An award-winning Vice News producer has downplayed the actions of her father, a convicted leader of the Palestinian terrorist organization Islamic Jihad (PIJ), HonestReporting revealed exclusively on Monday. In multiple social media posts, Lama Al-Arian portrayed Sami Al-Arian as an innocent victim of US government overreach, in addition to calling him a “political prisoner” in a 2007 interview.
Since joining Vice three years ago, Lama Al-Arian co-produced at least five one-sided video reports about Israel, including “Death of a Palestinian Protester” and “Inside the Battle for Jerusalem,” which HonestReporting critiqued in-depth. Additionally, she has more than once been caught twisting facts about Islamic Jihad, and even stands accused of inciting hatred against Jews.
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“[A] professor by day and a terrorist by night.” That’s how federal prosecutor Cherie Krigsman described Sami Al-Arian during his 2005 criminal trial. Al-Arian, once a computer-engineering professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, first aroused suspicion in the 90s, when PBS and a local newspaper alleged the university-based think tank he headed helped raise money for Iran-backed Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups in the Middle East.
At one fundraiser, Al-Arian was taped praising deadly attacks and glorifying the death of a 5-year-old Palestinian boy who had thrown rocks at Israelis. “Thus is the way of martyrdom. Thus is the way of blood, because this is the path to heaven,” the disgraced professor reportedly told attendees. “Your brothers in Palestine are struggling with their beings, so let us struggle here with our money… We will not cede one meter or one span to the enemies of God!”
After years of investigation, on February 20, 2003, the US Department of Justice announced the arrest of “the North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Sami Al-Arian,” and seven others. According to wiretaps and letters cited by prosecutors, the Tampa cell raised money for Palestinian terrorism in close coordination with Tehran. Case in point: After a PIJ suicide bombing at the Beit Lid junction massacred 22 Israelis in 1995, Al-Arian explicitly solicited donations for “the jihad effort in Palestine so that operations such as these can continue.”
During his subsequent trial, the jury deadlocked on three of the four most serious conspiracy charges, including the charge of conspiracy to provide services to Islamic Jihad. Rather than face a lengthy retrial, Al-Arian pled guilty to “knowingly conspiring to make or receive contributions of funds, goods, and services” to Islamic Jihad. In the plea deal, he admitted to being part of Islamic Jihad, carrying out services for the terrorist group, and lying to the press.
“You are a master manipulator… The evidence was clear in this case that you were a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” noted US District Judge James Moody Jr. as he imposed the maximum sentence allowed by the plea bargain, lamenting: “Your children attend the finest universities this country had to offer while you raise money to blow up the children of others.”
On February 4, 2015, in accordance with the plea agreement, Sami Al-Arian was deported to Turkey.
Related Reading: Brief Profile: What is Palestinian Islamic Jihad?
Lama Al-Arian’s Anti-Israel Slant
Notably, all five of Al-Arian’s children went on to occupy prominent positions in the media and academia. Ali Al-Arian is a filmmaker who was previously employed by Qatar’s Al Jazeera; Laila works for Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines and is credited as the executive producer on the controversial documentary “The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh“; Leena serves as the opinion editor at Qatar-funded Middle East Eye; and Abdullah is an associate professor at Georgetown University in Qatar.
Meanwhile, after a brief stint at Al Jazeera, Al-Arian’s youngest daughter, Lama Al-Arian, found employment as a producer reporting on Israel for mainstream US news outlets. Yet Lama, who once described her father as a “political prisoner,” continues to deny the very charges Sami Al-Arian admitted to some 17 years ago.
For instance, on February 5, 2019, the Vice producer took to Instagram to share a statement that implied the PIJ fundraiser was prosecuted for exercising his First Amendment rights. Then, in February 2023, Lama went a step further and defended her father. “[N]ot a single guilty verdict was given in the trial. Nonetheless, it took almost 13 years for my father to be released from prison,” proclaimed Al-Arian, blatantly glossing over the fact that Sami Al-Arian confessed to aiding a murderous terror group.
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Like her father, Lama Al-Arian has promoted extremist anti-Israel positions. In 2019, she proudly posted a selfie with Roger Waters, who for years has acted as the poster boy for the antisemitic BDS movement. Two years earlier, during a visit to what she called “occupied east Jerusalem,” Al-Arian accused the Jewish state of “apartheid.” Also in 2017, she hailed the “historic moment” when Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah exclaimed, “To Jerusalem we are marching, with millions of martyrs.” Moreover, in a birthday wish to a close friend, Lama wrote, “Here’s to keeping all Zionist products out of our bodies!”
As a student at American University in 2011, Al-Arian reported for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, a journal known for its strong pro-Palestinian bias. In an article posted online, she called Norman Finkelstein — infamous for his anti-Israel libels and his book on the “Holocaust Industry” — an “exceptional advocate for Palestinian self-determination” while condemning the Jewish state’s alleged “atrocities and total disregard of international law.”
Earlier this year, Lama came under fire for inciting hatred against Jews after she used an unrelated picture of an ultra-Orthodox Israeli politician to falsely charge Jerusalem with racism against Palestinians.
The Israeli gov passed a law that *Israeli citizens* who slaughter Israeli families for national reasons, will lose their Israeli citizenship.
But @VICENews used this specific picture of one Israeli politician (out of 120, you know why they picked him) to spread lies about Jews. https://t.co/AHF4XftazT
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) February 18, 2023
Related Reading: VICE ‘Investigation’ Alleges Conspiracy to Cover Up Palestinian Rioter’s Death — But Fails to Prove Anything
As explained in the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, professional journalists should “avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.”
While Lama Al-Arian can’t be blamed for her father’s PIJ past, her defense of his actions, coupled with her proven hatred of the Jewish state, shed some light on Vice’s failure to report impartially on the Arab-Israeli conflict, specifically with regard to Islamic Jihad.
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