On Dec. 5th, Sky News presenter Yalda Hakim, whose open hostility to Israel has been evident since the Oct. 7 massacre, interviewed British actor Khalid Abdalla, who’s one of the 200 or so cultural figures who recently signed a petition calling for the release of Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti.
After a brief introduction by Hakim, Abdallah, perhaps best known for his portrayal of Dodi Fayed in the Netflix series The Crown, immediately began spreading lies about the terrorist.
First, let’s make clear that “political prisoner” is a term specifically referring to those imprisoned merely due to their political beliefs.
Barghouti was the leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades terror group, which between September 2000 – April 2002 carried out thousands of terror attacks against Israel, including suicide bombings, and was convicted on five counts of murder for ordering deadly attacks.
Crimes orchestrated by Barghouti include: The murder of Greek monk Tsibouktsakis Germanus in Jerusalem on June 12, 2001; the murder of Yoela Hen in Jerusalem on January 15, 2002; and the murder of Eli Dahan, Yosef Habi, and Salim Barakat in Tel Aviv on March 5, 2002.
The full interview shows that the Sky presenter didn’t push back against the lie that Barghouti is a “political prisoner”, a failure to abide by Ofcom’s Due Impartiality and Due Accuracy clause that we complained about to Sky editors. In their reply, they claimed that she did challenge Abdallah, pointing to one question, several minutes later, in which she asked Abdallah what his response was to Israeli “claims” that Barghouti was a terrorist.
However, that can’t be considered a substantive challenge to the “political prisoner” lie, as, for starters, it’s not merely an Israeli “claim” that Barghouti is a terrorist, as he was convicted in the murder of five civilians.
Also, that wasn’t the only lie about Israel Abdallah promoted during the interview that Hakim didn’t challenge. He also accused Israel of having engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine since 1948.
Further, Abdallah, who appears to be a supporter of Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), a group with a history of excusing Palestinian terrorism, uses his X account to promote his anti-Israel views, with post after post – particularly since Oct. 7, 2023 – condemning imagined Israeli atrocities during the war. Yet, in the days, weeks and months after the worst and most barbaric massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, he posted absolutely nothing expressing sympathy for the Israeli victims or condemning the Islamist death cult which perpetrated the attack.
Finally, this isn’t the first anti-Israel petition the actor has signed. He was a signatory to the Artists for Palestine UK open letter to the BBC in February, criticising the corporation’s decision to pull a documentary about children’s lives in Gaza after it was revealed by David Collier that the 13-year-old narrator was the son of a Hamas official.
Once again, we see that, when it comes to Israel, Sky News is in the business of pro-Palestinian advocacy, not journalism.
Politicians tend to think forward to the next election more than nit picking over the past. It will be more optomistic and appear more contructive to advise interviewers to ask Barghouti fans if he is willing – even able – to tell the PA, PLO etc to print their maps with the 1949 Green Line at least and Israel labelling Israel, AND get reults??
If he can not get his people to recognise at least on paper that Israel – his two state half – exists, he is not a valid talks partner with real power and courage to sell reality to his own constituency..