Is the New York Times skewing news against Syrian Druze in the way it so often does against Israeli Jews?
Across five Times articles about the outbreak of violence in southern Syria, the paper has consistently downplayed atrocities against members of the Druze community and violations by Syrian government-affiliated forces, including degrading treatment and summary executions.
The first Times story on the clashes, a July 14 piece by Raja Abdulrahim and Reham Mourshed, opens with a reference to “sectarian violence in Syria between Bedouin groups and militias from the Druse religious minority.” That’s true enough. According to credible reports, tensions boiled over after some Bedouin tribesmen violently attacked a Druze man, leading to a series of escalating reactions and counterreactions that also involved Syrian state forces.
But strangely, the Times story said nothing about the attack that precipitated the violence. To the contrary, the piece largely paints the Druze community as aggressors and the government as clean-handed.
“The Druse militias have resisted efforts by the government to unify all armed groups under its authority,” the second paragraph states, without sharing why there might be skepticism in the community.
And shortly thereafter:
The Syrian government called for restraint and sent military forces to “quickly and decisively” resolve the conflict, the Defense Ministry said in a statement released on social media. It added that its forces were providing safe passage for civilians trying to flee the area.
And then:
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the military had sent reinforcements to protect security checkpoints that had been attacked by the Druse groups and was backing the local tribal fighters.
The reporters could have at least mentioned the attack on the Druze man in their penultimate paragraph, which, again citing SOHR, purports to explain how the violence was sparked. They chose not to.
Per the Times:
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the latest violence followed a series of tit-for-tat kidnappings between the Druse and pro-government tribal groups. In response, members of the tribal communities set up a checkpoint along a main road and detained Druse fighters.
The fact omitted by the Times, is in the very SOHR report cited by the paper. SOHR explains:
This escalation followed mutual detentions by local gunmen and tribesmen, after a group of local tribesmen stopped a young man near Al-Masamiyah checkpoint, brutally beat him and stole his money, mobile phone and vehicle, before releasing him in a remote area.
People from Al-Suwaidaa reacted to the incident by detaining several people from local tribes, before the situation escalated this morning when tribesmen established a makeshift checkpoint in Al-Moqawas neighbourhood in the east of the city and detained civilians from Al-Suwaidaa.
The Times concealed from readers other relevant information from the SOHR report. For example:
Today’s escalation was manifested in attacks launched from the eastern countryside of Daraa by Bedouin tribesmen and members of the ministries of defense and interior, targeting several villages in the western countryside of Al-Suwaidaa, mainly the villages of Taarah, Al-Dor and Al-Duwayrah, amid fierce clashes between the attackers and local gunmen.
A Times story the next day by Christina Goldbaum — initially titled “What to Know About the Fighting in Southern Syria” but later changed to “What to Know About Israel’s Strikes in Syria” — did somewhat better, mentioning the attack that precipitated the violence and hinting at why some Druze leaders are skeptical of the new Syrian government.
But again, although the piece repeatedly cited SOHR, it did so in a strikingly partial way, omitting portions that acknowledge the abuse of Druze and implicate Syrian regime forces.
Here is the New York Times:
More than 200 people have been killed in the fighting, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitoring group. It is the deadliest bout of unrest to hit this region of Syria in years.
[…]
New violence broke out on Wednesday in the city of Sweida, the provincial capital, according to Syrian authorities and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
And here is an SOHR report seemingly published earlier that day:
Violations by forces affiliated with the Syrian Defense Ministry continue to escalate in Al-Suwayda, particularly targeting Druze civilians with insults, assaults on their dignity and property, reminiscent of the abuses in the coastal region last March and similar practices in other parts of Syria.
[…]
Since Sunday morning, July 13, the death toll from clashes and field executions in Al-Suwayda has risen to 166 killed, including 21 executed, among them three women, by Defense and Interior Ministry personnel.
SOHR also documented sabotage operations by Defense Ministry forces, targeting civilian homes and properties in several villages and towns. Homes were looted, doors and windows smashed, causing severe material losses.
The SOHR report also mentioned that 67 Druze civilians were among the dead. Not, though, the Times. In the paper’s account, Syrian government forces come off largely as victims of Druze militias who, according to the Times, attacked Syrian forces after mistakenly believing they had arrived to help Bedouin fighters when in fact they had come to “quell the conflict.”
The following day’s SOHR report raises to 27 the number of people executed by government officials. That day’s Times story, by Euan Ward and Aaron Boxerman, said nothing of the sort, and yet again cast Syrian forces as victims.
The same goes for the next day’s story, by Christina Goldbaum and Euan Ward. That July 17 story, moreover, parroted a UN statement that concealed the perpetrators of certain abuses:
The United Nations’ special envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, said in a statement on Thursday that there had been “serious allegations of extrajudicial executions and arbitrary killings,” as well as reports of looting, civilians being subjected to “humiliating treatment” and the mutilation of corpses.
The UN will play its word games. But as the New York Times surely knows, the allegations have specified that government forces were largely behind extrajudicial executions, and corroborated video shows that Druze men were humiliated. As the Associated Press put it, “Videos and reports surfaced of government-affiliated forces burning and looting civilian houses and humiliating Druze men by forcibly shaving their mustaches.”
A fifth New York Times story about Syria, a July 17 News Analysis piece by Patrick Kingsley, linked to SOHR when mentioning “reports, unconfirmed by The New York Times, of extrajudicial killings there.”
It feels jarring that the paper, after straightforwardly citing SOHR ten separate times over the past four days, suddenly felt the need for a caveat about lack of confirmation by the paper. Maybe their reports are credible. Maybe they aren’t. It is harder, though, to accept the idea that they are credible-except-on-Thursdays.
Even more striking is that the specifics of SOHR’s claim — that it was Syrian government forces behind the executions — were omitted from Kingsley’s account, though they are clearly newsworthy.
Amid disturbing reports of anti-Druze massacres by Syrian forces, the New York Times could perhaps justify due caution amidst the fog of war, and nuance about the politically fragmented Druze community in Syria.
But what we’ve seen from the paper is something else entirely. It is indifference to the Druze community and advocacy for the new Syrian regime.