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A New York Times news article falsely depicts Gaza terrorist groups as “homegrown” and misleads readers about their goals by describing the groups as aimed at resisting “Israeli occupation.”

The article appeared in the Times under the print headline “The Civilian Anguish Behind Israel’s ‘Precision Strikes.’” It carries the byline of Raja Abdulrahim and says that “Ameera Harouda contributed reporting.”

The photographs on the article, dramatically depicting damage supposedly wrought by Israel, are attributed to Samar Abu Elouf, who has been backed by the Dutch foreign ministry’s Prince Claus Fund.

The article says, “Because the armed groups are homegrown, they live side by side among the people and their command centers are spread throughout Gaza.”

The State Department notes that Palestinian Islamic Jihad “receives financial assistance and training primarily from Iran.” It also says the group “has partnered with Iran-and Syria-sponsored Hizballah to carry out joint operations.” The State Department says that Hamas “has received funding, weapons, and training from Iran and raises funds in Persian Gulf countries.” For the Times to describe the groups as “homegrown” while omitting the Iranian funding and training misleads Times readers by mischaracterizing paid and trained Iranian proxies as organic “homegrown” Palestinians.

Moreover, the reason these terrorists “live side by side among the people” is not “because” they are homegrown but rather because they find it convenient for propaganda purposes to maximize Palestinian casualties. Doing so generates sympathetic articles about “civilian anguish” such as the one from the Times.

Why doesn’t the Times report this news? A clue comes in a 2016 TED Talk by Harouda that has amassed more than 1.1 million views. Harouda talks about the dangers of her work as a “fixer” for journalists visiting Gaza. Her talk echoes classical antisemitic tropes, depicting Israelis as baby killers responsible for the “lifeless bodies of young children.” The talk also contains boosterish Hamas propaganda, such as falsely describing Gaza as “the only place in the world where Muslim and the Christian live in strong brotherhood.”

The most revealing line in the TED Talk, though, comes when Harouda talks about her concerns in doing her job: “if the journalist decide to cover a story that the government doesn’t want us to cover, bad things could happen.” No wonder that the Times coverage from Gaza reads like press releases for the Hamas-led Gaza government. In 2019, a Palestinian journalist, Hani al-Agha, was jailed and severely beaten and tortured by Hamas for reporting a critical article.

The Times article met a critical response. The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis said, “Abdulrahim deceives readers by casting Islamic Jihad, which is sworn to the destruction of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic state, as merely opposed to Israel’s occupation.” The watchdog group said Abdulrahim was whitewashing Islamic Jihad.

An Israel-based editor at Jewish Insider, Melissa Weiss, called the Times online headline “bizarre” in light of the fact that “every single one of the 1,000+ rockets fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad were intended to hit civilian homes.”

Even Times online reader commenters were disgusted. “Yet another one-sided anti-Israel article from the NYT,” wrote Times reader Michael Howard. “I guess the author doesn’t think the lives of Israeli citizens matter at all and that Israel should do nothing when they are attacked. Islamic Jihad wants one thing and one thing only..the destruction of Israel. And they are willing to sacrifice Palestinian lives to try and do that. It’s a sad situation but the finger should be pointed at the terrorists, not Israel for defending the lives of its citizens.”

Another Times reader wrote, “So the problem is the Israelis defending their citizens not the Palestinian terrorists who bomb them? Exactly how do you propose Israel deal with Palestinian terrorists who launch rockets from civilian locations (a war crime)? Knock on their door and politely ask them to stop bombing Israelis?” The Times online commenter said, “The tone and context of this article devalues Israeli lives.”

Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.

Source of original article: Ira Stoll / Opinion – Algemeiner.com (www.algemeiner.com).
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