Qatari-funded Al Jazeera claims to have the scoop. While HonestReporting has spent the past year (and many years before that) exposing anti-Israel media bias, we’ve apparently had it all wrong. According to Al Jazeera:
Ten journalists who have covered the war on Gaza for two of the world’s leading news networks, CNN and the BBC, have revealed the inner workings of those outlets’ newsrooms from October 7 onward, alleging pro-Israel bias in coverage, systematic double standards and frequent violations of journalistic principles.
We’ve certainly found systematic double standards and frequent violations of journalistic principles during the past year. That includes Al Jazeera, which has acted as a mouthpiece for Hamas, spreading false propaganda and misinformation, and inciting hatred and violence against Israel and its citizens. So much so that Israel has taken the media outlet off the local airwaves and withdrawn press accreditation for its employees.
But pro-Israel bias in CNN and BBC coverage? Not likely.
So who does Al Jazeera rely on for its half-hour documentary? Three characters whose backgrounds make their views crystal clear:
Craig Mokhiber
Interviewee Craig Mokhiber is a former UN official who has accused Israel of war crimes, has spread the work of BDS activists, and has denied Israel’s right to exist. Shortly after he exited the UN, it was uncovered that he fraudulently turned his anti-Israel views into a means by which to distract from the real reasons behind his departure: his open antisemitism. (See the tweet below.)
SHAMEFUL: How did some media outlets allow themselves to be manipulated by an antisemitic UN official looking to use his hatred of Israel as a false cover for his own indiscretions?
Must-read 🧵: https://t.co/UD0WomS4r0
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 1, 2023
Ghassan Abu-Sitta
Ghassan Abu-Sitta is a British physician who has a pathological need to get in front of TV cameras in order to accuse Israel of every crime imaginable. Which is hardly surprising, as a Jewish Chronicle investigation revealed that Abu Sittah has “praised a terrorist murderer in a newspaper article, sat beside a notorious terrorist hijacker at a memorial and delivered a tearful eulogy to the founder of a terror group that was later involved in the October 7 atrocities.”
Jeremy Scahill
Jeremy Scahill’s byline was on a rape denial article in alternative news outlet The Intercept. The article set about attempting to debunk New York Times piece, “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.” In doing so, The Intercept sought to cover up the extent of Hamas’ sexual crimes on October 7. It instead accused the Israeli government and Israel’s supporters of concocting the charges.
There’s nothing new in the charges made against Israel by the interviewees and nothing that hasn’t already been debunked elsewhere. What is new are the claims that Western media are complicit in Israel’s “genocide” and “war crimes.”
Al Jazeera charges the Western media with platforming Israeli “propaganda.” There is no examination of the all too many times the media got it wrong at Israel’s expense. Instead, the media are accused of enabling Israel to disseminate a false narrative. Where genuine errors may have occurred in the fog of war or due to miscommunication, Israel is portrayed as a conspirator in a plot to promote disinformation to a compliant media.
To back up its thesis, Al Jazeera claims to have spoken with 10 journalists from CNN and the BBC. Only two anonymous figures, however, one from each network, are interviewees in the documentary — hardly a substantial number.
And it’s worth asking, why would any journalists who value objectivity and impartiality shoot their mouths off to Al Jazeera of all media outlets?
The same Al Jazeera whose senior anchorman Jamal Rayyan, one of the network’s most prominent figureheads, celebrated the first anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel with a series of posts hailing the “resistance” and calling on Arab countries to support it, even if “secretly.”
The same Al Jazeera that mocked the October 7 massacre by airing a tasteless comedy sketch:
Al Jazeera’s new comedy sketch about October 7th, now with AI-generated English subtitles https://t.co/ABRiP1mIcr pic.twitter.com/sFDmzcKjcO
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) October 3, 2024
No fair-minded journalist would complain about journalistic ethics to Al Jazeera. But they would if they had a bone to pick with Israel that goes beyond concern for the well-being of the Fourth Estate.
Former BBC journalist “Sara” claims that “overwhelmingly, guests on the Palestinian side of things were being looked into” in an internal BBC group chat in which producers could vet potential interviewees based on their social media footprint.
Yet this is exactly what the BBC should be doing. Because BBC interviewees from the Israeli side don’t generally have a history of libels, demonization, or outright racism against the other. The same, sadly, cannot be said about the Palestinian side.
“Sara” says that even some non-governmental organizations, including Human Rights Watch, were vetted. It’s entirely proper that this should be the case. Too many NGOs are not neutral actors in the conflict but promote a politicized anti-Israel agenda under the guise of human rights.
The examples of newsroom rebellions over “pro-Israel” coverage highlighted by Al Jazeera are less supportive of their case than it first appears.
Al Jazeera says it has obtained an email complaint sent by more than 20 BBC journalists to senior management:
The BBC employs over 5,000 journalists. That Al Jazeera is only able to quote an email sent by “over 20” speaks volumes.
And it must have been a terrible shock for those small number of BBC journalists when a former ICJ president, in a BBC interview of all places, contradicted their claim in the email that the International Court of Justice ruling “found it ‘plausible’ that Israel is violating the Genocide Convention in Gaza.”
Joan Donoghue, former President of the International Court of Justice, clarified on air with @BBCNews that the court did *not* decide that Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza could plausibly be considered genocide. pic.twitter.com/oz1lOCUMD6
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) April 26, 2024
In another example of journalists in revolt, Al Jazeera references what it calls “the now notorious report” in The New York Times on Hamas rapes that Jeremy Scahill did so much to attack. Al Jazeera claims that the Hamas weaponization of rape was “an allegation that was exposed as baseless.”
As HonestReporting pointed out when addressing the attempt to discredit the sexual assault claims, this is not a mere search for the truth but is part of a concerted effort to invalidate Israel’s military campaign against Hamas and to rehabilitate Hamas’ image in the West.
And Al Jazeera is an integral part of that effort.
The second anonymous interviewee, CNN journalist “Adam” complains that “there was a period of time when we couldn’t call airstrikes in Gaza airstrikes unless we had confirmation from the Israelis.”
Given the media’s collective failure when Israel stood falsely accused of an airstrike on the al-Ahli hospital in October 2023, and the fact that numerous Hamas rockets have fallen on their own people in Gaza, it doesn’t sound so unreasonable that CNN would do due diligence before reporting airstrikes as facts.
“Adam” complains about double standards. But should a terrorist organization be treated with the same level of respect given to the army of a liberal democracy? Especially as that terrorist organization sees little wrong in lying to achieve its own ends. “Adam” even says that he had a problem with CNN editors telling journalists to “hold Hamas accountable” when Gazan casualty figures were announced.
“Sara” complains of an “unwillingness among the [BBC] executives to accept evidence.” This is somewhat ironic given the BBC’s reaction to the evidence presented to them of anti-Israel bias, most recently in Trevor Asserson’s report that found the BBC had breached its own editorial guidelines more than 1,500 times during the first four months of the Israel-Hamas war alone.
She also complains that the BBC has an aversion to its guests or its journalists using the word “genocide” to refer to Israel’s actions in Gaza. Actually, given both the gravity of the charge and the fact that Israel has not been found guilty of such a crime under international law, the BBC is absolutely correct to avoid giving the impression that genocide is taking place.
Of course, there are no such restrictions on Al Jazeera, which can in no way be considered impartial.
It would be remiss not to mention the token voice representing the other side in the debate. Al Jazeera interviewed former New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren, who pushed back against some of the charges leveled against her profession. But hers is a lonely voice in a documentary that has already framed an argument based on a simple and simplistic assumption – Israel is in the wrong and deserves to be portrayed as a criminal while the Western media are its accomplices.
Unfortunately for Al Jazeera, even though Israel comes in for plenty of criticism and unfair treatment in the international media, the Qatari-sponsored network’s definition of journalism isn’t what most mainstream media consider to be the norm.
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