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As College Students Are Arrested with Weapons, The Washington Posts Offers Extremists a Helping Hand
The former Washington Post building. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
There’s a growing problem with violent extremism in the United States. American college campuses have been proven to be an incubator. But mainstream media outlets have also played an essential role, often whitewashing extremism that they find ideologically acceptable. The Washington Post is foremost among them.
Taylor Lorenz, who gained Internet fame for being a social media “reporter,” recently sympathized with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who was gunned down on a New York street on December 4, 2024. Lorenz, formerly of both The New York Times and Washington Post, said that Thompson’s murder brought her “joy” and took to social media platforms to cheer the murder of the married father of two. The news medium Vox parted ways with Lorenz after her comments.
Some pundits are shocked that Lorenz would join the left-leaning extremists who refused to condemn the murder. But they shouldn’t be. When she was an employee for the Washington Post, Lorenz took the side of Hamas in its war against the Jewish State, falsely accusing Israel of committing a “genocide.”
Lorenz even called President Joe Biden a “war criminal” over his administration giving aid to an American ally while it was at war.
It is deeply troubling that well-known reporters would offer apologetics for political violence, the very definition of terrorism. But this too is unsurprising, as a recent Washington Post headline reveals.
Police recently visited the home of two leaders of a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at George Mason University, Jena and Noor Chanaa, who allegedly led a group of vandals that caused thousands of dollars in damage to campus property during pro-Hamas rallies. As the Washington Free Beacon noted:
When officers entered the Chanaa family home, they found firearms—modern weapons, not antiques—as well as scores of ammunition and foreign passports, all of which sat in plain view, according to court documents obtained by the Free Beacon and sources familiar with the investigation.
They also found pro-terror materials, including Hamas and Hezbollah flags and signs that read “death to America” and “death to Jews,” according to court documents and sources familiar.
Police seized the weapons under Virginia’s red flag law, arguing that Mohammad Chanaa, the students’ brother and a George Mason alumnus, was “linked to destruction of property in connection with a large group of people with like-minded rhetoric” and posed a danger to others given his possession of “terroristic” materials.
It should be national news that students at an American university seemingly possessed weapons and pro-terrorist propaganda. Yet, The Washington Post’s headline portrayed these miscreants with sympathy: “Campus ban for two pro-Palestinian activists sparks outcry at George Mason.”
The subhead added: “Two student activists with ties to GMU protesters were given four-year trespass notices for alleged vandalism.”
According to the Post, the real story isn’t that, at a time of rising antisemitism and violent attacks on Jews, two college students were found with weapons and materials celebrating US-designated terrorist groups. Rather, the “real story” is that some were upset that the two SJP leaders received trespass notices.
Indeed, at nearly every turn Post reporter — Dan Rosenweig-Ziff — cast the two in a sympathetic light. This is evident from the opening paragraph: “A coalition of organizations, representing faculty, staff, students and other advocacy groups at George Mason University and beyond is alleging that university police acted inappropriately in banning two pro-Palestinian students from campus and searching their family’s home for reasons authorities have yet to describe publicly,” the Post writes.
Tellingly, the newspaper provides readers with no details about Students for Justice in Palestine.
As CAMERA has noted, SJP is effectively a campus hate group. Numerous SJP members have made statements calling for Israel’s destruction and the genocide of its citizens. And numerous SJP members have threatened pro-Israel students. Canary Mission, among others, has documented some of these examples in a public database that effectively holds a mirror to the face of SJP. These examples are in the public domain and easy to find. But the Post didn’t deign to list them. Indeed, the newspaper compounded the error by treating the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a credible source.
Like SJP, CAIR has a dubious history. CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2009 Holy Land retrial, the largest terrorism financing case in history. No fewer than five former lay leaders or staffers associated with CAIR have been arrested, indicted or deported for terrorism-related charges. CAIR has also trafficked in hate, with its leaders making a litany of horrific comments. CAIR’s founder and executive director, Nihad Awad, even celebrated the October 7 Hamas-led massacre, saying it made him “happy.” Awad’s comments earned a White House rebuke, with the Biden administration saying: “We condemn these shocking, antisemitic statements in the strongest term.” Notably, this didn’t stop the Post — which has a long history of regurgitating statements from the group — from both treating CAIR uncritically, and failing to disclose the group’s problematic history.
Unsurprisingly, CAIR sought to frame the issue of the SJP arrests as one of free speech. This is disingenuous. And at a time of exploding antisemitism, with Jewish students being forced to literally hide on campuses, it is unacceptable.
Notably, the Post has opposed efforts to combat antisemitism in higher education. On Dec. 11, 2019, then-President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order to protect Americans from antisemitic discrimination on college campuses. The order itself was based off of the bipartisan Antisemitism Awareness Act and was praised from a broad array of groups on both sides of the aisle. Yet, in both an editorial and several published op-eds, the Post opposed the executive order, falsely claiming that it sought to redefine Judaism and “deals with campus incidents too broadly by threatening to suppress speech.”
As CAMERA noted at the time, the executive order did no such thing. And the sharp increase in antisemitism — including attacks on Jews around the world — keenly illustrates how necessary such efforts are.
But five years later, after the largest massacre of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust, the Washington Post still doesn’t get it. The newspaper continues to give extremists undue credibility, whether it’s employing them, quoting them, or omitting facts and context about their actions and history. Extremism is thriving in America, and the Post continues to play a role in its ascent.
The writer is a Senior Research Analyst for CAMERA, the 65,000-member, Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.
The post As College Students Are Arrested with Weapons, The Washington Posts Offers Extremists a Helping Hand first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jamaal Bowman Launches New PAC in Attempt to Unseat Pro-Israel Politicians
US Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) speaks during the National Action Network National Convention in New York City, US, April 7, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Former US lawmaker Jamaal Bowman has started a new political action committee (PAC) in an attempt to raise funds for progressive candidates and unseat pro-Israel incumbents.
On Thursday, Bowman, who served in the US House of Representatives as a New York Democrat from 2021-2025, announced the creation of the “Built to Win PAC,” a new attempt to boost aspiring left-wing candidates by galvanizing minority voters. The progressive firebrand hopes that the political committee will serve as an effective competitor against groups that elevate moderate congressional candidates who, he argued, neglect the needs of working-class constituents.
“For too long, the system has failed the people. Built to Win is here to change that. We’re mobilizing Black, Arab, Asian, and Latino communities to reclaim our power. Join the movement – because when we vote, we win,” Built to Win wrote on its official X/Twitter account.
“Today, I am officially launching the Built to Win PAC. I’m back, and I’m coming back to win,” Bowman added on his own person X/Twitter page.
This is Jamaal Bowman, former Congressman from New York, reaching out to let you know that today, I am officially launching the Built To Win PAC. I’m back, and I’m coming back to win. pic.twitter.com/0JeWggAyQE
— Jamaal Bowman Ed.D. (@JamaalBowmanNY) February 27, 2025
While speaking to City & State, a media company that covers New York politics, Bowman confirmed in a new interview that the Built to Win PAC will likely prioritize targeting sitting lawmakers who support Israel.
“Any candidate that supports [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and genocide more than their constituents, any candidate that’s tied up with corrupt crypto money, any candidate tied up with the real estate lobby as opposed to renters, we’re going to go after those candidates very aggressively,” Bowman said.
The former lawmaker has also tapped Lexis Zeidan, co-founder of the anti-Israel “Uncommitted National Movement” to help build out and manage his PAC.
The Uncommitted National Movement emerged in 2024 as a result of frustration stemming from the Israel-Hamas war. The initiative sought to encourage voters to abstain from voting first for US President Joe Biden and then for his vice president, 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, unless they adopted anti-Israel policies.
During Bowman’s time in Congress, he established a reputation as a stalwart progressive and intense critic of American foreign policy. However, since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, Bowman narrowed his focus onto the Jewish state.
In the past year, the ex-congressman has made unsubstantiated allegations that Israel has conducted a “genocide” in Gaza while accusing the Jewish state of committing “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians in the West Bank. He also came under fire for initially dismissing widely corroborated accusations of rape against Israeli women by Hamas terrorists during their Oct. 7 onslaught as “propaganda.”
Bowman lost his Democratic primary election in June to Westchester County executive George Latimer by a staggering margin of 58 percent to 41 percent.
In contrast to Bowman, Latimer attempted to woo residents of the affluent, heavily Jewish Westchester County community by positioning himself as an ally of Israel. Furthermore, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying group in the United States, assisted Latimer in the primary, unleashing an eye-popping $14.5 million torrent of cash to benefit his campaign.
In the months following his loss, Bowman has repeatedly criticized AIPAC, whose mission is to foster bipartisan support for the US-Israel relationship, for involving itself in the primary battle, condemning the organization as a “Zionist regime” operated by “racist Republicans.”
Bowman, alongside former Congresswoman Cori Bush, are also set to headline a new show on the anti-Israel Zeteo network. According to the duo, the show will deliver an unvarnished look into the “corruption, the lobbying, the big money” that influences federal politics, “and how it could all be working better for you.”
The post Jamaal Bowman Launches New PAC in Attempt to Unseat Pro-Israel Politicians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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BBC Apologizes for ‘Unacceptable’ Mistakes With Gaza Documentary, Admits Palestinian Interviewees’ Ties to Hamas
The BBC logo is seen at the entrance at Broadcasting House, the BBC headquarters in central London. Photo by Vuk Valcic / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on Thursday apologized for “unacceptable” and “serious flaws” during the filming of a documentary about Palestinian children living in the Gaza Strip.
The admission came after the BBC removed the documentary, titled “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone,” from its iPlayer streaming platform on Feb. 21 when it was discovered that the film’s 13-year-old Palestinian narrator (now 14), Abdullah Al-Yazouri, was the son of a senior Hamas official.
The documentary was also taken down after it was revealed that two of the cameramen who worked on the BBC documentary had voiced support for Hamas, and following revelations about inaccurate translations in the film that masked the antisemitism of some participants. Examples of the latter issue include mistranslations in the film that refer to Hamas terrorists as an “army” and “jihad against the Jews” as “resistance against the Israelis,” according to Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), a British volunteer-based charity. The Telegraph cited at least five instances in the film where the Arabic word for “Jew”— “Yahud” or “Yahudy” — was mistranslated as “Israel” or “Israeli forces,” or removed altogether.
The BBC has also now admitted that licensing fee payments were given to the family of Al-Yazouri, who is the son of Hamas’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture Dr. Ayman Al-Yazouri. Pro-Israel researcher David Collier said the father and son come from the same family as Hamas founder Ibrahim Al-Yazouri. Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by both the United Kingdom and United States.
Deborah Turness, the CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, sent an e-mail to staff on Thursday that included a statement about the documentary, remarks which were publicly shared on Friday by a BBC spokesperson.
In the statement, the BBC said it takes complete editorial responsibility for the film and admitted that the corporation and Hoyo Films, the production company behind the documentary, have made “unacceptable” flaws in the making of the documentary. “BBC News takes full responsibility for these and the impact that these have had on the Corporation’s reputation. We apologize for this.”
The spokesperson added that the BBC was not informed in advance by Hoyo Films about Abdullah’s family connection to Hamas.
“During the production process, the independent production company was asked in writing a number of times by the BBC about any potential connections he and his family might have with Hamas,” the corporation explained. “Since transmission, they have acknowledged that they knew that the boy’s father was a deputy agriculture minister in the Hamas government; they have also acknowledged that they never told the BBC this fact. It was then the BBC’s own failing that we did not uncover that fact and the documentary was aired.”
Hoyo Films told the corporation that it paid Abdullah’s mother “a limited sum of money” for narrating the film by way of his sister’s bank account, according to the BBC. Hoyo Films “assured BBC” no payments were given to Hamas members or its affiliates “either directly, in kind, or as a gift,” and the corporation is “seeking additional assurance” about the film’s budget. The BBC said it will initiate a full audit of the film’s expenses and is asking Hoyo Films for financial accounts to help with the audit.
The BBC said the controversy surrounding the documentary had “damaged” public trust in the corporation’s journalism, and that “the processes and execution of this program fell short of our expectations.” The BBC also has “no plans to broadcast the program again in its current form or return it to iPlayer.” It added that it launched a review into the film, an initiative that the BBC Board discussed on Thursday.
Hoyo Films said it is working with the BBC to “help understand where mistakes have been made.” The production company added, “We feel this remains an important story to tell, and that our contributors – who have no say in the war – should have their voices heard.”
A separate statement from the BBC Board added, “The subject matter of the documentary was clearly a legitimate area to explore, but nothing is more important than trust and transparency in our journalism. While the board appreciates that mistakes can be made, the mistakes here are significant and damaging to the BBC.”
The CAA said on Friday the grave errors carried out by the BBC in connection to the documentary should result in resignations and a police investigation. The charity also called for an independent investigation into bias at the BBC and said pending the results of the investigation, the license fee should be suspended to stop additional funds from going to Abdullah’s family, and potentially Hamas. “Hundreds of people are contacting us telling us that they refuse to pay the license fee until they can be sure that the BBC is trustworthy,” the charity said.
A spokesperson for the CAA called BBC “a national treasure [that] has become a national embarrassment.”
“The BBC has now admitted that license fee funds were paid to the family of a senior Hamas official. It has not yet been able to rule out that further payments to Hamas were made as it continues to investigate where hundreds of thousands of pounds went,” the spokesperson noted. “The BBC’s statement is an exercise in desperate damage control and shows why an internal review is no substitute for an independent investigation into this documentary and the wider bias at the BBC that allowed it to be made and aired. Clearly those responsible must lose their jobs.”
“It is unconscionable that the British public should have to pay a license fee to an organization that gives that money to proscribed terrorists,” the spokesperson added. “It represents a shocking double standard in our law. Pending an independent investigation, the license fee must be suspended.”
During a press conference on Thursday, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the secretary of state has had a meeting with the BBC regarding the documentary. On Friday, British Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said she was going to have an “urgent meeting” with BBC Chairman Samir Shah that same day.
“I want assurances that no stone will be left unturned by the fact-finding review now commissioned by the BBC’s director general,” Nandy said. “This review must be comprehensive, rigorous, and get to the bottom of exactly what has happened in this case. It is critical for trust in the BBC that this review happens quickly, and that appropriate action is taken on its findings.”
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Jewish Rocker David Draiman Calls Kanye West a ‘Pathetic Jew Hater Without a Soul’ for Non-Stop Promoting Swastikas
David Draiman of Disturbed at Summerfest Music Festival on June 30, 2022, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Photo: Daniel DeSlover/Sipa USA
The lead singer of the rock band Disturbed intensely criticized rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, on Friday after the latter reiterated his desire to make a t-shirt that features a swastika, and now also a swastika necklace.
Ye returned to X on Friday to repeat his hopes of making a shirt emblazoned with the extremist symbol used by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party. In one post, he wrote: “It was always a dream of mine to walk around with a Swastika T on.” In a separate post, he called on jewelers to reach out to him with designs for a swastika chain necklace.
David Draiman responded by writing, “Hey @kanyewest, Here’s a design for you” and he included an emoji of a middle finger. The “Sound of Silence” singer, who is Jewish, then attacked the rapper by saying, “You’re nothing but a Jew hating, misogynistic, pathetic, attention starved A–HOLE. You’ve destroyed any legacy you once had. You will be remembered as a sad, angry excuse of a man, without honor, without decency, and without a soul.”
In early February, Ye sold on his website Yeezy.com only one item – a white, short sleeve t-shirt that featured a large black swastika on the front. He purchased a commercial that aired during Super Bowl LIX on Feb. 9 that encouraged viewers to visit his website and purchase the offensive shirt. The shirt went live on his website — which has since been shut down – two days after Ye went on a rabidly antisemitic tirade on X in which he talked about his hatred of Jews and his admiration for Hitler. He even called himself a Nazi and a racist.
The rapper said last week he has had the idea for the swastika shirt “for over eight years” and has continued to promote his affinity for the Nazi symbol repeatedly on social media.
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