The New York Times often contextualizes stories about overseas fighting by informing readers when one side is, or is regarded as, a terror group.
After the death of the ISIS leader in late October, for example, the paper’s coverage repeatedly noted, in its own words, that Abu Bakr al Baghdadi was a “terrorist” who led a “terrorist group” that committed “acts of terror” before losing his life during a U.S. “counterterrorism action.” Those are all accurate, precise terms to describe the head of an organization that’s clearly guilty of targeting civilians with violence for political aims.
Like al-Baghdadi, Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Baha Abu al-Ata is a senior leader of an organization responsible for countless attacks targeting civilians, including mass casualty bombings of Israeli restaurants, markets, buses, and shopping malls. (In one of many such attacks, an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber walked into a crowded falafel stand in April 2006 and detonated his explosives, killing 11 people including an American teenager who succumbed to his wounds on Mother’s Day.)
So when Times reporters initially reported that Islamic Jihad is “listed as a terrorist organization by many countries,” that information not only helped explain why Israel might have targeted Abu al-Ata, but it was also consistent with how the newspaper covers other conflicts.
But sometime the same morning, an editorial decision was made to remove the passage explaining Islamic Jihad’s classification as a terrorist organization, and to replace this description with vague, watered-down language that mitigates the nature of the terrorist group, portraying it as one that merely takes “a harder line toward Israel” than Hamas. (final version of that story)
New York Times coverage that weekend didn't hesitate to note that “Turkey regards the Syrian Kurdish militia [SDF] as a terrorist organization”; that “Turkey also considers the Islamic State a terrorist organization,” that the Chinese government claims Hong Kong protesters are engaged in “brazen terrorism,” and that ISIS is a “terror group.” So why did it pull such language from its first piece on Islamic Jihad, and then avoid using the T-word again in its second piece on the fighting with Islamic Jihad?
Concealing the Facts
In his follow-up analysis – the third New York Times piece written about the fighting – Jerusalem bureau chief David Halbfinger went even further to sanitize Palestinian Islamic Jihad, concealing the following facts from readers:
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PIJ is one of the most violent Islamist terrorist organizations in the world whose “Manifesto of the Islamic Jihad in Palestine” is to “destroy Israel and to end all Western influence in the region.”
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PIJ’s enemies include the United States, labelled “the Great-Satan America.”
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The terror group rejects “any peaceful solution to the Palestinian cause” insisting that “Jihad” and “martyrdom” – that is, terrorism – is the only way of achieving its goal of replacing the Westernized Jewish state with an Islamist one.
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PIJ’s armed Al Quds Brigades has taken responsibility for dozens of large-scale bombings of civilian targets – on buses, restaurants, shopping malls, markets, that it has established terrorist training camps for youth, that it boasts having mortars, RPGs, machine guns, .50-caliber sniper rifles, and explosives in its arsenal, that it is involved in digging cross-border tunnels to kidnap Israelis, smuggle weapons and carry out large-scale terror attacks inside Israel.
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PIJ is overtly anti-Semitic, as evidenced by its leaders’ Holocaust denial and threats of slaughter.
And while the analysis briefly acknowledged that both PIJ and Hamas are “viewed as terrorist organizations by Israel and the United States,” the implication is that those two countries – which PIJ singles out as enemies – are alone in sharing this perspective. The newspaper avoids, however, mentioning all the other countries, including Canada, the UK, the EU, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan that similarly count PIJ as a foreign terror group.
While Halbfinger cites “Israeli analysts” who accuse Islamic Jihad of being an Iranian proxy, he avoids elaborating that, since September 2000, Iran has paid PIJ millions of dollars in bonuses for each successful attack carried out by PIJ; that it has provided PIJ with sophisticated weaponry that includes the Fajr-5 long-range rockets used by PIJ to target civilians deep inside Israel; that it has been helping PIJ produce precision missiles known as "Ashkelon's hell" that can reach Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Netanya and "even further."
Instead, the New York Times reporter mitigates these Iran-sponsored war crimes in vague, soft language about Iran’s use of the PIJ “to send Israel messages through relatively low-risk acts of violence.”
The U.S. State Department has designated PIJ a foreign terrorist organization since October 1997, because of the group's commitment "to the destruction of Israel through attacks against Israeli military and civilian targets and to the creation of an Islamic state in historic Palestine, including present day Israel." Its actions, from its bombing attacks of civilian targets to its raining missiles down on Israeli civilians constitute war crimes.
Yet, the New York Times bureau chief loftily describes the terrorist organization as representing the “untrammeled id of the Palestinian resistance movement” – a movement that is elsewhere in the article described as “resistance to the Israeli occupation.” The Times would have its readers believe that the Palestinian terrorist group’s goal is to resist an Israeli presence in disputed territories, even while the terror group publicly and clearly declares that it is unwilling to accept Israel within any borders whatsoever and that its mission is to wipe the Jewish state off the map.
But if the attempt to annihilate the Jewish state can be distorted into mere “resistance” against Israeli actions, then the New York Times might succeed in convincing readers that there is no Palestinian terrorism, and that Palestinians bear no responsibility for the conflict. Israel, forever the New York Times’ scapegoat, can be blamed yet again.
Taking Action
Write to the New York Times:
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Send a letter to the editor for publication to letters@nytimes.com For publication, letters should be 150 to 175 words and must include the writer’s address and phone number.
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Contact Assistant Managing Editor for International Michael Slackman at slackman@nytimes.com
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Copy Executive Editor Dean Baquet at dbaquet@nytimes.com, Managing Editor Joe Kahn at joekahn@nytimes.com, Publisher A.G. Sulzberger at agsulzberger@nytimes.com, and Jerusalem Bureau Chief David Halbfinger at halbfi@nytimes.com
Firmly but courteously make the following points:
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Tell editors that readers deserve to know the unvarnished truth about Islamic Jihad and the terrorism that Israel faces.
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Note that Palestinian Islamic Jihad is widely designated as a terror organization – not only by Israel and the United States, but by the European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and others. The group opposes Israel’s existence in any borders, and wants to replace the country with a fundamentalist Islamist state. It is opposed to any peace negotiations with Israel, and seeks to eliminate Israel through terrorism.
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Ask why the reference to Islamic Jihad being “listed as a terrorist organization by many countries” was pulled from the November 12 article.
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Ask why the newspaper mitigates Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s brutal violence as “nettlesome,” and its crimes as coming in support of “resistance to the Israeli occupation” when they openly acknowledge that they are committed to eradicating all of Israel.
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Ask why, when the newspaper routinely charges Israel with violating international law and frequently accuses Israeli politicians of being “extremists,” “racists,” and “anti-Arab,” do they avoid using any such pejoratives when it comes to the anti-Semitic, Holocaust denying, anti-Western and brutally violent Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
(8) Esti stahler, November 25, 2019 8:20 AM
Excellent article clearly explaining how NY TIMES whitewashes terrorism when it relates to Palestinians and how to take action to rectify their bias reporting.
Excellent article clearly explaining how NY TIMES whitewashes terrorism when it relates to Palestinians and how to take action to rectify their bias reporting.
(7) zlate1, November 24, 2019 5:57 PM
Not even fit for dead fish.
It is time for the "Gray Lady" to retire from the scene. The so called paper of record has become the mouth piece of the far left Progressives. If I had any dead fish I wouldn't insult them by wrapping them in the New York Times.
(6) Meira, November 24, 2019 5:54 PM
Thank you
Thank you so much for the clarity and guidance this article brings to Aish readers. I truly hope people from all over the world send the NYT lots of Correspondence complaining about the blatant anti Semitic they fearlessly and cowardly display. Shame on them. I will do my part to STAND WITH ISRAEL.
(5) glenda lafont, November 24, 2019 4:22 PM
Reporting is so slanted. Why would anyone buy the Times???
(4) Richard, November 24, 2019 3:32 PM
Your focus is very narrow!
Your comments are correct but what you might have added is that the West does almost nothing vis a vis these organizations. Furthermore, the PA and many other countries and the terror groups they support are supported by our tax dollars in including the UN, NATO, SEATO, etc. Israel also funds GAZA with utilities, money , etc. We are all responsible, to a degree for funding terror. We need to defund these groups including the UN, colleges and universities that promote things, etc.
(3) alan, November 24, 2019 1:21 PM
times
The Times a a left wing rag. It is against Israel and American values.
(2) Nancy, November 22, 2019 12:19 PM
Why does the New York Times persist in using euphemisms?
I recently returned from my first trip to Israel, and it has changed my life in ways I cannot explain. Why should the New York Times use euphemisms instead of the word terrorist? I spent some time in Judea and Samaria and met some brilliant tour guides, Guess what?! They and their friends and families just want to live a typical life, free from attack. Golda Meir got it right when she said we will have peace in Israel when the Arabs love their children more than they hate the Jews. She could have added the word terrorist to that quote.
Anonymous, November 22, 2019 10:18 PM
Congratulations on your trip !
So happy for you, you were able to visit Israel. My niece is there for one year and the recent rocket fire has been especially worrisome. I just today received an email that my representative signed a petition against settlement expansion in protest to the change in U.S. view of them, and I decided to unsub from their list. It is JStreet. I listened to U.S. representatives recently declare they would lessen aid to Israel on conditions, and it was a deal breaker for me. Anti-semitism is rising, and I don't see them doing anything about that. I have responded to you before, that the Palestinians do love their children, they are under a 24/7 occupation in Area C and they do suffer. But, they want the State of Israel gone, and the reason the publication changes the wording is because they see us as terrorists, equally. I no longer agree with the ultra-orthodox view either, the Satmar. But, I do pray for peace, and for Moshiach. Congratulations again on your trip.
(1) Alan S., November 21, 2019 3:09 PM
For years the NYTimes has been clearly anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.
There is nothing that the NYTimes prints about Israel that I take as fact. I regard the newspaper as 'not all the news that is fit to print'. I am not a Trump supporter, but I acknowledge he has been 'good' for Israel, and that his "fake news" expression certainly fits the bill with most if not all of their Israel reporting.