Screenshot of Khuloud Hoshiah speaking at the joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony, April 20, 2026.
On April 21, 2026, Tal Shalev covered the ceremony in an article entitled, “‘Blood only brings more blood’: Israelis and Palestinians share grief under veil of secrecy.”
She described the event as a rare opportunity for both sides to “mourn together” and called the speakers’ words of hope a “powerful statement of defiance.” Yet, while Shalev rightly noted the bigotry and calls for violence which right-wing Israelis have directed at the ceremony in past years, she failed to critically examine the event itself or its speakers.
In her report, Shalev featured Khuloud Hoshieh, a West Bank mother who stated during the ceremony that her son, Muhammad Samer Hoshieh, was killed by Israeli military gunfire in January 2023, and noted that another son is in administrative detention. By omitting the context of the killing, CNN implied that Muhammad Hoshieh was an innocent bystander.
According to The Jerusalem Post, Israel Hayom, Reuters, and Al Jazeera, the Israeli military entered the Palestinian West Bank village of Kafr Dan late on Jan. 1, 2023, to demolish the homes of individuals involved in a fatal terrorist attack. During an armed confrontation that lasted into the following morning, the Israel Defense Forces killed Muhammad Hoshieh, a member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. The group subsequently issued Arabic-language statements mourning him as a “martyr” killed during armed “resistance.” Notably, Khuloud Hoshieh also appeared in the Jan. 2, 2023 Al Jazeera broadcast discussing the very confrontation in which her son was killed.
CNN’s omission of the terrorism context while presenting Khuloud Hoshieh as a bereaved mother is a glaring journalistic failure. Worse, by juxtaposing her testimony with Israeli women mourning relatives murdered in the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre, in which al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades participated in, CNN draws an equivalence between the victims and the aggressors.
‘Churnalism’ and the NGO-Journalist alliance
This lack of scrutiny extends to Combatants for Peace (CfP) and The Parents Circle–Families Forum (PCFF), the groups which organized the event. CfP bills itself as a grassroots movement of former combatants advocating for non-violence, and PCFF operates as a bereaved families’ dialogue group. The pursuit of peace in a region marred by seemingly perpetual war is a noble cause, but not if it is based on deceit.
Rather than critically reporting on the organizations or their speakers, Shalev produced what amounted to a press release — a practice many journalists have derided as “churnalism.” The only difference between a reporter copying a press release and Shalev’s story is her physical presence at the event (evident in her photo credit).
This story serves as a microcosm of the troubling dynamic between journalists and NGOs, perfectly illustrating what Matti Friedman, a former Associated Press foreign correspondent, previously described in The Atlantic as an “informal alliance.”
Instead of simply providing a flattering portrait of the ceremony, Shalev should have provided necessary context to the several highly partisan historical narratives which the speakers presented.
For example, when a Palestinian host lamented the “checkpoints” and “iron gates” dividing Israeli and Palestinian societies, Shalev might have explained the security context behind why they became necessary: In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a wave of suicide bombings and terrorist attacks led Israel to implement security measures, including a separation barrier and checkpoints.
Similarly, when an Israeli host cited her heritage as a Mizrahi Jew – a group displaced from the Arab world – to explain her desire to connect with Palestinians, Shalev missed an opportunity to point out a glaring double standard: While the hosting organizations officially commemorate the Palestinian Nakba (an inverted narrative that squarely blames nascent Israel for ethnic cleansing in 1948), they ignore the local Arab role in the forced expulsion of Mizrahi Jews from Arab lands after Israel’s establishment. This mass exodus was largely fueled by antisemitic propaganda from Haj Amin al-Husseini, then the highest-ranking and hugely popular local Arab leader.
Ultimately, CNN and other leading legacy news outlets influence both voters and the policymaking class about the realities on the ground in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Consequently, they affect U.S. policy and what happens in the region both indirectly and directly.
Peace and reconciliation are noble ideals, but they cannot be built on the whitewashing of terrorism. By giving these NGOs a free pass to repackage a fallen combatant of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization as an innocent bystander, CNN covered up extremist violence under the banner of peacebuilding. In doing so, CNN, as a mainstream outlet, lends hand to the normalizing of terrorism.