All The Blood Libel Fit To Print

 Originally published June 2, 2021

https://www.queensjewishlink.com/index.php/opinion/4626-all-the-blood-libel-fit-to-print

There is only one legitimate reason left to subscribe to the New York Times: opposition research.  To fight your enemy, you must know how they think and what they say.  Otherwise, you’re just giving money to antisemites.

For that is all the New York Times is these days: a group of antisemites posing as “objective” observers of world events.  The final straw for former head of the Anti-Defamation League Abraham Foxman came on Friday, May 28, when the Times devoted the majority of its front page to the pictures of children who died in Gaza and Israel.  “They Were Just Children,” the headline roared.  What’s barely mentioned in the article is that a third of the rockets from Gaza landed in Gaza, so many of the children were likely killed by Hamas themselves.  Blaming Israel for those deaths is, of course, a blood libel.  

“I am cancelling my subscription to NYTimes,” Foxman tweeted. “I grew up in America on the NYT—I delivered the NYT to my classmates—I learned civics—democracy and all the news ‘fit to print’ for 65 years but no more. Today’s blood libel of Israel and the Jewish people on the front page is enough.” Newsweek Deputy Opinion Editor Batya Ungar-Sargon replied to Foxman, “Me too.”  Neither of these people can be considered “right-wingers”

The Times covers every possible trope when writing a blatantly antisemitic article under the guise of an objective one.  “Just minutes after the war between Israel and Hamas broke out…” it begins.  “Broke out”?  No mention of the thousands of rockets fired from civilian populations in Gaza into civilian populations in Israel, which prompted a response, as it would from any State in the world?  No, it was just a spontaneous breakout, and of course Israel is named first.  

Then the Times lists the 67 children in Gaza and 2 in Israel who were killed.  These deaths are, of course, tragic.  They were also unnecessary.  The Times would say they were unnecessary because Israel shouldn’t have defended themselves against thousands of rockets fired into the heart of their country.  In reality, they were unnecessary because the American Left does not need to support the terrorist organization Hamas.

“Gaza is crowded and its population skews young,” the Times continues, “with about half under age 18. So when Israeli warplanes hit homes and residential neighborhoods, the number of children at risk is extraordinary. Sometimes nearly entire households disappear with a single blast.  Israel blames Hamas for the high civilian death toll in Gaza because the group fires rockets and conducts military operations from civilian areas. Israel’s critics cite the death toll as evidence that Israel’s strikes were indiscriminate and disproportionate.”

Notice the language describing the two sides of the argument.  “Israel” is on one side, and “Israel’s critics” are on another.  These critics are just spouting Hamas talking points, but it is not a war between a democratic nation and a terrorist group that threatens them.  It’s a war between Israel and her critics, and the Times has chosen its side.  The article continues like this. 

The Times doesn’t care enough about the plight of the children of Gaza to tell the truth to its readers.  They throw around words like “widespread poverty,” “high unemployment,” “blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt,” and “constant threat of war.”  What they neglect to mention is that they have had complete control of the Gaza Strip for 15 years, and the only thing they have done to help themselves is build rockets and terror tunnels to attack Israel. 

That’s the dirty secret of this conflict.  The Palestinian people, or at the very least those in charge, don’t want peace or a state.  They want all the Jews in Israel to be dead, and Israel to be wiped off the map. “From the river to the sea,” as the chant goes.  

The New York Times wants this as well.  They published the false map of Israel this week, showing “Palestine” of 1947 slowly being replaced over the years by Israel.  This map, constantly used by antisemites online, is so false that even MSNBC retracted it in 2015.  The Times published it because they don’t care about spreading lies about the Jewish State.  

They also have no issue with widespread antisemitism, as long as they can blame it on their political opponents. When a spate of antisemitic crimes occurred at the end of 2018 and early 2019, it was hardly reported, because they couldn’t blame it on right-wingers.  And when Jews around the country are violently assaulted by Palestinian supporters, it’s not “fit to print” because it can’t be blamed on right-wingers.  Yet they wrote last week that “…anti-Semitic violence in recent years was largely considered a right-wing phenomenon, driven by a white supremacist movement emboldened by rhetoric from former President Donald J. Trump, who often trafficked in stereotypes.”  Jews of the world would be quite fortunate if their greatest enemy was Donald Trump, the most pro-Israel and pro-Jewish president in American history.  

According to the New York Times, the greatest antisemite in Congress is Marjorie Taylor-Greene.  Her great sin this week was talking like a Democrat, because she downplayed the Holocaust when talking about mask mandates.  While that was foolish, nobody should accept a lecturing from the left-wing, which spent four years comparing Trump to Hitler and comparing the Trump-era to 1930s Germany.

According to reality, the antisemites in Congress are named Tlaib, Omar, and Ocasio-Cortez.  If you search their names for mentions in the New York Times in the last week when discussing antisemitism, the only reference is an article entitled, “Greene’s Holocaust Comparisons Cause New Headaches for G.O.P.”

The New York Times is a vile, corrupt, and despicable publication that belongs in the ashbin of history.  They glorify Jew-hatred and revel in Jewish death and defamation.  This will not be the last antisemitic article they publish, but it should be the last one any self-respecting Jew pays for.  


Moshe Hill is a political columnist and Senior Fellow at Chovevei Zion. You can find Moshe on his blog at www.aHillwithaView.com, facebook.com/aHillwithaView, or twitter.com/TheMoHill.

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