Amid The Associated Press denying knowing it operated a news bureau in the same building as Hamas terrorists, the outlet recently hired an AP news associate that has participated heavily in the anti-Israel movement.
Emily Wilder, a former Arizona Republic reporter and graduate of Stanford University, tweeted that she accepted a position with the AP in April. The Twitter post was dug up by the Stanford College Republicans, a group that frequently probes into former and current student political activities. Wilder’s Twitter account has since been switched to private mode.
This raises additional questions about the AP’s reporting on the Israel and Hamas conflict. News broke that the AP shared a since-demolished building in Gaza with Hamas. The radical group maintained a level of operations in the building. An Islamic Jihad office was also in the building. Journalist Noah Pollack claims to have spoken with Israel Defense Forces personnel who say AP reporters had knowledge of the shared environment.
Wilder led an effort on Stanford’s campus to host antisemitic cartoonist Eli Valley. Valley frequently draws Jews in an offensive way and has depicted Nazi imagery in his work. The former Stanford student was the co-leader of Students for Justice in Palestine as well. A spokesman for the AP told The Federalist that the outlet “requires employees to abstain from political activity.”
In 2017, Wilder helped lead a rally at the Taglit-Birthright office in New York. The organization gives Jewish people an opportunity to travel to Israel for a low cost for a spiritual and religious experience. Wilder posted on Facebook about the event and referred to Jewish businessman Sheldon Adelson as a “naked mole-rat looking billionaire.” Adelson died in 2021 and funded the Birthright experience for Jews, as well as additional religious causes.
Wilder did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Stanford University.
“We are not surprised that Emily Wilder, a livid Anti-Israel Activist and Students for Justice in Palestine Leader at Stanford, has just been hired by the Associated Press as a new correspondent, especially in light of recent revelations regarding the Associated Press’ ties to Hamas,” a spokesman for the Stanford College Republicans told The Federalist. “Unfortunately promoting antisemitic blood libel that Jews have ‘ethnically cleansed’ Palestinians, or defending threats of violence against Jewish Zionists, is perfectly acceptable for national news publications such as the Associated Press.”
Canary Mission, a group that tracks activists who display anti-Israel individuals, found that Wilder said Birthright is “nothing more than ethnic nationalist propaganda.” Wilder was found to be saying that Jewish people are “ethnically cleansing” Palestinians. She wrote on Facebook in August 2018 defending a student named Hamzeh Daoud who threatened to “physically fight Zionists on campus.”
“Classic white conservative (Zionist) move to feel absurdly, viscerally threatened by a clearly misrepresented Facebook post that was immediately edited, and then in response start a massive smear campaign against a student of color that gets global attention and puts him in more danger than they can ever dream of being in. Nice one,” she wrote.
The U.S. government has designated Hamas a terrorist group. But the AP referred to Hamas as “a grassroots movement” on Monday and claimed the state of Israel’s attack on the building was an example of targeting the free press. The group says it was not cognizant of the terrorist group’s presence in its office building, but a 2014 article by former correspondent Matt Friedman in The Atlantic contradicts this claim. “Hamas fighters would burst into the AP’s Gaza bureau and threaten the staff,” Friedman wrote.
Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton slammed the AP Monday, questioning how the outlet was unaware it was sharing a building with a terrorist group.
“I submit that the AP has some uncomfortable questions to answer, yet the AP and its fellow journalists are in high dudgeon about Israel’s wholly appropriate airstrike,” Cotton said. “Leave it to whiny reporters to make themselves the story and the victim when terrorists are shooting missiles at innocent civilians.”
Source: The Federalist
