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EST 1917

BBC Palestinian journalist shown to have tweeted #HitlerWasRight in 2014

Tala Halawa was not working for the British broadcaster when she made the tweet in connection with Israel during earlier hostilities with Hamas in Gaza.

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(JTA) – A journalist for the BBC based in Ramallah in 2014 tweeted “#HitlerWasRight” about Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.

Honest Reporting, an Israeli organization whose mission statement is “promoting fairness and accuracy in media coverage of Israel,” offered a screen capture on Sunday of a tweet by Tala Halawa, whose account on the LinkedIn social network lists her as a “Digital Journalist at BBC Monitoring,” a position she began in 2017.

Last week, Halawa was credited on the BBC website for participating in the writing of an article titled “Israel-Gaza violence: The children who have died in the conflict” between Hamas and Israel, which reached a ceasefire on Friday following 11 days of fighting.

In 2014, she was working for 24FM, a Palestinian radio station.

Reacting to earlier hostilities between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, she wrote on Twitter: “#Israel is more #Nazi than #Hitler! Oh, #HitlerWasRight #IDF go to hell. #prayForGaza.”

“These tweets predate the individual’s employment with the BBC, but we are nevertheless taking this very seriously and are investigating,” a BBC spokesperson said Sunday in response to a query by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Halawa’s LinkedIn account listed her as having worked for six months as a researcher for The New Yorker before taking up a position with the BBC.

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