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‘Ridiculous Nonsense’: New York Times Scapegoats Israel for Kamala Harris Election Loss
US Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, US, Aug. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Erica Dischino
The New York Times — in two opinion pieces, a news article, and a top-of-the-front-page Sunday headline — falsely blamed Israel and the Gaza war for Kamala Harris and the Democrats losing the 2024 US elections.
The lead news article in the print edition of the Times on the Sunday after the Nov. 5 election carried the headline “Democrats Sift Through Rubble. Seeking Answers/Assigning the Blame/Pointing to the War in Gaza, Misinformation, and Identity Politics.” Online, the subheadline said, “In interviews, lawmakers and strategists tried to explain Kamala Harris’s defeat, pointing to misinformation, the Gaza war, a toxic Democratic brand, and the party’s approach to transgender issues.”
The Times reported that “lawmakers, strategists, and officials” who the newspaper interviewed “conceded that Ms. Harris had paid a price for not breaking from Mr. Biden’s support of Israel in the war in Gaza, which angered Arab American voters in Michigan.”
A photo cutline in the same article reported, “Ms. Harris faced anger from voters over the Biden administration’s support of Israel in the war in Gaza.”
In case any Times readers missed the point on the front page, the newspaper reiterated it on the opinion pages. Peter Beinart, a Jew who in 2020 renounced Zionism, wrote a piece for the Times complaining about what he called “Israel’s slaughter and starvation of Palestinians,” asserting, “The outrage has been particularly intense among Black Americans and the young.” The Beinart article was headlined “Democrats Ignored Gaza and Brought Down Their Party.”
And in case the point hadn’t been made sufficiently with the combination of the Beinart article and the front-page headline and news article, a second opinion article, this one by Ben Rhodes, a former aide to President Barack Obama, explained the Democratic Party’s losses partly on the grounds that “as a party committed to American leadership of a ‘rules-based international order,’ we defended a national security enterprise that has failed repeatedly in the 21st century, and made ourselves hypocrites through unconditional military support for Israel’s bombardment of civilians in Gaza.”
Not one of the three Times articles reckoned with the reality that President-elect Donald Trump also gained with pro-Israel voters who were angry that the Biden-Harris administration withheld some arms shipments to Israel. Nor, for all the talk about the supposed importance of Arab voters in Michigan, did the Times adequately explain how, if this was all about Israel and Arab voters, Harris managed to lose all the other swing states, too.
As The Algemeiner reported, a survey of swing voters by Blueprint, a Democrat-leaning research firm, found the issue of Israel and the Palestinians barely registered as motivation for choosing Trump over Harris. Voters were more worried about inflation, immigration, even transgender issues. Among those voters for whom it was a factor, the survey found more people concerned that Harris was too “pro-Palestine” than those upset she was too “pro-Israel.”
On social media, some prominent voices rejected the Times theory. “Disregarding all the exit polls in order to retroactively scapegoat the Jewish state for the D’s actual defeat is just as dangerous and indefensible as proactively scapegoating the Jewish voter for the R’s potential loss. Why does @NYTimes publish such ridiculous nonsense?” asked Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
A Democratic member of the US Congress from New York, Ritchie Torres, said the black voters who Beinart was writing about cared more about inflation than anything happening in the Middle East.
“Beware of white progressives who project their own ideological biases onto working-class communities of color,” Torres wrote. “Here’s the ground-level truth. If you’re a young man of color struggling to pay your rent, put food on the table, and keep your family afloat, the furthest issue on your mind is a conflict 5,000 miles away. The existential issue for you is inflation. The crippling cost of living is the cause of your discontent. Anyone claiming otherwise is representing their own ideological imagination rather than reality.”
“The far left seems to have a simple rule of scapegoating: When in doubt, blame Israel,” Torres added.
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 ‘Ridiculous Nonsense’: New York Times Scapegoats Israel for Kamala Harris Election Loss first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Security Warning to Israelis Vacationing Abroad Ahead of holidays
A passenger arrives to a terminal at Ben Gurion international airport before Israel bans international flights, January 25, 2021. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – Ahead of the Jewish High Holidays, Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) published the latest threat assessment to Israelis abroad from terrorist groups to the public on Sunday, in order to increase the Israeli public’s awareness of the existing terrorist threats around the world and encourage individuals to take preventive action accordingly.
The NSC specified that the warning is an up-to-date reflection of the main trends in the activities of terrorist groups around the world and their impact on the level of threat posed to Israelis abroad during these times, but the travel warnings and restrictions themselves are not new.
“As the Gaza war continues and in parallel with the increasing threat of terrorism, the National Security Headquarters stated it has recognized a trend of worsening and increasing violent antisemitic incidents and escalating steps by anti-Israel groups, to the point of physically harming Israelis and Jews abroad. This is in light of, among other things, the anti-Israel narrative and the negative media campaign by pro-Palestinian elements — a trend that may encourage and motivate extremist elements to carry out terrorist activities against Israelis or Jews abroad,” the statement read.
“Therefore, the National Security Bureau is reinforcing its recommendation to the Israeli public to act with responsibility during this time when traveling abroad, to check the status of the National Security Bureau’s travel warnings (before purchasing tickets to the destination,) and to act in accordance with the travel warning recommendations and the level of risk in the country they are visiting,” it listed, adding that, as illustrated in the past year, these warnings are well-founded and reflect a tangible and valid threat potential.
The statement also emphasized the risk of sharing content on social media networks indicating current or past service in the Israeli security forces, as these posts increase the risk of being marked by various parties as a target. “Therefore, the National Security Council recommends that you do not upload to social networks, in any way, content that indicates service in the security forces, operational activity, or similar content, as well as real-time locations.”
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Israel Intensifies Gaza City Bombing as Rubio Arrives
Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south, in the central Gaza Strip September 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Israeli forces destroyed at least 30 residential buildings in Gaza City and forced thousands of people from their homes, Palestinian officials said, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived on Sunday to discuss the future of the conflict.
Israel has said it plans to seize the city, where about a million Palestinians have been sheltering, as part of its declared aim of eliminating the terrorist group Hamas, and has intensified attacks on what it has called Hamas’ last bastion.
The group’s political leadership, which has engaged in on-and-off negotiations on a possible ceasefire and hostage release deal, was targeted by Israel in an airstrike in Doha on Tuesday in an attack that drew widespread condemnation.
Qatar will host an emergency Arab-Islamic summit on Monday to discuss the next moves. Rubio said Washington wanted to talk about how to free the 48 hostages – of whom 20 are believed to be still alive – still held by Hamas in Gaza and rebuild the coastal strip.
“What’s happened, has happened,” he said. “We’re gonna meet with them (the Israeli leadership). We’re gonna talk about what the future holds,” Rubio said before heading to Israel where he will stay until Tuesday.
ABRAHAM ACCORDS AT RISK
He was expected to visit the Western Wall Jewish prayer site in Jerusalem on Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hold talks with him during the visit.
US officials described Tuesday’s strike on the territory of a close US ally as a unilateral escalation that did not serve American or Israeli interests. Rubio and US President Donald Trump both met Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Friday.
Netanyahu signed an agreement on Thursday to push ahead with a settlement expansion plan that would cut across West Bank land that the Palestinians seek for a state – a move the United Arab Emirates warned would undermine the US-brokered Abraham accords that normalized UAE relations with Israel.
Israel, which blocked all food from entering Gaza for 11 weeks earlier this year, has been allowing more aid into the enclave since late July to prevent further food shortages, though the United Nations says far more is needed.
It says it wants civilians to leave Gaza City before it sends more ground forces in. Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have left but hundreds of thousands remain in the area. Hamas has called on people not to leave.
Israeli army forces have been operating inside at least four eastern suburbs for weeks, turning most of at least three of them into wastelands. It is closing in on the center and the western areas of the territory, where most of the displaced people are taking shelter.
Many are reluctant to leave, saying there is not enough space or safety in the south, where Israel has told them to go to what it has designated as a humanitarian zone.
Some say they cannot afford to leave while others say they were hoping the Arab leaders meeting on Monday in Qatar would pressure Israel to scrap its planned offensive.
“The bombardment intensified everywhere and we took down the tents, more than twenty families, we do not know where to go,” said Musbah Al-Kafarna, displaced in Gaza City.
Israel said it had completed five waves of air strikes on Gaza City over the past week, targeting more than 500 sites, including Hamas reconnaissance and sniper sites, buildings containing tunnel openings and weapons depots.
Local officials, who do not distinguish between militant and civilian casualties, say at least 40 people were killed by Israeli fire across the enclave, a least 28 in Gaza City alone.
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Turkey Warns of Escalation as Israel Expands Strikes Beyond Gaza
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not seen) at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
i24 News – An Israeli strike targeting Hamas officials in Qatar has sparked unease among several Middle Eastern countries that host leaders of the group, with Turkey among the most alarmed.
Officials in Ankara are increasingly worried about how far Israel might go in pursuing those it holds responsible for the October 7 attacks.
Israel’s prime minister effectively acknowledged that the Qatar operation failed to eliminate the Hamas leadership, while stressing the broader point the strike was meant to make: “They enjoy no immunity,” the government said.
On X, Prime Minister Netanyahu went further, writing that “the elimination of Hamas leaders would put an end to the war.”
A senior Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up Ankara’s reaction: “The attack in Qatar showed that the Israeli government is ready to do anything.”
Legally and diplomatically, Turkey occupies a delicate position. As a NATO member, any military operation or targeted killing on its soil could inflame tensions within the alliance and challenge mutual security commitments.
Analysts caution, however, that Israel could opt for covert measures, operations carried out without public acknowledgement, a prospect that has increased anxiety in governments across the region.
Israeli officials remain defiant. In an interview with Ynet, Minister Ze’ev Elkin said: “As long as we have not stopped them, we will pursue them everywhere in the world and settle our accounts with them.” The episode underscores growing fears that efforts to hunt Hamas figures beyond Gaza could widen regional friction and complicate diplomatic relationships.