A group of women journalists led by the former partner of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is bestowing a “Courage in Journalism” award on a Hamas supporter who posted anti-Semitic cartoons on social media.
The International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF), whose board is stacked with prominent CNN, NBC, and ABC News reporters, said this week that it will honor Maha Hussaini, a freelance writer living in Gaza.
Hussaini, who writes opinion columns about the Middle East for a group called the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, has approvingly posted anti-Semitic cartoons that were drawn by the first- and second-place winners of Iran’s 2006 International Holocaust Cartoon Contest.
She has also openly supported terrorism, writing “glory to the martyrs” after Palestinian terrorists opened fire on four Israeli border officers, killing two, at the Temple Mount in 2017. When the Israeli military demolished Hamas’s intelligence headquarters inside the al-Jalaa building in 2021, Hussaini vowed that Gazans would “build ten [towers] so that our resistance can bomb the occupation again.”
Her extensive pro-terrorist and anti-Semitic posts raise questions about the IWMF’s decision to honor her with a 2024 Courage in Journalism award. IWMF did not respond to a request for comment.
In an email announcing Hussaini’s award, the IWMF said the prize goes to recognize “some of the bravest women journalists in the world.”
“As we know, the threats directed toward women in the profession are especially intense,” wrote the IWMF. “These fearless journalists need our support now more than ever.”
The email was signed by IWMF board co-chair Suzanne Malveaux, a former CNN reporter and Jean-Pierre’s former partner.
Other IWMF board members include CNN’s Andrea Mitchell, CBS News’s Norah O’Donnell, ABC News executive Kerry Smith, and Bank of America executive Jessica Oppenheim.
Hussaini will receive the award—along with two other female journalists—during the group’s annual luncheon at Cipriani in Manhattan on Oct. 9. IWMF’s website features a photo of Hussaini and praises her and other awardees for “pursuing the truth and bringing vital information to light.”
In 2017, Hussaini posted a cartoon on Twitter that showed a soldier with a Jewish star on his helmet hiding behind a photo of Holocaust victims while slaughtering a group of Arabs with an ax. The cartoon, drawn by Derkaoui Abdellah, was submitted as part of Iran’s state-sponsored 2006 Holocaust cartoon contest and displayed on the competition’s website. Abdellah won first place in the contest for another drawing.
Hussaini wrote alongside the image she posted: “Since 1948, #Israel has never stopped crimes of ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, mass killings or apartheid.”
She posted another cartoon in 2018 that showed a prisoner waving a Palestinian flag from inside a Jewish star-shaped prison cell, while a voice bubble reads: “Resistance against colonialism is NOT a crime! It’s a duty!” The image also includes a reference to an international law code that some Palestinians claim justifies acts of terrorism against Israel.
That cartoon was drawn by Carlos Latuff, who won second place in Iran’s 2006 Holocaust drawing contest.
In a post alongside the cartoon, Hussaini defended Hamas.
“Whether we like it or not, Hamas consisutes [sic] a large part of the Palestinian society,” she wrote. “Condemning it doesn’t only mean opposing a political party but criminalizing people’s choice to resist oppression.”
Hussaini openly supports terrorism on social media.
“The resistance in the West Bank is entering a new phase,” she wrote in response to a Palestinian terrorist attack that killed two Israeli border officers at the Temple Mount in 2017. “Thanks to #اشتباك_الأقصى [the ‘Al-Aqsa clash’] and glory to the martyrs.”
In another post, Hussaini objected to Egypt’s January 2015 decision to designate Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, as a terrorist organization, writing that “young people who arm themselves with stones and blow themselves up” are the “only adults in this nation.” She included the hashtag #Qassam_Is_Not_Terrorism, a popular slogan for Hamas supporters.
Hussaini has also objected to the existence of the Jewish state, writing that Israel’s “political and legal systems are all geared towards ensuring Jewish racial supremacy and domination.”
She bemoaned that Israel would “Judaize” Lod, an Israeli city near Tel Aviv that has a large Arab population.
“Lydda [Lod], which the occupation worked for decades to Judaize and change its Palestinian identity,” she captioned a picture of the city.
Hussaini has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 mass terrorist attacks by Hamas as legitimate “resistance.”
“In all of this, you can only blame the occupation, because after all, the armed resistance is a direct outcome of the longstanding military occupation and apartheid,” she wrote in February.
In another post last December, she wrote that Israel’s military response to the terrorist attacks “won’t make Palestinians blame the resistance. Resisting the occupation is a basic human right guaranteed by international law.”
