The allegedly Qatari-funded Middle East Eye has become the latest organization to cut ties with Palestinian journalist Shatha Hammad following an investigation by HonestReporting that revealed the Ramallah-based freelancer had posted numerous antisemitic comments on her social media profile.
Middle East Eye (MEE), which describes itself as providing “unique coverage” by encouraging its reporters to “take stories one step further rather than simply follow the official narrative,” published a statement on October 19 announcing the outlet would no longer work with Hammad:
Serious allegations of antisemitism have been made against Shatha Hammad, one of the freelance journalists Middle East Eye has worked with to report from the West Bank. Her reporting has been outstanding and won awards.
The allegations relate to her Facebook posts from 2014. While Ms Hammad has denied making the most egregious posts, she has not denied making a post in which she refers to Hitler.
MEE was totally unaware of these social media posts, which were made before she started to work with us, and MEE entered Ms Hammad’s work for these awards in good faith. These posts are totally unacceptable and we condemn them in the strongest terms.
MEE is committed to fighting racism in all its forms. As a media organisation that has extensively reported the misuse of allegations of antisemitism in British politics, and attempts to conflate antisemitism and anti-zionism, it is incumbent on MEE to totally dissociate ourselves from these posts and from Ms Hammad.
We remain committed to supporting the work of Palestinian journalists.”
Aside from the statement’s problematic elements — not least framing Hammad’s anti-Jewish outbursts as mere “allegations” before in the next paragraph acknowledging that she had “not denied” writing a post referring to Adolf Hitler — MEE’s firing of Hammad is significant considering the outlet itself frequently flirts with antisemitism.
The London-based publication’s editor David Hearst, who once expressed his fervent wish for “the end of Zionism,” not long ago penned an op-ed in MEE in which he raged against what he perceived as “Jewish supremacy” in Israel and ludicrously claimed the country was not a democracy.
This week alone, the outlet published a piece that gushed about how Palestinians were “rallying around Jerusalem’s Shuafat” by shaving their heads and making hoax calls — such actions, according to MEE, amounted to them finding “new ways to express their rejection of the occupation as strict Israeli restrictions and a manhunt continue.”
For those who are unfamiliar with this particular story, MEE was reporting on how Palestinian men in the West Bank began sporting buzzcuts in “solidarity” with the shaven-headed terrorist who murdered an 18-year-old Israeli soldier at the Shuafat junction checkpoint earlier this month.
Gunman Udai Tamimi was shot dead while attempting to murder another Israeli on October 19 — something MEE suggested was the result of rising tensions “in recent months in Palestinian cities amid a growing violent Israeli crackdown on renewed armed resistance.”
BREAKING🚨
Palestinian journalist Shatha Hammad has been stripped of her journalism award by the Thomson Reuters Foundation after we exposed her vile Facebook posts about Hitler, including those where she expressed her support for the Holocaust. pic.twitter.com/9skOwq8Kjh— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 18, 2022
Following our investigation into MEE’s former star freelancer Hammad and her disturbing online postings, the Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF), the charitable arm of the global wire service, and the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund (KSMF) both announced their decision to strip her of a journalism award that entailed a $5,000 cash prize and the chance to have her work “spotlighted through a multi-media campaign on the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s social media channels.”
Meanwhile, our piece that revealed Hammad had expressed support for the “extermination of the Jews” and even nicknamed herself “Hitler” in some Facebook posts has gone viral online.
In addition to numerous media reports mentioning HonestReporting’s work (see here, here and here), our tweet breaking the news of her award being rescinded set Twitter abuzz with more than 200,000 impressions and thousands of shares.
It may have been this fiery internet response that played a part in compelling MEE to disassociate from Hammad.
In any event, Middle East Eye has made a small step in the right direction.
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