Following HonestReporting’s uncovering of numerous violent and antisemitic Facebook posts by Fady Hanona, The New York Times this weekend became the first news organization to officially cut ties with the Gaza Strip-based freelancer.
On Thursday, an HonestReporting article highlighting Hanona’s blatant anti-Jewish racism went viral on social media (see here, here, and here), generating reports in various Jewish and Israeli publications. Responding to the backlash, a spokesperson for the Times was cited by The Algemeiner as stating that “The New York Times had worked with this freelance reporter only in recent weeks. We are no longer doing so.”
While the NYT’s swift action is to be commended, the incident casts serious doubt on the media’s ability to properly vet the integrity of their local sources. Seemingly, at least eight news outlets failed to take notice of Hanona’s antisemitic past — or they willfully turned a blind eye to it.
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‘The Jews Are Sons of the Dogs… I Am in Favor of Burning Them Like Hitler Did’
Out of the eight pieces produced by The New York Times during the recent escalation with Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), six credited Fady Hanona as having contributed from Gaza City (see here, here, here, here, here, and here). Yet Hanona, a producer and fixer who has worked for scores of news organizations, appeared to be advancing the anti-Israel narrative promoted by Palestinian terror groups that seek the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state.
For instance, during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge against Hamas in Gaza, the stringer took to social media to threaten the murder of Ghassan Alian, an Israeli Druze who commanded the IDF’s Golani Brigade at the time. Then, on August 18, 2014 — days before a ceasefire took effect between Israel and Hamas — Hanona urged the Palestinian “resistance” to reject a truce and continue its missile attacks on Tel Aviv, which had at that point already cost the lives of five civilians.
In another online post from the same month, he went as far as invoking Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to support his point about the strength of Gazan fighters. “As Hitler said, give me a Palestinian soldier and a German weapon, and I will make Europe crawl on its fingertips,” Hanona’s post read, citing an unconfirmed quote attributed to the man responsible for the murder of six million Jews.
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The NYT stringer furthermore shared a now-deleted propaganda video of terrorists in Jenin on Facebook, telling his followers that Palestinians should return to “the culture of fighting and killing Israelis.”
“I don’t accept a Jew, Israeli or Zionist, or anyone else who speaks Hebrew. I’m with killing them wherever they are: children, elderly people, and soldiers,” Hanona asserted, adding: “The Jews are sons of the dogs… I am in favor of killing them and burning them like Hitler did. I will be so happy.”
In 2021, Hanona came out in support of arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti, repeatedly backing him in now-deleted Facebook entries. Prior to his incarceration, Barghouti co-founded and headed the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, an organization that murdered dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings and shooting attacks during the Second Intifada (2000-2005).
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Once Bitten, Twice Shy? BBC Hires Yet Another Antisemite
Our August 11 expose, titled ‘The ‘Fix’ Is In: How Hitler-Praising Palestinians Are Warping Gaza Conflict Coverage,’ noted that:
Fady Hanona is, of course, entitled to his personal views, however ignorant and distasteful they may be. But as HonestReporting previously explained, fixers and translators with a political agenda can be selective with the information they feed the journalist or, at worst, mistranslate the words of interview subjects, resulting in skewed news coverage about the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
In addition to his assignment with The New York Times, the Hitler-admiring journalist was also employed in various capacities by the BBC, The Guardian, VICE News, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, RTÉ, The National, and Germany’s Die Welt, actively contributing to the anti-Israel slant of some of these publications.
The fact that the British public broadcaster has yet to distance itself from Hanona is particularly egregious. Just months ago, HonestReporting helped bring to public attention numerous antisemitic tweets written by BBC journalist Tala Halawa, including a post stating that “Hitler was right.” Notably, Halawa was part of the BBC team responsible for covering the May 2021 Gaza war. After a month-long investigation, she was fired.
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Research shows time after time that news consumers regard objectivity to be one of the most important litmus tests for professional journalism. Reporting the facts — without agendas and biases — is widely understood to be the media’s prime function.
As a first step, journalists should stop relying on avid Jew-haters like Hanona to misinform them about the conflict between Israel and Palestinian terror organizations.
Therefore, we at HonestReporting call on our members to lodge a formal complaint with the British Broadcasting Cooperation and, respectfully but firmly, demand that it immediately terminates its relationship with Fady Hanona.
Good.
Let’s hope the other outlets that have worked with vicious antisemite Fady Hanona—including @BBCNews, @Guardian, and @VICENews—also refuse to work with him after these revelations, though one has to ask how they came to hire him to begin with.https://t.co/Q1nRwvbY11
— Avi Mayer (@AviMayer) August 13, 2022
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