When a Palestinian journalist @HosanSalemG says that all Palestinian journalists support terror, is he an anti-Palestinian racist?

A photo of Hosam Salem from his Facebook page

Yesterday, Gaza photojournalist Hosam Salem tweeted that his contract with the New York Times had been terminated. Here's his thread:

After years of covering the Gaza Strip as a freelance photojournalist for the New York Times, I was informed via an abrupt phone call from the US outlet that they will no longer work with me in the future. 

I began working with the newspaper in 2018, covering critical events in Gaza such as the weekly protests at the border fence with Israel, the investigation into the Israeli killing of field nurse Razan al-Najjar, and more recently, the May 2021 Israeli offensive on the Gaza strip 

As I understood later, the decision was made based on a report prepared by a Dutch editor - who obtained Israeli citizenship two years ago - for a website called Honest Reporting. 

The article, which the New York Times had based its decision for dismissing me, gives examples of posts I wrote on my social media accounts, namely Facebook, where I had expressed support for the Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation... 

... My aforementioned posts also spoke of the resilience of my people and those who were killed by the Israeli army - my cousin included - which Honest Reporting described as “Palestinian terrorists”. 

The editor later wrote an article stating that he had succeeded in sacking three Palestinian journalists working for the New York Times in the Gaza Strip, on the basis of us being "anti-Semitic”. 

Not only has Honest Reporting succeeded in terminating my contract with The New York Times, it has also actively discouraged other international news agencies from collaborating with me and my two colleagues. 

What is taking place is a systematic effort to distort the image of Palestinian journalists as being incapable of trustworthiness and integrity, simply because we cover the human rights violations that the Palestinian people undergo on a daily basis at hands of the Israeli army 

He doesn't link to the Honest Reporting article that shows that he praised the massacre of four rabbis and a Druze policeman in 2014, that he has repeatedly praised suicide bombers that killed 10 in 2004, and he has continued to explicitly support terror attacks even after starting his work with the Times:

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 (see here and here).

(It is possible that suicide bomber Mahmoud Salem was a relative.)

Now let's look at Salem's words defending himself again. "I had expressed support for the Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation..." That is an admission that he considers praising murdering innocent people to be "supporting Palestinian resistance." 

And he concludes by saying that "What is taking place is a systematic effort to distort the image of Palestinian journalists as being incapable of trustworthiness and integrity..."

Salem is positioning his explicit support of terror as being a mainstream view among all Palestinian journalists. He says that exposing his praise of terror attacks is an attack on all Palestinian journalists. 

In other words, he is saying that his opinions are mainstream, not anomalous. 

If a Zionist would say that all Palestinian journalists cannot be trusted to be objective because they all support terror, the Zionist would properly be branded a bigot. Each journalist must be judged on their own merits and their own words. Stereotyping them is wrong.

But what does it mean when a Palestinian journalist insists that all Palestinian journalists like him support terror? When he claims that his noxious support for murdering rabbis and others is simply the same "covering human rights violations" that all reporters supposedly do? He isn't apologizing for his views - he is claiming that he, like all Palestinian journalists, is just covering the news. Praising the murders of Jews is indistinguishable from journalism.

He puts all Palestinian journalists in the same bucket as himself. (And so does Al Jazeera.)  Does that make him a racist? 

The reality is that support for terror is a mainstream Palestinian opinion, across multiple surveys for decades. Sometimes the majority support terror, other times is drops to less than 50%, but it is always an accepted, popular opinion. Assuming that all Palestinians support terror is indeed racist, but understanding that there is a high chance that a random Palestinian who is hired for a position at a major Western media outlet might indeed be a terror supporter is prudent. As the New York Times has learned, vetting one's social media posts before hiring anyone is essential.  

As far as the many who are claiming that Salem is the victim of anti-Palestinian racism, they are the ones who are racist - because they are claiming that all Palestinians support murdering Jews. 

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In a Palestinian society where guns are cheap and violence is admired, people murder each other

In Hebron yesterday, three people were executed while driving in a car - by other Palestinians.

Fighting broke out in Yatta as the news spread.

This happens often. Sometimes the murders are from family feuds, sometimes from honor killings. 

The Palestinian Independent Center for Human Rights finds a correlation between Palestinians attacking Jews and Palestinians attacking Palestinians. 

The same report notes that the Palestinian Authority is not keen on prosecuting those who misuse weapons - because a lot of them are members of Fatah.

But it happens in Gaza, too. And in the Palestinian camps in Syria and Lebanon. When you have a society where the most admired people are terrorists, and where guns are easily available, where honor is the motivating factor in nearly every decision -  this is what is going to happen.

Not that there are any academic papers on the phenomenon. I couldn't find any from the past 20 years that mentioned "security chaos" or "clan clashes" or "family feuds" in Palestinian territories. There are plenty of articles in Arabic about the phenomenon, but in the overwhelmingly liberal halls of academia, this is not a topic for analysis. Palestinians are killed by Jews, not by other Palestinians.

And among the "progressive" crowd, one never hears calls for effective gun control in the Palestinian territories. But in that case, the reason is because they support Palestinians attacking Jews, and they need weapons to do that. A little collateral damage of scores of Palestinians killed as a result?  To these faux liberals, it is a small price to pay.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Security chaos in Gaza and the West Bank that Western media ignores

Two incidents in the past 24 hours highlight the contempt for law in the Palestinian territories.

This morning, a group of Islamic Jihad militants entered a mosque near Khan Younis and (while wearing shoes) forcibly abducted three worshipers, while shooting their guns in the air.

Islamic Jihad later apologized, saying that the kidnappers were not authorized. But the fact that masked members of Islamic Jihad feel free to abduct men from a mosque during prayers shows how little regard they have for both the law and for Islam.

Over in the West Bank, people forcibly broke into the International Committee of the Red Cross headquarters in Ramallah in solidarity with an Islamic Jihad hunger striker in prison. 

Palestinian Authority forces went in and brought the protesters out, because it doesn't look good fo Palestinians to attack the Red Cross. (This is hardly the first time the ICRC has been attacked by Palestinians.)

I did not see anything in Palestinian Authority media about the incident. But Hamas and Islamic Jihad media bitterly complained about the eviction, saying that the PA was collaborating with Israel in detaining the protesters who were braking and entering the ICRC.

Of course, the PA police went too far, also breaking up what appear to have been peaceful sit-ins outside ICRC offices in Jenin and Al-Bireh. Their respect for human rights is no better than those of the terror groups.

Western "pro-Palestinian" activists pretend that an independent Palestine would be a human rights paradise and as safe as Paris or Munich. In reality, it would soon enough look more like Kabul with armed groups competing with each other for power.

Which is why stories like this are not seen. The narrative is that Israel is the oppressor of Palestinians, not their fellow Palestinians. Sympathy for the Palestinians would be reduced if Western media reported on these kinds of daily incidents. 

This is a major reason the Arab world is losing their own sympathy for Palestinians - they can read these stories in Arabic. 

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