Jonathan Sacerdoti: The leaked email that blows apart the BBC’s impartiality claims over Gaza
Most egregious is the email’s declaration that it is ‘indisputable’ that Israel is the occupying power in Gaza and therefore legally responsible for preventing hunger. This claim is presented without qualification, despite the fact that the status of Gaza under international law is disputed. Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005, removing all settlers and military presence. It argues, with some legal backing, that it does not meet the criteria of occupation, since it neither governs Gaza nor maintains a permanent presence. Even under post-October 7 operations, Israel maintains that its actions constitute temporary military engagement, not sovereign control.Australia’s Jews have been abandoned – we’re through the looking glass now
International legal opinion may be divided on this. The BBC’s own editorial guidelines insist that politically contested labels such as ‘occupation’ should be attributed and contextualised, not asserted. That rule has been disregarded. The internal memo presumes a singular legal reality, eliding complexity in favour of moral indictment.
The BBC memo mirrors the line taken by BBC presenters, including Nick Robinson, who recently interviewed the Israeli government spokesman David Mencer. It sounded like institutional ventriloquism, from the body which insists it won’t call Hamas terrorists, but has no room for debate over whether Gaza is ‘occupied’.
In asserting the infallibility of its chosen narrative, the BBC omits basic journalistic standards: to interrogate all sides, to distinguish between fact and allegation, and to treat political and legal claims with appropriate scrutiny. Instead, it has opted to police language internally, enforce ideological conformity, and condemn without due diligence.
When the Corporation insists that only one party bears responsibility, and instructs its reporters accordingly, it is no longer informing the public. It is persuading them.
Why is it our national broadcaster seems so desperate to attack the one non-Israeli body which is doing the most to undermine the Hamas stranglehold over Gaza and its people? The closer the GHF and Israeli army get to finally defeating the terrorists, the more shrill the BBC’s insistence that the Jewish state is deliberately starving children. They have trouble believing a self-declared Islamic jihadist dictatorship might have designed this level of suffering and torture, but none in believing the Jewish democratic state did so.
The BBC is publicly funded and legally obligated to remain impartial. This latest leaked email suggests it is failing in that duty. As ever, there is virtually no chance the organisation will admit, redress or be penalised for this failing. They never are.
From day one, communal leaders warn the state and federal governments that unless they crack down, the situation will deteriorate and end in violence.Khaled Abu Toameh: The Muslim Brotherhood: A Terrorist Organization That the US Must Designate as One
Twenty-two months on, one synagogue has been burnt to the ground, a second narrowly escaped the same fate earlier this month on the same night an Israeli restaurant was trashed, cars have been torched, graffiti is rife, and, just last week, young Jewish school kids on a trip to the Melbourne Museum were harangued by far older students from a non-Jewish school, whose teachers reportedly shrugged off the incident. This weekend, meanwhile, the National Gallery of Victoria was forced into lockdown as protestors rallied outside, demonstrating against the support it receives from a philanthropic Jewish family.
And the response from our nation’s leaders? Furrowed brows and the same empty words over and over again. “There’s no place for antisemitism in Australia.”
Except there is. To such an extent that a) it’s in the news here virtually every week; b) it’s making international headlines; c) there’s a palpable sense of fear in the community, with members literally saying they feel they have no future in Australia; and d) possibly most shocking of all, friends and family in Israel, who are in the middle of wars on all fronts and constantly running to bomb shelters, are ringing us up to find out if we’re okay because they’ve heard how terrible things are Down Under.
We’re through the looking glass here, people.
I say the governments have failed to act. That’s not strictly true. The federal government did appoint an Antisemitism Envoy some months ago, who last week delivered a series of recommendations.
Is the government taking them up? Well, as one minister said, underlining where it’s all going wrong – they’d wait to receive a report from the Islamophobia Envoy before making any decisions. Yes, even though the two are quite distinct and even though the number of incidents targeting the Muslim community is a fraction of the number targeting the Jewish community, the government has sacrificed its moral compass on the altar of political expediency.
By failing to crack down on anti-Zionism—which attacks on synagogues and school kids clearly demonstrate is simply antisemitism through the backdoor—they have allowed antisemitism to fester.
For a country that prides itself on multiculturalism, there’s only one explanation: we’re through the looking glass here, people.
Recently, Jordan joined the list of countries that have banned the Muslim Brotherhood: Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Austria. The move came after Jordanian authorities announced that they had arrested 16 people suspected of planning attacks aimed at "targeting national security, sowing chaos and sabotage."
The Muslim Brotherhood, in addition, has served as an inspiration for Islamist terror groups Islamic State (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda. According to the Counter Extremism Project, a nonprofit international policy organization working to combat the growing threat exposed by extremist ideologies: "Before ascending to the highest positions of ISIS and Al-Qaeda, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Osama bin Laden, and Ayman Zawahiri belonged to a common ideological precursor, the Muslim Brotherhood."
The Muslim Brotherhood has been able to fool many Westerners by pretending that most of its work is based on charity and humanitarian aid. The Muslim Brotherhood's Mujama al-Islami (Islamic Center) in the Gaza Strip started as a charity and was even licensed by Israel.
"Since the 1970s, the Muslim Brotherhood has been aggressively whitewashing its image. By doing charitable work, the Brotherhood pretends to be a humanitarian agency. The charitable work, however, is camouflage for the Brotherhood's real mission — undermining Western society, promoting Sharia law, and pursuing global domination.... The Brotherhood will use any tactic, including subversion and violence, to dismantle Western societies." — Pastor Michael Youssef, Daily Wire, June 24, 2025.
Designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization would give US law enforcement and intelligence agencies the legal tools they need to protect Americans. It would allow them to:
• Freeze financial assets used to fund radical networks;
• Block the travel of known Brotherhood operatives;
• Investigate and prosecute U.S.-based affiliates;
• Expose front groups that serve as recruitment pipelines;
• And cut off the flow of resources from foreign governments and donors.
Designating the Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization is vital not only for the national security of the United States, but also for combating Islamist terrorism around the world. If America's Arab allies have reached the conclusion that the Muslim Brotherhood is a dangerous Islamist terror organization, there is no reason why the US and other Western countries should continue to pretend that it is all about charitable and humanitarian work.









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