Jonathan Cook – jonathan-cook.net May 14, 2025
There was no excuse for the BBC to follow Israel in treating the head of UNRWA as though he is aligned with terrorism. This kind of craven journalism just makes Israel’s job of genocide easier
There was yet more shameful reporting by BBC News at Ten last night, with international editor Jeremy Bowen the chief culprit this time.
He prefaced an interview with Philippe Lazzarini, head of United Nations refugee agency UNRWA, with an utterly unwarranted disclaimer – as though he was talking to a terrorist, not a leading human rights advocate who has been desperately trying to keep the last aid life-lines open to the people of Gaza as they are being actively starved to death by Israel.
The only time I can remember Bowen prefacing an interview in such apologetic terms was when he interviewed Hamas’ deputy political chief, Khalil al-Hayya, last October.
That was shameful too. But at least on that occasion, Bowen had an excuse: under Britain’s draconian Terrorism Act, saying or doing anything that might be viewed as favouring Hamas can land you with a 14-year prison sentence for supporting terrorism.
But why on earth would Bowen imply that Lazzarini’s remarks – on the intense suffering of Gaza’s population in the third month of a complete Israeli aid blockade – need to be treated with caution, in the same manner as those of a Hamas leader?
For one reason only. Because Israel, quite preposterously and for completely self-serving reasons, claims UNRWA is a front for Hamas. Since January, Israel has outlawed the organisation from operating in the Palestinian territories it continues to illegally occupy. As ever, the BBC is terrified of upsetting the Israelis.
Israel has long wanted UNRWA out of the picture because it is the last significant organisation to uphold the rights of Palestinian refugees enshrined in international law. It is, therefore, a major obstacle to Israel ethnically cleansing Palestinians from what is left of their homeland.
I missed this on Tuesday. On the News At Ten Jeremy Bowen gives a preamble before a clip of his interview with UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini is played
“Israel says he is a liar.. but I thought it was important to talk to him for a number of reasons”
Shameful from Bowen. pic.twitter.com/RpmZ8sYqJV
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) May 15, 2025
Before airing the interview with Lazzarini, Bowen cautioned: “Israel says he is a liar, and that his organisation has been infiltrated by Hamas. But I felt it was important to talk to him for a number of reasons.
“First off, the British government deals with him, and funds his organisation. Which is the largest dealing with Palestinian refugees. They know a lot of what is going on, so therefore I think it is important to speak to people like him.”
Bowen would never consider prefacing an interview with Benjamin Netanyahu in a similar manner, even though the following would actually be truthful and far more deserved:
“The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, accusing him of crimes against humanity. But I felt it was important to talk to him for a number of reasons.
“First off, the British government deals with him, and sends weapons to his military to carry out the crimes he is accused of. As its leader, he obviously knows a lot about what Israel is up to, so therefore I think it is important to speak to someone like him.”
Can you imagine the BBC ever introducing Netanyahu in that way? Of course, you can’t – even though, in journalistic, ethical and legal terms, it would be fully warranted.
But in the case the Lazzarini, there are absolutely no grounds for such a prologue – except to promote an Israeli pro-genocide agenda. Bowen’s remarks suggest he needs to explain why, in the midst of an Israeli-engineered famine in Gaza, the BBC would choose to speak to one of the most knowledgeable public figures about that starvation.
Bowen’s resort to an explanation instantly paints Lazzarini as problematic and controversial. It aligns with, and reinforces, Israel’s entirely bogus conflation of UNRWA and Hamas.
Even were Israel’s claims about UNRWA true of local staff in Gaza – and Israel has supplied precisely no evidence they are, as Lazzarini makes clear in a longer edit of the interview that aired on the BBC’s Six O’Clock News – that would in no way implicate Lazzarini. His remarks in the interview, on the catastrophic suffering of Gaza, are echoed by all aid agencies.
Bowen’s apologetic tone not only served to undercut the power of what Lazzarini was saying, but bolstered Israel’s ridiculous smears of UNRWA. That will have delighted Israel, and given it a little bit more leeway to carry on the starvation of Gaza, even as the first establishment voices tentatively start calling time on the genocide – 19 months too late.
Notice this from Bowen too. He asks Lazzarini: ‘When people look back on what’s been happening in the future, will they see, actually, a big international failure?”
Lazzarini responds: “I think in the coming years we will realise how wrong we have been, how on the wrong side of history we have been. We have, under our watch, let a massive atrocity unfold.”
Bowen jumps in: “Would you include the 7th of October in that?”
Lazzarini answers: “I would definitely include the 7th of October.”
But the set-up from Bowen is entirely unfair. He asks Lazzarini a question about “international failure” in relation to Gaza, and Lazzarini responds about the failure by the West to do anything to stop an atrocity – more properly a genocide – unfold over the past 19 months.
The events of 7 October 2023 are irrelevant to that discussion. There has been no “international failure” to support Israel. The West has armed it to the hilt and prioritised the suffering caused to Israelis by Hamas’ one-day attack over the incomparably greater suffering caused to Palestinians by 19 months of Israel’s slaughter and starvation.
Bowen’s interjected question about 7 October is a nonsense. It is levered in simply to cast further doubt on Lazzarini’s good faith in the hope of placating Israel, or at least providing the BBC with a defence when Israel goes on the offensive against Bowen for speaking to UNRWA.
The atrocities carried out on October 7 occurred in the context of decades of brutal and illegal Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories, of settlement expansion and apartheid rule, and of a 16-year siege of Gaza.
The international community was certainly on the “wrong side of history”, but not in the sense Bowen intends or Lazzarini infers from Bowen’s question. The West failed because it did precisely nothing to stop Israel’s brutalisation of the Palestinian people over those many decades – in fact, the West assisted Israel – and thereby guaranteed that Palestinians in Gaza would seek to break out of their concentration camp sooner or later.
Lazzarini’s remarks on the catastrophe in Gaza should be seen as self-evident. But Bowen and the BBC undermined his message by framing him and his organisation as suspect – and all because Israel, a criminal state starving the people of Gaza, has made an entirely unfounded allegation against the organisation trying to stop its crimes against humanity.
This is the same pattern of smears from Israel that has claimed all 36 hospitals in Gaza are Hamas “command and control centres” – again without a shred of evidence – to justify it bombing them all, leaving Gaza’s population without any meaningful health care system as malnutrition and starvation take hold.
Israel struck another hospital yesterday, the European Hospital in Khan Younis, as medics there were waiting to evacuate sick and injured children. The attack killed at least 28 people and injured many more, including a BBC freelance journalist who was conducting an interview there as the missiles hit.
Notably, BBC News at Ten blanked out its journalist’s face, adding: “For his safety, we are not revealing his name.” The BBC did not explain who the journalist needed protecting from, or why.
That is because the BBC rarely mentions that Israel has assassinated more than 200 Palestinian journalists in Gaza, as well as banning all foreign correspondents from entering the enclave, in its attempts to limit news coverage and smear what does come out as Hamas propaganda. Israel understands it is easier to commit genocide in the dark.
You might assume a major news organisation like the BBC would wish to be seen showing at least some solidarity with those being murdered for doing journalism – some of them while working to provide the BBC with news. You would be wrong.
We shouldn’t pretend that it was Bowen’s choice to attach such a disgraceful disclaimer to his interview. We all understand that he is under enormous pressure, both from within the BBC and outside.
BBC executives have appointed and protected Raffi Berg, a man who publicly counts a former senior figure in Israel’s spy agency Mossad as a friend, to oversee the corporation’s Middle East coverage.
And as the late Greg Philo reported in his 2011 book More Bad News from Israel, a BBC News editor told him at that time: “We wait in fear for the telephone call from the Israelis”. Things are far, far worse 14 years on.
Excuses won’t wash any longer. We are 19 months into a genocide. Helping Israel to launder its crimes is to become complicit in them. No journalist should be allowing themselves to be pressured into this kind of moral and professional failure.
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Jeremy Bowen has always been a Joo loving, Nazi turd. He must get regular briefing from MI6 and Mossad.
The Rothschild takeover of the BBC in the 1930s
was an awful betrayal of british people
in wartime soldiers calle the BBC ” bullshit time ”
if you buy a licence you are helping them hide pedophiles
Kier Starmer whj director of public prosecutions assited the BBC in hiding up
crimes by anthony blunt jimmy saville stephen fry freddie mercury frankie howard david frost trevor eve and a host of other sexual criminals
DO NOT BUY A LICENCE
JOHN LENNON SAID
the BBC is only for jews freemasons and queers
Blessed are the truthtellers, for they shall see god”
The LBGT child sex programme is a government psy-op
The present situation where government allowed approx 1400 Christian girls to be serially raped by migrants in the North of England, they also allowed drag queens into primary schools to talk about the joys of homosexuality, they under New Labour funded several hard core Homosexual magazines featuring under age naked boys, taxpayers money paid for Gay parades and marches and the LBGT pushed for school children who had problems such as bullying eating disorders or other difficulties to be put on hormones and on stream for sex change operations, some children who had operations were actually too young to have sex.
When homosexuality became legal, ” experts said its an open door
for child abuse.
The UKColumn said abuse in 16 london kids homes was
on ” an industrial scale”
THE CARBABY ST REVOLUTION
But we saw all this before in the 60s with the unisex craze
you could not tell the boys from the girls, males were seen wearing makeup and women’s type clothes, and were called nancy boys or mods
and these peacock ” look at me ” boys would ride around on little scooters
several scooter clubs in london were openly homosexual.
A sunday news paper had a front page article on these mod boys on the game outside London rail stations such as Kings Cross
The craze faded out after about 5 or 6 years.
Several pop songs such as ” dedicated follower of fashion” mocked
what were being called lady Boys
So the present attack on masculinity is nothing new.e BBC is only for queers freemasons and jews
STOP THE GENOCIDE
Field Day festival hit with growing boycott as artists pull out in solidarity with Palestine At least 15 acts have pulled out of Field Day music festival in London as part of a Palestine-related campaign against parent company KKR.
More than 200 performers have signed an open letter urging the event’s organisers to sever its ties with the private equity firm.
Other pop festivals which have become increasingly woke have suffered too
Possibly the worst festival is Green Man Wales, which advertises as LBGT friendly
The boycott has received the backing of artists such as Brian Eno, Massive Attack and I. JORDAN.
Field Day has become a key part of the UK’s music calendar since its launch in 2007. It is moving from its traditional home in Victoria park to Brockwell Park, in Lambeth, for this year’s edition.
Jewish coffee shops and supermarkets have also been hit by the boycott as the public want food medicines and water sent into palestine
Adam Pierce of the ” Gayboys R us ” pop group said on radio
Kier Starmer is playing a big part in the genocide
They reckon Christianity is older than Judaism.
They reckon Jews today worship Talmudic Babylon-ism
LOL..
Looking for Truth from the BBc is a fools errand, one may as well try to polish a turd..
This is an excellent article from a great writer who has one of the few informative slug stacks. he has written for the occidental observer..not that that’s a recommendation but there you go… all of his articles are well written and informative..detailing how we got here..wherever that is!..
give it a go, it details the history of the Bolshevik Bullshit Creature..go on educate yourself you wont regret it..
https://eternalhorus.substack.com/p/chaos-of-the-ether
Not wanting to put a bullet through my ‘big-screen’.. I just couldn’t chance watching the above vid…
knowing full-well that it was bound to be nothing more than yet another “Cringeworthy Classic” of ‘Izzy Uber Alles’ Propaganda brought to you by the official mouthpiece of the British State…
no matter how much the BBC’s mealymouthed Jeremy The Jerk tied to transmutate the shit-sandwich he’d be serving-up into a sweet-smelling semolina dessert…
😒
ÑOTE…Jeremy Bowen is a crypto jew like the bespectacled geek who pushes crisps.
Until the public is aware of this long held jewish practice….the jews will be able to dupe the public.
Starmer is of course ALSO a crypto jew.
Notice we never hear about any ‘genocidal campaign’ being directed against whites vis a vis the transportation/importation of millions of wogs into the West. Whites are supposed to care about the ‘genocide’ of everyone else, but their own race.
‘Free speech under threat!’ Pensioner who was arrested over ‘thought crime’ tweet sends warning to Keir Starmer
The pensioner who was arrested over a “thought crime” tweet has sent a warning to Sir Keir Starmer about the state free speech in Britain.
After being asked about the Prime Minister’s recent comments, Julian Foulkes appeared to disagree with Starmer’s defence. The 71-year-old said: “I find it very hard to believe at this stage of events that Keir Starmer is unaware of this case.
“I actually saw that clip the question came up. Keir Starmer sat there and said we’ve had free speech in the UK for a very long time. Yeah, right! I think I know differently.”
Foulkes, a retired special constable, sat down with the People’s Channel for his first TV interview since being arrested over a social media post about anti jewish feelings in Britain over the palestinian holocaust, speaking to GB News, Foulkes revealed that despite the publicity surrounding his arrest he has not received communication from Keir Starmer.
Foulkes also recounted the moment six police officers arrived at his home to arrest him on November 2, 2023. He was detained for eight hours after replying to a complaint about the jewish gazan murders
“I was totally taken by surprise. I was sitting at my computer and I was just booking a holiday,” he said.
The former officer, who served in the Garden of England’s constabulary for a decade, was handcuffed and taken to Medway police station following the arrest. Kent Police has since acknowledged that the formal warning issued to Foulkes was “not appropriate in the circumstances
The experience felt “almost surreal” to Foulkes, particularly as some officers recognised him from his time serving with the force.
This post had only 26 views and had not been reported by the public.
Despite having committed no offence, the 71-year-old accepted an initial caution from police, fearing it might affect his ability to visit his daughter in Australia, he replied that Starmer was a stinking jew bastard
NOTE: The Gaza Health Ministry’s daily casualty figures are based on the number of dead and wounded Palestinians brought to hospitals, and does not include victims that are under the rubble or elsewhere, where ambulance and civil defense crews can not reach them.
Gaza health officials have said that 143 people have been killed since dawn on Thursday, making it the deadliest day since Israel resumed its war on Gaza on 18 March. The death toll has now surpassed 53,000.
Among the dead were two Palestinian journalists: Hassan Sammour, an anchor for Al-Aqsa Voice Radio, and his family were killed in a pre-dawn strike that hit eastern Khan Younis in southern Gaza; Ahmed al-Halou, a reporter for the local Al-Quds News Network, was also killed. Their deaths bring the overall media worker death toll since October 2023 to 217.
READ MORE :
https://israelpalestinenews.org/thursday-was-deadliest-day-in-gaza-and-israeli-prisons-since-march-war-on-gaza-day-587/
Reading the comments above, I sigh with deep relief. Thank God there are healthy-minded people in this world.
Nico x tyndall is right but when I say the same things he only has snotty resentment, so I am not praising him
the BBC or Boy Buggerers Club
has always been a propaganda body for the jews
thats beyond doubt, its a rothschild mouthpiece
BTW i dont think carl jones is that stupid
i think he just likes annoying people
my 9 year old nephew is like that
pissing through starmers letter box hilarious !
A second man has been arrested in connection with arson attacks on various properties linked to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Counter-terror officers arrested a 26-year-old man at Luton Airport on Saturday on suspicion of conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life, according to a statement from the Metropolitan Policehe arrest, which took place shortly before 2pm, follows fires at Sir Keir’s home in Kentish Town, as well as another property and a car linked to the Prime Minister earlier this month.
Roman Lavrynovych, a 21-year-old Ukrainian man, has already been charged with three counts of arson with intent to endanger life in connection with the fires.
Lavrynovych, of Sydenham, south-east London, denied arson in a police interview.
He appeared in court on Friday and was remanded in custody until a further hearing at the Old Bailey scheduled for June 6.
He denied any connection to the constant urination through Starmers letter box
Over a dozen people rang police to offer paying his fine
One commenter spoke of Christian girls being raped by Moslems, but these girls are almost certainly much more aligned with the anti-Christian modern culture of today. In town I see Christians trying to hand out a leaflet and get ignored by about 95 per cent of the people