{"id":2920,"date":"2026-08-20T16:07:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T16:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=2920"},"modified":"2026-08-20T16:07:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T16:07:05","slug":"pro-israel-pressure-group-honest-reporting-received-grant-from-knight-foundation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=2920","title":{"rendered":"Pro-Israel Pressure Group Honest Reporting Received Grant from Knight Foundation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yves here. We are pleased that such an esteemed news organization as DropSite has elected to promote its work at Naked Capitalism. No doubt many of you are already fans of the work of Ryan Grim, Jeremy Scahill, and Nausicaa Renner, both from their written work as well as their video appearances on Breaking Points and other independent sites.<\/p>\n

This post sponsored by DropSite News<\/em><\/span><\/center>As a reader-funded independent news outlet, we operate free from the influence of governments, advertisers, and corporate backers. This is essential to our mission: to report on what matters most, beholden only to the truth. In that spirit, we made a commitment to ensure that our journalism is free for everyone, not locked behind a paywall. But that means we rely on the voluntary support of our community of readers. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support our work today<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Honest Reporting, a self-described media watchdog and nonprofit with offices in New York, Jerusalem, and Toronto, claims<\/a> that its mission is exposing \u201cmedia bias, challenging false narratives, and ensuring that reporting on Israel is rooted in facts, context, and accountability.\u201d In practice, it operates as a pressure group, monitoring international media coverage of Israel, producing reports attacking coverage it deems unfavorable, running access operations that embed international journalists within curated pro-Israel perspectives, and organizing mass campaigns directing its subscribers to contact newsrooms directly until corrections, retractions, and rewordings are secured.<\/p>\n

That work has led to the dismissal of journalists at publications around the world. But since October 7, 2023, Honest Reporting\u2019s operations have moved into considerably darker territory, and its activities have contributed to the assassination of at least one journalist, Hassan Eslaiah\u2014a freelance photographer and director of the Gaza-based Alam24 news agency whose images had appeared in the Associated Press and CNN.<\/p>\n

The campaign against Eslaiah was not isolated. Honest Reporting has systematically targeted journalists and news organizations\u2014including Drop Site News\u2014across multiple platforms and countries, employing consistent tactics: publishing posts raising questions about individual journalists\u2019 alleged connections to Hamas or other armed groups, characterizing their coverage as propaganda or as \u201cantisemitic,\u201d and mobilizing its subscriber network to contact news organizations directly. The cumulative effect of this approach has been to characterize numerous Palestinian journalists as combatants.<\/p>\n

Despite its record as a pressure group that targets and endangers reporters, in 2023 Honest Reporting\u2019s Israeli organization\u2014registered under the name Divuach Ne\u2019eman R\u2019\u2019A\u2014received an \u201cemergency\u201d grant of $100,000 from the Knight Foundation, a widely respected U.S.-based foundation that prominently touts a commitment to freedom of press and the safety of journalists. The grant, listed in Honest Reporting\u2019s Israeli nonprofit filings for 2024, is not reported in the Knight Foundation\u2019s 990 for 2024 or on its website.<\/p>\n

The Knight Foundation says<\/a> that it primarily funds U.S.-based organizations and that international programs and organizations are among the categories it generally prefers not to fund, making grants outside the United States limited and exceptional by the foundation\u2019s own description. Knight\u2019s website states<\/a> that \u201cmost of our grantmaking is tied to strategies with defined goals and outcomes\u201d and that funding \u201ctypically emerges through relationships, research and ongoing work,\u201d with most grants initiated by Knight itself rather than through open applications.<\/p>\n

When approached for comment, Atena Sherry, Knight Foundation\u2019s director of communications, initially denied that Knight had provided funding to Honest Reporting: \u201cKnight Foundation did not provide any grant to Honest Reporting, and the foundation has not directed any Knight funds to Honest Reporting\u201d through any third party, Sherry told Drop Site. In a follow-up statement, Sherry said, \u201cWe reviewed all documentation. Knight Foundation has never provided any funding to Honest Reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Honest Reporting, however, \u201cthe grantor, Jewish Federations of North America and United Israel Appeal, notified Divuach Ne\u2019eman R\u201dA and HonestReporting.com, Inc. that a donation of $100,000 was made \u2018on the recommendation of the donor, The Knight Foundation.\u2019 Honest Reporting added that \u201cStaff for Divuach Ne\u2019eman R\u201dA and Honest Reporting.com, Inc. were in direct touch with staff at the Knight Foundation throughout the process on the grant and the programs that would benefit from the grant.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Drop Site then asked the Knight Foundation about Honest Reporting\u2019s statement, which directly contradicted its own, the Knight Foundation acknowledged that it had provided funds for Media Central, an Honest Reporting program that arranges tours for international journalists. \u201cKnight Foundation did make a one-time, emergency grant of $100,000 in November 2023 to Media Central to support a very specific project: helping international journalists to gain access they wouldn\u2019t otherwise have had to report on the facts from the ground in the West Bank,\u201d said Alejandro de Onis, vice president for communications, in a statement. \u201cNeither the grant agreement nor the grant file contains any reference to Honest Reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike Gaza, the West Bank has remained accessible to international journalists, raising the question of what access Media Central was providing that journalists could not obtain independently, and whether the access in question was in fact embedded reporting alongside the Israeli military.<\/p>\n

Knight declined to answer additional questions about the specific reporting funded by its grant or how it could have been unaware that Media Central was a program operated by Honest Reporting.<\/p>\n

Through its Media Central project, Honest Reporting arranges press tours, briefings, and curated access to Israel for international correspondents, presenting itself<\/a> as a neutral resource while functioning as an operation designed to shape how journalists understand and cover the country. Honest Reporting\u2019s director of press relations, Laura Cornfield, runs the program.<\/p>\n

In Honest Reporting\u2019s 2023 first quarter impact repor<\/a>t, Cornfield wrote that: \u201cJournalists met with locals to hear how the Lions\u2019 Den terrorist group was using Nablus as its command center. They were then briefed by the IDF to understand the security risks to Israeli civilians,\u201d boasting that \u201cMediaCentral staff enabled exclusive access to these unheard, nearly impossible-to-reach voices. The tour was so sought after it was repeated with three groups, and an additional three one-on-one tours were arranged.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that year\u2019s second quarter impact report<\/a>, Cornfield wrote that the group\u2019s Media Central program \u201ctook foreign media outlets on exclusive tours to hotbeds of terror activity, including Nablus and Jenin, to get an up-close look at what Israeli security forces are facing and how they are addressing the threats.\u201d The reports say that journalists from prominent international outlets including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, the Financial Times, and CNN have participated in its events.<\/p>\n

The impact report described a media tour of the Israel-Lebanon border, quoting the Israeli military\u2019s Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and Military Intelligence Directorate chief Aharon Haliva on Hezbollah. It also included a section on \u201ccrime in the Arab sector\u201d and said that journalists had gone on \u201ca field tour to Umm Al Fahm and Jaffa of Nazareth to address the surging crime rate,\u201d referring to largely Palestinian towns and cities within Israel.<\/p>\n

More recently, Media Central press tours have taken international journalists to the Al Aqsa compound and Western Wall Tunnels<\/a> in occupied East Jerusalem and to northern Israel<\/a>. Media Central has also hosted exclusive briefings for international journalists with senior Israeli political figures, including a recent lunch<\/a> in Tel Aviv with former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren and an \u201cexclusive dinner<\/a>\u201d with Brigadier General (Res.) Pinchas (Pini) Yungman. Yungman has held senior command roles in the Israeli Air Force and executive positions at the Israeli defense company Rafael.<\/p>\n

None of the briefings or meetings organized by Media Central appear to have been led by Palestinians.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t claim to be a news organization.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

On November 8, 2023, one month into the genocide in Gaza and the same month as the Knight Foundation grant, Honest Reporting published what it classified as an expos\u00e9<\/a> on its website. The article featured photographs of several Palestinian freelance journalists who had been covering the events near the Gaza border on the morning of October 7, among them Hassan Eslaiah. It asked, in language the organization has since described as just \u201craising questions,\u201d whether these journalists could have had advance knowledge of the Hamas attack. The article was then updated to feature a photograph from 2020 of Eslaiah next to Hamas leader Yayha Sinwar\u2014clearly suggesting guilt by association through proximity in a photograph.<\/p>\n

Within hours, Israel\u2019s official X account had amplified<\/a> the post to its own audience of 1.8 million. The Associated Press reviewed its relationship with Eslaiah and later severed<\/a> it, while stating publicly it had found no evidence he had foreknowledge of the attack beyond what was known to journalists routinely working in the border area. When the AP asked Gil Hoffman, then Honest Reporting\u2019s executive director, to substantiate the allegations, his response<\/a> was notable. \u201cThey acted as if we were stating facts instead of asking questions,\u201d Hoffman said. \u201cWe don\u2019t claim to be a news organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jonthan Dagher, head of the Middle East desk of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), described the November 2023 Honest Reporting article as being \u201cfull of conjecture\u201d and \u201cbased on circumstantial evidence,\u201d noting that it \u201cprovoked a chain of reactions from Israeli authorities and politicians who started accusing Gazan journalists of belonging to Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n

RSF named Honest Reporting in its 2025 list of Press Freedom Predators that it says \u201csmear media and promote mistrust of journalists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eighteen months later, in April 2025, an Israeli airstrike struck a media tent outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, killing<\/a> two journalists and wounding eight others, Eslaiah was among them. The Israeli military publicly announced<\/a> it had deliberately targeted Eslaiah, claiming he was a member of the Khan Younis Brigade and had participated in the attacks of October 7th. Eslaiah survived the strike but his skull was fractured, his body was burned, and he lost two of his fingers. He was admitted to Nasser Hospital\u2019s burns unit to recover. On May 13, 2025, while he lay in the burn unit, an Israeli drone bombed the hospital and murdered him. Hours later, the Israeli military admitted to assassinating Eslaiah, calling him \u201cAslih\u201d and posting<\/a> a screenshot of Eslaiah on Oct. 7, 2023 from a video also posted by Honest Reporting in its \u201cexpos\u00e9\u201d and saying: \u201cDon\u2019t let Aslih\u2019s press vest fool you\u2026Journalist? More like terrorist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Targeting Palestinian Journalists<\/b><\/p>\n

Since the start of the genocide in Gaza, one of Honest Reporting\u2019s central goals has been to challenge the records kept by press freedom organizations documenting Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza. The organization has led a sustained pressure campaign against the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which maintains the most widely cited casualty list of media workers killed in Gaza. It has also sought to attack and pressure other press freedom bodies such as Reporters Without Borders<\/a>and the International Federation of Journalists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On June 25, CPJ announced<\/a> that it would be \u201cconducting a full review of its database of journalists killed during the Israel-Gaza War.\u201d Honest Reporting was quick to claim<\/a>victory, stating<\/a> that the review had happened because Honest Reporting had \u201chelped put them in an untenable position.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, CPJ denied that Honest Reporting\u2019s pressure campaign was responsible for its database review.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is an independent organization. We independently research, source and report information related to attacks on journalists and media workers. When new information becomes available, we update our reporting. Our review of the Israel-Gaza war casualties list was spurred by new information published by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad that identified as combatants individuals previously listed by CPJ as journalists. Honest Reporting\u2019s campaign had absolutely no bearing on the review process or on the decision to remove names from the list.\u201d<\/p>\n

CPJ, which receives major funding from the Knight Foundation, did not respond to questions about the foundation\u2019s grant to Honest Reporting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe condemn any misrepresentation of that process to serve political agendas or to try to obscure the fact Israel has killed more journalists than any other country in the world and been the leading killer of journalists for the past three years,\u201d CPJ said in its statement.<\/p>\n

In response to questions about the direct conflict of interest entailed by funding both a press freedom organization that maintains a database of journalists killed by Israel and a pressure group that targets Palestinian journalists, the Knight Foundation said, \u201cThe funding directed to Media Central was specifically and only earmarked to facilitate journalists\u2019 access to report on the war in hard to reach areas and there is no ongoing relationship. Nothing in Knight Foundation\u2019s grant records reflects any reference to a campaign concerning CPJ, and Knight Foundation has never funded advocacy directed at CPJ.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the same day that CPJ announced its Gaza database review, Jacob Weisberg, chair of CPJ\u2019s board of directors, emailed fellow board members<\/a> to say that he was establishing a \u201cspecial task force to reexamine the question of \u2018Who is a journalist?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

According to reporting<\/a> in the Columbia Journal Review, Weisberg\u2019s initiative was separate from the database review and grew out of a board discussion of an article in the right-wing Washington Free Beacon that largely repackaged Honest Reporting\u2019s attacks on CPJ and news organizations that report critically on Israel, including Drop Site.<\/p>\n

Nika Soon-Shiong, publisher of Drop Site News and a member of the CPJ board, was alarmed by Weisberg\u2019s email and requested a vote on the proposal by the full board, according to a letter she posted publicly. She was then informed by Weisberg that her term on the board had expired. On July 1, the board held an emergency meeting and voted to affirm<\/a> its \u201cexisting definition of who is a journalist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Broader Influence Network<\/b><\/p>\n

Honest Reporting\u2019s sustained attempts to establish connections between journalists and armed groups, such as Hamas, is particularly striking given the organization\u2019s direct ties to AIPAC, the Israeli government, and the Israeli military, which continues to carry out a genocide in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n

Prior to co-founding Honest Reporting, Lenny Ben-David<\/a> spent 25 years at AIPAC, including 15 years directing its Jerusalem office, before serving three years as deputy chief of mission at the Israeli embassy in Washington. He has recounted<\/a> with evident pride how an early Honest Reporting campaign crashed CNN\u2019s internet servers. The organization he helped build is now led<\/a> by Jacki Alexander<\/a>, who spent approximately 15 years at AIPAC before being hired with a mandate to expand Honest Reporting\u2019s reach in the United States.<\/p>\n

National Development Director Rebecca Shimonovitc<\/a> spent more than eight years as an AIPAC regional director before moving into Honest Reporting\u2019s fundraising operation. Justin Pozmanter<\/a> worked in AIPAC\u2019s political department for over ten years before relocating to Israel<\/a>, where he served as a senior foreign policy advisor to Israeli government minister Tzachi Hanegbi, and then joined Honest Reporting. David Barish<\/a>, treasurer of Honest Reporting\u2019s U.S. organization, has held<\/a> positions on the boards of AIPAC\u2019s Houston Council, Friends of the IDF, the Jewish Federation, Anti-Defamation League, and the United Israel Appeal. He is also listed<\/a> as a director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a pro-Israel think tank. Laura Cornfield<\/a>, the group\u2019s director of press relations, also runs the Media Central<\/a> program. She attends high-level events within Israeli political circles posing and smiling with U.S ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee<\/a> and Sara Netanyahu<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The connections to the Israeli military are equally direct. Multiple staff members served in the Israeli military, a fact Honest Reporting says \u201cshould not be a surprise\u201d given Israel\u2019s mandatory service requirement. Gil Hoffman<\/a>, former executive director and current board member, for example, served<\/a> in an Israeli army artillery unit and later as an Israeli military reserve spokesperson following his emigration to Israel, before his journalism career at the Jerusalem Post. Editorial Director Simon Plosker<\/a>has also served in the Israeli military\u2019s press office. Rachel Safdie<\/a>, who now appears as a reporter<\/a> in Honest Reporting\u2019s social media output, spent more than two years in the Israeli military press office, where she served as head of its Iranian-language social media desk.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Honest Reporting denied that it has a formal relationship with the Israeli military. \u201cThere is no formal affiliation or partnership between the IDF and Divuach Ne\u2019eman R\u201dA or HonestReporting.com, Inc.\u201d<\/p>\n

Honest Reporting was launched in 2000 in association with the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah, an Orthodox Jewish outreach movement whose stated mission is encouraging secular Jews to embrace religious observance, but which also operates one of the most extensive pro-Israel advocacy networks in the world. The organization\u2019s first executive director was Irwin Katsof<\/a>, who simultaneously served as president of the Jerusalem Fund. In 2001, the Jerusalem Fund lent the newly established Middle East Media Watch (Honest Reporting\u2019s registered name at the time) $158,724. The following year, Aish HaTorah\u2019s Jerusalem operation provided a further $48,100 grant.<\/p>\n

Honest Reporting\u2019s 2006 tax return lists Ephraim Shore<\/a>, who heads Aish\u2019s operations in Israel, as president. Shore is also one of the founders of the Hasbara Fellowships program\u2014the Israeli Foreign Ministry\u2019s campus advocacy initiative that Aish HaTorah was asked to develop and run. His twin brother, Raphael Shore, produced \u201cObsession: Radical Islam\u2019s War Against the West,\u201d a controversial 2005 film that Honest Reporting initially promoted as its own project on its website and listed as an affiliate in 2006, before later denying any involvement<\/a> in its production.<\/p>\n

When the Israeli Foreign Ministry sought to counter what it characterized as anti-Israel sentiment on university campuses internationally, it turned to Aish HaTorah to design and run the program, which flies hundreds of student leaders to Israel for intensive advocacy training. Multiple current Honest Reporting staff members worked as Hasbara Fellowship lecturers.<\/p>\n

The financial relationship between Aish HaTorah and Honest Reporting has not been confined to the founding period. Canadian tax filings show<\/a> that Honest Reporting Canada made a donation of $15,000 to Aish HaTorah as recently as 2023, demonstrating that the institutional relationship between the two organizations remains active more than two decades after Honest Reporting\u2019s founding.<\/p>\n

The network around Honest Reporting extends to some of the most controversial pro-Israel blacklisting operations on the internet, including Canary Mission, the pro-Israel doxxing site that publishes dossiers on students, academics, and activists it accused of anti-Semitism or support for Palestinian rights. At least one former employee of Honest Reporting<\/a>, Zahava Raymond<\/a> has worked at Megamot Shalom<\/a>, the Israeli nonprofit organization funding Canary Mission.<\/p>\n

A Widening Operation<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to Honest Reporting\u2019s filings with Israel\u2019s Corporations Authority, 96.6% of the total 2024 budget of 6,040,198 NIS [$1,632,044] comes from foreign donations. In addition to the $100,000 grant from the Knight Foundation, 4,903,640 NIS [$1,324,950] came directly from Honest Reporting\u2019s U.S. organization. The Israeli operation is almost entirely dependent on American dollars.<\/p>\n

Honest Reporting\u2019s recent communications<\/a> demonstrate the group\u2019s growing ambitions. An update to supporters describes the launch of \u201cHonest Reporting AI Labs,\u201d a proprietary system trained to identify \u201canti-Israel bias\u201d and intercept narratives \u201cbefore they reach mainstream credibility.\u201d The system monitors social media in real time, traces what the organization characterizes as \u201ccoordinated narrative pipelines,\u201d and feeds findings to what it calls \u201cstrategic communications partners,\u201d among them the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.<\/p>\n

In May, for example, Rachel O\u2019Donoghue, an employee of Honest Reporting, was invited<\/a> to publish a column in the Wall Street Journal<\/a> challenging Nicolas Kristoff\u2019s article in the New York Times about Israel\u2019s use of sexual violence against Palestinian detainees. The organization\u2019s research has also been cited in articles published by the Washington Free Beacon<\/a> and National Review<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The reach of Honest Reporting and its affiliates extends into the legislative institutions of its English-speaking donor base. In 2018, Honest Reporting submitted evidence<\/a> to the UK Parliament\u2019s inquiry into fake news, falsely claiming that \u201cHonest Reporting is not aligned with any government or political party or movement.\u201c The submission was initially absent<\/a> from the inquiry\u2019s published record and was only made available following the intervention of UK Lawyers for Israel.<\/p>\n

The Canadian operation has demonstrated similar objectives. In July 2023, Honest Reporting Canada\u2019s executive director Mike Fegelman said<\/a> it wanted to \u201ccreate a digital army for Israel.\u201d A written briefing<\/a> to the House of Commons\u2019 Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage referred to Palestinian journalists killed by Israel as \u201cso-called journalists\u201d with \u201cconnections to Palestinian terrorist groups\u201d and claimed media coverage of Gaza \u201cdirectly contributes to a spike in anti-Jewish hate crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another significant donor identified in Honest Reporting\u2019s 2024 Israeli filings is a vaguely named organization called Canadian Charity Partners, which contributed 507,176 NIS [$137,000]. In January 2026, the Canada Revenue Agency revoked<\/a>Canadian Charity Partners\u2019 charitable status, citing multiple areas of non-compliance including conducting non-charitable activities and failing to maintain adequate books and records.<\/p>\n

Honest Reporting Canada has run its own pressure campaigns against journalists and outlets it deems biased against Israel, claiming to have contributed to the dismissal of two Palestinian journalists in October 2023, one of whom was on maternity leave at the time. In November 2024, Robert Walker<\/a>, the group\u2019s assistant director, was arrested and faced 17 criminal charges<\/a> in connection with a string of anti-Palestinian graffiti in Toronto, including the phrase \u201cFuck Gaza.\u201d The charges were withdrawn<\/a> in March 2025 after a payment to charity. Walker remains employed by the organization.<\/p>\n

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