Pulitzer Hall at Columbia University (Photo: X)
Columbia University finally sent in the New York Police Department on Tuesday night to clear anti-Israel protesters mouthing pro-Hamas messages.
But DailyMail.com can now reveal that administrators may need to look in-house next if they truly want to clean house.
For a new investigation has uncovered an endorsement of Hamas media outlets in – of all places – Columbia’s storied journalism school.
A new investigation has uncovered an endorsement of Hamas media outlets in – of all places – Columbia’s storied journalism school.
Mounted on either side of the entryway to Pulitzer Hall – named after Joseph Pulitzer, the founder of the university’s journalism school and the namesake of the coveted Pulitzer Prize – there is a memorial purporting to honor ‘journalists’ killed in the Israel-Gaza war.
The honorees were selected from a list compiled by the non-profit Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
However, 21 of the 98 names displayed were employed by Hamas’ propaganda TV and radio stations, 11 worked for outlets affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group, and at least three were active alleged terrorists before their deaths.
The school has not publicized the memorial, 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.’
Though while Columbia Journalism School may regard its display as a tribute to ‘journalists,’ facts suggest otherwise.
Mohamed Khalifeh, a director at ‘Al Aqsa Television,’ is just one of 15 memorialized names who worked for the Hamas-operated media network operating in Gaza.
In 2010, the Obama administration sanctioned Al Aqsa TV as a terrorist entity.
Mohamed Khalifeh, a director at ‘Al Aqsa Television,’ is just one of 15 memorialized names who worked for the Hamas-operated media network operating in Gaza.
‘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 US 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,’ the department concluded.
In 2007, the producers of Al-Aqsa TV’s animated children’s show star, a Mickey Mouse-like character named Farfour, were exposed for promoting radical Islam, hatred of Jews, and encouraging children to arm themselves with AK-47 assault rifles.
The station’s response to global outrage was to depict an ‘Israeli’ character beating Farfour to death, before replacing Farfour with a bee named Nahool, which also preached violence.
Al-Aqsa TV also openly celebrated a terrorist bus bombing in Tel Aviv in 2012 that wounded 22 Israelis.
‘God willing, we will soon see body bags,’ an Al-Aqsa announcer said on air.
In 2016, Obama’s State Department designated Al-Asqa TV’s director, Fathi Ahmad Mohammad Hammad, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.
In addition to running Al-Aqsa TV, Hammad is Hamas’ interior minister and, according to State Department, served as a senior military commander who ‘coordinated terror cells’ and supervised tunnel construction under Gaza.
The Obama administration had good reason for concern.
‘Though social media alone, ISIS was able to recruit over 100,000 foreign terrorist fighters to come to Iraq/Syria and fight between 2014 and 2017,’ retired FBI counterterrorism Special Agent James G. Conway told DailyMail.com.
In addition to running Al-Aqsa TV, Hammad is Hamas’ interior minister and, according to State Department, served as a senior military commander who ‘coordinated terror cells’ and supervised tunnel construction under Gaza.
‘Media today plays a key role in international terrorism,’ said Conway, who now owns Global Intel Strategies, an international police training company. ‘Al-Aqsa [TV], as the prominent Hamas media entity, plays a key role in promoting and promulgating the Hamas message’ of incitement to violence and genocide.
Another six names on the Columbia memorial worked for the Hamas-controlled Al-Aqsa radio station, a sister entity of Al-Aqsa TV. Among them are Iyah El-Ruwagh, who worked as a host for the radio network.
The US has not designated Al-Aqsa radio as a terrorist organization, but it is undeniable that Hamas controls the outlet and uses it for propaganda purposes.
Hamas established the radio station after taking control of the Gaza Strip in 2006 when it installed its first director, Ibrahim Daher, who reportedly still runs the station today.
In a 2014 interview with The Washington Post, Daher, who once described the station as an instrument of ‘incitement,’ was clear about his aims.
‘The main thing we stress is the activity of the resistance, and how much people support it,’ he said. ‘We aren’t interested in showing other things, like any success by the Israelis or how businesses were hurt by the war, or Gazans who have fled the city because of it.’
The station has reportedly also encouraged civilians in Gaza to act as human shields for Hamas militants.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies released a report in 2023 labeling the radio station and Hamas’ other media outlets ‘propaganda campaigns’.
Also included in the memorial are eleven other so-called ‘journalists’ who worked for outlets controlled by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which was designated as a terrorist organization in 1997 by the government.
At least one of these ‘journalists’ have been accused by Israel of being ‘actively involved in attacks against IDF forces.’
Hamza Al Dahdou, an Al Jazeera correspondent and the son of Al Jazeera bureau chief Wael Al-Dahdouh, and Mustafa Thuria, a cameraman for Agence-France Press were both killed by an Israel airstrike in January.
Following the strike, the IDF released documents purporting to show that Dahdouh was a member of Islamic Jihad and that Thuria served in Hamas’s Gaza City Brigade.
Also included in the memorial are eleven other so-called ‘journalists’ who worked for outlets controlled by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which was designated as a terrorist organization in 1997 by the government.
According to an Israeli government-sponsored think tank, with close ties to Israeli intelligence, yet another ‘journalist’ memorialized by Columbia – named Mohammad Jarghoun – was a member of Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades.
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.
But the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) – the non-profit that complied the list of names for the memorial on Columbia’s behalf and whose website – said in a statement that its research ‘to date’ has found no evidence that any of those memorialized ‘were engaged in militant activity’.
The CPJ has also committed to '[continuing] to investigate the circumstances of each case.’
