On June 4, Sky News presenter Yalda Hakim interviewed Jeremy Scahill (35:35 into the segment), a “journalist” with Drop Site News, known for promoting pro-Hamas and pro-Iranian regime propaganda. They even explicitly incited violence against Israelis on their X account.
The Sky presenter, Yalda Hakim, failed to challenge Scahill even once during the thirteen minute interview, even while he continually promoted incendiary lies and gross distortions, which included referring to Hamas as a “liberation” movement.
We complained to Sky editors yesterday, noting that Ofcom – the UK organization which regulates Sky News – requires that “News, in whatever form, must be reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality“. Impartiality, Ofcom clarifies, means ensuring “that the views expressed in a news item are challenged critically by presenters and reporters within the programmed“.
Here are all of the claims and accusations by Scahill which went unchallenged by Hakim:
1) Scahill claimed that “Benjamin Netanyahu and the entire project of Israel is at the apex of their colonial agenda“.
The “colonialism” narrative is a highly propagandistic and ahistorical accusation – inspired by Soviet anti-Zionist agitprop – that should have been challenged by Hakim.
2) Scahill claimed that “Israel is committing genocide in Gaza”.
This is a malicious and toxic lie. But, even Hakim should have recognised it as, at the very least, a highly disputed allegation, one that the ICJ hasn’t yet ruled on. Yet, Hakim didn’t challenge the claim or provide the opposing view.
3) Scahill claimed that “Israel got the US in an all-out war with Iran”.
He provided no evidence to support this charge, which denies agency to the president of the most powerful country in the world, thus evincing the toxic trope of the Israeli tail wagging the American dog. Hakim, again, failed to even minimally push back against this allegation.
4) Scahill claimed that, in the context of the US/Israeli war with Iran, “the Israelis gave cooked intelligence to the Americans”.
Again, Hakim failed to challenge this charge, despite the fact that, once again, Scahill provided no evidence that Israel “cooked” the intel.
5) Scahill claimed that the “Iranian track record of stating what they’re going to do and then doing it is quite good”.
This is just one example of how Scahill, throughout the interview, engaged in rhetoric that indistinguishable from pro-Iranian propaganda – without any response from Hakim.
6) Scahill claimed Israel had a scorched earth policy in Lebanon, and that they have “ratcheted up the killing”.
Hakim never interjected to note Hezbollah’s role in the war, a proscribed terror group and Iranian proxy whose armed presence in Lebanon is illegal according to international law, which Scahill never mentioned. She could have also pushed back by noting that the IDF gives warnings to, and helps evacuate, Lebanese civilians in advance of military operations against Hezbollah – inconsistent with a “scorched-earth” policy.
7) Scahill claimed that “the Palestinians [Hamas] signed a deal with Israel. Israel has violated the deal every single day and killed 1,000 Palestinians”.
Hakim didn’t challenge that claim by noting IDF reports on the high number of Hamas terrorists among this alleged death toll, or note evidence that Hamas has continually violated the terms of the ceasefire.
8) Scahill claimed that “the Board of Peace is demanding that Hamas surrender their ‘liberation cause‘”.
Hamas is a proscribed terrorist group in the UK, and it is illegal to express support for the group. Yet, Hakim didn’t challenge that outrageous characterisation of the group which carried out the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust as a “liberation” movement.
9) Scahill claimed the “Israeli prime minister openly talks about a war of annihilation not just against the Palestinians but in the region”, yet provided no evidence.
Israel’s prime minister has never talked about the annihilation of Gazans. That claim is based on an incorrect understanding of his biblical reference to Amalek shortly after the Oct. 7 massacre. Further, nobody other than Scahill has even alleged that he stated his intention to annihilate the entire region. This is an enormous lie that Hakim, again, failed to challenge.
10) Scahill suggested that it’s a lie to accuse the Iranian regime of having mass murdered innocent Iranian protesters, due merely to his pointing to some unconfirmed reports of the US and/or Israel arming or attempting to send arms to the protesters.
This re-writing of history is astonishing. In fact, Sky News covered the regime’s massacre of protesters quite extensively, as did human rights organizations, which confirmed that the murdered protesters were almost all unarmed.
11) Scahill claimed that the UK Home Office banned Hasan Piker (who supports Hamas and Hezbollah) and Cenk Uygur from entering the country on “behalf of a foreign power” [Israel], “that is, right now as we speak, burning children alive in tents in Gaza”.
This clearly evokes the antisemitic trope that Jews and/or Israel controls foreign governments. However, even if Hakim didn’t recognise Scahill’s charge as racist, she certainly should have challenged such a wild and fantastical claim, one that he offered no evidence to support.
Further, the claim that Israel was, as he spoke, “burning children alive” was self-evidently untrue and intentionally incendiary. This, too, wasn’t challenged by the Sky presenter.
In our communication with Sky, we asked for an on-air apology by Hakim for failing to adhere to Ofcom’s requirements, one which clearly acknowledges the controversial and unevidenced views expressed by Scahill that should have been challenged.
Note that we prompted an on-air correction by Hakim in April after she erroneously claimed – during an interview with an Israeli official – that the IDF killed 300 civilians in the last 48 hours. More recently, we prompted a correction at Sky News over an online report falsely claiming that Israel started the 1948 War.