As we see the face of Hanan Ashrawi all over the news channels defending Hamas terror, it is worth reminding people about what the NGO that she founded, Miftah, has done:
- They published an article that says Jews drink Christian blood for Passover, then attacked me for noticing it, before taking it down days later under international donor pressure- but they never apologized in Arabic, the language of the article.
- They censored every single post on their Facebook page questioning how they could publish the blood libel
- They published another article praising female terrorists (it was silently removed after I exposed it).
- They attacked Judaism, claiming that any Jew saying that the Temple Mount was the site of the Temple is only saying that for political reasons.
- Their "media monitoring unit" that supposedly looked for bias on both sides deliberately ignored all antisemitic incitement in Arabic media.
- It tried to politicize a UN resolution meant to politically empower women into an anti-Israel springboard.
- Against the wishes of its funders, Miftah is explicitly against any sort of co-existence and dialogue with Israelis.
Does this sound like a moderate?
Since my exposures of Miftah's excesses last year, it has kept a decidedly lower profile, no longer commenting on the news with vicious anti-Israel screeds. But that doesn't mean that Miftah has changed - just that it is scared of losing its funding.
So why is Ashrawi such a favored guest on major news outlets? Why hasn't anyone investigated her a little more?
The truth is that her views, and the toxic viewpoints of Miftah, are not anomalous in Palestinian Arab society, but mainstream. Since she speaks English well, and the news media doesn't want to point out the huge disconnect between her smooth sounding words and her actual opinions, all of this gets papered over.