{"id":302682,"date":"2025-09-08T12:01:43","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T11:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=302682"},"modified":"2025-09-08T06:37:39","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T05:37:39","slug":"ap-jerusalem-chief-participated-in-secretive-israeli-govt-anti-bds-event-leaked-files-reveal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/09\/ap-jerusalem-chief-participated-in-secretive-israeli-govt-anti-bds-event-leaked-files-reveal\/","title":{"rendered":"AP Jerusalem Chief Participated in Secretive Israeli Govt Anti-BDS Event, Leaked Files Reveal"},"content":{"rendered":"

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AP\u2019s Israel-Palestine news director, Josef Federman, has spun data to minimize the Gaza death count. Leaked documents show he appeared on a panel aimed at assisting \u201cIsrael\u2019s ability to effectively portray its narrative\u201d during a gov\u2019t-sponsored propaganda conference chaired by an ex-IDF official who legitimized killing journalists.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

6 Sep 2025\u00a0<\/em>– The Israeli massacre of five journalists in broad daylight on August 24, 2025 at Nasser Hospital in Gaza\u2019s Khan Younis city prompted a sternly worded statement<\/a> to the Israeli government from the Associated Press and Reuters, which each employed a reporter murdered by the IDF. The AP subsequently published a detailed investigation<\/a> demonstrating that the Israeli military knowingly attacked a civilian target, then carried out a double tap strike after a rescue team and journalists arrived on the scene.<\/p>\n

While the AP\u2019s statement of outrage about the killing of its photographer in Gaza, Miriam Dagga, has brought the leading wire agency\u2019s tension with the Israeli government to its height, the relationship with Tel Aviv was not always so adversarial.<\/p>\n

The Grayzone has reviewed leaked documents revealing that the AP\u2019s news director for Israel-Palestine, Josef Federman<\/a>, participated in a private 2018 panel discussion aimed at assisting \u201cIsrael\u2019s ability to effectively portray its narrative.\u201d His host was a secretive Israeli government outfit dedicated to combatting the global BDS campaign to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel. Called the Global Coalition For Israel (GC4I), the event was convened in Jerusalem on June 18, 2018 by Israel\u2019s Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Diplomacy \u2013 the de facto propaganda arm of the Israeli government.<\/p>\n

The moderator of the panel in which Federman participated was Avital Leibovich, the former spokeswoman for the IDF who has\u00a0ardently defended<\/a> the Israeli policy of defining Palestinian journalists as terrorists in order to assassinate them.<\/p>\n

Federman has presided over the AP\u2019s coverage of Israel-Palestine since 2014. Throughout Israel\u2019s genocidal assault on Gaza began in October 2023, Federman has helped shape a narrative that has subtly but effectively advanced Tel Aviv\u2019s objectives, regurgitating<\/a> the baseless<\/a> and comprehensively<\/a> debunked<\/a> claim<\/a> that \u201cIsraelis were raped or sexually assaulted\u201d on October 7; legitimizing<\/a> Israel\u2019s violent invasion and theft of Syrian land as a historical \u201cshift,\u201d and relying on bogus data from an Israel lobby-affiliated researcher to minimize<\/a> the civilian death count in Gaza \u2013 a grim toll which now includes one of his colleagues at AP.<\/p>\n

Federman\u2019s penchant for uncritically quoting<\/a> notoriously mendacious Israeli military officials has helped secure his reputation for biased coverage.<\/p>\n

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