A CNN contributor has been fired after tweeting 'The world today needs a Hitler' in response to the growing violence between Is...
A CNN contributor has been fired after tweeting 'The world today needs a Hitler' in response to the growing violence between Israel and Palestine.
In a statement, CNN officials said Adeel Raja's 'reporting contributed to some newsgathering efforts from Islamabad. However, in light of these abhorrent statements, he will not be working with CNN again in any capacity.'
Raja, who appears to have worked as a freelance contributor for CNN since 2013, tweeted the anti-Semitic remark at around 12:45 p.m. Sunday, and deleted it at around 3:15 p.m., according to the Washington Examiner.
It is just the most recent in a series of anti-Semitic tweets Raja has made over the past few years, Twitter users have discovered.
In 2014, while presumably watching the FIFA World Cup, Raja tweeted, 'The only reason I am supporting Germany in the finals — Hitler was a German and he did good with those Jews.'
The next day, he tweeted, 'Hail Hitler.'
On Sunday, he came under fire for tweeting 'The world today needs a Hitler,' seemingly in response to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine
In 2014, he tweeted that the only reason he was supporting Germany in the FIFA world cup is because 'Hitler was a German and he did good with those jews.' Hitler was actually from Austria
The very next day, Raja tweeted 'Hail Hitler!,' a common Nazi salute
Raja had been working with CNN in Islamabad, Pakistan since August 2013, according to his LinkedIn profile, and his most recent byline on the news website appears to have been from September 16, 2020.
He is also an executive producer at Pakistani ARY News.
In 2016, he won the Agahi Award for Investigative Journalist of the Year, according to his Twitter account. The Agahi Awards are an annual series of awards for journalism in Pakistan.
Many Twitter users have called for CNN to fire him and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to ban him from the social media site after his latest tweet.
Greg Price, a social media associate for The Daily Caller, wrote 'This guy has 54 articles under his byline at CNN. They should probably fire whoever does their background checks,' and Craig Strathearn said, 'He really likes Hitler. He's written for CNN since 2013, I guess CNN likes to employ Nazis.'
A user with the username @PolitiBunny wrote 'Homey's been cashing a CNN check for eight years.'
Mike Brest, a breaking news reporter at the Washington Examiner, pointed out, 'there are a lot of Hitler references' on his timeline, with screenshots of every time Raja used the word 'Hitler' in one of his tweets, and @thatcherite wrote that the FIFA World Cup tweet has been live for seven years and was only taken down on Sunday.
One Pakistani woman, Hira Malik called Raja an embarrassment to Pakistan, and Shay Patrick Cormac tweeted to CNN 'Is this your guy? I wonder what he means by 'The world today needs a Hitler.'
Others pointed out that Hitler, whose Nazi party killed 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, was actually from Austria.
Many took to Twitter following the tweet to condemn him and call for CNN to fire him
CNN spokesman Matt Dornic told the Washington Examiner he 'never heard' of Raja and is 'looking into it.'
The tweet comes amid increasing tensions between Israel and Palestine, which FOX News called the most violent conflict between the two nations since the 2014 Gaza War, as they each launch constant missiles at the other.
Many of those fired into Israel have been intercepted by the country's Iron Dome missile defense system, and in retaliation, the country has conducted a number of airstrikes targeting Hamas leaders.
'In response to HUNDREDS of rockets in the last 24 hours, the IDF has struck a number of significant terror targets and terror operatives across the Gaza Strip, marking our largest strike since 2014,' the Israeli Defense Forces wrote on Twitter.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on CBS' Face the Nation that the airstrikes will continue.
'We'll do whatever it takes to restore order and quiet, and the security of our people and deterrence," Netanyahu said on Sunday. ' We're trying to degrade Hamas' terrorist abilities and to degrade their will to do this again.'
To date, there have been at least 188 Palestinians killed in the conflict, including 55 children and 33 women, according to the Washington Examiner.
In Israel, at least eight have been pronounced dead, including a 5 year old and a soldier.
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