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New York Times ‘Investigation’ of Israel’s 2,000-Pound Bombs Shows Blatant Bias
Israeli soldiers inspect the entrance to what they say is a tunnel used by Hamas terrorists during a ground operation in a location given as Gaza, in this handout image released Nov. 9, 2023. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
A recurring theme in recent criticism of the New York Times by former longstanding employees such as James Bennet and Judith Miller has been that the newspaper has become more ideologically tilted to meet the demands of left-leaning staff and paying digital readers.
The anti-Israel slant goes along with that. One recent glaring example is a Times “visual investigation” that accuses Israel of using 2,000-pound bombs to attack civilians in Gaza. The mere use of the word “investigation” carries with it an implication that Israel is up to something sinister. Why publish an “investigation” if nothing wrong was done?
Let’s investigate some of the tactics the Times “investigation” uses to make Israel look guilty.
Subtly inaccurate translation by the Times distorts the reality. Early in the eight minute, 34 second video that is the “investigation,” the Times shows a man speaking excitedly in Arabic. The subtitles for English-speaking Times readers say, “Dead? Is she dead?” But the words the man is saying are “shaheeda, shaheeda?” That could be a proper name, but it also carries the meaning, “a martyr for the Islamic cause.” It might give Times readers a somewhat different impression about what is happening in Gaza if, instead of portraying the civilians as running around asking “Dead? Is she dead?” the civilians are asking “Martyr? Has she been martyred for the Islamic cause?” Arabic has other, more neutral words for death, but those aren’t the words the person in the video used.
The “investigation” claims, “When the war started, Israel completely sealed off Gaza’s borders.” That’s inaccurate. The war actually started on Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists broke through Gaza’s borders into Israel and went on a killing, raping, and beheading spree. Israel eventually, along with Egypt, restored control over Gaza’s borders, but the Times frequently omits Egypt when talking about Gaza’s borders, as it does here. One possible reason for the omission is that it complicates the Times-favored narrative of blaming all of Gaza’s problems on Israel.
The “video investigation” format allows the Times to be more blatant in displaying its bias. Ominous sound effects play in the background while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is speaking. The transcript gives more clues: “[somber music playing] [explosions and glass shattering].”
The Times uses a video clip of a scared looking child, presumably a Palestinian in Gaza, but it doesn’t say who the image is of or where and when the video was taken. There are unhappy children in Israel, too — their parents called up for reserve duty or killed fighting the Hamas terrorists, or their grandparents hustling them into shelters at the sounds of alerts for missiles or drones coming from Iran-backed terrorists. But the Times doesn’t show the Israeli children. This “visual investigation” doesn’t appear to be an attempt at a balanced look at the cost of armed conflict, but rather seems to be a prosecutorial-style indictment of only one side, Israel.
The policy goal is clear: to cut off Israel’s arms supply. “But the US has not stopped supplying weapons to Israel,” the Times narrator says at one point, implying that is what the US should do. A former Israeli diplomat, Lenny Ben-David, in an analysis for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, writes that the Times focused its analysis “on the wrong bomb, a Mark-84,” rather than the bunkerbusting BLU-109. Ben-David also makes the connection to policy in Washington: “The consequences of the fraud are Members of Congress calling to cut military aid to Israel, encouraged by Israel detractors.”
Videos like the Times “visual investigation” are designed to be shared by Israel-haters on social media. For example, a Buffalo News cartoonist, Adam Zyglis, posted on social media about the Times 2,000-pound bomb investigation shortly before he posted his own cartoon of a sink with Star-of-David-shaped faucets leaking blood while US President Joe Biden rests in bed.
Adam Nagourney’s recent book The Times reports that in 1981, the newspaper’s executive editor, A.M. Rosenthal, complained to the publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, about a “harsh and denunciatory” editorial about Israel’s attack on an Iraqi nuclear reactor. The editor responsible for the editorial, Max Frankel, later called it one of his “major mistakes.” It was such a terrible editorial that people are still writing about it in books 42 years after it was published, when the Times is being published by Sulzberger’s grandson.
It may be that two generations from now people look back at Times coverage of this war, at the flawed and accusatory, harsh and denunciatory coverage such as the “visual investigation,” and see it, too, as a major mistake. At least Frankel had the decency, eventually, to admit it publicly.
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.
The post New York Times ‘Investigation’ of Israel’s 2,000-Pound Bombs Shows Blatant Bias first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Eyes Bringing Azerbaijan, Central Asian Nations into Abraham Accords, Sources Say
US President Donald Trump points a finger as he delivers remarks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, July 31, 2025. Photo: Kent Nishimura via Reuters Connect
President Donald Trump’s administration is actively discussing with Azerbaijan the possibility of bringing that nation and some Central Asian allies into the Abraham Accords, hoping to deepen their existing ties with Israel, according to five sources with knowledge of the matter.
As part of the Abraham Accords, inked in 2020 and 2021 during Trump’s first term in office, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
Azerbaijan and every country in Central Asia, by contrast, already have longstanding relations with Israel, meaning that an expansion of the accords to include them would largely be symbolic, focusing on strengthening ties in areas like trade and military cooperation, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Such an expansion would reflect Trump’s openness to pacts that are less ambitious than his administration’s goal to convince regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia to restore ties with Israel while war rages in Gaza.
The kingdom has repeatedly said it would not recognize Israel without steps towards Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state.
Another key sticking point is Azerbaijan’s conflict with its neighbor Armenia, since the Trump administration considers a peace deal between the two Caucasus nations as a precondition to join the Abraham Accords, three sources said.
While Trump officials have publicly floated several potential entrants into the accords, the talks centered on Azerbaijan are among the most structured and serious, the sources said. Two of the sources argued a deal could be reached within months or even weeks.
Trump’s special envoy for peace missions, Steve Witkoff, traveled to Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, in March to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Aryeh Lightstone, a key Witkoff aide, met Aliyev later in the spring in part to discuss the Abraham Accords, three of the sources said.
As part of the discussions, Azerbaijani officials have contacted officials in Central Asian nations, including in nearby Kazakhstan, to gauge their interest in a broader Abraham Accords expansion, those sources said. It was not clear which other countries in Central Asia – which includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan – were contacted.
The State Department, asked for comment, did not discuss specific countries, but said expanding the accords has been one of the key objectives of Trump. “We are working to get more countries to join,” said a US official.
The Azerbaijani government declined to comment.
The White House, the Israeli foreign ministry and the Kazakhstani embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
Any new accords would not modify the previous Abraham Accords deals signed by Israel.
OBSTACLES REMAIN
The original Abraham Accords – inked between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – were centered on restoration of ties. The second round of expansion appears to be morphing into a broader mechanism designed to expand US and Israeli soft power.
Wedged between Russia to the north and Iran to the south, Azerbaijan occupies a critical link in trade flows between Central Asia and the West. The Caucasus and Central Asia are also rich in natural resources, including oil and gas, prompting various major powers to compete for influence in the region.
Expanding the accords to nations that already have diplomatic relations with Israel may also be a means of delivering symbolic wins to a president who is known to talk up even relatively small victories.
Two sources described the discussions involving Central Asia as embryonic – but the discussions with Azerbaijan as relatively advanced.
But challenges remain and there is no guarantee a deal will be reached, particularly with slow progress in talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The two countries, which both won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh – an Azerbaijani region that had a mostly ethnic-Armenian population – broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia.
In 2023, Azerbaijan retook Karabakh, prompting about 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia. Both sides have since said they want to sign a treaty on a formal end to the conflict.
Primarily Christian Armenia and the US have close ties, and the Trump administration is wary of taking action that could upset authorities in Yerevan.
Still, US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump himself, have argued that a peace deal between those two nations is near.
“Armenia and Azerbaijan, we worked magic there,” Trump told reporters earlier in July. “And it’s pretty close.”
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Trump Reaffirms Support for Morocco’s Sovereignty Over Western Sahara
A Polisario fighter sits on a rock at a forward base, on the outskirts of Tifariti, Western Sahara, Sept. 9, 2016. Photo: Reuters / Zohra Bensemra / File.
US President Donald Trump has reaffirmed support for Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, saying a Moroccan autonomy plan for the territory was the sole solution to the disputed region, state news agency MAP said on Saturday.
The long-frozen conflict pits Morocco, which considers the territory as its own, against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state there.
Trump at the end of his first term in office recognized the Moroccan claims to Western Sahara, which has phosphate reserves and rich fishing grounds, as part of a deal under which Morocco agreed to normalize its relations with Israel.
His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, made clear in April that support for Morocco on the issue remained US policy, but these were Trump’s first quoted remarks on the dispute during his second term.
“I also reiterate that the United States recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and supports Morocco’s serious, credible and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute,” MAP quoted Trump as saying in a message to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI.
“Together we are advancing shared priorities for peace and security in the region, including by building on the Abraham Accords, combating terrorism and expanding commercial cooperation,” Trump said.
As part of the Abraham Accords signed during Trump’s first term, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
In June this year, Britain became the third permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to back an autonomy plan under Moroccan sovereignty for the territory after the U.S. and France.
Algeria, which has recognized the self-declared Sahrawi Republic, has refused to take part in roundtables convened by the U.N. envoy to Western Sahara and insists on holding a referendum with independence as an option.
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Israel Says Its Missions in UAE Remain Open Despite Reported Security Threats
President Isaac Herzog meets on Dec. 5, 2022, with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi. Photo: GPO/Amos Ben Gershom
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that its missions to the United Arab Emirates are open on Friday and representatives continue to operate at the embassy in Abu Dhabi and the consulate in Dubai in cooperation with local authorities.
This includes, the statement underlined, ensuring the protection of Israeli diplomats.
On Thursday, reports appeared in Israeli media that Israel was evacuating most of its diplomatic staff in the UAE after the National Security Council heightened its travel warning for Israelis staying in the Gulf country for fear of an Iranian or Iran-sponsored attacks.
“We are emphasizing this travel warning given our understanding that terrorist organizations (the Iranians, Hamas, Hezbollah and Global Jihad) are increasing their efforts to harm Israel,” the NSC said in a statement.
After signing the Abraham Accords with Israel in 2020, the UAE has been among the closest regional allies of the Jewish state.
Israel is concerned about its citizens and diplomats being targeted in retaliatory attacks following its 12-day war against Iran last month.
Earlier this year, the UAE sentenced three citizens of Uzbekistan to death for last year’s murder of Israeli-Moldovan rabbi Zvi Cohen.