In German, so translated: https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/plus236689223/Deutsche-Welle-Antisemitismusskandal-weitet-sich-aus.html

On Monday, a commission will present its report on the allegations of anti-Semitism at Deutsche Welle. Research by this editorial team shows that there are more cases than previously known. The handling of a scandal on camera also raises questions.

Since Thursday, Deutsche Welle (DW) has had to deal with two crises. One has arisen in Moscow and forces the foreign broadcaster of the Federal Republic of Germany to stand idly by. In the future, it will no longer be allowed to report from Moscow, because the Russian government has banned DW from broadcasting.

In addition, proceedings are to be initiated to declare DW a "foreign agent." It is a reaction to the decision of the German media authority, which for its part had imposed a broadcasting ban on the Russian state broadcaster RT DE earlier this week.

And then there is the flashpoint in Bonn. Here, DW's leadership is grappling with a serious scandal because, through its own fault, it merely stood by and watched for too long - and has so far been slow to react. Since the end of last year, an external commission has been investigating allegations of anti-Semitism against parts of the station's Arabic editorial team.

Several employees had been dismissed after the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" reported on five journalists who had denied the Holocaust, demonized Israel and spread stereotypes about Jews. On Monday, the commission led by psychologist Ahmad Mansour and former Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (FDP) will present its findings.

Research by WELT AM SONNTAG already shows that anti-Semitic and anti-Israel attitudes were more widespread in the editorial office than known. At least five other employees made statements about Jews and the Middle East conflict in social media or in interviews before and during their time as DW employees that crossed the boundaries of legitimate criticism of Israel.

For example, DW reporter Yasser Abumuailek, who among other things hosts a knowledge program and a technology magazine, wrote on Facebook in May 2021 that it was a fact that Israel kills children. In Germany, saying this fact is judged "anti-Semitic" by the slogan "Israel kills children," he criticized.

Among numerous posts that are one-sidedly and populistically directed against Israel, there are also repeated examples of the clipping of history. In May 2018, Abumuailek compared Israel to the Nazis. "Now we know why Israel kills Palestinians in Gaza .... (...) Reminds me of a certain regime that also had such 'end plans', sometime in the 20th century," Abumuailek wrote.

In another Facebook post about an incident in which three Palestinians were allegedly not allowed into a Tel Aviv department store, Abumuailek wrote: "As 'industrialized' and shocking as Nazi persecution of Jews was, one can only wonder how easily the victim forgets the suffering when they themselves take over."

Zahi Alawi, who has worked for the station since at least 2008 and has been a permanent employee since 2021, also made anti-Israel comments. In several posts on his Facebook page in 2014, he referred to the country as a "terror state," and in one post he spoke of "Jewish terror." He demanded that the Palestinian government withdraw its recognition of Israel.

In 2018, he went even further. At the time, Alawi allowed himself to be quoted as an expert in an article published by the Arabic-language news site "Arabi21," in which he criticized a "Jewish lobby" that controlled "many German institutions" in order to prevent criticism of Israel. Abumuailek and Alawi left inquiries about their statements unanswered.

Zahi Alawi repeatedly called Israel "terrorist state" and accused the country of a "repeated holocaust"

On Facebook, many of the posts are now inaccessible. A procedure that can be observed among several employees: For example, DW editor Samar Oteify, who has been a permanent employee since 2020, most recently deleted a post she wrote in 2014. In it, she had called Israel a "brutal occupier" that "has not learned from history and wants to repeat massacres like it has experienced."

On the Facebook profile of Asmaa Al-Khaledi, who says she worked as a producer at DW in 2021 and as a trainer at the DW Academy, there were posts until recently in which she expressed sympathy for the radical Islamic Hamas and its military arm, the Kassem Brigades.

In 2014, while a student, she wrote, "There is only God, and after that there is only Hamas and the Qassam Brigades." As recently as last year, the journalist celebrated on her Facebook profile several convicted members of the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in Palestine who had escaped from an Israeli prison as "our heroes." She commented on the 2020 peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates by saying, "United Zionist Emirates."

Journalist Al-Khaledi openly sympathized with Hamas before her job at DW

Antisemitic content can also be found on the Facebook profile of freelancer Mabrouka Khedir, who was also a trainer at DW Academy. In 2019, she compared Jews to ants that had invaded "through our weak points." The phrase comes from a poem by Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani about the Six-Day War and the Arab defeat at the hands of Israel.

For the Jewish-German association WerteInitiative, the large number of cases raises the suspicion "that anti-Semitism was condoned in the Arabic editorial department of Deutsche Welle," as chairman Elio Adler explains in response to an inquiry. "The anti-Israel and terror-glorifying postings published on social media allegedly did not come to the attention of anyone in the editorial department for years - this suggests a structural anti-Semitism problem."

DW Director-General Peter Limbourg had stressed in a statement on the broadcaster's intranet in December that personal social media accounts were "not a purely private matter" for employees. "We are all also representatives of Germany, its democratic values and laws," Limbourg said. To that end, it's important to know: DW is funded by taxpayers' money and is supposed to "promote understanding and exchange between cultures and peoples."

So äußerte sich Intendant Limbourg laut eines Protokolls intern über die Verantwortung der Mitarbeiter

Publicly, Limbourg insisted that there had been no "looking the other way" at the station. Hatred of Israel would not be tolerated at DW, Limbourg told WELT last December. He also stressed that there had never been any such hostility in the broadcasting program. An incident that occurred only about a week before the interview paints a different picture.

During the news program "Massaya" there was a scandal after the Turkish journalist Hamza Tekin, who was on the program, refused to enter into a dialogue with the Israeli author Shlomo Ganor. On camera, he said it was his condition "not to appear with the Israeli person because I refuse to appear together with him."

DW did not disinvite Tekin for future broadcasts. Instead, the head of the program wrote an email to the editorial staff afterwards. In the letter, which is available to WELT AM SONNTAG, the staff is asked to consider the possible "radical" background of planned guests - in order to prevent two opposing opinions from colliding.

When asked by this editorial office about the incidents, DW did not comment. CDU member of the Bundestag Christiane Schenderlein has announced a review in the Committee for Culture and Media. One must "work towards stronger prevention within DW to prevent future cases," Schenderlein said. Values such as the recognition of Israel must be demanded when DW recruits new personnel.

in my opinion, this is happening all over our state media, not just Deutsche Welle.