Logic and prejudice: from BC to BBC

The international media is once again abuzz with reports of Israeli atrocities.  Allegedly, after helping establish an aid organisation called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and heavily promoting it as an alternative to UN and other outfits, the Israelis proceeded to kill innocent civilians trying to reach that GHF aid.  And – also allegedly of course – this wasn’t even a one-time mistake, but occurred 3 days in a row.  Such allegations, if true, raise the suspicion that a crime was committed.

Which is interesting, because one of the first questions that a crime investigator asks is: ‘What is the motive?’  Understanding the crime motive is relevant in itself, but can also bring us closer to identifying the criminal, via the next query: ‘Who might have a reason to commit the crime?’  This logic is so blindingly obvious that people already understood it more than 2,000 years ago: the famous Roman lawyer and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero coined the phrase "Cui bono?” (to whom is it a benefit?)

Weird, therefore, that the question of motive has never come up, despite the very extensive coverage of the events by every international media outlet.  What was obvious to Cicero in the 1^st century BC never occurred in 2025 to the BBC!

One thing is clear: this omission can’t be attributed to lack of attention.  The Corporation has followed the events live, publishing and broadcasting tens of thousands of words on this topic.  The handful of ‘sources’ have been quoted ad nauseam, their stories reiterated countless times – sometimes in copy/paste fashion – in dozens of articles and news items.  At least a score of BBC journalists have been mobilised to cover the events.  Those included International Editor Jeremy Bowen, whose remit apparently is to ‘analyse’ issues in depth, to provide ‘insights’ and make ‘professional judgements rooted in evidence’.  They comprised also BBC Verify – the Corporation’s new investigative department, whose role is to weed out disinformation and propaganda from genuine news.

And something else should be clear, too: it’s not that the ‘crime motive’ is obvious here.  After all, the Israelis spent lots of time and effort setting up this alternative humanitarian relief mechanism, one that took Hamas out of the equation – both as beneficiary and as ‘custodian’ or ‘protector’ of the aid.  The New York Times called the project “an Israeli brainchild.”

There must have been extensive discussions between the political and military echelons within Israel; and then with the US Administration, to flesh out the concept and ensure the latter’s support; then funding had to be raised – much of it supplied by Israel, if we are to believe Yair Lapid, the country’s head of the opposition; staff had to be recruited, contractors employed, food purchased, packaged and transported.

As the BBC itself reported, the IDF – already stretched by 18 months of war – took time and dedicated resources to plan and prepare the logistics: 4 distribution hubs, complete with warehouses, accommodation quarters, access routes and fenced perimeters.

All that must have cost a fair amount of money, let alone time, effort, political capital and attention from decision-makers.

Having made that large investment, why would the Israelis then shoot into crowds of Gazans attempting to do exactly what they (the Israelis) so wanted them to do: get aid from GHF, rather than from UNRWA, World Food Programme or UNICEF?

Israelis may be many things, but idiots they’re not.  These are the same people who killed a Hamas leader in arguably the most secure location in Tehran; the same people who maimed their enemies by supplying them with ‘special’ communication devices.  Are we now to believe that they cut their noses to spite their faces – not once, not twice, but three times, on three consecutive days?

On the other hand… ‘Cui bono?’  Obviously, the main beneficiary is Hamas.  If, while lying low in their tunnels, Hamas’s surviving leaders can tune into the BBC, they must surely rub their hands in delight.  After all, sabotaging the GHF is vital if Hamas is to retain its sway over Gaza’s hapless population.  The hand that feeds you is the hand that leads you – and everybody in Gaza knows that no unarmed, ‘neutral’ aid organisation can supply one can of beans without Hamas’s ‘protection’ and assent.  Which is why, as the BBC itself reported (on 27 May, i.e. days before the ‘suspected crime’):

“Hamas has publicly warned Palestinians not to co-operate with GHF's system.”

The BBC has also reported (though occasionally, rather than ‘live’) what Hamas does to Palestinians who “co-operate” (or ‘collaborate’) with ‘the Occupation’:

“Two Palestinian men accused of collaborating with Israel have been executed in the Gaza Strip, the Hamas-run interior ministry says . . . Three others were also executed – on charges of murder . . . Four were hanged and one was executed by firing squad because he was a policeman…”

‘Cui bono?’  Well, Cicero would say ‘Hamati bono!’ (it benefits Hamas!)  So how come nobody seems to have investigated the possibility of Hamas acting on its ‘warning’?  How come Jeremy Bowen hasn’t ‘analysed’ that possibility?  Or even raised the issue as a – however remote – possibility?

It’s not like what actually happened and who did what is obvious – much as BBC’s output might lead many to believe so.  Sure, we have testimonies from ‘medical personnel’.  But, even if we choose to believe them – and there are reasons not to – they only tell us that dozens of Gazans have been killed and injured, mostly by bullets.  They shed no light on who fired those bullets.  They also reveal nothing about who those Gazans are.  Mostly young men, it seems – which is why few photos showing those victims have been published; and why the ‘medical personnel’ have made few references to their gender and age: corpses of young men have lower emotional value.

In any case, gender and age prove nothing in this instance: yes, Hamas terrorists are more likely to belong to the ‘young men’ category; but so are family members sent to pick up food on behalf of their families.

In summary – to circle back to the ‘crime’ analogy – we may have a body.  But no evidence to identify the victim, let alone the perpetrator.

One of the surprising features of this ‘news’ is the dearth of eyewitness testimonies, as well as of direct, relevant video evidence from the field.

Or, rather, it should be surprising.  If you think Europeans are addicted to their mobile phones – try the Middle East!  Most young people in Gaza (and the description ‘young people’ encompasses the vast majority of Gazans) have never used a landline phone; they probably never owned a ‘conventional’ camera.  But using mobile phones – to communicate, take pictures and shoot videos – is second nature.  Everything is being filmed – from Hamas’s 7 October ‘exploits’ to aspects of everyday life.  And, if anything, this cultural propensity has only intensified during the war, with photos and videos acquiring added importance as ‘evidence’ or propaganda tools.

Yet, strangely, nobody – none of those hundreds of Gazans purportedly attacked en-route to the GHF distribution hub – thought of filming the Israeli soldiers (or indeed Israeli tanks!) allegedly shooting into the crowd.  After spending a goodly amount of our licence fee investigating, BBC Verify was forced to admit that they ‘verified’… absolutely zilch:

“Very little footage has emerged purporting to show the moment of the shooting. But one clip posted online showed people running with gunfire audible. BBC Verify geolocated the footage to a road near SDS 1 and established it was newly published on Tuesday although we cannot say for certain it relates to Tuesday's incident.”

As for eyewitness accounts, they are also unusually scarce and sketchy:

“Yasser Abu Lubda, a 50-year-old who has been displaced from Rafah, told the Associated Press (AP) news agency that the shooting began shortly before 04:00 local time. Rasha al-Nahal, another witness, told AP ‘there was gunfire from all directions’.”

Neither eyewitness quoted appears to have seen who was shooting.  Either that, or they’d rather not say.

But some ‘sources’ offered much more ‘vibrant’ accounts:

“Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defence agency, told the BBC that the incident again occurred a few hundred metres away from the Al-Alam roundabout. He said most of those killed or injured ‘were hit by gunfire from tanks, helicopters and quadcopter drones’.”

“Palestinian Civil Defence” sounds like something Mother Theresa might’ve approved of; most people won’t know that it’s just an agency of the Hamas ‘government’ and that Mr. Basal is a medium-rank Hamas official.  The BBC knows it, of course, but… hey-ho, it’s a ‘source’, ‘innit?  Hamas “told the BBC;” and the BBC (including BBC Verify) dutifully published.  With attribution, of course!  However misleading it may be.

It seems also that in BBC parlance, “[v]erify” does not include asking Hamas impolite questions like ‘Where is your evidence?’

And nobody at the BBC (or at many other media outlets) thought of asking themselves ‘Why would the Israelis concentrate tanks, helicopters and quadcopter drones to… shoot themselves in the foot?’

What BBC Verify failed to… ‘verify’ is even more enlightening: these days, every corner of the globe is being scrutinised by – among other things – high-resolution cameras mounted on satellites.  Everybody spies on everybody, but some of these satellite feeds are available to buy from private companies like SkyWatch.  And, while not tracking every bullet being fired, these are unlikely to miss the telltale signs left by concentrations of “tanks, helicopters and quadcopter drones” repeatedly firing on masses of people.

The BBC is well-aware of these satellite capabilities – having reported on them and even used them previously in Gaza.

So has BBC Verify examined such footage and ‘forgot’ to tell us that they found nothing?  Have they quietly concluded – in ‘light’ of the ‘testimonies’ – that the chances of finding anything were too low to warrant spending our money?  Or have they assessed that not finding anything would be the wrong evidence to find?

The truth is that... we don't know (and we may never know) with absolute certitude, the truth about what happened close to GHF’s aid distribution hub on 1, 2 and 3 June 2025.  It’s very possible that Gazans have been killed there – but it is also possible that they were killed elsewhere.  They (or some of them) may have been Hamas terrorists deliberately sent to pick a fight and generate PR ‘tailwind’; but it is also possible that they/some of them were innocent people trying to get food for their families.  As for the shooters, they could well have been Hamas, for whom GHF represents an existential threat; but it is also possible that the shooters were IDF soldiers, for reasons that we don’t understand.  A more complex scenario is also possible – for instance one in which Hamas perpetrated the shooting on Sunday, while the IDF fired shots on Monday.  Everything is possible.

And that’s exactly the point: we do not know exactly what happened; not right now, not for sure.  We are – or should be – in the realm of probabilities.  And in the field of contested narratives.  Who are you going to believe: the official agencies of a democratic state (with a strong political opposition, a free press, independent courts, etc.)? or those of a fanatical Islamist, antisemitic organisation – one with a proven track record of violently crushing dissent?

And even if one objects to the descriptions above, logic should still scream ‘Cui bono?’

Yet this is not how many in the international media (and also many politicians, here in the UK and elsewhere in the West) saw things.  And the real question is: why?

Why is it that, when it comes to the Jewish state – and only when it comes to the Jewish state – so many people are willing to suspend logic, critical thinking and healthy scepticism?  Why do they find it so easy to believe that Israelis are willing to murder innocents not just with no pity or remorse, but also without sense or reason?  Why do they automatically choose the least-probable explanation, as long as it’s most damning for Israel?

Why the singling out, the ganging up, the obsession with?  And why does this ‘modern’ attitude towards the Jewish state mimic so closely the ‘traditional’ view of everything-else-Jewish throughout the centuries?

To many international journalists, it was obvious that Israelis were to blame – who else could it be?  And none asked ‘why would Israelis do something like this?’  Because in the eyes of these journalists, Israelis are quintessential Jews; and Jews don’t need a motive to do evil.

So what are you saying – I hear you asking: are all these journalists are a bunch of antisemites?  Do you really believe that?

Sorry, folks, but that’s the wrong question.  This isn’t about ‘being an antisemite’.  Antisemitism is rarely an identity; it’s usually a prejudice.  One that has its roots in early antiquity and still bore atrocious fruits as recently as mid-20^th century.  One that has demonstrably been deeply entrenched and widely spread (to the point of constituting the prevalent view), for hundreds and hundreds of years.  And one that is still harboured by a large proportion of the population in many areas of the world – even here in the UK.

No, the Shoah was not an exception, but an exacerbation: the most powerfully acute flare up among centuries of chronic genocide.

If the current ‘anti-Israelism’ feels so similar to ‘classic’ antisemitism – it’s because it is.

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So it’s not ‘they’re all a bunch of antisemites’ that’s the ridiculous proposition; no, what’s ludicrous is claiming that a social phenomenon that’s been so pervasive and ubiquitous for 2000 years suddenly fizzled out or somehow became marginal in the space of just 8 short decades.  Now, do you really believe that??