HonestReporting Follow-Up: Tala Halawa, Who Tweeted ‘#HitlerWasRight’, Blames ‘Pro-Israel Mob’ For Dismissal

In May, a tweet by HonestReporting exposing then-BBC Monitoring journalist Tala Halawa as having previously shared deeply antisemitic sentiments on social media went viral. One of her tweets included the hashtag “#HitlerWasRight.”

Tala Halawa is a "digital journalist" for the @BBC.

Halawa directly influences and creates news content watched by many millions around the world.

In what world can someone like this work for a professional news outlet? pic.twitter.com/r2LIHmZfF2

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 23, 2021

As a result, dozens of news outlets around the world covered the story, and the BBC thereafter announced that it had opened an investigation. This was followed a few weeks later by a statement that Halawa “no longer works for the BBC.”

Now, Halawa has responded on social media, blaming her dismissal on a “pro-Israel mob.”

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The statement, shared on Halawa’s Facebook and Twitter feeds, accuses the BBC of “capitulating to pressure from external pro-Israel interest groups and right-wing media outlets determined to eliminate Palestinians from public life.”

Instead of expressing regret and admitting that she had disseminated deeply antisemitic content on numerous occasions, Halawa characterized herself as merely “a young Palestinian woman tweeting in the heat of the moment” and falsely framed her firing as “based on a single offensive and ignorant tweet.”

In fact, numerous tweets were found on Halawa’s Twitter account, which has since been deleted and set up anew. The @GnasherJew Twitter account, which investigates and exposes Jew-haters, documented numerous examples of antisemitism by Halawa, including tweets mocking the Holocaust and the massacre of Jews during prayers in Jerusalem as well as a post calling for the relocation of Israel to within America.

Nevertheless, Halawa refused to acknowledge the full extent of her antisemitic posts, instead depicting her dismissal as arising from a “trend of bad-faith intimidation of reporters from the region by hostile actors and organised public flogging.”

Doubling down, Halawa claimed this was “aimed at setting the parameters of acceptable journalism to suit Israel, and policing international media to maintain institutional pro-Israel bias.”

Talawa’s rant was reported on by Newsweek, which specifically referenced HonestReporting, in addition to numerous other media outlets (see here, here and here, for example).

In response, HonestReporting’s Emanuel Miller (the author of this piece) reacted to Halawa’s statement by posting a thread on Twitter, which has since gone viral.

But I did not respond with hatred.

I remember when my brother was sent to fight against Hamas in 2009 and was saved from almost-certain death, I was shocked.

But I did not respond with racism.

— Emanuel Miller ✡️ (@emanumiller) July 14, 2021

After I discovered you had been fired, I wrote a post describing my feelings as mixed, proud and sad, because I do not desire for people to lose their jobs. pic.twitter.com/Ci9CQvvyZA

— Emanuel Miller ✡️ (@emanumiller) July 14, 2021

Even now, you seek to downplay your antisemitism. Your tweets made fun of the massacre of orthodox Jews in prayer months later, for crying out loud. Yet most of your statement serves to portray YOU as the victim.

— Emanuel Miller ✡️ (@emanumiller) July 14, 2021

P.S.

I'm part-Iraqi. My grandfather was born in Baghdad. The whole "of colour" thing doesn't wash.

We Jews are not white. We certainly weren't white enough in Europe, and we certainly weren't equal to our Muslim neighbours in the Middle East.

— Emanuel Miller ✡️ (@emanumiller) July 14, 2021

It should be stressed that at the time of its original complaint to the BBC, HonestReporting did not call for Halawa to be dismissed. Instead, we urged the BBC to apologize; carry out checks on existing employees in order to remove all individuals with histories of racism, xenophobia and antisemitism; and establish basic background checks to ensure this never happens again.

However, Halawa’s lamentable response — essentially gaslighting Jews for protesting her obscene social media posts rather than her taking full responsibility — seemingly makes clear that her journalistic integrity is still comprised by her antisemitism.