On Day 7 of the pro-Palestinian protests on the Columbia University campus, Osama Abuirshaid stopped by the student encampment.
The executive director of American Muslims for Palestine walked through the tent city, then made a fiery speech to the gathered crowd.
“This is not only a genocide that is being committed in Gaza,” Abuirshaid said. “This is also a war on us here in America.”
Forty-eight hours later, Abuirshaid appeared at another campus — George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he delivered another speech.
“Ties” and “links” are favorite weasel words of media manipulation. They’re factual and imply causality without stating it so they’re not technically wrong. Like, “Schools linked to school shootings”.
From the article.
From 2002 to 2004, Abuirshaid ran the internal newspaper for a pro-Palestinian media organization called Islamic Association for Palestine. The group’s sister fundraising organization, the Holy Land Foundation was designated a terror group in 2001, investigated by the FBI and indicted by the Department of Justice. Ultimately, the foundation’s leaders went to prison for supporting terrorists, and a federal judge later found both groups responsible for funding Hamas.
Running the newspaper for a group funding Hamas. Sounds like he’s connected to me.
“Connected.” Another weasel word. A genealogy web site that I use can tell me how I’m “connected” to King Charles. (At least 32 degrees of separation, including through many marriages.) What are the specific allegations here?
Ran the internal newspaper for a group who funded Hamas.
And Charles was the Prince of Wales before he took the throne. Is that just an interesting factoid, or are we supposed to infer something from it?
That is indeed the kind of thing one could make inferences from.
Exactly. Those are weasel words, designed to lead the reader to infer things, warranted or not.
Definitely can’t write things where the reader might infer things. That would be outrageous and uncouth!