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The BBC Is Letting an Anti-Israel Journalist Report on Lebanon
Khiam, Lebanon, October 20, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Karamallah Daher
Back in July 2016, we discussed two items of BBC content — audio and written — which were produced by the Beirut-based BBC journalist Rami Ruhayem to mark the 10h anniversary of the Second Lebanon War.
As we noted at the time:
…if conflict between Israel and Hizballah did break out again, BBC audiences would obviously be seriously lacking the background information crucial to their understanding of that event because reports like these two from Rami Ruhayem fail to provide them with information concerning relevant issues such as the failure of UN SC resolution 1701 to achieve its aims, the rearming of Hizballah and its use of communities in southern Lebanon as human shields and Iran’s patronage of the terror organisation which the BBC refuses even to describe in accurate terminology.
Two and a half weeks after Hamas launched its October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel and perpetrated unprecedented atrocities, Rami Ruhayem wrote an email to the BBC Director General, Tim Davie, which opened as follows:
Dear Tim,
I am writing to raise the gravest possible concerns about the coverage of the BBC, especially on English outlets, of the current fighting between Israel and Palestinian factions.
It appears to me that information that is highly significant and relevant is either entirely missing or not being given due prominence in coverage.
This includes expert opinion that Israel’s actions could amount to genocide, evidence in support of that opinion, and historical context without which the public cannot form a basic understanding of the unfolding events.
There are also indications that the BBC is—implicitly at least—treating Israeli lives as more worthy than Palestinian lives, and reinforcing Israeli war propaganda.
As was reported at the time by the Jewish Chronicle:
A BBC correspondent has emailed staff across the corporation to argue that they should be using the terms “settler-colonialism” and “ethnic cleansing” in their coverage of Israel.
The letter, which has been shared widely with the broadcaster’s international staff, claims that the broadcaster may be “reinforcing Israeli propaganda meant to dehumanise the Palestinians” as the Jewish state commits “genocide”. […]
He wrote: “There is a lot more to be said, but these are the broad headlines. This is not about mistakes here and there, or even about systemic bias in favour of Israel. The question now is a question of complicity. It is a matter of public interest to rectify this with the utmost urgency.”
The corporation should use the terms “apartheid, ethnic cleansing and settler-colonialism” in its reporting, he added, and warned of a “flood of incitement” against Palestinians.
The theme of “complicity” also appears in Ruhayem’s pinned Tweet: a twelve-part post that he wrote just 10 days after the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians.
On May 1, 2024, Rami Ruhayem wrote a follow-up email to the BBC Director General, which included the following:
There is a growing body of evidence indicating that the BBC may have been withholding vital information from the public, contributing to incitement against Palestinians, and spreading and reinforcing Israeli war propaganda.
As was the case in both his 2016 reports, Ruhayem also mentioned the “Dahiya doctrine” in that second email:
Another crucial piece of context for our purpose is the so-called Dahiya Doctrine, an Israeli military doctrine that was articulated in the wake of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, and put into practice later in Gaza. In the words of Gadi Eisenkot, at the time head of the Israeli Northern Command and currently a member of the war cabinet:
What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. . . . We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases. . . . This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.”
A report which was published on the BBC News website’s ‘Middle East’ page on November 7, 2024, includes the following:
During the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, Israel flattened neighbourhoods in Dahieh, and two years later, revealed a military strategy drawn from that experience – what came to be known as the Dahieh Doctrine.
It was first articulated by then-Maj Gen Gadi Eizenkot in 2008 when he was head of the Israeli military’s Northern Command. This doctrine – as it came to be known – called for applying “disproportionate force” against civilian areas where Israel believes it is attacked from, with the goal of pressuring the people of Lebanon to turn on Hezbollah to undermine support for it.
‘From our perspective, these are military bases…,” he said at the time. “Harming the population is the only means of restraining [Hassan] Nasrallah,” he said, referring to the then-leader of Hezbollah. Nasrallah was killed in an air strike in Dahieh in September 2024.
Readers will probably not be surprised to learn that the report in question — headlined “What is Israel’s strategy in targeting Hezbollah’s civilian network?” — was written by Rami Ruhayem.
Ruhayem opens that report with descriptions of the pre-announced Israeli strikes conducted in October against an organisation involved in Hezbollah terror financing. As was reported by the Times of Israel at the time: [emphasis added]
Most of the strikes targeted branches of Al-Qard Al-Hassan, an unlicensed gray-market bank seen as one of the group’s main sources of cash. […]
Al-Qard al-Hassan, which is sanctioned by the US Treasury Department, has more than 30 branches across Lebanon, including 15 in densely populated parts of central Beirut and its suburbs.
In May 2021 the US Treasury Department described Al-Qard al-Hassan (AQAH – founded in the early 1980s) as Heznollah’s “financial firm,” stating:
While AQAH purports to serve the Lebanese people, in practice it illicitly moves funds through shell accounts and facilitators, exposing Lebanese financial institutions to possible sanctions. AQAH masquerades as a non-governmental organization (NGO) under the cover of a Ministry of Interior-granted NGO license, providing services characteristic of a bank in support of Hizballah while evading proper licensing and regulatory supervision. By hoarding hard currency that is desperately needed by the Lebanese economy, AQAH allows Hizballah to build its own support base and compromise the stability of the Lebanese state. AQAH has taken on a more prominent role in Hizballah’s financial infrastructure over the years, and designated Hizballah-linked entities and individuals have evaded sanctions and maintained bank accounts by re-registering them in the names of senior AQAH officials, including under the names of certain individuals being designated today.
In December 2020, AQAH was hacked and as was noted by FDD:
The hacked documents show that among the AQAH account holders are established and alleged Hezbollah money launderers and financiers with extensive business interests, especially in Africa.
Rami Ruhayem’s description of that organisation, however, tells BBC audiences that:
Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association (AQAH), a charity that offers interest-free microloans, had grown in prominence over the past decade amid US sanctions and the collapse of Lebanon’s banking sector. […]
Israel says AQAH finances Hezbollah’s military activities – a claim denied by the group, which says it has no role beyond offering small, interest-free loans to ordinary Lebanese, in line with Islamic law’s prohibition on charging interest.
Ruhayem’s journalistic curiosity clearly does not extend to finding out why AQAH’s account holders include Iranian organizations, companies and media organisations, as well as the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader.
Such investigative journalism would of course only distract from the main purpose of his article, which is to persuade BBC audiences that Hezbollah’s social system has nothing to do with its military activities and therefore any attacks on elements of that system are illegal:
From an international humanitarian law perspective, experts say AQAH is not a lawful military target regardless of Israel’s claims that it plays a role in financing Hezbollah.
“International humanitarian law does not permit attacks on the economic or financial infrastructure of an adversary, even if they indirectly sustain its military activities,” according to Ben Saul, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism.
Mr Saul said the bombing “obliterates the distinction between civilian objects and military objectives” and “opens the door to ‘total war’ against civilian populations”.
Ruhayem, of course, refrains from informing his readers that the supposedly impartial “expert” Ben Saul has a long record of anti-Israel activism, or that since February, Saul been campaigning to prevent arms exports to Israel.
Neither did Ruhayem bother to clarify that his other “expert” contributor — Amal Saad — is a long-time Hezbollah apologist.
Rami Ruhayem’s efforts to persuade BBC audiences that “Israel is targeting the civilian population that is supportive of Hezbollah” and “striking that population in areas far removed from combat” should surprise no-one. Ruhayem, after all, publicly made his partisan position perfectly clear over a year ago and has repeated it since.
What should raise questions is the fact that despite Ruhayem’s openly anti-Israel position, his BBC managers — who are supposedly committed to the provision accurate and impartial news reporting — have twice in a period of three weeks considered it appropriate to publish his claims of “parallels between Israel’s onslaught in Lebanon and its year-long military campaign in Gaza” and his promotion of the talking point that the “civilian network” of a designated terrorist organisation is uninvolved in the conflict that organisation chose to initiate.
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 The BBC Is Letting an Anti-Israel Journalist Report on Lebanon first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Imposes New Sanctions on Houthis After Redesignating Iran-Backed Rebels in Yemen as Terror Group
A Houthi fighter mans a machine gun mounted on a truck during a parade for people who attended Houthi military training as part of a mobilization campaign, in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
The United States has imposed sanctions on seven senior members of the Houthis, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday, one day after the Trump administration officially redesignated the Iran-backed rebels in Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO).
The newly sanctioned individuals smuggled military-grade items and weapon systems into Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and negotiated buying weapons from Russia, according to the Treasury Department. Abdulwali Abdoh Hasan Al-Jabri and his company, Al-Jabri General Trading and Investment Co, were also designated for recruiting Yemenis to fight in Ukraine on behalf of Russia and raised money to support Houthi military operations.
“The US government is committed to holding the Houthis accountable for acquiring weapons and weapons components from suppliers in Russia, China, and Iran to threaten Red Sea security,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
The latest sanctions came after the US State Department on Tuesday officially redesignated the Yemeni rebels as an FTO, following an executive order signed by President Donald Trump shortly after he took office.
Trump’s executive order in late January followed repeated attacks by the Houthis, also known as Ansarallah, against Israel since October 2023, including the launch of over 200 missiles and 170 attack drones.
“The Houthis’ activities threaten the security of American civilians and personnel in the Middle East, the safety of our closest regional partners, and the stability of global maritime trade,” the executive order reads.
The United States formally designates Ansarallah, commonly referred to as the Houthis, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization pic.twitter.com/jsmNw6k1ew
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 4, 2025
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar praised Washington’s redesignation of the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization in a post on X, urging for the eradication of terrorism.
“The Houthis, an Iranian proxy, unprovokedly launched hundreds of missile and drone attacks at Israeli citizens and communities, disrupted international shipping routes and upended global stability,” Sa’ar wrote.
I commend the decision by @POTUS and @SecRubio to designate the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
The Houthis, an Iranian proxy, unprovokedly launched hundreds of missile and drone attacks at Israeli citizens and communities, disrupted international shipping routes… pic.twitter.com/Oxrs8FwqoT— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) March 4, 2025
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday announced the department’s official designation, which restores sanctions that legally prevent American individuals and organizations from providing “material support” to the Yemeni terrorist group.
Trump’s order also calls for the destruction of the Houthis’ military capabilities and for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to inspect all partners and programs in Yemen to ensure funds do not reach the terrorist group.
Additionally, the US announced a reward offer of up to $15 million and possible re-location for information leading to the disruption of the Yemeni group’s financial mechanisms.
“Since 2023, the Houthis have launched hundreds of attacks against commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, as well as US service members defending freedom of navigation and our regional partners,” Rubio said in a statement. “Most recently, the Houthis spared Chinese-flagged ships while targeting American and allied vessels.”
The FTO designation makes non-citizen members and representatives of the Houthis eligible for deportation and requires any US financial institution with ties to the group to report to the Office of Foreign Assets Control in the US Treasury Department.
Since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023, the Houthis — whose slogan is “death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory to Islam” — have targeted over 100 merchant vessels in the Red Sea. They asserted that these attacks and disruption of global trade were a show of support for Palestinians in Gaza following Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In January, the group signaled it would limit its attacks in the Red Sea corridor to only Israeli-affiliated ships after a ceasefire began in the Gaza Strip but warned that broader assaults could resume if necessary. Reports have indicated that the Houthis used Iranian-supplied ballistic and cruise missiles to carry out these attacks.
In 2021, the Biden administration reversed Trump’s previous decision to designate the Houthis as an FTO, citing a desire to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Yemen.
In his statement, Rubio stated that this concern over humanitarian aid is no longer an issue, saying that the US would no longer “tolerate any country engaging with terrorist organizations like the Houthis in the name of practicing legitimate international business.”
Several countries — including Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Israel — currently designate the Houthis as terrorists.
Last month, the United Nations announced it suspended its humanitarian operations in areas controlled by Houthi rebels, after they detained dozens of UN staffers, who remain unreleased.
The Houthis have been waging an insurgency in Yemen for two decades in a bid to overthrow the Yemeni government. They have controlled a significant portion of the country’s land in the north and along the Red Sea since 2014, when they captured it in the midst of a civil war.
The post US Imposes New Sanctions on Houthis After Redesignating Iran-Backed Rebels in Yemen as Terror Group first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Barnard College President Blasts Anti-Zionist Columbia Group as Trump Sets Campus Antisemitism in Crosshairs
Pro-Hamas protesters at Columbia University on April 19, 2024. Photo: Melissa Bender via Reuters Connect
Barnard College president Laura Rosenbury has issued a scorching rebuke of the anti-Zionist campus group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), accusing it of causing $30,000 in damages during a recent protest and betraying “the goals and sanctity of higher education.”
Rosenbury — whose June 2023 ascension to Barnard’s presidency took place just months before anti-Israel activists upended higher education by staging mass, unauthorized demonstrations and other disruptive activities to express support for Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel — issued the censorious statements in an op-ed published on Monday by The Chronicle of Higher Education.
“They [CUAD] operate in the shadows, hiding behind masks and Instagram posts with Molotov cocktails aimed at Barnard buildings, antisemitic tropes about wealth, influence, and ‘Zionist billionaires,’ and calls for violence and disruption at any cost,” Rosenbury wrote, citing CUAD’s involvement in a January incident in which several of its members disrupted Columbia professor Avi Shilon’s course on modern Israeli history to spew pro-Hamas propaganda. “They claim Columbia University’s name, but the truth is, because their members wear masks, no one really knows whose interests they serve. Columbia has disavowed the group.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, CUAD stormed and occupied the Milbank Hall administrative building at Barnard College last week to protest the expulsion of two students who participated in disrupting Shilon’s course. During the demonstration, a staff member was assaulted so severely as to require hospitalization, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.
In Monday’s op-ed, Rosenbury enumerated a slew of other offenses the group allegedly committed.
“They broke into our Access Barnard offices, where first-generation, low-income, and international students come for academic and social support, food pantry access, and supplemental funding,” she continued. “They berated the dean of the college — who spent hours working in good faith to de-escalate —for simply seeking access to a bathroom. They caused $30,000 in damages to a building that houses not just the offices of the president and the dean of the college, but also multiple classrooms and the offices that seek to further diversity, equity, and inclusion at Barnard.”
She continued, “Even though all of the disruptors wore masks, we now know the identity of many of them and are continuing to identify the rest.”
The college president went on to assert her imperviousness to “enormous pressure groups,” defending her previous decision to expel the students and vowing to impose the same measure on anyone else who would “refuse to share our value of respect, inclusion, and academic excellence.”
Concluding one of the harshest commentaries on anti-Zionist demonstrations from an elite college official since Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, Rosenbury said, “Barnard had the courage to take a stand. To protect and defend higher education, others must do the same.”
Rosenbury’s op-ed came just one day before US President Donald Trump vowed to suspend federal funding to any educational institution that refuses to quell riotous demonstrations, a punitive measure which continues his administration’s pledge to crack down on campus antisemitism and the pro-Hamas activists fostering it. The administration also announced pending action against Columbia University, of which Barnard College is an affiliate while maintaining its status as a separate financial and legal entity.
“All federal funding will stop for any college, school, or university that allows illegal protests,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, the social media platform he founded in 2022. “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested.”
He continued, “No masks! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Hours earlier, a Task Force to Combat Antisemitism that the Trump administration created in January said that several federal agencies —including the departments of education and human and health service and the General Services Administration — will review over $5 billion worth of federal contracts, grants, and other financial support to Columbia University to “ensure the university is in compliance with federal regulations, including its civil rights responsibilities.”
As The Algemeiner has previously reported, Columbia University remains one of the most hostile campuses for Jews employed by or enrolled in an institution of higher education. Since Oct. 7, 2023, it has produced several indelible examples of campus antisemitism, including a student who proclaimed that Zionist Jews deserve to be murdered and are lucky he is not doing so himself, brutal gang-assaults on Jewish students, and administrative officials who, outraged at the notion that Jews organized to resist anti-Zionism, participated in a group chat in which each member took turns sharing antisemitic tropes that described Jews as privileged and grafting.
“Americans have watched in horror for more than a year now, as Jewish students have been assaulted and harassed on elite university campuses — repeatedly overrun by antisemitic students and agitators,” US Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a press release announcing the pending action. “Institutions that receive federal funds have a responsibility to protect all students from discrimination. Columbia’s apparent failure to uphold their end of this basic agreement raises very questions about the institution’s fitness to continue doing business with the United States government.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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US Holds Secret Talks With Hamas on Gaza Hostages, Source Says
Demonstrators hold signs and pictures of hostages, as relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas protest demanding the release of all hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Itai Ron
The Trump administration has been conducting secret talks with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas on the possibility of releasing US hostages being held in Gaza, two sources briefed on the conversations told Reuters.
US special envoy for hostage affairs Adam Boehler has been holding the direct talks with Hamas in recent weeks in Doha, the sources said, confirming a report by Axios.
Until recently the US had avoided direct discussions with the Islamist group. The US State Department designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997.
Such talks run counter to long-standing US policy against direct contacts with groups that Washington lists as terrorist organizations.
The previous US role in helping to secure a ceasefire and hostage release deal in the Gaza war has been dealing with Israel and Qatari and Egyptian mediators but without any known direct communications between Washington and Hamas.
The Israeli embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Boehler’s office declined to comment.
It was unclear when or how the Israeli government was informed of the talks.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did representatives for Hamas.
The sources said the talks have focused on gaining the release of American hostages still held in Gaza, but one said they also have included discussions about a broader deal to release all remaining hostages and how to reach a long-term truce.
One of the sources said the effort includes an attempt to gain the release of Edan Alexander, of Tenafly, New Jersey, believed to be the last living American hostage held by Hamas.
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff plans to return to the region in coming days to work out a way to either extend the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal or advance to the second phase, a State Department spokesperson said on Monday.
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