In a recent article on the arrest of the pro-terror husband of a Hamas-affiliated student at Georgetown, Politico sounded less like a news agency and more like a public relations firm. The article, “Trump is seeking to deport another academic who is legally in the country, lawsuit says,” by Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, omits crucial context to portray the prospective deportee and his Hamas-affiliated wife sympathetically.
Unfortunately for Politico, that omitted context came from research produced by CAMERA. While the legal proceedings have only begun and remain under seal, we can already identify false claims in Politico’s story.
Here’s the background. In a February 13 article at National Review, CAMERA exposed that Georgetown University graduate student Mapheze Ahmad Yousef Saleh was directly affiliated with the specially designated terrorist organization Hamas. Not only was her father a senior Hamas official, but Saleh herself had worked directly for the terrorist organization. CAMERA’s research meticulously documented the evidence, providing screenshots and linking to articles written by Saleh acknowledging her role in Hamas’s “Committee to Break the Siege in Gaza.” CAMERA also documented Saleh’s deplorable views, including celebrating the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre of Israeli civilians and mocking those taken hostage by the terrorist organization.
Unsurprisingly, it turned out that her husband Badar Khan Suri held similarly deplorable views. Disturbingly, Suri also held an academic role at Georgetown’s Alwaleed Center for Christian and Muslim Understanding, known for its extremist faculty members. Now Suri, an Indian national, has been arrested and is facing deportation proceedings.
So how do Politico’s Cheney and Gerstein ignore these details?
It begins with the lede, in which Suri is allowed to claim that he “is being punished because of the suspected views of his wife….”
Strike one. The views of Saleh are not “suspected,” but public. For example, her social media profiles were replete with glowing tributes to senior terrorists such as Mohammed Deif—considered the mastermind of the Oct. 7 massacre—as well as Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar and many others.
But more importantly, it’s not just the views of Saleh. Suri himself is openly pro-Hamas. In fact, multiple public images from Saleh and Suri’s wedding show the couple holding up the same picture: an image of Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat kissing the forehead of Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas.
Worse, there are even images of Suri alongside former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in a celebratory gesture.
Suri’s meeting with Haniyeh was a part of an organized “caravan” from India to Gaza, which included the president of the IHH (Insani Yardim Vakfi), which is part of the “Union of the Good” that was designated by the United States as “an organization created by Hamas leadership to transfer funds to the terrorist organization.” Notably, the “convoy” also met with members of the Iranian regime, including regime hardliners such as Ayatollah Javadi Amoli and Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi.
Cheney and Gerstein leave unchallenged a claim by Suri’s lawyer that he is being punished “because the government suspects that he and his wife oppose U.S. foreign policy toward Israel.”
Strike two. It’s not mere suspicion, and it’s not simply opposition to U.S. foreign policy. As CAMERA documented, Saleh believes that “America is the plague.” Moreover, Saleh has not merely voiced support for Hamas—a terrorist organization that is currently holding American citizens hostage—she worked for it. That is not a question of views or expression, but of federal law, which prohibits the provision of material support to a specially designated terrorist organization such as Hamas.
Then comes strike three. Cheney and Gerstein leave unchallenged another egregious claim of Suri’s lawyers, writing: “The petition says the couple has ‘long been doxxed and smeared’ on anonymously run, far-right websites due to their support for Palestinian rights.”
If Cheney and Gerstein did their basic journalistic due diligence and researched the story, they would have found both CAMERA and the Middle East Forum’s research. The authors are entitled to their opinion regarding political orientations of either organization or the news agencies (National Review and JNS) that published their research, but to suggest any of them are “anonymously run” is an egregious lie. The articles by both CAMERA and Middle East Forum are carefully researched and evidence-based, and the authors are clearly identified in both articles.
Moreover, the Politico article fails to acknowledge that the research exposing Suri and Saleh has nothing to do with their “support for Palestinian rights,” but rather their support for unlawful and horrific acts of violence. The authors falsely conflate the two. Glorifying Hamas’s massacre of civilians or its holding hostage hundreds of civilians is not supporting Palestinian rights.
For good measure, let’s consider strike four, too. The article states: “The petition also says that Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, has been alleged to have ‘ties with Hamas’ and once worked for Al Jazeera.”
Among those who have “alleged” Saleh’s “ties with Hamas” is Saleh herself, who has openly written about her work for Hamas in Arabic-language outlets. And Saleh didn’t just work for Al Jazeera, a Qatar-controlled propaganda agency—she worked for the Qatari embassy in New Delhi.
Why did Politico fail to challenge these egregiously misleading and false claims made by Suri and his lawyers? Politico is not a public relations agency. It claims to be “the most robust news operation … which informs the most influential audience in the world with insight, edge, and authority.”
But instead of providing “nonpartisan impactful information,” Politico provided its “influential audience” with propaganda. It merely gave a platform for one side’s lawyers in a contentious case, failing to alert its audience to substantial amounts of evidence contradicting almost everything those one-sided advocates were claiming. This simply isn’t journalism.
Originally published by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.