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Why Does the Committee to Protect Journalists Define Terrorists as ‘Journalists’?
Released hostage Or Levy, Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, February 8, 2025. Photo: Haim Zach/GPO/Handout via REUTERS
In summing up the past year, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has asserted that 2024 was the deadliest year for journalists in the organization’s history, with Israel responsible for almost 70% of these killed media workers.
Because this is an astonishing statistic, it begs the question: How does the CPJ determine who is added to their database of media deaths and who is not? And more broadly, who does the organization consider to be a journalist?
According to its criteria, the CPJ includes journalists in its database if it “has reasonable grounds to believe they may have been killed in relation to their work: either killed accidentally in a conflict zone or on a dangerous assignment, or killed deliberately because of their journalism.”
While one might think that the CPJ’s list is focused on those who have been killed for their reporting, drawing attention to the dangers of being a journalist in hostile societies, the list is actually expanded to include anyone professing to be a media worker who is killed in a war zone, even if they are not actively taking part in their journalistic duties at the time of their deaths.
This broad criteria allows the CPJ to include, and highlight, the case of the Abu Skheil (also spelled Abu Sakhil) siblings, even though they were killed while staying in a Gazan school-turned-shelter alongside their father, who was the head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad operations in Gaza.
The @guardian is mourning “two journalist siblings” who were killed alongside their father when Israel bombed a school.
What they should have said is Israel’s strike targeted the head of Islamic Jihad’s operations in Gaza, who was hiding in a school with his adult children. pic.twitter.com/Wy3S27R0yn
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 11, 2024
When it comes to defining which journalists are eligible to be included in its database of killed media workers, the CPJ writes that it does not include
journalists if there is evidence that they were inciting violence with imminent effect or directly participating as combatants in armed conflict at the time of their deaths. Under international humanitarian law, journalists affiliated with an armed non-state actor – even one classified as a terrorist group by some countries – are considered civilians, not combatants, unless they are directly participating in the hostilities.
These criteria allow the CPJ to include media workers affiliated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad TV and radio stations on its list of killed journalists.
However, the CPJ has also included certain people on its list even though, under international law, they would not be considered civilians.
For example, since Israel began its war against Hamas following the October 7 atrocities, the CPJ has included on its list people like Hamza Murtaja (who was reportedly a member of Hamas’ military wing), Mustafa Thuraya (who reportedly served as a Hamas deputy squad commander), and Mohammad Jarghoun (who reportedly served in Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades).
According to international law, “when a journalist takes a direct part in the hostilities… he loses his immunity and becomes a legitimate target.”
It should be made clear that when it comes to “non-international armed conflicts” (which Israel’s war against Hamas falls under), international law does not view a combatant who “takes a direct part in the hostilities” as only when a person is actively engaged in combat but more broadly as:
an individual whose continuous function involves the preparation, execution or command of operations amounting to direct participation in hostilities on behalf of an organized armed group is considered a member of that group (“continuous combat function”) and loses his protection against the dangers arising from military operations for the duration of that membership.
Thus, according to international law and the CPJ’s own criteria, the above-mentioned examples of Hamas terrorists who acted as journalists should not have been added to the organization’s killed media workers database.
How, then, does the CPJ justify including these terrorist-journalists on its list?
It appears that the CPJ simply dismisses the evidence provided by Israel against these journalists, and implicitly absolves them of any wrongdoing.
For example, two of the killed Gazan journalists profiled in the end-of-the-year report are Hamza Al Dahdouh and Ismail Al Ghoul.
The IDF has provided evidence that Al Dahdouh was a member of Islamic Jihad’s electronic engineering unit and previously served as a deputy commander in the Zeitoun Brigade’s rocket force, and that Al Ghoul was a member of Hamas’ elite Nukhba force and had taken part in the October 7 attacks.
However, rather than decry the manipulation of journalism in Gaza by internationally proscribed terror groups, the CPJ dismissed this evidence and included these terrorists on its list of killed media workers.
BREAKING: The IDF reveals that Hamza al-Dahdouh, the “journalist” killed in Gaza earlier this week, was a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s rocket engineering apparatus.
Here’s a PIJ document with Hamza’s name on it. pic.twitter.com/KaJGCkIsxE
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) January 10, 2024
As an organization dedicated to defending journalists around the world, the CPJ should be at the forefront of the campaign to end the abuse of journalistic protections by terror groups in Gaza and to protect the hallowed status of the blue press vest.
However, rather than doing so, the CPJ has followed in the steps of other organizations to redefine international law in order to denigrate the Jewish State and its efforts to protect its citizens.
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 Why Does the Committee to Protect Journalists Define Terrorists as ‘Journalists’? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Pro-Palestinian Rioters Splatter Israeli Singer With Red Paint, Try to Storm Stage at Concert in Poland
Illustrative: Anti-Israel protesters hold a banner that says, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” standing in front of the president’s palace in Warsaw, Poland, on Nov. 5, 2023. Photo: IMAGO/Marek Antoni Iwanczuk via Reuters Connect
Anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian demonstrators threw red paint on Israeli singer-songwriter and composer David D’Or and tried to storm the stage with a Palestinian flag during his performance in Warsaw, Poland, on Sunday night.
D’Or was singing the Hebrew prayer “Avinu Malkeinu” at a finale concert for an annual Jewish cultural festival in Warsaw when an anti-Israel agitator in the audience approached the stage and hurled red paint on him. While the protester was being apprehended by security, another activist emerged from the audience, carrying a Palestinian flag, and tried to storm the stage while reportedly shouting “Free Palestine.” Both activists were quickly removed from the auditorium.
D’Or posted a video of the incident on Instagram and detailed what happened in a Hebrew-language caption.
“In the middle of the prayer our father our king, when I pray for a good year and for peace in the world, I closed my eyes, when I suddenly felt a cold splash on my face, I opened my eyes to see a strong red color, similar to blood,” wrote the singer. “On the clothes on my face and on the stage and the musicians. The playlist was like stained in blood.” He said the stains of red paint reminded him “of the horror sights of October 7th,” referring to the deadly Hamas-led attack in 2023 in which Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages back to the Gaza Strip, starting the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
D’Or said after he was splattered with red paint, “in the stunned crowd a sound of horror and crying began. I realized that I must pick myself up and encourage them.”
“I continued to sing and asked everyone to close their eyes and pray for the people of Israel,” he added. “It wasn’t easy, my eyes were teary with pain and great sadness from the situation we got to. At the end of the show the audience sang along with me and we came out strong … What terrible days, may God have mercy. Praying for better days.”
D’Or’s performance on Sunday night, accompanied by Sinfonia Viva, closed off the 22nd edition of the Singer’s Warsaw Festival of Jewish Culture. The concert took place at the Moniuszko Auditorium.
D’or’s career spans over 35 years and he has performed with many philharmonic orchestras around the world, including the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Philharmonic Orchestras of Rome, London, Moscow, Shanghai, Budapest, Beijing, and Los Angeles. He has 17 gold and platinum albums and previously performed at the Vatican six times, the United Nations, in front of former US presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and had a close relationship with Israeli President Shimon Peres, who asked for D’or to sing at his funeral.
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Florida Man Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison for Plotting Attacks Targeting Jews, Blacks
An American flag waves outside the US Department of Justice Building in Washington, DC. Photo: Al Drago via Reuters Connect
A man from Margate, Florida, man was sentenced on Friday to 25 years in federal prison for planning attacks against Jewish and Black Americans, the US Department of Justice announced.
John Kevin Lapinski, Jr., 41, previously pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm as a convicted felon, possession of a firearm by a person subject to a court order, possession of an unregistered silencer, and possession of body armor by a violent felon.
On Oct. 31, 2024, officers from the Margate Police Department responded to a call about shots fired in a residential neighborhood and discovered that Lapinski was the shooter. Inside his home, police officers found a shooting target that depicted a Black male covered in bullet holes. They also found Lapinski’s arsenal that included five firearms, more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition, two silencers, body armor, smoke grenades, a Ghillie suit used for camouflage, and tactical gear.
Officers additionally found maps of local schools, parks, and community sites with racial slurs, written by Lapinski, that targeted Black and Jewish people. Lapinski had also compiled a “target list” for attacks based on race and religion and it mentioned a Jewish member of Congress, local synagogues, Jewish-owned businesses, and other religious and ethnically identified sites, according to the Justice Department
“This defendant stockpiled weapons, tactical gear, and detailed attack plans to terrorize Jewish and Black Americans in our communities. His intent was not abstract — it was written on his maps, his targets, and his so-called hit list,” US Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida said in a statement
“Thanks to the swift work of our law enforcement partners, his plan never became reality,” Quiñones added. “Instead of carrying out acts of racist violence, he will spend the next quarter-century behind bars. Let this sentence serve as a warning: hate-fueled violence will be met with decisive federal prosecution. We will disrupt your plans, seize your weapons, and ensure you never endanger the people of this district again.”
Investigators also linked Lapinski to a shooting in August 2024 that targeted the home and vehicle of a Jewish Florida resident.
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Houthi Terrorists Raid UN Premises in Yemen, Detain At Least 11 People
Houthi policemen ride on the back of a patrol pick-up truck during the funeral of Houthi terrorists killed by recent US-led strikes, in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Yemen‘s Iran-backed Houthi rebels raided United Nations offices in the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Sunday and detained at least 11 UN personnel, the body said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the Houthis, an internationally designated terrorist group, forcibly entered World Food Program premises, seized UN property, and attempted to enter other UN offices in the capital.
The raid followed an Israeli strike on Sanaa on Thursday that killed the prime minister of Yemen‘s Houthi-run government and several other ministers.
UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg said in a separate statement that the 11 staff were detained in both Sanaa and the port city of Hodeidah.
UNICEF, the UN Development Program and the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees are among other UN agencies with offices in one or both of the two cities.
Grundberg said the detentions were in addition to 23 other UN staff previously detained, some since 2021, and one who died in detention this year.