States warn AP about helping Hamas

Major media outlets hired Palestinian photojournalists to cover the war

WQCS-FM, an NPR affiliate, reported, “Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and a coalition of attorneys general have issued issued a warning to media companies with possible ties to foreign terrorist organizations.

“Attorney General Moody and the coalition sent a letter reminding the publisher of the New York Times, the CEO of the Associated Press, the CEO and editor-in-chief of CNN and the president of Reuters that providing material support to terrorists and terror organizations is a crime. This follows reports that individuals hired by these outlets have troubling ties to Hamas.”

Attorneys general in 14 states put the press on notice: Quit hiring terrorists as photo journalists because it is against the law.

Republican Attorney General Brenna Bird of Iowa wrote the letter, which was signed by attorneys general in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.

Honest Reporting reported a month ago, “On October 7, Hamas terrorists were not the only ones who documented the war crimes they had committed during their deadly rampage across southern Israel. Some of their atrocities were captured by Gaza-based photojournalists working for the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies whose early morning presence at the breached border area raises serious ethical questions.

“What were they doing there so early on what would ordinarily have been a quiet Saturday morning? Was it coordinated with Hamas? Did the respectable wire services, which published their photos, approve of their presence inside enemy territory, together with the terrorist infiltrators? Did the photojournalists who freelance for other media, like CNN and the New York Times, notify these outlets? Judging from the pictures of lynching, kidnapping and storming of an Israeli kibbutz, it seems like the border has been breached not only physically, but also journalistically.

“Four names appear on AP’s photo credits from the Israel-Gaza border area on October 7: Hassan Eslaiah, Yousef Masoud, Ali Mahmud, and Hatem Ali.

“Eslaiah, a freelancer who also works for CNN, crossed into Israel, took photos of a burning Israeli tank, and then captured infiltrators entering Kibbutz Kfar Azza.”

Those were not news photos. Those were souvenirs. The terrorists documented their war crimes and AP and the rest paid for a few of them.

14 state attorneys general just put the media on notice.

Their letter said, “The long record of paying terrorists and possible terrorists for their work risks embroiling your outlets in investigations and the consequent loss of further credibility with the public. That is why a bipartisan group of lawmakers sent a letter to Reuters asking how its journalist knew to be available for the October 7 attack. Those lawmakers ask several questions that should be answered, including whether Reuters had prior knowledge of the attack and whether the Reuters journalist had contact with Hamas or its agents before the attack.

“This is not a new problem. Five years ago, a media watchdog notified AP that one of its journalists worked for the Hamas-affiliated Quds TV. On February 20, 2020, the New York Times published an opinion piece written by Sirajuddin Haqqani of the Taliban—a designated foreign terrorist organization. Mr. Haqqani himself is on the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control Sanctions List. Did the Times pay for that piece? If so, whom did it pay? Was that payment consistent with federal and State laws?

“These questions are still unanswered.

“Material-support statutes recognize that organizations like Hamas ‘are so tainted by their criminal conduct that any contribution to such an organization facilitates that [criminal] conduct.’ Federal law has long made the knowing provision of material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations like Hamas illegal. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 2339B. Section 2339A defines material support to include ‘any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments . . . expert advice or assistance . . . communications equipment, facilities . . . and transportation, except medicine or religious materials.”

CNN has a long history of supporting dictators. It admitted it covered up the war crimes of Saddam Hussein, with its Baghdad bureau performing PR for him instead of reporting the news. As American forces routed Hussein’s army in 2003, the CNN executive sobbed crocodile tears, writing in the New York Times: “I felt awful having these stories bottled up inside me. Now that Saddam Hussein's regime is gone, I suspect we will hear many, many more gut-wrenching tales from Iraqis about the decades of torment. At last, these stories can be told freely.”

Oh dear, he felt awful. Poor man. George Bush did nothing about this.

14 state attorneys general are not George Bush. They put the media on notice

Of course, the media closed ranks long before the letter was written; Le Monde reported, “The accusation was of a rare severity. Israel's official account on X, managed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote on November 9 that AP, CNN, the New York Times and Reuters had journalists embedded with Hamas terrorists during the October 7 massacre, before deleting its message.

“Israel’s war cabinet minister, Benny Gantz, went so far as to denounce criminal collusion: ‘Journalists found to have known about the massacre, and still chose to stand as idle bystanders while children were slaughtered — are no different than terrorists and should be treated as such,’ he declared, reports nationalist media network Arutz Sheva (known as Israel National News in English).

“No evidence was found to support these accusations, which were refuted by the major media outlets and by minute-by-minute reconstruction of the events. Through its executive director, Gil Hoffman, Honest Reporting, the group that made the accusations, has since said it was simply raising questions.”

The accusations weren’t refuted; they were denied.

Earlier, AP denied having ANY knowledge that its Gaza City bureau was located in the building that housed Hamas’s military intelligence offices — thus shielding Hamas from retaliation by Israel. Eventually, Israel called AP, gave it an hour to leave, and blew the building up.

AP was furious.

The New York Post reported, “The Associated Press is taking heat for claiming it had no idea Hamas militants operated at the news agency’s Gaza headquarters destroyed by an Israeli airstrike — as U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Monday he ‘has seen no evidence’ presented by Israel of the group’s presence in the building.”

Blinken supports Hamas and pressured Israel to give Palestinians a 16th ceasefire last week — which the Palestinians promptly broke.

We all know what these news agencies are doing. Access is the name of the game in journalism and news agencies will sacrifice anything for it. To gain access to the devil, the media must play by the devil’s rules. That means hiring the devil’s journalists and doing his bidding.

I am happy to see someone in America stand up to these devil’s bargains the media makes. Hiding behind the First Amendment to protect the devil is just as evil as Hamas hiding its weapons of war behind women and children.

A free press chained to terrorists and other adversaries deserves no protection. As Justice Jackson said, the Constitution is not a suicide pact.