On the front page of today’s New York Times website there is an editorial leading the Opinion section under the title, “Israel is fighting to defend a society that values human life.” An obvious question arises. What society is that? If you click through to the article itself a different title appears —“Israel Can Defend Itself and Uphold its Values.” Once again, an unintentional irony. But in fairness, you could argue that they are trying to appeal to people inside Israel who can be shamed.
Today’s editorial probably shows that the Times editors are in a panic about just how far Israel will go, and they are trying to rein them in using a method they hope will work — flattery. There are, of course, Israelis who do not wish to commit a second Nakba, but those in charge — well, who wants to bet on that?
In reality, Hamas attacked Israel, which led to the death of an estimated 1,400 Israelis, and Israel is responding with its own massive war crimes, which have already killed over 1,000 more civilians than Hamas did. And as detailed elsewhere on this site and even in the New York Times, it is committing war crimes. The Times is suggesting that Israel kill fewer people in a piece that whitewashes Israel’s record. You can read the piece for yourself if you have a subscription.
Rather than look at Israel’s own record of valuing human life, it might be interesting to examine how the New York Times itself values human life.
Many readers are new to this issue. Many are unaware of just how much implicit racism there is on this subject in mainstream media coverage.
And the case of Israel’s violent response to protests in Gaza in 2018 is a revealing case study. Israel massacred scores of civilians on May 14, 2018, the day the Trump administration moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and The New York Times published an editorial soon after.
Here are the parts referencing the massacre:
“ The world did not witness a new dawn of peace and security for two peoples who have dreamed of both for so long. Instead, it watched as Israeli soldiers shot and killed scores of Palestinian protesters, and wounded thousands more, along Israel’s boundary with the Gaza Strip.”
The final paragraphs:
“Israel has every right to defend its borders, including the boundary with Gaza. But officials are unconvincing when they argue that only live ammunition — rather than tear gas, water cannons and other nonlethal measures — can protect Israel from being overrun.
Led too long by men who were corrupt or violent or both, the Palestinians have failed and failed again to make their own best efforts toward peace. Even now, Gazans are undermining their own cause by resorting to violence, rather than keeping their protests strictly peaceful.
But the contrast on Monday, between exultation in Jerusalem and the agony of Palestinians in Gaza, could not have been more stark, or more chilling to those who continue to hope for a just and durable peace.”
Now again, in fairness to the Times editors, the entire piece is critical of Israel and Trump for ignoring Palestinians and driving them to despair. You should read it if you can. But note how they treat the actual killings. They are unconvinced that Israel needed to use live ammo. They should have used water cannons instead.
Then they swivel over to the Palestinians, blaming their leaders for corruption and violence and then blaming the protestors collectively for not being strictly peaceful.
The New York Times doesn’t seem very upset that unarmed people were murdered. They make a policy suggestion to the murderers — use water cannons next time, guys, but of course, they didn’t — and then they blame the murdered victims because some Palestinians were violent.
It is difficult to imagine the Times editors would write about Israeli Jewish victims of Hamas terrorism in that way. And if they did, the outrage in the U.S. would be gigantic, overwhelming. And rightly so. When Hamas murders people, the New York Times blames Hamas. Logical. When Israel murders people, the New York Times is unconvinced it needed to do so, gives a non-lethal policy alternative, and then blames the victims because other Palestinians were violent. This seems illogical if human life is valued in both cases to the same degree.
It gets worse. The Times published other pieces defending the shooting. The worst was by Shmuel Rosner. Nathan Robinson did an extremely thorough analysis of that one.
Again, try to imagine the New York Times publishing a piece like that about the murder of Israeli Jews and what the reaction would be if they did. “ I feel no need to engage in ingenue mourning.”
Why did the Times publish Rosner? Did they agree with him? The editors didn’t. Some other columnists did. Rosner’s views were within the New York Times range of publishable opinion, and they presumably published his columns because they thought his views represented a significant portion of Israeli opinion — that portion which didn’t care if they shot protestors.
Perhaps the New York Times should not be trusted as an authority on who values human life. And while they are trying to avoid a huge bloodbath in favor of a smaller one, as opposed to no further loss of life, they are still making their argument in a way that reflects a classic colonialist mentality — we are civilized, they are not. Or, in cruder terms, we are Westerners, and our excrement does not emit unpleasant odors.
As long as we’re on this topic of Israel valuing human life – Raz Segal is an Israeli historian who directs the Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies program at Stockton University. He just wrote a piece in Jewish Currents titled…
“A Textbook Case of Genocide…Israel has been explicit about what it’s carrying out in Gaza. Why isn’t the world listening?
But the assault on Gaza can also be understood in other terms: as a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes. I say this as a scholar of genocide, who has spent many years writing about Israeli mass violence against Palestinians. I have written about settler colonialism and
Jewish supremacy in Israel, the distortion of the Holocaust to boost the Israeli arms industry, the
weaponization of antisemitism accusations to justify Israeli violence against Palestinians, and the racist regime of Israeli apartheid. Now, following Hamas’s attack on Saturday and the mass murder of more than 1,000 Israeli civilians, the worst of the worst is happening.”
Segal goes on to enumerate the legal definitions of genocide. You can read it here:
https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide
As quoted from the 2018 New York Times editorial:
A detail that might be overlooked here is that tear gas is, of course, a chemical riot control agent, and the official line from the Israeli government at the time was that its firing on the crowd in Gaza was part of warfare.
In Article I (“General Obligations”) of the international Chemical Weapons Convention, section 5 says this:
As you might know, Israel is one of 4 UN member states that are not parties to the CWC (the others being Egypt, North Korea, and South Sudan). But still, whenever a government violates the chemical weapons convention, it is roundly criticized in the United States even when that government is not a party to the convention (see: Syria, not a party to the convention in 2013). Why does the Times make an exception for Israel? And when it does, why does it not even note that it is doing so, let alone explain why?
I was quite shocked when I read that editorial today. It is literally a lie. I commented to that effect, not expecting it to be passed as fit for publication, just to tell the moderators what I felt. Judging from the top-rated “reader picks”, the readership of the NYT are deeply unimpressed by it.
RE: You can read the piece (i.e., “Israel Can Defend Itself and Uphold its Values”) for yourself if you have a subscription. ~ Donald Johnson
PAYWALL-FREE GIFT ARTICLE – https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/14/opinion/israel-gaza-war.html?unlocked_article
Thought I wrote this already? Actually, these guys are somewhat humorous at NY Times. I exited stage left or right recently figured Jeff Bezos needed the extra money.
Thomas Friedman who writes these endless articles with all the bombastic cliches known to mankind and gets just about everything wrong. Bret Stephens and his “magnificent” intellect which he surely will tell you about and one of the funniest take downs by Finkelstein because of his “own magnificent Jewish intellect.” And lastly, how can one get over David Brooks’ 78 dollar hamburger? For that Brooks could have purchased two maybe three bottles of Jack and just drank it straight from the bottle.
I just figured that the paper tends to cover stuff because of the readership in NY City. Usually, the writing in it and New Yorker/NY Mag are great. Where I live we just do not really identify with New York I guess. But I did work for a guy, whose dad was an MD both there and in Vermont and a cartoonist. He was responsible for the New Yorker man but his kid, now deceased, liked to take me to Chinese joints just down from Grant Street. Money and all you know.
Fine paper, just slanted as you state, but I am just a hick from somewhere else.