Adam Chamseddine has written or contributed to more than three dozen WSJ reports since last year
A freelance reporter who plays a leading role in the Wall Street Journal‘s coverage of Hezbollah has repeatedly praised the terrorist group while condemning “the Israeli enemy,” a Washington Free Beacon analysis has found.
Adam Chamseddine, a Beirut-based reporter, has written or contributed to more than three dozen reports as a freelance contributor for the Journal since last year, including providing coverage of the funeral of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Chamseddine was also the lead reporter for a story on Israel’s use of pagers to assassinate Hezbollah commanders. And he was one of the reporters for a Journal story last week that Iran is rearming its “militia allies,” like Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis.
While writing for the Journal, Chamseddine, a former reporter for the pro-Hezbollah newspaper As-Safir, has expressed stark anti-Israel views while hailing groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.
He has referred to “the Israeli enemy” in multiple social media posts, according to English translations of his missives, written in Arabic. After Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Chamseddine asserted that “female journalists are dismembered by direct Israeli targeting” and criticized what he said was “Israeli criminality” in response to the Hamas attack, while making no similar condemnation of the terrorist group. He touted an interview “for those who want to understand the Hamas movement” with Tarek Hamoud, the head of the Palestinian Return Centre, which has reportedly been linked to Hamas.
Chamseddine’s anti-Israel views could raise questions about his work for the Journal. The paper, owned by conservative billionaire Rupert Murdoch, has faced scrutiny over the anti-Israel sympathies of other reporters covering the region.
Abeer Ayyoub, a Gaza-based freelancer for the Journal, lamented the “Jewish mafia” on social media and posted Hamas propaganda videos after Oct. 7, the Free Beacon reported. The watchdog group HonestReporting, which uncovered Ayyoub’s posts, has criticized the Journal’s coverage of Israel and noted that the paper uses the term “militant group” to refer to Hezbollah, downplaying its terrorist activities.
Chamseddine, whose reports refer to Hezbollah as a “Lebanese militant group,” has offered sympathies to the terrorist group’s leaders. In July 2019, he commemorated the anniversary of the death of Hezbollah commander Khaled Bazzi, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike after he orchestrated the kidnapping of two IDF soldiers on Israeli soil. Chamseddine expressed “greetings” to Bazzi on the “anniversary of his martyrdom,” adding: “May God be pleased with you as much as your eyes blink.”
After Nasrallah’s funeral, which Chamseddine covered for the Journal in a story entitled “Hezbollah Uses Nasrallah Funeral to Show It Is Still Alive,” Chamseddine wrote on social media that the turnout at Nasrallah’s funeral “terrifies Israel” and that Nasrallah had “proved that the impossible has become possible.”
Sentiments like Chamseddine’s have increasingly infiltrated American mainstream media outlets post-Oct.7. CBS News producer Marwan al-Ghoul spoke at an event for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist group. And CNN freelancer Abdel Qader Sabbah once served in a Hamas-affiliated group and took photos with one of the group’s leaders.
Chamseddine has used his several other media gigs to promote anti-Israel and pro-Hezbollah views. He hosts a news talk show on Al-Jadeed, an independent Lebanese television network, and is senior policy adviser at Badil: The Alternative Policy Institute, a Lebanese think tank that often demonizes Israel and defends Hezbollah.
Chamseddine interviewed his Badil colleague Giselle Jetti last year about a report she produced at the think tank entitled “Lebanon’s War Crimes Case Against Israel.”
Jetti’s report cited Chamseddine’s Journal article that asserted Israeli strikes killed 44 civilians in addition to a Hezbollah fighter. In the interview, Chamseddine asked Jaffi to describe how Lebanon “can take legal action against the Israeli enemy,” according to a translation of his remarks.
Jetti published a report for Badil in May that called to “safeguard the essential services Hezbollah currently provides” in Lebanon. She wrote that American lawmakers’ critiques of Hezbollah “implicitly dehumanize millions of Lebanese citizens who continue to support, or at least sympathize with, the party and its armed resistance.”
Chamseddine has interviewed numerous other Hezbollah apologists at Al Jadeed, including Mikhael Awad, a Lebanese analyst who has called for Lebanon to declare war on Israel, which he called a “cancerous growth.”
The Journal did not respond to a request for comment about its relationship with Chamseddine. Chamseddine did not respond to a comment request.
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