Mainstream Western institutions view Jewish lives as more important than Palestinian Lives

By Caitlin Johnstone | August 3, 2026
The BBC recently interviewed an Israeli settler who said that all the Palestinians in four surrounding villages should be exterminated to avenge an Israeli who was killed while terrorizing a Palestinian village last month, adding that just a single Jewish life is worth ten million Palestinian lives.
“I think now after they kill one Israeli people, we need to kill all the people in Tal and Sarra, even Jit and Farata,” lawyer Yehuda Shimon told the BBC.
“It sounds like you’re saying one Jewish life is worth hundreds or thousands of Palestinian lives,” replied the BBC’s Lucy Williamson in the interview.
“Million,” Shimon corrected her. “One Jewish life, it’s ten million, okay?”
“That just sounds racist,” Williamson responded, to which Shimon replied, “Yes, I know, I know. But this is the truth.”
The interaction has been going viral on social media as people react to the blatant display of the extremist ideology held by the settlers who are working to gradually squeeze Palestinians off their land in the West Bank. And while it is true that Shimon’s comments are extremely evil and racist, that’s not what I personally found interesting about the interview. What I found interesting was Williamson’s response.
I mean, it is a bit rich watching a BBC reporter act shocked and offended by somebody saying they think Jewish lives are worth more than Palestinian lives. After all, the premise that Jewish lives are worth more than Palestinian lives has colored every aspect of Western news media reporting on Israel and Palestine for generations.
[IAK notes: See this]
That’s why the Western press expressed disproportionately more shock and horror at October 7 than the far more egregious Israeli abuses which led up to it and the far more egregious Israeli abuses which followed. It’s why you saw howling outrage at the Bondi shooting in Sydney last year when the same number of Palestinians getting killed on any given day in Gaza never even makes a blip in the news.
On the 26th of March 2025, 15 Palestinians were killed by the IDF during a ceasefire in Gaza. On the 14th of December that same year, 15 people were killed at Bondi Beach in Sydney in a mass shooting by ISIS members directed at Jewish Australians.
Two instances of mass murder. Same exact number of victims. But you only heard about one of them.
Why did you only hear about one of them? Because only one of them made the news.
The mainstream press spent weeks urgently reporting on the Bondi shooting, frenetically working to falsely associate an ISIS terrorist attack with pro-Palestine demonstrations by uniformly repeating the line “This is what globalize the intifada looks like” in news outlets throughout the Western world. Report after report after report was published about how Jews are being attacked, how Jews are feeling unsafe, and what new laws and free speech restrictions must be rolled out in order to stomp out pro-Palestine sentiment to protect the Jews.
Nothing remotely similar happened on the 26th of March, 2025. As far as the Western press were concerned, 15 Palestinians getting killed in Gaza was just another Wednesday.
This is because all mainstream Western media outlets hold the same racist opinions about Palestinians as those that were voiced by Yehuda Shimon. So do all mainstream Western political parties. So do all other mainstream Western institutions. So do all supporters of the state of Israel. They all believe Jewish lives are worth more than Palestinian lives, as evidenced by the policies they support and the news stories they pay attention to.
The BBC has a well-documented history of extensive pro-Israel bias, with its own reporters complaining that they’ve been performing PR for the Israeli government and its own editor losing a libel lawsuit against a journalist who exposed his pro-Israel slant. They spent years running cover for an active genocide with “Hamas-run health ministry says” headlines and passive-language verbal gymnastics to protect Israeli information interests, so you know that when Lucy Williamson objects “That sounds racist!” to an Israeli settler claiming Jewish lives are worth far more than Palestinian lives, she’s not actually upset at his belief system. She just knows you’re not supposed to say such things out loud.
The Latest Wildfire Panic is Refuted by Data
By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | July 28, 2026
Wildfires are in the news. With a hot, dry summer it was bound to happen. And, naturally, this is bringing with it talk of climate change.
The Independent is screaming and rending its garments:
Europe is on fire – will the continent’s climate change deniers finally wake up?
The Guardian has an opinion piece calling for prosecutions for climate crimes. Twitter experts are calling for changes to the way we live our lives.
Prince William is saying stuff:
Wildfires ‘stark reminder’ of extreme climate challenge, says William
I suppose we should make the usual point, that wildfires are a natural phenomenon that are an important part of the life cycle of many ecosystems. And that some years are bound to be worse than others.
But there’s just one issue, wildfire activity is actually down.
A new study from the University of East Anglia, published in May, found that 2025 was 16% below the average in terms of burnt area, and that’s despite policies known to increase both the chance of wildfires starting and the area they will burn.
But that was last year, this year must be different given the coverage, right?
Wrong.
Data from the EU’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service shows that, to the end of June, this year had substantially lower wildfire activity – across every continent – than any year since they began collecting data in 2003.

Of course, this data does not yet include the fires from the past couple of weeks, and there is a chance that 2026 will not remain a record-breaking low in fire terms, but this is largely due to the known effect of El Nino years.
The authors note in the conclusion [emphasis added]:
The record low total biomass burning emissions for the first half of 2026 continues the overall downward trend related to changes in savanna fires in tropical Africa and Asia. However, the observed onset of many large-scale wildfires across Eurasia and North America in the last couple of weeks of June, could increase the global total emissions through the rest of the summer. Looking further ahead, the predicted El Niño conditions have the potential to increase global fire emissions, as we observed during the previous El Niño years of 2015 and 2019 when persistent biomass burning in Indonesia caused widespread regional haze and severely degraded air quality.
In fact, the yearly global area burnt by wildfires has been steadily decreasing for over a century (we recommend following Bjorn Lomborg on X, a great source of data):

So, why the panic?
The caveat here – according to the University of East Anglia paper – is that while the number of fires, and total area burnt is down, “severity” is up.
In short, less overall wildfire activity seems to be somehow translating to greater human cost, both in lives and money. Evacuations are allegedly up, insurance costs are allegedly up, and fatalities are allegedly up:
A new analysis of global wildfire activity in 2025 reveals the world experienced some of the most destructive and deadly fire events in recent history, despite the second lowest area burned since 2002. It highlights a continued trend toward fires becoming increasingly extreme, costly, and disastrous—both economically and in lives lost.
Now, first instinct would be this is either linguistic or statistical manipulation designed to camouflage research that failed to correctly serve the climate change agenda.
A case of cope to cover misbehaving data: “Fine, wildfires are down, but the ones we’ve had are SO much more DESTRUCTIVE!”.
That’s entirely possible. But supposing the stated data is accurate, what does this mean?
Well, there are several potential explanations
It could be the predictable result expanding human habitation and growing population.
It could be that the areas of fire activity shifting to more populated areas by some as yet not understood natural process.
It could be that fires being deliberately started close to inhabited areas in order to create fear.
It could be that these statistics are manipulated or fabricated.
…Or it could be any or all or a mixture of several.
We don’t know, but we can’t rule anything out at this stage.
The data is clear though, there’s no need to panic. No matter what the press says.
Claims of Iran agreeing to reopen Hormuz Strait are false: Report
Press TV – August 2, 2026
Media reports claiming that the Islamic Republic of Iran has agreed to a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz are false, and no change has been made to the country’s policy regarding the strategic waterway, according to a report.
Foreign media outlets, citing Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, have claimed earlier that Iran had accepted a proposal under which ships would enter the Persian Gulf through Iranian territorial waters and leave through Omani territorial waters.
Fars News Agency, citing a source close to Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, rejected those claims, with the source saying, “The Islamic Republic of Iran has reached no agreement on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and the reports published in this regard are false.”
According to Fars, a military source also dismissed the claims, saying they were entirely unfounded.
“As long as the hostile actions and acts of malice by the United States continue, the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed,” the military source was quoted as saying.
“Passage will only be possible through the designated route, in coordination with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Navy and after obtaining permission to transit the Strait of Hormuz. Otherwise, other routes are unsafe, and vessels attempting to use them will certainly encounter incidents.”
The source further emphasized that reports claiming that Iran had agreed to any plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz were “baseless” and that no decision or policy change had been made regarding the strategic waterway.
It came after US President Donald Trump said he had canceled declared attacks on Iran, following warnings from Tehran that any new US or Israeli aggression would face strong retaliation.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, Trump claimed that the US was “locked and loaded” and prepared to launch a military assault against Iran, describing the potential aggression as involving levels of military power “not seen since World War II.”
The latest round of war against Iran began on February 28, when US and Israeli forces launched large-scale strikes on Iranian territory.
Iran responded with daily waves of missiles and drones targeting US and Israeli assets across the region, while closing the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran and the US later signed the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on June 17 in an effort to end the war across all fronts.
However, renewed US military aggression against Iran in recent weeks has prompted Tehran to resume missile and drone strikes against US assets in the region and close the Strait of Hormuz once again.
Ukraine’s ‘turned tide’ doesn’t comport ‘with basic military reality’
By Stavroula Pabst | Responsible Statecraft | July 29, 2026
Encouraged by Ukraine’s sustained advances in drone warfare, Western media is abuzz with the idea that Kyiv just might be able to defeat Russia after more than four years of bitter fighting.
In May, TIME hailed Ukraine’s drone industry as giving Kyiv “the cards to win without U.S. help.” Last month, CNN lauded Ukrainian drone strikes near Moscow as “a likely turning point” in the war. Earlier this month, Defense One even framed the conflict as a settled matter with the headline “How Ukraine won the first great robot war.”
But this isn’t the first time the press has played up Ukraine’s military capabilities, despite repeated setbacks on the battlefield. As experts warn RS, such coverage reinforces the idea that more military aid can still help Ukraine win back all of its territory, thus downplaying the need for a negotiated solution.
Overplaying Ukraine’s hand
As Daniel Davis, a military expert at Defense Priorities, tells RS, “western media narratives claiming Ukraine has ‘turned the tide’ do not survive contact with basic military reality.”
“Tactical Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries and supply hubs — like the recent hits on [Russian retailer] Wildberries near Moscow and St. Petersburg — make for dramatic television,” Davis wrote to RS, citing recent Ukrainian drone attacks within Russia. “They do not disrupt Moscow’s core ability to wage a long-term war of attrition.”
Michael Desch, an international relations professor at the University of Notre Dame, tells RS that drones alone cannot earn Ukraine a military victory. “Best Ukraine can do [with drones] is slow the Russians down a bit,” he said.
“There is no doubt that Ukraine has recently upped its medium- and deep-strike drone operations against Russia and has done some damage,” he shared. “The problem with the [mainstream media] coverage is that it ignores: a) Russia is doing the same [and] b) Russia is still making consistent gains on the ground.”
To Desch’s point, Russian forces continue, albeit slowly, to push westward into Eastern Ukraine. Both Russia and Ukraine say they have captured villages at the war’s frontlines.
More broadly, as Barry Posen, a political science professor at MIT, tells RS, “the press highlights anything that looks like positive news for Ukraine from the battlefield. And it tends to minimize Ukrainian setbacks.”
Posen cited Ukraine’s 2024 Kursk offensive as an episode where the media overplayed Kyiv’s prospects. “It was clear that this [offensive] was a diversion of scarce Ukrainian combat power to a mission that could not produce important military results. And it ended very badly for Ukraine,” he said.
The media similarly overhyped Ukraine’s unsuccessful counteroffensive in 2023, where Kyiv tried to retake Russian-held territory in southern and eastern Ukraine. “It turned into a horrendous sacrifice of soldiers on minefields and the drone-infested steppe,” Almut Rochowanski, a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute, said. “No gain to Ukraine at all, but enormous human and material resources were squandered.”
Despite repeated military setbacks, many pro-Ukraine commentators “remain completely unfazed,” said Mark Episkopos, a research fellow in the Quincy Institute’s Eurasia Program.
“Retired U.S. Army officer Ben Hodges predicted that the Russian army will collapse by March 2022, and again by the end of 2022, and that Crimea will be retaken in 2023,” Episkopos said.
In fact, Hodges made a similar prediction just last week, telling The Sun that Ukraine was once again working to isolate Crimea. “There will be a significant political problem for Putin when Crimea is finally back under Ukraine’s control,” Hodges said. “Things are moving in the right direction for Ukraine.”
The Western press has also downplayed the fact that many Ukrainians no longer want to fight.
“English-language reports about violent resistance to conscription [in Ukraine] are dwarfed by stories claiming Russia is faltering,” writer Branko Marcetic previously observed in RS. “Some Ukrainian-language reports about the country’s recruitment and demographic crises are simply never translated to English.”
Prolonging the war
But rosy coverage of Ukraine’s wartime prospects helps Western politicians make the case for more military aid, prolonging the conflict.
“The discourse around this war is saturated with the delusion that victory is right around the corner if the West simply does a little more,” Episkopos told RS. “As if one or two fresh aid tranches and sanctions packages will accomplish what $150 billion in military aid [to Ukraine] and the world’s most ambitious sanctions regime with over 25,000 restrictions [against Russia] could not,” he said, citing previous efforts to assist Ukraine.
“Most Western leaders… stand to lose politically from [abandoning the Ukrainian war effort],” he stressed. “Therefore, the only course left is to double down on the alternative information space they’ve created for themselves regardless of how far removed it is from the realities of this war.”
But observers say that doubling down, rather than pursuing diplomacy, has real costs for Ukrainians on the ground.
“By overstating Kyiv’s position, the Western media masks a grim reality: there is no viable military path to a Ukrainian victory,” Davis said. “Continuing to arrogantly pursue one anyway only prolongs the destruction and casualties pointlessly suffered by Kyiv.”
“Ukraine will either have to negotiate the best peace terms available or face complete military defeat,” Davis warned.
Is Peter Mandelson a Russian or a Zionist asset?
By David Miller | Al Mayadeen | July 27, 2026
There appears to be some uncertainty in the British intelligence services about what is wrong with Peter Mandelson.
On the one hand, a former MI6 officer with undisclosed, but possibly continuing connections to the agency, claims that Peter Mandelson may actually have been a long-term Russian agent or asset.
On the other hand, the secret briefing materials produced by MI6 as part of the process of vetting Mandelson for the job of British Ambassador to the US, the most significant red flags were his connections to Israel or Zionist assets.
Is MI6 uncertain, or internally split? Or is there a distinction between the materials they produce secretly to advise government, and materials which are “leaked” by former officers to the Daily Telegraph for propaganda purposes? You can see where I am going with this. So, let’s jump right in.
The recent apparent leak to the Daily Telegraph is said to have come from Christopher Steele, who is reportedly a former MI6 officer from deep inside the River House, as MI6’s Thames-side HQ is so quaintly called in humanising TV dramas. Steele worked on the Russia Desk at a time when Russia was declining in the degree of attention that was devoted to it by the British intelligence services.
Steele joined MI6 in 1987 and was immediately posted to the Russia Desk. He retired in 2009, having been three years as head of the Desk. For all of his career in MI6, the proportion of attention given by MI6 (and British intelligence more broadly) to Foreign State Threats of which Russia was the pre-eminent example had reportedly markedly declined, according to the Intelligence and Security Committee. No wonder he thinks we are not paying enough attention. It was only after the “reunification” of Crimea with the Russian Federation in 2014 that the British intelligence services started to focus much more attention on Russia, foremost among all State Threats.
After MI6, Steele went off to Orbis Business Intelligence. His most famous role there was as the author of the dossier on the alleged relations between Trump and Russia. These were comprehensively debunked in the so called RussiaGate affair, most notably in a four part investigation by Jeff Gerth and in the relentless deconstruction of the Mueller report and the technical flaws of the initial crowdsourced claims by Aaron Maté. It is frankly amazing that even the Telegraph would have anything to do with Steele after that debacle. But here we are. According to Steele, Mandelson was considered a “privileged contact” of Russian intelligence.
Of course, it’s not insignificant that the “journalist” who wrote the story, Camilla Turner, has parents who literally run UK Lawyers for “Israel”, as the Canary has previously pointed out. Turner has been at the Telegraph for years, but it’s also important to point out that it has recently been taken over by hardline Zionists who are on record as saying staff who are not pro-“Israel” should look for other jobs.
Mandelson’s official vetting reportedly threw up five separate links of concern. These were to China’s minister of finance, Lan Fo’an, the sanctions-hit Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and a former Israeli military intelligence general, Tamir Hayma. Another concern identified was a £1m loan Mandelson received to invest in an Israeli startup. United Kingdom Security Vetting also noted Mandelson had a “very close” relationship with another individual, who is British, that could be compromising.
But Mandelson was not the only British official to have relations with the Chinese Finance minister. Both Rachel Reeves (the Chancellor) and Keir Starmer as PM did so too.
On the Russian connection, as the Zionist press like Times of Israel and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency never tire of pointing out, Deripaska is one of Russia’s prominent Jewish oligarchs. And he is no stranger to elite Zionist networks. After all, when Mandelson met Deripaska in famously controversial circumstances in 2008, it was aboard the oligarch’s yacht as a guest of Nat Rothschild, who also reportedly played a key role in financing Deripaska’s business activities. It was aboard Rothschild’s own yacht that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump later “discovered” the Albanian island paradise that has become so controversial in recent weeks. Nat Rothschild also famously allowed Mandelson to “rent” a “modest” farmhouse on his Wiltshire estate in England, which was one of the two addresses raided by the police when Mandelson was arrested.
But that is not all. Mandelson is perhaps best known for his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the same financier/Zionist asset who revealed in a once secret email to Peter Thiel of Palantir that “I represent the Rothschilds”. The circles of influence and corruption are closed by the final connection. In 2018, Deripaska was allegedly involved in trafficking young women for prostitution. He was accused of raping at least one 15-year-old. Though his alleged associates were prosecuted, charges were in the end – in 2025 – not preferred against Deripaska. So the “Russian” connection to Mandelson in the vetting report, in the end, is actually a connection to Zionist influence networks, with a striking Epsteinian flavour.
Of the two specific “Israeli” connections raised by MI6, one was with the former head of the Zionist regime military intelligence agency Aman. Tamir Hayma was chief of Aman between 2018 and 2021 following a decades-long career in the occupation forces. He then transitioned to the Institute for National Security Studies, a regime-connected think tank, and reportedly spoke bi-monthly to Mandelson.
The other connection was that Mandelson, though he had declared a £1million holding in an Israeli gaming tech start-up, called Moon Active, which was behind Coin Master, had not disclosed that he had been loaned the money to buy the stake. The British resident behind the loan has not so far been identified. It would be surprising if they were not connected to the same Zionist networks in which Mandelson is embedded.
The final red flag reported by the vetting process was to another British individual. There has been very little reporting on who that individual might be. Speculating who it is is difficult because there are so many instances of Mandelsonian corruption that it is hard to tell which would have triggered warning bells in MI6. It could, of course, be Nat Rothschild, who has been central to so much of this, but equally it could be the former “Prince” now known as Andrew Mountbatten. A 2019 internal JPMorgan report flagged that Jeffrey Epstein maintained an intertwined, “particularly close relationship” with both Andrew and Lord Mandelson, creating overlapping reputational risks. Then there is Ghislaine Maxwell. In 2014, Mandelson signed on as a “founding citizen” for Terramar, an ocean conservation charity founded by the British socialite and funded by Epstein, which was later scrutinized during sex-trafficking investigations.
As can be seen from this list and from all that we know about Mandelson’s career, almost all of his multifarious connections are deeply inserted in the Epstein web or connected to Zionist influence networks. It was after Christopher Steele retired from MI6 that the agency massively increased its focus on Russia as a result of the “reunification” of Crimea with the Russian Federation. The HMG Russia Unit was created inside the Foreign Office for this purpose, and it co-operated very closely with the Russia Desk in MI6, which Steele had headed. The unit was given civilian cover and announced publicly, but as was later disclosed by the Intelligence and Security Select Committee, it was staffed by spooks from all seven then-existing British intelligence agencies. It was from there that the whole Skripal “poisoning” operation was run, as well as several other covert ops including the “Integrity Initiative” exposed in mass leaks in 2018 and indeed many covert ops in Ukraine after 2022. Given the reported connection between Steele and Skripal’s handler Pablo Miller, both of whom worked at Orbis Business Intelligence, it is reasonable to assume that Steele may have played a role in the Skripal op, at a time when he had been out of the service for nine years. So, it is not entirely clear that this latest intervention from Steele is entirely separate from the machinations emanating from spooks who currently inhabit the River House.
It is perfectly plain that the major link that Mandelson has is with Zionist intelligence-linked networks. If anyone in MI6 (or formerly in MI6) tells you differently, you will know they are ignoring the actual data held in their files and trying to treat you as a propaganda patsy. Don’t fall for it. Mandelson is a Zionist asset.
Kiev hitting civilian targets in Russia to provoke mirror response – ex-Pentagon analyst
RT | July 24, 2026
Kiev is targeting civilian infrastructure in Russia in an attempt to provoke Moscow into responding in kind so that Ukraine can “play the victim,” knowing Western media will largely ignore attacks on Russian civilians, former Pentagon senior security policy analyst Michael Maloof has told RT.
Thursday marked the third Ukrainian strike on warehouses belonging to Russia’s largest e-commerce retailer, Wildberries in an escalation of Kiev’s campaign against Russian civilian infrastructure. Ukraine has claimed the company supports Russian military logistics, an allegation denied by both Moscow and Wildberries itself. In a separate attack the same day, Ukrainian forces also struck storage facilities at a poultry farm near St. Petersburg.
Speaking to RT on Friday, Maloof described the attacks as a deliberate “terrorist” strategy.
“They’re doing it purposely in order to lure Russia to start hitting civilian targets… thereby knowing that the Western press will take that information and run with it,” he said.
“And that’s all that you’ll ever hear. You never hear about the attacks in Russia on civilian targets… And so I think the Ukrainians are just trying to play victim once again.”
Maloof dismissed Kiev’s assertion that Wildberries – an online marketplace comparable to Amazon – is a legitimate military target.
“It’s ridiculous. It’s absurd in the extreme.”
He argued that Ukraine expects most Western media outlets not to scrutinize its claims or “see the fraud” behind the justification for attacking the company.
According to Maloof, the broader campaign against Russian energy, food and other civilian infrastructure is aimed primarily at shaping public opinion abroad and securing continued Western financial support.
“It’s propagandistic purposes” designed to win “billions of euros” to continue the conflict, he said.
Maloof added that Ukraine’s European backers are fully aware that civilian sites are being targeted but choose to overlook it.
“They’re using Ukraine for their purposes: ultimately to attack Russia themselves,” he said. “All of this is instigated by the Europeans.”
Italian newspaper forced to pay for smearing ‘Putinists’
Corriere della Sera claimed the Italian government was investigating a Russian propaganda ring

RT | July 22, 2026
Italy’s Corriere della Sera was ordered to pay compensation to a sociology professor that it defamed as a “Putinist” after a court determined that the pro-Russia influence network he supposedly belonged to never existed.
In a Tuesday ruling, a court in Milan found that the newspaper had defamed Professor Alessandro Orsini by referring to him as a member of “Putin’s Network in Italy.” Corriere della Sera, a mainstream broadsheet paper, was ordered to pay €27,500 in compensation to Orsini.
“Publishing and allowing the publication of an article that attributes to Orsini the status of a member of an organized network of pro-Putin supporters aimed at propaganda and counter-information… constitutes conduct damaging to his personal and professional image and reputation,” the judge noted in the ruling.
Published in 2022, the defamatory article listed Orsini – then a professor at Luiss University in Rome – as a member of a “complex and diverse” network aimed at “attacking pro-Kiev politicians” and “undermining government decisions” it deemed favorable to Kiev. According to the newspaper, the group was under investigation by the Italian parliament’s intelligence committee (COPASIR), which allegedly determined it was “activated at key moments” to spread pro-Russia propaganda during the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
However, COPASIR’s president admitted at the time that the committee had “never conducted its own investigations into alleged influencers.” Italy’s undersecretary for intelligence services, Franco Gabrielli, added that “the names given by the newspaper do not appear in any type of investigation.”
During the trial, Corriere della Sera claimed it had received “other and different information” from confidential sources to back its story but was unable to prove this in court.
The judge noted that, not only had the newspaper failed to prove that Orsini participated in an organized propaganda network, but it was unable to prove that the network even existed in the first place.
As a result of the Corriere della Sera article, Orsini lost his position at Luiss University and was dropped as a contributor by Italian broadcaster RAI.
Orsini has been a persistent critic of Italy’s support for Ukraine. In early 2022, he accused Prime Minister Mario Draghi of “total subordination to America,” while blasting the West for “doing nothing for peace.”
“We must be open to recognizing the independence of Donbass and lifting sanctions,” he said in an appearance on RAI. “Draghi must say he’s no longer sending weapons to Zelensky.”
No, New York Times, Climate Change Isn’t Causing Modern Heat Waves
By Anthony Watts | ClimateRealism | July 9, 2026
The New York Times (NYT) claims in “Without Climate Change, U.S. Heat Wave Called ‘Virtually Impossible’” that the recent Northeastern U.S. heat wave could not have occurred without human-caused climate change. This is false. The NYT bases its entire story on a model-driven analysis from a group whose sole purpose is to connect weather events to climate change, while ignoring the long observational record showing that severe heat waves have repeatedly struck the United States, including New York, for centuries.
“Heat and humidity as severe, prolonged and far-reaching as this week’s would have been ‘virtually impossible’ in the Northeast and eastern Canada before humans began warming the planet, a team of scientists said on Friday,” writes Raymond Zhong, a reporter for the NYT. “Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the burning of oil, gas and coal have trapped more of the sun’s heat at Earth’s surface, raising temperatures worldwide for more than a century.
“Summer hot spells are nothing new, but because of the excess heat around the planet caused by global warming, they can produce higher temperatures today than they once did,” Zhong continued.
Unlike a good journalist, Zhong never questioned the premise, never examined the historical record, never interviewed anyone outside the climate attribution community, and never asked whether the group they cite, World Weather Attribution (WWA), has conclusions that might be influenced by the organization’s very reason for existing. Instead, Zhong presented readers with exactly one narrative: climate change is causing the present heat wave.
WWA exists for one purpose, to determine how much climate change has influenced weather events. That is its mission. Asking WWA whether climate change caused a heat wave is like asking the National Football League whether football is important or Greenpeace whether they think oil spills are harmful. What exactly did the NYT expect them to conclude? That climate change had nothing to do with it?
Of course not. This is not journalism, rather it’s a reporter using a narrative autopen.
The article reports that WWA concluded the heat wave would have been “virtually impossible” before industrialization and cites a probability analysis based on wet bulb globe temperature calculations combined with weather observations, forecasts, and climate model simulations. Yet there is one enormous problem with this approach: climate models are not observations.
WWA begins with climate models, creates a hypothetical version of Earth without modern greenhouse gas emissions, and then compares that imaginary world to today’s modeled climate. The result is not a measurement. It is an estimate built upon assumptions about carbon dioxide driving climate changes, already embedded within the models themselves. The NYT never explains this distinction. Instead, it presents speculative model output as though it were an observed fact. Even more troubling is the fact that the NYT story ignored heat wave history entirely.
America’s climate did not begin in 1970. Long before anyone blamed carbon dioxide for extreme weather, the United States experienced devastating heat waves that rivaled or exceeded many recent temperatures. Climate at a Glance documents that the most severe period for U.S. heat waves remains the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, when NOAA observations show far more frequent extreme heat than today.
The historical record extends even farther back. The catastrophic Eastern U.S. heat wave of 1901 killed an estimated 9,500 people. The historic 1911 heat wave brought temperatures above 100°F across much of New England and still holds Boston’s all-time record of 104°F. The Dust Bowl heat waves of 1934 and 1936 produced temperatures that remain unmatched across large portions of the central United States. The devastating heat wave of 1980 in the United States killed thousands and caused billions of dollars in damage. None of these events receives a single mention in the NYT article.
Instead, readers are asked to believe that today’s weather is fundamentally different from any weather experienced in the past, just because one attribution group says so.
The article also ignores the basic reality that reliable nationwide temperature observations span roughly 150 years, while humans have lived in North America for more than 15,000 years. Claiming that a weather event is “virtually impossible” based on such a tiny slice of climate history requires extraordinary confidence, or hubris. A commonly cited scientific saying “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is often attributed to astronomer Carl Sagan. Yet the NYT provides no extraordinary evidence for the claim that the ongoing heat wave is exceptional or would be “virtually impossible” sans climate change. Indeed, it presents no hard evidence at all, just WWA’s computer model spin. The NYT applies none of the skepticism that journalists normally reserve for extraordinary claims.
The NYT also overlooks another important factor. Much of the observed warming in cities occurs at night, when asphalt, concrete, and buildings slowly release the heat absorbed during the day. This Urban Heat Island effect raises overnight minimum temperatures, precisely when heat-related mortality is greatest. Urbanization can substantially influence long-term temperature records, a known factor ignored by the NYT.
Finally, Zhong quotes a WWA scientist declaring that “the climate the country has today is fundamentally different to the one it had when the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence.” That line makes for dramatic copy, but it is historically false. The Founding Fathers experienced brutal heat waves. The most famous heat wave during the American Revolution occurred during the Battle of Monmouth in central New Jersey on June 28, 1778. Temperatures soared to nearly 100°F (37.8°C) with high humidity, pushing the heat index well over 110°F. Fighting in heavy woolen uniforms under the blazing summer sun, soldiers on both sides suffered severe dehydration and heatstroke. Almost as many American soldiers died of heat exhaustion as died from battle wounds.
Extreme heat in the United States is not a new phenomenon.
Despite this, modern media treat every string of hot days as evidence of a looming “climate catastrophe” while ignoring centuries of evidence that debunks this claim.
The most disappointing aspect of this story is not WWA’s predictable conclusion. Organizations are free to pursue the missions for which they were created. The failure belongs squarely with the NYT simply parroting, without critical examination, a climate advocacy organization’s unverified claims.
Readers deserve good journalism. What they got was sloppy climate advocacy masquerading as news. In this case, The New York Times erred because WWA’s claims are not news and certainly not “fit to print.”
Rolling Blackouts Hit New York
By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | July 18, 2026
At least since New York passed its Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) back in 2019, it has been clear that trouble has been coming for New York’s electrical grid. The CLCPA effectively prohibits construction of new fossil fuel power plants, even natural gas plants; and the old ones are aging and are forbidden to be replaced or upgraded. Supposedly, lots of wind and solar generators were going to be added to the system. But those have been slow to come and, more importantly, can’t be counted on to generate anything when you need them. In addition, new construction of such things has now been stalled by the end of federal subsidies. At some point the lines of diminishing reliable generation and increasing demand would have to cross.
However, here at this website I have held off predicting imminent grid failure. The reason is that I don’t want to be the boy who cried wolf. Our grid operators are competent people, and they have a lot of tricks up their sleeves to hold things together even in difficult circumstances. In a pinch, they can start up every ancient “peaker” plant, and then import some power from PJM, or New England, or even from Canada. Despite New York’s hostile energy environment, they could get lucky and avoid blackouts for at least several more years.
So I think it is important to report that on this past July 2 and 3, Con Edison ran out of options and imposed rolling blackouts in parts of the North Bronx and Southern Westchester County.
You haven’t heard about this? It’s another example of the legacy media burying an inconvenient story. Checking to see what the New York Times has to say about these blackouts, I find just one sentence in the sixth paragraph of a July 3 article that is otherwise reporting on the heat wave that hit that weekend. The sentence in question reads, “The heat also put stress on power grids, contributing to scattered outages in New Jersey, New York and Ohio for tens of thousands of utility customers on Thursday, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us.” The heat put “stress” on the grid, leading to “scattered outages.” That’s it. No mention in the Times that the blackouts on that day in New York were intentionally imposed, or that the ongoing degradation of grid reliability had anything to do with it.
I have been waiting to report on this until I could find a credible source attributing the blackouts to an intentional act by Con Edison versus, for example, a heat-related accident of some sort. On July 16, the Institute for Energy Research had a piece with the headline “New York City Cuts Power During July 4th Heat Wave.” Excerpt:
Con Edison shut off electricity to over 5,000 customers in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, leaving residents there without air conditioning. Affected residents were directed to city cooling centers for relief. Con Edison had decided the N.Y. grid could not handle the load, saying the shutoffs were necessary to reduce strain on the grid, protect equipment, and speed up restoration. The company also cut voltage by 8% in areas of the city as a precaution to protect equipment and keep service running while crews worked.
So it was not just blackouts for 5,000 customers, but also 8% voltage cuts in various “areas of the city.” IER does not specify the extent of the areas covered by the voltage cuts.
Nor were the blackouts limited to just the Bronx. My colleague Richard Ellenbogen lives in Southern Westchester County, in a town called Pelham. Pelham is just north of the Bronx, and also within Con Edison service territory. In a July 12 email that he sent to his distribution list, Ellenbogen described what happened in his area:
[Over the weekend of July 3-5], [t]here were numerous power surges associated with the rolling blackouts where the lights went on and off several times before going out. . . . Those surges destroyed a bunch of equipment in my home despite having surge suppressors on the equipment. . . . I missed the Friday evening [July 3] rolling blackout and I returned to a mess. There is thousands of dollars in damages related to the surges. Based upon the Facebook Page MOPS (Mothers of Pelham), my home was not the only one impacted as many people are complaining about electronic equipment not working after the blackouts, notably air conditioners. . . . My home is going to need about $3000 worth of new battery backups. . .
I don’t find any reporting in the press about these blackouts in Westchester.
New York definitely experienced a severe heat wave in early July. The temperature at the Central Park weather station in New York City reached 100° F on July 2, and 98° F on July 3. These are unusually high temperatures that are not reached in most years. Indeed, the last time it reached 100° F at Central Park was in 2012. On the other hand, these temperatures were by no means records. The highest temperature ever recorded at the Central Park station (with data going back into the late 1800s) was 106° F in 1936. Here from recordtemps.in is a list of the highest temperatures ever recorded at the Central Park weather station:
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07-09-1936: 106°F
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07-21-1977: 104°F
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07-22-2011: 104°F
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08-07-1918: 104°F
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07-03-1966: 103°F
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07-06-2010: 103°F
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08-09-2001: 103°F
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08-26-1948: 103°F
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07-04-1949: 102°F
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07-10-1993: 102°F
In other words, we have had temperatures over 100° F many times in the past, and undoubtedly we will have them again. But with temperatures on July 2 and 3 that were well short of the records, the grid operators had to resort to imposing rolling blackouts and/or voltage reductions in various areas of the City and Westchester County. One can only imagine how much more extensive the outages would have been if the temperature had gone up another 6° F to match the 1936 record.
Without any ability to add reliable generation to it grid, New York faces more of same every time the heat gets into this range. There is nothing inevitable about this. It is entirely a consequence of intentional decisions made by politicians.
Here’s JD: The Unbearable Lightness of VP Vance: A VERY Short Primer
By Ilana Mercer • Unz Review • July 11, 2026
DEVOUTLY AND LOUDLY do various media organs of the establishment—CNN, The War Street Journal, The Hill, Politico or Israel’s Axios—dazzle you with flattering depictions of JD Vance’s foreign-policy stance, almost always based on unnamed sources, which have conveniently slithered out of dank corners, at this point of the election cycle. Experts in untruths, these media tell you that Vance, vice president in the Trump regime, has all-along roared about foreign-policy restraint.
If he has, it’s the least leonine roar ever heard in this neck of the woods.
Or, the most “private” political protest ever, as Politico would counter. “Private” is how this particular Deep-State tool dubs VP Vance’s foreign policy bent.
In short, Vance confines his “subversive” murmurs to carefully leaked and curated after-the-fact comments, credited mostly to unnamed sources.
The following facts need to be stated, too:
Juvenile quips from craven politicians like Vance notwithstanding, the United States of America continues to play planet to Israel’s sun. Israel’s genocides in the Levant are Made-in-America. Not once in the course of Israel’s carnage in Gaza, in the West Bank and in Lebanon, all ongoing, have two genocidal administrations, Democrat and Republican, budged in materially directing resources to the missions of mass murder currently conducted by Israel.
America underwrites Israeli evil financially and diplomatically, running diplomatic cover for the Israeli executioners. To that end, the US even sanctions and persecutes countries and individuals who dare disagree with its Israeli deity’s mass murder; dare agitate for justice, or demand that the laws of the land be levied against the Serial Killer State.
The US has even sanctioned judicial and UN officials tasked with investigating the crimes of U.S. or Israeli nationals. “Sanction” is a weasel way to frame America’s theft of their assets, banning of their travel, and restriction of their rights to trade with American business.
In all, Israel remains the holy of holies for American politicians.
With the reverence reserved for that country, VP Vance’s administration has never stopped the Jewish State from en masse execution of civilians and from the eradication of entire communities who refuse to submit to American and Israeli hegemony.
The next fact probably also bears repeating: Not once has JD Vance ever personally conveyed to his constituents a principled objection to the crimes of his administration and for those of Israel. No revulsion or reservations from VP Vance. His most coruscating critique of genocide has amounted to strategically intoning about “Israel’s right to defend itself,” a synonym for the practice of state-sponsored terrorism. From this stupid line, Vance has not strayed.
To hear VP Vance tell it, Israel has a bad hand to play. You know—nudge-nudge, wink-wink—it must deal with the caprices of the People of the region. “A ceasefire in that region of the world just means they’re shooting a little bit less at each other than they were before,” the jocular, pompous Vance told the presstitutes present at a June 18 presser. There, Vance also boasted about sending the Iranian economy into “a freefall,” and causing “a trillion dollars of damage to their industrial base over the last three months.”
Again, I have never heard JD Vance utter a meaningful, principled word in opposition to any depravity, much less Israeli depravity. I have, however, heard Vance echo Trump, the genocidaire. Without demarcation, Vance has blended into an administration that is terrorizing the world financially, economically and militarily. From Greenland, to Latin America to West Asia to Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
Vance should repulse you, down to the garish eyeliner, which only enhances the “degeneracy of manners and morals” he and his administration represent.
With respect to the criminal, collaborative assault on Iran, Vance has been a “servile cheerleader for the war his boss … launched alongside Israel,” as more honest comment has characterized the Vance stance. Throughout Trump’s many ceasefire farces—all a fig leaf for US-Israel resolve to slowly dissolve Iran, and with it the Axis of Resistance—Vance has eagerly played his part, seconding Trump’s venomous genocidal threats against the Islamic Republic, as well as aping Trump’s idiotic atavistic aggression against other countries.
The insubstantial JD Vance might direct stale, totem words of warning toward those Israelis who speak ill of the Butcher of DC, Trump. But, for the Butcher of Tel Aviv Vance reserves the velvet glove: He took care to exempt Bibi from this particular wrongdoing, during the same June 18 presser, where Vance assured the presstitutes present that he speaks regularly with Bibi and has good rapport with him.
Essentially, Vance and Bibi are solid partners in vice.
Nonchalantly, VP Vance might opine, as he has, that Israel “can’t kill its way to security.” But that’s the extent of it. The carefully choreographed dance that American and Israeli “leaders” do for the benefit of the perfect American fools who vote for them continues uninterrupted.
A plurality of Israelis, on the other hand, are tickled pink by Bibi’s genocides in Lebanon and Palestine. As the brilliant Diana Buttu gloomily reported, Israeli political candidates are running on a plank of who can inflict more pain on their barely surviving Palestinian victims.
So don’t be swept to sea again, this time by Vance whom the irremediable corporate media (as well as some in the alternative media, regrettably) is portraying as a strident opponent of the war on Iran and wars for Israel. It’s nonsense on stilts.
What the VP is doing now is what he has done since the auspicious start of his political career:
Vance launched his career with a smug, self-aggrandizing book, in which he slimed his hillbilly relatives, even naming names. The book was very badly received by authentic “hillbillies.” The Establishment, however lapped it up and loved its author. Still does.
During the 2024 campaign, and before he was tapped by Trump, Vance did the same. He made the right noises, ones the voters wanted to hear, against “costly and unsuccessful interventions,” as he put it.
Stoutly strategic, in suiting-up for the 2028 race, Vance has dropped a book about his Catholicism. Nothing if not theologically inventive, the triangulating candidate has coopted his Catholic faith as a reason for his fealty to … Israel.
Israel is another exigency of the moment. Vance is reading the room again. America is just not that keen on Israel any longer—although, sadly for their souls, Americans have yet to turn on the Jewish State completely and altogether.
While opinion of Israel has undeniably plummeted in the US, the “bottom line,” sums Gallup soberly, is that “Americans retain a more positive view of Israel, with 46% viewing it favorably, than of the Palestinian Territories, at 37%”:
‘… Americans still have a more favorable view of Israel, as a country, than of the Palestinian Territories, though views of Israel are among the least favorable Gallup has measured historically. Meanwhile, views of the Palestinian Territories are the most positive to date, albeit still negative overall.’ (Gallup, February 26, 2026)
In all, don’t let your imagination run fevered with respect to Vance. Don’t get played again (and again, and again). When the powers that be, their sub-par publications and their strategists, pool their power to portray JD Vance as something other than what (as opposed to who) he is—one would hope your psychological-warfare antennae begin to transmit robust signals.
The reason I say that Vance is a “what”, not a “who”—that “what” is the better syntactic determiner to attach to VP Vance—is because the VP is a political production, not a real person. A production of the worst pedigree.
Vance is a creation of a tech billionaire PAC, a “tech-aligned super political action committee.”
Vance is the personal creation of Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal. Thiel was/is his mentor. Together, the wild-eyed Thiel and the ugly in-and-out Alex Karp founded, still manage, Palantir Technologies. How intimate are the Israel Genocidal Forces and the “CIA-backed” Palantir?
Conjugally intimate.
If the gateway to the internet is Google, and it is; not even Google—algorithmically set to defend Israel at all costs—can conceal the bonds that bind Palantir to the Serial Killer State’s crimes. Put it this way, Google (an aggregator for Zionism) and pro-Palestine sources are in agreement over the Palantir-IDF connection.
Palantir works closely with the IDF’s notorious Unit 8200, which is comprised of a select group of mama’s boys and girls, who snoop, hack, and assassinate in code and in practice. Unit 8200’s killer AI algorithms both calibrate and codify mass murder into the SS IDF’s military’s legal code. They have given themselves imprimatur to Press Kill on locating a single resistance fighter, amid up to 100 non-combatant family members, friends and neighbor. It’s not in violation of Israeli law. The individual is impugned by the flimsiest evidence.
Instead of in the dock, in the Hague, these computer killers, you should know, are also found in Silicon Valley, Boston’s high-tech corridor, and, presumably, in Washington State’s techno-town. These characters will certainly be coming to a community near you, near me, when JD’s friends and sponsors facilitate the assimilation of this human detritus into our communities, as they flee future International Criminal Court subpoenas.
Israel and Unit 8200 are the face of this global death industry. The SS IDF’s Artificial Intelligence products, out of Unit 8200, have, in particular, perfected the auto-kill computer systems known as “Lavender,” Daddy’s Home, and The Gospel, whose killer code has been applied to Gaza and Lebanon.
Palantir works with Unit 8200, on “war-related missions.” Coward Karp, Thiel’s partner, has proudly spoken of his company as being involved in “crucial operations in Israel.”
In backing Vance, co-founder Thiel and CEO Karp are joined by former tech executive and podcaster David Sacks, an influencer in the Vance orbit. Sacks is close, too, to censor-for-Zionism Elon Musk. Both backed Vance. AI-traders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz hobnob too in the Vance hood.
Speaking of Google, Vance’s venture capitalism company, Narya Capital, was sponsored by both Thiel and Google’s Eric Schmidt. So, it’s pointless asking Vance to ease up the Google algorithms.
Vance’s Deep Tech billionaire backers are anathema to human flourishing. Theirs is a system of plunder. They are princes who pauper the universe by their deadly fiat pursuits, financial, technocratic, environmental, military. These people and their necro-industries move humanity further away from community, from the locality; from honest industry, from real knowledge and production and into a consumer, bubble-driven technocracy, anchored in illiteracy, gambling, speculation, buying and selling intangible derivative products.
As if American communities are not already distressed; the infrastructure for AI promises to suck the life out of their natural environment, leaving bereft the communities in whose midst these hideous “data centers” are planted. AI Data centers are an assault-on-the-eye and on ethics. Their stratospheric costs as always are socialized; their profits privatized.
As I say, VP Vance is a slick production. The man is a particularly oleaginous political product, astroturf down to the (alleged) rug on his head.
Lest I forget, in his new book Vance cites Charlie Kirk, a mention that was probably focus-group tested. Metaphorically speaking, Vance is boiling the bones of poor murdered Mr. Kirk to make soup. Mr. Kirk is being exploited posthumously to shape discourse in politically advantageous ways.
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https://ilanamercersfpvresistance.substack.com
Ilana Mercer, paleolibertarian author, essayist and theorist, has been writing up an anti-war, anti-woke storm since 1998, starting in Canada. On arriving in the US, in 2002, her weekly column was right away syndicated. Mercer’s national syndication fell through shortly after due to writing in strident opposition to the war in Iraq. ILANA is described as “a system-builder. Distilled, her modus operandi has been to methodically apply first principles to the day’s events.” She’s Jewish, grew up in Israel ages five to nineteen, and left, at 19, never to return. She had refused to serve in the IDF, Israel’s compulsory military. Ilana’s focus since October of 2023 has been the genocide. A war against civilians is a war on civilization.
UN expert blasts BBC over coverage of detained Gaza doctor
Al Mayadeen | July 7, 2026
The United Nations’ special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, has sharply denounced the BBC after the broadcaster aired Israeli regime claims against detained Palestinian paediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya without challenge.
Reacting to a Monday segment in which BBC News relayed Israeli allegations that Abu Safiya was held over “suspected involvement in Hamas activities,” Albanese called the coverage “scandalous”, pointing to 18 months of arbitrary detention without charge, evidence, or trial and to torture documented by his lawyer, with injuries visible on his body.
She accused the network of amplifying unsubstantiated Israeli accusations against a detained doctor rather than reporting on his condition, describing it as characteristic of BBC journalism “in the time of genocide.”
Karishma Patel, who resigned from the BBC last October over its Gaza coverage, echoed the criticism, saying the broadcaster must stop repeating Israeli claims without flagging the absence of supporting evidence given how precarious Abu Safiya’s life remains.
Edinburgh University’s Nicola Perugini went further, arguing that the segment presented the Israeli military’s framing that razing hospitals and abusing doctors is justified because medical facilities supposedly shielded fighters, without any pushback from the reporter reading it.
Abu Safiya’s deteriorating condition
Abu Safiya, former director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, has been detained since Israeli occupation forces stormed the facility on December 27, 2024, forcing it out of operation despite it being the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza at the time, a raid that came after his son Ibrahim was killed in a strike on the hospital grounds.
More than 555 days into his detention, rights groups confirm that his situation is critical. Amnesty International issued an urgent appeal on July 5, warning that his life is in grave danger and noting that he has been held in solitary confinement since June 3 and denied adequate care for chronic conditions.
Detention upheld despite no charges
“Israel’s” Supreme Court upheld his latest detention order on June 16, extending his imprisonment under the “unlawful combatant” designation until at least October.
A July 2 visit by his lawyer, Nasser Odeh, documented fresh bruising around his head, eyes, and neck, difficulty breathing, and episodes of lost consciousness; Abu Safiya reportedly told Odeh he believes prison authorities intend to kill him.
His son Elyas said in a video message that his father can barely speak and that his face has been disfigured.
Physicians for Human Rights Israel called it among the most disturbing testimonies it has received since the war began.
Abu Safiya is one of at least 737 Palestinian medical workers detained since October 2023, a period in which more than 1,722 health workers have been martyred and nearly all of Gaza’s hospitals damaged or destroyed.
A pattern of bias
The episode fits a broader record of scrutiny facing the BBC over its coverage of the genocide in Gaza. A Centre for Media Monitoring study reviewing over 35,000 pieces of BBC content found Israeli deaths received 33 times more coverage per fatality than Palestinian deaths, with the word “massacre” applied 18 times more often to Israeli casualties and “murder” used 220 times for Israelis against a single instance for Palestinians.
More than 100 BBC staff signed a letter last year accusing the corporation of functioning as a government “mouthpiece”, citing insufficient scrutiny of Israeli statements and content they said resembled military public relations.
The broadcaster also shelved the documentary “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack” after initially approving it, a decision critics called emblematic of editorial self-censorship under political pressure, part of what commentators have termed the BBC’s deepening credibility crisis over its Gaza coverage.
