Amnesty International has nominated a journalist who appeared to hail the October 7, 2023 attacks for its People’s Choice Award.
Michael Walker, who works for far-left outlet Novara Media, made and then deleted a social media post on the day of the attacks, seemingly suggesting they were the act of “an occupied people”.
At 8.54 am on October 7, as the attacks were unfolding, Walker tweeted: “So guys, do we support the right of an occupied people to fight an occupier or not?”
Walker has also previously attracted controversy for his comments disputing the scale of antisemitism in the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn.
In one 2018 post, he wrote: “Many members are genuinely scared of talking about what’s going on.
"They can see many of the attacks on Corbyn are politically motivated, that many mainstream Jewish [organisations] have strong ties with Israel, and that part of this row is to suppress Palestinians and their advocates.”
He also said that Labour’s adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism was a “complete abdication of responsibility by Labour and represents us selling out the Palestinian cause”.
However, in his biography on Amnesty’s site, these controversies was not mentioned. Instead, it read: “Michael is a contributing editor at Novara Media and principal host of Novara Live. He has hosted current affairs shows at Novara Media for over eight years, and has overseen Novara Live to become the most watched online daily news show in the UK.
"He also regularly appears on mainstream outlets, including the BBC, Sky and Channel 5.”
Other nominees include Walker’s Novara colleague Ash Sarkar, who has called Israel’s military operation in Gaza a “genocidal war”, and long-time Israel critic Owen Jones.
Voting for the awards, which honours journalists who have “worked tirelessly to achieve human rights change over the past year” is now open and will remain so until May 20. The winner will be announced during the Amnesty Awards Ceremony at the BFI Southbank in London on June 4.
Walker told the JC: “With regard to the tweet on October 7, as I have explained many times, I believe Palestinians have the right to resist Israel’s illegal occupation, including by force.
"However, no-one has the right to target civilians, which is why I deleted the tweet later that day when it became apparent this had happened on October 7.
"With regard to the other quotes your are highlighting, I stand by everything I said.”
