While evidence of antisemitism was only found for one of the journalists, the other three were expressing support for the Palestinian cause and resistance
A 6 March report by the US-based, pro-Israel media monitoring organization, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), has resulted in the suspension of four journalists belonging to France 24’s Arabic branch over antisemitic social media posts.
The four are Lebanese journalists and correspondents Joelle Maroun, Dina Abi Saab, Sharif Bibi, and Palestinian journalist Laila Odeh.
“After the publication of an article on the CAMERA website … implicating a journalist and three Arabic-language correspondents of France24 regarding certain comments they allegedly posted on their personal pages on social networks, the channel’s management has immediately opened an audit on these alleged posts,” the French outlet said in a press release on 12 March.
The pro-Israel media monitor has carried out an extensive sweep of the journalists’ Twitter and Facebook accounts, including tweets and posts dating back years.
The posts of one of the journalists, Joelle Maroun, are undeniably antisemitic – given that they indicate a kind of admiration of Adolf Hitler and include the term ‘Jew’ about Israelis, as opposed to the word ‘Zionist,’ a legitimate term used to describe supporters of a Jewish state in Palestine. One of Maroun’s tweets includes the hashtag “I Hate You Jew.”
However, the other three – Abi Saab, Bibi, and Odeh – were merely exercising freedom of speech in support of the Palestinian cause and the resistance in Palestine.
In several posts, Odeh – France 24’s Jerusalem correspondent – referred to Palestinian resistance members who Israel killed as ‘martyrs.’ She has also criticized the 20th-centuryth century British policies that helped form the State of Israel, including the 1917 Balfour declaration – the British government’s call for establishing a ‘Jewish homeland’ in Palestine.
These are examples of what the CAMERA report labels as antisemitic.
WATCH: France24 correspondent Laila Odeh was heckled and verbally assaulted by Israelis in Jerusalem for speaking Arabic. pic.twitter.com/TVl25XlNvG
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) November 24, 2022
Abi Saab, France 24’s Geneva correspondent, was also labeled antisemitic for making statements that in no way are derogatory to Jewish people. Tweets supporting Palestinian resistance rocket-fire and the likening Israeli bombardment of Gaza to the 11 September attacks were given as proof of Abi Saab’s antisemitism.
In another instance of CAMERA’s inaccurate labeling, Bibi – a France 24 journalist since 2014 – has been called antisemitic for referring to Israel as ‘the Zionist entity’ and for calling for a dismantling of the state of Israel – which the report described as disregard for “the fate of Israel’s Jewish population in the event of their country’s annihilation.”
The CAMERA report is reminiscent of what German news outlet Deutsche Welle’s (DW) Arabic branch did last year when the outlet fired several Palestinian journalists for years-old tweets that were critical of Israel.
At the time, the termination of the journalists was viewed as a violation of freedom of speech principles and an undeniable bias in favor of the Israeli occupation.