CJ Werleman: “Journalist” or Zionist Intelligence Asset?

“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” – Martyr Malcolm X

For centuries, those in power have used various forms of media to disseminate state-sponsored propaganda to the masses they wish to manipulate and control. The Umayyads and Abbasids had their bought-and-paid-for court poets (شعراء البلاط), and in today’s world, Western imperial powers have their Zionist-controlled mass media machines, which manufacture lies on an industrial scale, and in multiple languages.

The emergence of alternative media as an unbiased source of news, as well as independent journalists who challenge official Western (and Arab) narratives, has not only been instrumental in spreading awareness and shifting public opinion, but has played a major role in exposing Western and Zionist imperial plans worldwide.

To counter this, the Zionist ruling class, their intelligence agencies and various think tanks began creating their own “independent news outlets” and “journalists” whose collective task was to spread the west’s propaganda and further its imperial projects while appearing to be going against the grain of establishment media.

In addition to this, they began paying social media influencers to whitewash their crimes, as was exposed by a Press TV report in relation to “Israel’s” ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

One of these so-called “journalists” that has been working overtime to spread Western and Zionist propaganda in recent months is so-called Australian “journalist,” CJ Werleman.

Who is Werleman?

According to his website, Werleman is a “journalist, published author, political commentator, and activist who has dedicated his journalism career to exposing  discrimination and injustices against Muslim communities around the world,” and that he is “widely credited” for exposing details of China’s co-called “persecution of Uyghur Muslims.” Additionally, the ‘Media’ section of his website shows that his articles are published by several news outlets, many of which openly support and promote the NATO-approved narrative and sectarian propaganda related to Iraq, Yemen, and Syria.

In addition to all this, Werleman hosts something called “The CJ Werleman Show” on YouTube. The channel, which has an estimated 323K subscribers, is described as:

“A news media channel devoted to exposing and countering injustices in the Muslim world.”

From Islamophobe to “Savior of Muslims”

Every imposter has a shtick, a shtick which is used to deceive the public and trick them into believing that they are a “force for good,” and in Werleman’s case, it is his “I’m a recovering Islamophobe” origin story, and that he is on a mission to defend oppressed Muslims everywhere. The reason I refer to him as an imposter and to his so-called “origin story” as a shtick, is because his so-called journey from Islamophobe to “Savior of Muslims” is riddled with inconsistencies and appears to have changed over the years.

For example, in a June 2015 post on Facebook, Werleman claims the following:

“In the years 2005 to 2009 I immersed myself in religious study. I’ve made this point so many times, it’s not worth expanding. But long story short, it radicalized me into becoming not only an anti-theist, but an anti-Muslim bigot.

It was during the research phase of ‘Koran Curious’ (2010) that I first began studying Islam and traveling to the Middle East. The more I learned about Islam, Islamic scripture, Muslim culture, terrorism, radicalization, and the geo-political fissures in the region, the more it became obvious I had been operating as a simple-minded, reactionary jerk in the years following the Bali bomb.”

So, in this version of his story, we have Werleman claiming that he began learning about Islam during the research phase of his book Koran Curious, and that this did not happen until the year 2010.

However, two and a half years later (in December 2017) and during an interview with AhMedia he delivers a different version of this story, claiming that his miraculous redemption took place after he published his book God Hates You, Hate Him Back and after he started “studying terrorism as an amateur.” Furthermore, what is most notable about this version of his story is that there is no mention of the book Koran Curious, no mention of any travel to the Middle East and that his alleged redemption began in 2009 and not 2010 as previously claimed.

Finally, we have Werleman’s 2018 version of his story, when in a March of that year and in a blog post on Medium, he changes his “origin story” yet again, and makes the following claims:

“I was an Islamophobe for a four year period spanning 2005 to 2009. These respective year dates are significant because 2009 was the year I began writing my third book — ‘Koran Curious: a Guide for Infidels and Believers,’ while 2005 was the year I witnessed an al-Qaeda (Jemaah Islamiyah) terrorist attack in Indonesia, an event I described in great detail in my most recent book ‘The New Atheist Threat: Dangerous Rise of Secular Extremists,’ which also explains my journey into and out of Islamophobia.”

What is notable about this version of his story is that Werleman not only contradicts the statements he made in the 2017 interview with AhMedia by returning to the claim that his redemption began when he was writing his book Koran Curious, but he also contradicts what he posted on Facebook in 2015 by claiming that work on the book began in 2009 and not 2010.

Therefore, and just by analysing three instances where Werleman has posted, spoken or written about his miraculous journey from Islamophobe to “Savior of Muslims,” it becomes quite clear that Werleman either cannot remember this monumental and life changing event correctly, or that his entire “origin story” is nothing more than a shtick he concocted to trick the public into believing that he is some kind of “Knight in shining armour” on some kind of “noble a quest” to “defend Islam and Muslims” – of which all evidence points to the latter.

From Islamophobe to Sinophobe

As previously mentioned, Werleman’s website claims that he is “widely credited” for exposing details of the co-called “persecution of Uyghur Muslims” in China’s autonomous Xinjiang region. However, one of the first things that stood out to me when watching two of the so-called “new reports” he published on ‘The CJ Werleman Show’ YouTube channel (here, and here), is Werleman’s heavy reliance on anti-China propaganda published by Western/Zionist news outlets such as CNN and The New York Times (as well as many others), the very same Western mainstream media outlets he “criticizes” when it comes to Palestine.

Additionally, Werleman never provides any real evidence to support the dubious claims he makes in these “news reports,” and instead, settles for sharing Western mainstream media headlines, expecting his audience to take everything he presents it with at face value, encouraging it to just believe the Western narrative he is desperately promoting.

Furthermore, I found that Werleman’s published writing on China and the so-called “Uyghur genocide” was no different from the videos he was posting to so his “news channel” on YouTube. For example, in a 24 January 2022 article for Byline Times, Werleman not only heavily relies on Western mainstream media propaganda, but also goes as far as citing a so-called “investigation” published by the Zionist-aligned Newlines Magazine. The magazine is part of Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, a CIA/Mossad-affiliated thinktank headquartered in Washington DC.

Many of the crocodile tears which flow for this supposed genocide come from Wahabbi groups based in the US with significant ties to the US State Department.

From Islamophobe to Sectarian Mouthpiece

Unfortunately, the controversies surrounding Werleman do not end here, with the so-called “journalist” and self-proclaimed “Savior of Muslims” heavily promoting sectarianism in the Muslim world, and openly regurgitating Zionist/Wahhabi sectarian propaganda that has long been used to brainwash the masses into believing that the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Axis of Resistance are the “real enemies” of all Arabs and Muslims.

Furthermore, and unlike his earlier propaganda, Werleman goes all-out when it comes to promoting Zionist/Wahhabi sectarian propaganda amongst Muslims, and does not only rely on the Zionist-backed media outlets to brainwash his audience into hating Iran and the Axis of Resistance, but expands the scope to include other sources of anti-Iran and anti-Shi’a propaganda mainly from Iraqi Ba’athists, Israeli politicians, and former Mossad agents, as well as active “Israeli” intelligence assets masquerading as authors and researchers. Of course, Werleman attempts to sell this concoction of hate and vile sectarianism via another one of his so-called “news report,” which he published on ‘The CJ Werleman Show’ YouTube channel back in May of this year (here).

In the video, Werleman desperately tries to sell the idea that Iran’s Axis of Resistance is a “big lie,” that Iran “does not care” about Gaza or Palestine, that the Axis of Resistance is “not doing anything noteworthy” to support the Palestinian resistance or people, and more importantly, that Iran has some diabolical plan for the region and intends to “create a Shia sectarian superstate”; the latter being a play on the so-called “Shia Crescent” fallacy invented by Jordan’s collaborationist King Abdullah II in a 2004 Hardball interview.

With that said, Werleman repeats his usual gimmick where he parades Zionist/Western mainstream media headlines that support the propaganda he is trying to sell, but this time not only did he decide to add the “Israeli”/Saudi-controlled Iran International to the mix, but also foolishly attempted to use a headline from an article published by Al Mayadeen English, however upon reviewing the article, it became clear that Werleman deliberately excluded the deck/drop head of the article (small headline running below the main headline), as it completely negates the point he was trying to make regarding there being “active relations” between Iran and “Israel.”

In addition to all this, Werleman includes a short clip of anti-Iranian and Iraqi Ba’athist war criminal, Fadhil al-Barraq, who was the Director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (1984-1989), and was single-handedly responsible for the torture and murder of countless Iraqi and Iranian civilians during Iraq’s US-backed war on Iran, which included academics and religious scholars. He also, includes a clip of former “Israeli” Prime Minister and war criminal, Ehud Barak, in a desperate attempt not only to promote the debunked Zionist myth that “Israel” supported the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, but to also push the idea that Iran’s support for the Palestinian resistance has been minimal, and was only done for personal and political gain.

However, the icing on this proverbial sectarian cake was when Werleman first refers to the founder of the CIA/Mossad-backed National Iranian American Council (NIAC), Trita Parsi, as his friend, and attempts to use his writings as “proof” for the existence of a “secret Iranian-‘Israeli’ relationship,” despite the fact that Parsi himself receives funding from Zionist oligarch George Soros and American imperialist oil tycoons the Koch Brothers, via his separate institution Center for Responsible Statecraft (also known as the Quincy Institute). And secondly, when Werleman gives a “shout-out” at the end of the video to the anonymous so-called “Iraqi researcher,” Xumas, for helping him put together this “report,” and whose name is visible in many of the video clips used, which include the one of Iraqi war criminal Fadhil al-Barraq, as well as other videos which were deliberately edited to take them out of context and help drive forward Werleman’s sectarian narrative.

While Werleman might not wear an “IDF” uniform in public, the talking points used by this so-called “journalist” and “activist against Islamophobia” are the exact same talking points used by the likes of Zionist propagandist Avichay Adraee, the Arabic spokesman for the IDF (who does publicly wear his uniform while spreading sectarianism among Muslims, making his agenda more obvious than plain-clothed Werleman), as well as “Israeli”-backed terrorist groups such as ISIS. Talking points that are deliberately used to drive a wedge between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims, and cause friction between the Palestinian people, Palestinian resistance groups and the Shi’a Muslim-led resistance axis, which is backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Finally, the actual statements and words of Palestinian resistance leaders, from Abu Obaida to Martyr Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya al-Sinwar, all show deep respect, brotherhood, solidarity, love, coordination, and cordiality towards various Shi’a groups within the resistance axis, and boldly disprove Werleman’s cheap Adraee-like polemics intentionally designed to divide and conquer Muslims.

Given that Werleman claims to have started out his career as a vocal Islamophobe and given that he now heavily promotes sectarian divisions amongst Muslims, it becomes quite clear that his Islamophobia has remained, but solely for Shi’a Muslims in service of Western/Zionist goals, and he is nothing more than a Zionist intelligence asset that still promotes an anti-Muslim agenda but under a more clever disguise.