During Antony Blinken’s final press briefing as Secretary of State on Jan. 16, 2025, Palestine took center stage once again as renowned journalists Max Blumenthal and Sam Husseini were forcibly removed by security. The two men directly confronted Blinken during his closing remarks, challenging his role in facilitating, shielding, and supporting Israel’s genocidal campaign in the occupied Gaza Strip.
Blumenthal was the first to speak, standing up as Blinken lauded journalists for “holding us to account,” calling their interaction with the State Department “the most necessary” part of their work. Cutting through the secretary’s performative respect for the press, Blumenthal demanded to know why the administration had “kept the bombs flowing” when a deal was ready in May 2024, emphasizing that hundreds of “ reporters in Gaza were on the receiving end of [U.S.] bombs.” As he was escorted out by two department staff, he condemned Blinken for what he called “the holocaust of our lifetime,” citing conservative estimates of 47,000 Palestinians killed by Israel, and over 100,000 injured or maimed.
Moments later, Husseini interjected as Blinken began discussing the return of Israeli captives. He pressed the secretary on whether the Fourth Geneva Convention applied to Gaza and if he was aware of the infamous Hannibal Directive, an Israeli military protocol instructing its forces to kill their own soldiers, rather than allow them to be taken captive by Palestinian militants. Haaretz, Al Jazeera, and Husseini himself reported multiple instances of the directive being enacted since Oct. 7, 2023 Just this month, former Israel defense minister Yoav Gallant admitted to enacting the Hannibal Directive during his tenure at the beginning of the Genocide in October 2023.
While Blumenthal was removed without physical altercation, Husseini’s removal was far more violent. Footage of the veteran journalist being forcefully dragged out quickly spread across X (formerly Twitter), igniting widespread outrage. As security moved in, Husseini pushed back against demands to "respect the speech," retorting, "I am not a potted plant." Users and organizations rallied in solidarity, condemning the Biden administration’s relentless hostility toward dissent… especially when that dissent centers Palestine.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) swiftly denounced the administration’s actions, calling them “unacceptable” and warning that such practices “must not become precedent.” The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed that it was “concerned” over the removal of the journalists, but distanced itself from the act of disruption. The Good Shepherd Collective — a Palestinian NGO based in the West Bank that advocates for decolonization and justice — praised Husseini on X for exposing “the deep rot of cowardice and inhumanity” that was present in the room.
Former U.S. diplomats like Hala Rharrit have criticized the Department of State’s increasing hostility toward dissent on Israel. In June of 2024, the Columbia Journalism Review too underlined the increasingly contentious nature of Palestine at the department by analyzing the briefings made following October 7th. Quoting unnamed international journalists, the Review’s analysis described the arguments made by Spokesperson Matthew Miller and his deputy, Vedant Patel, as “quite convoluted.” They noted that Israel’s preferential treatment had led to what colleagues called “mind-boggling” statements from the department’s communications team — statements that shattered any expectation of honesty or transparency.
Matthew Miller has been called out on numerous occasions for his smirks and smiles when responding to questions about the killing and mutilation of Palestinian children and women. Mouin Rabbani and others have dubbed the spokesperson “Count Dracula” for his uncanny ability to flash a grin while justifying the grotesque as if feasting on the very horror he so casually dismisses.
Yet, despite all the acknowledgment — despite all the whispered frustrations among journalists about the incoherence of the administration’s justifications — the most striking aspect remains their inaction. And, like the genocide in Gaza, this inaction was livestreamed for all to see. Footage from Al Jazeera journalist Amr Hassan Sayed and Dropsite News cofounder Ryan Grim from that harrowing afternoon of Jan. 16, 2025, showed Husseini being dragged out of the press room, all while his colleagues — the very people who brand themselves as those who ‘speak truth to power,’ — sat in silence. Watching with their phones recording, while saying nothing. Doing nothing. Some grimaced in discomfort, others averted their gaze — a skill they have perfected since Israel began its genocidal campaign in Gaza.
The issue of silence among established U.S. journalists is not just that many of them recognize the absurdity of the State Department’s justifications for genocide in Gaza — it is that, even in the face of blatant repression, much of the industry refuses to challenge it. Their power does not lie in their supposed brutal honesty while offering anonymous quotes, nor in their silence during the final press briefing of a widely unpopular outgoing administration. Their power lies in their quiet acquiescence: in their collective understanding that dissent will be punished, and in their conscious choice, time and again, to remain seated.
When it comes to Palestine, this silence is not just complicity: it is a deliberate act of erasure. By treating Palestine and its advocates as unworthy of even the air in their lungs, let alone their hollow words, these journalists reinforce the normalization of Palestinian suffering. And, in doing so, they allowed a genocide — livestreamed for over 15 months — to go unchallenged.
Notable political analysts like Sanaa Saeed criticized Blinken for invoking “respect the process” mantra while his own spokesperson, Matthew Miller, called for security to remove Husseini for questioning U.S. complicity in genocide. Saeed tweeted that the event “perfectly encapsulates the ethos and moral vacuity of the American liberal,” later citing Aaron David Miller, a former diplomat, whose distress was not for the journalists forcibly removed, nor for the Palestinian journalists and civilians killed, but for the discomfort of watching Blinken — whom he described as a “caring, compassionate man” — face accountability. David Miller’s remarks encapsulate the grotesque moral calculus of U.S. foreign policy, where decorum matters more than the lives destroyed by U.S.-backed violence. It is a reflection of a broader reality in American political and media circles, where power is coddled, and dissent is scorned.
Two days before this briefing, Blinken was interrupted by a protester during an address at the Atlantic Council. “You will forever be known as ‘bloody Blinken, secretary of genocide… We have spent a year trying to appeal to your humanity in front of your house.”
When dissent does manage to break through the carefully managed facade, American pundits, analysts, and media outlets rush to reframe it into something trivial, or distasteful. CNN, for instance, distorted Husseini and Blumenthal’s actions as “cringeworthy heckling” by “activists,” a predictable but telling maneuver. For them and much of America’s legacy, corporate media, Palestine is never the issue — it is merely a prop, a political inconvenience that must be swatted away. The idea that people might dissent not as a matter of ideology, but out of sheer necessity — to fight for the survival of a people — is something they are unwilling, or perhaps incapable, of acknowledging.
For quite some time, Husseini had known that he was being blackballed by Matthew Miller for his outspoken and unabashed tone in asking hard questions. In a leaked recording, while confronting Miller, the veteran journalist was told on Nov. 4, 2024, that a policy was set up where the spokesperson admitted that he “will not call on people who interrupt other (journalists) and make accusations.” On the recording, Husseini refutes these claims and argues that it is part of the silencing of Palestinian voices at the press briefings.
Since the start of the genocide in October of 2023, independent journalists, small news agencies, movement media outlets, and grassroots organizations have shouldered the responsibility of exposing the horrors unfolding in Gaza. While mainstream outlets sanitize or obscure the extent of the atrocities, it is journalists like Sam Husseini — alongside the dedicated reporters and writers who work with the Al-Quds daily newspaper, Dropsite News, and other outlets – who have relentlessly pursued the truth.
Protecting Husseini should not simply be framed as a matter of democracy or journalists’ right to feel safe. If safety alone were the goal, then the silence of mainstream journalists — secure in their positions, yet unwilling to challenge the system that has allowed over 216 of their colleagues to be massacred on camera — would not be so deafening. The real issue is not safety, but complicity. When journalists prioritize access over accountability, when they refuse to “rattle the system” that enables and justifies genocide, they become part of the machinery that sustains it. They become spokespeople for the state and legitimizers of its crimes.
Husseini’s violent removal was not the first attack on press freedom, and certainly not the last, although it was a representative end to the Biden administration. The incident on Jan. 16 was intended as a warning, as Husseini believes, for those who dare to challenge power. It was also an indicator of the status quo, in that those who keep quiet will be rewarded. But if history has shown us anything, it is that silence does not stop the truth. The journalists who continue to report, despite the repression — as those like Anas Sharif in Gaza have shown us — are a testament to the fact that no amount of censorship, intimidation, or brute force can erase our understanding of what has happened in Gaza. And it is their voices — not the carefully scripted briefings of spokespeople, nor the empty platitudes of those in power — that will be remembered and honored.
