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‘The Washington Post’ Trusts Terrorists (Again) — and Treats Murderers as Victims
Hamas terrorists appear to shoot civilians who are lying on the ground in a video posted by Gaza Now, a Hamas-aligned news outlet based in Gaza. Photo: Screenshot
“Journalism,” George Orwell allegedly said, “is printing what someone else does not wanted printed: everything else is public relations.”
By this standard, The Washington Post’s coverage of the latest war between Israel and Iranian proxies is little more than PR. It can hardly be called journalism.
A recent article by the newspaper purported to provide readers with details about negotiations between Israel and Hamas. But instead of offering facts, the Post reprinted a litany of lies.
The paper struck a false equivalency between hostages being held by Hamas, and Palestinian prisoners locked up by Israel for crimes including murder and terrorism.
But terrorists are not the same as their victims. Nor are they credible sources.
It took no fewer than four reporters to author the Jan. 26, 2025 story, “Who are the Palestinians released by Israel in exchange for hostages?” And not a single one saw a problem with treating a designated terror organization as a credible source.
The Post uncritically quoted claims by Samidoun, which the newspaper identified as merely “an activist network supporting Palestinian prisoners.”
This would be akin to referring to Al-Qaeda as “campaigners for an archaic version of Islam,” or describing the founder of ISIS as an “austere, religious scholar.”
A basic tenet of journalism is to identify the “who, what, when, where, and why” relating to a story. Another tenet is to fully vet your sources. And still another is to be as specific as possible. The Post failed at all three.
In fact, the newspaper’s trusted source is a designated terrorist group. Samidoun has been identified as such by the United States, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands, among others.
On Oct. 15, 2024, the US Treasury Department noted that Samidoun was a “sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization.” Treasury noted that Canda had listed Samidoun as a terrorist entity on October 11. The Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Bradley Smith, observed that “organizations like Samidoun masquerade as charitable actors that claim to provide humanitarian support to those in need, yet in reality divert funds for much needed assistance to terrorist groups.”
Yet a mere three months after these public designations, The Washington Post, whose masthead proclaims that “democracy dies in darkness,” cited Samidoun as a credible source. But the group’s history of trafficking in hate and supporting terror has long been a matter of public record.
Organizations like NGO Monitor, among others, have highlighted the PFLP’s extensive disinformation network in numerous reports. These too are open source and readily available. But they don’t serve the anti-Israel narrative that The Washington Post prefers — a narrative that groups like Samidoun pitch to their willing interlocutors in the legacy media. As the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) has observed, a whole host of nonprofits exists for the sole purpose of pitching and placing anti-Israel articles, providing self-styled journalists with ready-made stories and ensuring that they don’t have to work too hard to file their reports.
The Post’s decision to trust a terrorist group sparked condemnation. CAMERA, Fox News reporter Joseph Wulfsohn, the Washington Free Beacon’s Lexi Boccuzzi, and others highlighted the Post’s transgression. In a widely quoted thread on X, the Middle East analyst Eitan Fischberger called it “one of the most egregious examples of journalistic malpractice I’ve seen in a while.”
After the outcry, the Post belatedly amended the story to include what it called a “clarification note,” which still managed to whitewash Samidoun. The newspaper meekly admitted that it had “failed to note that the United States says the group is an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which Washington has placed under sanctions.” Suffice to say: this is not the behavior of an honest and truth-telling publication. Good journalism exposes coverups — it doesn’t execute them.
Indeed, as Fischberger pointed out, one of the “reporters” behind the Post article, Niha Masih, was accusing Israel of perpetrating a “genocide” more than a decade ago. In an Aug. 5, 2014 tweet, she claimed that the Jewish state was guilty of “genocide” — a libelous claim that meets the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. Masih’s clear bias, including her penchant for regurgitating claims made by the Hamas, should have disqualified her from writing on Israel.
But The Washington Post is the nexus where sloppy journalism and lapse ethics meet. In fact, trusting terrorist groups is part of the newspaper’s modus operandi.
As CAMERA has documented, the Post takes Hamas claims at face value. The newspaper regurgitates casualty statistics supplied by the Gaza-based terrorist group. What is more, they’ve ignored top U.S. officials, journalists, and recent studies — all of which have warned that the figures supplied by Hamas are unreliable. Curiously, the Postdoesn’t uncritically parrot claims made by terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda — only those whose preeminent target is Israel seem to merit the distinction. The newspaper is so committed to trusting Hamas that it has published “fact checks” meant to show that its figures are dependable — “fact checks” that relied on data that the United Nations later revised and which also came from Hamas.
“Political language,” Orwell famously said, “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to the wind.” Orwell’s writings were influenced by the rise of totalitarianism, including Nazism and communism, that he witnessed. Both ideologies were underpinned by the sort of murderous antisemitism that The Washington Post enables.
Were he alive today, Orwell would have a field day with the Post, with all its pretensions and propaganda.
The writer is a Senior Research Analyst for CAMERA, the 65,000-member, Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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