Islam - Current Day > IS kill 33 Syrian soldiers; France24 slowly cleaning house of jihadi journos

..

IS claims responsibility for an attack that killed 33 Syrian soldiers,

and vows to fight til Doomsday

Associated Press, August 12, 2023:

BEIRUT — The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for an ambush in eastern Syria that killed and wounded dozens of soldiers as opposition activists said the death toll rose Saturday to at least 33 as some of the wounded succumbed to their injuries….

The Friday night statement said IS fighters ambushed two army trucks in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour using different kinds of weapons. IS claimed that 40 members of the Syrian military were killed and 10 were wounded.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the death toll reached 33 Saturday. Another activist collective that covers news in eastern Syria put the death toll at 35 adding that all of the dead were members of the Syrian army’s 17th Division….

“Let the whole world know that our allegiance to our leaders is practiced with deeds and not words and our Jihad is going on until Doomsday,” IS said….

Last week, IS announced the death in Syria of its little-known leader, Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurayshi — who had headed the extremist organization since November — and named his successor. He was the fourth leader to be killed since its founder, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed in 2019 by U.S. troops in northwest Syria.

I wonder if they will find a new leader?

France 24 fires second reporter from Arabic department

for supporting jihad terrorism and antisemitism

AUG 14, 2023 10:00 AM BY HUGH FITZGERALD

That indispensable organization, CAMERA, has been monitoring the social media postings of journalists working at France 24’s Arabic-language department. More on what it has uncovered can be found here: 

Press Advisory: France 24 Fires Dina Abi-Saab, The Second Arabic Reporter 

Let Go After CAMERA Exposé

CAMERA, August 9, 2023:

A second reporter has been fired from France 24’s Arabic department after media watchdog CAMERA revealed in March that several journalists employed by the state-owned French news network expressed support for terrorism and antisemitism in their Arabic social media accounts.

During a heated French parliamentary question period on July 18, French MPs Meyer Habib and Caroline Yadan confronted France Médias Monde, the parent company of France 24, with the disturbing findings of CAMERA Arabic’s investigation.

Even though CAMERA had revealed in March that several Arabic-language reporters at France 24 had expressed support in their social media accounts for “terrorism and antisemitism,” nothing was done for four months, until July, when two French MPs, Meyer Habib and Caropline Yadan, raised the matter in the Assemblée Nationale while questioning the CEO of France 24’s parent company about CAMERA’s findings.

France Médias Monde CEO Marie-Christine Saragosse responded to the parliamentary interrogation by saying that three Arabic-language correspondents — Laila Odeh, Sharif Bibi, and Dina Abi-Saab — were asked to sign the company’s ethics charter.

Apparently it was only after the CAMERA findings were made public in March that France 24 required three Arabic-language reporters to sign its ethics charter.

The ethics charter states that journalists must reject “any incitement to crime, violence, hatred, racism, antisemitism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination, intolerance and stigmatization.”

Odeh and Bibi signed the charter. But Abi-Saab refused to sign, leading to her termination from the company, according to Saragosse’s testimony.

Dismissal was the only possible response to Abi Saab’s refusal to sign. Don’t worry about Dina Abi Saab. She’ll be snapped up by Al Jazeera, where the prevailing antisemitism will make her feel right at home.

Oddly, Abi-Saab still presents herself as a France 24 employee on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. It is France 24’s responsibility to ensure that she removes false employment references from her private social media accounts, according to CAMERA.

In claiming on hiring sites like LinkedIn to still be employed at France 24, Saab is guilty of deliberate deception. It’s up to France 24 to make her remove that false information down. And France 24 might, at its own site, describe the circumstances of her being asked to leave the network — to wit, Abi Saab’s unwillingness to sign a simple statement that would have committed her to rejecting “any incitement to crime, violence, hatred, racism, antisemitism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination, intolerance and stigmatization.” If she can’t commit to that, she has no business being a journalist.

Abi-Saab’s refusal to sign the company’s code of ethics suggests she stands by her social media posts that show her celebrating rocket attacks on Israel’s civilian population and cheering on war crimes with a “resistance” hashtag.

Her social media posts also show her glorifying terrorist Omar Abu Leila as a “martyr,” and likening the Israeli military’s bombing of empty skyscrapers in Gaza — occupants evacuated after receiving advance notice from the army — to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In one of her Facebook posts, Abi-Saab says she is “hoping” for Israel to be “annihilated.”…

Abi Saab thinks Israel’s bombing of uninhabited skyscrapers in Gaza — all of the occupants having been warned in advance to leave by the IDF — is just as bad as the terror attack on the Twin Towers, where 50,000 people worked. She calls Omar Abu Leila, who stabbed to death an IDF soldier, a “martyr.” And she announces that she is “hoping” for Israel’s “annihilation.” That is bottomless bloodlust. How was it that France 24 had been ignoring her social media posts for years before CAMERA came along to investigate and make them public?

In March, France 24 also fired Lebanese journalist Joelle Maroun for, among other things, expressing admiration for Adolf Hitler and support for the murder of Jewish civilians.

CAMERA’s exposé of Joelle Maroun, another France 24 journalist, had previously caused her to be fired at once, in March, by France 24. The decision wasn’t difficult: Maroun told her Arab audience that she supports the murder of Jewish civilians and greatly “admires Adolf Hitler.” Case closed. Maroun was fired on the spot.

The France Médias Monde CEO said that Jerusalem correspondent Laila Odeh attended a June 3 training seminar teaching “the difference between journalism and activism.” 

“While we’re grateful that France 24 fired two of the journalists, we’re doubtful that someone like Odeh can be reformed by signing ethics charters or attending sensitivity trainings,” said Andrea Levin, CAMERA’s executive director.

Levin pointed out that just three weeks after Odeh attended the training seminar, Odeh referred to a terrorist’s death as an “ascension” to heaven, a tweet she deleted only after CAMERA translated and flagged it….

Apparently that brief exercise at “sensitivity training” had no discernible effect on Laila Odeh. Just a few weeks afterwards, Odeh in a tweet described a terrorist’s death as an “ascension to heaven.” What higher praise could there be for a murderer? Isn’t Odeh’s remark telling evidence that, despite having signed France 24’s “ethics charter,” she remains as virulently antisemitic as before? Trying desperately to cover her tracks on Twitter, she deleted that praise only after CAMERA translated it and brought it to the public’s attention. But the damage was done. Like Jocelyn Maroun and Abi Saab, Leila Odeh ought to be discharged from France 24. What’s holding up her dismissal?

After those two dismissals, of Maroun and Saab, and a likely third dismissal, of Leila Odeh, in the offing, the journalists in the Arabic-language department of France 24 must be running scared. They are likely combing through their past social media comments, and deleting every example of praise for terrorism and of hatred expressed for Jews, or Israelis, that they can find. And they will be most circumspect in the future, knowing that CAMERA is watching, and is ready to make any offending postings public.. They will not change their beliefs, but to keep their jobs, will severely self-censor. That’s not a bad outcome.

=================================================================================