RSS
Yale Professor Exposes New York Times’ Systematic Minimization of Hamas, Palestinian Violence in Gaza War
An aerial view shows the bodies of victims of an attack following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip lying on the ground in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel, Oct. 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
A recent analysis by a Yale professor claimed The New York Times‘ coverage of the Gaza conflict downplayed Israeli losses after the Hamas terror group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of the Jewish state and minimized the role of Palestinian violence in sustaining the war.
The findings have added fuel to ongoing debates about media bias in reporting on the war, with one prominent critic of the Times arguing that they fit with not only a long-standing pattern of portraying Israel as a belligerent aggressor but also a deep hostility toward the Jewish state among the newspaper’s top leadership.
The study — published last month and conducted by Edieal Pinker, a professor and deputy dean at the Yale School of Management — examined 1,561 articles published by the Times between Oct. 7, 2023, and June 7, 2024. It concluded that the newspaper’s reporting adhered to a “specific narrative” in which Israel was largely portrayed as the primary aggressor while Palestinian suffering received dominant coverage.
“The net result of these imbalances and others is to create a depiction of events that is imbalanced toward creating sympathy for the Palestinian side, places most of the agency in the hands of Israel, is often at odds with actual events, and fails to give readers an understanding of how Israelis are experiencing the war,” Pinker said.
A Question of Emphasis
The study found that The New York Times devoted extensive coverage to Israeli actions in Gaza and their impact on Palestinian civilians, while making significantly fewer references to Israeli casualties, Hamas combatant losses, and Palestinian violence after Oct. 7. According to the data, 70 percent of articles that described the conflict fit this dominant narrative. Nearly half of these did not mention Israeli hostages held in Gaza, and 41 percent omitted any reference to the Israeli casualties from Hamas’s initial attack.
By contrast, Pinker’s analysis found that 1,423 of the 1,561 articles surveyed made no mention of Israeli casualties incurred after the initial Oct. 7 assault — in which Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages across southern Israel — nor of Hamas fighter deaths. The study cited data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data research group indicating that, during the study’s timeframe, Israel lost 364 soldiers, 34 civilians, and suffered hundreds of attacks in Israel and the West Bank during the ensuing war.
In addition, the Times published personal stories of Palestinian or Lebanese suffering nearly every other day, while there were far longer periods in which post-Oct. 7 Israeli casualties were not mentioned at all, according to the study.
The coverage also appeared to minimize Hamas’s role in perpetuating the war, the study claimed. Only 10 percent of articles directly related to the fighting acknowledged Hamas combatant deaths, and 18 percent of war-related articles mentioned Palestinian violence post-Oct. 7. By comparison, Israel was mentioned more than three times as often as Hamas across all articles focused on the war.
A Longstanding Narrative
Author and media critic Ashley Rindsberg, who has written extensively about The New York Times in his book The Gray Lady Winked, argued that the study’s findings are consistent with the newspaper’s historical coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The findings of the Yale study show that The New York Times is framing the current conflict in a way that’s very similar and almost a template to how it’s framed the Israel-Palestine conflict going back to the Second Intifada,” Rindsberg told The Algemeiner. “It was during the Intifada that The New York Times first created this narrative whereby Israel is almost always the sole aggressor and Palestinians are perpetual victims. Very rarely does the paper attempt to break this narrative and even suppresses facts or data that dissent from it.”
Rindsberg further argued that the Sulzberger family, which has controlled the newspaper for over a century, plays a role in shaping its editorial stance. “The Times holds onto this narrative at all costs,” he explained. “The Sulzbergers are almost genetically opposed to the concept of Judaism that underlies the state of Israel, which is an ethnic and national conception of the Jewish people, not just a religious faith. For them, Israel completely disrupts their worldview, and the result is a culture at the newspaper that supports this kind of narrative.”
The Challenge of Bias Measurement
Pinker, a dual US-Israeli citizen with a background in data analysis, emphasized that his research does not attempt to prove bias in the The New York Times‘ reporting, noting that bias is difficult to quantify statistically and would require analyzing journalistic intent.
Instead, the study aimed to assess whether imbalances in coverage could shape public perceptions in a way that diverges from the broader reality of the war. One potential contributing factor, the study noted, is the vastly different levels of press access between Israel and Gaza. Israel generally allows journalists to operate freely, whereas Hamas tightly controls reporting inside the enclave. This disparity could create unintentional biases, the study suggested.
It also did not examine the impact of other editorial decisions that could influence coverage, such as photo selection, headline framing, or the tone of opinion pieces.
New York Times Responds
The New York Times, which has frequently faced criticism from both supporters and opponents of Israel over its coverage, defended its reporting. In a statement responding to the study, a spokesperson said the newspaper had published over 13,000 articles, photos, and videos providing “rich context, confronting truths, and horrific human stories” about the war.
“The New York Times has covered this war with more rigor than virtually any other US news organization, reporting on the conflict from all angles,” the spokesperson said. They pointed to the paper’s investigations into Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, as well as its extensive reporting on Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
“Our editors make careful and deliberate choices about every story we publish to ensure our language, framing, prominence, and tone remain true to our mission of independent journalism,” the statement continued. “We remain open to good-faith disagreement but will not change our coverage to buttress entrenched perspectives. Our commitment is to independent reporting that our readers can trust.”
In January, former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken commented on the lack of coverage of Hamas’s role in the war, calling it “astounding” in an interview with the Times.
“You hear virtually nothing from anyone since Oct. 7 about Hamas,” Blinken said at the time. “Why there hasn’t been a unanimous chorus around the world for Hamas to put down its weapons, to give up the hostages, to surrender?”
The post Yale Professor Exposes New York Times’ Systematic Minimization of Hamas, Palestinian Violence in Gaza War first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iran Accused of Targeting Jews at Home and Abroad as 14 Nations Condemn Assassination Plots
People walk near a mural of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, amid the Iran-Israel conflict, in Tehran, Iran, June 23, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Britain, the United States, France, and 11 other allies issued a joint statement on Thursday condemning a rise in Iranian assassination and kidnapping plots in the West, as a new report warned Tehran has been intensifying efforts to target Jewish communities abroad.
On Tuesday, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released a report detailing Iran’s systematic violations of religious freedom, both domestically and through operations targeting individuals abroad.
Within Iran, despite officially recognizing Judaism, the Islamist government also “publicly demonizes Jews as enemies of Islam, denies and distorts the history of the Holocaust, [and] surveils Jewish houses of worship,” the report said.
By promoting such antisemitic views and permitting assaults on Jewish sacred sites throughout the country, “authorities have nurtured a hostile environment in which Iranian Jews feel increasingly threatened.”
According to the report, Iran is also “directly engaging criminal networks abroad to carry out attacks against Jewish targets and make Jews in Europe unsafe,” especially in the aftermath of the recent 12-day war with Israel.
The study revealed that the Iranian regime continues to promote and incite antisemitism abroad — through criminal networks, social media, and online platforms — and has actively recruited gangs across Europe “to carry out attacks on Israeli embassies and Jewish sites, including houses of worship, memorial centers, restaurants, and community centers.”
On Thursday, Western allies condemned a surge in assassination, kidnapping, and harassment plots by Iranian intelligence services targeting individuals across Western countries, urging Iranian authorities to immediately halt these illegal activities.
“We are united in our opposition to the attempts of Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America in clear violation of our sovereignty,” the joint statement read.
The new report and joint statement came as Iran continued to defy international demands regarding its nuclear program, facing mounting pressure and new US economic sanctions aimed at compelling a return to nuclear talks.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that “the road to negotiation is narrow” in the wake of the recent conflict with Israel and the United States.
Araghchi also insisted that Washington must agree to compensate Iran for the losses suffered during last month’s conflict if it hopes to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table.
“They should explain why they attacked us in the middle of … negotiations, and they have to ensure that they are not going to repeat that [during future talks],” the top Iranian diplomat said. “And they have to compensate [Iran for] the damage that they have done.”
However, Araghchi also reaffirmed that a deal would be off the table as long as US President Donald Trump continued to demand that Iran commit to zero uranium enrichment.
“We can negotiate, they can present their argument, and we will present our own argument,” Araghchi said. “But with zero enrichment, we don’t have a thing.”
On Wednesday, the United States announced a new round of economic sanctions targeting Iran and entities tied to its oil trade, as part of continued pressure on the Islamic Republic “until Tehran agrees to a deal that promotes regional peace and stability, and abandons all aspirations for nuclear weapons.”
As for negotiations with Europe, Araghchi said during the interview that Tehran would walk away from the talks if European powers continued on their current course, accusing them of failing to honor their obligations under the 2015 nuclear agreement.
“With the Europeans, there is no reason right now to negotiate because they cannot lift sanctions, they cannot do anything,” the Iranian diplomat said. “If they do snapback, that means that this is the end of the road for them.”
Under the terms of the UN Security Council resolution enshrining the 2015 accord — which imposed temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for large-scale sanctions relief —international sanctions could be reimposed on Iran, restoring all previous UN economic penalties including those targeting Iran’s oil, banking, and defense sectors, through a “snapback” mechanism that would take about 30 days. France, Britain, and Germany have warned they would reinstate UN sanctions on Tehran if no new agreement is reached by the end of August.
RSS
ADL Files Civil Rights Complaint Against Baltimore City Public Schools, Alleging Rampant Antisemitism
Baltimore City Hall is seen in Baltimore, Maryland, US, May 10, 2019. Photo: Stephanie Keith via Reuters Connect
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has filed a Title VI civil rights complaint against Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS), alleging that officials refused to respond to allegations of antisemitism in a manner consistent with US federal law.
“All schools have a fundamental obligation to maintain a learning environment that protect students from discrimination,” ADL vice president of litigation James Pasch said in a statement announcing the action. “On this essential measure of keeping its Jewish students safe from harassment and intimidation, Baltimore City Public Schools have failed.”
Jewish students allegedly experienced relentless bullying in BCPS, where students pantomimed Nazi salutes, treated campuses as a canvas for Nazi-inspired and antisemitic graffiti, and sent text messages threatening that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas will be summoned to kill Jewish students the bullies do not like. Teachers behaved even worse than students, the complaint said. At Bard High School, an English teacher performed the Nazi salute three times and later admitted to administrative officials that he did so intentionally to harm “the sole Jewish student” enrolled in his class. Following the incident, he suggested that the student unregister for his class because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be discussed in it.
In every case, according to the complaint, BCPS officials “slow-walked” investigations, deflecting parents’ inquiries into their status with bureaucratic spin even as they denied Jewish students justice. Moreover, the ADL continued, BCPS was first notified of an antisemitism problem on its campuses over a year before Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel stoked anti-Jewish hatred. The ADL alleged that the school system’s refusing to take action constituted a textbook example of a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids public schools receiving federal funding to treat students unfairly on the basis of race, ethnicity, or shared ancestry.
“Parents of Jewish students in Baltimore have pleaded repeatedly with BCPPS to take decisive action to stop the harassment of and discrimination against their Jewish children. Their pleas have been ignored,” the complaint said. “Jewish students and parents have filed more than a dozen reports with BCPS. In each case, the schools have labeled these weighty allegations as ‘inconclusive’ and appear to have taken action against the perpetrators.”
The ADL is calling on the school system to take imminent, remedial steps to address antisemitism, including adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, requiring BCPS officials to undergo trainings on the history of antisemitism and how to fight it, and additions to school curricula which educate students about the history of anti-Jewish bigotry and its harms.
Antisemitism in K-12 schools is receiving increased attention, notably in California, after years of falling under the radar.
In April, a civil rights complaint filed by StandWithUs and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition alleged that the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) in California allows Jewish students to be subjected to unconscionable levels of antisemitic bullying in and outside of the classroom.
The 27-page complaint, filed with the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), described a slew of incidents that allegedly fostered a hostile environment for Jewish students after Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities set off a wave of anti-Jewish hatred across the US. SCUSD students, the compaint said, graffitied antisemitic hate speech in the bathrooms, vandalized Jewish-themed posters displayed in schools, and distributed stickers which said, “F—k Zionism.” All the while, district officials enabled the behavior by refusing to investigate it and blaming victims who came forward to report their experiences, according to the complaint.
“SCUSD has allowed an egregiously hostile environment to fester for its Jewish and Israeli students in violation of its federal obligations and ethical responsibility to create a safe educational space for all students,” Jenna Statfeld Harris, senior counsel and K-12 specialist at StandWithUs Saidoff Legal, said in a statement at the time. “SCUSD leadership repeatedly disregards the rights of their Jewish and Israeli students. We implore the Office for Civil Rights to step in and uphold the right of these students to an inclusive education free from hostility toward their protected identity.”
In March, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed a civil rights complaint which recounted the experience of a 12-year-old Jewish girl who was allegedly assaulted on the grounds of the Etiwanda School District in San Bernardino, California — being beaten with a stick, told to “shut your Jewish ass up,” and teased with jokes about Hitler. According to the court filings, one student admitted that the behavior was motivated by the victim’s being Jewish. Despite receiving several complaints about the treatment, a substantial amount of which occurred in the classroom, school officials allegedly declined to punish her tormentors.
“While an increasing number of schools recognize that their Jewish students are being targeted both for their religious beliefs and due to their ancestral connection to Israel, and are taking necessary steps to address both classic and contemporary forms of antisemitism, some shamefully continue to turn a blind eye,” Brandeis Center founder and chairman Kenneth Marcus said in a statement at the time of the filing.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
RSS
France, Spain Locked in Diplomatic Dispute Over Removal of French Jewish Teenagers From Flight
A Vueling aircraft approaches landing at Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport, as Vueling employees prepare for strike, in Barcelona, Spain, Nov. 2, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Nacho Doce
The forced removal of French Jewish teenagers from a flight in Spain has triggered political outrage in France, after their group leader was handcuffed by Spanish police and a government minister insulted the teens as “Israeli brats.”
French ministers Aurore Bergé and Benjamin Haddad have sharply criticized Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente’s comments and denounced the Spanish government’s overall response to the incident.
Earlier this week, Puente referred to the group of teenagers as “Israeli brats” in a post on X, which he quickly deleted after it went viral and sparked widespread condemnation.
The French ministers issued a strong rebuke of the remarks for “equating French children who were Jewish with Israeli citizens, as if this in any way justified the treatment they were subjected to.”
“At a time when antisemitic acts have been on the rise across Europe since the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, in Israel, we call on Vueling [the airline of the flight in question] and the Spanish authorities to fully investigate and clarify the events,” Bergé and Haddad said in a statement.
“We will never accept the normalization of antisemitism. We will always stand with our fellow citizens who suffer from antisemitic hatred, and we will never compromise,” the French officials continued.
Last week, a group of 50 French Jewish students was forcibly removed from a plane in Valencia — reportedly for singing in Hebrew — an incident that resulted in the arrest of their summer camp director, who has accused Spanish law enforcement officers of using excessive force against her.
According to her lawyer, she was left with bruises on her legs, arms, and body after being harshly handcuffed and placed in an arm lock.
“No action justified the disembarkation or the excessive and brutal use of force by the Civil Guard against the young woman, who has just been notified of 15 days of total incapacity to work,” Bergé and Haddad said in a statement.
The Spanish low-cost airline Vueling denied the allegations, insisting the incident was not related to religion but rather that the group was causing a disruption.
In a statement, the airline asserted that the group was removed because of its members’ “highly combative attitude that was putting the safety of the flight at risk.”
After meeting with the group’s counselor on Tuesday, Bergé and Haddad said she denied the official version of events, emphasizing that the crew was hostile from the beginning and that the group’s removal and the Civil Guard’s response were unjustified.
The children, aged 10 to 15, are members of the Kineret Club — a summer camp for Jewish families run by the Matana charitable association — which had just concluded their trip in the coastal resort town of Sant Carles de la Ràpita, between Valencia and Barcelona.
According to local reports, the children were singing in Hebrew while boarding the plane to return home, which prompted a hostile response from the crew.
Witnesses reported that the group stopped singing at the crew’s request and complied quietly with boarding instructions, yet airport police still intervened and ordered them to disembark.
Other passengers on the plane who witnessed the incident reported that staff made antisemitic remarks toward the group, including one employee who allegedly referred to Israel as a “terrorist state.”
Last week, amid an ongoing investigation into the incident, French authorities reached out to the CEO of Vueling and the Spanish ambassador to France to assess whether the group was subjected to religious discrimination.