Emma Tucker, New Editor of the Wall Street Journal, and the Skewed Coverage of Israel

While the other giants of American journalism, the New York Times and the Washington Post, have over the last few decades become increasingly anti-Israel in their coverage, one could count on the Wall Street Journal, from the time when the late Robert Bartley became editor-in-chief until just now, for accurate coverage of the jihad against the Jewish state, and of Israel’s wars of survival and its lesser campaigns, too, against those who want to destroy the country and replace it with a 23rd Arab state.

Regarding the recent International Court of Justice proceedings against Israel, the Wall Street Journal agreed with the Israeli assessment that the war can only end when the four battalions of Hamas fighters that remain intact in Rafah have been defeated and dismantled. And it argued that the ICJ showed bad faith in three ways: first, in not calling for the immediate release of the hostages by Hamas; second, by not recognizing the IDF’s colossal campaign to warn civilians away from areas about to be targeted; and third, by the presiding justice of the ICJ, Nawaf Salam, with his history of anti-Israel statements made when he was twice a candidate for prime minister of Lebanon, refusing to recuse himself from a case brought against the Jewish state by South Africa.

But under its recently-appointed editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, the newspaper is certainly “new” but not “improved.” More on the Wall Street Journal‘s flounderings can be found here: “Under New Editor, the Wall Street Journal Is Misreporting Facts About Israel,” by Andrea Levin, Algemeiner, July 31, 2024:

Wall Street Journal Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker is making changes at the venerable publication, pushing more “life-style stories with snappy headlines” in the news section — and she’s reportedly downsized, if not gutted, the standards desk that handles corrections. She’s eliminated an editing team “responsible for prepublication review of sensitive stories.”’

The new direction, as described in a National Review story, resonates alarmingly for many readers of the newspaper who have long counted on its fact-focused, serious coverage, but find something very different today. For many, the increasingly skewed, factually shoddy coverage of Israel is a striking indicator of the wider shift in the paper’s tenor and content.

Reporter Omar Abdel-Baqui could be the poster child for this new Wall Street Journal.

One “sensitive” story of his with far too little fact-checking and editorial oversight was a June 15 account focused on the disappointments of young Gen Z Palestinians. Much of the bias of the piece stems from relentless omission of critical information. The online title, “Gen Z Palestinians See Door Slamming Shut on Coexistence with Israel,” perfectly conveys the deceptions and distortions that follow.

What the article fails to mention is that many Palestinians are themselves the door-slammers. There’s no hint in the story that the Palestinian leadership has repeatedly refused an independent and peaceful state next to the Jewish State of Israel. There’s no suggestion the melancholy Gen Z Palestinian teens who are cast as buffeted by upheaval and uncertainty should blame their own autocratic leaders for ruining their lives. (The print version was similarly titled: “Gen Z Palestinians Have Little Hope for Peace.”)…

The Wall Street Journal article on “Gen Z Palestinians” and their putative desire to attain “coexistence with Israel” puts all the blame on Israel. But it was Yasir Arafat who turned down a generous territorial settlement offered by Ehud Barak in 2000; it was Mahmoud Abbas who turned down an even more generous settlement offer by Ehud Barak in 2008. It is the Palestinian Authority that both rewards and encourages terrorist acts against Israel through its “Pay-For-Slay” program, that provides generous monthly subsidies both to imprisoned terrorists and to the families of terrorists who died, as “martyrs,” while committing their attacks. It is the PA that has refused to correct the antisemitic content in its schoolbooks, thereby continuing to create new generations of Palestinians who are brainwashed to want to murder Israelis.