Mideast War blowback

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After “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” which counts Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara as executive producers, received a nearly 23-minute standing ovation at its Venice Film Festival premiere in September, filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania took a slew of meetings with potential North American distributors.

Executives praised the film, which follows the Palestine Red Crescent Society’s failed attempt to save Hind, a Palestinian child who was killed in Gaza in 2024 after being trapped in a car under Israeli fire. But not a single major studio or streamer made an offer on the movie, the official Oscar submission of the Tunisian Culture Ministry, Ben Hania said.

“People never say, ‘I’m afraid to pick up a movie,’” Ben Hania said. “Maybe they are. I don’t know. They can’t openly talk about it, because it’s a shame to be afraid of talking about the killing of a child.”

Four movies that tell stories about Palestinian people, set from 1936 to 2024, are competing for this year’s Academy Award for best international feature, just as a ceasefire takes hold in the region. The films, “All That’s Left of You,” “Palestine 36,” “The Sea,” and “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” are screening for awards voters this fall. Three of them are slated to run at the American Film Institute Festival in Los Angeles this week.

Despite interest at the start of filming, and in some cases A-list backers, none of these films have secured a deal with a major studio or streamer, which is uncommon when a title receives buzz overseas. In past years, other foreign language films about major conflicts in history, such as Brazil’s “I’m Still Here” Germany’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” and the United Kingdom's “Zone of Interest” all found prominent distributors.

As Hollywood has grown more outspoken in recent months about the situation in the Middle East, the challenges of convincing its distributors — the lifelines that can take movies from obscurity to national recognition — remain.

The batch of movies arrives as the crisis in the Gaza Strip remains a flashpoint issue in the entertainment industry. More than 5,000 film and television professionals have signed on to a boycott of Israeli film institutions, while two studios, Paramount and Warner Bros.. have condemned the boycott. Just as some in Hollywood have worried about saying the wrong thing in a social media post or a red carpet interview, others have been vocal, like Javier Bardem, who wore a keffiyeh to the Emmy Awards in September and openly criticized the war in interviews on the red carpet, or Amy Schumer, who posted frequently on her Instagram account calling for the release of the Israeli hostages.

Foreign films that get picked up for distribution often land with smaller independent companies, limiting the films to a few cities and small marketing budgets. International films have also long struggled with marketing to English-speaking audiences with non-English language films.

Multiple distributors declined to comment on the record about why studios aren’t buying the movies about Palestinians, but studio sources said either that their slates were already full or that the movies don’t seem likely to draw large audiences to theaters.

Without a major distributor, it can be hard for films from the region to demonstrate theatrical potential. But last year’s Oscar-winning “No Other Land,” a documentary about a Palestinian community in the occupied West Bank, shows both an appetite among American audiences for Palestinian stories and the complex issues these films face.

When “No Other Land” failed to close a theatrical deal in North America, producers paid to release it in theaters themselves, collecting $2.5 million domestically, enough to make theirs the third highest grossing documentary of the year so far, after films featuring Taylor Swift and Led Zeppelin. The filmmakers then turned down an offer to stream on U.S. platforms from Mubi, citing the London company’s backing from Sequoia Capital, which also invests in an Israeli defense tech startup called Kela. (In August, Mubi’s CEO responded to backlash about Sequoia financing by saying that the profits Mubi generates “do not fund any other companies in Sequoia’s portfolio.”)

For the filmmakers working in the region over the past two years, it’s been a long, arduous road to reach audiences, as the war impacted their physical productions and made potential distributors wary of facing political backlash for releasing their films.

Seeking to fill what they see as a void in the marketplace, Palestinian-American brothers and producers Hamza and Badi Ali formed their own company, Watermelon Pictures, in April 2024. The duo also tapped model Alana Hadid as Watermelon’s creative director and unofficial brand ambassador.

“Truthfully, we wish there was more competition,” Hamza Ali said. “It is almost like all of the pressure is on us to release these films and we feel obligated to do so. We hope that distributors of all sizes will start to engage.”

The Chicago-based company is distributing “All That’s Left of You,” submitted by the Royal Film Commission–Jordan for Oscar consideration, and “Palestine 36,” submitted by the Palestinian Culture Ministry, both of which also received long ovations at film festivals and strong reviews from critics.

Over a year since the company’s launch, the Ali brothers said that when they meet with executives at larger studios and streamers about buying films on Palestinian people, the buyers defer to higher ranking executives, citing the sensitivity of the subject matter, and effectively ending any conversation about a deal.

For some directors, the barriers have come from their own governments.

In Israel, filmmaker Shai Carmeli-Pollack won the country’s version of the Oscar for “The Sea,” the Ophir Award, only to have the Israeli government condemn the film and pull funding for the organization that granted the award. Each country chooses its own film to submit for Oscar consideration, and in Israel, the winner of best film at the Ophir Awards is automatically the country’s submission.

“I wasn’t surprised,” said Carmeli-Pollack, whose film is about a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who wants to join a school trip to the beach. “I’m not the first film that they attacked. In a way, they saved us a lot of explaining to the world that we do not represent this government.”

In a statement issued on social media in September regarding the decision, Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar wrote in Hebrew that he believes the country’s taxpayers shouldn’t have to support a “ceremony that spits on the heroic Israeli soldiers. (The film features a soldier questioning a Palestinian boy and his father as they are trying to go to the beach).

Carmeli-Pollack shot his movie in the West Bank in the summer of 2023, and he said he saw distributors’ enthusiasm for it evaporate after the Oct. 7 attacks. “The Sea” is now being released in the U.S. by Menemsha Films, a small Los Angeles-based company that distributes a variety of Jewish films.

Stories shot in the Palestinian territories have always faced hurdles when it comes to securing locations, but the crisis in Gaza made physical production virtually impossible, directors who spoke to NBC News said.

Cherien Dabis, the director, writer and star of “All That’s Left Of You,” was scheduled to start shooting her film in October 2023 in Jericho. Plans changed after the Oct. 7, Hamas-led attacks on Israel, which led Dabis to evacuate her cast and crew from the West Bank.

“We were hearing fighter jets and cities were being sealed off, checkpoints were closing,” she said. “We thought maybe we’d come back to Palestine, things would blow over. We had no idea.”

Dabis, whose movie she said is backed by a mix of European and Arab financing, ended up shooting in Greece, Cyprus and Jordan, telling the fraught history of the region through three generations of one family who were expelled from Jaffa in 1948.

“Palestine 36” director Annemarie Jacir was also scheduled to shoot her historical drama in October 2023 in the West Bank, with a cast that includes British actor Jeremy Irons and Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass.

But after Oct. 7, “There was no more insurance,” Jacir said. “No agents were going to send any of their cast to Palestine to film.” Jacir shot most of her movie in Jordan but was eventually able to return, with a much smaller crew, to film some scenes in Bethlehem, Jaffa and Jerusalem.

In order to help their movies find wider audiences, some are enlisting high-profile Hollywood advocates.

These are days of contradiction for Israeli arms exporters. On the one hand, Israeli defense companies make some of the most advanced and sought-after weapons systems available in the world today, including the world's first operational laser-based air defense system. On the other hand, many of these weapons proved their efficacy in a war that many of the industry's best customers regard as a needless bloodbath that has left Israel morally tainted.

Now that the Gaza war seems to be is presumably over, the question is which factor will win out – lingering moral disgust over Israel's behavior during the war and the political fallout, or the urgent need in many parts of the world, in particular Europe, to beef up their defenses against rising security threats.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that it was Israel's arms industry that faced the brunt of the foreign boycott activity during the final months of the war. It's harder to make a case for the moral complicity of a bank or a high-tech company in a brutal war than it is for a company that actually makes the tools soldiers use in battle. Moreover, big arms deals are often subject to public scrutiny and media coverage, making them easy targets for protests.

While the war in Gaza was raging, Spain canceled three big contracts totaling 650 million euros in protest and the Philippines announced it would not award Israeli arms makers any new contracts (but would continue buying parts for existing equipment). The latter didn't get nearly as much attention, but it should have – the country had been Israel's third-largest market over the past four years.

There were also reports of hesitation and foot-dragging in contract negotiations as well as high-profile bans on Israeli defense companies participating in international arms exhibits, such as last month's Dubai Airshow. If the war had dragged on much longer, many in the defense industry feared that the boycott threat would become real.

Still, the boycott phenomenon was limited, and Israel was signing major deals, including a $1.6 billion deal with Serbia by Elbit Systems for long-range precision strike artillery-rocket systems and unmanned aerial vehicles. Even as Germany banned some arms sales to Israel, in August it agreed to buy weapons from Israel, signing a €350 million deal with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems for aerial targeting systems.

In a sign that moral outrage over the war may have already begun to lift, it was reported Tuesday that Rafael would help supply the German army with approximately 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) worth of Spike anti-tank missiles. It will be one of the largest agreements signed by the Israeli defense industry in recent years.

Israel's expertise
But it would be premature to say one way or the other. Contrary to the impression many Israelis have, including a lot of people in the government, most European leaders weren't acting out of anti-Israel animus; they just wanted to see the war end and re-establish normal relations. It is now up to Israel to make sure that happens.

Europe is not a market Israel can afford to ignore: In 2024, the last year for which there are figures, the continent accounted for more than half of Israeli arms exports, up from 41 percent the year before Russia invaded Ukraine.

Europe is likely to grow bigger still. Whatever moral concerns European leaders had about the war in Gaza, they pale in comparison to their anxiety over the war in Ukraine and Russian ambitions to divide and dominate the rest of Europe. Indeed, the Russian threat is already there in the form of the hybrid warfare it is already waging – "stray" drones and fighter jets crossing into European territory, cyberattacks and sabotage.

Countering these kinds of threats is just the kind of thing Israel has proven it does well. At a key NATO Summit in June, NATO leaders committed to raising their defense spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product (70 percent of that dedicated to weapon systems and ammunition), up from a 2 percent target now.

Whether they will actually meet the target is debatable. U.S. President Donald Trump ended the war in Gaza (and seven other wars, too, so he says – too bad that there isn't a lifetime achievement award for Nobels). He may do the same in Ukraine, but unless there is a sea change in Russian hostility to the West, Europe will not be able to rest easy, all the more so as Trump's commitment to NATO is far from rock solid. Militarily, Europe is going to be more on its own than it has been since 1945.

Europe isn't the only promising export market for Israeli arms. Despite concerns about China, East Asian countries aligned with the West (i.e., customers for Israeli weaponry) have not stepped up their spending as quickly as Europe, but the military intelligence company Janes says the pace is now likely to pick up. Among the imported military hardware that Asia-Pacific countries rely on are the drones, missile systems and highly advanced electronics that Israel specializes in.

The Gulf is another big market, with growing anxiety over missile and drone attacks since Qatar was struck twice this year. One of those attacks was, of course, by Israel, which raises the interesting question of whether countries will buy Israeli air-defense technology to protect themselves against Israeli missiles. The answer is probably yes. The Gulf's real source of anxiety isn't Israel but Iran and its proxies, which have not only attacked Qatar but Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the past.

Two other important and positive developments have been underway in the Israeli defense industry.

The first is the government's drive to make the country more arms-independent, mainly by producing aerial bombs and other materiel.

The second development is the rise of start-up companies developing high-tech equipment for the military and homeland security.

As innovative as Israel's traditional big three arms makers (Elbit Systems, Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries) are, experience shows that it is start-ups that usually set the pace for technological advancement. The presence of a thriving defense-tech sector in Israel should not only enhance Israeli security but also create new export opportunities.

The defense sector has long been a major component of the Israeli economy, but now it is shaping up to become its third leg, together with high-tech and natural gas. Many Israelis may be uncomfortable with the idea of the country as an industrial Sparta, but in an increasingly unstable world where even wars of territorial conquest have re-emerged and hybrid warfare is a growing threat, the demand for arms is not going to go away.

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke told the UK’s Sunday Times that he won’t play in Israel again while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in power, and that Israel should not be part of Eurovision, while also criticizing pro-Palestinian activists for prosecuting a “low-level Arthur Miller witch hunt.”

Yorke, guitarist Jonny Greenwood and other members of the band addressed Israel, and pressure to boycott it, in a wide-ranging interview published Saturday on the occasion of Radiohead’s 40th anniversary and ahead of their first tour since 2017.

It’s far from the first time the band’s members have spoken out about Israel.

Yorke wrote a lengthy social media post criticizing both the Israeli government and Hamas in May, months after storming offstage in response to a pro-Palestinian heckler.

Greenwood, whose wife is Israeli, has long collaborated with Israeli musician Dudu Tassa as well as Arab artists, and rejects boycotts of the country. He had gigs canceled this year amid pressure from the boycott movement. A concert he and Tassa played in Tel Aviv last year prompted a call from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement to boycott Radiohead’s upcoming tour.

In the UK interview, which was conducted before the current ceasefire took effect, both Yorke and Greenwood took umbrage at fans’ calls for Radiohead to take a vocal position on the war in Gaza, and to pledge not to play in Israel. But the two were split over whether they would actually want to perform in the country.

“I wouldn’t want to be 5,000 miles anywhere near the Netanyahu regime, but Jonny has roots there,” said Yorke. “So I get it.”

Greenwood disagreed. “I would argue that the government is more likely to use a boycott and say, ‘Everyone hates us — we should do exactly what we want,'” Greenwood said. “Which is far more dangerous.”

The band faces ongoing pressure over Israel and the war. In September, it announced its first shows in over seven years. The BDS Movement responded by urging fans to boycott the tour because of Radiohead’s “silence” and Greenwood’s work with Tassa.

US immigration authorities detained British commentator Sami Hamdi, revoked his visa and said he would be deported rather than allowed to complete his speaking tour in the United States, a Homeland Security official said on Sunday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has Hamdi in custody, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin posted on social media site X/Twitter. "Under President Trump, those who support terrorism and undermine American national security will not be allowed to work or visit this country," she wrote.

Hamdi spoke at a gala for the Council on American Islamic Relations in Sacramento, California on Saturday and was scheduled to speak on Sunday at one of the group's events in Florida, the organization said in a statement. CAIR said he was detained at San Francisco International Airport.

Conservative figures had been urging the Trump administration to expel Hamdi from the United States.

Hamdi has appeared as an analyst and commentator on British TV networks. CAIR on Sunday called for his release and accused the Trump administration of detaining him over his criticism of the Israeli government.

A 'blatant affront to free speech'
Reuters was unable to reach Hamdi. CAIR's deputy director, Edward Ahmed Mitchell, said Hamdi had previously denied supporting Islamic militants and that the organization's lawyers had been unable to reach him by Sunday evening.

"Abducting a prominent British Muslim journalist and political commentator on a speaking tour in the United States because he dared to criticize the Israeli government’s genocide is a blatant affront to free speech," CAIR said in a statement.

Conservative activist Laura Loomer on Sunday took credit for Hamdi's arrest.

A federal court in New York City on Tuesday sentenced an anti-Israel activist, Tarek Bazrouk, to 17 months in prison for attacking Jews, in a case that galvanized the pro-Palestinian activist movement in the US.

Bazrouk, 20, attacked Jews at anti-Israel protests in three incidents and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit hate crimes in June.

The victims of the attacks, which took place surrounding anti-Israel protests in 2024 and early 2025, were all wearing Jewish or Israeli symbols or were otherwise identifiable as such.

Bazrouk, who is Palestinian, became a cause célèbre for anti-Israel activists across the US after his arrest. Leading groups, such as National Students for Justice in Palestine, urged their followers to sign a letter to the judge in his case, arguing for leniency in the sentencing.

Around 200 Bazrouk supporters filed into the federal Southern District court in Manhattan on Tuesday morning for the sentencing. Several dozen, including his family, sat in the courtroom, while the rest were diverted to an overflow room to watch the proceedings via livestream. The attack victims and a smaller number of their supporters from the Jewish community sat across the aisle.

As Bazrouk entered the courtroom, dressed in a beige prison jumpsuit, his leg shackles clinking, he made a heart gesture to his supporters.

The judge in the case, Richard Berman, cited aggravating circumstances at the hearing, including text messages from Bazrouk uncovered by investigators that exposed his animosity toward Jews, his extensive criminal history, his support for terrorist groups, and an “arsenal” of weapons and more than $750,000 in cash found at his apartment.

The defense said Bazrouk had earned the cash while working at unlicensed, cash-only smoke shops in Connecticut. He forfeited the cash to the authorities as part of his plea agreement.

Bazrouk has been arrested at least nine times, apart from the three hate crimes arrests, for charges including robbery, assault, possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, reckless endangerment, grand larceny and forgery, prosecutors said.

Berman also cited factors in Bazrouk’s favor, such as his youth, his stated contrition, his supportive family and the campaign in his support.

A letter seeking leniency in the sentencing garnered more than 11,000 signatures. The pro-Palestinian groups that campaigned for Bazrouk characterized him as a “political prisoner,” without mentioning his attacks on Jews. The defense submitted the letter to the court, but said it was not affiliated with the social media campaign that advertised the missive and elided Bazrouk’s hate crimes and antisemitism.

Not all of the petitioners, obviously, were fully apprised that the defendant voluntarily pled guilty to hate crimes,” Berman said.

Bazrouk was born to a Palestinian family in the US, lived in the West Bank for 18 months during his childhood, and resided with his family in a Manhattan apartment before his arrest, Berman said.

In a brief statement, Bazrouk apologized to the victims. “I’m sorry, guys, and I hope you can forgive me,” he said.

Bazrouk’s older sister told the court that the family “strongly condemns violence in all forms” and has “never taught hatred against Jewish people.”

The victims, whose names were redacted by the court, said the attacks had a significant impact on their lives and that they did not believe that Bazrouk truly regretted the assaults.

“Never in my life did I imagine that walking in the streets of New York would become a scary, terrifying experience,” one of the victims told the court.

“My experience as a Jew in America has been altered forever,” he said, adding that Bazrouk had bragged about the attacks to friends in text messages, indicating that he was not contrite.

Bazrouk was arrested in May and pleaded guilty weeks later. The plea agreement included a sentencing guideline of 12-18 months in prison, and 1-3 years of supervised release, meaning the judge’s decision was near the maximum sentence. Bazrouk has been incarcerated since his arrest in May, time that will be counted as part of his total sentence.

Some of Bazrouk’s supporters wept outside the courtroom after the sentencing.

One of the victims, Elisha Baker, said he was “grateful” for the judge’s decision.

“The message that the court sent today is that if you assault Jews on the basis of their Judaism and membership in the Jewish people, you will be held accountable,” Baker told The Times of Israel.

Jews are targeted in hate crimes more than any other group in New York City, according to NYPD data, but antisemitic hate crimes convictions are rare because prosecutors need to prove a bias motivation, a high legal bar. In Bazrouk’s case, prosecutors relied on his antisemitic text messages and his repeated attacks on Jews to demonstrate bias.

Bazrouk’s case was one of the most high-profile antisemitism hate crime cases in the city since a 2021 assault on Jewish pro-Israel activist Joey Borgen. That attack also occurred near an anti-Israel protest and resulted in a series of convictions and prison sentences.

Anti-Israel activists allegedly stormed a building on Wednesday where a Toronto student group was hosting a lecture by IDF veterans, according to Students Supporting Israel (SSI), wounding one of the guest speakers.

The Toronto Police Service said multiple arrests had been made after officers responded to an incident in which a group of demonstrators forced their way into a building.

One injury was reported, and the investigation is ongoing.

Masked anti-Israel activists allegedly entered the private business where SSI Toronto Metropolitan University was holding its event, and broke a glass door that was being held shut by one of the veterans.

According to SSI, the door was shattered using a drill bit, and in the process the veteran was cut by the glass.

Students for Justice in Palestine TMU called for an "emergency rally" to prevent the hosting of "Zionist murderers" at SSI TMU's "Combat on College" event.

"Our administrations refuse to take action," read an Instagram post by SJP TMU just before the incident. "War criminals will never be welcome in our communities."

Event moved to nearby private venue after denied room on campus
SSI founder Ilan Sinelnikov said that the event had been moved to a nearby private venue after being denied a room on campus.
"What happened at Toronto today with the attack on our students, our speakers, and a local business is the textbook definition of terrorism," said Sinelnikov.

"This is not in Gaza or Europe. This is happening in North America. To say Jewish students, Zionist students are not at risk would be a lie. The universities and their administration, the local leaders, were fulfilling this for years, and we can’t wait for them to wake up if a bigger tragedy is going to happen. The terrorists in Toronto must be arrested and held accountable to the full extent of the law.

The event was part of a broader Ontario college tour, giving students the opportunity to hear from an American-Israeli about life in Israel since the October 7 Massacre

A vandal smashed the windows of the Kehilat Shaarei Torah synagogue with a hammer on Tuesday, according to the Toronto Police Service and the congregation, marking the tenth time that the Toronto synagogue has been defaced in a year and a half.

Five of the synagogue windows were broken before dawn by the vandal, who had slipped between the synagogue and its neighbour’s fence.

Police said they are looking for a suspect wearing a black hooded jacket, black pants, and dark shoes with white marking.

Kehilat Shaarei Torah executive director Michael Gilmore said that he suspected the vandal to be the same person who had defaced the synagogue between last April and May.

The synagogue was first vandalized on April 19 when its windows and doors were smashed with hammers. Before the act was repeated on May 17, a dead raccoon was placed on the synagogue lawn, though the Post previously reported that it had been placed there in July.

Toronto's vandal was arrested, facing 29 charges, including arson
Gilmore said that he believed there to be at least three different vandals who had attacked the synagogue since the first incident.

Suspect Amir Arvahi Azar was arrested on January 11 and charged for his role in a series of antisemitic arson and vandalism attacks in the Canadian city from April 26, 2024, until January 3, including some against Kehilat Shaarei Torah.

The 29 charges against Azar included five counts of arson, nine counts relating to mischief, three counts of possessing a restricted firearm without holding a license or registration, two counts of possession of a prohibited weapon, possessing a firearm with altered serial numbers, and possession of a prohibited device. Azar also faced the rare charges of advocating for genocide and willful promotion of hatred.

A motorcyclist threw rocks through the windows of Kehillat Shaarei Torah on June 30, as well as through those of the Pride of Israel synagogue.

On July 31, the alleged vandal set synagogue signs on fire with a blowtorch. This happened not long after an incident in which the signs were graffitied.

Hate Decals on Toronto Synagogue Cost $160,000 in Security
Gilmore believed Azar to be responsible for those incidents. The director also understood that a third vandal was responsible for vandalizing synagogue signs with stickers three times.

A large decal reading “genocide” was placed on the synagogue’s signs for the Jewish National Fund and United Jewish Appeal Federation of Greater Toronto on December 1. A similar sticker was placed on a sign on December 22, so that instead of “standing with Israelis,” the sign read, “Genocide with Israelis, it’s what we do.”

A second sign about the hostages held by Hamas was changed using spray paint from “Bring them home now” to “Take their homes now.”

After several incidents, the synagogue spent over $160,000 on physical security improvements and additional security guards.

BBC Arabic chose to “minimize Israeli suffering” in its reporting of the war against Hamas in order to present it as the aggressor, a new whistleblower report has revealed.

The 19-page report – so far seen exclusively by the Daily Telegraph – was written by former independent adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee (EGSC), Michael Prescott. He was reportedly spurred to action due to his disgust at the BBC’s bias and inaction (despite high-ranking executives being aware). The report was sent to the BBC’s Board.

Prescott claimed that BBC Arabic gave a platform to journalists who made antisemitic comments and provided multiple examples, including one man who said Jews should be burned “as Hitler did,” who appeared as a guest on BBC Arabic 244 times in a year and a half. Another, who said Jews are “devils,” appeared 522 times during the same time period.

Prescott’s report also said there was “critically different treatment” between the main BBC news website and BBC Arabic of the rocket attack on Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights in July 2024, when nine Druze children were killed. The English-language BBC included Hezbollah’s denial of the strike, but also evidence that the terror group had bombed other sites in the vicinity. BBC Arabic, however, mentioned neither other strikes nor the children’s deaths. The next day, it published claims that Israel faked the attack.

“It is hard to conclude anything other than that BBC Arabic’s story treatment was designed to minimize Israeli suffering and paint Israel as the aggressor,” Prescott said, according to the Telegraph.

BBC Arabic under fire for reporting in Israel-Hamas War
In July 2024, a senior news editor from the BBC World Service carried out an internal review of BBC Arabic, which did not find any editorial “red flags”, prompting EGSC to commission its own review by David Grossman, its senior editorial adviser.
Grossman’s report examined five months of coverage from May to October 2024, including 535 articles on the English-language website and 523 on BBC Arabic. Prescott said Grossman found stark differences between the two. The main BBC website had 19 separate stories about the Israeli hostages, while BBC Arabic had none. Four articles criticized Hamas on the main website, and none on BBC Arabic; however, every article critical of Israel on the main website was replicated by BBC Arabic.

This was just one of many examples provided in Grossman’s report, according to Prescott.

“It should have prompted urgent action by the Executive, but it did not,” Prescott added.

In another shocking admission, Prescott recalled discussing Grossman’s review with Jonathan Munro, senior controller of BBC news content, who said “BBC Arabic was almost as trusted as Al Jazeera,” and “an unrivalled source of knowledge and editorial content for the wider BBC.”

“Is Al Jazeera the new gold standard the BBC wants to aspire to?” asked Prescott in his report. “All this is to entirely miss the main reasons for having a taxpayer-funded World Service – to provide impartial news coverage and to reflect British values on the world stage.”

Following the publication of Prescott’s report in the Telegraph, former director of BBC television Danny Cohen penned an op-ed calling it a “devastating document” which, for the first time, laid bare “serious and widespread failings of impartiality, systemic bias, and activist journalism spanning years of BBC news coverage.”

“Not only was BBC Arabic routinely platforming Jew-hating journalists, it was also promoting Hamas lies over facts,” he said.

“As I read page after page of shocking revelations, I felt a growing sense of dismay towards those at the top of the BBC who have spent two years assuring me and others within the British Jewish community that they take issues of antisemitism and bias seriously. This report provides hard evidence that the BBC has been gaslighting us.”

The American heavy metal band Disturbed announced an indefinite hiatus last week. "Not sure when we will be headed back out. We all need a nice long break. Hope to see you when we do," posted singer David Draiman on his social media accounts.

Draiman has been caught up in a series of public clashes in the past year due to his public support of Israel. The band's performance in Belgium was cancelled after the mayor of Vorst, a municipality in the Brussels region, refused to approve it for safety reasons. He said that the police had warned that Draiman's performance could lead to violent demonstrations.

"My priority … is the safety of residents, demonstrators, spectators, and the staff," he told the newspaper The Brussels Times. Later he added, "This is a man who signed a bomb that fell on Gaza. We don't support his presence here and certainly not his views."

In photos documented on his social media, Draiman is seen writing the words "f**k Hamas" on an artillery shell. The reaction was immediate: "Smiling and signing bombs dropped to murder kids and other people's families just makes you a straight up c**t," posted the Irish rap ensemble Kneecap. Draiman responded by saying that he'd signed one bomb, and would do it again. He said he was a fierce and unapologetic supporter of Israel and wouldn't let hatred or scaremongering silence him.

Draiman, 51, who was born in Jerusalem and grew up in Chicago in an Orthodox Jewish family, has never been one to hide his views. At the Disturbed performance in Tel Aviv in 2019, he sang "Hatikvah" and called the audience his "brothers and sisters." In recent years, he has come out against Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters calling him "an antisemitic monster," due to his boycott campaign against Israel. When asked in the past if he isn't afraid of losing fans, he replied: "I don't care if it makes people angry. There are things you don't apologize for."

This year, Draiman criticized Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine who expressed support for Kneecap and its members' pro-Palestinian views. "It's a sham," Draiman said, "that a musician with a past of social struggle supports a band that promotes hatred of Jews."

Last July when he participated in a tribute to Ozzy Osborne and Black Sabbath, some members of the audience booed him. "I won't let a few Jew haters stop me," he said after the event. "There's also someone there who edited the videos in order to add fake boos. It's a hate industry."

Despite the controversy surrounding Draiman, Disturbed is one of the most successful heavy metal bands of recent decades. Since it released its debut album "The Sickness" in 2000, its albums have sold tens of thousands of copies and it has had hits like "Down With the Sickness." The band's world tour to mark the 25th anniversary of the album's release ended recently.

Four people were arrested after protesters used flares to disrupt a concert by the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra in Paris on Thursday night, the latest in a wave of anti-Israel incidents linked to the Gaza conflict, French officials said on Friday.

Activists interrupted the performance three times, clashing with audience members during each one, France in English reported. The orchestra resumed its performance after each interruption.

The Philharmonie condemned the disruptions and will be filing a formal complaint regarding the incidents.

French ministers condemn the interruptions
"I strongly condemn the actions committed last night during a concert at the Philharmonie de Paris. Nothing can justify them," Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on X.

I thank the personnel from the Paris police who enabled the rapid arrest of several perpetrators of serious disturbances inside the venue and contained the demonstrators outside. Four people have been placed in custody," he added.

The Paris prosecutor's office said three women and a man were in custody, on charges ranging from violence, destruction, and organising an unauthorised protest.

Culture Minister Rachida Dati, on X, condemned the disruptions as a violation of the "fundamental rights of our Republic."

No calls for boycotting the concert
The trade union representing entertainment workers, CGT Spectacle, criticized the concert, claiming it was part of a normalization effort by the Israeli state, but did not call for a boycott.

French Culture Minister Rachida Dati defended the event and rejected any justification for boycotts. The Philharmonie has a history of hosting both Israeli and Palestinian musicians without political incident until now.

At least six anti-Israel protesters were arrested at Villa Park, Birmingham, on Thursday following chants of "Death to the IDF," as well as refusals to comply with police orders to remove facemasks and disperse, according to The Telegraph.

The UEFA Europa League match at Villa Park, Birmingham, between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Aston Villa, was held under a massive security operation. West Midlands Police clarified that those arrested included a 21-year-old man for failing to comply with an order to remove a face mask, and a 17-year-old boy for failing to comply with a dispersal order.

Three others were arrested for racially aggravated public offenses and one person for a breach of the peace.

Villa Park hosted the UEFA Europa League match where pro-Israeli Jewish protesters, supporting Maccabi Tel Aviv, and denouncing the ban, were placed by British police in a fenced-in basketball court near the Aston Villa vs Maccabi Tel Aviv, footage on social media showed.

Despite fears of violent clashes after the match was classified as "high risk," the protests remained largely peaceful after police had deployed more than 700 officers in the center of Birmingham, which has a large Muslim population, and around the stadium.

Aston Villa vs Maccabi Tel Aviv match erupts in violence
Around 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators waved flags, with some chanting anti-Israel slogans.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK shared images showing members of the antizionist group holding signs reading "MACCABI NOT WELCOME," and "421 PALESTINIAN FOOTBALL PLAYERS KILLED," while commenting on their social media that "there can be no normalization of a genocidal, apartheid state."

"Despite repeated appeals from Palestinian officials and global fans, *FIFA has remained silent*, refusing to condemn the killings or take disciplinary action against Israel’s football authorities, a stark contrast to how swiftly it acted against others. *Football cannot claim to stand for unity while ignoring injustice.*" PSC UK wrote in their call to protest the match.

"FIFA FIFA take a stand, Israel football must be banned," they told members to use a chant.

A smaller pro-Israeli counter-protest of about 40 people carried signs that read "Keep Antisemitism Out of Football" and "No Tolerance for Jew Hatred." A woman holding up an Israeli flag was led away by police.

Pockets of fans briefly clashed with pro-Palestinian demonstrators shortly before kickoff but were separated by police.

With Israeli sports teams a focus for pro-Palestinian protests during the Israel-Hamas war, and Villa initially saying away fans would be barred on police advice, Maccabi reluctantly opted not to accept tickets for visiting supporters.

Police told Sky News on Thursday that they banned Maccabi fans due to "significant levels of hooliganism" in the fan base jeopardizing safety around the match - rather than threats to visiting Israelis.

"I'm aware there's a lot of commentary around the threat to the (Maccabi) fans being the reason for the decision. To be clear, that was not the primary driver. That was a consideration," West Midlands Police Chief Superintendent Tom Joyce told Sky.

"We have intelligence and information that says that there is a section of Maccabi fans, not all Maccabi fans, but a section who engage in quite significant levels of hooliganism."