The sequence was widely circulated on social networks. Tuesday October 8, Rima Hassan is questioned by BFMTV about the whistles aimed at Emmanuel Macron during a Crif ceremony in tribute to the victims of October 7, while the President of the Republic had called two days earlier to stop delivering to Israel weapons used in Gaza. In duplex, the pro-Palestinian activist kicks in, preferring to denounce live the fact that BFMTV was “congratulated” on this same channel by Olivier Rafowicz, “who is a spokesperson for the Israeli army, a genocidal army” . “It is very, very important for me to denounce this during this interview, because it says a lot about your editorial line on the subject,” says the LFI MEP towards the two journalists on set . Forgetting a little quickly in passing that she herself has been praised for a year in the Arab world by, pell-mell: the “spokespeople” of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the media close to the Muslim Brotherhood in Qatar (Editor’s note: in a press release published the next day, the channel “regrets that a sentence pronounced by Olivier Rafowicz was taken out of context and used to take BFMTV to task”).
“Rima’s Victory”
Thus, the day after the election of Rima Hassan as MEP last June, Al Alam, a television channel created in 2003 by the Islamic Republic of Iran to address Arab populations, published a report saluting “the first French Palestinian to enter the European Parliament” and highlighting her courage, she who “was massively harassed by those who support the Israeli occupation because of her position against the Israeli massacres in Gaza”. In the same video, the presenter quotes the statement of Khaled Salaymeh, a Palestinian doctor with pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah positions: “This is great news… Our daughter is in the European Parliament.” The report concludes with this comment: “Rima’s victory is clear proof that the Zionist state has failed in Europe.”
At the same time, Akbar Ganji, an Iranian activist opposed to the Islamic Republic and who accused Israel of being a racist state, expressed his joy on social networks at seeing Rima Hassan sitting in Strasbourg: “She committed to making Gaza her priority, calling for an urgent need for political action. Over the past eight months, she has participated in all student and non-student protests to free Palestine from colonialism, apartheid and apartheid. Israeli occupation.
Support and praise that does not date from his election last June. Thus, in February 2024, Al Mayadeen, a Lebanese television channel considered as the voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Hezbollah, interviewed Insoumise who, according to the channel’s host, “suffers from official repression In France”. Two months later, on April 27, Al-Ghad, an Arab television channel supporting Hezbollah and Hamas, was on site during Rima Hassan’s participation in a pro-Palestinian demonstration by Sciences Po Paris students. Speaking to the channel, the future MEP then declared: “Students have legitimate demands: to stop collaborations with Israeli universities.” Demonstrations applauded with both hands the next day by Ali Khamenei, the guide of the Islamic Revolution in Iran: “See what is happening in the world, in Western countries, in England and France, and in the United States itself “people are coming out in large numbers to chant slogans against Israel and America. The reputation of the United States and Israel has been ruined.” On April 29, on BFMTV, Rima Hassan claimed not to have seen this tweet and not to know Khamenei personally: “I have no comment to make,” she added.
Support from media close to the Muslim Brotherhood
Between September 2023 and July 2024, the elected LFI was also entitled to several flattering reports on Al-Jazeera Arab, a television channel financed by Qatar and close to the Muslim Brotherhood. Thus, a month before the massacre of October 7, after she declared in the program C this evening : “In the name of what could I not return to the village of my grandparents?”, Al-Jazeera publishes a report entitled: “A Palestinian activist denounces Israel’s racism”. In February 2024, interviewed on the same channel following her trip to Syria, to Neirab (where she was born), controlled by the intelligence services of Bashar al-Assad, the person said: “I left France after death and rape threats because of my solidarity with Gaza.”
In June 2024, on the eve of the European elections, Al-Jazeera once again welcomes candidate Rima Hassan, who believes that “the Palestinian cause is a European cause”. A few weeks later, after the controversial appearance of the MEP dressed in a keffiyeh alongside Mélenchon on the evening of the first round of the legislative elections, Al-Jazeera broadcast a report titled “A massive attack against MP Rima Hassan in France; the reason is the Palestinian keffiyeh.” Video clips of these reports were shared thousands of times on social media, with many Hamas supporters praising Hassan for his courage.
The list of media support for the elected LFI in the Arab world does not end there. In February 2024, the newspaper Al Arabi Al Jadid (THE New Arabic), owned by the Qatari company Fadaat Média, which unreservedly supports Hamas and Hezbollah through its channels and newspapers, describes Rima Hassan as “a prominent voice for human rights who worries supporters of the occupation in France “.
Latest feat of arms of the elected LFI to have found an echo in the Arab press close to the Muslim Brotherhood: her exchange last October 8 with François Xavier-Bellamy, during a meeting at the European Parliament. Which calls out to Rima Hassan: “Hamas and Hezbollah attacked Israel, the question is very simple: and do you recognize Israel’s right to defend itself and to guarantee, in compliance with international law, the security of its citizens ?” Visibly tense, the Insoumise responds: “Your ignorance of the subject is one of the sources which prevents us from moving forward on this (Israeli-Palestinian) question… This conflict did not begin with the attacks of Hamas and Hezbollah, this conflict started in 1948. Without answering the question asked of her, Rima Hassan leaves the room repeating the word “uneducated” to her opponent. Echoing this exchange of arms, the media Meem, celebrating these days “one year of the Flood of Al-Aqsa”, as Hamas calls the attack of October 7, translated the exchange between the two elected officials.
Let us nevertheless emphasize that in the Arab media opposed to Hamas and Iran, the story is different. Al Hadath, a Saudi channel massively followed in the region, broadcast a report last June on the candidacy of Rima Hassan, in less laudatory terms: “the French left is divided between extremism supporting the Palestinians and socialists who follow this cause without real interest.
* Writer and poet born in Damascus, Omar Youssef Souleimane participated in demonstrations against the regime of Bashar el-Assad, but, hunted by the secret services, had to flee Syria in 2012. Refugee in France, he published with Flammarion The Little Terrorist, The Last Syrian, A room in exile, and recently Being French.
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