Episode 38: The International Zionist Network Targets Palestine

First aired on 15 October 2022

Honest Reporting or Dishonest Intimidation? A Palestinian who spent 4 years working for the New York Times in Gaza has been dismissed by the newspaper following the intervention of an Israel lobby group.

Hosam Salem said he was "informed via an abrupt phone call from the US outlet that they will no longer work with him in the future." He even stated that the lobby group not only "succeeded in terminating his contract with the New York Times, it has also actively discouraged other international news agencies from collaborating with me and my two colleagues."

Of course, The New York Times had no problem employing Ethan Bronner, Isabel Kershner, and David Brooks to write about Palestine while all three had children fighting in the Israeli military.

But who was this lobby group behind his dismissal, and how close is it to the Israeli regime? The ironically named Honest Reporting was founded in 2006 by Joe Hyams who is a registered bureau speaker for the Israeli Embassy in the US.

Another employee has been Simon Plosker who worked in the Spokesman Unit of the Israeli Military and also for UK Israel lobby group BICOM.

The CEO of Honest Reporting until very recently was Daniel Pomerantz, who before that was a civilian volunteer in the Israeli Military.

The current CEO, Jacki Alexander worked for Israel lobby giant AIPAC for 15 years. The role of Senior International Connector in Honest Reporting is served by David Mencer who led the Labour Friends of Israel in Britain for over a decade.

He counts speech-writing for Prime Ministers Boris Johnson, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown on his resume. Raquela Karamson works as Digital Media Specialist at Honest Reporting. She previously was in the Central Command of the Israeli Military during the second Intifada.

The lead designer at the pressure group is Bentzi Binder who was in the Israel military Givati combat infantry brigade.

The current Senior Editor of Honest Reporting, Gidon Ben-Zvi, also was part of the Israeli military. The executive director of Honest Reporting, Gil Hofman says that "he does not hide the fact that he served in the Spokespersons Unit of the Israeli military."

Palestine Declassified obtained footage of him talking openly about his organizations relationship with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "Today I went to a meeting at the foreign ministry, where there were organizations that work in the pro-Israel sphere, that they hosted, that are non governmental organizations.

And there were sixty of us there in the room and the government was explaining what it's doing and how they want to work better with us. It was quite impressive.

We’'ve got WhatsApp groups now, run by the government, where we share information, working together." So, it is clear that Hosam Salem, a Palestinian photographer from Gaza was fired from his job at the New York Times, effectively by the Israeli military.