Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Kurt Schork Memorial Fund

Wednesday, October 26, 2022

What's Mondoweiss afraid of?

Last week, the Thomas Reuters Foundation announced that award-winning Palestinian journalist Shatha Hammad would be the recipient of the prestigious Kurt Schork Local Reporter Award for 2022. Not 48 hours later, Zionist watchdog group Honest Reporting unleashed a vicious smear campaign against Hammad to pressure Reuters and the Kurt Schork Fund to revoke the award. The campaign succeeded.

Hammad is just the latest Palestinian journalist to be targeted by such groups. Earlier this month, the New York Times fired Palestinian photojournalist Hosam Salem for expressing support for Palestinian resistance, after Honest Reporting dug through Salem’s facebook posts to “expose” him to the Times. Honest Reporting is one of many Zionist watchdog organizations whose mission is to rush to the defense of one of the last colonial regimes in the world, effectively functioning as an international arm of Israeli “Hasbara” and providing a smokescreen for the continuous colonization and ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

As pointed out by a letter signed by hundreds of Palestinian and Arab journalists condemning these recent online attacks, these watchdog groups function similarly to Israeli intelligence agencies, digging “deep into journalists’ social media accounts, chasing after any expressions, statements, or even jokes said in childhood, taking them out of context and weaponizing them.”

This is what Honest Reporting did to Hammad, distorting several of her old facebook posts from 2014 in an attempt to paint her as an antisemite and “Hitler fan.” Hammad emphatically denies these outrageous claims, and even contends that one of the alleged facebook posts was outright fabrication.

The Kurt Schork Memorial Fund buckled under the pressure and promptly revoked Hammad’s award. This alone is concerning, as it shows a willingness to accept the accusations of a clearly partisan organization that uses questionable methods in producing “proof” of wrongdoing.

The article goes on to say that Honest Reporting is Zionist and partisan, that there are double standards being applied, that the social media posts being quoted are false out of context or old - a litany of excuses and accusations about the unfairness of reporters being fired for being "pro-Palestinian."

Yet somehow, this fearless media outlet doesn't once mention what these reporters actually wrote that got them fired.

Seems like a curious detail to leave out of a story, doesn't it? According to the terror supporting Mondoweiss, these innocent lambs are accused of doing something they don't want to reveal, but you should trust them - the journalists are innocent and the accusers are horrible people.

As HR reports, Salem has posted multiple times clear and unambiguous support for terror attacks, including the murder of four rabbis at prayer in Jerusalem.

In 2011, Salem took to Facebook to praise the Jerusalem bus bombing in which British Christian evangelical student Mary Jane Gardner was murdered, and 67 others were injured. Members of the Hamas cell had reportedly planned an additional attack but were stopped by Israeli security forces.

On November 18, 2014, Hosam Salem again used Facebook to express his joy over the massacre of four rabbis and an Israeli-Druze police officer in a synagogue in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof.

Citing the Quran, he encouraged his followers to “smite the necks” of unbelievers, adding: “[This is the] summary of the Jerusalem operation [sic] today.”

There’s more. In 2015, Salem applauded two acts of terror (see here and here); a shooting at the Gush Etzion Junction that killed an American teenager, an Israeli man, and a Palestinian bystander; and a Jerusalem stabbing that killed three.

Some three years later, after being hired by The New York Times, Salem called for more violence following an attack that killed two IDF recruits in the West Bank. “Shoot, kill, withdraw: three quick operational steps…to bring peace to the hearts of sad people like us,” the inciting post read.

Finally, he has repeatedly eulogized Mohammed Salem and Nabil Masoud. The two were responsible for a 2004 suicide bombing that killed ten workers at the Ashdod port, Israel’s second-busiest harbor.

What about Shatha Hammad?

The posts that HonestReporting uncovered included dozens of violent and antisemitic clarion calls, such as one in which she eulogized the “martyrs” who killed five “settlers” during the 2014 Jerusalem synagogue massacre where two Palestinian terrorists attacked worshipers with axes, knives and a gun.
In several posts in 2014, Hammad, who currently works for Middle East Eye and Al Jazeera, signed off her comments using the nickname “Hitler” and joked that she was “in agreement” with the Nazi leader who oversaw the mass extermination of six million Jews during the Holocaust.
In another post — originally written in Arabic but translated into English by HonestReporting — she described herself as “friends” and “one” with Hitler, adding they have the “same mentality, like, for example, the extermination of the Jews” alongside a smiley face emoji.

Honest Reporting has screenshots, so Hammad's claim of "fabrication" is ridiculous.

Mondoweiss wants its readers to be angry - but it sure doesn't want them to know the posts it is defending as mere "criticism of Israel." The article is filled with hyperlinks - but not one to Honest Reporting's articles that show the screenshots of these journalists promoting the murders of Jews.

In fact, they are so upset at these revelations that they say, with a straight face, that "Zionist watchdogs are a danger to journalism." Not journalists who support murdering Jews - but the people who expose them.

Mondoweiss is afraid of the truth. It tries to hide the truth. Which proves that the truth is not on their side.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!