British comedian and actor Sacha Baron-Cohen calls out BBC for distorted headline on Hezbollah’s massacre of 12 children in Israeli Golan

Read this article in:

British Jewish comedian and actor Sacha Baron-Cohen called out the BBC for its biased reporting on the Hezbollah massacre of 12 children in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in Israel's Golan Heights. The Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah fired an Iranian-produced rocket that killed the children and youth while they were playing at a soccer field.

“Eleven dead in rocket attack on Israeli-occupied Golan,” BBC wrote in its original headline, failing to mention Hezbollah as the perpetrator. The British news network also emphasized its bias against Israel by using the expression “Israeli-occupied Golan,” despite the fact that the Golan Heights has been an integral part of Israel since 1967. Furthermore, the phrase “Israeli-occupied Golan” could have been chosen to imply that Israel and not Hezbollah killed the children.

Cohen shared a post on Instagram by former speechwriter Aviva Klompas who blasted the BBC Golan story by calling it “disgusting.”

Klompas wrote, "This @BBCWorld headline is disgusting so I fixed it." Her new headline read "12 murdered by Hezbollah rocket attack on Israeli children playing soccer," which replaced the word “dead” with murdered and “occupied Golan” with “children playing soccer.”

This @BBCWorld headline is disgusting so I fixed it. pic.twitter.com/LSLJ0hyT2x
— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) July 27, 2024

All of those killed on the soccer field were Druze children and teenagers between the ages of 10 and 16.

Cohen previously exposed bigotry and Jew-hatred through comedy, including his satirical movies “Borat” and “The Dictator.”

In November, Cohen, and other Jewish celebrities, including Amy Schumer and Debra Messing, condemned the social media platform TikTok for enabling the mass spread of antisemitism online.

“What is happening at TikTok is it is creating the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis,” Cohen said.

“Shame on you,” Cohen told the senior TikTok official Adam Presser. Presser who is himself Jewish appeared to agree with Cohen concerning the problematic nature of some TikTok content.

“Obviously a lot of what Sacha says – there’s truth to that,” the senior official stated.

Like many other observers, Cohen noted the explosion of Jew-hatred on TikTok and other social media platforms after the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis and the kidnapping of more than 250. At the time, Cohen told The New York Times that the app could “flip a switch” to confront hatred against Jews.

Jewish actress Debra Messing also blasted TikTok for its role in enabling the spread of antisemitic online content.

“I understand that you are in a very, very difficult and complicated place, but you also are the main platform for the dissemination of Jew hate,” Messing reportedly said during the meeting with the TikTok officials.

Several Jewish celebrities also addressed their concerns in an open letter to TikTok, stating that the platform “is not safe for Jewish users.”

“Simply put, TikTok lacks critical safety features to protect Jewish content creators and the broader Jewish TikTok community, leaving us in digital and physical danger,” the celebrities warned in their letter.

In 2019, the Trump administration officially recognized the Golan Heights as Israeli territory. Steeped in ancient Jewish history, the Golan Heights were controlled by Syria during the period 1948 to 1967. During this period, the Syrians repeatedly shelled civilian Israeli border communities in flagrant violation of international law. Israel seized the Golan Heights during the Six Day War in 1967 and annexed the strategically important territory in 1981.