MRC Spreads Palestinian ‘Crisis Actor’ Lie

Media Research Center writer Nicholas Fondacaro is a very prolific liar. He launched another one in a Nov. 10 post:

In the same week that four other major American news outlets had to answer for utilizing dubious sources with connections to Hamas for their reporting on the Israel-Hamas war, MSNBC seemingly tried to one-up the rest by promoting a video put out by Saleh Aljafarawi, a known Hamas-linked propagandist and crisis actor. On her eponymous show Friday afternoon, Chris Jansing treated him as though he was an innocent civilian brutalized by Israel.

Aljafarawi has been dubbed “Mr. FAFO” and “Mr. Pallywood” (a combination of Palestinian and Hollywood) on social media by those who call him out. He posts his propaganda videos to his Instagram account which has over three million followers. He’s pretended to be a Hamas fighter in a music video, a radiology tech in a hospital, a foster father, a member of the press, and a rescue worker, among other roles. He even put out a video of himself praising Hamas rockets that were launched at Israeli civilians.

But that didn’t stop Jansing from elevating a video of him purportedly at the al-Shifa hospital running around with “blood” on his hand.

[…]

MSNBC regular Malcolm Nancy [sic] was among the first to call out the network for promoting Aljafarawi’s propaganda. “I LITERALLY JUST SAW @MSNBC JUST FEATURE THIS SAME GUY AT AL-SHIFA HOSPITAL SCREAMING WITH BLOODY HANDS. PRODUCERS! FFS CHECK YOUR SOURCES. HE IS FAKE!!! #PunkedAgain,” he wrote in all-caps on X (formerly Twitter).

“‘Content creator/Actor’ Yes for HAMAS,” he scolded one of his commenters. “People are so ridiculously ready to excuse a dedicated HAMAS propaganda player they refuse to believe their own eyes.”

But as commentator Matt Binder documented, Aljafarawi is not a “crisis actor,” nor has he pretended to be one. He’s a prolific poster on Instagram. Binder pointed out that Aljafarawi appears to be in many different places in Gaza because Gaza isn’t that big — and also that videos that have been claimed online to be Aljafarawi being a “crisis actor” aren’t him at all. Others have pointed out that a collage of images purporting to be of Aljafarawi are doctored, taken out of context or lack evidence to back the claims.

In other words, Nance is lying and Fondacaro chose to repeat his lie without bothering to fact-check first. But Fondacaro is so committed to the lie that he repeated it a few hours later:

If you’re on X (formerly known as Twitter) and follow the Israel-Hamas War, you’re likely aware of the man we’re about to speak of. Saleh Aljafarawi, dubbed “Mr. FAFO” and “Mr. Pallywood,” is a KNOWN Hamas-linked social media influencer and crisis actor. But those easily researchable facts were of no interest to ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News on Friday as they all, much like MSNBC did, treated his content as though it was a legitimate source of news from Gaza.

[…]

CBS was the most brazen in flaunting the video. Correspondent Debora Patta used the part of the video that featured Aljafarawi. “Reeling in stunned disbelief, this man shouts, ‘They bombed the hospitals,'” she breathlessly translated for him. “Nearby, a young girl breaks down hysterically, ‘my mom, my father, my brother.’”

“Their one place of refuse, now a blood-soaked battleground,” she lamented. Meanwhile, it was yet another Gaza-launched rocket that fell short.

Over on ABC and NBC, correspondents Matt Gutman and Keir Simmons (respectively) both used arguably deceptively edited versions of Aljafarawi’s video. They edited down the video to take him out of it completely and only used the portion with the little girl.

Aljafarawi was very much a highly recognizable figure that had emerged from the conflict, so it’s suspicious that they used the part he was not visible in.

Note Fondacaro’s lie that Aljafarawi is a “KNOWN … crisis actor.” If Fondacaro had bothered to do any research at all before posting,he would have KNOWN that Aljafarawi is NOT, in fact, a “crisis actor.”

Alex Christy parroted Fondacaro’s “known crisis actor” lie in a Nov. 11 post: “Just on Friday, ABC, NBC, CBS, and MSNBC got caught using footage from a Palestinian propagandist and known crisis actor.” Curtis Houck also repeated the lie in touting a right-wing congressman spouting Fondacaro’s falsehood in a Nov. 14 post:

On Monday’s edition of Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) podcast The Verdict, Cruz and co-host Ben Ferguson had a lengthy segment praising the work of NewsBusters and associate editor Nick Fondacaro for exposing the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, NBC for using dubious footage from a known pro-Hamas crisis actor named Saleh Aljafarawi.

“I want to show part of this propaganda. NewsBusters found that ABC, CBS, and NBC elevated a Gaza video from a known propagandist influencer. This guy — we’re going to show you all the different jobs that he has,” Ferguson began just prior to the 25-minute mark.

Cruz and Ferguson then played the full video that the networks would use Friday night and, on a second view, Cruz walked viewers (and listeners on the audio-only side) through the video, including multiple people with “red liquid” that they want to portray as blood, but there’s “no visible wounds” on Aljafarawi or a young girl.

[…]

Ferguson then read from Fondacaro’s piece about who Aljafarawi really is before the co-hosts put on-screen a collage of the roles Aljafarawi has played over the course of the war:

Meanwhile, PolitiFact pointed out that there’s no actual evidence to prove this particular video was faked. Remember, the MRC doesn’t care about the truth; they care much more that their narratives get traction in right-wing media.

Perhaps realizing he had been caught spreading a lie, Fondacaro hilariously de-escalated things a bit in another Nov. 14 post:

During an appearance at the Global Women’s Summit put on by The Washington Post on Tuesday, CBS News president Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews boasted about her organization’s new fact-checking unit “CBS News Confirmed” which was allegedly supposed to be able to identify and call out images and video that were meant to misinform the public. But as NewsBusters reported just last week, CBS Evening News promoted a video out of Gaza created by a known Hamas-linked propagandist and alleged crisis actor.

[…]

But as NewsBusters reported, CBS was the most brazen evening newscast last Friday in flaunting a video from Saleh Aljafarawi, a known Hamas-linked social media influencer and alleged crisis actor, who was dubbed “Mr. FAFO” and “Mr. Pallywood” online.

But who was the person who “alleged” that Aljafarawi is a “crisis actor”? Fondacaro. Did he apologize for his lie? Of course not.

Luis Cornelio complained that YouTube called out Cruz’s parroting of Fondacaro’s lie in a Nov. 21 post:

Anti-free speech YouTube targeted a video from Sen. Ted Cruz’s popular podcast where the lawmaker praised a report from MRC’s NewsBusters about fake videos depicting alleged victims in the Gaza Strip.

YouTube placed a contentious age restriction banner on the Nov. 14 episode of The Verdict podcast. During the show, Cruz and co-host Ben Ferguson highlighted a study by NewsBusters that exposed ABC, CBS and NBC for using dubious footage from Saleh Aljafarawi who has gone viral over accusations of being a crisis actor in the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip. “This video may be inappropriate for some users,” YouTube inexplicably warns potential viewers, before asking users to log in and “confirm” their age—but wait, there’s more.

Yes, Cornelio is actually claiming that YouTube putting an age restriction on Cruz’s video is “censorship.” Needless to say, Cornelio refused to admit that his co-worker is a liar.

(Catherine Salgado put this on her Dec. 5 list of the “WORST Censorship of November,” despite the fact that only the most deluded partisans think an age restriction on a video is “censorship.” She also claimed that Aljafarawi was “accused of being a crisis actor in the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip” while not disclosing that those making the accusation are her co-workers.)

As Fondacaro’s “crisis actor” fizzled with people continuing to debunk it, he devoted a Dec. 2 post to bashing PolitiFact’s debunking, weirdly headlined “PolitiFact Comes to the Defense of THAT Hamas Influencer You’ve Seen:”

You might not know his name but you’ve probably seen his face. Saleh Aljafarawi is a known Hamas-linked influencer who has been all over social media where he praises Hamas, pretends to be a journalist, hospital worker, and pretty much anything to get sympathy for Palestinians. But despite what was known about Aljafarawi, PolitiFact came to his defense on Thursday to quibble over his being described as a “crisis actor” by those who know his connection to Hamas.

PolitiFact decided to assign “Spanish misinformation reporter” Marta Campabadal Graus the task of aiding Aljafarawi because Gaza influencers were totally in the Spanish media sphere. And she gave the accusations that he was a “crisis actor” a “false” rating.

“PolitiFact’s review of Aljafarawi’s social media accounts and background did not reveal evidence of him being a ‘crisis actor’ or faking the scene at the hospital,” she proclaimed, ignoring his connection to Hamas and without providing evidence that the hospital scene was real.

It’s not a “quibble” to get basic facts right, of course. Fondacaro made clear, declarative claims about Aljafarawi that were proven false, as well as a claim about a video of his that are unproven at best. So rather than admit he lied and correct the record, Fondacaro hastily tried to change the narrative to assert that is a a “Hamas propagandist”:

But while Campabadal explored his social media accounts, she didn’t make the obvious connection that he’s a Hamas propagandist. “The ‘freedom fighter’ image of Aljafarawi with a gun was taken from a music video that was deleted a few weeks ago. In the music video, he was posing as a singing Hamas fighter,” she admitted.

But the fact of the matter was that he would have needed to get all the gear and weapon he was wearing in the video from Hamas since they controlled that kind of stuff.

As Soch Fact Check noted, that video was first posted in July — three months before the war started. (It has now been deleted from Aljafarawi’s account.) That means Fondacaro is lying again by suggesting it was posted after the war started.

This is the way the MRC works — spread a lie, don’t acknowledge that the lie has been debunked, then move on to the next lie. Fondacaro has learned well from his employer.