“Celebrate the victory” British political commentator Sami Hamdi enthused in front of an audience gathered at London’s Gatton Road Mosque in London just days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 slaughter of 1200 Israelis and foreigners. “How many of you felt it in your hearts when you got the news that it happened? How many of you felt the euphoria? Allah Akbar! How many of you felt it? Why did you feel it? Because the despair vanished, and you said [to yourself:] This nation is alive.”
British Political Commentator Sami Hamdi Speaking at London Mosque: Don’t Pity the Palestinians – Celebrate the Victory; How Many of You Felt the Euphoria When You Got the News of October 7? #Hamas #Gaza #Palestinians @SALHACHIMI pic.twitter.com/vw3Wear5mn
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) December 14, 2023
At this event, Hamdi himself explicitly described his emotions over the Oct. 7 terror attacks as “euphoria.” There was zero ambiguity in his words when he called on the audience to “celebrate the victory,” meaning the deadliest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
In both English and Spanish, Associated Press’ article yesterday on Hamdi’s detainment in San Francisco National Airport withheld from millions of news consumers Hamdi’s words of joy over Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre of 1200 Israelis and foreigners in southern Israel.
Critics accuse Hamdi of praising Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in comments he made in a video posted online shortly after the war in Gaza erupted. He has denied that, saying he wasn’t celebrating violence.
“No one is saying Oct. 7 was right. People are saying Oct. 7 was a natural consequence of the oppression that is being put on the Palestinians,” he said in a February 2024 speech hosted by the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council. [Emphasis added.]
Citing a February 2024 speech while ignoring Hamdi’s October 2023 diatribe, the cherry-picking journalists completely ignored Hamdi’s own words expressing unadulterated joy over the Oct. 7 “victory.” Concealing his praise for Hamas, AP qualified Hamdi’s pro-Oct. 7 massacre remarks, writing “critics accuse,” as if the accusation could not be easily verified with a simple online search. Worse, in quoting his later February 2024 prevarication which, at best, was a justification of terror, AP wrongly suggested that his critics are wrong about his praise for the attacks, and that his denial is genuine.
Moreover, on Oct. 27, Homeland Security itself shared on X Hamdi’s “celebrate the victory” and “How many of you felt the euphoria” speech. The agency noted:
Following the October 7 terror attack, Sami Hamdi cheered on the terrorist attack: “How many of you felt it in your hearts when you got the news that it happened? How many of you felt the euphoria? Allah Akbar!”
The U.S. has no obligation to host foreigners, like Sami Hamdi, who… pic.twitter.com/BicQGQik4L
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) October 27, 2025
Collection of Hamdi’s Oct. 7, 2023 X posts republished on the X account of “Max Nordau”
Yet, instead of acknowledging the evidence that Homeland Security provided, and which was readily available to anyone with a keyboard, AP platformed propaganda from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the unindicted co-conspirator in the 2009 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) retrial, the largest terrorism financing case in the country’s history. The article’s third paragraph quotes without challenge CAIR’s baseless allegation that Hamdi was detained due to his criticism of the Israeli government:
“Earlier this morning, ICE agents abducted British Muslim journalist and political commentator Sami Hamdi at San Francisco Airport, apparently in response to his vocal criticism of the Israeli government during his ongoing speaking tour,” the group said in a Sunday social media post.
Already on Oct. 7, Hamdi couldn’t contain his joy. He excitedly posted on X (formerly Twitter): “Reports that the Israeli colonising occupiers are fleeing the areas they have illegally occupied near #Gaza.” About the kidnapping of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel (4) and infant Kfir, he propagandized that the terrorists who came to kidnap them called out: “No one harm [the Jewish woman!] Protect her. She has kids. We are people of humanity; not like [the apartheid regime of #israel.” On that eventful day, he also gloated about the Palestinian terror attacks carried out within internationally-recognized Israeli territory:
The Israeli apartheid regime confirms they have lost the settlements they build on the lands near the Gaza Strip that they illegally occupied from the Palestinians.
What a blow by the Palestinians on the Israeli colonisers and their apartheid regime!
A news agency which boasts that is grounded in “the power of facts” abysmally failed to report the undeniable fact of Hamdi’s sky-high euphoria over Hamas’ Oct. 7 atrocities. Not for the first time, AP delivers a blow to its “promised accurate, unbiased, fact-based reporting to the world” with a cover up of global support for Hamas’ terror.
With research by Adam Levick and Hadar Sela. This post was updated on Oct. 29.
For the Spanish version of this article, please see here.
See also “Whitewashing Red Triangles: AP Scrubs Pro-Hamas Graffiti” and “BBC News Whitewashes British Journalist’s October 7 Support“