Sacha Baron Cohen Joins Critics of the BBC for Its ‘Disgusting’ Headline on Killing of Israeli Children on Soccer Field in Israel

Sacha Baron Cohen recently reshared on his Instagram account a story slamming the way the BBC covered the Hezbollah rocket attack that on Saturday killed 12 children and teenagers and injured scores more at a soccer field in a Druze village in northern Israel. Mr. Baron Cohen’s Instagram account has 1.2 million followers. The well known actor behind Borat, reshared a Twitter story by Aviva Klompas, a former head speech writer for the Israel Mission to the United Nations, where she made a series of corrections to the BBC report. The BBC’s original headline read “Eleven Dead in Rocket Attack on Israeli-Occupied Golan.”Ms. Klompas wrote that “this BBC headline is disgusting so I edited it.” She changed the headline in red markings to read: 12 murdered by Hezbollah rocket attack on Israeli children playing soccer.” The BBC itself changed the headline several hours later.Thousands of Druze attended the funerals of ten out of the 12 victims who were buried on Sunday morning, July 28 (the eleventh victim was buried in the village of Ein Qiniyye, while the twelfth victim’s body still hasn’t been found). They included Amir Rabi Abu Saleh (16), Fajr Laith Abu Saleh (16), Hazem Akram Abu Saleh (15), John Wadie Ibrahim (13), Azal Nashat Ayub (12), Yazan Naif Abu Saleh (12), Finis Adham Safadi (11), Alma Ayman Fakhr al-Din (11), Naji Taher Halabi (11), Millar Maadad al-Shaar (10) and Nazem Fakher Saeb.This is not the first time Mr. Baron Cohen has commented on Israel since October 7. His post featuring the faces of former Israeli hostages, Doron Katz-Asher and her two young daughters, Raz and Aviv, who were released in November, is still featured prominently on the actor’s Instagram page. The British-Jewish actor and comedian was also recently tagged in a post on Instagram that criticized the Paris Olympics for allowing a Palestinian boxer to wear a shirt depicting the IDF dropping bombs on children playing sports, while forbidding Israeli athletes from wearing a yellow ribbon showing solidarity with Israeli hostages being held captive by Hamas. Mr. Baron Cohen, whose mother was born in Israel, was among several Jewish celebrities and actors who in November called out TikTok, which is controlled by Communist China, for allowing a surge of antisemitic rhetoric to go viral on its video platform. “What is happening at TikTok is it is creating the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis,” Mr. Baron-Cohen said during a private video call with TikTok executives, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “If you think back to October 7, the reason why Hamas were able to behead young people and rape women was they were fed images from when they were small kids that led them to hate,” he said.

Sacha Baron Cohen Joins Critics of the BBC for Its ‘Disgusting’ Headline on Killing of Israeli Children on Soccer Field in Israel

Sacha Baron Cohen Joins Critics of the BBC for Its ‘Disgusting’ Headline on Killing of Israeli Children on Soccer Field in Israel

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