a transparent attempt to give the figures a false appearance of credibility. The network has repeatedly laundered these Hamas figures by falsely attributing them to the Palestinian Authority, the United Nations, and even foreign aid agencies, who themselves acknowledge they’re just using Hamas’ figures.
The network has also worked overtime to portray the IDF’s conduct in the worst light possible, omitting and obscuring important, contradictory context. It has repeatedly made a big deal about the large blast radius of Israel’s 2,000-pound bombs — in order to portray the IDF as indiscriminate — all while omitting that these bombs are intentionally detonated underground, thereby substantially reducing the blast radius.
When Robertson then goes on to write that the “devastating effectiveness” of Israeli weapons “is becoming a liability” in terms of international opinion, he’s omitting that the reason they’re controversial is because his own network has distorted how these weapons are actually being used. Worse, CNN journalists have used their platform to engage in activism in favor of an arms embargo on Israel.
But what Robertson’s analysis shows best is just how skewed the network’s overall coverage has been.
Israel is placed under a microscope in a way that Hamas and the Palestinians are not, as if this isn’t an armed conflict between two sides, but a story of “oppression,” of one side imposing its will on the other. With every new event in the conflict, CNN spills much ink casting responsibility, real or imagined, onto Israel, while the role the Palestinians played is often entirely absent.
This isn’t just an anecdotal observation. If one searches CNN articles between October 7, 2023, and March 31, 2024, for articles on the conflict, the data bears out this disparity.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is mentioned 9-times as often as Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and an obscene 31-times as often as both Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh.
As with CNN’s overall coverage of the conflict, Robertson also avoids truly tangling with the actions and agency of Palestinians, in order to cast responsibility solely on the Jewish state. His analysis was prompted by a Wall Street Journal report about several messages sent by Yahya Sinwar in which the terrorist leader made clear the organization sees Gazan civilians not as subjects to be protected, but as pawns to be sacrificed. The goal: to elicit international outrage and pressure against Israel.
Sinwar knows that trying to use Gaza civilian casualties for Hamas’ benefit will work because media figures like Robertson can’t, or won’t, entertain the moral and legal distinction between a military that does its best to avoid civilian casualties, and the terrorist organization that deliberately exploits the civilians as cannon fodder to feed to Western cable news audiences. (Of course, Hamas — which controls Gaza — also directly targets women and children, and states that its goal is to eradicate all of Israel).
Yet instead of taking this opportunity to give CNN’s audience a straightforward explanation of how Palestinian terrorists have intentionally and cynically exacerbated the war’s effect on civilians, Robertson turns the story on its head and instead makes it once again about Israeli actions. Think about that. A Hamas leader admitted to deliberately engaging in war crimes as a matter of strategy, and CNN’s Robertson still made it instead about Israel being bad.
The refusal to seriously consider Palestinian agency is how we end up with a headline like “Hamas gambled on the suffering of civilians in Gaza. Netanyahu played right into it.”
It might as well read: “Hamas put civilians in harms way. Here’s why harm to civilians is still Netanyahu’s fault.”
Sinwar couldn’t have asked for a more useful journalist.
In a similar vein, Robertson also repeats the “you can’t kill an ideology” argument, a yawn-inducing platitude associated with Western armchair strategists sitting thousands of miles away on the other side of an ocean from any real threat. Strangely, while the international coalition didn’t kill the Islamic State’s ideology, no one seems to talk about the threat from that organization much since its “caliphate” was obliterated and its military power degraded into insignificance.
You can’t kill an ideology, but you can kill its ability to wreak havoc and commit wide-scale atrocities, even if western media analysts seem intent on advocating for the preservation of terroristic military power.
Furthermore, a recent opinion poll showed that while West Bank Palestinians still support Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre at a rate of 73%, Gazans only support it by 57%. So maybe the war has undermined Hamas’ support in Gaza (or at least support for terrorism).
This is all, of course, to say nothing of the typical inaccuracies and spin found in CNN articles. Robertson claims, for example: “Earlier this year, university campuses across the United States and Europe combusted in spontaneous protest over the toll of Israel’s war on civilians in Gaza…”
This isn’t “Israel’s war,” the war is not “on civilians in Gaza” (at best, atrocious writing), the protests did not start “earlier this year,” they were not “spontaneous,” and they were not “over the toll of Israel’s war.”
Israel was attacked — it is Hamas’ war. The pro-Hamas demonstrations were already being organized on October 7, before Hamas had even finished butchering its way through southern Israel and before Israel even had a chance to begin any organized campaign in Gaza. Within hours of the attack, malicious anti-Israel organizations were already sending out “toolkits” not just glorifying the terrorist massacre, but also giving instructions to the demonstrators.
Robertson also claims that Ireland, Spain, Norway, and Portugal recognized “Palestine” because they are “frustrated Netanyahu won’t agree to a peace deal,” suggesting the problem is “Israeli intransigence.” It’s an astonishing inversion of reality, given that it was Palestinian leadership that has repeatedly said no to offers on the table since even before the State of Israel was born, including three major offers in the 2000s.
But why get into the history of Palestinian rejectionism when CNN can instead just blame some unspecified “Israeli intransigence” for the lack of a Palestinian state that the Palestinians keep saying no to?
And why tell the truth when the network can get away with a bald-faced lie like, “None of this means Sinwar will be winning a popular vote in Gaza during his lifetime…?” Except Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist organization, did win the popular vote in Gaza in 2006, and the pro-Hamas sentiment hasn’t changed. Palestinian surveys consistently show that Palestinians widely approve of Hamas’s October 7 massacre and that a large majority (61%) prefer Hamas in control of Gaza over Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Of course, misleading audiences about polling data, and even outright fabricating polling data to avoid acknowledging Palestinian responsibility for the conflict, is a regular occurrence at the network.
Robertson is free to armchair strategize from his comfortable perch in the United States, where he need not fear multiple terrorist armies just a few hundred yards from his family. But before accusing others of playing into Hamas’ game, it would be wise of Robertson, and indeed the entire CNN network, to consider the wind they’ve blown beneath Hamas’ wings with their slanted, inaccurate, and lazy coverage.
David M. Litman is a Research Analyst at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA).
The post Hamas Counted on Biased Western Journalism — and They Got It first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria to Give UN Watchdog Inspectors Access to Suspected Former Nuclear Sites as New Regime Seeks Sanctions Relief
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi speaks to the media, in Tehran, Iran, April 17, 2025. Photo: Iranian Atomic Organization/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Syria’s new government has agreed to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog — with immediate access to former nuclear sites, signaling a move to restore international trust as it hopes to have international sanctions lifted.
On Wednesday, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi told the Associated Press that Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa has shown a “very positive disposition to talk to us and allow us to carry out the activities we need to.”
After meeting with Sharaa in Damascus, he expressed hope that the inspection process would be completed within the coming months.
The IAEA’s goal is “to bring total clarity over certain activities that took place in the past that were, in the judgment of the agency, probably related to nuclear weapons,” Grossi said.
He also noted that Syria’s new leadership is “committed to opening up to the world, to international cooperation.”
Last year, the IAEA conducted inspections at several sites of interest in Damascus while former President Bashar al-Assad was still in power.
Under Assad’s rule, the country was believed to have operated a secret nuclear program, which included an undeclared nuclear reactor built by North Korea in Deir el-Zour province, in eastern Syria — a fact that was revealed after Israel destroyed the facility in a 2007 airstrike.
Since the collapse of Assad’s regime in December, the IAEA has been looking to regain access to sites associated with the country’s nuclear program.
In addition to conducting inspections, Grossi said the agency is prepared to provide Syria’s new government with equipment for nuclear medicine and to help rebuild the country’s radiotherapy and oncology infrastructure.
“And the president has expressed to me that he’s interested in exploring, in the future, nuclear energy as well,” Grossi said.
Last month, US President Donald Trump announced the lifting of sanctions on Syria — a major policy shift that aligns with the European Union’s efforts to support the country’s recovery and political transition.
As Sharaa focuses on rebuilding Syria after years of conflict, the lifting of Western sanctions that isolated the country from the global financial system is expected to boost its weakened economy by paving the way for greater humanitarian aid, foreign investment, and international trade.
Earlier this year, Sharaa became Syria’s transitional president after leading the rebel campaign that ousted Assad, whose Iran-backed rule had strained ties with the Arab world during the nearly 14-year Syrian war.
The offensive that led to the fall of the Assad regime was spearheaded by Sharaa’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, a former al-Qaeda affiliate.
Since then, Sharaa has repeatedly pledged to unify Syria’s armed forces and restore stability after years of civil war. However, the new government continues to face major hurdles in convincing the international community of its commitment to peace.
Incidents of sectarian violence — including the mass killing of pro-Assad Alawites in March — have deepened fears among minority groups about the rise of Islamist factions and drawn condemnation from global powers currently engaged in discussions on sanctions relief and humanitarian aid.
The post Syria to Give UN Watchdog Inspectors Access to Suspected Former Nuclear Sites as New Regime Seeks Sanctions Relief first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Barcelona’s Primavera Sound Music Festival Showcases Tunnel Installation That Simulates Gaza Bombings
An outside view of the “Unsilence Gaza” installation at the 2025 Primavera Sound music festival. Photo: Screenshot
A reproduction of a tunnel that simulates the sound of bombings in the Gaza Strip is being showcased this year at Barcelona’s annual Primavera Sound music festival, which opened on Wednesday.
The unique installation, titled “Unsilence Gaza,” allows visitors to walk through a dark tunnel-like path where they hear noises of explosions as well as dramatic, ominous music. At the end of the tunnel, there is a wall with a message that says in English, Spanish, and Catalan: “Silence isn’t the opposite of the sound of bombs, it allows them to happen.” The outside of the installation features the message: “When everything blows up, don’t hide in the silence.”
The installation makes no mention of the Gaza-based Hamas terrorist organization that started the ongoing war with Israel after it orchestrated the deadly, mass terror attack across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
UNSILENCE GAZA #PrimaveraSound2025 Instalación de 15 metros de túnel que simula el ruido de un bombardeo a Gaza en el festival de #primaverasound de #barcelona pic.twitter.com/L7XnpF06u1
— Barcelona.lives (@BarcelonaLives) June 4, 2025
The installation was designed by Palestinian sound engineer Oussama Rima and is located by the main entrance of the annual music festival, held at the Parc del Fòrum. T-shirts and sweatshirts with the words “Unsilence Gaza” are also being sold at the festival and proceeds from the sales will be donated to the Palestinian Medical Relief Society to support emergency medical aid.
The Primavera Sound Foundation said on its website that the installation aims to remind people about the power of sound and how, especially in Gaza, it is associated with pain, fear, “torture and trauma.”
“We have normalized seeing war, but not listening to it,” the foundation said. “We live in a world saturated with violent images. Hypervisibility has anaesthetised us: we see, but we do not react. Sound, on the other hand, can still move us. At Primavera Sound, sound is emotion, connection, pleasure. But sound can also be the opposite: it can become a weapon. With this installation, we want to remind you that in Gaza and other parts of the world, sound is pain. It is fear. It is torture and trauma.”
In its statement, the foundation made no mention of Hamas or Israel. Instead, it talked about “genocide,” increased military spending, “warmongering rhetoric and attempts to criminalize and silence voices that defend peace.” The installation was conceptualized by the non-profit organizations Casa Nostra, Casa Vostra and the International Institute for Nonviolent Action (NOVACT), with support from the Primavera Sound Foundation.
More than 150 artists will perform at the Primavera Sound music festival this year including Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, Troye Sivan, Chappell Roan, FKA Twigs, HAIM, Fontaines D.C., IDLES and Magdalena Bay.
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Sephardic Jewish Film Festival in NYC to Feature Array of Movies Celebrating Culture, Tradition, History
A promotional image for the film “Giado: Holocaust in the Desert” being screened at the 2025 New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival. Photo: Provided
The New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival (NYSJFF), also known as the Sephardic Film Festival, returns to New York on Sunday for a week-long celebration of films that spotlight the traditions, cultures, and histories of Sephardic Jews.
This year’s festival will features documentaries, feature films, and shorts that highlight stories set in Israel, Morocco, France, Turkey, and more. It kicks off on Sunday night with a Pomegranate Awards ceremony, whose honorees will include French-born Israeli singer Yael Naim, Iranian-American writer Roya Hakakian, and French-Tunisian actor and screenwriter Michel Boujenah. Acclaimed Brazilian Jewish singer-songwriter Fortuna will receive the ASF Pomegranate Lifetime Achievement Award for Preservation of Sephardic Culture. Fortuna will also perform at the opening night ceremony with Trio Mediterraneo and special guest Frank London, a Grammy-winning trumpeter and co-founder of The Klezmatics.
NYSJFF is organized by the American Sephardic Federation.
A documentary about Naim will make its world premiere at the film festival on Monday and the screening will be followed by a Q&A with Naim and the film’s director, Jill Coulon. Also screening on Monday is the 1985 French comedy “Three Men and a Cradle” starring Boujenah, who will participate in a Q&A after the screening. Boujenah won the coveted César Award for best supporting actor for his role in the film, which is about three adult friends who are enjoying their single life until they get stuck taking care of a baby.
The Sephardic Film Festival will additionally feature the North American premiere of the films “The Last Righteous Man (Baba Sali)” and “Jinxed.” The latter is a Hebrew-language comedy, directed by Hanan Savyon and Guy Amir, about two repairmen who go to fix a television and instead find a dead body in a client’s apartment. They are then mistaken for murder suspects and get mixed up with the mafia and police investigations, as bad luck follows them around.
The Sephardic Film Festival will also host the New York premieres of “Matchmaking 2,” “Neuilly-Poissy” and “The 90s – The Revelry — Hillula,” which was a box office hit in Israel.
The film festival line-up includes “Over My Dead Body,” which explores Persian-American Jewish traditions; a documentary short about efforts to preserve the Ladino language spoken by Sephardic Jews; and a film that highlights the first-hand testimony of Yosef Dadosh who, at the age of 20, was one of 3,000 Libyan Jews deported by the Italians to the Giado concentration camp during the Holocaust.
This year, the Sephardic Film Festival is part of a new, larger cultural festival called Festival Sefarad, which will be a citywide celebration of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish communities. Festival Sefarad will include film screening, musical performances, workshops, book talks, and Shabbat dinners throughout the month of June. The festival is organized by the American Sephardic Federation with support from the UJA-Federation of New York.
“Our inspiration to expand the 27th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival into the first-ever Festival Sefarad is the acute need, in the face of so much adversity and antisemitism, to create communal, intellectual, and cultural events that bring all Jews together,” Jason Guberman, executive director of the American Sephardi Federation, said in a statement. “With the support of the UJA-Federation of NY and 50 organizations throughout Brooklyn, Manhattan, Long Island, and Queens, the ASF is hosting over 40 events that showcase the dynamism, resilience, and joy of the Greater Sephardic world for Jews of all backgrounds and friends.”
The 27th New York Sephardic Jewish Film festival runs from June 8-June 15. The festival concludes with a live concert by legendary artist Enrico Macias. Tickets for the film festival are available online. The annual festival, which started in 1990, has previously screened films from Morocco, India, Yemen, Kurdistan, and more.
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