‘I’m victim of pro-Israel mob’ claims ‘Hitler was right’ former BBC journalist

A former BBC journalist sacked for tweeting “Hitler was right” claims she is the victim of a “pro-Israel mob”.

Tala Halawa, who formerly worked at BBC Monitoring, lost her role at the Corporation this year after a tweet came to light in which she praised Hitler while commenting on the Israel-Palestine conflict in 2014. The tweet had also claimed “Israel is more Nazi than Hitler.”

But yesterday Ms Halawa issued a statement in which she claimed she was the victim of “menial attempts at character assassination”.

While offering an apology for what she called “a single offensive and ignorant tweet,” Ms Halawa said: “The trend of bad-faith intimidation of reporters from the region by hostile actors and organised public flogging are aimed at setting the parameters of acceptable journalism to suit Israel and policing international media to maintain institutional pro-Israel bias.”

The statement did not reveal what the offending tweet was, instead referring to it as “a popular hashtag at the time”.

The tweets which sparked outrage were posted before the journalist, who is Palestinian, joined the BBC in 2017.

The statement was condemned by Jewish figures. Writer David Baddiel said: “This statement on tweeting “Hitler was right” needs to be seen in the context of modern public apologies – where, generally, it’s not acceptable to add the word but, and then go on about the many mitigating circumstances and really the blame completely lies elsewhere.”

He went on to add: “But then of course it is an “apology” about causing offence to Jews, and as we know, they don’t count.”

Ms Halawa left her job at the BBC in June.