RSS
Cartoon of Israeli Hostage Trampling Bloody Arab Bodies Is Sanitized by New York Times
A taxi passes by in front of The New York Times head office, Feb. 7, 2013. Photo: Reuters / Carlo Allegri
“After He Ran a Cartoon on the War in Gaza, Gannett Fired Him,” is the headline the New York Times put over its recent report about the Palm Beach Post firing an editorial page editor.
The headline, sympathetic to the ousted editor, set the tone for the whole article. The Times dispatch, though delivered in the disguise of an objective news article, sided clearly with the fired editor instead of with the local Jewish community or the newspaper’s ownership. A more accurate headline might have been, “After He Ran an Antisemitic Cartoon Depicting a Released Israeli Hostage as Trampling on the Bloody Corpses of ‘Over 40,000 Palestinians,’ Gannett Fired Him.”
The Times article was by Benjamin Mullin, a reporter who covers the media industry. Had the Times chosen to assign the piece to a reporter on the Israel beat, or one who covers antisemitism (which would be a worthwhile beat for the Times to establish, and especially timely since there’s a new Trump administration and the newspaper has a previous pattern of suddenly discovering a new concern about antisemitism when Republicans are in power), the result might have been different.
The headline was just one of many ways in which the Times signaled its slant on this story.
The article referred to “a local Jewish group that claimed the cartoon was antisemitic.” It wasn’t just “a local Jewish group.” It was the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County, which is the central umbrella institution of the local organized Jewish community. “Claimed” is a loaded verb. Even the Times‘ own stylebook acknowledges that “claim is not a neutral synonym for say. It means assert a right or contend something that may be open to question.”
Nor was it only the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County that called the cartoon antisemitic. The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis also described the cartoon as antisemitic, noting that it “trivialized the plight of Israeli hostages and promoted antisemitic tropes of Israeli bloodlust.”
The Times could have published the cartoon itself and let the readers judge for themselves. Instead, it used a hyperlink and a bowdlerized text description of the drawing. The Times said, “The image shows two Israeli soldiers rescuing a hostage captured by Hamas. Under the words ‘Some Israeli hostages are home after over a year of merciless war,’ one of the soldiers says, ‘Watch your step’ as he, the rescued hostage and the other soldier walk through a mass of bodies with the label ‘over 40,000 Palestinians killed.’”
That description omitted one of the most outrageous aspects of the cartoon: that the Palestinian bodies were colored red, as if drenched in blood.
The Times description also omitted that one Israeli soldier was toting a machine gun, portraying the Israeli military — not the terrorist group Hamas, which was invisible and not present in the cartoon — as culpable for all the killing. The Palestinians were all depicted as unarmed, notwithstanding that “upwards of 17,000” of Gazans killed are said by Andrew Fox to have been “Hamas and affiliated combatants.”
The Times reported that the editor, Tony Doris, “said in an interview last week that the cartoon was antiwar, not antisemitic.” Yet if the cartoon was “antiwar,” why demonize only the Israeli soldiers while ignoring that Hamas is also waging war and began the present conflict by invading Israel and seizing hostages on Oct. 7, 2023? Opposing only Israel’s war and not Hamas’s isn’t antiwar; it’s anti-Israel. It suggests a double standard for Israel that is not only consistent with bias against Jews but also meets the definition of antisemitism used by the US government.
The Times didn’t seem to push or challenge the fired editor on that point; it just parroted his point of view.
As is frequent in these cases, the Times trotted out the ancestry of one of the protagonists as a supposed defense against the antisemitism charge. The Times reported, “In an interview on Saturday, he rejected the idea that the cartoon was antisemitic, saying it was simply a case of, ‘this war’s gone on long enough.’ [The cartoonist, Jeff] Danziger, an Army veteran whose father is Jewish, also said that his service as an intelligence officer has made him critical of war.” The Times told us that Danziger’s “father is Jewish,” as if that is relevant somehow, but it didn’t say what religion Danziger is, if he has any. Why was the father’s religion or Jewish status worth including but not Danziger’s own, or lack of it?
Back in 2019, after a firestorm of condemnation, the Times’ own headline said, “Times Apologizes for Publishing Anti-Semitic Cartoon.”
Back then, Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote of “the almost torrential criticism of Israel and the mainstreaming of anti-Zionism, including by this paper, which has become so common that people have been desensitized to its inherent bigotry. So long as anti-Semitic arguments or images are framed, however speciously, as commentary about Israel, there will be a tendency to view them as a form of political opinion, not ethnic prejudice.”
Sadly, six years later, the Times is still committing the same mistakes, this time in reporting on the cartoon controversy at the paper in Palm Beach.
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 Cartoon of Israeli Hostage Trampling Bloody Arab Bodies Is Sanitized by New York Times first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
The post Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
The post Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
The post Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.