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The Media Hides the Murders and Crimes of Palestinian ‘Prisoners’ Released in Hostage Swap
A man looks at pictures and memorabilia related to fallen soldiers, hostages, and people killed during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, ahead of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, at a public square in Tel Aviv, Israel, Jan. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Shir Torem
On January 20, the BBC News website published a filmed report on its Middle East page, under the headline “Moment freed Palestinian prisoners reunite with family and friends”:
Ninety Palestinians were released from Israeli jails as part of the first phase in a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
Footage shows the prisoners, mostly woman and children, greeted by cheers upon arrival as people gathered to welcome them in the occupied West Bank.
In exchange for these prisoners, three hostages were released from Gaza to Israel.
That 59-second-long filmed report does not include any commentary or subtitles beyond “Palestinian prisoners freed” and “West Bank” in its opening frame.
It does show the same released prisoner twice — between 00:18 and 00:22 and between 00:45 and 00:54 — without any context provided to viewers:
Also on January 20, listeners to the BBC World Service radio station and BBC Radio 4 heard a report on that story from Jon Donnison.
In the version aired on Newshour, presenter Tim Franks told listeners (from 15:41 here) that: [emphasis in italics in the original]
Franks: “Hours after the release of those three Israeli hostages, ninety Palestinian prisoners — women and teenage boys — were freed from Israeli jails. Thirty prisoners for each hostage. Our correspondent Jon Donnison watched that detainee release take place in the West Bank.”
At 17:17 Donnison described one of those released — the same woman who appeared in the BBC’s filmed report — as follows:
Donnison: “Among them was 62-year-old Khalida Jarrar — a politician from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP] — jailed after the October 7th attack. She said it was a bittersweet moment.”
Listeners then heard a voice-over translation of comments made by Jarrar — but Donnison did not bother to inform listeners around the world that the PFLP is an internationally-designated terrorist organization, which took part in the October 7 massacre.
Neither did he bother to clarify that Khalida Jarrar was arrested in 2015 and charged with being a member of the PFLP and inciting people to kidnap Israeli soldiers. Jarrar confessed to those charges and under the terms of a plea bargain, was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment.
After her release, Jarrar became one of the heads of the PFLP in Judea & Samaria, and she was re-arrested in October 2019 following the terror attack perpetrated by that terrorist organization in which 17-year-old Rina Shnerb was murdered.
Once again, Jarrar confessed to the charges and was sentenced to 24 months in prison. While serving that sentence, Jarrar chose to once again run for political office on behalf of the PFLP terrorist organization. She was released in September 2021.
As was noted here in 2019, the BBC elected to ignore the arrests of PFLP operatives in connection with that terror attack.
Readers may also recall that in 2014, Jon Donnison portrayed a PFLP “fighter commander” as a “charity worker.”
The BBC’s failure to adequately explain the terror links of Palestinian prisoners is of course by no means new: audiences saw the same style of reporting in November 2023 and indeed long before that.
Nevertheless, BBC audiences obviously cannot properly understand the story that the corporation purports to report in these two items — or similar future ones — if they are not provided with an accurate and impartial portrayal of the reasons why those now being released from prison by Israel were detained in the first place and the terrorist organizations to which they are linked.
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.
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New York Man Pleads Guilty to Hate Crime for Antisemitic Vandalism in Front of Jewish Center
Illustrative: “Free Palestine” graffiti on display in downtown Chicago, Oct. 21, 2023. Photo: Reuters/Alexandra Buxbaum
A man from Long Island, New York pleaded guilty on Thursday to Criminal Mischief in the Fourth Degree as a Hate Crime, a felony, for spray-painting antisemitic phrases on fences and in front of a local Jewish center earlier this year.
In April, Sebastian Patino Caceres, 23, spray-painted “Free Palestine” on the sidewalk in front of the East Meadow Beth-El Jewish Center in East Meadow, New York, according to LongIsland.com, which reported the guilty plea. He also spray-painted “Zionism is Nazism,” “Stop the Genocide,” “Free Palestine,” and “F—k Israel” on fences in front of homes.
Caceres’s plea deal will require him to undergo six months of anti-bias training, 100 community service hours, and a guided tour of the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center in Glen Cove, New York. If he does so then his sentence will be reduced to three years of probation and a misdemeanor. A failure to do so would result in the felony charge remaining and five years of probation.
“My prosecutors held this defendant responsible for his offensive actions with this plea to a felony hate crime today, but with the understanding that punitive measures alone will not stop this intolerant behavior,” Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said in a statement. “It is through education and awareness that we can teach defendants about the gravity of their words and actions, change minds, promote kindness and compassion, and heal communities. This defendant has been given the opportunity to learn and grow from this criminal conduct.”
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Trump Re-Designates Iran-Backed Houthis in Yemen as Foreign Terrorist Organization
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
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday re-designating the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen as an official foreign terrorist organization (FTO).
“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 read.
The order also calls for the destruction of the Houthis’ military capabilities, thereby ending the group’s ability to attack American and allied targets, and for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to inspect all of their partners and programs in Yemen to ensure funds are not inadvertently handed over to the Houthis.
The directive also mandates USAID to cut relations with organizations that have helped fund Houthi operations or have combated international efforts to dismantle the terrorist group. In addition, the order directs Rubio to submit a report to the president after 30 days regarding the designation and “take all appropriate action” concerning the designation within another 15 days.
In January 2021, during the final days of the first Trump administration, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo designated the Houthis as an FTO. The next month, however, during the initial weeks of the Biden administration, then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken reversed the designation of the Houthis as an FTO, citing a desire to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Yemen.
The official FTO designation legally prohibits American individuals and organizations from lending “material support” to the Houthis, which some critics argue could worsen humanitarian conditions in Yemen. The Biden administration’s decision to de-list the Houthis as a terrorist group drew condemnation from Republicans in the US Congress
On Tuesday, US Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) introduced the “Standing Against Houthi Aggression Act” to reclassify the Houthis as an FTO, reversing official policies of the Biden administration.
“Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the Houthis have attacked US allies more than 100 times,” he said in a statement. “With the start of the Trump administration, it’s time to get serious about counterterrorism again and send a message to the Iranian regime that the US stands with Israel and will not tolerate our allies being attacked and shipping routes in the Middle East being disrupted. Designating the Houthis as an FTO will enable the Trump administration to bring the full weight of US sanctions in order to restore peace and order in the Middle East.”
Beyond banning individuals or organizations in the United States from giving “material support or resources” to the Houthis, placing the Yemeni rebels on the FTO list would also make non-citizen members and representatives of the Houthis eligible for deportation. The designation would further mandate any US financial institution with ties to the Houthis to alert the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Department of the Treasury.
Several countries — including Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Israel — currently designate the Houthis as terrorists.
Trump’s executive order followed repeated attacks by the Houthis against Israel since October 2023, including the launch of over 200 missiles and 170 attack drones.
Last month, for example, a ballistic missile launched by the Iran-backed group struck a playground in Tel Aviv, injuring at least 16 people and causing damage to nearby homes.
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 Yemeni terrorist group began disrupting global trade in a major way with their attacks on shipping in the busy Red Sea corridor after the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, arguing their aggression was a show of support for Palestinians in Gaza.
The Houthi rebels — whose slogan is “death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory to Islam” — have said they will target all ships heading to Israeli ports, even if they do not pass through the Red Sea.
Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught, which launched the ongoing war in Gaza, Houthi terrorists in Yemen have also routinely launched missiles toward Israel.
The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released a report in July revealing how Iran has been “smuggling weapons and weapons components to the Houthis.” The report noted that the Houthis used Iranian-supplied ballistic and cruise missiles to conduct over 100 land attacks on Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and within Yemen, as well as dozens of attacks on merchant shipping.
While the Houthis have increasingly targeted Israeli soil in recent months, they have primarily attacked ships in the Red Sea, a key trade route, raising the cost of shipping and insurance. Shipping firms have been forced in many cases to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa to avoid passing near Yemen, having a major global economic impact.
Beyond Israeli targets, the Houthis have threatened and in some cases actually attacked US and British ships, leading the two Western allies to launch retaliatory strikes multiple times against Houthi targets in Yemen.
As a result of the Houthis’ aggression, the Biden administration in January 2024 placed the group on the Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) list.
Though the SDGT designation allows for sanctions, it is considered less severe than placement on the FTO list. The Biden administration opted against reimposing the FTO designation on the Houthis, citing concerns over worsening the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
“A foreign terrorist organization designation ran the risk of having a deterrent effect on some of those aid groups continuing to provide aid — worrying that they might be charged as providing material support to a terrorist organization,” former State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at th tim.
Following the recently brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to halt fighting in Gaza, the Houthis have announced they will limit their attacks on commercial vessels to Israel–linked ships provided the Gaza ceasefire is fully implemented.
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New York Times ‘Ceasefire’ Coverage Laments That Israel Will Exist
Orthodox Jewish men stand near a tank, ahead of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, as seen from the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, Jan. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The New York Times news coverage of Israel and the Middle East is becoming increasingly unmoored from reality.
A recent Times article about a ceasefire in Gaza carries five bylines — Aaron Boxerman, Rawan Sheikh Ahmad, Johnatan Reiss, Ephrat Livni, and Adam Rasgon. A sixth reporter, Nick Cumming-Bruce, is credited at the end of the piece for having “contributed reporting from Geneva.” With so many people involved, accuracy and accountability is more difficult.
The Times article reports, “Aid workers also hope that the cease-fire would allow for far more medical evacuations. The WHO reported that Israel had approved the evacuation of 5,405 patients since the start of the war. But the pace of evacuations slowed to a trickle after Israel closed the Rafah crossing in May.”
Actually it was not “Israel” that “closed the Rafah crossing,” which is a passage between Gaza and Egypt. The Rafah crossing was closed by Egypt after the Israelis took over the other side. That threatened to end the smuggling that reportedly brought in huge bribe revenues to powerful people in Egypt.
Another Times article about the ceasefire — this one under Rasgon’s solo byline, though with reporting contributed by Boxerman and Jerusalem bureau chief Patrick Kingsley — is no more accurate. “When Hamas launched its Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel, it had hoped to ignite a regional war that would draw in its allies and lead to Israel’s destruction. Instead, it has been left to fight Israel almost entirely alone,” the Times writes. This conveniently skips over how Israel was attacked by Hezbollah, from Iran, and by some students and faculty on US and European university campuses. Prime Minister Netanyahu has described it as a “seven-front” war — not only Gaza, but also Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank).
The Times does mention attacks on Israel from Yemen, but it describes them airily as “occasional rocket and drone attacks, most of which Israel has intercepted.” If the “occasional rocket and drone attacks” had targeted, say, the New York Times bureau in Washington, or Columbia Journalism School, one doubts that the Times would be so casually dismissive of them.
The Times article concludes:
For many civilians, a future with both Israel and Hamas in the picture is bleak.
“We’re talking about a people stuck between a state ready to act with total brutality and a group ready to provoke that state to act with brutality,” said Akram Atallah, a Palestinian columnist from Gaza.
That passage draws a strange equivalence between Israel and Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group. What would the future look like without Israel in the picture? That would also be pretty bleak for the Jews who live there, who can expect to be treated with the same cruelty that Hamas treated its victims on Oct. 7, 2023.
Who is this Akram Atallah? In the past, according to Palestinian Media Watch, he’s likened Israel to Shakespeare’s caricature of Shylock. The Washington Post has reported that Atallah “was imprisoned with [former Hamas leader Ismail] Haniyeh in the early 1990s in Israel.”
This is the journalist the New York Times turns to for expert commentary?
For many civilian readers hoping for factual, reliable journalism about Israel and its neighbors, the present — with the New York Times distorting reality and indulging fantasies about wiping Israel off the map — is pretty bleak.
No one is asking the Times to be a spokesman for Netanyahu or his Likud Party. At least, that isn’t what I’m hoping for. I’d settle for just simple factual accuracy about issues such as who closed the Rafah crossing or which parties attacked Israel. Or, minimally, for the ability to draw a distinction between Israel and Hamas.
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.
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