In an impassioned and unequivocal statement, Secretary of State John Kerry said Palestinian incitement was directly responsible for yesterday’s brutal murder of Jews praying in a Jerusalem synagogue. The murder was “a pure result of incitement,” and of calls by Palestinian leaders for “days of rage” against Israel. It was an important and newsworthy indictment by one of the highest ranking US officials. But readers picking up a copy of The New York Times this morning learned nothing about it. That’s because the newspaper, whose reporters had at one point quoted the most dramatic portion of Kerry’s condemnation, first replaced it with a less pointed passage, and then excised any reference to the comments whatsoever.
CAMERA has often criticized The New York Times for its failure to cover with the seriousness it deserves the anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, and anti-coexistence messages that saturate Palestinian society and inflame the conflict. This latest example, in which editors actively removed Kerry’s dramatic criticism of incitement, highlights the extent to which the newspaper feels uncomfortable exploring Palestinian responsibility for the conflict in the same way they scrutinize Israeli actions—especially if such hard-hitting coverage might reflect poorly on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is often described by the newspaper as a “moderate.”
A screenshot from Newsdiffs.org showing The New York Times cutting a quote in which John Kerry blames Palestinian incitement for the murder of four Jews praying in Jerusalem.