Christiane Amanpour, CNN chief international anchor, is being denounced and mocked widely for a recent social media post about Marwan Barghouti.
“To many Israelis, he’s a terrorist. To many Palestinians, he’s their Mandela,” she wrote of the convicted murderer, widely believed to have directed the first and second intifadas, which killed and wounded thousands of Israeli civilians.
Amanpour has previously apologized for comments about Jews and Israel. She said live on air that she “misspoke” 12 days after she said that Rabbi Leo Dee’s unarmed wife and two daughters were killed in a “shootout.”
“To many Jews, he’s a genocidal maniac. To many others, he’s a bohemian artist with a chic mustache, a love of animals, and a penchant for energetic speeches. Adolf Hitler’s story,” wrote David May, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Arsen Ostrovsky, a human rights attorney and CEO of the International Legal Forum, wrote that Amanpour would never run such a segment about Osama bin Laden or Hitler. “But when it comes to Jewish lives, of course the standard is different,” he wrote.
Erielle Azerrad, a prominent attorney and writer, called Amanpour “a disgrace. Vile.”
“Barghouti led the second intifada, where Israeli civilians, including pregnant women and children, were blown up, stabbed and murdered,” Azerrad wrote.
“Marwan Barghouti was convicted on five counts of murder and one count of attempted murder for the killing of four Israelis and a Greek Orthodox priest during the Second Intifada,” wrote Joel Petlin, superintendent of the Kiryas Joel School District.
“We know what Amanpour thinks of Israelis, but at least she could show some compassion for the priest,” Petlin wrote.