The New York Times, Israel, and ‘Palestine’

The veteran journalist Ira Stoll has many times in the past held up for critical inspection the New York Times’ coverage of Israel and the Middle East which, he demonstrates, “is becoming increasingly unmoored from reality.” More from his latest philippic can be found here: “New York Times ‘Ceasefire’ Coverage Laments That Israel Will Exist,” by Ira Stoll, Algemeiner, January 23, 2025:

…A recent Times article about a ceasefire in Gaza carries five bylines — Aaron Boxerman, Rawan Sheikh Ahmad, Johnatan Reiss, Ephrat Livni, and Adam Rasgon. A sixth reporter, Nick Cumming-Bruce, is credited at the end of the piece for having “contributed reporting from Geneva.” With so many people involved, accuracy and accountability is more difficult.

The Times article reports, “Aid workers also hope that the cease-fire would allow for far more medical evacuations. The WHO reported that Israel had approved the evacuation of 5,405 patients since the start of the war. But the pace of evacuations slowed to a trickle after Israel closed the Rafah crossing in May.”

Actually it was not “Israel” that “closed the Rafah crossing,” which is a passage between Gaza and Egypt. The Rafah crossing was closed by Egypt after the Israelis took over the other side. That threatened to end the smuggling that reportedly brought in huge bribe revenues to powerful people in Egypt.

The Rafah crossing has been mentioned in hundreds of stories in the Times about the Gaza war. It has clearly been described as linking Gaza to Egypt. It had been closed by Egypt when the IDF took over the Gaza side of the crossing. But not one of the five Times reporters responsible for this latest article on the ceasefire appeared to know this. Instead they were determined — blaming Israel has become a habit with them — to attribute the “slowing to a trickle” of medical evacuations from Gaza to Israel for its “closing the Rafah crossing.” Israel had closed its side of the Rafah crossing, so that weapons could not be smuggled into Gaza, but did not try to stop medical evacuations from Gaza; it was Egypt that prevented those humanitarian evacuations, a fact that the Times’ reporters got completely wrong.

Another Times article about the ceasefire — this one under Rasgon’s solo byline, though with reporting contributed by Boxerman and Jerusalem bureau chief Patrick Kingsley — is no more accurate. “When Hamas launched its Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel, it had hoped to ignite a regional war that would draw in its allies and lead to Israel’s destruction. Instead, it has been left to fight Israel almost entirely alone,” the Times writes. This conveniently skips over how Israel was attacked by Hezbollah, from Iran, and by some students and faculty on US and European university campuses. Prime Minister Netanyahu has described it as a “seven-front” war — not only Gaza, but also Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank).

The Times depicts the current hostilities as Israel fighting Hamas, which we are subtly encouraged to sympathize with because it has “been left to fight Israel almost entirely alone.” This is nonsense. On October 8, 2023, the hugely well-armed terror group Hezbollah, with an arsenal of some 150,000 rockets and missiles, attacked Israel with rockets launched from its bases in South Lebanon, in an attempt to help Hamas. By late January, Hezbollah had fired more than 12,000 rockets into civilian areas of the Galilee in northern Israel, from what was believed to be a prewar arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles.

Nor does the Times article mention the massive attack, using 300 ballistic missiles, that were launched by Iran against the Jewish state on October 1, 2024. For if it did, it would convey an idea — that there is a massive regional gang-up on Israel — which might win the Jewish state some sympathy. And that, for The New York Times, would never do.

The Times does mention attacks on Israel from Yemen, but it describes them airily as “occasional rocket and drone attacks, most of which Israel has intercepted.” If the “occasional rocket and drone attacks” had targeted, say, the New York Times bureau in Washington, or Columbia Journalism School, one doubts that the Times would be so casually dismissive of them.

Some of those Houthi attacks that the Times appears to pooh-pooh as ineffective managed to land smack in the middle of Tel Aviv. In one December attack on the city, 16 people were wounded when a missile hit a playground. In another attack, one Israeli was killed. In all, since October 2023, the Houthis have fired a total of more than 400 missiles and rockets at Israel, and launched hundreds of others at international shipping so as to prevent ships from using the Red Sea. This campaign has meant that ships linking Israel to Asia have to use much more circuitous routes, around the Cape of Good Hope, up the West Coast of Africa, and then to an Israeli port in the Mediterranean, rather than sailing straight up to Eilat, or down the Red Sea from Eilat. This has increased transportation costs for both Israeli imports and exports. For the Times, those 400 Houthi missiles and rockets are described as “occasional” attacks.

The Times article concludes:

For many civilians, a future with both Israel and Hamas in the picture is bleak.

“We’re talking about a people stuck between a state ready to act with total brutality and a group ready to provoke that state to act with brutality,” said Akram Atallah, a Palestinian columnist from Gaza….

Who is Akram Atallah, the man who is given the last word by the Times’ reporters? An innocent columnist? Not at all. He was imprisoned in the 1990s for links to Hamas; he even shared a cell with Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader. But for the Times, he is simply a “columnist.”

Man wants but little here below. All we ask of the Grey Lady is that her reporters — a little anthropomorphizing here may be excused — get the most basic facts straight about Israel and the “Palestinians.” Do not blame Israel for “closing the Rafah crossing” — thus slowing medical evacuations — when it is Egypt that has closed off its border crossing with Gaza. Don’t pretend that Israel is only fighting a single enemy, Hamas, when it has also had to deal with more than 12,000 rockets and missiles fired by Hezbollah since October 8, 2023, 400 rockets fired by the Houthis from Yemen, and 300 ballistic missiles launched by Iran on October 1, 2024 against the Jewish state. Fais un petit effort, New York Times. You’re a billion-dollar business. When you cover the Middle East, please try to get things straight.