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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
The post ‘The Washington Post’ Trusts Terrorists (Again) — and Treats Murderers as Victims first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Accused of Targeting Jews at Home and Abroad as 14 Nations Condemn Assassination Plots
People walk near a mural of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, amid the Iran-Israel conflict, in Tehran, Iran, June 23, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Britain, the United States, France, and 11 other allies issued a joint statement on Thursday condemning a rise in Iranian assassination and kidnapping plots in the West, as a new report warned Tehran has been intensifying efforts to target Jewish communities abroad.
On Tuesday, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released a report detailing Iran’s systematic violations of religious freedom, both domestically and through operations targeting individuals abroad.
Within Iran, despite officially recognizing Judaism, the Islamist government also “publicly demonizes Jews as enemies of Islam, denies and distorts the history of the Holocaust, [and] surveils Jewish houses of worship,” the report said.
By promoting such antisemitic views and permitting assaults on Jewish sacred sites throughout the country, “authorities have nurtured a hostile environment in which Iranian Jews feel increasingly threatened.”
According to the report, Iran is also “directly engaging criminal networks abroad to carry out attacks against Jewish targets and make Jews in Europe unsafe,” especially in the aftermath of the recent 12-day war with Israel.
The study revealed that the Iranian regime continues to promote and incite antisemitism abroad — through criminal networks, social media, and online platforms — and has actively recruited gangs across Europe “to carry out attacks on Israeli embassies and Jewish sites, including houses of worship, memorial centers, restaurants, and community centers.”
On Thursday, Western allies condemned a surge in assassination, kidnapping, and harassment plots by Iranian intelligence services targeting individuals across Western countries, urging Iranian authorities to immediately halt these illegal activities.
“We are united in our opposition to the attempts of Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America in clear violation of our sovereignty,” the joint statement read.
The new report and joint statement came as Iran continued to defy international demands regarding its nuclear program, facing mounting pressure and new US economic sanctions aimed at compelling a return to nuclear talks.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that “the road to negotiation is narrow” in the wake of the recent conflict with Israel and the United States.
Araghchi also insisted that Washington must agree to compensate Iran for the losses suffered during last month’s conflict if it hopes to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table.
“They should explain why they attacked us in the middle of … negotiations, and they have to ensure that they are not going to repeat that [during future talks],” the top Iranian diplomat said. “And they have to compensate [Iran for] the damage that they have done.”
However, Araghchi also reaffirmed that a deal would be off the table as long as US President Donald Trump continued to demand that Iran commit to zero uranium enrichment.
“We can negotiate, they can present their argument, and we will present our own argument,” Araghchi said. “But with zero enrichment, we don’t have a thing.”
On Wednesday, the United States announced a new round of economic sanctions targeting Iran and entities tied to its oil trade, as part of continued pressure on the Islamic Republic “until Tehran agrees to a deal that promotes regional peace and stability, and abandons all aspirations for nuclear weapons.”
As for negotiations with Europe, Araghchi said during the interview that Tehran would walk away from the talks if European powers continued on their current course, accusing them of failing to honor their obligations under the 2015 nuclear agreement.
“With the Europeans, there is no reason right now to negotiate because they cannot lift sanctions, they cannot do anything,” the Iranian diplomat said. “If they do snapback, that means that this is the end of the road for them.”
Under the terms of the UN Security Council resolution enshrining the 2015 accord — which imposed temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for large-scale sanctions relief —international sanctions could be reimposed on Iran, restoring all previous UN economic penalties including those targeting Iran’s oil, banking, and defense sectors, through a “snapback” mechanism that would take about 30 days. France, Britain, and Germany have warned they would reinstate UN sanctions on Tehran if no new agreement is reached by the end of August.
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ADL Files Civil Rights Complaint Against Baltimore City Public Schools, Alleging Rampant Antisemitism
Baltimore City Hall is seen in Baltimore, Maryland, US, May 10, 2019. Photo: Stephanie Keith via Reuters Connect
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has filed a Title VI civil rights complaint against Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS), alleging that officials refused to respond to allegations of antisemitism in a manner consistent with US federal law.
“All schools have a fundamental obligation to maintain a learning environment that protect students from discrimination,” ADL vice president of litigation James Pasch said in a statement announcing the action. “On this essential measure of keeping its Jewish students safe from harassment and intimidation, Baltimore City Public Schools have failed.”
Jewish students allegedly experienced relentless bullying in BCPS, where students pantomimed Nazi salutes, treated campuses as a canvas for Nazi-inspired and antisemitic graffiti, and sent text messages threatening that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas will be summoned to kill Jewish students the bullies do not like. Teachers behaved even worse than students, the complaint said. At Bard High School, an English teacher performed the Nazi salute three times and later admitted to administrative officials that he did so intentionally to harm “the sole Jewish student” enrolled in his class. Following the incident, he suggested that the student unregister for his class because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be discussed in it.
In every case, according to the complaint, BCPS officials “slow-walked” investigations, deflecting parents’ inquiries into their status with bureaucratic spin even as they denied Jewish students justice. Moreover, the ADL continued, BCPS was first notified of an antisemitism problem on its campuses over a year before Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel stoked anti-Jewish hatred. The ADL alleged that the school system’s refusing to take action constituted a textbook example of a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids public schools receiving federal funding to treat students unfairly on the basis of race, ethnicity, or shared ancestry.
“Parents of Jewish students in Baltimore have pleaded repeatedly with BCPPS to take decisive action to stop the harassment of and discrimination against their Jewish children. Their pleas have been ignored,” the complaint said. “Jewish students and parents have filed more than a dozen reports with BCPS. In each case, the schools have labeled these weighty allegations as ‘inconclusive’ and appear to have taken action against the perpetrators.”
The ADL is calling on the school system to take imminent, remedial steps to address antisemitism, including adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, requiring BCPS officials to undergo trainings on the history of antisemitism and how to fight it, and additions to school curricula which educate students about the history of anti-Jewish bigotry and its harms.
Antisemitism in K-12 schools is receiving increased attention, notably in California, after years of falling under the radar.
In April, a civil rights complaint filed by StandWithUs and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition alleged that the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) in California allows Jewish students to be subjected to unconscionable levels of antisemitic bullying in and outside of the classroom.
The 27-page complaint, filed with the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), described a slew of incidents that allegedly fostered a hostile environment for Jewish students after Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities set off a wave of anti-Jewish hatred across the US. SCUSD students, the compaint said, graffitied antisemitic hate speech in the bathrooms, vandalized Jewish-themed posters displayed in schools, and distributed stickers which said, “F—k Zionism.” All the while, district officials enabled the behavior by refusing to investigate it and blaming victims who came forward to report their experiences, according to the complaint.
“SCUSD has allowed an egregiously hostile environment to fester for its Jewish and Israeli students in violation of its federal obligations and ethical responsibility to create a safe educational space for all students,” Jenna Statfeld Harris, senior counsel and K-12 specialist at StandWithUs Saidoff Legal, said in a statement at the time. “SCUSD leadership repeatedly disregards the rights of their Jewish and Israeli students. We implore the Office for Civil Rights to step in and uphold the right of these students to an inclusive education free from hostility toward their protected identity.”
In March, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed a civil rights complaint which recounted the experience of a 12-year-old Jewish girl who was allegedly assaulted on the grounds of the Etiwanda School District in San Bernardino, California — being beaten with a stick, told to “shut your Jewish ass up,” and teased with jokes about Hitler. According to the court filings, one student admitted that the behavior was motivated by the victim’s being Jewish. Despite receiving several complaints about the treatment, a substantial amount of which occurred in the classroom, school officials allegedly declined to punish her tormentors.
“While an increasing number of schools recognize that their Jewish students are being targeted both for their religious beliefs and due to their ancestral connection to Israel, and are taking necessary steps to address both classic and contemporary forms of antisemitism, some shamefully continue to turn a blind eye,” Brandeis Center founder and chairman Kenneth Marcus said in a statement at the time of the filing.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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France, Spain Locked in Diplomatic Dispute Over Removal of French Jewish Teenagers From Flight
A Vueling aircraft approaches landing at Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport, as Vueling employees prepare for strike, in Barcelona, Spain, Nov. 2, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Nacho Doce
The forced removal of French Jewish teenagers from a flight in Spain has triggered political outrage in France, after their group leader was handcuffed by Spanish police and a government minister insulted the teens as “Israeli brats.”
French ministers Aurore Bergé and Benjamin Haddad have sharply criticized Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente’s comments and denounced the Spanish government’s overall response to the incident.
Earlier this week, Puente referred to the group of teenagers as “Israeli brats” in a post on X, which he quickly deleted after it went viral and sparked widespread condemnation.
The French ministers issued a strong rebuke of the remarks for “equating French children who were Jewish with Israeli citizens, as if this in any way justified the treatment they were subjected to.”
“At a time when antisemitic acts have been on the rise across Europe since the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, in Israel, we call on Vueling [the airline of the flight in question] and the Spanish authorities to fully investigate and clarify the events,” Bergé and Haddad said in a statement.
“We will never accept the normalization of antisemitism. We will always stand with our fellow citizens who suffer from antisemitic hatred, and we will never compromise,” the French officials continued.
Last week, a group of 50 French Jewish students was forcibly removed from a plane in Valencia — reportedly for singing in Hebrew — an incident that resulted in the arrest of their summer camp director, who has accused Spanish law enforcement officers of using excessive force against her.
According to her lawyer, she was left with bruises on her legs, arms, and body after being harshly handcuffed and placed in an arm lock.
“No action justified the disembarkation or the excessive and brutal use of force by the Civil Guard against the young woman, who has just been notified of 15 days of total incapacity to work,” Bergé and Haddad said in a statement.
The Spanish low-cost airline Vueling denied the allegations, insisting the incident was not related to religion but rather that the group was causing a disruption.
In a statement, the airline asserted that the group was removed because of its members’ “highly combative attitude that was putting the safety of the flight at risk.”
After meeting with the group’s counselor on Tuesday, Bergé and Haddad said she denied the official version of events, emphasizing that the crew was hostile from the beginning and that the group’s removal and the Civil Guard’s response were unjustified.
The children, aged 10 to 15, are members of the Kineret Club — a summer camp for Jewish families run by the Matana charitable association — which had just concluded their trip in the coastal resort town of Sant Carles de la Ràpita, between Valencia and Barcelona.
According to local reports, the children were singing in Hebrew while boarding the plane to return home, which prompted a hostile response from the crew.
Witnesses reported that the group stopped singing at the crew’s request and complied quietly with boarding instructions, yet airport police still intervened and ordered them to disembark.
Other passengers on the plane who witnessed the incident reported that staff made antisemitic remarks toward the group, including one employee who allegedly referred to Israel as a “terrorist state.”
Last week, amid an ongoing investigation into the incident, French authorities reached out to the CEO of Vueling and the Spanish ambassador to France to assess whether the group was subjected to religious discrimination.