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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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UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire

Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado

The U.N. Security Council met on Sunday to discuss US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East.

It was not immediately clear when it could be put to a vote. The three countries circulated the draft text, said diplomats, and asked members to share their comments by Monday evening. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.

The US is likely to oppose the draft resolution, seen by Reuters, which also condemns attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and facilities. The text does not name the United States or Israel.

“The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn in a region that is already reeling,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Sunday. “We now risk descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation.”

“We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear program,” Guterres said.

The world awaited Iran’s response on Sunday after President Donald Trump said the US had “obliterated” Tehran’s key nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.

U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that while craters were visible at Iran’s enrichment site buried into a mountain at Fordow, “no one – including the IAEA – is in a position to assess the underground damage.”

Grossi said entrances to tunnels used for the storage of enriched material appear to have been hit at Iran’s sprawling Isfahan nuclear complex, while the fuel enrichment plant at Natanz has been struck again.

“Iran has informed the IAEA there has been no increase in off-site radiation levels at all three sites,” said Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran requested the U.N. Security Council meeting, calling on the 15-member body “to address this blatant and unlawful act of aggression, to condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”

Israel‘s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement on Sunday that the U.S. and Israel “do not deserve any condemnation, but rather an expression of appreciation and gratitude for making the world a safer place.”

Danon told reporters before the council meeting that it was still early when it came to assessing the impact of the U.S. strikes. When asked if Israel was pursuing regime change in Iran, Danon said: “That’s for the Iranian people to decide, not for us.”

The post UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting

FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo

Israel has rejected a European Union report saying it may be breaching human rights obligations in Gaza and the West Bank as a “moral and methodological failure,” according to a document seen by Reuters on Sunday.

The note, sent to EU officials ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, said the report by the bloc’s diplomatic service failed to consider Israel’s challenges and was based on inaccurate information.

“The Foreign Ministry of the State of Israel rejects the document … and finds it to be a complete moral and methodological failure,” the note said, adding that it should be dismissed entirely.

The post Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’

FILE PHOTO: Pope Leo XIV holds a Jubilee audience on the occasion of the Jubilee of Sport, at St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican June 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo

Pope Leo on Sunday said the international community must strive to avoid war that risks opening an “irreparable abyss,” and that diplomacy should take the place of conflict.

US forces struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.

“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said during his weekly prayer with pilgrims.

“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, the stolen future. Let diplomacy silence the weapons, let nations chart their future with peace efforts, not with violence and bloody conflicts,” he added.

“In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population, especially in Gaza and other territories, risks being forgotten, where the need for adequate humanitarian support is becoming increasingly urgent,” Pope Leo said.

The post Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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