The New York Times Hits a Disgusting Low

The New York Times has just reached an all-new low. It published an article that criticized Israel as having a victim mentality regarding the atrocities of October 7. After a major backlash, the publication removed the sentence and posted an apology.

It’s been nearly three years since the October 7 attacks in Israel, where Hamas slaughtered some 1,200 innocent victims, among other heinous brutalities committed, and abducted 250 more. It is a horrific date that continues to come up often on this broadcast.

We just talked about it in relation to the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. In fact, October 7 has often been referred to as the 9/11 of Israel. The whole world watched in horror as Hamas conducted attacks by land and air, targeting Israel without mercy.

But with the rise of global antisemitism, it didn’t take long for the narrative to begin to shift. Just after the October 7 attack, we predicted this might happen – that we would maybe see a few weeks’ worth of support for Israel, at best, before worldwide sentiments would turn. And of course that is happening right now.

The controversial article was from The New York Times’ senior correspondent in Jerusalem, Isabel Kershner. This was not just some op-ed piece that they intentionally ran as some controversial thing. And she wrote: “Israelis still largely view themselves as the victims of October 7th.”

Of course Israelis consider themselves the victims of October 7. They were! But the article framed it more as a how dare they situation. How dare they feel like the victims – even though 1,200 people were brutally murdered and kidnapped at a music festival and in their local communities. After all, this happened three years ago. Why can’t these Israelis just move on and accept that somehow, they were the problem the whole time? 

That is essentially what the New York Times was preaching, until a backlash led the publication to remove a line from the story. Now posted at the bottom of the article is this mea culpa:

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article included a statement that was intended to convey Israelis’ perception of the government’s military response to the Oct. 7 terror attack in relation to the attacks, but inadvertently suggested that Israelis’ experience as terror victims was a matter of perception. It has been removed from the article.   

Unfortunately, the initial damage was already done. The New York Times, though diminished immensely in its reach, is still one of the top places people turn to for news coverage. For many, it is still widely regarded as the paper of record for the United States.

In many ways, it is often where the first draft of history is written. When people look back, no matter what you feel about it, that is where people look back to see what The New York Times wrote at the time. So that’s why it’s outrageous that the publication would run such a vile statement in a senior correspondent’s article.

The article centers on a documentary that’s getting a lot of praise in liberal elite circles at the Venice International Film Festival that’s critical of Israel’s military response to October 7. That’s where the context of this quote comes in.

And, of course, people may think, Oh, it’s just an offhand remark. But it’s immensely important, even critical, to key in on the sentence in question.

The fact that this journalist even thought it was necessary to write this, as though you couldn’t write a review of the film or talk about the controversy around it without taking a condescending swipe at Israelis is really appalling.

It would be akin to writing about the September 11 attacks and drolly saying, “Of course America still views itself as the victim.” No one with any sense of decency would stand for it.

They’re taking what should be considered a commonsense fact and skewing it to espouse some antisemitic, anti-Israel agenda. It truly is a new low for The New York Times, and that’s saying a lot.

ACLJ Senior Counsel Jeff Ballabon, who is also the head of ACLJ Jerusalem, joined us on the air and offered his reaction to The New York Times article, and why it’s unsurprising:

[With] The New York Times probably more than any [other] . . . never be surprised because there literally is no bottom to the depths of their depravity. There really is no bottom. And, to contextualize this, The New York Times buried the news of the Holocaust between 1939 and 1945, the plight of Europe’s Jews. Completely buried. They actually admitted to it somewhat. They said, I think the quote was, they admitted sometime in 2000 to 2001 that their coverage of the Holocaust was belated or belittled.

So, they have been, essentially, they’re supposed to be the paper of record, but they essentially hid the evidence of the Holocaust while it was happening. When they talked about what was happening in Europe, they wouldn’t identify the victims as Jews, right? They can’t figure out who the victims are when the victims are Jews.

More recently, in the last 20 years or so, the evidence emerged, and a few years ago, I think during the first Trump Administration, they were being held to account for hiding the evidence of massive physical violence against Jews in New York City . . . and hiding all the evidence of the grotesque antisemitism that was already rising in New York. And so, this is very par for The New York Times.

Today’s Sekulow broadcast included more discussion of The New York Times article bashing Israel for feeling like the victim of the October 7 atrocities that were committed against it, leading to a retraction.

Watch the full broadcast below: