Two European journalists seeking to report from Israel came under scrutiny on Sunday over alleged ties to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. One of them has already been barred from entering the country.
Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority rejected the work visa application of Serena Bilanceri, a reporter for the German daily Die Tageszeitung (taz), after the Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Ministry recommended blocking her over her calls for sanctions against Israel. On the same day, the Swiss paper SonntagsBlick reported that Christina Brun, the newly appointed Middle East correspondent for Swiss Radio and Television (SRF), had linked to the BDS movement on a website she created in 2015. Both journalists deny supporting BDS.taz has been embroiled in journalistic scandals over the years, involving defending ‘Palestinian’ terrorism and stoking hardcore antisemitism.
1+Avi Cohen Scali, director-general of the Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Ministry, issued a recommendation that her visa be blocked and submitted his findings to the Population and Immigration Authority, saying, “We will not tolerate calls for a boycott of Israel under the guise of professional journalism,” Scali said.
Serena Bilanceri told Channel 14 that “I see the decision of the Israeli government in my case very critical and as a clear violation of press freedom and freedom of speech.” Bilanceri continued that “Differently from what stated in the article, I never called for a boycott of Israel. This is sheer not true. I endorsed sanctions against the Israeli government in two specific cases, once in relation to the behaviour of the government concerning settlers violence in the West Bank and once in relation to the humanitarian situation in Gaza.”
Bilanceri added, “No, I’m not antisemitic. Actually, years ago, when I was beginning in journalism, I co-presented a German-Yiddish radio programme for a small communal radio.”
Bilanceri accused Israel of “Apartheid” in a November 2025 article, titled “Sanctions Against Israel.” She wrote that residents in Judea and Samaria, who committed violence, were part of a “radical expulsion strategy,” and urged the U.S., Germany and additional European countries to implement military and economic sanctions on the Jewish state.
In an earlier article from September 2025, with the headline, “The European Union Must Act Together Now,” Bilanceri slammed Germany for rejecting the European Commission proposal to impose sanctions on Israel over Israel’s self-defense war against the Hamas terrorist movement in Gaza. She argued that Europe should impose harsher punitive measures on the Jewish state in her September article. Scali declared that “Anti-Israel actors and those who slander Israel should not set foot in the country.”
1+Both the German and Austrian parliaments have deemed the BDS campaign an antisemitic movement that recalls the Nazi efforts to boycott Jewish businesses at the start of the Hitler movement.
The decision to ban Bilanceri is allowed under the Entry into Israel Law. The law enables the interior ministry to ban antisemitic and anti-Israel foreign activists and journalists who seek to abolish Israel via their support of the BDS campaign.
The extremist paper taz has a long history of attacking Israel. A former taz German correspondent in Israel, Susanne Knaul, faced accusations that she legitimizes terrorism. Knaul triggered outrage over her taz commentary in 2017 when she argued that “Jerusalem is not Berlin” when evaluating the ethics of vehicular terrorist attacks that took place in both capitals. It is a “fact that there are reasons for the desperation which motivates Palestinians to suicide attacks,” she wrote. Knaul cited the “occupation” and “injustice” as ostensibly legitimate reasons to murder Israeli soldiers.
In January 2017, a Palestinian terrorist drove his truck into a group of Israeli soldiers, murdering four of them in attack that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was “part of the same pattern inspired by the Islamic State.” In December 2017, an Islamic State terrorist drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people, including Israeli Dalia Elyakim.
German antisemitism experts, like Matthias Küntzel, have accused Daniel Bax, a taz editor who writes about German politics, of spreading anti-Jewish conspiracy theories.
Bax, who is a zealous advocate of the BDS movement, wrote in a 2017 commentary that the American Jewish Committee “acts entirely in line with Israel’s government.” He also wrote that “Germany’s Central Council of Jews has made itself into a one-sided mouthpiece for the interests of Israel’s government.” Bax claimed the then-mayor of Berlin’s decision to reject BDS meant he “caved in” to German and US Jewish NGOs.
In the second case, the Swiss paper Sonntagsblick reported on Sunday that the newly appointed Middle East correspondent, Christina Brun for Swiss Radio and Television (SRF), is linked to the antisemitic BDS movement. According to the paper, “SRF explains controversial mention of BDS” and” The anti-Israel BDS movement was linked on her website until the page went offline.”
“SonntagsBlick was tipped off with information according to which the new SRF Middle East correspondent is said to have connections to the anti-Israel BDS movement. It concerns a website that she launched in 2015 as part of her Multimedia Production studies at the then HTW Chur [University of Applied Sciences for Technology and Economics Chur].”
Channel 14 sent a press query to Channel SRF.
Brun did not respond to press queries from SonntagsBlick. The SRF media office said: “The links listed on the website served as further information and do not represent support for the organisations mentioned. Christina Brun has never supported the BDS movement.” David Klein, a Swiss Jewish journalist and expert on Jew-hatred in Switzerland, told Channel 14 that “Israel ought to block them and expel all SRF “Middle East correspondents,’ with their one-sided, anti-Israel reporting, they do nothing but spread and foster antisemitism. What the Church used to do, the press does today.” Channel 14 reached out to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs about Brun and sent a press query to the editors of the taz. This story is developing.