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Why Is CNN Airing Palestinian Lies and Propaganda as Journalism?
At 2PM on October 7, as Hamas’ barbaric attack on Israel was still ongoing, Christiane Amanpour gave her CNN platform to Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian Authority (PA) ambassador to the UK, who blamed that day’s attack on Israel and compared it to Israel’s self-defense with almost no pushback from the anchor. Nine months later, with 120 Israelis and tourists still being held captive by Hamas, Amanpour continues to promote guests who distort reality.
On June 25, Christiane Amanpour interviewed Palestinian propagandist and founder of Al-Haq, Raja Shehadeh. Throughout the interview, both Amanpour and Shehadeh engaged in a tactic of reversing victim and offender, and their descriptions of events often bore little resemblance to reality. While acknowledging that the October 7 attacks occurred, and that Hamas’ killing of civilians was unjustified, both acted totally oblivious to the cause-and-effect relationship that attack had on subsequent events.
Among other topics, Amanpour and Shehadeh discussed Shehadeh’s new book titled, What Does Israel Fear From Palestine? In the wake of October 7, the title beggars belief. In 2005, Israel evacuated every single civilian and soldier from Gaza, leaving behind a greenhouse business that was gifted to the people of Gaza and a beautiful Mediterranean coastline for tourism. At that time, there was no occupation and no blockade, and the people of Gaza, functionally, had independence. In a 2006 election, their first opportunity for self-determination, the people of Gaza elected Hamas. Hamas then started wars with Israel in 2009, 2012, 2014, and 2021, culminating in 2023 in the vicious attack in which 1,200 Israeli men, women, and children were burned to death, raped, tortured, and killed, with another 240 were taken hostage to Gaza.
What does Israel fear from Palestine, indeed.
But Amanpour’s first question to Shehadeh about the book was, “given that Israel essentially has the balance of power, why do you think Israel fears Palestine? Do you think it does?”
Shehadeh replied, “I think they fear the very existence of Palestine, because if Palestine exists, then the Israeli myth, foundation myth would have to be amended, because the foundation myth of Israel was that they came to a land that was empty, that didn’t have any Palestinians or anybody, and they established Israel from year zero, and so to recognize Palestine would require reconfiguration of the Israeli myth, and that’s the main fear, I think.”
This is false, of course.
Early Zionists were well-aware that Arabs were living in the Ottoman- and then British-controlled region of Palestine, and, as Efraim Karsh has explained, “took for granted the full equality of the Arab minority in the prospective Jewish state.” The population of the region prior to waves of Zionist immigration was sparse, and the Arabs who lived there did not call themselves “Palestinians.” But no one thought that there were no people living there at the time. The relevant point is that there was no sovereign state there.
Amanpour then said to Shehadeh, “you come from a family that has been involved in the attempt to broker peace for decades, since ‘48 frankly, your father, when you were a teenager in 1967, submitted a peace proposal to the Israeli government on behalf of the Palestinians and of course all these decades later there is no peace. So Israel always blames the Palestinians for not grabbing a chance when it’s there, or walking away from all the best opportunities it’s given backed by the United States et cetera. Palestinians always blame Israel for, quote unquote, not being serious, for continuing to build settlements while talking the peace talk. What, given that, what is your actual hope for this dynamic to be broken? Do you think it ever will be?”
Amanpour’s question itself is remarkable, not least of all because Aziz Shehadeh doesn’t appear to have ever had any authority to act on behalf of anyone other than himself, or possibly, 50 other “prominent” individuals. He certainly was not acting “on behalf of the Palestinians.”
According to his obituary, he was “condemned by the Palestine Liberation Organization as ‘a traitor’ for proposing a separate Palestinian state alongside Israel,” and The New York Times reported that the Fatah Revolutionary Council claimed to have stabbed Aziz Shehadeh to death for advocating “capitulation, humiliating coexistence and liquidation of the Palestine cause.”
Yet, Amanpour speaks as if the elder Shehadeh’s proposal was in some way official. More to the point, though, after Arabs started two wars and lost territory in both, the proposal was for a return to a status quo ante that had never existed or been implemented, because it was rejected by the Arab side — the 1947 Partition Plan. It also demanded that the Jews share sovereignty over their newly liberated holiest city, after being denied any access at all to their holy sites within that city for 19 years. In other words, it was a pipe dream, not a plan.
Predictably, Amanpour’s guest responded by blaming the lack of peace on the settlements. But he never explained, nor did Amanpour ask him, why the settlements can’t become part of a future Palestinian state — or if they can, how they preclude the establishment of one.
“What did you learn from your father, again you were a teenager when that took place, and you went on to be a lawyer, you founded Al-Haq, the human rights group, you’re an activist. What did you learn from everything you saw as you were growing up, and has that been changed irrevocably, irrevocably since October 7, or not?” Amanpour then asked.
While Amanpour calls Al-Haq a “human rights group,” NGO Monitor has documented the group’s extensive ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terror organization known for hijacking airplanes.
These ties include, “according to multiple Arabic-language media sources, Al-Haq General Director Shawan Jabarin represented the PFLP at a December 2011 meeting of … a reconciliatory body between Hamas, Fatah, PIJ, the PFLP, and other Palestinian factions.” Moreover, “Jabarin was convicted in 1985 for recruiting and arranging training for members for the PFLP.”
After paying lip-service to the idea that, “we have to find a way to live together,” Shehadeh replies, “but since October 7th [it] has become much more difficult because they dehumanize the Palestinians to such an extent, that it’s difficult now to imagine how we can make peace with them.”
Later in the interview, he repeats the claim that it is Israelis who have dehumanized the Palestinians of Gaza with their response to October 7, and not the attack itself that dehumanized — and terrorized — Israelis. This is a manipulative reversal of victim and offender. While October 7 is mentioned, the significance of the actual events of that day, and the effects of that attack on the prospects for peace, seem impossibly lost on both interviewer and guest.
Shehadeh goes on to claim that it the wake of the Oslo Accords, it was the Palestinian side that accepted coexistence and was “ready to live with the Israelis and to make peace based on justice and splitting the land between the two people.” But as both former US President Bill Clinton and his former American ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk have made clear, it was Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat who rejected the terms of Oslo.
Amanpour should have corrected her guest here, but she did not.
Amanpour does press Shehadeh about Hamas: “more and more, Palestinians in Gaza are daring to speak out against Hamas, and they’re basically saying these guys are useless at governance, they’ve rained — they’ve contributed to raining this hell on us. And we hear more and more about Sinwar himself and other Hamas leaders who essentially believe, and they’ve told journalists … the more blood, the more spotlight on our situation. And we spoke to a doctor who saved Sinwar’s life in an Israeli prison, and he said Sinwar told him … a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand Palestinian deaths would be worth, like other liberation movements, he said Algeria, Vietnam, and et cetera, would be worth it if we got our rights. What do you think of that?”
Shehadeh replies, “Well, I think this is too harsh, but I think at the same time that Israel could not have continued to oppress the Palestinians and put them in an open-air prison and expect them to be calm and silent and not resist. And Hamas resisted, and they had the right to resist, because the blockade was an act of war on the part of Israel which continued for 16 years. And an act of war can be resisted under international law. And they resisted by breaking the barrier. So, they had the right to do that. What they didn’t have the right was to kill the Israelis — 1,000 Israelis along the– and that was, I think, a crime, of course.”
Here, Amanpour fails to call out her guest’s inconsistency. Although he attempts to make his case under international law, he fails to note that the 2011 Palmer Report found that blockade of Gaza was legal under international law. Amanpour, too, fails to note this, and allowed her guest to make the false claim that it was the blockade that was illegal and the October 7 attack that was legal. Although he takes pains to distinguish the attacks on civilians from the breaking of the barrier between Israel and Gaza and the invasion, he still justifies that invasion based on a false claim about international law. Again, it’s a reversal of victim and offender.
Amanpour moves on to the “universities [that] have been destroyed … cultural centers have been destroyed,” but is oblivious to the contradiction between the beautiful Gaza that was destroyed and Shehadeh’s description of it as an “open-air prison.”
She asks, “do you see an intent in terms of wiping out Palestinian culture or do you see it as part of the general destruction of Gaza in this pursuit of Hamas?” Shehadeh of course takes this hook, “I think there’s an intent to destroy Gaza and culture in Gaza. And I think that the denial by the Israelis about, just as there was denial about ‘48, there’s a denial about the destruction of culture in Gaza and the people of Gaza entirely.”
The fact that Hamas used homes, mosques, and schools not only to store but even to manufacture weapons, is irrelevant to both Amanpour and Shehadeh.
This is not journalism. This was nearly 13 minutes of anti-Israel propaganda under the imprimatur of CNN.
Karen Bekker is the Assistant Director in the Media Response Team at CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.
The post Why Is CNN Airing Palestinian Lies and Propaganda as Journalism? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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China and Egypt Launch Joint Military Drills Near Israeli Border Amid Rising Regional Tensions
China and Egypt have launched their first-ever joint air force drill, “Eagles of Civilization 2025,” at an Egyptian airbase. Photo: Screenshot
China and Egypt launched a large-scale joint military exercise this week near the Israeli border, described by Chinese media as a “historic” first of its kind, aimed at deepening military cooperation amid rising regional tensions.
The joint drills — dubbed “Eagles of Civilization 2025” — began Sunday at an Egyptian Air Force base about 100 kilometers (62 miles) west of the Gulf of Suez and are expected to run through mid-May.
According to Israel’s Channel 12, the drill features Chinese J-10C fighter jets, refueling planes, and KJ-500 early warning aircraft, along with Russian-made MiG-29s flown by Egypt.
This exercise “is the first joint training between the Chinese and Egyptian militaries, which is of great significance to promoting pragmatic cooperation and enhancing mutual trust and friendship between the two militaries,” the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said in a statement.
Egyptian officials said the joint drills, aimed at strengthening military ties, will combine theoretical and practical training to enhance combat doctrines.
“The training will also involve joint aerial sorties, planning exercises, and simulated air combat management operations to exchange expertise and enhance the skills of the participating forces,” an Egyptian armed forces spokesperson said in a statement on social media.
Some experts view Beijing’s growing relationship with Cairo as the country’s latest move to expand its military presence in the Middle East and Africa, challenging the United States as its influence in the region stalls. This move could also help China strengthen ties with regional partners as the country faces mounting economic sanctions from Washington.
While details about Egypt’s military buildup remain unclear, “satellite images have shown the movement of tanks and battalions that exceed the limits set by the Camp David Accords,” Mariam Wahba, research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told The Algemeiner.
Under the peace treaty, Egypt can request permission from Israel to deploy more than the 47 battalions allowed. However, some estimates suggest that there are currently camps for 180 battalions.
“The Camp David Accords have long been a pillar of peace and stability in the Middle East,” Wahba explained. “A breakdown of the agreement would have serious implications, not just for Israel and Egypt but for the broader region.”
“It could embolden actors like Iran and its proxies to exploit tensions and could lead to increased militarization along Israel’s southern border,” Wahba told The Algemeiner.
Egypt’s military buildup, reportedly in response to Israel’s presence at the Philadelphi Corridor and concerns over a potential mass Palestinian exodus into the country, along with Jerusalem’s control of the corridor, could both breach the 1979 peace treaty.
Last month, China, Russia, and Iran held a three-day naval drill in the Gulf of Oman, conducting joint operations in Iranian territorial waters, strengthening their defense cooperation and bolstering their presence in the region.
China’s growing ties with Egypt come at a time when Egyptian relations with Washington are strained, following US President Donald Trump’s proposal to relocate Palestinians from the Gaza Strip — potentially to Egypt and other Arab countries — during reconstruction efforts after the war, a plan Cairo has strongly opposed.
“This is a reminder that our partners have options,” Former US CENTCOM Commander Gen. Joseph Votel told The War Zone. “China is positioning itself as a viable military supplier and strategic partner” in the region.
In a rapidly shifting Middle East marked by rising tensions and competing regional power blocs, China and Egypt’s deepening cooperation could reshape regional power dynamics, challenging American influence and diminishing Israel’s strategic flexibility.
Israeli defense officials have previously expressed growing concern over Cairo’s military buildup and armed presence in the Sinai Peninsula.
These concerns come amid escalating tensions between Jerusalem and Cairo since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, particularly over the Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, where Egypt has demanded Israel withdraw its forces.
Earlier this year, Jerusalem accused Egypt of violating their decades-old peace treaty, while also raising concerns about Cairo’s expanding defense capabilities.
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Pro-Palestine Demonstrators Blast Sanders as ‘Genocide Denier’
US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks to the media following a meeting with US President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington, US, July 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) has been targeted by left-wing protesters over his supposedly insufficient support for Gaza.
Pro-Palestine activists crashed one of Sanders’s “The Fighting Oligarchy” rallies in Bakersfield, California last week to grill the senator about his position on the Israel-Hamas war. During Sanders’s speech, activists associated with United Liberation Front for Palestine (ULFP) berated Sanders for his reluctance in accusing Israel of committing so-called “genocide” against the civilians of Gaza.
“Are you going to call it a genocide, when it’s a genocide?” the activist bellowed.
“And you defend Israel when Palestinians are being killed every single day and all you do is criticize Netanyahu! Israel does not have a right to exist or fight while Palestinians are dying,” she continued.
Other protesters then interrupted Sanders’s speech, condemning the progressive lawmaker as a “liberal Zionist,” accusing him of being “complicit with ICE,” and castigating him for voting in favor of the confirmation of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“Bernie, why don’t you let your fans know that you’re a settler, that you occupy Palestinian land?” the activist said.
Sanders does not possess dual citizenship with Israel. However, rumors about Sanders, who is Jewish, possessing Israeli citizenship have circulated around the internet since his 2015 presidential campaign.
In recent weeks, anti-Israel protesters have grown increasingly critical of Sanders over his refusal to adopt more adversarial rhetoric against the Jewish state. Last week, Sanders incensed progressives after authorities removed an activist which unfurled a flag reading “free Palestine” during a tour stop in Idaho.
During that rally, Sanders said, “Israel, like any other country, has the right to defend itself from terrorism, but it does not have the right to wage all out war against the Palestinian people” and “not one more nickel to Netanyahu,” triggering more outrage among his leftist supporters.
Sanders, who is among the most vocal critics of the Israel-Hamas war in the federal government, spearheaded a number of failed efforts to implement a partial arms embargo on the Jewish state, citing supposed “indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza. However, progressive activists have grown increasingly vocal about their dissatisfaction with Sanders’s position on Israel, complaining that the senator has isolated his criticisms to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and has refused to repudiate Israel’s existence.
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Harvard Sues Trump Administration Over Massive Cuts Amid Campus Antisemitism Crisis
US President Donald Trump, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick attend a cabinet meeting at the White House. Photo: Nathan Howard via Reuters Connect.
Harvard University filed suit against the Trump administration on Monday to request an injunction that would halt the government’s impounding of $2.26 billion of its federal grants and contracts and an additional $1 billion that, reportedly, will be confiscated in the coming days.
In the complaint, shared by interim university president Alan Garber, Harvard says the administration bypassed key procedural steps it must, by law, take before sequestering any federal funds. It also charges that the Trump administration does not aim, as it has publicly pledged, to combat campus antisemitism at Harvard but to impose “viewpoint-based conditions on Harvard’s funding.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the administration has proposed that Harvard reform in ways that conservatives have long argued will make higher education more meritocratic and less welcoming to anti-Zionists and far-left extremists. Its “demands,” contained in a letter the administration sent to Garber — who subsequently released it to the public — called for “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of [diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives],” and “reducing forms of governance bloat.” They also implore Harvard to begin “reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism” and to recalibrate its approach to “student discipline.”
Harvard rejects the administration’s coupling of campus antisemitism with longstanding grievances regarding elite higher education’s “wokeness,” elitism, and overwhelming bias against conservative ideast. Republican lawmakers, for their part, have maintained that it is futile to address campus antisemitism while ignoring the context in which it emerged.
Speaking for the university, Harvard’s legal team — which includes attorneys with links to US President Donald Trump’s inner circle — denounced any larger reform effort as intrusive.
“The First Amendment does not permit the Government to ‘interfere with private actors’ speech to advance its own vision of ideological balance,” they wrote in the complaint, which names several members and agencies of the administration but not Trump as a defendant. “Nor may the government ‘rely on the ‘threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion … to achieve the suppression of disfavored speech.’ The government’s attempt to coerce and control Harvard disregards these fundamental First Amendment principles, which safeguard Harvard’s ‘academic freedom.’”
The complaint continued, arguing that the impounding of funds “flout not just the First Amendment, but also federal laws and regulations” and says that Harvard should have been investigated by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to determine whether it failed to stop and, later, prevent antisemitism in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act — a finding that would have warranted punitive measures. Rather, it charges, the Trump administration imposed a “sweeping freeze of funding” that, it contends, “has nothing at all to do with antisemitism and Title VI compliance.”
Garber followed up the complaint with an exaltation of limited government and the liberal values which further academia’s educational mission — values Harvard has been accused of failing to uphold for decades.
“We stand for the truth that colleges and universities across the country can embrace and honor their legal obligations and best fulfill their essential role in society without improper government intrusion,” Garber said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “That is how we achieve academic excellence, safeguard open inquiry and freedom of speech, and conduct pioneering research — and how we advance the boundless exploration that propels our nation and its people into a better future.”
For some, Harvard’s allegations against the Trump administration are hollow.
“Claiming that the entire institution is exempt from any oversight or intervention is extraordinary,” Alex Joffe, anthropologist and editor of BDS Monitor for Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. “It would seem to claim, at least by extension, that the government cannot enforce laws regarding equal protection for individuals — namely students in minority groups — and other legal and regulatory frameworks because they jeopardize the institution’s academic freedom.”
He continued, “Moreover, the idea that cutting voluntary government funding is de facto denial of free speech also sounds exaggerated if not absurd. If an institution doesn’t want to be subjected to certain requirements in a relationship entered into voluntarily with the government, they shouldn’t take the money. Modifying a contract after the fact, however, might be another issue … At one level the Trump administration is simply doing what Obama and Biden did with far less controversy, issuing directives and threatening lawsuits and funding. But the substance of the proposed oversight, especially the intrusiveness with respect to curricular affairs, has obviously touched a nerve.”
Harvard’s fight with the federal government is backed by its immense wealth, and the school has been drawing on its vast financial resources to build a war chest for withstanding Trump’s budget cuts since March, when it issued over $450 million in bonds as “part of ongoing contingency planning for a range of financial circumstances.” Another $750 million in bonds was offered to investors in April, according to The Harvard Crimson, a sale that is being managed by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
A generous subsidy protects Harvard from paying exorbitant interest on the new debt, as investors can sell most bonds issued by educational institutions without being required to pay federal income tax.
Other universities have resorted to borrowing as well, issuing what was reportedly a record $12.4 billion municipal bonds, some of which are taxable, during the first quarter of 2025. Among those which chose to take on debt are Northwestern University, which was defunded to the tune of $790 million on April 8. It issued $500 million in bonds in March. Princeton University, recently dispossessed of $210 in federal grants, is preparing an offering of $320 million, according to Forbes.
“If Harvard is willing to mortgage it’s real estate or use it as collateral, it can borrow money for a very long time,” National Association of Scholars president Peter Wood told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. “But it could destroy itself that way.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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