NEW YORK — A Jewish man who moved to the United States as a refugee from Syria sued Al Jazeera last week for libel, drawing the news network into the court battles being waged across the US in response to the war in Gaza and antisemitism.
Abraham Hamra, an immigration attorney based in New York, said in the lawsuit that Al Jazeera falsely reported that he had been paid by the Israeli government to visit humanitarian aid sites in Gaza as part of a propaganda effort. Hamra is an outspoken opponent of antisemitism online who stands out in the pro-Israel influencer world because of his fluent Arabic.
Hamra said the claim was “categorically false” and he had never been paid by the Israeli government or any related entity.
Al Jazeera published a post earlier this month on its official English-language Instagram page, with more than 6.4 million followers, that showed a video of Hamra standing near aid supplies meant for Gazans. The Israeli government had invited influencers to the site to show Israel’s delivery of aid through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
The video had text over Hamra’s image that said the influencers were invited by the Israeli government to tour the aid sites and “reportedly paid” to partake in the visit, implying that Israel had compensated them. The post did not include any source for the claim.
Hamra said in the lawsuit that he had funded the trip himself.
Al Jazeera did not contact Hamra for comment before publishing the video, a standard practice for news organizations.
The lawsuit accused Al Jazeera of a longstanding pattern of antisemitism and anti-Zionist bias, and a “reckless disregard for the truth” when reporting on Israel.
New York libel law is generous to media organizations. To demonstrate libel, accusers must show “actual malice,” meaning that accidentally publishing false information is not grounds for libel. The lawsuit argued that Al Jazeera’s recklessness in publishing the post without sourcing or fact-checking, alongside its history of bias, amounted to actual malice.
The Al Jazeera report implied that Hamra had violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a federal crime that requires agents of foreign states to publicly disclose that relationship, the lawsuit said.
The false claims harmed Hamra’s professional reputation as a lawyer due to the implied criminal activity, and spurred an online backlash against him, with members of the public seeking Hamra’s personal information in a virtual “lynch mob,” the lawsuit said.
The case was filed in the federal Eastern District of New York court because Hamra is a resident of New York, and Al Jazeera reports are directed to US audiences, including in New York. Al Jazeera is headquartered in Doha, Qatar, and funded by the Qatari government.
The defendant in the lawsuit is Al Jazeera International, registered in Delaware and based in Washington, DC, and the Al Jazeera Media Network.
Al Jazeera did not immediately respond to a request for comment and did not yet have legal representation in the case.
The lawsuit sought damages of at least $1 million and a trial by jury.
Hamra fled with his family from Damascus in 1994 when he was seven years old after the Assad regime lifted restrictions on Jewish emigration in 1992. The family was part of the last wave of Syrian Jewish refugees to move to the US. There is a large Syrian Jewish community in New York, but earlier arrivals are less connected to Syria and generally do not speak fluent Arabic. Some of the more recent arrivals have begun visiting Syria since the fall of the Assad regime.
Hamra’s relative Rabbi Avraham Hamra was the last chief rabbi of Syria.
Legal battles related to Israel and antisemitism are taking place in courts across the US, with both pro- and anti-Israel activists filing lawsuits against their perceived opponents. Pro-Israel lawsuits have targeted universities, UN agencies, activists, nonprofits, businesspeople and entertainment venues. Some institutions, like Columbia University, are being battered by lawsuits from both sides.
Lawsuits against media organizations for their coverage of the conflict are rare, though. In one other example, the nonprofit Palestine Chronicle was sued earlier this year by former Hamas captives who were held hostage by one of the outlet’s reporters.
The tactics of pro-Israel advocacy groups have been evolving since the October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, with legal groups making novel use of laws, such as applying measures meant to protect abortion clinics to synagogues, and deploying little-used civil rights protections.
US courts have also had to tackle the thorny issue of when anti-Israel activism veers into antisemitism. A federal judge in Washington, DC, earlier this month equated attacking a Jewish person holding an Israeli flag with antisemitism, in a decision that lawyers in the case believe will serve as a signpost for future litigation over anti-Israel attacks.