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‘Palestinians Had Nothing to Lose’: What Does New York Times Op-Ed Say About Hamas?
A taxi passes by in front of The New York Times head office, Feb. 7, 2013. Photo: Reuters / Carlo Allegri / File.
Author Megan K. Stack’s latest op-ed in The New York Times is worse than a hatchet job — it is a malicious screed masquerading as insightful analysis.
In “The View Within Israel Turns Bleak,” the conclusions that Stack invites readers to arrive at are obvious from the first paragraph, in which she quotes right-wing Israeli journalist Yehuda Shlezinger angrily proclaiming there should be “more rivers of Gazans’ blood.”
The right-wing journalist, Stack contends, is not “fringe,” nor would “Israelis would be shocked by his bloody fantasies.”
Indeed, Stack argues that the views espoused by Shlezinger are further evidence that “Israel has hardened” — now it is a nation of people who, regardless of their political leanings, have a “thirst for revenge” on the Palestinians.
But Stack ignores the fact that extreme remarks like Shlezinger’s are consistently condemned by both Israeli politicians and the public, as demonstrated when a junior government minister was suspended for saying Israel could drop a nuclear weapon on Gaza.
Instead, she suggests that her simplistic assessment is supported by statistics: a four-month-old survey found that 94 percent of Jewish Israelis felt the force used in Gaza was appropriate or insufficient.
No country in the world is perfect. But @Megankstack‘s hit piece in @nytimes deliberately sets out to create a one-dimensional portrayal of Israel as an irredeemable society void of any positives whatsoever.
Here’s just some of what’s wrong. https://t.co/3Npp1h5egk pic.twitter.com/U0eK3AkagP
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 19, 2024
Unrepresentative Interviewees
But the problem with Stack’s piece is not merely the use of an out-of-date survey. (Along with no questions about if the amount of force is actually sufficient to defeat the Hamas terror group — nor the fact that Israel has taken steps more than any nation in history to protect Gaza’s civilians). Rather, the main problem with Stack’s piece is that every single person, source, or piece of evidence she uses to illustrate Israelis’ supposedly genocidal intentions toward Palestinians is wholly unrepresentative of Israeli society.
Stack, for example, quotes several people in the piece: Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy, Hassan Jabareen of the anti-Israel NGO Adalah, Diana Buttu, a former PLO legal advisor, and Daniel Levy, the president of the US/Middle East Project.
But how can Gideon Levy, who has repeatedly promoted the apartheid libel, or Daniel Levy, who has repeatedly downplayed Palestinian terrorism, be presented as impartial voices?
And how is it that Diana Buttu can be billed as a “Palestinian lawyer,” and quoted at length without Stack even mentioning that Buttu is also a former advisor to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a proscribed terror group?
Likewise, why are the words of Hassan Jabareen, of the Adalah organization, which aligns itself with terrorist-linked Palestinian NGOs, presented as the unadulterated truth when he alleges that Arab Israelis “live in fear” because the “police left no doubt that we were enemies of the state”?
Naturally, Stack didn’t reference another survey — taken after the start of the October 7 war — which found that the percentage of Arab Israelis who feel a kinship with the State of Israel had risen to 70 percent — up from 48 percent before the Hamas attack.
Israelis at Fault for Palestinian Violence
On the few occasions where Stack acknowledges Palestinian violence, she still circuitously finds Israel at fault. She argues that while the so-called “apartheid wall” that is the West Bank barrier “helped keep West Bank suicide bombers from penetrating Israel,” it has also allegedly acted as a “psychological barrier” separating Israelis and Palestinians and “piled extra misery on ever-more-constrained Palestinian civilians.”
We can, therefore, only assume that Stack thinks Israeli civilians dying in terror attacks is a small price to pay to remove the psychological barrier she has observed.
Similarly, when Stack references the Second Intifada, it is to say that when Israelis emerged from these years of carnage — characterized by suicide attacks, stabbings, and bombings — they did so with a “jaundiced view of negotiations and, more broadly, Palestinians, who were derided as unable to make peace.”
It is this “logic,” she argues, that sabotaged the peace process — and not the launching of the Second Intifada itself. The inference is that Israel should have continued negotiating with then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat even as he incited attacks that murdered Israeli women, children, and men.
Stack also holds up the uneven death toll between Israelis and Palestinians to diminish the threat of Palestinian terrorism, arguing that since the construction of the Iron Dome, the “mathematics of death heavily favored Israel.” In Stack’s mind, even Israel’s defensive measures are a way to victimize Palestinians.
Meanwhile, Stack’s “evidence” that all Israelis are unrepentant racists and the country and apartheid state is supported by absurd pieces of “evidence,” including the fact that Arabs are ineligible for gun licenses, without noting that the majority of Israelis are also ineligible.
Israelis Driven by Hatred and Vengeance
The thrust of Stack’s entire argument could easily be distilled into a sentence: she believes Israelis are driven by hatred, a desire for vengeance, and a medieval-style thirst for blood.
Much of the piece is an exercise in how to omit facts to craft a particular narrative. For example, Stack claims the 460 Palestinians who have been killed in the West Bank since October 7 are proof of a “bloody campaign of terror” by soldiers and settlers, yet fails to note the proportion of those who were terrorists.
Any nuance and compassion are non-existent. She forgets or does not care that this is a nation of people still grieving the horrors of October 7, that hostages remain in Gaza, and that Israel has taken measures to avoid civilian casualties and minimize harm to civilians.
And that is why she concludes the piece with saying the October 7 massacre should have been a wake-up call for Israelis, who she claims had previously sealed themselves “off from Palestinians while subjecting them to daily humiliations and violence.”
Hamas on October 7, she suggests, acted like people with “nothing to lose,” apparently ignoring how the last seven months of the war in Gaza have demonstrated the exact opposite. Palestinians had a lot to lose, and Hamas didn’t care if they lost it.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post ‘Palestinians Had Nothing to Lose’: What Does New York Times Op-Ed Say About Hamas? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Lebanon Must Disarm Hezbollah to Have a Shot at Better Days, Says US Envoy

Thomas Barrack at the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn, New York, U.S., November 4, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
i24 News – Lebanon’s daunting social, economic and political issues would not get resolved unless the state persists in the efforts to disarm Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy behind so much of the unrest and destruction, special US envoy Tom Barrack told The National.
“You have Israel on one side, you have Iran on the other, and now you have Syria manifesting itself so quickly that if Lebanon doesn’t move, it’s going to be Bilad Al Sham again,” he said, using the historical Arabic name for the region sometimes known as “larger Syria.”
The official stressed the need to follow through on promises to disarm the Iranian proxy, which suffered severe blows from Israel in the past year, including the elimination of its entire leadership, and is considered a weakened though still dangerous jihadist outfit.
“There are issues that we have to arm wrestle with each other over to come to a final conclusion. Remember, we have an agreement, it was a great agreement. The problem is, nobody followed it,” he told The National.
Barrack spoke on the heels of a trip to Beirut, where he proposed a diplomatic plan for the region involving the full disarmament of Hezbollah by the Lebanese state.
The post Lebanon Must Disarm Hezbollah to Have a Shot at Better Days, Says US Envoy first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Report: Putin Urges Iran to Accept ‘Zero Enrichment’ Nuclear Deal With US

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of a cultural forum dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Turkmen poet and philosopher Magtymguly Fragi, in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Oct. 11, 2024. Photo: Sputnik/Alexander Scherbak/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Iranian leadership that he supports the idea of a nuclear deal in which Iran is unable to enrich uranium, the Axios website reported on Saturday. The Russian strongman also relayed the message to his American counterpart, President Donald Trump, the report said.
Iranian news agency Tasnim issued a denial, citing an “informed source” as saying Putin had not sent any message to Iran in this regard.
Also on Saturday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated that “Any negotiated solution must respect Iran’s right to enrichment. No agreement without recognizing our right to enrichment. If negotiations occur, the only topic will be the nuclear program. No other issues, especially defense or military matters, will be on the agenda.”
The post Report: Putin Urges Iran to Accept ‘Zero Enrichment’ Nuclear Deal With US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s Al-Sharaa Attending At Least One Meeting With Israeli Officials in Azerbaijan

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron after a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, May 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq/Pool
i24 News – Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa is attending at least one meeting with Israeli officials in Azerbaijan today, despite sources in Damascus claiming he wasn’t attending, a Syrian source close to President Al-Sharaa tells i24NEWS.
The Syrian source stated that this is a series of two or three meetings between the sides, with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani also in attendance, along with Ahmed Al-Dalati, the Syrian government’s liaison for security meetings with Israel.
The high-level Israeli delegation includes a special envoy of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, as well as security and military figures.
The purpose of the meetings is to discuss further details of the security agreement to be signed between Israel and Syria, the Iranian threat in Syria and Lebanon, Hezbollah’s weapons, the weapons of Palestinian militias, the Palestinians camps in Lebanon, and the future of Palestinian refugees from Gaza in the region.
The possibility of opening an Israeli coordination office in Damascus, without diplomatic status, might also be discussed.
The source stated that the decision to hold the meetings in Azerbaijan, made by Israel and the US, is intended to send a message to Iran.
The post Syria’s Al-Sharaa Attending At Least One Meeting With Israeli Officials in Azerbaijan first appeared on Algemeiner.com.