Survivors of Oct. 7 attack sue Associated Press | Dan Abrams Live

according to the complaint quote there is no doubt that ap's photographers participated in the October 7th Massacre and that AP knew or at least should have known through simple due diligence that the people they were paying were long-standing Hamas Affiliates and full participants in the terror attack that they were also documenting sure to come up in any potential trial as a man we've covered extensively on this show the guy on the right with the big smirk on his face is Hassan Esa who until o

ver a month after October 7th was still working with the AP and others as a freelance journalist the guy on the left who appears to be getting pretty cozy with es liia is top Hamas Commander Yaya sinir he's believed to be the Mastermind behind the October 7th attacks and is currently the Most Wanted Man in Israel that's video of him escaping in esa's case the question was how was he able to gain access to capture images like these on October 7th and and Beyond photos like this one taken on the d

ay of the attack it depicts the inside of an an ambulance the caption claimed it was damaged in an Israeli air strike as Hamas terrorists infiltrated the Border when confronted with this information the AP and other outlets severed their professional ties with Asia he's one of four photographers mentioned in the suit as being quote embedded with Hamas during the attacks but he's the only one believed to have actually been side by side with them as they went about slaughtering Israelis and the la

wsuit attempts to connect the dots between employing these so-called journalists and the funding of terrorist quote AP willfully chose to turn a blind eye to these facts and instead profited from its terrorist photographers participation in the massacre through its publication of the exclusive images for which it certainly paid a premium effectively funding a terror organization the AP continued purchasing ASAS photographs until November 2nd close to a month after the massacres before they sever

ed ties they released a statement on November 9th quote the first pictures AP received from any freelancer show they were taken more more than an hour after the attacks began no AP staff were at the border at the time of the attacks nor did any AP staffer across the border at any time we are no longer working with Hassan Esa joining us now is Mark goldfeder he's the director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center who is spearheading the lawsuit against the Associated Press thanks very much for c

oming on the program appreciate it so look I have enormous Sympathy for the victims here I've covered this issue a lot um and in particular I focused on this issue of terrorists who poses journalists but it does seem like it's going to be a tough case to prove that the AP ought to be held responsible here tell me why you think I'm wrong well I'm glad you asked that question and thank you very much for having me on the show you know what makes this case different is look right after October 7th a

number of major media organizations used these same photojournalists to document and to unfortunately help spread some of hamas's propaganda and frame the attack what makes AP different is that we have the receipts showing that they knew five years in advance that in particular hassania was affiliated with Hamas deeply embedded with them and that they were required at that point to sever their relationship or at the very least to do their due diligence and make sure he was no longer affiliated

with Hamas if organizations like honest reporting which broke the story originally uh or our organization the National Jewish Advocacy Center which have an infinitesimally smaller amount of resources than the ap's investigative abilities able to uncover telegram videos of isia not wearing any press credentials mingling with and celebrating and cheering on the killing and slaughtering of Israelis the AP knew or should have known as well here you know the way this works right they're hiring these

Freelancers they're not doing the background checks that it sounds like you think that they ought to be doing and probably when you're talking about something that's sensitive they ought to be doing but you know the the law and and I want to read it because you're suing under the anti-terrorism act and and that reads us Nationals injured by an act of international terrorism committed planned or authorized by a designated foreign terrorist organization May Sue any person who AIDS and abets by kno

wingly providing substantial Assistance or who conspires with the person who committed such an act of international terrorism you're going to have to show that they knowingly did it yeah that's where the emails come in handy so five years ago they got an email from a different organization saying hey this person with pictures is affiliated with Hamas and you're paying him stop and they chose to ignore it and they didn't just give them money I want to make it clear as well part of hamas's overall

Global strategy is propaganda it's to get access to these incredibly massive and Powerful media organizations and by even allowing them to pretend to be AP neutral photojournalist by the way the AP has all of these lists of regulations and policies and guidelines for maintaining neutrality certainly he violated their own standards should be no doubt about that we 100% agree with you on that but I I'm still trying to figure out how you win this loss the receipts the emails what makes AP differen

t than every other organization is look the New York Times CNN Reuters they all should have known that isia was working with Hamas how they should have checked his telegram they should have checked the fact that an hour before the first rocket launched he announced it's going to be a great day praise God something along those lines it's pretty clear that he had some advanced notice and in fact there are videos of him training with Hamas operatives in advance that were all publicly posted on his

Telegram Channel and available for anyone to do the beest minimum due diligence but let's give them a pass because AP had the emails they literally have the receipts and they're included in the exhibits with the lawsuit five years ago they were told in writing and they have no way out who by by who who told who told them though some some some random an organization called camera which then posted those emails for the public to see on Twitter so that there was everyone was aware it was an Open Se

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