ZOA Urges Fox News To Fire Geraldo Rivera Over Second Intifada Comments
Geraldo Rivera attends an event at The Paley Center for Media in New York City. Image by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images
By Aiden Pink April 8, 2018
The Zionist Organization of America is calling on supporters to urge Fox News Channel to fire Geraldo Rivera after the reporter made pro-Palestinian comments on a recent appearance.
“Why aren’t companies pulling ads from ‘The Five’ show after self hating Jew Geraldo Rivera expressed regret that he didn’t support the five year Arafat terror war(2001-2006) which massacred 2000 innocent Jews & maimed 10000 Jews,” ZOA president Morton Klein wrote on Twitter on Saturday. “Urge Fox TV – fire Geraldo Rivera now!”
Rivera, who is Jewish, appeared on “The Five” last month to promote his memoir. During his appearance, he said that one of the biggest regrets of his journalistic career was not “backing the Palestinians” when he reported on the Second Intifada, during which thousands of Israelis and Palestinians were killed.
“[The Palestinians] are an occupied people and I regret chickening out after 2002 and not staying on that story and adding my voice as a Jew, adding my voice to those counseling a two-state solution,” Rivera said. “It’s so easy to put them out of sight, out of mind, and let them rot, and be killed, and keep this thing festering. And I think a lot of our current problems stem from – that’s almost our original sin, Palestine and Israel.”
The ZOA issued a statement on Wednesday condemning the remarks. “Fox should not continue to employ a commentator who has stated his support for the wholesale mass murder and injury of thousands of Jews, and who turns truth upside down – blaming the victims and exonerating the terrorists,” the organization said.
The “action alert” press release provided called on followers to contact Fox News Channel, 21st Century Fox, CEO Rupert Murdoch and the hosts of “The Five” and urge them to fire Rivera. The release included those entities’ phone numbers, mail and email addresses and social media accounts.
Rivera has worked for Fox News since 2001. He has previously made dovish remarks on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
“You cannot say Israel is a true democracy when you turn a blind eye to the noxious expansion of settlements on Palestinian land,” he tweeted last year.
Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
