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Media Determined to Heroize Palestinian Poet Who Joked About Burning Israeli Babies
The bodies of people, some of them elderly, lie on a street after they were killed during a mass-infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in Sderot, southern Israel, Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Rafaat Alareer was not a good person.
In fact, during his life, Alareer revealed himself to be a thoroughly despicable individual who celebrated the gruesome murder of Israeli babies by Hamas terrorists, and engaged in Holocaust revisionism.
And yet, for some unfathomable reason, international media outlets have chosen to venerate Palestinian academic Alareer as a kind of messiah-like figure: a wise martyr who supposedly died for his people.
It didn’t matter that, hours after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, raping and massacring civilians, Alareer described these atrocities as “legitimate and moral” during a BBC interview, likening them to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Nor did the media care that he joked about burning Israeli babies with baking powder.
Instead, the media were determined to make a hero out of a thoroughly repugnant individual, and no grotesque comment about Jews being slaughtered was going to change their narrative.
Alareer, who taught at Gaza’s Islamic University and was also a writer, was killed in an airstrike last December. This occurred after he inexplicably refused to evacuate from northern Gaza, despite repeated warnings from the IDF that the area was targeted due to Hamas infrastructure.
Back in 2021, HonestReporting exposed Alareer’s disturbing online history, which included describing Israel as “Nazi Germany on steroids” and claiming that Zionism and Nazism are “two cheeks of the same dirty a**e.”
He also stated that “Hitler is as peaceful as any Israeli leader,” and accused the Jewish State of perpetrating a “second Holocaust.”
Bear in mind, Alareer made this claim during a year when Gaza’s population grew by roughly 100,000 people — a curious assertion given that the definition of a Holocaust is the “destruction or slaughter of people on a mass scale.”
Now, a year after his death, the media have decided to re-eulogize this academic antisemite with glowing tributes that ignore his hateful legacy.
Not to be outdone by the gushing tributes across social media, veteran journalist Chris Hedges published what he presumably thought was a heartrending “letter to Refaat,” while a popular literary site lauded Alareer as the “Poet, Teacher, Husband [and] Father.”
The Guardian took the lead with a feature titled, “How many dead Palestinians are enough? The unbearable prescience of the late poet Rafaat Alareer.”
The Guardian’s piece goes so far as to present Alareer as a prophetic figure, while engaging in its own brand of shameless historical revisionism.
For example, it refers to the Palestinian “Great March of Return” as a “peaceful demonstration.” Only in the minds of The Guardian could violent riots — featuring Molotov cocktails, grenades, and chants about ripping off Jews’ heads — be described as peaceful.
Trust @guardian to write a gushing review of Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer’s work.
Here’s a reminder of his ugly past.
And some “highlights” from The Guardian’s story.
https://t.co/wwkvUZaIy8 pic.twitter.com/nKv6dsZPrp
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 11, 2024
The byline on The Guardian’s piece belongs to Sarah Aziza, a Palestinian writer who, five days after the October 7 massacre, wrote: “I confess my imagination was so limited I had not considered such a coup could come from this battered, besieged place.”
When she finally acknowledged that Hamas had killed Israelis, she refused to “overwrite the suffering of those killed and captured by Hamas,” in a confession that she didn’t even want to acknowledge the true that horror the victims endured.
It’s why, in the closing lines of Aziza’s piece, she claims that Alareer was “singled out” for backlash after joking about burning Israeli babies alive.
In this narrative, being criticized for sadistic comments about butchering babies becomes evidence of victimhood. Who knows? The Guardian probably imagines those babies deserved it.
This is the sorry state of the international media today: elevating individuals like Rafaat Alareer while willfully ignoring their vile rhetoric and actions.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Media Determined to Heroize Palestinian Poet Who Joked About Burning Israeli Babies first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.