Another disgrace at The New York Times
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The decision by The New York Times to publish an op-ed by Yahya R. Sarraj, the Hamas-appointed
mayor of Gaza, on Christmas Eve 2023 beggars belief.
The unfettered propaganda
from the “mayor” of Gaza is a grotesquerie that indicts the fecklessness
of the NYT leadership and evidences the ideological madhouse described with perfection from the inside by James
Bennet in The Economist, and through the resignation letter of former NYT reporter
Bari Weiss.
The publication of a Hamas
official lamenting the destruction caused by a war begun by a barbaric attack
against Israeli civilians by Hamas terrorists, while omitting the war crimes is
an act of misconduct against the truth that rivals any ever committed by the
Grey Lady. Sarraj’s immoral drivel rose, in an instant, to a peerage of
ignominy and disgrace only matched by the wickedness and dishonesty of Walter Duranty’s reports denying Josef
Stalin’s mass murder in the Ukraine. Then, like now, The New
York Times has become captive to an ideology that assaults truth and
strips away the ability to discern it.
Of course, the publication of weapons-grade Hamas propaganda, which makes
no mention whatsoever about why much of Gaza has been pulverized, cannot be
understood outside the madness documented thoroughly, unimpeachably and without
rebuttal by James Bennet. Bennet was fired by The New York Times for publishing an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton. I shared
my reaction to Bennet’s extraordinary account of the disintegration of sanity
at the NYT here:
The truth about The New York Times |
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Before continuing, it
makes sense to slow down a bit and absorb the situation in full. The New York Times reporters melted down following the publication of Cotton’s op-ed.
The “paper of record” descended into ideological chaos and absolute anarchy as
it held a witch hunt to fire an editor for publishing the words of a Republican
senator stupidly calling for the deployment of military force to quell riots in
Minneapolis. The rationale for the insanity was supposedly the grave risk
imposed by Cotton’s words to reporters who were covering the events, by other
reporters whose most dangerous activity of the day is stepping over a curb or
imbibing too much with sources at a DC book party, celebrating access in the
name of journalism.
The NYT-Hamas op-ed is
indecent, dishonest and ludicrous. It is defined by its glaring omissions,
which render it something more than journalistic garbage. If it were to be read
in a vacuum 25 years from now, it would seem that Israel had attacked the beautiful
city of Gaza and its vast cultural heritage for no reason whatsoever. The
attack is described as if it is Warsaw in 1939 from the Polish perspective.
There was no mention
whatsoever about Hamas embedding itself into every nook of civilian
infrastructure, including at the al-Shifa hospital, where scores of hostages
were taken on October 7. The hospital sat above a vast warren of underground
bunkers, tunnels and military bases, all built for a singular
purpose, which, unsurprisingly, was also omitted from the propaganda nonsense.
The purpose, of course,
is the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. The Hamas charter is
specific and singular about this point. What does “from the river to the sea”
mean? According to the ADL, it means the following:
It is an antisemitic
slogan commonly featured in anti-Israel campaigns and chanted at
demonstrations. This rallying cry has long been used by anti-Israel voices,
including supporters of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the PFLP, which seek Israel’s
destruction through violent means. It is fundamentally a call for a
Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea,
territory that includes the State of Israel, which would mean
the dismantling of the Jewish state. It is an antisemitic charge
denying the Jewish right to self-determination, including through the removal
of Jews from their ancestral homeland.
The NYT op-ed makes no
mention whatsoever of the fact that Hamas is holding 129 hostages, including
nine Americans, and using many as human shields to protect the leader of Hamas,
the murdering terrorist and criminal Yahya Sinwar.
The NYT op-ed makes no
mention whatsoever about the terror attacks launched from Gaza on October 7,
2023, at all.
The NYT op-ed makes no
mention whatsoever of the mass rape and sexual assault of Israeli girls,
mothers and grandmothers.
The NYT op-ed makes no
mention whatsoever of Hamas terrorists firing automatic weapons into the
genitalia of Israeli girls, mothers and grandmothers at point blank range.
The NYT op-ed makes no
mention whatsoever of Hamas terrorists slaughtering and butchering young people
camping out at a music festival.
The NYT op-ed makes no
mention whatsoever of an attack that marked the worst attack against Jews since
the Holocaust, which is simultaneously denied and celebrated by Hamas and their
Iranian patrons, who are also not mentioned whatsoever. The hidden hand
remains hidden.
Why?
The NYT did not publish
a civilian account of suffering from the war zone. They did not choose to
highlight the cost of the war on a population yoked to Hamas by proximity and
occupation. They did not give voice to Palestinian suffering.
Instead, they chose to
give Hamas a voice and let their poison spread. They let the killers play
victim on Christmas Eve.
Shameful doesn’t begin
to describe it. The NYT is as broken as it gets.
When assessing
America’s broken institutions and the obliteration of trust between the
American people and so much of the American media the debacle at the NYT needs
to be fully understood. Were the Grey Lady a ship, she would be foundering.
Perhaps the best way to assess them is through the language Churchill
used long ago:
“… found wanting…”