The Pulitzer Prize has triggered a firestorm of criticism over its selection of Mosab Abu Toha as this year’s recipient for commentary. Abu Toha was specifically recognized for his commentary on Gaza despite being criticized for antisemitic and virulent attacks on those killed or taken hostage by Hamas. As we have previously discussed, the Pulitzer committee has long been accused of a far-left bias and awarding the prize for stories later disproven, including the Russian conspiracy claims.
Abu Toha wrote a series of essays in the New Yorker describing the ongoing war in the enclave. The New Yorker was not deterred by Abu Toha’s controversial attacks on the victims of the October 7th massacre.
HonestReporting exclusively ran some of these statements soon after the award was announced on May 6th.
On January 24, 2025, Abu Toha posted an attack on Israeli hostage Emily Damari:
How on earth is this girl called a hostage? (And this is the case of most ‘hostages’). This is Emily Damari, a 28 UK-Israeli soldier that Hamas detailed on 10/7… So this girl is called a ‘hostage?’ This soldier who was close to the border with a city that she and her country have been occupying is called a ‘hostage?’
Just to be clear, Damari is a civilian who was shot twice and abducted from her home on Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7. Like many in Israel, she has served in the military. However, she was shot and kidnapped from her home and held for 471 days. She lost two fingers and her wounds were poorly treated while she was held in deplorable conditions.
Abu Toha also attacked Israeli hostage Agam Berger in posts on February 3, 2025:
The Israeli ‘hostage’ Agam Berger, who was released days ago participates in her sister’s graduation from an Israeli Air Force officers’ course. These are the ones the world wants to share sympathy for, killers who join the army and have family in the army! These are the ones whom CNN, BBC and the likes humanize in articles and TV programs and news bulletins.
It also ignores the children and young people killed or kidnapped by Hamas. Indeed, Abu Toha has challenged claims on how Kfir Bibas (9 months) and Ariel Bibas (4) were killed by their captors. He posted February 21, 2025:
Shame on BBC, propaganda machine. IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said ‘forensic findings’, which have not been seen by the BBC, suggested the boys had been killed with ‘bare hands.’ If you haven’t seen any evidence, why did you publish this. Well, that’s what you are, filthy people.
An Israeli forensic analysis found that the two small boys were killed by the murderers’ “bare hands.” The calling of Jews and their supporters “filthy people” has long been an antisemitic trope.
In addition to attacking “Zionists” and mainstream media, Abu Toha also pushed false claims that Israel bombed the Al-Ahli Hospital on October 17, 2023. It was instead hit by a misfired Islamic Jihad missile. The reported deaths were also wildly exaggerated in the incident.
What is striking about this award is that it is a recognition of Abu Toha’s commentary specifically on Gaza, the very subject of these shocking claims. The award reinforces the view of the Pulitzer committee that it seeks to make statements with these awards, ignoring serious challenges over the factual accuracy or content of the work.
The award given for the Russian conspiracy claims is an example of how the story seemed just too good to check for the Committee. After the basis for the allegations were disproven and the Clinton campaign found to be behind the infamous Steele dossier, the Committee still refused to rescind the prize.
Likewise, a prior controversy arose when former New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her writing on The 1619 Project. The work was heavily criticized by historians and others for some of its sweeping historical claims over slavery being a motivation for the American Revolution and labeling figures like Abraham Lincoln as racists. According to The Atlantic , Princeton historian Sean Wilentz criticized that work and some of Hannah-Jones’s other work in a letter signed by scholars James McPherson, Gordon Wood, Victoria Bynum, and James Oakes. They raised “matters of verifiable fact” that “cannot be described as interpretation or ‘framing.’” They objected that the work represented “a displacement of historical understanding by ideology.” Hannah-Jones was also criticized for her role in purging dissenting views from the New York Times pages and embracing absurd anti-police conspiracy theories.
The award given to Abu Toha has obviously outraged many in Israel, who are still awaiting the return of the rest of the hostages taken by Hamas. It is difficult to imagine that the Committee, in researching Abu Toha’s commentary on Gaza, could have missed his virulent attacks and false claims.
I recently spoke at the Library of Congress on the evolution of American media and the record low levels of trust with the public. This is an example of why the public is turning away from the media establishment in favor of new media and social media. As I stated in the speech, the media has become a happy ship of fools in refusing to change course as revenue and readership/viewership collapses. Instead, the public sees a press that has abandoned objectivity and neutrality.
This is an award for opinion commentary. However, it is precisely the unhinged character of those opinions that have made the award to Abu Toha so disconcerting for many.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
This is like giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Vladimir Putin or Iran’s Ayatollah.
That’s not so far fetched when one considers it was given to B. Hussein Obama and Al Gore.
#9. Well everything with the leftist culture has been an exercise in dumbing down, so why not then give the Pulitzer as a participation award to those who lost at everything else? The failed fundamental transformation of America, and the failed Globalist Green New Money Laundering scheme.
… so why not then give the Pulitzer as a participation award to those who lost at everything else
My gut tells me it’s more accurate to say: why not give the Pulitzer as a participation aware to those who hate Jews.
#9. Technically that’s correct in the immediate view, however the long view is that the Jewish State, or Israel, is the only Nation in human history to have been completely destroyed, it’s peoples and culture scattered to the ends of the Earth, and yet after 2,000 years was rebuilt as one of the world’s nuclear armed powers. The Romans who destroyed the Jewish State are now nowhere to be found. Those who seek to destroy the Jews have a long wait coming. In essence, his hatred is a lost cause.
That’s a rarely articulated observation, but true. No other nation has continued as a cohesive nation without a homeland for more than 500 years, the Jews did for 1,900 years. And the rebirth of the state of Israel, and its ability to survive a military onslaught by many Arab nations at once, with virtually no military of its own (e.g., its air force in 1948 consisted of four old planes) had so many miracles involved, it’s hard not to see the hand of God in it.
No, it’s not the same. Not even close. Putin or the Ayatolla are not suffering from persecution or being subjugated.
I’ve read the essays and they are well worth the read and it’s understandable why he won the prize. Turley obviously did not read any of it. He chose to smear Abu Toha’s name because he didn’t like what he said about some of the hostages. Turley has no idea what Toha experienced or how the Israelis brutalize and dehumanize Palestinians. This is exactly why students stage protests against Israel. They know and understand the BS Israel is pushing onto gullible and stupid U.S. citizens who are too lazy to even try to understand. Truly sad that Turley joined their ranks by smearing someone without reading the essays that led to the award.
Given the ignorance and illiteracy of most readers here. It’s not surprising to be reading that the Pulitzer committee is “evil” for supporting a poet and author for describing the suffering and plight of his family and the Palestinians.
Turley did a disservice to his readers by joining the smear campaign against someone who deserved the award. Turley never read the stories and poems he wrote. He doesn’t care, and that shows how shallow he’s become when peddling petty attacks for the benefit of the MAGA ignorant and hopelessly illiterate.
It seems America is following the same path China took during Mao’s rule: the purging of intellectuals and the elite, deriding experts and professionals because they are “looking down” on the rest. Ironically, now China has largely discarded those antiquated notions and embraced capitalism and respect for professionals and intellectuals. That’s why they have advanced and developed into what is arguably the second-largest economy in the world and a rapidly advancing technological civilization. They are doing what we should be doing. We are going the way Mao would prefer. Strange days.
George the illiterate numbskull with more
“Nuh-uhhh”
Heaven is real
⭐Hey , are cheeseburgers w/onion relish & ketchup on a toasted multigrain available there ?
🌠
Habemus Papam
We should be grateful to the Lord to now be blessed with having an American on the world stage who embodies good and not evil.
Balance is restored. America now has a pope to counter its antipope.
Pope Leo XIV, welcome to the resistance.
A madman in the White House and a good guy on the throne of St. Peter!
The new Pope is the total opposite of Donald Trump.
Pope Leo is a decent, moral man, and defender of social justice.
And, most remarkable of all, the new Pope is fluent in English.
And he speaks English in complete, grammatically correct sentences that can be readily understood.
To be fair, there is one thing they have in common.
You never see either of them with their wife
Anony lawn boy playing his respond to himself campaign again.
So funny I forgot to laugh.
This is how third graders talk.
3rd grader ^^^. He should know.
⭐
♧♧♧
😮⭐💫😉💥
???
@Anonymous
Forgive me, but Catholics are a minority, to each their own, but I do not give a toss about the church personally, and I don’t see that this helps or changes anything whatsoever.
Again, to each their own, but come on. Who cares? This does not help us in any way, shape, or form with what the rest of this discussion has been about. A new Pope is not going to impact diddly squat with the rest of this. Speaking only for myself, a new ‘Pulitzer’ may as well have just been awarded. Means literally nothing. ‘Allahu Akbar!’; ‘There is a new Pope!’. Those are identical statements to the secular. Not helping. 🤷🏻♂️
It is *separation* of church and state. Again, *separation*, as in, separate, not the same thing.
As a non-Catholic:
This is Good News. The Cardinals chose wisely.
Just hope that DJT gets the message.
Malignant Narcissist Trump will hate that another American will get more attention than him.
Trump’s already demanding a recount.
Donald thinks that the papacy was stolen from him and that he should’ve been elected the new head of the Catholic Church instead of Sleepy Pope Leo.
@Anonymous
Sorry, but I disagree. Catholics are a minority, and they may as well have said to the rest of us, ‘Today, grass continued to grow’. Means nothing whatsoever. 🤷🏻♂️
Anyone that is so blind as to follow a ‘Pope’ is no better than any other mindless person, and that is absolutely going to kill us in the 21st century with a modern left that cares only about privilege and power. Those of this mindset are whistling in the superstitious dark, and the modern world is not going to care about that one whit. This has great bearing on the midterms and on 2028, whether you like it or not. That you all can’t see you are cut from the same basic ideological cloth is mind numbing to everyone else.
James,
I corrected your comment.
Sorry, but I disagree. MAGA are a minority, and they may as well have said to the rest of us, ‘Today, grass continued to grow’. Means nothing whatsoever. 🤷🏻♂️
Anyone that is so blind as to follow a Mad Orange Dictator is no better than any other mindless person, and that is absolutely going to kill us in the 21st century with a modern cult of Fascism that cares only about privilege and power. Those of this mindset are whistling in the superstitious dark, and the modern world is not going to care about that one whit. This has great bearing on the midterms and on 2028, whether you like it or not. That you all can’t see you are cut from the same basic ideological cloth is mind numbing to everyone else.
⭐😳🙄
Let’s award him the Nobel Peace Prize, too. Prezy O won it without doing anything either! The whole world is a parody of itself!!
A good way to advance freedom and democracy in the world is to exterminate the tyrants who advance tyranny. Ukraine should kill Putin and Xi at the victory parade with a few Neptune missiles. It is nauseating how they go through the motions of being legitimate leaders when they are not.
You can still fly over to the Ukraine and enlist in their military to fight against the Russians. Why have you not done so yet?
This is a fallacy known as argumentum ad baculum:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_baculum
What Upstate said is not an example of that fallacy. I doubt you even read the Wikipedia page you linked to. Or if you did, you didn’t understand it. That fallacy appeals to force to coerce someone to agree (“If you don’t agree with me, I’ll kick you out of the club.”) Upstate’s comment has nothing to do with that fallacy.
Try again.
Yes, he is discouraging the free exchange of ideas based on performing a physical challenge, something a tyrant would do, so it is no wonder he is sympathetic to tyrants. I would expect someone in a free speech blog to encourage the free exchange of ideas, not to discourage them.
If you love freedom so much, you should be ecstatic over the idea of exterminating tyrants.
One can both favor the elimination of tyrants, and oppose risking global nuclear war at the same time.
You have just made the “argumentum ad baculum” fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_baculum
No, it has nothing to do with that fallacy. Read the Wikipedia page you linked to, and try to understand it this time.
OT
“Chief Justice Roberts defends courts amid wave of Trump lawsuits”
– Fox News
______________
Impeach and convict Chief Justice Roberts for usurpation and exercise of the executive power that is exclusively “vested in a President of the United States of America.”
An American Pope!!!!! Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost a native of Chicago, 69 years of age, and an Augustinian Priest, is the Success of Peter, taken the name of Pope Leo XIV
Outstanding!
Habemus Papum!
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/meet-the-conclave-cardinal-robert
Estovir,
I was mildly surprised by that. This could be interesting.
Tashbaan has conquered Archenland. Archenlanders have been fooled by the “Tashlan” cult and have formed a committee that is now doling out awards and prizes to Tash worshippers. Tash and Aslan are not the same god. In fact, they are enemies. But this latter fact has eluded many otherwise well-meaning Archenlanders, even those who disagree with such awards and prizes being given to Tash worshippers.
“ It is difficult to imagine that the Committee, in researching Abu Toha’s commentary on Gaza, could have missed his virulent attacks and false claims.‘
Of course it is difficult to imagine when Turley doesn’t bother to read anything Toha wrote regarding his first hand experiences in Gaza and the treatment Israel imposes on Palestinians. Turley’s ignorance his his biggest probglem on this issue. Those “virulent” attacks were honest opinion from someone who has first-hand experience of the kinds of things Palestinians endure under Israeli subjugation.
Turley loves to call genuine criticisms as “attacks” instead of what they really are…criticisms. Calling them “attacks” gives Turley license to smear Mosab Abu Toha as an anti-semite who doesn’t deserve any recognition. Turley is the one who should be criticized for impugning Mosab’s character because a few Israelis got offended. Never mind the fact that he was still being honest and expressed his outrage like any other person who has been under under subjugation for years.
Israel has relied on everyone believing everything they say is true in order to deny any sympathy or support towards the Palestinians and avoid any real scrutiny of their own war crimes and attrocities commited against the Palestinians. It’s easy to dismiss the killing of innocent Palestinians by labeling them “Hamas supporters” or “terrorist supporters”. Those kinds of smears are very effective when you suppress any sympathy or dissenti against Israel and that’s the point of Mosab’s writing. Turley is attackig his accomplisment by engaging in character assasination by citing a few statements on facebook that are genuine opinions about Israel’s own disingenous characterization of the conflict.
Turley should be defending Abu Toha’s right to speak his mind. Instaed he is dragging his name in the mud to deny the reality of what is happening in Gaza purely to satisfy his MAGA reader’s rage and ignorance. What a truly sad spectacle for Turley. This should clearly be beneath him.
Turley seems to love, absolutely love being disengenuous. How can you tell? Because he conveniently leaves out the fact that Mosab Abu Toha is a renowned Palestinian poet and author. Turley doesn’t mention that he’s a poet and author because his aim is to smear his character for a few comments that in context are not that controversial except to die-hard Israel supporters who label any form of criticism against Israel antisemitism. They sure love to abuse that word.
“ Abu Toha wrote a series of essays in the New Yorker describing the ongoing war in the enclave.”
Turley does Toha and his essays a disservice by not mentioning what won. him the prize. It goes to show how far Israel supporters go to deny the real plight of the Palestinians and what they endure.
Of course things become clear why he deserves the prize when you read the essays and poems he wrote. I don’t expect anyone here to do so because many prefer to wallow in their own ignorance. I bet Turley never bothered to read them either because his job is to peddle the anti-semitism hogwash as pretense for genuine concern.
Here are two for anyone who has any sense of rational curiosity,
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/essay/requiem-for-a-refugee-camp
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/07/under-the-rubble-mosab-abu-toha-poem
The use of a facebook post one statement that showed his honest view of that hostage and the audacity to call her that given that she was stationed on the Gaza border. Abu Toha lived in what many consider the world’s largest open air prison. The treatment of Palestinians under Israeli subjugation is being deliberately igonred to prevent the spread of any sympathy towards Palestinians and it clearly shows how that is here.
Bashing the Pulitzer committe for wisely choosing this Poet’s essays defining and showing the true plight of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation is essentially a smear campaign to quash any sympathy for the Palestinians and hide Israeli brutality. Turley should be ashamed and embarrassed for writing such a smear. This load of limp-wristed twaddle should be beneath him.
Good guys don’t take hostages.
Noone
Good guys don’t kill their own hostages either.
Nikita Khrushchev: “Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all.”
Thomas Harding: “If way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst.”
A prize that’s worth absolutely nothing to the average citizen.
And to Gaza:
George Patton: “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed at some indefinite time in the future.”
Actually, the Pulitzer Committee should be thanked for showing the world how evil are those who support and defend the October 7 massacre, and how utterly foolish is the Committee that doles out a (previously) prestigious award for the writings of Abu Toha, the inaccuracies of Nicole Hanna-Jones, and the false reporting of the Russian hoax by the New York Times and the Washington Post, fake news reported as truth.
Sigh. What’s left to say? More of the same from the elitist, globalist modern left (as an aside, it’s amazing how the ‘little’ people on the left whose lives have been made ever poorer by dem policy seem to think they are ‘in the club’. Newsflash: you are not in their club). We are witnessing a full on, tyrannical machine, and they will never relent. Nothing quite like it in the free West, ever. I’m wondering of late if nukes were what we should have been apprehensive about during the Cold War; the ideologies are are far more insidious and destructive.
The Pulitzer is just another absurd and elitist circle j**k in 2025. It is amusing that our host still seems to think there would be anything to redeem even if they were to rescind awards. I guarantee you the worst offender, Saint Obama, would never be on that list. Our modern left collectively belong in an asylum. 🤷🏻♂️
I stopped taking any of this seriously as an acknowledgement of accomplishment beyond blind fealty to ideology some time ago. Hopefully others have done likewise.
Oh, and PS – I’m referring to Saint Obama’s Nobel. Associating the Obama name with anything resembling ‘peace’ is flat out hilarious. Associating the modern media with anything resembling ‘journalism’ is equally hilarious.
Journalistically, it is called the Pulitzer Prize
Politically and tactically, it operates as the Howitzer Prize
@lin
I’m sticking with the notion of rewarding fealty with a free h*** job. It’s a very twisted form of ‘professional courtesy’ to these very sick people.
James: Yeah, I think you are right. The smooth subtlety of the awards is not like a howitzer at all,
but I couldn’t resist the pun-nish fun.
Notwithstanding, I do think of a united media front (made up of journalists using MEDIA as war machines) coming at us.
@lin
I agree, and I got the pun, very much appreciated. Mine was crude, but no less true. And I agree with the second half as well, we are already in a civil war of sorts, it’s just words and dollars instead of bullets. I am hoping we come back to sanity without ever employing the last, but thank God we live in a country where we still have our firearms, and know how to use them.
The Antifa destruction in Washington recently (funny how this always happens in states or districts where they know with certainty they’ll just be sent back home to mom and dad’s basement, and worse, the people living there seem to think virtue signaling is more important than actually living a life in peace. No wonder they ave sh** their collective pants over DOGE) is yet another example of why the modern left is simply not an option to any sane person. Vote ‘Blue’ and be screwed. Into perpetuity. Forever. That is the idea, and I thought we got past that with the end of Feudalism or the French Revolution.
Entrenched, Republican fat cats are equally corrosive, but still a far cry from the literal insanity of the modern left Seriously. Clinical. No ideology required, these people are *NOT WELL*. Ideology implies conscious thought and logical conclusions, and that is not represented on the modern left to any meaningful degree. This is pure madness, straight up. Do NOT be swayed at the midterms. A whole lot of people that value their own personal comfort above all else and who think our rights are a ‘just because’ will NOT be on our side. This is FAR from over.
Trust me, it’s preferable to ride in an elevator with an Israeli than one of these guys.
@Anonymous
I am pained to agree. There is no cure for the indoctrination of Islam (of which I happen to have a particular knowledge), and it’s tenets are wholly incompatible with Western freedoms. And sorry, but it really is that simple.
Even in its purest and most well interpreted form, the Koran describes a system of governance, not merely a religion (Sharia Law) that flies in the face of Western values, governance, law, and common decency. And that’s just all there is to it. Oil and water, period, even if many Muslim people are peace loving, which they are. Doesn’t change the rest.
Not so long ago, there was a time when a Pulitzer Prize meant something. That time has come and gone, and, indeed, winning a Pulitzer Prize today could work against someone looking to advance a career in an honest news agency looking to avoid hiring ideologues. Joseph Pulitzer’s original intentions in bequeathing money to Columbia’s School of Journalism for these awards have long since been forgotten. Those in charge of selecting winners of the Pulitzer Prizes today give them for slanted and biased reporting that fits their woke agenda. If it weren’t for the money attached to these awards, they would be lost entirely in the dustbin of history.
Yuri Bezmenov passed away 30 years ago on January 5, 1993 at the age of 53. If he were alive today, he would have marveled that everything he predicted came true. “My dear friends, I think you are in big trouble. Whether you believe it or not, YOU ARE AT WAR. And you may lose this war very soon, together with all your affluence and freedoms, unless you start defending yourselves… The driving force of this war has very little to do with natural aspirations of people for better lives and greater freedoms. If at all, these aspirations are being used and taken advantage of by the manipulators and progenitors of the war. The real driving force of this war of aggression is IDEOLOGY — something you cannot eat, wear or store for a “rainy day”. An integral part of this war of ideology is IDEOLOGICAL SUBVERSION — the process of changing the perception of reality in the minds of millions of peoples all over the world. The late comrade Andropov, the former head of the Soviet KGB called this war of Communist aggression, “the final struggle for the MINDS and hearts of the people”.”
Yeah
The Pulitzer Committee is a bunch of Jew hating shits. Now we know that.
What’s there to love?