{"id":6350,"date":"2025-10-15T01:28:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T23:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/?p=6350"},"modified":"2025-10-15T01:28:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T23:28:12","slug":"jeremy-bowen-misleading-public-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2025-10-15\/jeremy-bowen-misleading-public-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"Once again, Jeremy Bowen is misleading the British public about Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subtitle subtitle-HEEcLo\" dir=\"auto\"><em><strong>The BBC international editor is required to report what Hamas actually thinks. Otherwise he is not a journalist, he&#8217;s just another western propagandist<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\">Yet again the BBC\u2019s Jeremy Bowen is misrepresenting a key issue in Gaza \u2013 and as always, he is doing so in a way that places Israel in the most flattering light possible.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Once again, Jeremy Bowen is misleading the British public about Gaza:<\/p>\n<p>Yet again the BBC\u2019s Jeremy Bowen is misrepresenting a key issue in Gaza \u2013 and as always, he is doing so in a way that places Israel in the most flattering light possible.<\/p>\n<p>The BBC\u2019s international editor notes\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mvvBh8kwHN\">pic.twitter.com\/mvvBh8kwHN<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1978239649169408066?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 14, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The BBC\u2019s international editor notes two reasons why Hamas will not wish to disarm, as stipulated by Israeli and US officials:<\/p>\n<p>a) Because having weapons is \u201cdeep in their ideological DNA\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>b) Because Hamas are worried that, if they are not armed, \u201cthere are plenty of people out there in Gaza who would like to take revenge on them and will come after them\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Notice two things here:<\/p>\n<p>First, both of these claims are rooted in Israeli rationales for why Hamas needs disarming. Inadvertently or not, Bowen is subtly suggesting that the group is inherently bloodthirsty, and that it does not properly represent the people of Gaza (more on that in a moment).<\/p>\n<p>Second, Bowen ignores the main reason why Hamas wants to keep its weapons, one so obvious that it is simply astounding that he forgot to mention it.<\/p>\n<p>Hamas believes that, if it is not armed, Israel will have an even freer hand to carry out its genocidal policies in Gaza, to continue its decades-long, illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, and to intensify its siege of the enclave. Hamas believes Israel\u2019s violence against the Palestinian people should not be cost-free.<\/p>\n<p>Whether or not one approves of Hamas\u2019 approach \u2013 and to do so would be a violation of the UK\u2019s Terrorism Act and could lead to a 14-year jail sentence \u2013 Bowen is required to report what the group actually thinks. Otherwise he is not a journalist, he is just another western propagandist.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, he is actively misleading the British public both about Hamas\u2019 worldview and about a core issue \u2013 Hamas\u2019 disarmament \u2013 that could soon give Israel the excuse it seeks to trash the ceasefire agreement.<\/p>\n<p>Like the rest of the BBC\u2019s coverage, Bowen\u2019s reporting refuses to address the elephant in the room: that Palestinians are caught in a trap crafted for them by the West. If they try to resist their illegal occupation by Israel, they are slaughtered and damned as terrorists. But if they don\u2019t, they must live as permanent prisoners of an illegal, dehumanising occupation.<\/p>\n<p>A further point: Bowen says Hamas are using their weapons to take on \u201carmed clans who have weapons themselves \u2013 to reassert their power, to send a message to Gazans, \u2018Don\u2019t mess with us\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bowen, of course, carefully ignores the part Israel has played in arming these criminal clans and letting them steal food aid. The clans sold that aid at inflated prices to a small section of Gaza\u2019s population who could still afford to pay, while everyone else starved.<\/p>\n<p>One doesn\u2019t need to be a genius, or Hamas sympathiser, to imagine \u2013 contrary to Bowen\u2019s implication that Hamas is widely feared by the population \u2013 that most people there may be relieved to see Hamas back and taking on the criminal gangs that extorted them and were central to the implementation of Israel\u2019s genocidal starvation campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The BBC international editor is required to report what Hamas actually thinks. Otherwise he is not a journalist, he&#8217;s just another western propagandist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6352,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-6350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-media-criticism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6351,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6350\/revisions\/6351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}