RSS
The Associated Press Removes Threats of Violence and Hamas Support From Articles
Vandalism outside the home of Brooklyn Museum Director Anne Pasternak. Photo: New York Mayor Eric Adams’ Twitter account.
Even as authorities from Sydney to Brooklyn were still investigating and removing pro-Hamas graffiti, the Associated Press engaged in a scrubbing of a different sort.
In a June 10 article about the anti-Israel vandalism of the US consulate in Sydney, the Associated Press initially whitewashed a menacing symbol used to denote support for Hamas since the terror organization’s Oct. 7 terror massacre of murder, rape and countless other atrocities (“Australia PM urges activists to ‘turn down the heat’ after US consulate vandalized over Gaza war“).
The AP euphemistically reported about the symbols used to express support for the designated terror organization as follows:
Two inverted red triangles, seen by many as a symbol of Palestinian resistance, were also painted on the front of the building.
A screenshot of the AP’s headline about the vandalism in Australia, along with an accompanying video which briefly shows the red triangles:
Given that Hamas uses the red triangle in its videos documenting attacks on Israelis, it signifies support for the designated terror organization. “Resistance” doesn’t quite convey the horrors that went down on Oct. 7.
The New York Post detailed the association of the red triangles with Hamas terrorism:
The triangle became a prevalent symbol online and offline beginning in November 2023 following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s aggressive retaliatory offensive, according to the Anti Defamation League.
It first appeared in propaganda videos from the al-Qassam brigades — Hamas’ military wing — to highlight an Israeli soldier that was about to be killed or wounded in a targeted attack by the terrorists.
In the clips, the red triangle followed the target, which was then hit with a sniper’s bullet, a rocket-propelled grenade or another deadly blast.
“Though it can be used innocuously in general pro-Palestine social media posts, the inverted red triangle is now used to represent Hamas itself and glorify its use of violence in many popular anti-Zionist memes and political cartoons,” the ADL says on its website.
For example, the group said, anti-Israel protesters will put the symbol over an image of Israeli soldiers or on a Star of David “as a way to call for further violent resistance.”
In response to communication from CAMERA’s Israel office, the AP moderately improved its explanation of the red triangles, revising the sentence to at least include reference to Hamas:
Two inverted red triangles, seen by some as a symbol of Palestinian resistance but by others as supporting the militant group Hamas, were also painted on the front of the building.
While an AP video paired with the article briefly showed the red triangles defacing the US consulate, the AP’s still photographs made do with boarded up windows. The accompanying captions also ignored the sinister red triangles:
A couple walks past the boarded windows at the U.S. consulate as police investigate the vandalism in Sydney, Monday, June 10, 2024. A suspect is believed to have smashed nine holes in the reinforced glass windows of the building in North Sydney after 3 a.m., a police statement said. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
Meanwhile, red triangle vandalism took an even darker turn when the pro-terror symbol, used repeatedly to mark targets, appeared June 11 on the New York co-op building where Anne Pasternak, the Jewish director of the Brooklyn Museum, lives.
In coverage of that incident, the AP didn’t simply scrub the pro-Hamas significance of the symbol. Instead, the AP entirely sliced the ominous red triangles out of the story, which referred only to red paint. In his Jan. 13 article, Philip Marcelo selectively reported (“Apparent Gaza activists hurl paint at homes of Brooklyn Museum leaders, including Jewish director“):
People purporting to be pro-Palestinian activists hurled red paint at the homes of top leaders at the Brooklyn Museum, including its Jewish director, and also splashed paint across the front of diplomatic buildings for Germany and the Palestinian Authority early Wednesday, prompting a police investigation and condemnation from city authorities.
Mayor Eric Adams, in a post on the social platform X, shared images of a brick building splashed with red paint with a banner hung in front of the door that called the museum’s director, Anne Pasternak, a “white-supremacist Zionist.”
But the images that Mayor Adams shared didn’t merely show “a brick building splashed with red paint” and a banner denouncing Pasternak as a “white supremacist Zionist.”
Adams’ post on X includes four photographs of the vandalism, all displaying the huge red triangles which absolutely cannot be missed. And yet AP chose not to note the presence of the threatening imagery, much less explain its significance.
This is not peaceful protest or free speech. This is a crime, and it’s overt, unacceptable antisemitism.
These actions will never be tolerated in New York City for any reason. I’m sorry to Anne Pasternak and members of @brooklynmuseum‘s board who woke up to hatred like this.
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) June 12, 2024
The AP’s ubiquitous photographers — the prolific bunch churns out 1.2 million images annually — also didn’t manage to capture the shocking scene of Pasternak’s home defaced with what amounts to a murder threat.
Instead, the cadre of photojournalists suffice with an image of the German consulate, which was vandalized with red paint, apparently applied in an abstract arrangement, sans red triangles. Like Marcelo’s article, the photograph’s caption also paints over the pro-Hamas imagery, referring to a random splashing of color:
Red paint covers portions of the entrance to the German consulate building, Wednesday, June 12, 2024, in New York. Pro-Palestinian protesters have vandalized locations associated with the Brooklyn Museum and United Nations in New York City, throwing red paint across their entrances in opposition to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. (AP Photo/Sophie Rosenbaum)
Not only does the caption neglect to note the Hamas-linked graphic, it also ignores that the “locations associated with the Brooklyn Museum” were private homes.
It’s not just Hamas graphics that are subjected to AP’s scrubbing. A pro-Hamas organization also gets sanitized.
Here’s how the AP’s Marcelo whitewashes the pro-Hamas Within Our Lifetime group:
The protest group Within Our Lifetime and other organizers of that demonstration said the museum is “deeply invested in and complicit” in Israel’s military actions in Gaza through its leadership, trustees, corporate sponsors and donors — a claim museum officials have denied.
He says not a word about the organization’s support for Hamas. According to ADL, Within Our Lifetime:
has hosted or co-sponsored at least 78 anti-Israel rallies many of which included explicit support for violence against Israeli civilians by U.S. designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations Hamas, The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Hezbollah, the Houthis and affiliated individuals such as Leila Khaled and Hamas’ military wing spokesperson Abu Obaida. WOL also expressed enthusiastic support for Iran’s unprecedented April 13 drone-and-missile attack on Israel.
Marcelo similarly sluices down Within Our Lifetime’s horrifying and deep embrace of terror at the demonstration outside the Nova Festival massacre last week. His censored account states:
The paint attacks came the same week that Within Our Lifetime organized a large demonstration outside a New York City exhibition memorializing victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on the Tribe of Nova music festival. The group called it “Zionist propaganda” and dismissed the music festival, where hundreds died, as “a rave next to a concentration camp.”
What was even worse, or at least adding salt into the wounds was that just a day or two after I visited the exhibit, protestors gathered outside the exhibit chanting repugnant antisemitic phrases, donning banners that read “Long Live October 7th” and “The Zionists are not Jews and not humans.” How low can you go ?
Having visited the exhibit and seeing those young people and then knowing and seeing on film what happened to them at the vicious hands of Hamas, and then having people come outside and protest and say “Long Live October 7th” and “The Zionists are not Jews and not humans.” How repugnant. How despicable. How terribly unnerving that humanity could sink that low.
And yet, at this low point for humanity, AP has relegated these repugnant slogans glorifying mass murder to the dustbin of history.
Tamar Sternthal is the director of CAMERA’s Israel Office. A version of this article previously appeared on the CAMERA website.
The post The Associated Press Removes Threats of Violence and Hamas Support From Articles first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
US Vetoes UN Security Council Demand for Gaza Ceasefire
Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from Israel, June 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The United States vetoed a UN Security Council demand on Wednesday for an “immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire” between Israel and Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza and unhindered aid access across the enclave.
“The United States has been clear we would not support any measure that fails to condemn Hamas and does not call for Hamas to disarm and leave Gaza,” Acting US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea told the council before the vote.
“This resolution would undermine diplomatic efforts to reach a ceasefire that reflects the realities on the ground, and embolden Hamas,” she said of the text that was put forward by 10 countries on the 15-member council.
The remaining 14 council members voted in favor of the draft resolution.
Israel has rejected calls for an unconditional or permanent ceasefire, saying Hamas cannot stay in Gaza. It has renewed its military offensive in Gaza – also seeking to free hostages held by Hamas – since ending a two-month ceasefire in March.
The war in Gaza has raged since 2023 after Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 people in Israel in an Oct. 7 attack and took some 250 hostages back to the enclave.
The post US Vetoes UN Security Council Demand for Gaza Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Trump Picks Lawyer Who Called Oct. 7 Attack a ‘Psyop’ to Lead Federal Watchdog Agency
Paul Ingrassia. Photo: Screenshot
Paul Ingrassia, a 29-year-old lawyer who was recently nominated by US President Donald Trump to lead a federal agency dedicated to combating corruption and protecting whistleblowers, seemingly dismissed the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2o23, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel as a “psyop,” or “psychological operation, in resurfaced social media posts.
“This ‘war’ is yet another psyop to distract Americans from celebrating Columbus Day,” Ingrassia wrote on X/Twitter on Oct. 8, 2023.
“I think we could all admit at this stage that Israel/Palestine, much like Ukraine before it, and BLM before that, and covid/vaccine before that, was another psyop,” he posted a week later. “But sadly, people fell for it. And they’ll fall for the next one too.”
On the actual day of the Oct. 7 massacre, Ingrassia compared illegal immigration into the US to the Hamas-led onslaught.
“The amount of energy everyone has put into condemning Hamas (and prior to that, the Ukraine conflict) over the past 24 hours should be the same amount of energy we put into condemning our wide open border, which is a war comparable to the attack on Israel in terms of bloodshed — but made worse by the fact that it’s occurring in our very own backyard,” he posted. “We shouldn’t be beating the war drum, however tragic the events may be overseas, until we resolve our domestic problems first.”
Trump announced last week that he picked Ingrassia to serve as head of the US Office of Special Counsel, a position that requires confirmation by the Senate.
The Office of Special Counsel is an independent federal ethics agency that works to ensure fairness and accountability within the government. Ingrassia’s role, if he is confirmed, would involve investigating claims of wrongdoing, such as retaliation against whistleblowers or improper political activity in the workplace. The official can recommend disciplinary action and reports serious findings to Congress, helping to protect federal employees and uphold the integrity of the civil service system.
Ingrassia also maintains a relationship with and defends alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate, who has promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories on social media. Tate wrote on X/Twitter that he refuses to “listen to women, Mexicans, or Jews” and that Jewish people are “subverting Western populations into mass genetic suicide” by advancing what he described as misguided immigration policy. Tate has also accused Israel of committing a “genocide” in Gaza against Palestinians and engaged in Holocaust denialism.
The furor surrounding Ingrassia is the latest dustup the Trump administration has had regarding controversial personnel and antisemitism.
The Trump administration’s appointment of Kingsley Wilson as deputy press secretary at the Department of Defense also sparked widespread criticism due to her history of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories and extremist views. Wilson, formerly associated with the Center for Renewing America, has a documented history of social media posts endorsing white supremacist ideologies, including claims about the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank — a Jewish man whose wrongful conviction and subsequent murder galvanized the founding of the Anti-Defamation League. In 2023, she tweeted that Frank “raped & murdered a 13-year-old girl,” a statement aligning with neo-Nazi narratives.
Late last month, the Pentagon announced that Wilson will be promoted and serve as the department’s new press secretary.
The post Trump Picks Lawyer Who Called Oct. 7 Attack a ‘Psyop’ to Lead Federal Watchdog Agency first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
US Congress Pushes to Designate Muslim Brotherhood as a Terrorist Organization
US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaking at a press conference about the United States restricting weapons for Israel, at the US Capitol, Washington, DC. Photo: Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Members of the US Congress are moving quickly to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as an official terrorist organization.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced on Tuesday that he will reintroduce an updated version of the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act.
“In the coming days, I will be circulating and re-introducing a modernized version of the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act, which I have been pushing for my entire Senate career,” he posted on X/Twitter. “The Muslim Brotherhood used the Biden administration to consolidate and deepen their influence, but the Trump administration and Republican Congress can no longer afford to avoid the threat they pose to Americans and American national security.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) sent a letter to the White House on Tuesday asking US President Donald Trump to open an investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood, saying that the group maintains “a documented history of promoting extremist ideologies.”
“Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE all declared the Muslim Brotherhood an FTO [foriegn terrorist organization] over a decade ago, and France is considering its own action. Following suit would help the US disrupt the Muslim Brotherhood’s ability to recruit and finance terror around the globe,” Moskowitz wrote on X/Twitter.
The push to proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood gained momentum last month, when the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) organized a meeting to help members of Congress develop “strategies to ban the growing threat of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States,” the research group said in a press release.
“The Muslim Brotherhood appears to be the intellectual inspiration behind all Islamist groups (and their jihadist offshoots) that operate today, such as ISIS, al Qaeda, and Hamas,” ISGAP wrote in a 2023 report. “Sunni jihadist groups are grounded in the firm ideological roots that key MB [Muslim Brotherhood] ideologues pioneered in the last century.”
Hamas, the internationally designated terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades and perpetrated the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust with its invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, is a Palestinian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Both Cruz and Moskowitz noted that Hamas is a “branch” and an “affiliate” of the global Islamist movement.
While several countries in the Middle East have already classified the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, the United States has yet to do the same, despite several attempts by Congress over the years. During Trump’s first term in office, officials in both the White House and Congress took initial steps toward sanctioning the group’s international branches, but a formal designation was never finalized.
US lawmakers believe they have identified multiple pathways to economically cripple the internationally designated terror organization. Congress could combat the Muslim Brotherhood by designating it a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) or placing it on the Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) list. Both options would levy heavy penalties on the group through methods such as freezing its assets or sanctioning its leadership.
The post US Congress Pushes to Designate Muslim Brotherhood as a Terrorist Organization first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login