{"id":284459,"date":"2025-01-13T12:00:21","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T12:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=284459"},"modified":"2025-01-09T05:16:08","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T05:16:08","slug":"bbc-middle-east-editor-collaborated-with-cia-mossad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/01\/bbc-middle-east-editor-collaborated-with-cia-mossad\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC Middle East Editor Collaborated with CIA, Mossad"},"content":{"rendered":"
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BBC logo, Manchester, England
Illustration by MintPress News<\/p><\/div>\n

The connections of Raffi Berg, now at the center of a scandal over the BBC\u2019s systematic pro-Israel bias, to the U.S. national security-state and an Israeli intelligence agency.
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7 Jan 2025 <\/em>– A senior BBC editor at the center of an ongoing scandal into the network\u2019s systematic pro-Israel bias is, in fact, a former member of a C.I.A. propaganda outfit.<\/p>\n

Raffi Berg, an Englishman who heads the BBC\u2019s Middle East desk, formerly worked for the U.S. State Department\u2019s Foreign Broadcast Information Service, a unit that, by his own admission<\/a>, was a C.I.A. front group.<\/p>\n

Berg is currently the subject of considerable scrutiny after 13 BBC employees spoke out<\/a>, claiming, among other things, that his \u201centire job is to water down everything that\u2019s too critical of Israel\u201d and that he holds \u201cwild\u201d amounts of power at the British state broadcaster, that there exists a culture of \u201cextreme fear\u201d at the BBC about publishing anything critical of Israel, and that Berg himself plays a key role in turning its coverage into \u201csystematic Israeli propaganda.\u201d The BBC has disputed these claims.<\/p>\n

Our Man in London<\/strong><\/p>\n

Berg came to public attention in December after Drop Site News<\/em> published an investigation<\/a> based on interviews with 13 BBC staffers who present him as a domineering figure, systematically blocking coverage critical of Israel and manipulating stories to suit pro-Israel narratives.<\/p>\n

The 9,000-word report<\/a>, written by popular journalist Owen Jones, is extensive and well-researched. However, one aspect of the story it almost completely avoids is Berg\u2019s connections to the U.S. national security state, which MintPress News<\/em> can now reveal.<\/p>\n

According to his LinkedIn profile, Berg was an employee of the U.S. State Department\u2019s Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) three years before joining the BBC. The FBIS is understood the world over to be a C.I.A. front group known for gathering intelligence for the agency.<\/p>\n

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(Via MintPress News)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

As the first two lines of its Wikipedia<\/a> entry read:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) was an open source intelligence component of the Central Intelligence Agency\u2019s Directorate of Science and Technology. It monitored, translated, and disseminated within the U.S. government openly available news and information from media sources outside the United States.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In 2005, the FBIS was subsumed into the C.I.A.\u2019s new Open Source Enterprise.<\/p>\n

Berg does not dispute that he was, in fact, a C.I.A. man. In fact, according to a 2020 interview<\/a> with The Jewish Telegraph<\/em>, he was \u201cabsolutely thrilled\u201d to be secretly working for the agency. Berg said, \u201cOne day, I was taken to one side and told, \u2018you may or may not know that we are part of C.I.A., but don\u2019t go telling people.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He was unsurprised by this news, as the application process was extremely long and rigorous. \u201cThey went through my character and background with a fine tooth comb, asking if I had ever visited communist countries and, if I had, did I form any relationships while I was there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mossad Collaborator<\/strong><\/p>\n

The C.I.A., however, is not the only clandestine spy organization with which Berg has a long history of collaborating. He also has a rich professional relationship with Mossad, Israel\u2019s premier intelligence agency.<\/p>\n

In 2020, for instance, Berg published Red Sea Spies: The True Story of Mossad\u2019s Fake Diving Resort<\/em>, a book that tells the story of the Israeli operation to clandestinely smuggle Ethiopian Jews into Israel.<\/p>\n