Journalist From the Frontlines Responds to Israel’s Attempt to Assassinate Him on Camera

Last month, about two weeks ago, a British journalist called Steve Sweeney, who lives and works in Beirut, Lebanon, was in southern Lebanon attempting with a cameraman to document what the Israeli military is doing to the southern part of that country, which is leveling it, moving people wholesale out, including Christian villages across the area. And as he was preparing his report, he was targeted by an Israeli owned American-made aircraft that fired a missile at him in an attempted assassination. Here's what it looked like.

>> Further rocket attacks were reported against Nahar and a minute. [ __ ] hell. [ __ ]

That wasn't an accident. It was intentional. The jet that fired it had flown over his position, attempting to assassinate him as the Israeli government has assassinated on purpose, not accidentally, assassinated, murdered so many journalists, including Western journalists trying to cover its atrocities. Atrocities that are spreading even now under the cover of the Iran war. a massive land grab across the region. Killing of Christians, desecration of Christian holy sites. That's all happening. It's all real. And one of the reasons you may not know about it is because the people trying to record it to chronicle it have been assassinated. But Steve Sweeney was not assassinated by luck or the grace of God. By a quirk of the landing of that missile, he survived. He joins us now to explain what happened. Steve, thanks very much for doing this. I'm grateful you're alive. Can you We just play the tape of the moment where you were almost killed. Can you add context to that and describe what was happening?

>> Well, yeah, you've seen the uh the the footage. Um we were uh incredibly lucky to come out of that situation alive. Um it was only purely by luck that the the missile ended up as as you've seen on the footage, it went uh through the hole and the bridge had already been destroyed. So just to give you some context of uh why we were there, uh Israel had issued these uh evacuation orders. It said that it was going to bomb every single bridge uh in South Lebanon. So the bridges that cross the Latani uh river, this connects the south of Lebanon to the rest of the country. So this was a hugely important uh news story. This is essentially cutting off, you know, a whole swave of the of the country. And um they'd started the bombing the night before. It was a Thursday when we went to the bridge. On the Wednesday uh evening and into the early hours of the morning, they'd started targeting the bridges. So, you know, as a journalist and as a war correspondent, um you know, we were there to report on uh this huge news story. So, we drove down, this is in Sea District as um other people will probably better know it. And uh as we approached, the Lebanese army have a base there. They um just just ahead of the bridge. So, we approached them and we said to them, "Okay, um, is it safe to film?" And they assured us it was perfectly safe for us to to go on that bridge. And, uh, they would know because if Israel is about to bomb a bridge, which they had already bombed it the night before, then they would get a message to the um, Lebanese army via UNIFIL, the United Nations peacekeepers. They don't have direct communication. So, there was no pre-warning that this bridge was about to be struck again. There was no military objective in striking the bridge again. it was already destroyed. There was you could barely even walk across it, let alone take a a vehicle across it. So, this was the the Kazmia bridge. Um this was the the smaller bridge. So, these kind of link villages and settlements in South Lebanon uh together. So, okay, we uh we approached the bridge, we set up our camera, we started filming, there were fighter jets roaring overhead, and again, this isn't uncommon in uh in the south of Lebanon. Uh but we knew that the fighter jets were flying away from us. So they were roaring overhead, but they were heading um further south and they were bombing what they would describe as Hezbollah positions uh around that area. So we weren't still unduly concerned and we went onto the bridge and we started filming. So it wasn't live. Some people have said it was live. It was what we call an as live. So we were um filming that um Ali who is my colleague was at the moment um we arrived on the bridge. I was doing my piece to camera. He went to uh films and B-roll. He went to film uh in the hole uh where the bridge had been struck and it was I mean we talk about luck and we talk about the you know chance and we talk about um God's will but uh as he was filming there was a gust of wind on the camera uh and the tripod was shaking. So I called him over and I I said Ali yala yala please come. The the camera is shaking. I need you to steady it. as he came over, I I guess around 15 seconds later, then we heard this tremendous roar and the Israelis struck the bridge again. And um I mean the immediate aftermath, I mean I remember just thinking, "God, we're dead." That was it. It was it was it was like this earthshattering sound. The explosion was it was an almighty blast and then there was just dust and I couldn't really see anything. and you'll uh from the footage you can hear the soldiers maybe they started saying to me yala yala and I couldn't see anything so I was where where and they they took me into their um their barracks they put toes on my arms I thought again with adrenaline rush I just thought I'd got some minor cuts um you know I couldn't really feel too much pain but then I looked uh where they put the toric there was blood coming down my arms there was blood on my uh on my clothes uh I was alive and um it's again completely by chance that we were alive. This was a very heavy munition that they used a GB uh GBU38 um missile that we believe was used and it was fired from an F-16 fighter jet.

So after the Lebanese army were uh you know they put these uh tourniques on and gave us some water. Uh then they called an ambulance and the ambulance came and they put me on a stretcher and they uh off off they took me and and I should note really that the you know the the paramedics and the emergency workers and the doctors and the nurses and all of the medical uh team that attended to us are the real heroes of of of this uh story. Um, as we were traveling from the bridge to the hospital, I'm not sure the distance, maybe about 10 minutes pro, uh probably less than that, but they had the blue lights on. Now, in any normal country anywhere in the world, having the blue lights on and being transported somewhere by ambulance, you you would be safe, right? Not in Lebanon because uh the Israelis are now targeting uh, medical staff. More than 50 have been killed. Um, hospitals, including the one we attended, uh, the Jabal Amo Hospital. Part of that is um is has been destroyed in Israeli air strikes and we've been working in the field for many years now. Um we're very experienced journalists and we take safety very seriously. We've spoken to a lot of medical workers. Um and they told us that the the logo on the top of the ambulances which is supposed to give them protection under international law under the Geneva conventions and this kind of thing uh instead of giving it giving them protection it now places them at risk. So many of them have removed those logos from uh their their emergency vehicles. Now barely a day goes by now that when we don't hear of a medical worker being struck the um the IDF, the Israeli Defense Force soon after they carried out a massacre of 12 um emergency workers in uh in the in the south targeting their the their station. They put out a statement saying that the um that Hezbollah is using u medical facilities and ambulances for military purposes. Now, of course, they didn't back that with any kind of evidence. This is a statement that they've uh reissued again uh quite recently, but yeah, we've been on the ground. We've been in the back of the ambulances. We've been in the hospitals. We've met the um the civil defense workers. We've met the paramedics and we've been to these stations. And all that you can see there are the kind of things that you would find in any hospital, in any medical station, in any ambulance anywhere in the world. These are um medical facilities. uh and they should be protected under international law. Of course, targeting these deliberately is a war crime, but it's just one of many that we're seeing uh here on the ground in in in Lebanon.

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So, you're a Westerner. It's by your accent you sound Irish. Um, you live and work in Lebanon. How long have you been there?

>> I came to Lebanon in uh October 2024. So this was during the period we call the the 66 day war. So it it was um a week or so after the assassination of Sad Hassan Nasarala the

>> yes

>> former secretary general of of Hezblah. So I came then we we we quite often joke and say say that if Steve Sweeney arrives in your country then it's not good news. Um but I came I came I came during that during that period. how uh Lebanon as you all know and I think I've heard you say Tucker if I'm not if if I'm correct it's a you know it's a beautiful country wonderful place um you know you you look at the rich culture tradition and history of this country even in in the south now which is the area coming under heavy bombardment this is the area of of of Jesus it's ka is where Jesus performed what I believe was his first miracle turning water into uh water into wine

>> um there's the the tomb of um Shimuna Sappa. This is um Peter Simon, St. Peter who for I think for many Catholics they believe that he was the first pope. Now he's that's where his uh some uh Christians believe that that's his burial site. Of course, this has been destroyed by Israel. They bombed it. Um this is an important site actually, Shimu Safa, for both Muslims and um and Christians. So that's uh that's been bombed. So I was

>> wait may I ask you to stop for a second? I'm and I'm ashamed by my ignorance as usual. The Israeli military bombed St. Peter's burial site.

>> Yes.

>> When?

>> Yes, they did.

>> Yeah. Uh this was back in uh in 2024. I mean, they went to this wasn't an accidental bombing. The the the Shimuna safar I I think it's protected under um world heritage uh law as well. Um and it's a very important site. It's a you know, of course, the the birth the sorry the burial place of of St. Peter. It's also a holy site for Muslims. And what they did during that period was they brought um an Israeli what they call a researcher, the Israeli Defense Force, brought him in. And the purpose of that really was to um I guess reinvent history. And the the aim of it was to say, well, this is um a Jewish holy site and this land belongs to Israel. This was the kind of narrative that they were uh trying to spin. that researcher who was um actually a very well-known um settler activist uh was was killed during that time. So we went we visited the the site in um early 2025 after the ceasefire period and um the missiles have gone through the the domes the uh the whole area was destroyed bullet marks um across all of the buildings there including the area of the shrine of St. Peter himself. So this is um so it wasn't like accidental accidentally targeted. It wasn't kind of collateral damage. This was a deliberately targeted attack on the tomb of St. Peter. It's not the only um church or um religious building that has been attacked. Of course, we were in a place called Deragaya. And this is a Greek uh a Greek Catholic church. And again, that was um destroyed during the um the 66 day war. They killed eight people that had taken shelter inside there. A lot of those were emergency workers, the civil defense team, and they taken shelter in there, and they bombed it to oblivion. It's it was completely destroyed. Um and again in in Yarun um this is uh another border town and there are two um buildings there. There's the Imam Ali mosque um which is a very well-known mosque in the in the south of Lebanon. But there was also the church of St. George and St. George, of course, the patron saint of uh of England, and this was a Catholic church, and they're very close by each other. And you may have seen the footage um circulating on social media, but there's um there's footage of an Israeli soldier, I guess, with a body cam or or something, a helmet cam um destroying the statue there to uh to St. George. But both of those were completely destroyed. Um

>> so what's interesting is

>> this is a pattern across the south of Lebanon. Hezbollah is, and I'm not defending Hezbollah, it's not my fight, but they're designated, I believe, by the US government as a terror group. They've controlled big parts of Lebanon for many, many years, more than 20 years.

>> And has Hezbollah blown up Christian holy sites? Has Hezbollah targeted ambulances? I mean, maybe they have. You live there. You tell me.

>> No, they haven't. In fact, the opposite. And the again there's plenty of of footage on of this that people can uh check for themselves online. Um, but Hezbollah was in fact protecting the uh Christian churches and protecting the um these kind of um symbolic areas of of religious importance to Christians. There's footage of them going into churches and cleaning up and tidying up and standing around, you know, protecting the the Christian faith. if you listen to the speeches of Hassan Nasra, he again he he um he said the are the main defenders of the Christian faith in Lebanon. So it's um so no, they're not they're not destroying ambulances, they're not destroying churches, they're not destroying uh mosques, they're not destroying people's homes, but Israel is and it's doing it with American and Western supplied weapons as well. And it's happening without anybody pretty much anybody in the United States even noticing. I don't I think people's attention is drawn to what's happening in Iran and the unfolding disaster there and they don't even know that this is happening.

So back to what happened to you specifically.

>> You said that the missile that almost killed you and your cameraman was launched from an American aircraft, an Israeli owned American aircraft. Yeah.

>> Do you believe was that one of the planes that had flown over you? Do you think it was targeting you?

>> Undoubtedly we believe it was it was targeting us. There's there could be no uh other explanation for what happened. Now, of course, because people have asked this this question, you know, one, why were you on the bridge and or were you deliberately targeted? And and and we're unequivocal about that. This was an assassination attempt by Israel to silence the voices on the ground, to silence the truth. Now the reason we say that is because like I said we've been working in the field for the last 2 years. So our vehicle is very well known in in the south of of Lebanon. Um we were in a clearly identified press vehicle. We had uh uh as you can see in the footage we had our press jackets on. Israel has the most advanced military technology anywhere in the world. It has the most advanced surveillance technology anywhere in the world. It knows everything that happens in the south of Lebanon. It knows every vehicle. It knows every number plate. It reads our messages. It listens to our conversations. This is why we say it was deliberate because there's there's no doubt that they knew we were there. And the other issue has has been raised by the Russian foreign ministry, Maria Zaharov, said that you know this can't have been accidental. There was no military objective in targeting that bridge. It was already destroyed. Uh so we believe it was a deliberate assassination attempt. Absolutely. And um it's only by luck really uh that we survived. There was a lot going in our favor that day. Let's uh you know, let's say had the missile not entered the hole in the bridge, had it exploded on the bridge, um we've spoken to military experts, weapons experts who have told us that if it had been maybe, you know, a few inches or a foot the other way, then there wouldn't even been bodies to uh to recover. We'd have just been incinerated. These are incredibly powerful munitions that that they were using and there was no military objective as I've said in in targeting the bridge. So we say that we were deliberately targeted um by by the Israelis without a doubt.

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So what I mean because you are a westerner, you do have a certain advantage. I mean you're an English-speaking Westerner from the British Isles and you're on television. So you're the subject of an assassination attempt by a supposedly western government, one that's armed by Western governments. What's your recourse? What do you do after they try and kill you, but they fail?

>> Well, that's a that's a very good question. Obviously I am an Englishspeaking white westerner which gives me a certain advantage a certain privilege. I mean I have to say that just uh over a week after our very close shave our dear colleagues and friends in the field weren't so lucky Fatima Fatuni Alish and Muhammad Fatuni were uh killed in a targeted uh targeted strike by the Israelis just after they've been reporting in the south. So uh I mean this is the kind of the conditions that journalists are working in on on the ground in terms of the recourse. Well um I work for Russian state television um which of course means that the my my own government the the British government um don't like me. In fact um they have already in instead of supporting me they've been they persecuted me. I was detained uh on a family visit last uh July at the Heathrow airport. Um, I was met by counterterror police uh off the airplane. They took me away for interrogation. They quized me over my relations to um Russia uh the Russian state working for Russian state television. Also about my work here in Lebanon, my associations or connections to Hezbollah, my connections to Ansaral in Yemen because I reported from uh Yemen Hashto Shabi um and my work in in Donbas. I spent two years in the field in in Donbass on on the Russian side. So, they were very interested in that and um they're still now currently investigating me for potential um terrorist activity uh based on on my journalism. So, I don't expect anything from them and um some friends of mine at Declassified UK um um media British media organization. Well, they inquired. They asked the the British government for comment after this this assassination attempt and they just simply said and I'm summarizing here paraphrasing that they said something along the lines of um the foreign secretary has um given Britain's position on the Middle East in a statement to the commons on Tuesday. That was all they said. They didn't address the specifics of my case. They haven't commented on it. They haven't offered any kind of support whatsoever. Even even the British embassy here in Lebanon hasn't contacted me. The only support that I have had I've had lots of, you know, love and and well wishes from individuals and organizations across the world for which we're, you know, we're incredibly grateful and thankful for. Um, but the only people the only country that's actually given me strong and solid support has been Russia.

>> Are you are you a British passport holder?

>> Ambassador.

>> I'm a British passport holder. Yes.

>> So you're a British subject. So this is even though you don't live there most of the time you have family there you are a citizen but the British government is taking the side of the Israeli military over its own citizens.

>> Well that's how it seems to me. Yes. Not only taking the side of the Israelis but they're helping provide the um the weapons and the ammunition and the political and military support to carry out such strikes. So, you know, somewhere along that chain, I mean, we know it was an F-16 and a GBU38 Americanmade American supply, but Britain is well involved in that supply chain. So, some of the some of the kind of the add-on equipment that enabled them to carry out that strike against me is almost certainly provided by the British government without a doubt. How does that I don't I don't understand since

>> you know both Britain and the United States fought against the Nazis and lost hundreds of thousands of their own men doing it.

>> I I don't really see where the the moral culpability is here. Why would Britain and the United States have some duty to become subjects of the Israeli government? I where does that come from?

Well, I mean, there's a long history of, you know, the the the two biggest supporters of Israel have traditionally been the United States and and Britain. And, you know, you can trace this back to the formation of the state of Israel. Now, um, of course, they have their own interests in the region. They use Israel as um a proxy force for its colonialist um imperialist expansion for you plans for for the region. And if you look at what's happening on the ground now, the reason that we reported on the bridges is that what you're seeing now is the um the force expulsion of 1.2 million Lebanese people that have been forced from their land, forced from their homes, and they're now um forcibly displaced. We we we describe this in Lebanon. We talk about it as an ethnic cleansing operation on a scale far larger than than the than the Nakba. That's the of course the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that were forced from their home homes on the creation of the state of Israel. So the situation here is um it's it's simply astonishing and you know the the 370,000 of those forcibly displaced children. So but behind that is this attempt by Israel to grab that land. Now, not only are they forcing people out of that area, south of the Ratani River, they've extended that now to south of the Zerani River. So, we're talking some 40 km from the Israeli border that they've pushed people out of that area. Now, um the Israelis have been very open. Um Israel cats, the defense secretary has said that we want the land. We're going to uh you know, they've said that they want to create a security buffer zone or whatever terminology they use to describe it. But these plans have been long in the making. You go back in in history and Israel has invaded and tried to take that area. They think it's their biblical right. We're talking about the Greater Israel project which I know you know you know full well about after your conversation with um Ambassador Huckabe and you know it's it kind of reappears in in different guises over the years. The most latest was the Trump economic zone. This was announced back in I think August last year. Around that time, Tom Barack, the US envoy, arrived here in Lebanon. And you you might remember this um sound bite from him because he spoke at the presidential palace to a group of journalists and there was a bit of a melee and he described them as anim animalistic and he was condemned for uh you know this you this was seen as a incredibly racist comment to make towards Lebanese journalists uh who are doing their job in the field holding people to account questioning him. But behind that that he laid out this plan for the a Trump economic zone which meant that hundreds of thousands of people would be forced from their homes permanently. Now it was dressed up this is going to be um a regeneration project. We're going to create new homes. We're going to create jobs. We're going to create roads. We're going to create infrastructure. We're going to make the area safe. But it meant that people that have lived on on this land for generations, these are their homes. These are not just, you know, dots on a map. the these are homes where people have lived on that land for generations are going to be turfed out and nobody really paid attention to it at the time. Of course we did as as journalists on the ground and you know people talk about they say that the Gaza model is now coming to Lebanon. Yeah, they've spoken about it in terms I think Smrich said we're going to turn Dia the southern suburbs of Beirut into Canunis and then they've used B Hanoon and and Rafa Israel Cat said that they're going to destroy all of these villages that they call frontline villages and I can tell you now we've been here for 2 years those villages are largely already destroyed. The south of Lebanon already looks like Gaza. Whole villages completely um lie in ruins. no reconstruction plan. And over the last 15 months, we've seen Israel break that ceasefire. And we we call about talk about a ceasefire from November 2024, but there was never a ceasefire. You can't have a ceasefire when only one side stops firing. And okay, 15,000 more than 15,000 violations over the last 15 months. And this has includ included the rigging and destroying of homes, the drone strikes, targeted assassinations, the use of chemical um spray to destroy um crops. And you know, we witnessed and filmed all this, the use of white phosphorus in a there's a place called Bleeder, a village very close to the border. Now during olive harvesting season, we went to make a film there. The Israelis refused to allow the farmers to tend to their land unless they gave them all of the contact details and the names of who was going into the fields while we were there. And they started bulldozing the olive groves. These are olive groves that are older than the state of Israel. So this, you know, this isn't something uh new. This is, you know, what we're seeing now, the escalation on March the 2nd has been going on for a very, very long time. Now, you ask me why Britain and the United States would support that. Well, they use Israel as their kind of proxy force in the area they refer to as the Middle East. We call it West Asia here. And they use it to um to to to grab the land. The Greater Israel Project suits Israel, but it suits Britain and the United States because this is a land of of great wealth and resources. And they want to extract that that wealth. Um they want to extract the resources and use it for their for their own gain. Uh and of course they want strategic control across the whole of the region. Uh you we've seen that with um you know with what happened in in Syria. We can see now with the bombing of um of Iran. Uh we can see what happened in in Gaza. All of these have taken place not just with the connance of the United States and Britain but with that active involvement. So this is the kind of you know this is what we're happening now. We we you can see signs along the airport road here in in Beirut that um you know they they say made it made in the United States made in the USA and that's how they see the the bombs that are falling on them here. They're made in the United States. They're made in Britain and they're causing that you know they're the root cause of the death and destruction that's taking place across this region. You know, Israel fires the bullets but the guns well and truly loaded by Britain and the United States.

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Well, since you mentioned it, I have to ask you about a small point that has bothered me for many years, and that's the Israeli policy of cutting down olive trees, some of which are hundreds and hundreds up to a thousand years old. And of course they're right. They're central to the ancient economy of the Levant, but they're also beautiful and they're revered almost by the people who are actually from there. Not the ones from Poland who pretend they're from there, but the people who actually are there. Why would the Israeli government chainsaw or bulldoze olive trees? That seems evil to me. I don't understand the explanation for it.

>> Well, that's that's the only way to look at it. Of course, it's it's evil, but I think you know the these, like you said, these olive groves, some of them are thousands of years old. I think the oldest in Lebanon is is something like 6,000 years old. But it's the lifeblood of of of Lebanon. It's a symbol of of um Lebanese cultural heritage, identity, and the people here are very very connected to their land. They're deeply connected to to their land. And you know this is the lifeblood not just for the the south of pe of of of Lebanon where you know the farmers will will harvest their olive groves. Tobacco is a big um a huge crop here but this is the lifeblood for all of Lebanon. Now if you can disconnect people from their land and their and their culture then of course you can um you can you can take it over. And that's what they've been doing, not just by bulldozing it, um bombing it, um but by um spraying these chemicals that will make sure that these crops will never be able to grow on the land again and they can just brush them aside. They can build um houses, they can build settlements there just like they did when uh on the formation of the state of Israel. They're bu building these illegal settlements everywhere. And that's exactly what they want to do

>> in Lebanon. They're building settlements. Well, they want to. That's their That's their aim. Yeah. I mean, you you look at you look at the greater Israel project itself. Now, um I mentioned Yarun earlier. This is the uh place where the mosque and the church were were were destroyed. Now, uh earlier this year, a few months before the um before the escalation on on March the 2nd, this group of of settlers came in um across the border into or very close to Yun and they planted trees and the message was this this I can't remember the exact terminology that they used, but this was them planting their roots in Lebanese territory and they believe that Lebanese territory biblically belongs to them. Now, you know, you look back a few years ago and this could have been seen as a conspiracy theory or or a or a fringe um kind of movement, but this is now right at the heart of the Israeli government. Smotric and Ben Gave are advocates of the Greater Israel Project. Benjamin Netanyahu himself is a supporter of the Greater Israel Project. This isn't kind of like a you a fantasy. This is happening now. It's unfolding in in uh real time in front of our very eyes. So, um that's you know, and they they have some uh some rabbis in Israel that justify this religiously as well. They will say that this this is the land that belongs to them according to holy scripture. And um and this is why we're seeing this this whole scale destruction. That's what it was around over the last 15 months. They say it was about destroying Hezbollah, but it's not. It's not. The you're seeing whole kind of settlements lying under rubble. My beloved is from uh a village in in the south and her entire uh village has pretty much been reduced to rubble. Her family home rebuilt, destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed so many times. And this is, you know, very common for the people in in um in that part of the of the world. And again, there's Israel has occupied Lebanon. And after the ceasefire in November 2024, it built five military bases inside Lebanese sovereign territory. We filmed them and rather than um scaling them back, Israel was expanding the construction of those um of those military posts illegally. You know, in breach of UN resolution 1701, in breach of international law, the Lebanese government asked them to to leave um Lebanese sovereign territory. And of course they just simply refuse and they push further and further into Lebanese sovereign territory. Now the interesting thing and I don't know whether your viewers will be aware of this um many people don't uh don't know but there isn't really an official border between between Israel and Lebanon. There's no no officially agree agreed border. We have the blue line which was established by the United Nations. This was um after Israel was forced out in in in 2000. And this line is supposed to be the demarcation point that Israel is not supposed to encroach further upon uh you know further across this line. So Israel sees a lot of this land as as as belonging um you know there was the 1923 mandate line when it was the British mandate of Palestine. There was a kind of border uh drawn up then which Israel inherited in 1948 but was never really agreed to. uh the armstice in 1949 didn't again agree agree those borders. So, um, Israel sees fit to to push forward, um, yeah, at will and it's done so with total impunity, of course. Um, you know, there's no kind of international outcry about the destruction of these, uh, villages and settlements or the use of chemical weapons, uh, the use of white phosphorus or the assassination of um, of individuals in drone strikes or the killing of paramedics, the murder of journalists. All of these things have been happening for for for many many years. the world is maybe paying more attention to it now. We've had the Western journalists arriving in the country um since March the 2nd. Of course, the major news networks have arrived and they're kind of surprised at what they're seeing. They're seeing this for the first time. Um but this has been going on for a very very long time. And I say this is a bit of a failing I would say of the major media organizations because had they been on the ground in Lebanon for the past 15 months they would have seen this unfolding and you know maybe the situation would be very different from what it is now as it as it is. They weren't there and the Lebanese journalists were reporting that people that that live on that land were were you know crying for for help and nobody was listening.

it I have to ask so you are covering this on the ground in Lebanon living and working at the center of all this and as noted almost got killed for it

>> but you're working for a Russian news agency like why aren't you a BBC reporter how did what was your path

>> MI5 would never claim me to BBC organization. True. There's no ch no chance. I mean I I I I wouldn't work for the BBC on a on a personal level. We've met some BBC journalists here and they've been very pleasant, very nice and as have all the journs from, you know, the the major networks as individual journalists. Yeah, I have no problem with them. But how I ended up working for RT for for Russia Today is um I was working for a newspaper um before I entered the world of broadcast journalism. I was the international editor of a national daily newspaper in Britain for many years when the Ukraine conflict started um the special military operation. I was covering that and I went to the western part of Ukraine to um um to pick up there was a couple of stories I was chasing there. I ended up in Lavv. The Ukrainians tried to um to kidnap me and I managed to make my escape from from there back out um back out through Poland and then to Germany.

>> I'm going to ask you to pose why why did they do that? Why did they try to kidnap you, the Ukrainians?

>> Well, simply because I'm uh I was a journalist that wasn't towing the their their narrative. And Ukraine the Ukraine conflict is the most propagandized war um in history uh in in my view. I mean you look at what happened you know you know even the Iraq war there was kind of that space within the media field to to criticize your government's policy. when it came to Ukraine that that um that window or that gap narrowed to the point where it was impossible because there there was no space to offer anything that was different from the narrative of the western uh governments, the British government, the Ukrainian government. So if you were going there to actually do some proper journalism and I say that because you know with um uh all due respect to the those organizations, the BBC, CNN, um Sky News, um you know the the Times, the Telegraph, Channel 4, they were doing these kind of um it was they were all saying the exact same thing. They were taking it in in turns to stand on the top of the same hotel roof in Kiev or Lav and repeat the line, repeat the line. But they weren't actually seeing uh what was the reality on on on the ground. They were they were just stenographers um essentially these kind of um copy and paste reports and it reached kind of insane levels in in in Britain. I'm sure it was the same in the United States, but Britain was you they started demonizing Vladimir Putin. One of the craziest reports I saw was that Vladimir Putin has a an assistant that follows him around with a briefcase and every time he goes to the toilet they collect his feces and urine so his opponents can't do run any kind of tests on them. I mean it got to, you know, completely insane levels and anytime you were reporting. So I ended up at Russia Today after that because I saw that my independence as a journalism as a journalist and my ability to report on the truth um had completely disappeared. It was impossible. The only way to do that was to um you know was to go to Russia and work for work for RT. and we have our our one of our logos question more and that's what we do and I always say you know question more question us that's that's the role of a journalist so I ended up um working for RT I ended up working for two years in Donbas on on the Russian side and I was seeing something completely different from the narrative that was being played out in in the west I was seeing you know war crimes committed daily by the Ukrainians against a civilian population when I was there they called it donets roulette um you You never know where you when a missile might strike you. And I was seeing, you know, attacks on marketplaces for example, 27 people killed, body parts everywhere. Um these were like babushkas, dadkas, old men, old women, the poorest people in um you know, in in that part of the of the city selling um you homemade fruit and vegetables from from their home just obliterated, you know, arms and legs uh everywhere. I was seeing hospitals that were that were struck, bus stops that were being attacked, you know. So, I mean, I could talk about that for a long time. I spoke about it at the United Nations Security Council. Um, I gave testimony of of what I'd seen and the failures of of Minsk one and Minsk 2 and, you know, the the path to peace. Um so what what we're seeing what and what I always say is what we what we were seeing in in um in that part in the in Donbass is the same um playbook that we're seeing in Gaza. The same playbook that we're seeing here in Lebanon. These are the most powerful countries in the world waging war using the most sophisticated technology, the most powerful weapons against some of the poorest, most vulnerable people in the world. They can't fight back. That's, you know, this is they, you know, they don't have the um they don't have the arms, they don't have the weapons. They were they you the people of Gaza, the people of Lebanon, they weren't sent highs or storm shadows or um you know, these advanced weapons. These were sent to their oppressors to massacre them. You know, this was this is this is what's happening. And it's the very same forces in Donbass. It was, you know, it was very simple for me as a as a journalist. It was a a people that wanted peace. are people that wanted to be able to speak uh their own language Russian, people that wanted to be able to practice their own culture and traditions if they identified um as as Russian. And pretty much that was it. You could put it as as really as simply as that. But then um the Ukrainian government decided to wage a war against its own people. I know for some this went back to, you know, the start of the SMO, but this has a much much longer history starting way back in 2014, the Maid coup. Um, you know, all of these things people forget about now conveniently, including the media. The media's actually made them forget about it because, you know, one day there was a neo-Nazi problem in Ukraine. You know, the Azoff and the right sector were um carrying out these horrific um actions, these horrific killings. they were terrorizing the people and the next day all of a sudden Ukraine is a paragon of liberal democracy, you know, it's it's incredible. Um, but people aren't getting the truth. So, this is why I ended up at uh at RT because the space to do proper journalism just wasn't afforded to me anywhere else. None of the British press. Um, like I said, I kind of semi-joked, but MI5 would never allow me to work for the BBC or for any of the other major news organizations. And, you know, I have to say with

With um Russia Today, with RT, I have complete freedom to report exactly uh what I want and nobody tells me what to say. Nobody tells me where I can film. Nobody tells me who I can speak to, who I should speak to. Um, you know, I have total journalistic freedom. So, and I'm very happy working for RT. I'm very proud to work for RT.

And um we always say that here on the ground because, you know, obviously I came kind of sprung into the into the limelight after what happened to me. And um but it's not about me. Journalists should never become the story. Unwittingly um I did, but we always say that, you know, the our job is to raise the voices of the people of the of this land. And we always say that our mic is a tribune uh for the people and it will continue to be a tribune for the people as long as um we remain in the field.

It must be such a strange experience for you since you've been in the Brit sounds like you're in the British media for a long time, conventional media, a newspaper in a country that >> you know reads newspapers famously. um all of a sudden to have this perspective where you have more freedom to do journalism to straightforward journalism at Russia today than you had at a British newspaper. I mean what is that as someone who I I assume you were raised in the UK right? >> Yeah. >> What is that like?

It's well I you know I the British the the the media field in Britain um you know the and I think it's not just in Britain but I think if you look at the western countries that it's it's it's kind of >> it's it's very concentrated. It's owned by a very small group of people um who who own and control the media. They control what you say. They control the narrative. So, but I think the the change was that the uh the owners of these media organizations are now more and more forcefully pushing their view and their narrative. And you see it permeating through every word that's spoken on um on British television. You see it written in every single word in every single newspaper. There's no um divergence. They're they're all uniform.

So, you know, of course, Russia, people in the West think that Russia is some kind of authoritarian dictatorship that we're living under the jackpot of of Vladimir Putin. But you've been to Moscow, you know, you know, um, anything but the but the truth. It couldn't couldn't be further from the truth. You know, you see >> people I mean, there are very educated people. They have, you know, a rich again, we was talking about Lebanon earlier, having this rich culture and history. I mean Russia, come on. I mean I don't know any other nation on earth that has such a rich culture and history. you know, Shostikovich, Dostesi, Proopv, Yuri Gagarin, they put, you know, the first uh human being in in in space, Mendelv, the founder of the um you know, the the table of the elements. Um huge these huge figures in the field of science, of literature, of art, of music. and you go to any bar in in in Moscow and and you can sit down there within 5 minutes you've had one of the most intelligent political or cultural conversations that you've ever had sitting over a a cold pint of of Guinness.

And for those that think that people are too afraid to criticize Putin, let me tell you, they're not. They're not. I've I've heard it myself and you know the same the same kind of criticisms you hear in every country anywhere in the world. They're not afraid to express those views. They don't necessarily hold them. Vladimir Putin is incredibly popular and he's incredibly popular for a very good reason is that people remember the days before Putin became president and they remember it was a very very dark time in the country and after the collapse of the Soviet Union up until Vladimir Putin came to power there wasn't that really that kind of national stability I mean Russia is obviously a huge country 11 time zones I think it is so to hold it together is is incredibly difficult but Vladimir Putin bought that stability he He made Russia into what it is today. And this is a a strong economically thriving uh independent country that is actually despite what the west says, you know, it still has these good relations with other countries on the world stage. It's not isolated by any stretch of the imagination. It's only isolated if you think the world is the is the western powers. So um you know the there is this freedom to to to criticize but of course he's hugely popular and and you know I think people in the west find that very difficult to to understand that yeah he's you know that that just how how popular Putin is in in in Russia.

>> Everything you're saying is true. I've seen it multiple times. >> Even for for example RT is banned in the United States. It's banned in Europe. In Russia, you've probably seen, but Vladimir Putin holds a every year he holds a Q&A for journalists, for members of the public. Every year the BBC is there. Steve Rosenberg asks a question. He tries to get a gotcha. Every year he fails every year, but he he keeps giving it a go. But the BBC is allowed to operate freely inside uh inside Russia. I couldn't do the same in Britain. They'd try and arrest me. >> They would they would arrest me. talk about freedom of press. >> If you tried if you practiced what you're doing now in your home country >> if I took a Yes. If I took an RT microphone into uh into London and started trying to interview people or if I stood in front of a camera with an RT microphone and started trying to give a report, I would be arrested. We're banned. We're, you know, we're, you know, we're treated as, I don't know, like foreign agents. So it's um you know it would be unlawful for us to work there. We could be jailed, sanctioned, a whole host of things could happen. So we don't have that freedom to operate inside um inside Britain.

I always, you know, this is something that always amazes me because, you know, the Russian state television was banned in in in Europe and and America because, you know, we're propagandists or or whatever the Kremlin media machine or, you know, these kind of tired old tropes that we hear this, you know, which is deeply rooted in in Russophobia. But what they're really saying is that the people of Europe and Brit um and America are stupid, right? You know, people people um are able to disseminate fact from fiction. They're able to watch a news report and decide whether it's propaganda or whether it's true. They can make that decision themselves and they should be able to make that decision themselves in a free and democratic country that uh operates with um freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

So um you know, it's it always strikes me as quite bizarre that they keep saying well we uphold freedom of the press. Well, in fact, the European Union has sanctioned a journalist, someone I knew, no uh Hussein Doru, who is uh a journalist for for Red Media. They sanctioned him because of his work. They said he's close or I think they accused him of something to do with the Russian state, but it was because of his reporting on uh on Palestine. So there there's no way that they uphold freedom of the press. I I myself am being investigated for potential terrorist activities based on my journalism. Nothing else. That's it for my journalistic um journalistic reports. So, you know, where where does where's the press freedom? Can I walk into um in into the United States? Can I can I, you know, freely walk around and start interviewing people? Can I interview Donald Trump? Can I sit down and speak to the people on the ground? Of course not. We're banned. It's an absurdity. It is an obsession, but press freedom is alive and kicking.

And it's it's also a little bit bewildering. It's it's surprising for me and it's an ominous sign, I would say, as an American to see people arrested in Britain for criticizing Israel. >> Why would it be illegal for a Britain to criticize Israel? What does Israel have to do with the UK? And by the way, it was Israeli terror groups who murdered British citizens, British soldiers, British diplomats. >> Exactly. The King David Hotel. >> That's exact. and many others and they murdered a lot of Brits and murdered them with their hands slowly in some cases blew them up with bombs but true terrorist acts and the guy who did it later became the prime minister Monaco.

So actually Israel owes a great debt to the UK which is responsible for its formation in the first place as you know. So why in the world would British citizens be banned from criticizing Israel? They owe nothing to Israel. What is this? Well, it's it's a bizarre dystopian situation. You you've probably seen, but but in Britain, um uh I guess maybe 6 months ago, the government moved to ban a group called Palestine Action, and these were these were protesters that were throwing paint at airplanes or whatever. They were trying to stop a genocide and Britain prescribed it as a terrorist organization. I think against all the legal advice that they were given, they ignored that and they went ahead and it became illegal to even support or hold up placards saying I support Palestine action. So they were arresting like you know 80 90 year old uh women. They were dragging them away um and charging them as as ter as terrorists under terrorism offenses.

So I mean Britain has a obviously it's invested in in >> Israel heavily invested in Israel clearly because you know it was Britain really that was behind the formation of the the state of Israel in in the first place. You can trace it back to the Balfa declaration where you know they drew a line in the sand and gave a land that didn't belong to them to another people whose land it wasn't. You know they gave away the land that belonged to the people indigenous to that land. So I think you know they talk about this historical debt owed to owed to Israel. Now, of course, you can go to Germany and some of the European countries and of course they talk about the the the Holocaust and you know they bear a heavy burden and responsibility for that or or they feel that and again there's this kind of historical debt that they feel but in in Britain now it's it's kind of you know moved way beyond uh way beyond that and and like you said they were in the early days in the formation of the state of Israel they were attacking um Brits killing Brits blowing up hotels.

Um, so this kind of unraveled support where you can't even criticize Israel. You you can't there's no space. Any criticism of Israel is now deemed either anti-semitic, an act of terror, unlawful. Um, and it can means that you're ostracized from from society. You're labeled an anti-semite. You're labeled a racist. And I think the Britain's objective is I mean Israel is an outpost for um AngloAmerican imperialist um uh you know their um what what they want to gain out of the out of the region. So it acts as you know this kind of Anglo imperialist outpost and it will back Israel militarily to the hilt. It will back them politically to the hilt. But of course you know they they're using it to strategically control the entire of the of the Middle East. I mean this is this is their historical mess. I mean >> yes >> you know everything that happens in this region is because of the historical mess of the British and and the French you know back in the time of um the Sykes Pico carving up of that part of the world just arbitrarily drawing lines. Okay, you can have this part, you can have this part.

Um and you know the the legacy of that lives on uh today which is in fact why as a British um journalist I say of of Irish origin but you know as certainly as a as a western uh a western journalist I have a historical debt to the people of of this land um because of what my country has inflicted upon them. And you know, I see that as part of my my my duty as as a journalist, not to just fall in line behind my own government, not to be a stenographer for power, um, but to expose to the world what's happening here on the ground in in Lebanon and in other countries. And you know, for every bomb that falls on on Lebanon, and there have been many of them, I can tell you, but every bomb that falls on Lebanon is a bomb that is supplied by the United States. Yes. >> A bomb that is supplied by Britain. It's Israel just simply fires the bullets that they supplied and it's been, you know, it's carrying out these actions with the support and complicity of of Britain and the United States and other Western countries.

Do do your former colleagues in the British media feel shame as they continue their stenography and see you speaking freely and risking your life to do it? >> They should do. Yeah, they should. They should feel a great sense of shame. But now I don't know whether that whether they do like I said on a personal level I've met the individual journalists from the major news organizations and they've been very very gracious and very pleasant as individuals but um you know they all fall in line with the same narrative. Even the journalists that are coming here they'll describe Da which is the southern suburbs of Beirut. That entire area has been evacuated. We're talking an area between 500 and 800,000 people >> right? And that whole area has been evacuated. It's uh bombed every single day without fail. Fighter jets roaring overhead, drones overhead, civilian buildings being destroyed. Now for them, this is the southern suburbs of Beirut. They call it um a Hezbollah stronghold. Now, okay, that use of language is not an accident. It's deliberate. They call it Hezbollah, a Hezbollah stronghold because it justifies the bombing of that area. But this isn't a Hezbollah stronghold. This you know this is where we live you know these are the coffee shops we where we meet our friends these are the places we go shopping this is a uh an area vibrant full of life people's homes this kind of thing and yeah the the the western media play a very penicious role in fact in um in in what I believe is this manufacturing of consent because outside of that dah is just a place on a map that gets bombed Lebanon is a war zone that's how you know they describe But Lebanon isn't a war zone.

As we already discussed, Lebanon is a is a land of rich culture, rich tradition, rich history, full of the most amazing people um you could ever meet anywhere in in in the world. The same with the south of Lebanon. They say, well, you know, all these areas south of the Latani, they're all Hezbollah supporters. I mean, of course, there's strong support for Hezbollah in in in those areas because they see them as the only organization that is standing up and fighting against Israel. that is defending their land, their territory. Hezblah was only born in the depending on but he was born in the in in the mid 1980s. Now the people of Lebanon don't have like a derdiction or a fantasy of um you know or or a predisposed to using weapons and guns. You know, it's not that they enjoy going around shooting people. They were formed as an armed militia exactly to defend their land. the same as in Ireland. the same as in in fact you can pick any country that's come under attack from um you know from the from the western powers from Israel from their neighbors you know that's the origins of these organizations but to call it Hezbollah land which is some of the description that we're we're finding this is as we said the land that Jesus walked in it's a land uh rich um in culture and and history but the western journalists are kind of seeing it very much or speaking about it or writing about it very much in those terms.

We hear the same kind of it's like these dog whistled trigger words, you know, Iranbacked the Iran Iranianbacked militia, um you know, the the Hezbollah strongholds, all you know, these kind of things that they'll the terminology that they use. And it's absolutely deliberate to justify Israel bombing those lands. That's um you know, that that's all it is. So whether they're embarrassed about writing that or not, I don't know. Um I think it's very difficult to get a job in the British media if you don't write those um um those kind of lines or you don't speak them into a camera. Now um Nam Chsky who um back in I guess the '9s was interviewing a a British journalist Andrew Martin. He I think he hit the nail on the head when he said, "Okay, I'm not necessarily saying you don't believe what you're saying, but if you didn't believe what you said, you wouldn't be sitting where you are now." And I think that's >> it's true, right? I mean, you know, you're not going to get a job unless you believe those things unless you're prepared to say them or write them. Um, so whether they're embarrassed or not, I don't know. And to be honest, I don't care very much either.

>> They may not be capable of it. So my my last question, I know you're only talking about yourself, but is about you. So Israel tried to assassinate you. They failed. Um just barely. I can't imagine interviews like this make them less inclined to assassinate you to try again. Are you going to stay in Lebanon? >> Absolutely. 100% without without doubt. I'll stay in Lebanon. Um Lebanon is my home. Um, I have my, you know, my my beloved is here in Lebanon. My life is here in Lebanon. I I always say, look, Lebanon isn't my country, but Lebanon and the Lebanese people belong in my heart. And um, yeah, I'll forever be in the service of the the Lebanese people. They've been good enough to host me in in their country. And I hope that my journalism does them justice, and I hope my presence um does them justice. I always remember and it's always important to remember that I'm I I'm a guest uh in in in this land. So, no, I have no intention of leaving. I have no intention of stopping reporting. We've already been back to the front line um just 2 days after the attack. We made sure that we went out because we're not going to be um silenced. And you know, if they think that we're going to be leaving the field, then they're very much mistaken.

>> What a remarkable conversation. It is one of the great countries and most beautiful countries uh in the world. Top five in my opinion, top three. So, I'm grateful you're there to chronicle what's being done to it uh in our name with our weapons. It's really evil. So, anyway, Steve Sweeney, thank you very much for doing this. I appreciate it. >> A pleasure. Thank you.