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Top New York Times Editor Says His Paper Prompted US Pause of Arms to Israel
Israeli soldiers fire mortar shells, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, near Israel’s border with Gaza in southern Israel, Jan. 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura
The executive editor of the New York Times, Joseph Kahn, is boasting that his newspaper is responsible for the Biden administration’s decision to stop sending 2,000-pound bombs to Israel.
Kahn also recently disclosed a $62,500 gift from his family charitable foundation to the Harvard Crimson, a student-run newspaper that has endorsed the movement to boycott, sanction, and divest from Israel and that also calls for Harvard to divest from weapons manufacturers and give amnesty to student anti-Israel protesters.
Kahn’s comment about the bombs came in an interview with the New Yorker magazine that was published online this week.
Asked, “can you talk a bit about how you’re thinking about AI [artificial intelligence] positively?” Kahn replied that the Times “visual investigations team” had used artificial intelligence “in this big investigation about the use of two-thousand-pound bombs by Israel in Gaza, identifying craters and identifying remnants of weapons and quantifying the strikes that actually had a real result in having the US restrict the sale of two-thousand-pound bombs to Israel.”
In a Dec. 2023 column for The Algemeiner, I wrote about the Times project, which was published both in print and video: “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.”
And after US President Joe Biden disclosed, in a CNN interview in May 2024, that he was pausing the shipments of the weapons to Israel, I wrote another column asserting that the New York Times “laid the groundwork for Biden’s decision.”
Now Kahn is validating the two Algemeiner columns, essentially describing the Biden policy decision — widely denounced in the American Jewish community and by pro-Israel lawmakers from both political parties — as a positive result of Times journalism.
The New Yorker reporter also grilled Kahn about a donation from his family charity to Planned Parenthood. Kahn indicated another family member was responsible for it and said, “I’m not making any donations to political organizations, full stop, and I have not in the past, ever.” He said it wouldn’t be appropriate for a New York Times employee to make such a donation: “I would say no, particularly if they’re at all involved in the coverage of those things, and I would not give to those organizations, whether I support them or not.”
The Kahn Charitable Foundation’s tax return for the year ended June 30, 2023, filed Nov. 10, 2023, lists $17 million in assets and Joe Kahn and a bank as the two trustees. Dwarfing the $6,000 donation to Planned Parenthood is a $62,500 gift to the Harvard Crimson. The Crimson just wrapped up a $15 million capital campaign in connection with its 150th birthday. Capital gifts are often payable over five-year terms, so it’s possible that the $62,500 is the first of a quarter-million-dollar commitment to the Crimson by Kahn, who was president of the paper as an undergraduate several years before I was.
The Crimson endorsed BDS with an editorial in April 2022, before the start of the year covered by the Kahn Charitable Foundation’s tax return. The Crimson‘s website lists Kahn as a member of the 150th campaign committee. The Crimson gift is the fourth largest of the 43 gifts listed on the tax return. Many similar foundations avoid such detailed disclosures by routing money through donor-advised funds.
In the New Yorker interview, Kahn also expressed pride in the New York Times‘ coverage of the war in Israel and Gaza: “There are very passionate views on opposite sides of this conflict,” he said. “The suffering of Palestinians in Gaza has been an absolutely vital part of the coverage that we’ve had. The displaced people, the civilian casualties caught up in the conflict have been a constant focus for us. On the other side of the equation, the trauma of October 7th, the shock of what was the largest attack on Israeli soil that Israelis had experienced, the mobilization to defeat Hamas, have also been an important story for us, and we’ve tried to tell it fully. And it’s really true that there isn’t that large a slice of the audience that’s neutral on these issues. But I’m immensely proud both of the news that we’ve done day to day — and this is a huge news story every day, every cycle — but also of the investigative work that we’ve done.”
Kahn has been talkative to the press lately. In another recent interview, with Semafor’s Ben Smith, he said, “I’m not an active Jew.”
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 Top New York Times Editor Says His Paper Prompted US Pause of Arms to Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.