RSS
Kill it or reform it? Jewish critics of DEI debate the future of campus diversity programs
(JTA) — As director of the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Minnesota, Natan Paradise says he leads a research institution, not an advocacy organization. Yet since Oct. 7, he says his research has been put on pause while he spends his time “just dealing with this.”
“This” refers to fallout from the deadly Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.
“A lot of conversations have had to be had, educating both inside and outside the Jewish community,” Paradise said in an interview thismonth. “That happens daily. People want to know, should we respond and should we respond in an uproar? The donors are in an uproar. Administrators need context.”
At Minnesota, various academic departments issued statements on the conflict that Paradise calls “dismaying,” and others called actionable.
The university chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine plastered the doors of academic buildings with flyers bearing anti-Israel messages. A prominent Republican on the law faculty filed a civil rights complaint that this week resulted in a federal investigation. And the campus was roiled when a candidate for a senior position at the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion office gave a speech accusing Israel of genocide and denying reports that Hamas had committed sexual crimes in the Oct. 7 attacks.
The candidate is no longer being considered for the position, but the incident still ramped up concerns about DEI at Minnesota and beyond. When Paradise joined fellow scholars for a panel discussion about “Jews, Antisemitism and DEI: Campus Experiences” at the Association for Jewish Studies conference in San Francisco last month, emotions ran high.
“We have problems” with the campus DEI office, said Amy Simon, an assistant professor of Holocaust Studies and European Jewish History at Michigan State University, where officials recently backed away from a project that would have addressed concerns about antisemitism. The office is known as the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion, or IDI. “Sometimes they’re listening, but there’s never a real hearing from the top of the administration [or] the IDI either.”
DEI is a shorthand for a framework that says employers and institutions should be welcoming to diverse applicants, especially people of color, women and the LGBTQ community. Campus DEI offices offer training to students and faculty in how to be welcoming to marginalized groups, provide support groups for women, people of color and LGBTQ students, and work with the administration in promoting and identifying diverse candidates for faculty and administration jobs.
Members of the Association for Jewish Studies gathered for the organization’s 55th annual conference, held in San Francisco, Dec. 17-19, 2023. (JTA photo)
College campuses have had minority and multicultural affairs offices since the late 1960s and 1970s, focused largely on hiring more diverse faculty and staff and enrolling and retaining more students of color. In the mid-2000s, diversity officers who had been working in isolation formed the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. The organization’s membership has tripled to over 2,000 since July 2020, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, as universities reacted to the police murder of George Floyd and calls to address systemic racism.
As the offices have grown — more than two-thirds of all major universities have chief diversity officers — and as a backlash to the 2020 reckoning on race has deepened, criticism has mounted against DEI. In recent years, it has become a prime target of a group of activists — mostly conservative, and some of them Jewish — who blame DEI for an antipathy toward what they see as traditional American values and a misguided focus on identity over merit in academia.
One leader of the anti-DEI movement is Chris Rufo, a conservative activist who has argued that diversity initiatives undercut the values of the liberal arts. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed him to the board of the New College of Florida as part of an effort to remake it according to conservative values — and one of the first moves was to ax the DEI office. But it’s not just Florida: In 2023, Republican lawmakers in at least a dozen states proposed more than 30 bills targeting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in higher education.
Since Oct. 7, some Jews who would not normally feel at home on the right have found themselves joining the ranks of DEI’s critics. At the Jewish studies conference, many scholars said their schools’ DEI offices ignored Jewish concerns — either not recognizing Jews as a minority or seeing them as white and privileged, and therefore not subject to marginalization.
The seeming failure of many DEI programs to take Jews’ concerns seriously has led some Jewish leaders and conservative politicians to call for their dismantling. But others, particularly on the left, say the core values at the root of DEI initiatives are positive and the programs should be widened to include Jews.
No major Jewish group has called for abolishing the programs.
“We think it is an absolute mistake for anyone to say that DEI is the single cause of the explosion of anti-Jewish intolerance we are seeing,” Adam Neufeld, a senior vice president and chief impact officer at the Anti-Defamation League, said in an interview. “It is a part of it, we’re sure, but it’s not the sole force. Antisemitism has existed for millennia.”
The ADL is working to improve rather than abolish DEI programs, he said, from privately consulting with campus administrators, to publicly calling out universities that don’t protect Jewish students and faculty, to supporting litigation in cases alleging schools have mishandled antisemitic incidents.
That approach is a mistake in the eyes of DEI’s most vociferous Jewish critics — many of whom view the campus convulsions after Oct. 7 as proof that they are right. Some of them pointed to the pivotal congressional hearing in December featuring three university presidents, who stumbled when asked whether calls for “the genocide of Jews” would violate their campuses’ speech codes. Two of the presidents, Liz McGill of the University of Pennsylvania and Claudine Gay of Harvard, later stepped down. DEI is “the root cause of antisemitism at Harvard,” Bill Ackman, a Jewish hedge fund manager and Harvard donor who led the charge against Gay, said in a lengthy tweet cheering her ouster.
“For Jews, there are obvious and glaring dangers in a worldview that measures fairness by equality of outcome rather than opportunity,” Bari Weiss wrote in a Tablet essay about how Jews should respond to Oct. 7. Weiss, who runs the news startup The Free Press, argued that under DEI, “equity” has come to mean that people are judged deserving according to their group identities. “If underrepresentation is the inevitable outcome of systemic bias, then overrepresentation — and Jews are 2% of the American population — suggests not talent or hard work, but unearned privilege.”
A protester carries a sign at a “Shut It Down for Palestine” rally outside the Foggy Bottom George Washington University Metro Station in Washington, D.C., Nov. 24, 2023. (Elvert Barnes Photography/Wikimedia Commons)
Abraham Foxman, the former national director of the Anti-Defamation League, told Jewish Insider that DEI “cannot be fixed,” saying that “efforts by communal Jewish organizations to include the Jewish community or soften its impact on antisemitism have failed.”
David Harris, the former CEO of the American Jewish Committee, also told Jewish Insider that he doesn’t believe that “outside efforts, however well-intentioned, that nibble around the edges or simply seek to add Jews to the DEI agenda, address the heart of the problem. DEI today poses a major challenge to liberal understanding of American societal aims.”
Other prominent Jews calling for the demise of DEI are Alan Dershowitz, the lawyer and pro-Israel activist; Mark Charendoff, president of the Maimonides Fund, and David L. Bernstein, a Jewish communal professional whose opposition to “wokism” led him to form the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values.
“It’s not that we don’t want to make campuses comfortable places for people of color and gays and lesbians. God forbid,” Bernstein said in an interview. “Unfortunately DEI quickly evolved into an ideological framework that tells people in no uncertain terms who are the oppressed and who are the oppressors. It tends to divide people into racial affinity groups, which can be very divisive. It often imposes political litmus tests with DEI statements that applicants must submit for getting a job or getting promoted.”
Bernstein agrees with Weiss that DEI turns the relative academic and financial success of Jews against them by suggesting they are “riding on the backs of deprived minority groups.”
Bernstein and others also cite a 2021 report from the Heritage Foundation on the “public communications” of DEI professionals, saying they showed a disproportionate tendency to “attack Israel.”
“Against this backdrop, it’s not hard to see why so many DEI programs are loath to acknowledge the antisemitic nature of anti-Zionist behavior that so often leads to the harassment of Jewish students,” Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, co-founder and director of the pro-Israel AMCHA Initiative, wrote in a piece for Sapir, a journal of the Maimonides Fund.
At many campuses, DEI offices have staff who are trained in investigating and resolving complaints about discrimination, and are the main address for such complaints. However, in a college survey the ADL conducted before Oct. 7, more than half of all students surveyed said they had completed DEI training, but only 18% of those said those trainings included topics specific to anti-Jewish prejudice.
“That is a terrible and unacceptable situation,” said the ADL’s Neufeld. “It is dangerous, both in the sense that it excludes a historically persecuted people who are incredibly vulnerable and actually sends the signal that the exclusion is acceptable.”
Jewish critics of DEI frequently say this exclusion is the result of an “oppressor/oppressed” framework that considers Jews as white and privileged, but tend to provide little evidence. Instead, campus insiders say, there are other structural reasons for the exclusion of Jews and antisemitism from DEI offices.
“Judaism is seen as a religion, and DEI offices don’t touch religion in the sort of structural ecosystem of how the university works,” explained Samira Mehta, the director of Jewish Studies and an associate professor of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, during a session at the AJS conference. “The university chaplains’ office is in charge of religion and religious diversity. DEI is in charge of racial and gender diversity. DEI is also not so welcome to Islamophobia, except to the degree that they keep their eye on what’s happening to brown students.
“And the people who come up through these offices do not have training in religious diversity and don’t know how to do it,” she continued. “Also the people who come up in those offices sometimes are coming up from queer and gender diversity standpoints.” Mehta referred to these as “all of those structural ways that antisemitism, while real, is not something they handle.”
Lauren Strauss, a professor of modern Jewish history at American University, said that was the experience of Jewish students on her campus who faced antisemitism in their dorms and classes after Oct. 7. They were told that “they should go see a chaplain because this is a religious matter, not racial, ethnic or social prejudice, and outside the DEI office’s mandate,” she said at the AJS panel on DEI. (This week, an activist law firm filed suit against A.U. over its handling of incidents affecting Jewish students on campus.)
Jewish faculty at A.U. have also pushed, with little success, for discussion of antisemitism, alongside sexism, homophobia and transphobia, in a core curriculum course for first-year students and transfers known as the American University Experience. Even after agreeing to one session on the Holocaust, the university’s Center for Diversity and Inclusion said it was optional.
“The one bright spot in all this,” Strauss said, is the support she’s gotten from “a small group of Jewish studies and general studies scholars” and the campus Hillel director.
Yet Strauss and the other scholars did not say they favored abolishing the programs. While it may be satisfying to condemn the ideology underpinning DEI, they said, campuses need departments whose task it is to increase diversity and make the marginalized feel welcome.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs three higher education bills, including one prohibiting institutions from spending federal or state dollars on “diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)” programs, May 15, 2023. (Florida Governor’s Office)
Stacy Burdett, a consultant who helps corporations, colleges and nonprofits enhance DEI programming to address Jewish concerns, said calls to dismantle DEI offices also ignore the ways they in fact advance diversity.
“It’s hard for me to imagine a discussion of DEI that isn’t cognizant of the role that gender equity plays in the DEI movement,” she said, offering one example. “And also that the Jewish community itself is a place where there is a paucity of women leaders.”
Burdett said the current debate over DEI lacks the kind of nuance that Jewish groups brought to debates over a previous era’s civil rights issues, including quotas and affirmative action.
“There’s no question that some of the ideological underpinnings of DEI in some institutions are flawed, and sort people in categories that Jews don’t neatly fit into. I think everyone in the Jewish community wants the American public square to be a safer place for Jews, and there are just different ways of getting at that,” she said. “But we’re in a very polarized debate between two groups of people, one of whom sees diversity as a threat, and the other that sees it as the strength of a pluralistic society.”
At the University of Minnesota, Natan Paradise shares many of the critics’ views of DEI’s shortcomings. But he is wary of joining in attacks that he sees either as politically motivated or hostile to the very idea of racial or gender inclusion.
“Those who want to dismantle DEI are acting in bad faith,” he said. “DEI does a lot of good. It does make a difference for students on campus. It could make more of a difference. It could make a better, more nuanced difference. But I think DEI plays a critical role on campuses.”
He prefers forming relationships with administrators at the university’s Office for Equity and Diversity, and said there have been successes, including a freshman orientation course that now includes discussion of antisemitism, and a change in how the campus Office for Equity and Diversity classifies antisemitism on its website.
“We are just not on their radar and we ought to be, and I have been working very hard at my institution to change that, and we’ve made quite a bit of progress,” he said about Jews on campus. “We have to be present in all the social justice initiatives, in order for us to be present when we need it. And when I mean relationships, that means being in the spaces with the people who are doing the work, so that they see you as an ally, and you can count on them as an ally. In too many instances, we just haven’t done it.”
—
The post Kill it or reform it? Jewish critics of DEI debate the future of campus diversity programs appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Roger Waters Defends Hamas, Claims There’s ‘Filthy Lies’ and ‘No Evidence’ of Sexual Violence on Oct. 7
Piers Morgan, left, and Roger Waters discussing Israel and Hamas on “Piers Morgan Uncensored.” Photo: YouTube screenshot
Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters defended the Hamas terrorist organization for perpetrating the Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel in a combative interview with British broadcaster Piers Morgan on Tuesday.
Waters, a longtime critic of Israel who has been widely accused of antisemitism, also rejected the use of the term “terrorism” to describe the attack, in which 1,200 people were murdered and some 250 others were taken as hostages by Hamas. Most of the victims were civilians.
“To kill a civilian is a war crime,” Waters, 80, said about the Oct. 7 attack during an appearance on the talk show “Piers Morgan Uncensored.” When Morgan asked him if it’s considered “terrorism” as well,” Waters replied, “Well, to use the word ‘terrorism’ is really dangerous and difficult. You have to remember that the people fighting on behalf of Palestine liberation have a legal and moral, not just a right, they have a right to fight back against the oppressor.”
He added: “If someone invades your country, kicks all the people out of their home, steals everything and is stealing all your land and occupies all your land for 75 years, you have an absolute right to armed resistance against that invader.” When asked if Hamas committed war crimes on Oct. 7, Waters replied, “probably.”
Rogers further denied there is proof that Hamas terrorists raped some of its victims on Oct. 7, despite widespread evidence to the contrary, including testimonies from former hostages.
“All the filthy disgusting lies that the Israelis told after Oct. 7 about burning babies and women being raped — No they weren’t,” he claimed. Morgan shot back, “Actually women were raped. It’s been established by the United Nations. There is extensive evidence of assault and rape.” But Waters repeatedly replied, “You can say anything you want [but] there is no evidence.”
“All those piles of cars that were destroyed by Apache missiles from helicopters… Hamas didn’t have helicopters,” Waters added, referring to the site of the Nova music festival in Israel where Hamas murdered more than 350 party-goers on Oct. 7.
The tension between Morgan and Waters escalated when the singer questioned Hamas’ abduction of infants and seniors on Oct. 7. Talking about now 1-year-old Kfir Bibas, who at nine months old was the youngest Israeli abducted on Oct. 7 along with his mother and four-year-old brother, Waters falsely claimed that the child has been released in a hostage exchange. Morgan corrected him, saying that the child has not been released, but an annoyed Waters replied, “Piers, you may or may not be making it up — I know you believe nonsense that you’re told by ZAKA or people who have made up tons of lies about Oct. 7.”
ZAKA is a volunteer-led rescue and recovery organization that assisted with the collection of bodies of victims from the Oct. 7 attack so they could be buried in accordance with Jewish law.
Waters repeatedly refused to condemn the Oct. 7 attack, telling Morgan, “I’m not going to have this conversation.”
“I condemn the killing of civilians, always. Whoever does it,” he said. “I condemn war crimes. If Hamas committed war crimes on Oct. 7, I condemn it.” Waters reiterated a claim he made earlier this year that it was impossible to know what really took place on Oct. 7, because “Israelis won’t allow any real investigation,” he told Morgan.
Morgan told the singer that Hamas terrorists were open about what they did on Oct. 7 and even broadcasted live footage on social media during the attack. Waters went on to say, “I’m not saying that part of the Palestinian resistance movement didn’t cross that wire fence into what’s called Israel. I’m not saying that didn’t happen. What I’m saying is, there’s all this talk about, ‘Does Israel have a right to defend itself?’ Why didn’t Israel defend itself that morning? Why did they wait seven hours before they started machine-gunning everyone?”
Waters, who has repeatedly denied accusations that he’s antisemitic, also defended a video he previously published on YouTube in which he told Israelis to “go back to Eastern Europe or the United States or wherever you came from.” He said in the clip that Israelis who chose to stay in their homes would be “welcome” in a new Palestinian state.
Commenting on the video, Waters told Morgan: “I am in tears over Gaza every morning when I wake up. I’m only 80 years old, I have never experienced the genocide of a whole people in front of my eyes happening every day.” He said what’s happening to the Palestinians in Gaza now during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war is “a disgusting, awful crime” akin to what Jews experienced during World War II. He also accused Israel of currently carrying out the “extermination of the indigenous people of Palestine” and committing a “genocide” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
At various stages of the interview, Waters began talking out loud to himself, urging himself to calm now and not let Morgan get him riled up or angry. He also talked to Morgan during the interview about the “Israeli lobby” and Israeli “war machine” being “very powerful” and critical of him in the past. He additionally called Israel “oppressors” and “torturers,” and Zionism a “failed experiment.” Numerous times he accused Israel of “committing genocide” in Gaza, additionally claiming that the Jewish state aims to “killing every single Palestinian.”
“They’re not gonna kill every Palestinian, obviously,” Morgan cut Waters off by saying.
“Oh, they’re not? Well they’re trying to,” Waters replied.
“No,” Morgan clarified, “they’re trying to kill every member of Hamas.”
An utterly frustrated Waters then looked straight into the camera and told viewers, “The oppressor, the stare of Israel, is committing genocide on a whole people. Some of the people, in the prison where the genocide is being committed, resisted the genocide on Oct. 7 and some people in Israel were killed. And I feel for them and their families. But let’s not forget where this started … It’s one set of people trying to steal a whole land from another set of people.”
When Morgan asked him to respond to accusations of him being antisemitic, Waters said, “I’m not antisemitic even very faintly. You know who would know if Roger Waters were an antisemite? Roger Waters would know, because I would have feelings about Jews!”
Last year, an explosive documentary showed fellow musicians detailing Waters’ long record of anti-Jewish barbs. In one instance, a former colleague recalled Waters at a restaurant yelling at the wait staff to “take away the Jew food.”
Morgan tweeted about his interview with Rogers, saying, “I interviewed Pink Floyd star @rogerwaters yesterday, after calling him ‘the world’s dumbest rock star’ and a ‘complete and utter moron.’ It went as well as could be expected.”
Watch Waters and Morgan’s full interview below.
The post Roger Waters Defends Hamas, Claims There’s ‘Filthy Lies’ and ‘No Evidence’ of Sexual Violence on Oct. 7 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Pro-Hamas Groups Planning to Crash Fourth of July With Riotous US Protests
Illustrative: A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson
Pro-Hamas groups are planning to disrupt Fourth of July celebrations marking US Independence Day in Philadelphia and New York City with “All Out for Gaza” protests, demonstrating again an ideological link between their anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism.
“Philly, mark your calendars: July 4,” said an announcement circulated on social media by two groups, The Philly Palestine Coalition (PPC) and CodePink, the latter of which has ties to the virulent antisemite Louis Farrakhan through its proxy Linda Sarsour and has itself promoted antisemitic conspiracies of Jewish power and control.
The Philly Palestine Coalition, meanwhile, came under national scrutiny in December when it organized what lawmakers and other government officials described as an antisemitic demonstration targeting a restaurant owned by American–Israeli Michael Solomonov, making outlandish accusations against the famed chef and the Jewish state. The group has a history of backing the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, calling for the destruction of Israel, and ridiculing victims of Hamas’ violence.
The two groups made clear in their latest social media announcement that Thursday’s planned demonstrations won’t just be protests against Israel but the US as well.
“For the past 9 months, this country’s continued to support, fund, and oversee this ongoing genocide and warmongering all over the world,” the announcement continued, referring to the US government’s overall backing of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
“This July 4th, join us as we stand with the resistance and support Palestine, not AmeriKKKa!” the post continued, combining “America” with the infamous acronym of the Ku Klux Klan. “We don’t celebrate the legacy of genocide, colonialism, and slavery that July 4th symbolizes but struggle for true liberation for all.”
The post concluded with emojis of the Palestinian flag.
The Philadelphia protest will take place in Rittenhouse Square, while the New York City protest will take place in Union Square, located in the Manhattan borough.
Similar to far-right, white nationalist organizations, CodePink has, through its campaigns and social media activity, attempted to undermine the legitimacy of the state by spreading falsehoods about the foreign policy objectives of the US and its allies, including Israel, which it has spuriously accused of committing a genocide in Gaza and manipulating US elections.
One of CodePink’s board members is lawyer Huwaida Arraf, an anti-Zionist activist who has shared on social media atrocity propaganda manufactured by Hamas to misrepresent Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories. He was also the co-founder of International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a group that was linked to terrorists in a 2004 investigation conducted by the FBI.
CodePink publicly boasts ties to other groups linked to terror, including American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), an advocacy group that, according to a landmark report published last year by the National Association of Scholars (NAS), “retains ties to terrorist groups operating in the Palestinian territories.”
In 2019, CodePink defended US Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) saying that support for Israel is “all about the Benjamins, baby,” an evocation of antisemitic tropes concerning Jewish influence through money. In a statement posted to its website, the organization accused Jews of attacking “people of color,” a tactic that has been appropriated by far-right groups to defend minority public figures of color who embrace and traffic in antisemitic conspiracies.
“Everyone who works in Washington, DC knows that when an elected official crosses AIPAC [the America Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying organization in the US], it uses its enormous power to exact revenge,” CodePink said. “We are seeing it now as they try to destroy a brand new, inspirational congresswoman: Ilhan Omar. We won’t stand for it again. Every moment that we allow false accusations of anti-Semitism [sic] to dominate the national conversation, we ignore the actual issues … The pro-Israel lobby has been looking for any reason to attack Ilhan Omar, but don’t let them dictate the terms of the debate.”
The Philly Palestine Coalition (PPC) was the principal orchestrator of illegal “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” at the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University, according to an investigative report by The Washington Free Beacon, demonstrations which resulted in dozens of antisemitic incidents, vandalism, and hate speech.
At the University of Pennsylvania, protesters, students, and non-students who were sent there by PPC vandalized a statue of Benjamin Franklin. At Drexel University, during the time of PPC’s involvement in protests, the Raymond G. Perelman Center for Jewish Life was vandalized, with the perpetrators removing large channel letters spelling out Perelman’s name from a brick structure bearing the building’s name.
A month later, Drexel University was pushed into lockdown when the PPC-backed group “Drexel Palestine Coalition” (DPC) set up an encampment and flooded it with non-students. DPC then demanded that the school adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and “terminate” its Hillel and Chabad chapters.
“These organizations must be replaced by non-Zionist Jewish ones that in no way support the ongoing genocide, occupation, or apartheid in Palestine,” DPC said in a statement posted on social media.
DPC also demanded that the university abolish its police, grant amnesty to any protester charged with violating school rules, and reduce the salary of the university’s president John Fry by “60 percent.” Footage of their demonstration showed some aggressive behavior, including the dismantling of police barricades.
“Since Oct. 7, we have seen pro-Hamas activists abuse the First Amendment to rationalize their support for terrorism under the guise of ‘free speech,’ turning America on its head by spreading anti-American values,” Asaf Romirowsky, an expert on the Middle East and executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. “With July 4th around the corner we are now seeing yet again another egregious attempt by pro-Hamas groups, including CodePink, to subvert our democracy by presenting anti-democratic values as ‘democratic’ but instead showing their roots in an ideological nexus of Marxism, Communism, and antisemitism.”
He continued, “The continuous attempt to push their unbridled defenses of Hamas in every aspect of American life is part of a consistent strategy to marginalize and exclude Israelis and Jews from the American zeitgeist as a pretext for increasingly crude antisemitism.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Pro-Hamas Groups Planning to Crash Fourth of July With Riotous US Protests first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
CNN Fires Hamas-linked Gaza Freelancer Exposed by HonestReporting
CNN announced Wednesday that it would no longer use a Gaza freelancer, whose ties to Hamas were exposed by HonestReporting.
Abdel Qader Sabbah photographed himself with a senior Hamas leader, served in a Hamas-run body to which he also provided work, praised terrorists, and shared anti-Israeli propaganda online, an HonestReporting investigation revealed.
Throughout the Israel-Hamas war, CNN has given a prominent platform to news reports by Sabbah, who has also worked for the Associated Press, and the exposure of his links to the terror group casts a long shadow over the network’s vetting procedures and journalistic standards.
“This freelance journalist has provided material used in stories for us and other outlets over the past nine months, during which time our own journalists have been barred from entering Gaza independently,” a CNN spokesman told HonestReporting. “We have reviewed this material carefully and are comfortable that it meets our standards. However, we were not aware of this individual’s historical social posts and recognize that they are highly offensive. In light of this, we will no longer be using his material going forward.”
Sabbah is the 11th journalist reassigned, suspended, or fired due to HonestReporting since August 2022.
The following details are based on a survey of Sabbah’s social media activity, predominantly on Facebook, where his connections and bias have been hidden in plain sight.
Abdel Qader Sabbah’s Links to Hamas
Sabbah, who describes himself on Facebook as a freelance journalist, director, and photographer, has proudly shared posts showing he had connections to Hamas figures and institutions run by the terror group.
In 2018, he posted a selfie taken with none other than senior Hamas leader Mahmoud A-Zahar, who had called for world domination with “no Zionists.”
In the photo, the two men are seen smiling, and the post caption reads in Arabic: “This morning, with commander Abu Khaled Al-Zahar, literature teacher…”
Sabbah — whose Facebook bio mentions “military service” in 2013 — also posted a photo of himself wearing the uniform of the “General Training Directorate,” a body that’s officially under the Palestinian Authority’s police and Interior Ministry. In Gaza, however, these government agencies are de facto run by Hamas.
In 2013, then Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh paid an official visit to the training directorate, where he scrutinized an honor guard and “praised the role of the General Directorate … in developing and qualifying the cadres of the Ministry of Interior and National Security.”
It appears that Sabbah also provided work to the Hamas-run body. In March 2023, he boasted online about making a promotional video for the Directorate’s academy, which according to MEMRI, trains members of Hamas’ security apparatuses. His video was shared on the official page of the Hamas-run interior ministry.
Anti-Israeli Propaganda
But Sabbah did not just share personal posts and selfies on his social media. He also regularly praised terrorists, shared propaganda videos by Hamas’ armed wing, and expressed anti-Israeli slurs.
In 2014, he praised as a “hero” Hamas suicide bomber Izz A-Din Al-Masri, who had blown himself up in a Jerusalem restaurant in 2001, killing 16 people, including children.
Sabbah’s praise came as Israel returned the terrorist’s body to the Palestinian Authority 13 years later.
And in 2013, he posted a commemoration photo for Hamas’ “Khan Younis martyrs:”
Sabbah also had no qualms about sharing media censorship instructions during the 2021 conflict with Israel. One of the guidelines he had shared read in Arabic: “Not filming the sites of the fighters, and the places where rockets and mortar shells are launched.”
A few days earlier, he shared a post that read in Arabic: “May God curse the raped Zionists.”
And in April 2023, six months before Hamas’ deadly October 7 massacre in southern Israel, he posted — with green and black heart emojis — a propaganda video by the group’s armed wing, titled “Ready.”
No Due Diligence?
We asked CNN whether it did a background check of Sabbah before hiring him, keeping in mind that there are only two bad answers to this question:
Yes, which means the network knowingly uses biased reporters.
No, which means the network hasn’t done its due diligence.
Their answer indicated the latter.
The network disturbingly said it was “comfortable” with Sabbah’s agenda-driven work, which included faulty reports on the non-existent Gaza “famine” or on the death toll of Gazan journalists, without mentioning that some were affiliated with Hamas and other proscribed terror organizations
We have asked and not yet received answers to the same questions from AP, which according to its database used Sabbah’s photos from Gaza in October-November 2023. These included destroyed buildings and wounded Palestinians in a hospital. It’s unclear whether Sabbah still works for the agency.
What’s clear is that someone like Abdel Qader Sabbah cannot be considered an objective journalist. His posts expose him as a Hamas mouthpiece, at best, or a serviceman affiliated with a proscribed terror group, at worst.
A respectable news outlet should not trust his reports, let alone pay him for them.
HonestReporting is a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post CNN Fires Hamas-linked Gaza Freelancer Exposed by HonestReporting first appeared on Algemeiner.com.