Wall Street Journal contributor Abeer Ayyoub has spread "terrorist propaganda" and "antisemitic slurs" on social media networks, including expletives directed at Israelis, according to a media watchdog group.
Ayyoub, a Gaza-born freelance journalist with bylines in the Journal and other outlets, has used her social media presence to push false stories about the Israeli military, promote Hamas propaganda, and denigrate Israel's war effort, according to a review by Honest Reporting, a media watchdog organization.
Such sentiments are increasingly common in the mainstream American press following Hamas's Oct. 7 terror attack, the worst in Israel's history.
A CBS News producer who has worked for the network for more than two decades, for example, spoke at an official Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine event, where he praised the terror group's "path of struggle and martyrdom." A CNN freelancer similarly served in a Hamas-run body and snapped a selfie with one of Hamas's top leaders. The Washington Post, meanwhile, has filled its foreign desk with journalists from Al Jazeera, the Doha-based news outlet bankrolled in part by the Hamas-friendly government of Qatar.
On October 7, as Hamas carried out its attack, Ayyoub told X owner Elon Musk to "eat shit" when he expressed alarm over the slaughter of more than 1,200 Jews.
Just a day later, after a Middle East analyst described Hamas as an "Islamic mafia," Ayyoub responded in Arabic: "Who is the Jewish mafia?"
"Ayyoub's anti-Israeli sentiment is often hidden behind the facade of the Arabic language, making it easier to conceal from her bosses and colleagues in Western media," Honest Reporting wrote in its report.
In a separate Oct. 7 tweet, Ayyoub denigrated Israeli-Arab affairs expert Edy Cohen after he noted the Koran's mandate that prisoners be treated with respect.
"So do you guys respect them, you shit?" Ayyoub said in another Arab-language posting.
Less than two days after Hamas's terror spree, Ayyoub shared an article from Middle East Eye, a website highly critical of Israel, that portrayed the terror group's attack as an act of liberation.
"'The first time I felt freedom': When a Palestinian journalist crossed into Israel," Ayyoub wrote, publicizing the article's headline.
Ayyoub also called Hamas's commitment to the destruction of Israel "fake news."
Ayyoub's postings and rhetoric, Honest Reporting said, "should sound alarm bells in the newsroom of the Wall Street Journal, a publication that has always been a bastion of the highest journalistic standards." The watchdog says it has submitted an official complaint to the paper.
The Journal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In several other examples published by Honest Reporting, Ayyoub disseminated Hamas propaganda, including a video showing "terrorists lynching and executing Israeli soldiers near the Gaza border."