RSS
Media Ignore Evidence Showing Slain Gaza ‘Journalists’ Were Terrorists
On January 7, media outlets widely reported that Israel had killed two Palestinian “journalists” in Gaza.
The stories about the deaths of Al Jazeera’s freelancers Hamza Al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya, who had also been an AFP contributor, were almost identical. They all highlighted the fact that the former was the son of Wael Al-Dahdouh, the Qatar-based TV station’s renowned chief correspondent in Gaza.
The stories focused on the personal tragedy of the father, who had lost his immediate family in the war, but continued reporting from the field under dangerous conditions.
Media outlets also quoted Al Jazeera’s condemnation of the deliberate Israeli “targeting” of journalists, and mentioned the number of journalists killed so far in the war, according to the flawed data of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
No media outlet, however, bothered to update or correct their report when on January 10, the Israeli army released evidence proving Al-Dahdouh and Thuraya had been terror operatives.
The IDF says two Al Jazeera journalists targeted in an airstrike on Sunday in southern Gaza’s Rafah, were members of terror organizations in the Gaza Strip.
The strike was carried out after the IDF said it spotted a terror operative piloting a drone, and subsequently hit a car… pic.twitter.com/EytbJc6ivV
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) January 10, 2024
Reuters and AP, for example, which are responsible for providing news updates to thousands of media outlets worldwide, kept their original headlines and stories unchanged:
The AP’s report also included an emotional-collegial touch:
Palestinian journalists have played an essential role in reporting on the conflict for local and international media outlets, even as many have lost loved ones and been forced to flee their own homes because of the fighting.
Another wire service, AFP, had no choice but to issue a story about its former freelancer-turned-terrorist after the army’s announcement. But on social media platform X, the agency’s only post on the story still echoes Al-Jazeera:
#BREAKING Blinken says death of Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza ‘unimaginable tragedy’ pic.twitter.com/e89faT9j4H
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) January 7, 2024
Other media outlets followed suit.
The New York Times and Washington Post emphasized Al-Dahdouh’s family tragedy.
Both stories still say that the Israeli army did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
And The Washington Post went as far as lamenting the death of someone who had looked up to his father as a journalistic role model.
But it was the news Sunday that his son Hamza al-Dahdouh, the one who had followed in his footsteps and become a journalist, had been killed alongside another colleague, Mustafa Thuraya, that cut the deepest.
Indeed, after the IDF announced that the son had been a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist, the writers could have discovered that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, albeit in a different sense: Before he became a journalist, the father had been imprisoned in Israel for terrorist activity. According to an Israeli security source, he was affiliated with Islamic Jihad.
But the Washington Post story, and that of The New York Times, were not updated.
The same applies to CNN, ABC News, BBC, and many others. They echoed the tragic human angle or Al Jazeera’s claims, but failed to update their stories or publish new ones when the new information came to light.
While some outlets did include the immediate army response, saying it had targeted terrorists, it cannot replace a statement issued three days later after a thorough investigation. Especially because these media had also buried it amid articles that led with Al-Dahdouh’s plight.
When the IDF eventually exposed evidence showing Hamza Al-Dahdouh’s name on an Islamic Jihad document, along with specific data identifying the other “journalist” as a Hamas commander, media outlets should have been quick to update their initial reports. They should have at least published a new, separate story leading with the new information.
But they didn’t.
Why were the media so quick to take as gospel the unsupported claims of a Qatari-owned propaganda channel, and ignore evidence pointing at their fallacy?
Is it because the evidence serves the “wrong” side in this conflict?
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 Ignore Evidence Showing Slain Gaza ‘Journalists’ Were Terrorists first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Mississauga vigil for Hamas leader was called off, but the Jewish community says the mayor should apologize for defending it
The group said members were going to be volunteering on an urgent food security issue instead.
The post Mississauga vigil for Hamas leader was called off, but the Jewish community says the mayor should apologize for defending it appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
RSS
Amsterdam Police Identify 45 Suspects Linked to Violent, Antisemitic Attack Targeting Israeli Soccer Fans
Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters are guarded by police after violence targeting Israeli football fans broke out in Amsterdam overnight, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 8, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ami Shooman/Israel Hayom
Dutch police said on Sunday that they have identified and are investigating 45 suspects of whom they have images in connection to the violent attacks targeting Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam earlier this month.
“Because of the seriousness of the crimes, but also because of the social impact, we immediately scaled up to a special investigation team,” Dutch police chief Janny Knol said in a statement.
All 45 suspects are being probed for serious violent crimes, according to Dutch media. Nine of them have been arrested so far and remain in police custody, authorities said on Sunday, including a suspect who reported to police on Saturday night after his unblurred photo was released to the public.
On Friday, police said they were investigating 29 more suspects, including two who ultimately turned themselves in and have been arrested. Unblurred photos of the some of the other suspects have been online since Friday night and more images of suspects will be released soon, according to a police spokesperson cited by the NL Times.
Following a match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and the Dutch team Ajax in Amsterdam on Nov. 7, anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian gangs violently attacked Israelis who attended the soccer game. The premeditated and coordinated attack took place in various parts of the city late that night and into the early hours of Nov. 8. Israeli fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv were chased, run over by cars, assaulted, and taunted with anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian slogans such as “Free Palestine.” Five people were reportedly hospitalized for injuries.
Police are “looking at all crimes committed in the run-up to the game and in its aftermath,” Knol said after the violence erupted in the Dutch capital.
A Dutch court last week arraigned eight suspects, including minors, who were arrested in connection to the violent attack in Amsterdam, the NL Times reported. Those suspects include a 21-year-old man from Almelo, a city in eastern Netherlands; a 37-year-old man from Amsterdam suspected of pulling someone off his bicycle; two men, ages 19 and 21, who were arrested over the weekend; and two 26-year-old men, one from Amsterdam and one from Utrecht, who are suspected of publishing posts on social media that incited violence against the Israeli soccer fans.
The post Amsterdam Police Identify 45 Suspects Linked to Violent, Antisemitic Attack Targeting Israeli Soccer Fans first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Tufts University Suspends Students for Justice in Palestine Until 2027
A statue of the school’s mascot, “Jumbo,” stands on the campus of Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, US, Nov. 27, 2017. Photo: Brian Snyder via Reuters Connect
Tufts University in Massachusetts has extended a suspension of its Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter until January 2027, a school spokesman confirmed with The Algemeiner on Monday.
Tufts first temporarily deactivated the group in October, citing “multiple violations of university policies,” including SJP’s promoting violence and calling on peers to participate. According to a disciplinary letter shared by SJP, days ahead of a celebratory demonstration it planned for the anniversary of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, the group posted a picture of “individuals with assault rifles, instructing students to ‘Join the Student Intifada’ and to ‘escalate’” during its event. The inciting content left school officials “no choice but to impose interim suspension,” the university said in the letter.
SJP has said that the university’s adding 27 months to its initial suspension represents “an attempt to fracture the strength of our movement” and accused it of “bankrolling” conflicts in the Middle East. Additionally, in a gesture which aimed, unsuccessfully, to turn the tables on Tufts, SJP proclaimed its “formal break and disaffiliation from tufts university [sic].”
It continued, “As the zionist [sic] genocide of Palestine and Lebanon has escalated over the past year, tufts [sic] in turn has sought to repress our solidarity movement,” the group charged. “The administration has threatened to suspend individuals over Instagram posts and vigils …We are done justifying our action against this university’s role in the genocide of the Palestinian people. We will not apologize.”
Tufts University spokesman Patrick Collins defended the school’s decision in a lengthy statement shared with The Algemeiner. It explained that SJP has violated nearly a dozen prohibitions on gambling, communicating violent threats, and unauthorized assembly.
“The complaint is now resolved, resulting in a disciplinary suspension that takes into account the group’s actions, their impact on other community members, the group’s repeated refusal to cooperate with university policies and expectations, and its refusal to follow through on sanctions arising from previous conduct policy violations,” Collins wrote. “The suspension also follows multiple attempts over the last year by the university’s student life staff and other administrators to work and communicate with SJP and its leaders, who have rejected these efforts.”
Collins noted that SJP can apply for re-recognition by the university, pending its compliance with certain “terms,” which include observing its suspension, something it has failed to do so far. If it is reinstated by the university, SJP will be placed on a “one-year probationary period,” during which school officials will determine if it has truly reformed. He added that what SJP is experiencing is not, as the group has maintained, personal or ideological.
“The Student Code of Conduct for the Schools of Arts & Sciences and Engineering considers and addresses student and student organization behavior regardless of their viewpoints,” he continued. “Individuals and groups that violate university policies face a range of disciplinary actions, up to and including suspension or expulsion from the university for individuals, and suspension or permanent revocation of university recognition for student organizations.”
SJP’s suspension comes amid concern that it and similar pro-Hamas organizations are using college campuses as recruiting grounds for domestic terrorist operations.
“The movement contains militant elements pushing it toward a wider, more severe campaign focused on property destruction and violence properly described as domestic terrorism,” Capital Research Center researcher Ryan Mauro wrote in a groundbreaking report, titled “Marching Toward Violence: The Domestic Anti-Israeli Protest Movement,” which was published last week. “It demands the ‘dismantlement’ of America’s ‘colonialist,’ ‘imperialist,’ or ‘capitalist,’ system, often calling for the US to be abolished as a country.”
Drawing on statements issued and actions taken by SJP and its collaborators, Mauro made the case that toolkits published by SJP herald Hamas for perpetrating mass casualties of civilians; SJP has endorsed Iran’s attacks on Israel as well as its stated intention to overturn the US-led world order; and other groups under its umbrella have called on followers to “Bring the Intifada Home.” Such activities, the report explained, accelerated after Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, which pro-Hamas groups perceived as an inflection point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an opportunity. By flooding the internet and college campuses with agitprop and staging events — protests or vandalisms — they hope to manufacture a critical mass of youth support for their ideas, thus creating an army of revolutionaries willing to adopt Hamas’s aims as their own.
“Groups in the pro-terrorism, anti-Israel movement co-exist as our concentric circles of increasing malevolence,” Mauro explained. “Groups in the outermost circle avoid risks as they recruit new protest members and seek to integrate as many political causes as possible under the anti-Israel umbrella … Some militants aspire to incorporate the campaign into a broader wear on law enforcement if not an insurgency.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Tufts University Suspends Students for Justice in Palestine Until 2027 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login