TRT World Forum Features Terror-Tied Speakers Alongside American Professors
Turkish state broadcaster TRT will host its 9th World Forum in Istanbul this weekend—bringing together speakers with alleged terror ties, American professors, and Turkish government officials
Turkish state broadcaster TRT will host the 9th TRT World Forum at Istanbul’s Hilton Bomonti Hotel & Conference Center on October 31-November 1, featuring speakers with alleged ties to Hamas and other designated terrorist organizations.
The two-day forum, themed “The Global Reset: From the Old Order to New Realities,” features Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as a scheduled “guest of honor.” TRT has characterized the event as bringing together “global leaders and thinkers” to explore ideas shaping the contemporary world. The forum also includes U.S. academics such as Amitav Acharya and Thomas G. Weiss among its speakers.
Jewish Onliner previously published an extensive report documenting how TRT has become a nexus for individuals with documented ties to Hamas, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Turkish intelligence services. This conference appears to represent another high-profile gathering of figures aligned with designated terror organizations under the auspices of Turkey’s state media apparatus.
Key Speakers with Alleged Terror Ties
The speaker list includes Wadah Khanfar, former Director-General of Al Jazeera Media Network and current president of Al Sharq Forum, who is scheduled to participate in an expert roundtable titled “From Victimhood to Resilience: The Path to Justice in Gaza.”
Khanfar, has a history of deep involvement with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Khanfar publicly praised Hamas’ October 7th attack and has close ties to Yusuf al-Qardawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. Khanfar allegedly held positions for Hamas in Sudan and South Africa.
Wael Al-Dahdouh, Al-Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, has been identified by investigative journalist David Collier as coming from a family of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) “royalty” and has met with Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar.
His son, Hamza Al-Dahdouh, who was eliminated in an Israeli airstrike in January 2024, was identified by the IDF as a PIJ terrorist involved in the organization’s terrorist activities, with documents found by IDF troops revealing his role as deputy commander in the Zeitun Battalion’s Rocket Array. In his reporting, Wael Al-Dahdouh has directly embedded himself with Hamas fighters, showing Hamas tunnels and interviewing military wing fighters.
Sami Shehada, a photojournalist with TRT Arabi, is scheduled to speak at a session titled “Journalism on the Frontlines: From Battlefield Risks to Algorithmic Suppression.” He has posted photos of himself posing alongside armed members of Hamas’s military wing and has praised former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Ahmed Jarrar, who led the terror cell responsible for murdering Rabbi Raziel Shevach in 2018. His social media includes an image of Palestinian protesters holding a swastika-adorned kite.
Ebrahim Rasool, the former South African Ambassador to the United States and currently serving as Ambassador of the Republic of South Africa, is also scheduled to speak. In March 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared Rasool “persona non grata” and expelled him from the U.S.
According to the Middle East Forum, Rasool has maintained extensive connections to Hamas leadership spanning decades. When Israel eliminated Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 2004, Rasool—then serving as finance minister in South Africa’s Western Cape—described the terrorist leader as “one of the greatest inspirations.”
His office served as a regular meeting point for visiting Hamas dignitaries, including Mohammed Nazzal, a senior Hamas political bureau member whom the U.S. government designated in 2024 as a key official who as a key official involved in representing Hamas’ interesting to international audiences.
In 2020, he appeared as a speaker at South Africa’s Al-Quds Day—an annual event celebrating Hezbollah—alongside Iran’s then-Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif, Ayatollah Khomeini’s daughter Zahra Mostafavi, and representatives of both Hamas and PIJ in Tehran.
The Middle East Forum also reported that Rasool has been involved for years with the Virginia-based SAFA network (also known as the SAAR network), a collection of hundreds of entities that federal agents investigated in the 2000s for supporting Al-Qaeda, Hamas, and PIJ.