by WorldTribune Staff, May 1, 2024
Mounted on the sides of the entryway to Columbia University’s Pulitzer Hall – named after Joseph Pulitzer, the founder of the university’s journalism school and the namesake of the coveted Pulitzer Prize – is a memorial honoring journalists killed in the Israel-Gaza war.
The 98 honorees, selected by the non-profit Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), include 21 employees of Hamas propaganda TV and radio stations, 11 affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group, and at least three who were active alleged terrorists before their deaths.
“The school has not publicized the memorial,” DailyMail.com, which revealed Columbia’s paying homage to Hamas media martyrs, reported on Wednesday. “But in February Columbia’s journalism professor Nina Berman shared a picture of it to her personal Instagram account, accompanied by the following warning: ‘Anyone commenting with doubts about the legitimacy of these journalists or suggestions that they are terrorists will be promptly blocked.’ ”
One of Columbia’s honorees, Mohamed Khalifeh, was a director at Al Aqsa Television. In 2010, the Obama administration sanctioned Al Aqsa TV as a terrorist entity.
“Al-Aqsa is a primary Hamas media outlet and airs programs and music videos designed to recruit children to become Hamas armed fighters and suicide bombers upon reaching adulthood,” the U.S. Treasury Department noted. “[We] will not distinguish between a business financed and controlled by a terrorist group, such as Al-Aqsa Television, and the terrorist group itself.”
Writing for DailyMail.com, Todd Bensman noted: “It’s certainly strange that two revered institutions of American journalism would memorialize ‘journalists’ involved in the production of terrorist propaganda, especially when publicly available information raises serious questions about the integrity of their outlets. It is stranger still that they would lionize alleged terrorists – though CPJ claims to explicitly exclude such individuals.”
“We do not include journalists [in the honored journalists’ list] if there is evidence that they were acting on behalf of militant groups or serving in a military capacity at the time of their deaths,” CPJ states on its website.
Columbia University didn’t readily respond to requests for comment.
Meanwhile, fed up American patriots in New York and North Carolina have restored the U.S. flag to campuses that had been essentially taken over by pro-Palestinian activists who replaced the U.S. flag with the Palestinian banner.
NYPD restores the American flag after clearing protestors at City College of New York last night:pic.twitter.com/MbZbkznV72
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) May 1, 2024
Awesome moment at UNC as the American flag is restored.pic.twitter.com/vSL4Z6bIhT
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) May 1, 2024