HonestReporting Undeterred After Being Targeted by Iranian Press TV
HonestReporting came under attack this week for its success in highlighting antisemitic social media posts of journalists who praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and terrorist attacks that killed dozens of Jews, Muslims and Christians….
Normally, we don’t address such criticism, which comes and goes. But this time we were shocked to see that we garnered the attention of Press TV, a state-owned and funded news network of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and it therefore cannot be ignored.
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The Iranian regime that has killed more than 200 critics of its policies toward women in recent weeks found time to target HonestReporting, devoting its ‘Palestine Declassified‘ program to the question “Honest Reporting or Dishonest Intimidation?”
Show Depicts HonestReporting Staff’s Kids
The show accused the staff of HonestReporting of working for the Israeli government and the Israel Defense Forces, singling out staff members who served their compulsory military service. The decision by The New York Times to no longer work with journalists following their antisemitic posts was falsely attributed to a vast conspiracy.
Host Chris Williamson said the show would reveal “the way in which the Zionist regime marshals its forces internationally to remove critics from their jobs.”
Reporter Latifa Abouchakra concluded her report: “It’s clear that Hosam Salem, a Palestinian photographer from Gaza, was fired from his job at The New York Times by the Israeli military.”
The truth is that HonestReporting merely did its due diligence in vetting journalists who worked for mainstream media outlets from the Gaza Strip, which has no freedom of the press under the regime of the Iranian-backed Hamas, which is officially recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States.
There is no “calculated, coordinated effort to target anyone who stands up for the Palestinians,” as analyst David Miller alleged in the program. But grave antisemitism in both mainstream and social media must be properly monitored and called out.
Program analyst Adri Nieuwhof called HonestReporting editor Akiva Van Koningsveld, who revealed the antisemitic tweets, “brutal.” But is there anything more despicable than Press TV depicting staff members of HonestReporting with their children, in a vile attempt at intimidation?
The Journalists Behind the Story
A cursory look at those involved in the program reveals how far away they are from normal news reporters and analysts.
Williamson was suspended as a Labor Party member of parliament for suggesting that the party under Jeremy Corbyn was “too apologetic” for its well-documented antisemitism. In a 2017 interview with The Guardian, he described Labour’s antisemitism problem as “bullsh**” and “smears.”
Miller was a sociology professor at the University of Bristol, specializing in Islamophobia. In 2019, he was fired for antisemitic and anti-Israel comments made to students, calling Jewish students “political pawns by a violent, racist foreign regime.” During the recent Iranian protests, Miller told state media that activist Mahsa Amini was not murdered, as reports have shown, claiming the story was “invented by sources who had a reason to invent such things,” including “the Zionists.”
Nieuwhof has written about “the politicization and abuse of the term anti-Semitism,” “robbing it of any utility” and has made countless comparisons between the Jewish state and Nazi Germany (see, for instance, here, here and here).
For her part, Abouchakra, who worked as both a citizenship teacher and teachers union official in the UK, wrote about “dirty Zionists” and shared a post on social media saying that “Zionism is not just racist and genocidal. It’s stark raving mad.”
She described assassinated Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani as a “hero” and shared an image of a Jewish effigy represented as the devil.
The fact that an Iranian mouthpiece devoted an entire program to attacking HonestReporting proves the importance of what we fight for day in and day out.
Pro-Israel organizations working together to stymie efforts to smear Israel obviously worries Iran, and it should. Media outlets should be more careful and sensitive in what they publish, knowing that HonestReporting and other organizations are watching closely.
Miller said on the show that pro-Israel groups were “panicking due to Palestinian resistance” and predicted that “the collapse of the Zionist entity may happen sooner than we think.”
It is clear that it is Iran that is panicking, as international and internal pressure on its nefarious regime intensifies.
And if HonestReporting is being attacked by the likes of Iran and the most anti-Israel groups in the US and around the world, we must be doing something right.
They will continue to criticize.
Israel and HonestReporting will continue going strong.
Benjamin Amram contributed to this report
Liked this article? Follow HonestReporting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to see even more posts and videos debunking news bias and smears, as well as other content explaining what’s really going on in Israel and the region.
New! Skip the social scroll and get the latest from HonestReporting via Telegram.
Gil Hoffman is the executive director of HonestReporting.com. Previously, he served as chief political correspondent and analyst for The Jerusalem Post for nearly 25 years. Well-connected to Israeli and Palestinian leaders, he has interviewed every major figure across the Israeli political spectrum, has been interviewed by top media on six continents and is a regular analyst on CNN, Al-Jazeera and other news outlets. He was raised in Chicago, graduated Magna Cum Laude from Northwestern University’s School of Journalism, and wrote for the Miami Herald and Arizona Republic before moving to Israel. A reserve soldier in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, he has lectured in every major English-speaking country in the world, more than half the Canadian provinces, and recently made history in Hawaii by becoming the first speaker to have lectured about Israel in all 50 US states. He lives with his family in Jerusalem.
HonestReporting Undeterred After Being Targeted by Iranian Press TV
Reading time: 4 minutes
HonestReporting came under attack this week for its success in highlighting antisemitic social media posts of journalists who praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and terrorist attacks that killed dozens of Jews, Muslims and Christians.
Normally, we don’t address such criticism, which comes and goes. But this time we were shocked to see that we garnered the attention of Press TV, a state-owned and funded news network of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and it therefore cannot be ignored.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
The Iranian regime that has killed more than 200 critics of its policies toward women in recent weeks found time to target HonestReporting, devoting its ‘Palestine Declassified‘ program to the question “Honest Reporting or Dishonest Intimidation?”
Show Depicts HonestReporting Staff’s Kids
The show accused the staff of HonestReporting of working for the Israeli government and the Israel Defense Forces, singling out staff members who served their compulsory military service. The decision by The New York Times to no longer work with journalists following their antisemitic posts was falsely attributed to a vast conspiracy.
Host Chris Williamson said the show would reveal “the way in which the Zionist regime marshals its forces internationally to remove critics from their jobs.”
Reporter Latifa Abouchakra concluded her report: “It’s clear that Hosam Salem, a Palestinian photographer from Gaza, was fired from his job at The New York Times by the Israeli military.”
The truth is that HonestReporting merely did its due diligence in vetting journalists who worked for mainstream media outlets from the Gaza Strip, which has no freedom of the press under the regime of the Iranian-backed Hamas, which is officially recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States.
There is no “calculated, coordinated effort to target anyone who stands up for the Palestinians,” as analyst David Miller alleged in the program. But grave antisemitism in both mainstream and social media must be properly monitored and called out.
Related Reading: New York Times ‘Takes Action’ vs. Pro-Hitler, Pro-Terror Freelancers Due to HonestReporting Probe
Program analyst Adri Nieuwhof called HonestReporting editor Akiva Van Koningsveld, who revealed the antisemitic tweets, “brutal.” But is there anything more despicable than Press TV depicting staff members of HonestReporting with their children, in a vile attempt at intimidation?
The Journalists Behind the Story
A cursory look at those involved in the program reveals how far away they are from normal news reporters and analysts.
Williamson was suspended as a Labor Party member of parliament for suggesting that the party under Jeremy Corbyn was “too apologetic” for its well-documented antisemitism. In a 2017 interview with The Guardian, he described Labour’s antisemitism problem as “bullsh**” and “smears.”
Miller was a sociology professor at the University of Bristol, specializing in Islamophobia. In 2019, he was fired for antisemitic and anti-Israel comments made to students, calling Jewish students “political pawns by a violent, racist foreign regime.” During the recent Iranian protests, Miller told state media that activist Mahsa Amini was not murdered, as reports have shown, claiming the story was “invented by sources who had a reason to invent such things,” including “the Zionists.”
Related Reading: Media Omit Antisemitism in Reports About Fired Professor Who Called Jewish Students ‘Pawns’ of Israel, ‘Threat’ to Arabs and Muslims
Nieuwhof has written about “the politicization and abuse of the term anti-Semitism,” “robbing it of any utility” and has made countless comparisons between the Jewish state and Nazi Germany (see, for instance, here, here and here).
She stands in close contact with multiple Israel-designated terror groups, as well as the Palestinian BDS National Committee, which advocates for an end to Jewish self-determination.
For her part, Abouchakra, who worked as both a citizenship teacher and teachers union official in the UK, wrote about “dirty Zionists” and shared a post on social media saying that “Zionism is not just racist and genocidal. It’s stark raving mad.”
She described assassinated Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani as a “hero” and shared an image of a Jewish effigy represented as the devil.
Related Reading: Inside The Quds Force: Iran’s Long Arm of Terror
The fact that an Iranian mouthpiece devoted an entire program to attacking HonestReporting proves the importance of what we fight for day in and day out.
Pro-Israel organizations working together to stymie efforts to smear Israel obviously worries Iran, and it should. Media outlets should be more careful and sensitive in what they publish, knowing that HonestReporting and other organizations are watching closely.
Press TV works out of London, which is increasingly problematic, as Iran supports terror against civilians around the world.
Miller said on the show that pro-Israel groups were “panicking due to Palestinian resistance” and predicted that “the collapse of the Zionist entity may happen sooner than we think.”
It is clear that it is Iran that is panicking, as international and internal pressure on its nefarious regime intensifies.
And if HonestReporting is being attacked by the likes of Iran and the most anti-Israel groups in the US and around the world, we must be doing something right.
They will continue to criticize.
Israel and HonestReporting will continue going strong.
Benjamin Amram contributed to this report
Liked this article? Follow HonestReporting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to see even more posts and videos debunking news bias and smears, as well as other content explaining what’s really going on in Israel and the region.
New! Skip the social scroll and get the latest from HonestReporting via Telegram.
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