A United Airlines pilot has been suspended after he heaped praises on Hamas after the group's surprise attack on Israel. Notably, Ibrahim R. Mossallam, in a Facebook post last month, referred to Hamas operatives as ''brave people'' and blamed the media for being ''heavily politicized and skewed to show a non-occupying narrative of Palestine.''
The official X account of StopAntisemitism posted a screenshot of his October 7 Facebook post. ''This is a resistance by a brave people who have endured decades of occupation, oppression, humiliation, apartheid, and straight-up murder. This was not an unprovoked attack, but a response to this past year's attacks by the Zionist regime,'' Mr Mossallam allegedly said in the post.
He further urged people to ''expand their media literacy,'' and to do their ''due diligence'' when it came to judging the actions of Hamas operatives. '''Don't take my word, do your due diligence in acquiring your information. Here is a non-Palestinian site with the facts. The ''current situation'' tab has more accurate information than what's on mass media,'' and pasted a link to a website.
Here's the post:
The tweet sparked outrage in the US, and several called United Airlines to take action against the pilot. The airline later confirmed the pilot had been suspended and would not be allowed to fly their planes for the time being.
A spokesperson announced, ''As of these moments, the pilot has been removed from service with continued payment of his salary. We are looking into the matter and his continued work at the company.''
Last month, Air Canada grounded a pilot after complaints about his social media posts that criticised Israel. He even praised Adolf Hitler and was seen holding a placard with a figure throwing the Israeli flag in the dustbin with the caption ''Keep the world clean'' in a photograph.
