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Terrorist Mouthpiece? Hamas Shared Anti-Israeli Message by France24 Correspondent
What do you call a person who delivered an anti-Israeli message that was quoted in an official Hamas pamphlet, received honors from top Hamas terrorists, shared the “genocide” libel against Israel, and mourned terrorists? A mouthpiece, not a journalist.
Yet, the France24 correspondent in Gaza, Maha Abuelkas, can take credit for all of the above, casting doubt on her objectivity and the journalistic standards of her publicly funded network.
The veteran journalist, who has been working for France24 since 2013, was quoted in a 2021 Hamas propaganda pamphlet that promoted the terror movement’s “Day of Loyalty to the Palestinian Journalist.”
Her message blamed “the Israeli occupation” for “severe assaults and violations against human rights, land, and sacred sites”:
“On the 31st of December, we, as journalists, media professionals, and official institutions, commemorate the #Day_of_Loyalty_to_the_Palestinian_Journalist in remembrance and appreciation of all colleagues working in the Palestinian territories, which continuously suffer from severe assaults and violations against human rights, land, and sacred sites by the Israeli occupation.”
Maha Abuelkas, FRANCE 24 Arabic Correspondent.
And the event she was promoting was not merely professional. According to the Hamas Media Office’s Facebook page, where the pamphlet was published, the “Loyalty” event is aimed at supporting “the professional and national significance of the field’s knights and truth-seekers — those masters of words and images who wielded the lens of the camera and the tip of the pen, making them the most powerful tools of resistance against the occupier.”
Abuelkas also received special honors in 2014 from top Hamas figures, and was proud to share it on her Instagram page.
Here she is honored by Hamas’ spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum (left) and Taher al-Nunu (middle), the advisor to former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh:
And here she is joined by none other than senior Hamas official Mushir al-Masri (right), who has vowed to “uproot the Zionists with our axes, knives, guns”:
It doesn’t matter whether Abuelkas truly shares Hamas’ agenda or not. Her unethical reciprocal relationship with Gazan rulers — whom she needs to cover objectively — automatically compromises her journalistic credibility.
The same applies to all the other “journalists” who were exposed by HonestReporting for actively participating in Hamas’ events and honorary ceremonies.
But one can glean what Abuelkas’ true opinions are from a Facebook post she shared on July 2024, showing US lawmaker Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) holding up a sign reading “Guilty of Genocide” during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent speech to Congress:
In another post, Abuelkas laments the death of an Al Jazeera “reporter” Ismail Al-Ghoul (left), a Hamas terrorist who participated in the October 7 massacre in southern Israel:
Given the evidence above, how can Abuelkas objectively report from Gaza?
And worse, might France24’s Gaza coverage have been seriously compromised by Abuelka’s connection to Hamas figures?
How can any editor or news consumer trust the news that Abuelkas delivers, if at the end of the day, she is nothing but a Hamas mouthpiece?
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 Terrorist Mouthpiece? Hamas Shared Anti-Israeli Message by France24 Correspondent first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Treasure Trove salutes the Jewish-Canadian woman who made the first Remembrance Day poppies
The poppies that we wear at this time of year are our visual pledge to remember the brave Canadian soldiers who served and sacrificed to preserve and defend our democracy. […]
The post Treasure Trove salutes the Jewish-Canadian woman who made the first Remembrance Day poppies appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Hasidic Man Attacked in Third Antisemitic Assault in Brooklyn in Eight Days
An antisemitic hate crime spree in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York struck its latest victim on Wednesday, wreaking an “excruciating” beating on a middle-aged Hasidic man.
According to Yaacov Behrman, a liaison for Chabad Headquarters — the main New York base of the Hasidic movement — the victim was accosted by two assailants, one masked, who “chased and beat him” after he refused to surrender his cell phone in compliance with what appears to have been an attempted robbery.
“The victim is in excruciating pain and is currently in the emergency room,” Behrman tweeted. “The police are investigating the incident.”
A Chasidic man was beaten in Crown Heights tonight near Utica and President at approximately 7:30pm. The assailants, one was wearing a mask, demanded the victim’s phone, but when he refused, they chased him and beat him. The victim is in excruciating pain and is currently in the… pic.twitter.com/s4mn1K6HtV
— Yaacov Behrman (@ChabadLubavitch) November 7, 2024
The perpetrators were two Black teenagers, according to COLlive.com, an Orthodox Jewish news outlet.
Tuesday’s attack was the third time in eight days that an Orthodox resident of Crown Heights was targeted for violence and humiliation. In each case, the assailant was allegedly a Black male, a pattern of conduct which continues to strain Black-Jewish relations across the Five Boroughs.
On Monday morning, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily Jewish Crown Heights neighborhood
Less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face as he was walking in Brooklyn.
Numerous antisemitic hate crimes have occurred in Crown Heights in recent years. In July 2023, for example, a 22-year-old Israeli Yeshiva student, who was identifiably Orthodox and visiting New York City for the summer holiday, was stabbed with a screwdriver by one of two men who attacked him after asking whether he was Jewish and had any money. The other punched him in the face. Earlier that year, 10- and 12-year-olds were attacked on Albany Avenue by four African American teens.
According to a report issued in August by New York state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, antisemitic incidents accounted for a striking 65 percent of all felony hate crimes in New York City last year. The report added that throughout the state, nearly 44 percent of all recorded hate crime incidents and 88 percent of religious-based hate crimes targeted Jewish victims.
Meanwhile, according to a recent Algemeiner review of New York City Police Department (NYPD) hate crimes data, 385 antisemitic hate crimes have struck the New York City Jewish community since last October, when the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas perpetrated its Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, unleashing a wave of anti-Jewish hatred unlike any seen in the post-World War II era.
Beyond New York, anti-Jewish hate crimes in the US spiked to a record high last year, and American Jews were the most targeted of any religious group in the country, according to a report published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in September.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hasidic Man Attacked in Third Antisemitic Assault in Brooklyn in Eight Days first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Huge Victory’: Netanyahu Calls Trump to Congratulate Him on Election Win
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called US President-elect Donald Trump to congratulate him on his victory in the US presidential election earlier this week.
“Netanyahu spoke to President-elect Donald Trump and was among the first to call to congratulate him for his victory,” the Prime Minister’s office said on Wednesday. “The conversation was warm and cordial, and the two agreed to work together for Israel’s security and discussed the Iranian threat.”
During Trump’s first term, his administration had a “maximum pressure” policy with regard to Iran, aimed at making it more difficult for the country to make a nuclear weapon and fund its terror proxies — such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis — across the Middle East.
However, some observers are concerned the incoming US administration will not be as strong on the Iranian threat as it was in its first term. Late last month, US Vice President-elect JD Vance said on a podcast that the US and Israel can at times have conflicting interests and warned that Washington should seek to avoid a war with Iran, the Jewish state’s chief adversary in the Middle East.
“Israel has the right to defend itself, but America’s interest is sometimes going to be distinct — like sometimes we’re going to have overlapping interests and sometimes we’re going to have distinct interests. And our interest, I think, very much is in not going to war with Iran,” Vance said.
He then argued that a war with Iran “would be [a] huge distraction of resources; it would be massively expensive to our country.”
In addition to the phone call, Netanyahu’s office will also reportedly announce “the appointment of a new ambassador to Washington who will work with the new Trump administration” within the next 24 hours, according to Axios reporter Barack Ravid.
Netanyahu was the first world leader to congratulate Trump on his victory.
“Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback!” he wrote on X/Twitter. “Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.”
He added, “This is a huge victory!”
During Trump’s first term, he and Netanyahu were close allies, working together to sign the Abraham Accords and move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. However, their relationship reportedly strained when Netanyahu congratulated then-US President-elect Joe Biden on his victory against Trump while Trump was still actively disputing the results of the election.
“The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with,” Trump reportedly said at the time. “Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake.”
“I liked Bibi. I still like Bibi. But I also like loyalty,” he added. “The first person to congratulate Biden was Bibi. And not only did he congratulate him, he did it on tape.”
Heading into Trump’s second term, there have not been indications that this tension still lingers.
The post ‘Huge Victory’: Netanyahu Calls Trump to Congratulate Him on Election Win first appeared on Algemeiner.com.