Palestinian BBC journalist tweeted ‘#HitlerWasRight’ in 2014 comment on Gaza war
Tala Halawa, at the time working for a Palestinian radio station, also wrote ‘Israel is more Nazi than Hitler,’ ‘Zionists can’t get enough of our blood’; BBC says probing matter
Cnaan Liphshiz was a Jewish World reporter at The Times of Israel
JTA — A journalist for the BBC based in Ramallah in 2014 tweeted “#HitlerWasRight” about Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
Honest Reporting, an Israeli organization whose mission statement is “promoting fairness and accuracy in media coverage of Israel,” offered a screen capture on Sunday of a tweet by Tala Halawa, whose account on the LinkedIn social network lists her as a “Digital Journalist at BBC Monitoring,” a position she began in 2017.
Last week, Halawa was credited on the BBC website for participating in the writing of an article titled “Israel-Gaza violence: The children who have died in the conflict” between Hamas and Israel, which reached a ceasefire on Friday following 11 days of fighting.
In 2014, she was working for 24FM, a Palestinian radio station.
Reacting to earlier hostilities between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, she wrote on Twitter: “#Israel is more #Nazi than #Hitler! Oh, #HitlerWasRight #IDF go to hell. #prayForGaza.”
Honest Reporting also cited what it said were additional 2014 tweets by Halawa, including where she wrote “Zionists can’t get enough of our blood” and “anti-Semitism melodrama is not trending anymore you stupid Zionists.”
“These tweets predate the individual’s employment with the BBC, but we are nevertheless taking this very seriously and are investigating,” a BBC spokesperson said Sunday in response to a query by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Halawa had worked for six months as a researcher for The New Yorker, according to her LinkedIn account, before taking up a position with the BBC.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this article.
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