New Report: HuffPost engaged in ‘Antisemitic Incitement’ Aimed at Helping Obama ‘Sell Iran Deal’

The New York newsroom of the Huffington Post. Photo: Wikipedia.

That the Huffington Post engaged in a “jihad of lies” against critics of the Iran deal, with special emphasis on Jews and Israel, is documented in a new report.

“The Rhodes To HuffPost,” whose release on Sunday came three days after the one-year anniversary of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), details a series of egregious violations of journalistic ethics on the part of the major media online outlet. In particular, it asserts, the HuffPost engaged in a concerted campaign to help US President Barack Obama get elected, and subsequently to assist him to push through the JCPOA by purposely deceiving the public about its true nature.

To this end, according to the report – compiled by Jon Sutz of the New York-based website SavetheWest.com – the HuffPost,

also published editorials and “news” stories that continued its long-standing pattern of inciting hate against Israel and Jews, using classic anti-Semitic libels and stereotypes, while whitewashing and even legitimizing Islamist terrorists, who’ve sworn to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. Examples include:

Falsely claiming that Netanyahu blindsided Obama in his speech to Congress: In the lead-up to Mr. Netanyahu’s speech to Congress in March 2015, HuffPost published an incendiary splash headline that perpetuated the lie that he had insulted the Obama administration, and upset White House protocol, by accepting Congress’s invitation to speak, before Obama had been notified. It also inserted a false quote from him into its headline: “No disrespect, Barry.” HuffPost did this despite the fact that one month earlier, the New York Times admitted that the Obama administration had been notified in advance, and that its original story (sourced from the White House) was incorrect.

Falsely claiming that Netanyahu said nothing of value to Congress – while consistently quoting Iran’s rulers verbatim: After Netanyahu’s speech, HuffPost used a Yiddish slur to claim, in a “news” story headline, that he said nothing of importance to Congress about the Iran deal. Yet at the same time, and for years prior, it quoted Iran’s rulers accurately, whitewashed their overt threats against Israel, and engaged in de facto PR for the terror state.

Selectively publishing editorials that advanced anti-Semitic libels: In early 2015, HuffPost gave prominent space on its front page to a variety of anti-Semitic editorials, against both Mr. Netanyahu and Israel, and in support of the Iran deal. Yet when Elie Wiesel, the revered Holocaust survivor and world-renowned human rights activist authored an open letter to Obama and Congress, urging them to oppose the Iran deal, and took out full-page ads to promote it in the New York Times and the Washington Post, HuffPost completely ignored him.

Ignoring Iran’s funding of Hamas’s preparations to attack Israel: In August 2015, just before the final climax of the debate over the Iran deal, HuffPost ignored substantive reports that Iran was funding Hamas’s preparations to instigate a new war against Israel… [W]hen Hamas-led terrorists began engaging in near-daily attacks on Israeli Jews in the coming weeks, HuffPost all but ignored the victims — yet whitewashed and even legitimized the terrorists’ narrative.

The report — whose title is a reference to the scandal surrounding Obama’s JCPOA adviser Ben Rhodes’ admission of deceit in relation to the deal — says that the HuffPostboasts 130 million readers per month, calling itself the “largest news site in the US.” In addition, according to one internet traffic analysis source, the outlet is now the most popular political website in the world.

The report quotes the HuffPost’s claim that it “has in place rigorous editorial policies and standards…to ensure that we maintain the highest level of journalistic integrity…Too many reporters have forgotten that the highest calling of journalists is to ferret out the truth, consequences be damned…There is an objective reality, and it is the media’s job to present it unequivocally.”

The stated purpose of the report is to provide the facts to Americans who are unfamiliar with the ins and outs of the Iran deal, and the way it was portrayed in the media. “Without this knowledge,” it says,”one cannot truly grasp the magnitude or implications of what HuffPost did, and failed to do.”