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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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A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai
Around 200 people gathered for a pro-Israel demonstration at University of Toronto’s downtown campus at King’s College Circle—which was the site of one of Canada’s largest pro-Palestinian encampments during May […]
The post A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters
A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson
The campus group National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) is waging a campaign to gut Jewish life in academia, calling for the abolition of Hillel International campus chapters, the largest collegiate organization for Jewish students in the world.
“Over the past several decades, Hillel has monopolized for Jewish campus life into a pipeline for pro-Israel indoctrination, genocide-apologia, and material support to the Zionist project and its crimes,” a social media account operating the campaign, titled #DropHillel, said in a manifesto published last week. “Across the country, Hillel chapters have invited Israeli soldiers to their campuses; promoted propaganda trips such as birthright; and organized charity drives for the Israeli military.”
It continued, “Such actions reveal Hillel’s ideological and material investment in Zionism, despite the organization’s facade as being simply a ‘Jewish cultural space.’”
DropHillel claims to be “Jewish-led,” although only a small minority of Jews oppose Zionism, and the group has been linked to and promoted by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters.
Hillel International has provided Jewish students a home away from home during the academic year. However, NSJP says it wants to “weaken” it and “dismantle oppression.”
The idea has already been picked up by pro-Hamas student groups at one college, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to The Daily Tar Heel, the school’s official student newspaper. On Oct. 9, it reported, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) unveiled the idea for “no more Hillel” during a rally which, among other things, demanded removing Israel from UNC’s study abroad program and adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Addressing the comments to the paper days later, SJP, which has been linked to Islamist terrorist organizations, proclaimed that shuttering Hillel is a coveted goal of the anti-Zionist movement.
“Zionism is a racist supremacist ideology advocating for the creation and sustenance of an ethnostate through the expulsion and annihilation of native people,” the group told the paper. “Therefore, any group that advocates for a supremacist ideology — be it the KKK, the Proud Boys, Hillel, or Heels for Israel — should not be welcome on campus.”
The #DropHillel campaign came amid an unprecedented surge in anti-Israel incidents on college campuses, which, according to a report published last month by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), have reached crisis levels.
Revealing a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena, the report — titled “Anti-Israel Activism on US Campuses, 2023-2024” — painted a bleak picture of America’s higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.
“As the year progressed, Jewish students and Jewish groups on campus came under unrelenting scrutiny for any association, actual or perceived, with Israel or Zionism,” the report said. “This often led to the harassment of Jewish members of campus communities and vandalism of Jewish institutions. In some cases, it led to assault. These developments were underpinned by a steady stream of rhetoric from anti-Israel activists expressing explicit support for US-designated terrorists organizations, such as Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and others.”
The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents — 52 and 38, respectively. Harvard University, the University of California – Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, it continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza
Former US President Donald Trump is seen at a campaign event in South Carolina. Photo: Reuters/Sam Wolfe
The “Muslims for Trump” organization has officially launched initiatives to help elect Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to the White House, arguing that he would be more likely to end the war in Gaza than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
In a statement released on Monday, the group said it will focus on recruiting Muslim voters in key battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina. The organization both praised Trump for his supposed “peace-focused” approach to ending the war in Gaza and condemned Harris for helping facilitate a so-called “genocide.”
“After meeting with President Trump, it was clear to me he is the right leader for Muslims to get behind,” Rabiul Chowdhury, co-founder of Muslims for Trump and former co-chair of the “Abandon Harris Movement,” said in a statement.
Chowdhury added that during his discussions with Trump, the former president vowed to “ending the escalation of wars and bringing peace to war-torn regions.” In contrast to Trump’s promise to stop the “bloodshed” in Gaza, he claimed, Harris has “recklessly pushed us toward World War III.”
Chowdhury, a self-described “peace advocate,” urged the Muslim community not to fall victim to supposed “misinformation” campaigns by the media and Democrats that paint the former president as hostile to immigrants. He claimed that the former president’s focus is on “ending war, not dividing families through false immigration claims.”
Samra Luqman, chair of the Michigan chapter of Muslims for Trump, underscored the need to punish the Biden administration for what he described as supporting a “genocide” in Gaza.
“The goal of this election is to hold the Biden administration accountable for a genocide. No amount of fear mongering or scare tactics will persuade my community into forgiving the mutilation, live-burning, and genocide of over 200,000 people,” he said.
According to data produced by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, roughly 40,000 people have died in Gaza since the war began last October. Israel has said that its forces have killed about 20,000 Hamas terrorists during its military campaign.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.
On the organization Muslims for Trump’s official website, it claims that the Abraham Accords, a series of historic, Trump administration-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several countries in the Arab world, helped stabilize the Middle East. It also says that had Trump not lost the 2020 presidential race, the so-called “genocide” could have been prevented.
“Under Trump’s leadership, the Abraham Accords were brokered, fostering peaceful relations between Israel and several Arab countries. Supporters might argue that Trump’s diplomacy prioritized peace and stability in the Middle East, reducing the likelihood of large-scale conflicts like genocide,” the group wrote.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump has repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them if he were to win November’s US presidential election.
Harsh US sanctions levied on Iran under Trump crippled the Iranian economy and led its foreign exchange reserves to plummet. Trump and his Republican supporters in the US Congress have criticized the Biden administration for renewing billions of dollars in US sanctions waivers, which had the effect of unlocking frozen funds and allowing the country to access previously inaccessible hard currency.
Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and also moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
Despite Harris’s repeated efforts to woo Muslim voters, polling data indicates that the demographic has made a dramatic swing away from the Democratic Party. Polling data from the Arab American Institute reveals that Trump slightly edges Harris among Muslim voters by a margin of 42 to 41 percent. A report from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) shows that Green Party candidate Jill Stein leads Harris and Trump with Muslim voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
The post ‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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