Earlier today, I noted that the American media has returned to reporting the war in Gaza on Hamas’ terms. We’re back to seeing sources identified as “Gaza health ministry” and “Gaza civil defense,” when all of these functions are controlled and run by Hamas. Not just ex officio as the elected government of Gaza either, but literally run by and mainly staffed by members of Hamas.
The American media doesn’t want to admit that Gaza is a de facto terror state, however, so they pretend that casualty and damage data is coming from some kind of disinterested bureaucracy. But even that isn’t as dishonest as what Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel alleges about the Washington Post’s Middle East coverage. Rather than just use Hamas as a source, the WaPo apparently hired one of its propagandists as a reporter:
A Middle East reporter for The Washington Post is facing scrutiny for online commentary in which she has called Israel an illegal state, openly identified as an anti-Zionist and signaled support for Hamas and Hezbollah, among other posts now raising questions about the objectivity of her coverage on the region.
In an extensive series of social media remarks mostly published between 2012 and 2014, Heba Farouk Mahfouz, a reporter and researcher in the Post’s Cairo bureau whose recent coverage largely focuses on Israel and Hamas, frequently inveighed against Israel, saying it was “not a point of view” but “a fact” that the country is a “colonial, illegal” state. She also described Zionism as “racism,” while dismissing her critics as “Zio-Nazis” — a pejorative deemed by some watchdog groups as antisemitic. …
Mahfouz has otherwise expressed alignment with Hamas and Hezbollah, according to translated posts first written in Arabic. While she voiced disapproval of what she called “Hamas’ social suppression of the Palestinians,” Mahfouz wrote in May 2013 that she was “always and forever with the resistance as long as it is against the Zionist entity,” according to one translation.
“With the resistance always and forever,” Mahfouz said in a separate post published the following year. “And with Hamas and Hezbollah if their weapons are against Israel and not against Arabs like them.”
This started when Eitan Fischberger, a free-lance columnist and reporter, decided to dig into Mahfouz’ social-media history. It didn’t take long to hit pay dirt, either. Fischberger published his findings on Twitter/X, but then helpfully posted them in essay form on his Fisch Files website one week ago:
It’s been roughly nine years since Ms. Mahfouz joined The Washington Post team. Did nobody, during those approximately 3,200 days, notice her burning desire for Israel to cease existing and for Hamas to terrorize it? Not a single editor? Not a single colleague? I doubt it.
Of course, it’s simply inarguable that Ms. Mahfouz should be kept far away from any newsroom covering Israel and the Palestinians.
But with the way The Washington Post has been operating, expect her to be named Middle East Editor by next week.
Heh. Until a few weeks ago — say, around the Inauguration — I wouldn’t have been surprised to see her get named managing editor. And she still has a shot at that position at the New York Times.
As Fischberger notes, Mahfouz posted these public statements before the Washington Post hired her. Did the Post ever even bother to check her social-media feeds to see if she was unbiased enough to report on news in a balanced manner? Especially on this beat? If they failed to review her public postings before making a decision to hire her, that’s unbelievably incompetent, literally. It’s far more likely that the Post wanted this perspective in its news coverage, and that her social media stream boosted her hiring prospects.
Now that these postings have been exposed, the Post tells Jewish Insider that management is now “aware” of Mahfouz’ advocacy and activism, and is “looking into” the issue. Maybe the Post should review all of its previous hiring decisions, particularly on this beat, to see whether they routinely hired terror apologists and toxic anti-Semites to craft the news for its readers. And that advice applies to every single media outlet that likes to cite data from the “Gaza health ministry,” too.
As the current saying instructs: You can’t hate the mainstream media enough.
The only way to hold the corrupt media accountable is to support independent voices and platforms. The Protection Racket Media will continue its efforts to suppress and silence its critics by whatever means necessary — collusion with Big Tech censors, self-appointed “misinformation” police, and their own ignorant “fact checkers.”
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