The New York Times on Wednesday removed a controversial sentence from a “grotesque” report that many believed crossed a line by suggesting Israelis are not the victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack.
Times reporter Isabel Kershner, who focuses on Israeli and Palestinian affairs, penned a Monday piece that focuses on a documentary about the killing of Palestinians by Israeli forces in Gaza. Midway through the article, the Times reporter noted, “Israelis are deeply divided over how to apportion blame for the policy, military and intelligence failures that preceded the attack and the war,” to set up a line that has prompted a firestorm of criticism.
“But Israelis still largely view themselves as the victims of Oct. 7,” Kershner wrote in the initial version of the story.
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Journalist Eitan Fischberger, who served in the Israel Defense Forces, was stunned when he read the sentence in a straight-news report, which appeared to suggest that such a statement was opinion rather than fact.
“What’s so grotesque about this sentence is that it portrays an objective fact as some sort of Israeli victimhood mentality. Imagine the Times writing that Americans ‘still largely view themselves as the victims of 9/11,’ or that Americans ‘still largely view themselves as the victims of Pearl Harbor,’” Fischberger told Fox News Digital.
“Whatever one thinks about the war that followed, Israelis were absolutely the victims of horrific atrocities on October 7,” he continued. “Just like Americans were the victims of 9/11 and the attack on Pearl Harbor.”
When reached for comment, The New York Times told Fox News Digital that the sentence was included because of an “editing error” and removed the line from the report.
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The Times also added an editors’ note to the story following Fox News Digital’s inquiry.
“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,” the Times notes at the bottom of the online report.
Hamas launched a war with an unprecedented Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of approximately 1,200 people, with Israeli civilians among those targeted. Hundreds of civilians were massacred at an outdoor music festival, others were slaughtered inside their homes and Hamas took 254 hostages in the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
Earlier this month, a review of Times coverage of the early months of the Israel-Gaza war by Edieal Pinker of the Yale School of Management found a clear bias against Israel.
“This sentence is the epitome of the pattern the study found,” Fischberger said.
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Many others blasted the Times on social media prior to the paper’s update, including conservative pundit Scott Jennings.
“No words for this abomination,” Jennings wrote.
One critic asked if Al Jazeera bought the Times, while many asked who the victims were, if not Israelis.
Last week, the Times was also accused of treating Muslims as the true victims of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2021. The Times’ published a story, “After 9/11, Islamophobia Shaped a Generation of Muslim New Yorkers,” that said the “attacks unleashed a wave of hate, but the years since have seen Muslim Americans’ political and cultural influence grow.”
The Times published a second story on Islamophobia on Friday, with the other one headlined, “Facing Islamophobia, Mamdani Keeps Focus on 9/11 Victims.”
While critics scolded the Times, the paper stood by its reporting and called the backlash “a disingenuous attempt to seek attention and stoke outrage by misrepresenting The New York Times’s journalism covering the anniversary and commemoration of the Sept. 11 attacks.”
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The Times previously issued the following statement to the New York Post regarding Pinker’s study: “The advocates behind multiple studies on media bias cherry-pick data that supports their beliefs while ignoring any evidence to the contrary. Our work has exposed violations of international law and grave human rights abuses. War crimes prosecutors have cited our investigations as they gather reporting that would not otherwise have come to light. Our role is to seek the truth, even when it includes inconvenient or uncomfortable facts.”
