A growing anti-Israel journalist scandal has erupted at THE CITY, a New York news nonprofit celebrated as a model for “independent, ethical reporting.” Newly uncovered records reveal that staff journalist Marina Samuel previously organized events with members of terrorist groups and solicited funds for a Hamas-linked organization.
Samuel, now a data fellow at THE CITY, helped lead a “teach-in” last year for the Bronx Anti-War Coalition, where she praised Hamas’s “guerrilla warfare” and asked donors to send “paper checks” to Samidoun, a group the U.S. and several allies have linked to terrorism. “Thank you for highlighting the importance of guerrilla warfare as the chosen tactic against an occupying force,” Samuel said during the event.
The Bronx Anti-War Coalition held vigils for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and defended Elias Rodriguez’s alleged assassination of two Israeli diplomats as “morally righteous” and “fully justified.” During the same forum, sanctioned fundraiser Khaled Barakat called armed resistance “a strategic path for the Palestinian people.”
Samuel acknowledged her role in the group, telling the Free Beacon, “My prior involvement with the group is completely unrelated to my work as a journalist.” THE CITY’s editor Richard Kim said he “was not aware of Samuel’s affiliation” but defended her work.
The controversy has put THE CITY—funded by pro-Israel charities including the Leon Levy Foundation and Len Blavatnik’s family fund—under intense scrutiny as donors question how a journalist with extremist ties was hired.
