Nadene Goldfoot
Here it is January 1st, 2026 and being a 91 year old early 5am riser, turned on my TV to CNN, the only working station at this hour, and lo and behold, saw a Nada speaking; a reporter with her hair covered, by the name of Nada Bashir.
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My nickname since birth has always been Nada. Only a few years ago did I learn that it is "nothing" in Spanish. My mother really should have called me Nadia, give me a more Russian flair to my name. Here at the Assisted Living quarters, I am known and write on my menu request, Nada. I am Jewish. Nada Bashir is wearing a Hijab over her hair, telling me she is a Muslim. This is ironic to me. So I am very curious about her:
Nada Bashir (born 17 December 1995) age 31, is a British journalist and international correspondent for CNN based in London. Her reporting focuses primarily on the Middle East, just as mine, an unknown neighborhood reporter, is also of the Middle East, particularly Israel. In 2024, Bashir was featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list.
Bashir was born in Brighton, England to Libyan parents, her father an aircraft engineer and her mother a preschool teacher. The family later moved to West Kensington, London.
I note that she was editor of UCL's student newspaper. ( Yes, UCL stands for University College London, a major public research university located in the heart of London, England, known globally as a leading multidisciplinary institution with a diverse student body and extensive research impact.) While at UCL, Bashir was an active member of the university's official student news outlet, Pi Media. She was appointed Editor-in-Chief of PiTV in her final year. In 2020, Bashir graduated with a Master of Science (MSc) degree in Global Politics from the London School of Economics (LSE).
Bashir joined CNN in 2018 as an intern. She went on to continue working with the network as a freelance producer before taking on a staff producer position in 2020. She has worked in Kurdistan, Turkey, Yemen, Lebanon, and In 2019,she was later named International Correspondent in March 2024.
Following the October 7 attacks, Bashir has travelled frequently across the Middle East to report on the Gaza war and the broader regional fallout.
In the early months of the war, Bashir spent several weeks in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, (note-not Judea and Samaria, of course, not being Jewish) and here is what she, sees with her eyes as she tells it: " reporting on the surge in violence against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories'" not a word of the Palestinians hitting the Jewish homes first) , as well as the humanitarian crisis inside Gaza (seeing what we know of how the Palestinians will not give up their weapons and continue to shoot at Israelis )..
She also played a key role in covering the short-lived truce between Israel and Hamas in November 2023, reporting from Ramallah on the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails as part of a hostage exchange agreement.
Me: (During recent hostage exchange deals, Palestinian prisoners were released from Israeli jails (primarily Ofer Prison, which is near Ramallah in the West Bank), not from jails within Ramallah itself. Israel does not generally hold Palestinian prisoners in Palestinian Authority-controlled jails in Ramallah; it holds them in its own prisons. )
Me: (Israel released more than 1,000 Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons in exchange. The 20 remaining living hostages were released as part of the Gaza peace plan on 13 October 2025. The body of one deceased hostage has yet to be returned to Israel.)
In 2024, Bashir gained access to a field hospital established off the coast of Al-Arish in North Sinai, where she met with and interviewed wounded Palestinians recently evacuated from the Gaza Strip.
She later reported from Lebanon on growing tensions between Hezbollah and Israel along the country's southern border, and was one of the first international correspondents at the scene following the "assassination" of senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut.
Me: (Al-Arouri was considered one of the architects of the October 7 attack on Israel, and was also known for his role in expanding Hamas' activities in the West Bank. The U.S,A .which designated him as a terrorist in 2015, and had also put a $5 million bounty on his head.
He was assassinated in 2024 during the Gaza war by an Israeli strike. Al-Arouri was succeeded by Zaher Jabarin as Hamas's leader in the West Bank. (I wouldn't use assassinate, as it can mean a willful killing of the famous person. Willful implies an immoral or illegal attack,) This is war, Israel is at war with all terrorists, for Pete's sake. Do people not understand this? THIS IS HAPPING DURING THE WAR OF REVIVAL, our new term for this war started by Hamas on October 7, 2023.)
Nada has also covered ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, traveling frequently to Cairo to follow meetings between diplomatic delegations involved in the talks.
I wonder if Nada could talk Hamas into giving up their weapons and abiding by the peace negotiations she helped to bring to fruition as they had actually signed the agreement since this is a breach of contract or a violation of the agreement.
Well, Nada could also be working for al Jazeera ! I see her reporting as being very slanted. CNN, who else does reporting around there? Don't you see the difference? I suppose a scientist could say that you see what you want to see, that it's colored by your background. So it certainly is in this case. Nada is so young, a young 31 compared to my 91 years, and my ability to remember the past is better than the last hour, you know. I know how to find facts to back up my personal knowledge. I know how to trust sources or not. I'm not surprised at what Nada writes with her slant on life; not at all, just her name.
So this is my last tidbit: "It's impossible to know the exact number of women named Nada globally, but it's a popular female name, especially in Croatia, where over 30,000 women share the name and it was once a top name, and in Arabic-speaking countries like Egypt and Lebanon, with significant numbers there too. While less common in the U.S., it's still used, ranking around #2700 for girls on The Bump and #4428 in U.S. births recently, indicating thousands of bearers worldwide."Wow! I didn't know!!!
I'm the Nada that is an Israeli and an American, named for my paternalgrandfather, Nathan; Nadene officially but Nada to the family and our dining room. I write about the Middle East, too, but in blogs, have been ever since 2004. It's rare, maybe only me with Jewish females except:
- Historical Usage: Historical records from the Damascus Shariah Courts between the 16th and 20th centuries show that "Nada" was used as a female given name by Jewish women in that specific community, indicating some limited historical use in certain Sephardic or Mizrahi contexts. This suggests a small, specific cultural crossover rather than widespread use.
Resource
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nada_Bashir
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