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Why Does the Media Continue to Smear Israel With Anti-Christmas Lies?
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.
As long-time readers know, the BBC cannot resist promoting politicized messaging in its Christmas coverage, and this year was no exception.
On the morning of Christmas Day, the BBC News website published a report by the BBC Jerusalem bureau’s Yolande Knell titled “Palestinian Christians struggle to find hope at Christmas,” which opens by telling readers that a town which has been under the exclusive control of the Palestinian Authority for twenty-nine years is “occupied.”
The little town of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank has good reason to consider itself the capital of Christmas but this year it does not feel like it.
There are very few visitors at what is typically a peak time. There are not the usual cheerful street decorations nor the giant Christmas tree in front of the Nativity Church, built over the spot where it is believed that Jesus was born.
Public celebrations of Christmas have been cancelled for a second year because of the war in Gaza. Palestinian Christians are only attending religious ceremonies and family gatherings.
As was the case in a very similar report published a year earlier, Knell does not bother to inform her readers that one of the reasons why there are “few visitors” is because most major airlines cancelled flights to Israel following the October 7, 2023 invasion and massacre by Hamas that led to the current war.
Neither does Knell explain that tourists are unlikely to be attracted to a town which has cancelled Christmas celebrations for the second time and – as was also the case in the BBC’s 2023 report – she fails to clarify that (as other media outlets were able to report) the political decision to cancel public celebrations was taken by local authorities, including the municipality.
Despite having failed to clarify that the cancellation of Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem is a political decision, Knell later goes on to promote talking points concerning the town’s economy:
The economy is in dire straits especially in Bethlehem, which relies heavily on tourism which has almost entirely stopped. Guides stand idly by the Nativity Church, feeding the pigeons.
“If there [are] tourists, all the people will work: hotels, transportation, accommodation, all of them,” says one guide, Abdullah. “But [if] there [are] no tourists, there is no life in Bethlehem city.”
“I am broke! No business! For more than one year we stay home,” exclaims Adnan Subah, a souvenir seller on Star Street.
“My son is a tour guide in the church, we stay home, all my kids stay. No jobs, no business, no tourists.”
Knell fails to comply with BBC editorial guidelines concerning Contributors’ Affiliations by neglecting to inform readers that the pastor to whom she gives a platform to promote lies concerning “genocide” is a long-time political activist.
”This should be a time of joy and celebration,” comments Reverend Dr Munther Isaac, a local Lutheran pastor. “But Bethlehem is a sad town in solidarity with our siblings in Gaza.”
At his church, the Nativity scene shows baby Jesus lying in a pile of rubble. In the run-up to Christmas, a prayer service focused on the catastrophic situation in Gaza.
“It’s hard to believe that another Christmas has come upon us and the genocide has not stopped,” Isaac said in his strongly worded sermon. “Decision makers are content to let this continue. To them, Palestinians are dispensable.”
Israel strongly denies accusations of genocide in Gaza and judges at the UN’s top court have yet to rule in a case alleging genocide, brought by South Africa.
Neither does Knell tell her readers that the same pastor also promoted “baby Jesus lying in a pile of rubble” agitprop last Christmas.
Another political activist (who, like Isaac, is linked to the Bethlehem Bible College and ‘Christ at the Checkpoint’ conferences) is portrayed by Knell merely as a “theologian.” His promotion of the politically motivated falsehood of ‘starvation’ goes unchallenged.
”My mum told me that what we see on television doesn’t capture one per cent of what’s happening,” says theologian, Dr Yousef Khouri, who is originally from Gaza City.
His parents and sister are among a few hundred Christians who have spent much of the past 14 months sheltering in two Gazan churches.
“They are subjected like the entire Gaza strip to starvation. Of course, almost non-sleep because of bombardment, because of all the drones hovering above their heads and the lack of medical attention and services,” he says.
“We’ve lost friends and relatives.”
In addition, Knell promotes the notion that casualty figures provided by the Gaza-based terrorist organization which started the war are “reliable.”
“In Gaza, more than 45,000 people have been killed in the war that was unleashed in response to the Hamas attacks on southern Israel. Figures come from the Hamas-run health ministry but are considered reliable by the UN and others. The assault on 7 October 2023 killed some 1,200 people – Israelis and some foreigners – and led to about 250 being taken hostage.
Knell tells her readers that: “Tensions have risen in the West Bank in parallel to the war. Israel has imposed new restrictions on Palestinians’ movements and cancelled tens of thousands of permits for workers who used to cross into Jerusalem or Jewish settlements each day.”
BBC audiences are not informed that “tensions” in fact began long before October 2023 due to the rise in terrorism that has been encouraged and facilitated by Iranian-backed terrorist groups for over three years.
Knell also returns to themes that she has been promoting in Christmas coverage for at least a decade: “Many local Christian and Muslim families have emigrated in the past year. With the constant threat of violence and expansion of settlements on lands where Palestinians have long sought an independent state of their own, there is increased fear and uncertainty over the future.”
Christian emigration from PA controlled areas began long before “the past year” but like so many of her colleagues, Yolande Knell opts for the easy option of blaming “settlements” and an inadequately explained “threat of violence” rather than informing her readers accurately on the topic.
And so once again BBC audiences find Yolande Knell self-conscripting to the opportunistic exploitation of Christmas for promotion of context-free political sloganeering.
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 Why Does the Media Continue to Smear Israel With Anti-Christmas Lies? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Proposes Resettlement of Gazans as Netanyahu Visits White House
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries, calling the enclave a “demolition site” and saying residents have “no alternative” as he held critical talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.
“[The Palestinians] have no alternative right now” but to leave Gaza, Trump told reporters before Netanyahu arrived. “I mean, they’re there because they have no alternative. What do they have? It is a big pile of rubble right now.”
Trump repeated his call for Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab states in the region to take in Palestinians from Gaza after nearly 16 months of war there between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which ruled the enclave before the war and remains the dominant faction.
Arab leaders have adamantly rejected Trump’s proposal. However, Trump argued on Tuesday that Palestinians would benefit from leaving Gaza and expressed astonishment at the notion that they would want to remain.
“Look, the Gaza thing has not worked. It’s never worked. And I feel very differently about Gaza than a lot of people. I think they should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land. We’ll get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and enjoyable,” Trump said.
Referring to Gaza as a “pure demolition site,” the president said he doesn’t “know how they [Palestinians] could want to stay” when asked about the reaction of Palestinian and Arab leaders to his proposal.
“If we could find the right piece of land, or numerous pieces of land, and build them some really nice places, there’s plenty of money in the area, that’s for sure,” Trump continued. “I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza, which has had decades and decades of death.”
However, Trump clarified that he does “not necessarily” support Israel permanently annexing and resettling Gaza.
Trump later made similar remarks with Netanyahu at his side in the Oval Office, suggesting that Palestinians should leave Gaza for good “in nice homes and where they can be happy and not be shot, not be killed.”
“They are not going to want to go back to Gaza,” he said.
Trump did not offer any specifics about how a resettlement process could be implemented.
The post-war future of Palestinians in Gaza has loomed as a major point of contention within both the United States and Israel. The former Biden administration emphatically rejected the notion of relocating Gaza civilians, demanding a humanitarian aid “surge” into the beleaguered enclave.
Trump has previously hinted at support for relocating Gaza civilians. Last month, the president said he would like to “just clean out” Gaza and resettle residents in Jordan or Egypt.
Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, defended Trump’s comments in a Tuesday press conference, arguing that Gaza will remain uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.
“When the president talks about ‘cleaning it out,’ he talks about making it habitable,” Witkoff said. “It is unfair to have explained to Palestinians that they might be back in five years. That’s just preposterous.
Trump’s comments were immediately met with backlash, with some observers accusing him of supporting an ethnic cleansing plan. However, proponents of the proposal argue that it could offer Palestinians a better future and would mitigate the threat posed by Hamas.
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the Gaza war on Oct. 7, 2023, when they invaded southern Israel, murdered 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 hostages back to Gaza while perpetrating widespread sexual violence in what was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
Last month, both sides reached a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal brokered by the US, Egypt, and Qatar.
Under phase one of the agreement, Hamas will, over six weeks, free a total of 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom are deceased, and in exchange, Israel will release over 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom are serving multiple life sentences for terrorist activity. Meanwhile, fighting in Gaza will stop as negotiators work on agreeing to a second phase of the agreement, which is expected to include Hamas releasing all remaining hostages held in Gaza and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the enclave.
The ceasefire and the future of Gaza were expected to be key topics of conversation between Trump and Netanyahu, along with the possibility of Israel and Saudi Arabia normalizing relations and Iran’s nuclear program.
Riyadh has indicated that any normalization agreement with Israel would need to include an end to the Gaza war and the pathway to the formation of a Palestinian state.
However, perhaps the most strategically important subject will be Iran, particularly how to contain its nuclear program and combat its support for terrorist proxies across the Middle East. In recent weeks, many analysts have raised questions over whether Trump would support an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which both Washington and Jerusalem fear are meant to ultimately develop nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu on Tuesday was the first foreign leader to visit the White House since Trump’s inauguration last month.
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Trump Reimposes ‘Maximum Pressure’ on Iran, Aims to Drive Oil Exports to Zero
US President Donald Trump speaks at the White House, in Washington, DC, Feb. 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran that includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero in order to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Ahead of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump signed the presidential memorandum reimposing Washington’s tough policy on Iran that was practiced throughout his first term.
As he signed the memo, Trump described it as very tough and said he was torn on whether to make the move. He said he was open to a deal with Iran and expressed a willingness to talk to the Iranian leader.
“With me, it’s very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. Asked how close Tehran is to a weapon, Trump said: “They’re too close.”
Iran‘s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has accused former President Joe Biden of failing to rigorously enforce oil-export sanctions, which Trump says emboldened Tehran by allowing it to sell oil to fund a nuclear weapons program and armed militias in the Middle East.
Iran is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, the UN nuclear watchdog chief told Reuters in December. Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon.
Trump‘s memo, among other things, orders the US Treasury secretary to impose “maximum economic pressure” on Iran, including sanctions and enforcement mechanisms on those violating existing sanctions.
It also directs the Treasury and State Department to implement a campaign aimed at “driving Iran‘s oil exports to zero.” US oil prices pared losses on Tuesday on the news that Trump planned to sign the memo, which offset some weakness from the tariff drama between Washington and Beijing.
Tehran’s oil exports brought in $53 billion in 2023 and $54 billion a year earlier, according to US Energy Information Administration estimates. Output during 2024 was running at its highest level since 2018, based on OPEC data.
Trump had driven Iran‘s oil exports to near-zero during part of his first term after re-imposing sanctions. They rose under Biden’s tenure as Iran succeeded in evading sanctions.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency believes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other OPEC members have spare capacity to make up for any lost exports from Iran, also an OPEC member.
PUSH FOR SANCTIONS SNAPBACK
China does not recognize US sanctions and Chinese firms buy the most Iranian oil. China and Iran have also built a trading system that uses mostly Chinese yuan and a network of middlemen, avoiding the dollar and exposure to US regulators.
Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy, said the Trump administration could enforce the 2024 Stop Harboring Iranian Petroleum (SHIP) law to curtail some Iranian barrels.
SHIP, which the Biden administration did not enforce strictly, allows measures on foreign ports and refineries that process petroleum exported from Iran in violation of sanctions. Book said a move last month by the Shandong Port Group to ban US-sanctioned tankers from calling into its ports in the eastern Chinese province signals the impact SHIP could have.
Trump also directed his UN ambassador to work with allies to “complete the snapback of international sanctions and restrictions on Iran,” under a 2015 deal between Iran and key world powers that lifted sanctions on Tehran in return for restrictions on its nuclear program.
The US quit the agreement in 2018, during Trump‘s first term, and Iran began moving away from its nuclear-related commitments under the deal. The Trump administration had also tried to trigger a snapback of sanctions under the deal in 2020, but the move was dismissed by the UN Security Council.
Britain, France, and Germany told the United Nations Security Council in December that they are ready — if necessary — to trigger a snapback of all international sanctions on Iran to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
They will lose the ability to take such action on Oct. 18 when a 2015 UN resolution expires. The resolution enshrines Iran‘s deal with Britain, Germany, France, the United States, Russia, and China that lifted sanctions on Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.
Iran‘s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, has said that invoking the “snap-back” of sanctions on Tehran would be “unlawful and counterproductive.”
European and Iranian diplomats met in November and January to discuss if they could work to defuse regional tensions, including over Tehran’s nuclear program, before Trump returned.
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Trump Stops US Involvement With UN Rights Body, Extends UNRWA Funding Halt
An UNRWA aid truck at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered an end to US engagement with the United Nations Human Rights Council and continued a halt to funding for the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA.
The move coincides with a visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long been critical of UNRWA, accusing it of anti-Israel incitement and its staff of being “involved in terrorist activities against Israel.”
During Trump‘s first term in office, from 2017-2021, he also cut off funding for UNRWA, questioning its value, saying that Palestinians needed to agree to renew peace talks with Israel, and calling for unspecified reforms.
The first Trump administration also quit the 47-member Human Rights Council halfway through a three-year term over what it called chronic bias against Israel and a lack of reform. The US is not currently a member of the Geneva-based body. Under former President Joe Biden, the US served a 2022-2024 term.
A council working group is due to review the US human rights record later this year, a process all countries undergo every few years. While the council has no legally binding power, its debates carry political weight and criticism can raise global pressure on governments to change course.
Since taking office for a second term on Jan. 20, Trump has ordered that the US withdraw from the World Health Organization and from the Paris climate agreement — also steps he took during his first term in office.
The US was UNRWA’s biggest donor — providing $300 million-$400 million a year — but Biden paused funding in January 2024 after Israel accused about a dozen UNRWA staff of taking part in the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Palestinian terrorist group Hamas that triggered the war in Gaza.
The US Congress then formally suspended contributions to UNRWA until at least March 2025.
The United Nations has said that nine UNRWA staff may have been involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and were fired. A Hamas commander in Lebanon — killed in September by Israel — was also found to have had a UNRWA job.
An Israeli ban went into effect on Jan. 30 that prohibits UNRWA from operating on its territory or communicating with Israeli authorities. UNRWA has said operations in Gaza and West Bank will also suffer.
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