Spain’s RTVE Delivers Systematic Misinformation and Disguised Activism

By: Masha Gabriel June 11, 2025

Amid growing global polarization and the manipulation of information surrounding the Israel-Hamas conflict, publicly funded media outlets bear a particularly heavy ethical responsibility to adhere to professional codes of journalistic conduct. Radio Televisión Española (RTVE) is Spain’s national public broadcasting service, akin to PBS, NPR, Voice of America and Alhurra in the United States, BBC in Britain, Deutsche Welle in Germany and France24 in France. It runs several TV and radio channels offering news, entertainment, and cultural programming across Spain and beyond, broadcasting to global Hispanic audiences, including American Latinos.

RTVE’s coverage of Israel and Hamas reveals a troubling pattern: ideological activism disguised as journalism, the systematic omission of Israeli suffering, and the normalization of terms like “genocide” without legal or factual grounding.

No Social Media Guardrails

Exploiting the cloak of credibility gained from their positions at the publicly funded outlet, some RTVE journalists treat social media channels as a welcome refuge from accountability. The social media feed of RTVE Israel-based correspondent Almudena Ariza offers up a steady stream of graphic images — some verified, others not — depicting Palestinian children allegedly killed by Israeli strikes. These images frequently appear alongside highly dubious Hamas-supplied fatality figures, lacking independent verification or context regarding the presence of military targets within civilian areas. 

While regularly drawing from Hamas’ death tolls without providing attribution or offering critical analysis, Ariza’s posts routinely omit Israeli casualties.

Ariza has amplified and failed to clarify widely debunked misinformation including the false claim that 14,000 Palestinian babies were expected to starve to death within 48 hours. Ariza similarly never retracted or corrected her false coverage of the Al-Ahli Hospital incident although multiple foreign intelligence services discounted initial reports blaming Israel for a strike which supposedly killed 500, pointing instead to an errant Islamic Jihad rocket which hit the nearby parking lot, actually killing several dozen.

When noting Israeli victims, including the Bibas family, Ariza diluted the difficult facts by advancing unverified Hamas narratives. The RTVE journalist ignored the forensic findings substantiating Israel’s conclusion that Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were murdered by their captors and failed to correct after giving equal weight to Hamas’ false claim that they died in an Israeli airstrike.

Regarding the release of Israeli hostages, Ariza drew false parallels to allegations of mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners, suggesting an artificial symmetry and thereby whitewashing the brutality and trauma which the hostages endured.

A Systemic Bias in Reporting

Compounding the aforementioned social media shortcomings, RTVE coverage at large has failed to report when Palestinian so-called journalists killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip were members of terrorist organizations, a phenomenon documented on several occasions. 

Skewed reporting has broad consequences. Journalism shapes public perception, influencing political leaders at the very top. For instance, Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro echoed RTVE’s misidentification of two Islamic Jihad activists as journalists.

The Normalization of Toxic Rhetoric

Through its programming, journalists, and online presence, RTVE has contributed to the normalization of the term “genocide” in reference to Israeli actions in Gaza, a grave accusation that lacks both legal foundation and factual support. In one instance, an RTVE video drew a direct parallel between Israel and Nazi Germany, an odious comparison which falls under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. Although Spain is among the some three dozen countries which have adopted IHRA’s definition, employees of the publicly funded Spanish broadcaster have repeatedly peddled the hateful canard. Ariza, for instance, posted on X (formerly Twitter): “Israel commemorates Holocaust Day to remember the victims but continues to kill Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”

RTVE also projects an ugly caricature of Israeli society. A video aired on the morning show “RTVE Time” depicted Israelis as hostile toward international media, failing to provide any indication of the emotional climate and abject trauma in areas recently attacked by Hamas.

RTVE’s unfair treatment is not limited only to Israeli civilians. Its journalists routinely ridicule anyone who defends Israel’s position or criticizes Hamas.

Eurovision: State-Funded Political Activism

Last year’s Eurovision Song Contest provided one of the most striking examples of RTVE journalism giving way to political activism at the highest levels. RTVE’s President José Pablo López himself led the charge of the network’s anti-Israel activism. In a letter to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), he urged a debate on whether Israeli public broadcaster KAN should be allowed to participate in the prestigious international music competition.

The network didn’t stop there. During the competition’s semi-finals, RTVE’s Tony Aguilar and Julia Varela, Eurovision’s presenters in Spain, exploited the performance of Israeli contestant Yuval Raphael as an opportunity to engage in forbidden political commentary, repeating Hamas-supplied Gaza fatality statistics. Despite EBU’s warning of potential sanctions, RTVE doubled down by prefacing the broadcast of the final performances with the message in both Spanish and English: “In the face of human rights, silence is not an option. Peace and justice for Palestine.” Multiple RTVE journalists, including Ariza and Xavier Fortes, the director and host of the program “The Night in 24 Hours,” shared the partisan message. 

Fortes went further, publishing a thread justifying RTVE’s stance and directly accusing Israel of genocide, further erasing the line between journalist and political activist. His show, “The Night in 24h,” has repeatedly featured guests who demonize Israel, such as Teresa Aranguren, Carlos Hipólito and Javier Fesser, with no representation from opposing viewpoints.

A Pattern of Bias: From Haniyeh’s Funeral to “The Jewish Lobby”

RTVE’s history of biased coverage is deeply entrenched. The network previously aired live coverage of the funeral of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, portraying it as a state funeral without mentioning his role as the head of a group designated as a terrorist organization by the EU and U.S. 

In 2024, RTVE aired a documentary on the Gaza war riddled with distortions, omissions, and anti-Semitic tropes. Among the most egregious was a reference to the “Jewish lobby” allegedly dominating U.S. politics — a long-standing antisemitic stereotype. CAMERA Español has published a full report on the documentary. 

A seemingly minor yet revealing example of systemic bias surfaced in a 2019 RTVE report criticizing Jerusalem’s tram system, which concluded with the remark: “Despite the supposed coexistence, Jews are the majority.” The implication that coexistence is unachievable when Jews are the majority is a startling assertion.

Conclusion

RTVE’s coverage of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict fails to meet basic standards of objectivity. By amplifying Hamas narratives without scrutiny, downplaying Israeli suffering, promoting toxic terms like “genocide” without legal grounding, and engaging in politically motivated activism under the guise of journalism, RTVE finds itself at the heart of a credibility crisis.

As a publicly funded broadcaster, RTVE has a duty to report with accuracy, balance, and respect.

Read this post in Spanish at CAMERA Español. 

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