(JTA) — A CNN photo editor resigned after some anti-Semitic tweets he made in 2011 were discovered.
Mohammed Elshamy, a 25-year-old former photojournalist with the Anadolu news agency, quit Thursday night after an employee of Israel’s Government Press Office flagged on Twitter some of the anti-Semitic statements by Elshamy, who recently graduated from Cairo University. He began working at CNN in January.
“More than 4 jewish pigs killed in #Jerusalem today by the Palestinian bomb explode. #Israel #Gaza,” read one of his tweets, following a terrorist attack.
The bombing killed a Christian woman who was studying in Israel and severely injured a 14-year-old Israeli girl who died of her injuries six years later.
“Despite everything happening now in Egypt, I’m proud of the army generation that liberated us from the zionist pigs @ 6 october 1973 #israel,” Elshamy, who worked at CNN’s Atlanta headquarters, wrote in another tweet from 2011, referencing the last war between Egypt and Israel.
Elshamy, who was 16 at the time, on Friday “unequivocally” apologized on Twitter for the statements, “to everyone, especially those in the Jewish community.”
“The network has accepted the resignation of a photo editor, who joined CNN earlier this year, after anti-Semitic statements he’d made in 2011 came to light,” a CNN network spokesman Matt Dornic said in a statement to several media outlets. “CNN is committed to maintaining a workplace in which every employee feels safe, secure and free from discrimination regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or religion.”
