How bad has New York Times coverage of Israel been in recent weeks?
Below is a partial list describing some of the recent misreporting:
March 6
Tel Aviv is the Capital?
The newspaper falsely casts Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel.
(After CAMERA contacted editors, the newspaper published a correction noting that “Israel’s government” is in Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv.)
March 27
ISIS Just Wants to Solve the Arab-Israeli Conflict?
Writing about the recent terror attack in Hadera, reporter Patrick Kingsley claims that the attack “was a reminder of how diplomatic détentes between Israel and the rest of the Arab world have not yet led to a breakthrough in the conflict at home.”
In fact, the attack was carried out by sworn supporters of the Islamic State terror group. The Islamic State is indifferent to whether there is a breakthrough in the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is an antisemitic group that targets Jews around the world.
April 7
Hamas Just Wants the West Bank?
Patrick Kingsley falsely conveys that Hamas regards only the West Bank as occupied. Writing about the recent spate of terror attacks in Israel, he states that “some groups, including Hamas, the Islamist militant group based in the Gaza Strip, praised them and said that they were a natural response to the Israeli occupation. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967…”
Hamas clearly and consistently notes that it views all of Israel as “occupied” and that its fight is to make the entire country an Islamist Palestinian state.
April 9
Blaming Anti-Israel Attacks on Israel
Again ignoring that two of the attacks were inspired by Islamic State, again ignoring that many Palestinians demand an end to Israel, and also ignoring that Palestinians are incited and incentivized to violence by their leaders, a subhead blames attacks on “vanishing prospects of a Palestinian State.”
April 10
Ignoring Israel’s Criticism of Russia
A subhead falsely claims that Israel “has avoided direct criticism of Russia.”
Only days earlier, Israel had voted against Russia in the United Nations, citing its “unjustified invasion” and “killing of innocent civilians,” and Israel’s foreign minister slammed Russia, pointedly saying: “Russian forces committed war crimes against a defenseless civilian population. I strongly condemn these war crimes.”
April 10
Denying Jewish History in Judea
Reporter Raja Abdulrahim casts doubt on Jewish history in the historical Jewish heartland by casting it as a questionable Israeli claim. (See more.)
April 16
Whitewashing Palestinian Assailants
A piece by Raja Abdulrahim strains and fabricates to convince readers that Palestinians assailants killed in the West Bank were innocent civilians, in order to equate their deaths with the murder of innocent victims in recent terror attacks. (See more.)
April 17
Charging Temple Mount Segregation
Archival photo
A blurb not only deprecates the term “Temple Mount” as a Jewish way of describing what is actually “the Aqsa Mosque compound,” but also misrepresents Israeli attempts to allow non-Muslim visitors to the Temple Mount as a arbitrary segregation measure.
It states: “The violence broke out after the Israeli police in Jerusalem, seeking to prevent contact between Muslims and Jews, blocked Muslim worshipers for hours from entering the Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as Temple Mount.”
It was widely reported elsewhere that “police forces entered the Temple Mount compound in order to keep out Palestinians who gathered stones and put up improvised barriers in an effort to block Jewish visitors,” as even Haaretz, a critic of Israel, reported.
April 18
Desperate to Conceal Israel’s Criticism of Russia
Again peddling the false idea that Israel hasn’t criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, reporter Ian Prasad Philbrick states that “Israel’s prime minister has avoided directly criticizing Putin.” As noted above, Israel has voted against Russia in the UN, and its foreign minister has harshly criticized the Russian war.
April 21
Equating Islamic Jihad Attackers with Israeli Civilians
Echoing (and linking to) his colleague Raja Abdulrahim, Patrick Kingsley again creates a false equivalence between innocent victims of terror attacks and Palestinian militants who were killed while attacking Israeli soldiers. He writes only that “The attacks killed 14 and prompted an Israeli crackdown in the occupied West Bank, which killed at least 15 Palestinians.”