Authored by Jonathan Turley,

The Pulitzer Prize has triggered a firestorm of criticism over its selection of Mosab Abu Toha as this year’s recipient for commentary. Abu Toha was specifically recognized for his commentary on Gaza despite being criticized for antisemitic and virulent attacks on those killed or taken hostage by Hamas. 

As we have previously discussed, the Pulitzer committee has long been accused of a far-left bias and awarding the prize for stories later disproven, including the Russian conspiracy claims.

Abu Toha wrote a series of essays in the New Yorker describing the ongoing war in the enclave. 

The New Yorker was not deterred by Abu Toha’s controversial attacks on the victims of the October 7th massacre.

HonestReporting exclusively ran some of these statements soon after the award was announced on May 6th.

Meet Pulitzer Prize winner Mosab Abu Toha. He justifies the kidnapping of Israelis on Oct. 7.

We aren’t going to congratulate him for his prize. Instead, we’re going to ask @PulitzerPrizes whether they bothered to check his social media.

Because we did, and it’s not pretty. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/qQAMQGi0IK

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 7, 2025

On January 24, 2025, Abu Toha posted an attack on Israeli hostage Emily Damari:

How on earth is this girl called a hostage?

(And this is the case of most ‘hostages’). 

This is Emily Damari, a 28 UK-Israeli soldier that Hamas detailed on 10/7…

So this girl is called a ‘hostage?’ This soldier who was close to the border with a city that she and her country have been occupying is called a ‘hostage?’

Just to be clear, Damari is a civilian who was shot twice and abducted from her home on Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7. Like many in Israel, she has served in the military. However, she was shot and kidnapped from her home and held for 471 days. She lost two fingers and her wounds were poorly treated while she was held in deplorable conditions.

Abu Toha also attacked Israeli hostage Agam Berger in posts on February 3, 2025:

The Israeli ‘hostage’ Agam Berger, who was released days ago participates in her sister’s graduation from an Israeli Air Force officers’ course. These are the ones the world wants to share sympathy for, killers who join the army and have family in the army! These are the ones whom CNN, BBC and the likes humanize in articles and TV programs and news bulletins.

It also ignores the children and young people killed or kidnapped by Hamas. Indeed, Abu Toha has challenged claims on how Kfir Bibas (9 months) and Ariel Bibas (4) were killed by their captors. He posted February 21, 2025:

Shame on BBC, propaganda machine. IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said ‘forensic findings’, which have not been seen by the BBC, suggested the boys had been killed with ‘bare hands.’ 

If you haven’t seen any evidence, why did you publish this. Well, that’s what you are, filthy people.

An Israeli forensic analysis found that the two small boys were killed by the murderers’ “bare hands.”  The calling of Jews and their supporters “filthy people” has long been an antisemitic trope.

In addition to attacking “Zionists” and mainstream media, Abu Toha also pushed false claims that Israel bombed the Al-Ahli Hospital on October 17, 2023.

It was instead hit by a misfired Islamic Jihad missile. 

The reported deaths were also wildly exaggerated in the incident.

What is striking about this award is that it is a recognition of Abu Toha’s commentary specifically on Gaza, the very subject of these shocking claims. 

The award reinforces the view of the Pulitzer committee that it seeks to make statements with these awards, ignoring serious challenges over the factual accuracy or content of the work.

The award given for the Russian conspiracy claims is an example of how the story seemed just too good to check for the Committee.

After the basis for the allegations were disproven and the Clinton campaign found to be behind the infamous Steele dossier, the Committee still refused to rescind the prize.

Likewise, a prior controversy arose when former New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her writing on The 1619 Project. 

The work was heavily criticized by historians and others for some of its sweeping historical claims over slavery being a motivation for the American Revolution and labeling figures like Abraham Lincoln as racists. According to The Atlantic , Princeton historian Sean Wilentz criticized that work and some of Hannah-Jones’s other work in a letter signed by scholars James McPherson, Gordon Wood, Victoria Bynum, and James Oakes. They raised “matters of verifiable fact” that “cannot be described as interpretation or ‘framing.’” They objected that the work represented “a displacement of historical understanding by ideology.” Hannah-Jones was also criticized for her role in purging dissenting views from the New York Times pages and embracing absurd anti-police conspiracy theories.

The award given to Abu Toha has obviously outraged many in Israel, who are still awaiting the return of the rest of the hostages taken by Hamas. It is difficult to imagine that the Committee, in researching Abu Toha’s commentary on Gaza, could have missed his virulent attacks and false claims.

I recently spoke at the Library of Congress on the evolution of American media and the record low levels of trust with the public. This is an example of why the public is turning away from the media establishment in favor of new media and social media. As I stated in the speech, the media has become a happy ship of fools in refusing to change course as revenue and readership/viewership collapses. Instead, the public sees a press that has abandoned objectivity and neutrality.

This is an award for opinion commentary. However, it is precisely the unhinged character of those opinions that have made the award to Abu Toha so disconcerting for many.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”