Connect with us

RSS

Peabody Awards Honor Flawed Coverage of Israel-Hamas War

John Oliver in the Nov. 12 episode of his HBO show “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” Photo: Screenshot

One of the top prizes in media broadcasting was awarded last week to recipients who should have been called out as bad examples of the industry rather than winners of one of its highest honors.

British comedian John Oliver, pro-Palestinian “journalist” Bisan Owda, and a PBS NewsHour report all won the annual Peabody Award last Thursday (May 9) for their coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

But Oliver’s winning segment in the entertainment category lacked any context or nuance, while Owda’s and PBS‘s winning pieces in the news category made a mockery of journalism.

John Oliver Falls Short

The Peabody Awards Board stated that “with its thoughtful episode about the conflict in Israel and Palestine, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver offered an important corrective to the media landscape awash in misinformation.”

But as we showed last November, Oliver’s analysis fell short in several areas: His flawed depiction of Hamas, his portrayal of Israeli actions in Gaza, and his characterization of the discourse surrounding a ceasefire.

By viewing Hamas through a Western lens, Oliver’s shallow monologue disregards critical facts and falls for terrorist propaganda.

Moreover, Oliver’s depiction of Israel’s actions in Gaza is disturbingly one-sided.

He describes Israel’s defensive war against Hamas as “the relentless bombings of civilians,” but remains silent on Hamas’ embedding of its terror infrastructure within civilian areas.

And to top it all off, Oliver calls for a ceasefire but places the onus for that entirely on the Jewish State, totally ignoring the fact that Israel has the right to defend itself against those who seek to annihilate it.

A Pro-Palestinian “Journalist”

In the news category, the prestigious Peabody went to 25-year-old Gazan Bisan Owda for her work with social media publisher AJ+, which is owned by the Al-Jazeera media network.

But Owda wasn’t even wearing a press vest to identify herself as a journalist while reporting for the Qatari-owned propaganda outlet. In fact, Owda is an influencer who has gained millions of followers on social media by documenting her life in Gaza throughout the Israel-Hamas war, with a clear pro-Palestinian agenda.

Her winning work for AJ+ includes highlights from the videos she shared with her followers as she was sheltering from Israeli bombardments at Al-Shifa Hospital. Apparently, this was enough to impress the Peabody Board. “She shows what survival looks like for her and the masses around her, drawing on her indomitable spirit to keep the world informed of the day-to-day reality on the ground in Gaza,” the judges wrote.

Yet they didn’t seem to wonder why she had only emphasized the plight of wounded Gazans without mentioning Hamas terrorists’ presence at the medical compound.

This is not the work of a journalist, but a pro-Palestinian activist.

And her bias wasn’t a secret. Last November, The Jerusalem Post exposed a post in which she had justified Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.

Apparently, the post has been removed since then but the paper included its translation from the Arabic: “For every action, there is a reaction. This means: What was expected after 75 years of occupation and 17 years of siege? … What was expected of us? … Would the families of the prisoners remain silent?”

Owda also helped distribute the terrorists’ lie blaming Israel for a deadly strike on Gaza’s Al-Ahli Hospital in mid-October, which was caused by a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket. She has not corrected or retracted her post.

And to reiterate her activism, she had no qualms repeating the slogan “Free Palestine” three times at the end of an Instagram video she posted after the announcement of her Peabody win.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by AJ+ (@ajplus)

The Mistakes of PBS

Another winner in the news category was “War in the Holy Land,” a PBS NewsHour special report that aired just six days after the deadly Hamas massacre on October 7.

The Peabody Board stated that the report “showed compassion and a sophisticated understanding of the politics of the region.”

But while relatively balanced, the report is full of mistakes and suspicious omissions.

Here are the most prominent inaccuracies:

The 1948 war is described as a result of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, with no mention that the Jewish state had to defend itself against five Arab armies that attacked it immediately afterward.
The Gaza blockade is mentioned as an Israeli policy, omitting the fact it had been also imposed by Egypt after Hamas’ 2007 takeover of the Strip.
Jewish “settlers” are described as “gathering at the [Al Aqsa] mosque for Jewish prayers,” even though Jews are not allowed to enter the mosque and Jewish prayer is officially banned in the entire compound. The accompanying footage actually shows a crowd of ultra-Orthodox Jews celebrating the Jewish festival of Sukkot, clearly not on the Temple Mount let alone inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. In addition, unless PBS were to check the addresses of any Jews visiting the area, they would not be able to ascertain whether or not they were “settlers” unless they were to buy into the extremist Palestinian position of treating all Israelis as “settlers.”

The report ends with a non-journalistic call for peace: “War moves in one direction until leaders dare to wage peace,” the host says.

She forgets to add that only a few days earlier, Hamas’ leaders dared to wage the murder, rape, and kidnapping of hundreds of innocent Israelis.

Is this report worthy of a reward or a rebuke?

Doesn’t the Peabody Board care about impartiality and fact-checking? Sadly, it seems like it values the complete opposite.

Oliver’s shallow monologue, Owda’s activism, and PBS’ News report all merit criticism, not reward.

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.

The post Peabody Awards Honor Flawed Coverage of Israel-Hamas War first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

RSS

Lebanon Claims It Is Replacing Hezbollah in the South

Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam speaks at the presidential palace on the day he meets with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, in Baabda, Lebanon, Jan. 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

JNS.orgLebanon’s leadership declared in recent days that the Lebanese Army has begun replacing Hezbollah forces in the country’s southern region.

In an April 15 interview with The New Arab, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun announced that 2025 would be the year of the Lebanese state’s monopoly on arms.

Aoun pledged that only the state would have weapons, referring to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), and stressed this goal would be achieved through direct dialogue with Hezbollah, while explicitly ruling out steps that could ignite conflict with Hezbollah.

“I told the Americans that we want to remove Hezbollah’s weapons, but we will not ignite a civil war in Lebanon,” Aoun said, referencing a meeting with US Deputy Envoy Morgan Ortagus.

Aoun added that Hezbollah members could potentially integrate individually into the LAF but rejected replicating the Iraqi model where Shi’ite, Iranian-backed paramilitary groups formed independent units within the military. He asserted the LAF was conducting missions throughout the country “without any obstruction from Hezbollah.”

Hezbollah member Mahmoud Qamat, however, responded by stating, “No one in the world will succeed in laying a hand on this weapon,” according to Lebanese media.

Hezbollah Member of Parliament Ali Fayyad stated the group was open to internal dialogue but warned against pressure on the LAF to disarm Hezbollah.

Col. (res.) Dr. Hanan Shai, a research associate at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy and a former investigator for the IDF’s commission on the 2006 Second Lebanon War, told JNS on Wednesday that statements by Lebanese officials and the activities of the Lebanese army are “unequivocally an achievement for Israel.”

But Shai warned that due “the weakness of the Lebanese army, the IDF cannot rely on it and must back it up with its own parallel defense—mainly through detailed intelligence monitoring and targeted thwarting of any violation not only in Southern Lebanon but also [deep] within it, including at sea and air ports.”

The fragility of the situation was highlighted when a LAF soldier was killed, and three others were wounded while attempting to neutralize suspected Hezbollah ordnance in the Tyre district of Southern Lebanon on April 14.

Hezbollah’s real intentions were also apparent when its supporters reportedly burned billboards celebrating Lebanon’s “new era.”

Most tellingly, the Israel Defense Forces is continuing to detect intelligence of illegal Hezbollah activity in Southern Lebanon, and acting on that intelligence. Overnight between April 15 and 16, the IDF conducted strikes against Hezbollah infrastructure in Southern Lebanon.

In one strike near Aitaroun in Southern Lebanon, an IDF aircraft killed Ali Najib Bazzi, identified by the IDF as a squad commander in Hezbollah’s Special Operations unit. Other recent IDF actions included strikes and artillery fire targeting a Hezbollah engineering vehicle near Ayta ash-Shab in Southern Lebanon.

Meanwhile, reports emerged suggesting Hezbollah was actively adapting its methods for acquiring weapons. Reports indicated a shift towards sea-based smuggling routes utilizing Beirut Port.

The Saudi Al-Hadath news site reported on April 8 that Iran’s Quds Force created an arms smuggling sea route that bypasses Syria.

Amidst these reports, Aoun visited Beirut Port on April 11, calling for strict government cargo monitoring.

Karmon expresses skepticism

Senior research scholar Ely Karmon of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University in Herzliya stated, “There’s no doubt there’s a change in Lebanon, first of all on the political level— the fact that President Joseph Aoun was elected—supported by the West, the United States, Saudi Arabia.”

In addition, he said, “Hezbollah’s political weight in parliament and in Lebanon in general has dropped significantly after the blow they received from the IDF.”

On the other hand, Karmon expressed deep skepticism about Aoun’s stated path to disarming Hezbollah. Aoun’s statement that he “isn’t interested in coming to military confrontation with Hezbollah,” and that it needs to be a “slow process,” as well as his call for Hezbollah to enter Lebanese army units, should not be taken at face value, according to Karmon.

“I don’t really believe it. First of all, because traditionally, in the Lebanese Army, most of the soldiers were Shi’ites, for a simple demographic reason. And therefore, the integration of thousands of Hezbollah fighters or personnel into the army—certainly at this stage in my opinion—it’s a danger that they’ll take control of the army from within, after they’ve already for years cooperated with the army.”

He added, “We know, for example, that they received weapons from the Lebanese Army—tanks and APCs—when they operated in Syria in 2013, 2010, and they even presented them publicly in Qusayr [in Syria]. On the other hand, we also heard one article from a Hezbollah representative who’s on their political committee, stating, ‘Absolutely not, we will not give up the weapons!’ It is clear there’ll be opposition.”

Karmon said he was skeptical about Lebanese government claims about taking over around 95 out of some 250 Hezbollah positions in Southern Lebanon. Karmon assessed that Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsors would be cautious but that they would continue to try “as usual, to act and to bring in weapons, to prepare some infrastructure in case, for example, there is a crisis in the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear issue.”

The post Lebanon Claims It Is Replacing Hezbollah in the South first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

‘Tradition, Tradition!’

An image from “Family at the Seder,” from the 1935 Haggadah by artist Arthur Szyk (b. 1894, Lodz, Poland—d. 1951, New Canaan, CT). Photo: Courtesy of Irvin Ungar

JNS.orgHow important is tradition in Judaism? Obviously, the answer is that it is very important. I mean, they even dedicated a major song by that title in “Fiddler on the Roof!”

How strong is the need for tradition in the spiritual consciousness of Jews today? Despite the effects of secularism, I’d venture to suggest that there is still a need inside us to feel connected to our roots, our heritage and our sense of belonging to the Jewish people. Perhaps more than any time of the year, Passover is the season when millions of Jews embrace their traditions with love, warmth and lots of nostalgia.

But for vast numbers of our people, tradition alone has not been enough. And that applies not only to the rebellious among us who may have cast aside their traditions with impunity, but also to many ordinary, thinking people who decided that to do something just because “that’s the way it has always been done” was simply not good enough.

So what if my grandfather did it? My grandfather rode around in a horse and buggy! Must I give up my car for a horse just because my Zaidy rode a horse? And if my Bubbie never got a university degree, why shouldn’t I? Just because my grandparents practiced certain Jewish traditions, why must I? Perhaps those traditions are as obsolete as the horse and buggy?

There are masses of Jews who think this way and who will not be convinced to behave Jewishly just because their grandparents did.

We need to tell them why their grandparents did it. They need to understand that their grandparents’ traditions were not done just for tradition’s sake, but there was a very good reason why their forbears practiced those traditions. And those very same reasons and rationales still hold good today. There is, in fact, no such thing as “empty ritual” in Judaism. Everything has a reason, and a good one, too.

Too many young people were put off by tradition because some cheder or Talmud Torah teacher didn’t take their questions seriously. They were silenced with a wave of the hand, a pinch of the ear, the classic “when you get older, you’ll understand,” or the infamously classic, “just do as you’re told.”

There are answers. There have always been answers. We may not have logical explanations for tsunamis and other tzuris, but all our traditions are founded on substance and have intelligible, credible underpinnings. If we seek answers, we will find them in abundance, including layers and layers of meaning, from the simple to the symbolic to the philosophical and even mystical.

The seventh day of Passover recalls the “Song of the Sea” sung by Moses and the Jewish people following the splitting of the sea and their miraculous deliverance from the Egyptian armies. Early on, we find the verse, “This is my God and I will glorify Him, the God of my fathers, and I will exalt Him.”

The sequence is significant. First comes “my God,” and only thereafter “the God of my fathers.” In the Amidah prayer, the silent devotion, which is the apex of our daily prayers, we begin addressing the “Almighty, as our God and the God of our fathers … Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Again, “our God” comes first. So while the God of our fathers, i.e., tradition, most definitely plays a very important role in Judaism, an indispensable prerequisite is that we must make God ours, personally. Every Jew must develop a personal relationship with God. We need to understand the reasons and the significance of our traditions lest they be mistaken for empty ritual to be discarded by the next generation.

Authentic Judaism has never shied away from questions. Questions have always been encouraged and formed a part of our academic heritage. Every page of the Talmud is filled with questions and answers. You don’t have to wait for the Passover seder to ask a question.

When we think, ask and find answers to our faith, the traditions of our grandparents become alive, and we understand fully why we should make them ours. Once a tradition has become ours and we realize that this very same practice has been observed uninterruptedly by our ancestors throughout the generations, then tradition becomes a powerful force that can inspire us forever.

The seders we celebrated at the beginning of Passover are among the most powerful in our faith. They go back to our ancestors in Egypt, where the very first seder was observed. How truly awesome is it that we are still practicing these same traditions more than 3,300 years later!

Our traditions are not empty. They are rich and meaningful and will, please God, be held on to preciously for generations to come.

With acknowledgments to Chabad.org.

The post ‘Tradition, Tradition!’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Thousands of Protesters Rally Against Trump Across US

“Protect Migrants, Protect the Planet” rally in New York City, U.S., April 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs

Thousands of protesters rallied in Washington and other cities across the US on Saturday to voice their opposition to President Donald Trump’s policies on deportations, government firings, and the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.

Outside the White House, protesters carried banners that read “Workers should have the power,” “No kingship,” “Stop arming Israel” and “Due process,” media footage showed.

Some demonstrators chanted in support of migrants whom the Trump administration has deported or has been attempting to deport while expressing solidarity with people fired by the federal government and with universities whose funding is threatened by Trump.

“As Trump and his administration mobilize the use of the US deportation machine, we are going to organize networks and systems of resistance to defend our neighbors,” a protester said in a rally at Lafayette Square near the White House.

Other protesters waved Palestinian flags while wearing keffiyeh scarves, chanting “free Palestine” and expressing solidarity with Palestinians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza.

Some demonstrators carried symbols expressing support for Ukraine and urging Washington to be more decisive in opposing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Since his January inauguration, Trump and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk, have gutted the federal government, firing over 200,000 workers and attempting to dismantle various agencies.

The administration has also detained scores of foreign students and threatened to stop federal funding to universities over diversity, equity and inclusion programs, climate initiatives and pro-Palestinian protests. Rights groups have condemned the policies.

Near the Washington Monument, banners from protesters read: “hate never made any nation great” and “equal rights for all does not mean less rights for you.”

Demonstrations were also held in New York City and Chicago, among dozens of other locations. It marked the second day of nationwide demonstrations since Trump took office.

The post Thousands of Protesters Rally Against Trump Across US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News