The New York Times recently carried on its front page photographs of 67 children, Arab and Jewish, who died during the recent conflict between Hamas and Israel, over the caption “They Were Just Children.” Under each child’s photo, the Times had provided the name of the party responsible for the child’s death; for 64 of the photos, “Israel” was declared responsible. More on this atrocious story is here: “‘The New York Times’ Repackages a Classic Blood Libel,” by James Sinkinson, JNS.org, June 16, 2021:
Though most New York Times readers would not likely have realized it, the dramatic, front-page, full-color photo collage of children killed in the recent Hamas-Israel war was a crudely repackaged version of a classic blood libel against the Jewish people.
On May 28, after Israel ceased its defensive operations to stop Hamas rocket fire and ensure security for Israel’s citizens, The New York Time plastered on its front page a collage of 67 faces of children killed in the conflict, under the title, “They Were Only [sic] Children.”
A caption under each photo in the associated article described how each child died. The captions under 64 of the children perversely named Israel as the cause of death. The truth, of course, is quite the contrary.
Gaza’s terrorist-designated Hamas dictatorship, which started the fighting unprovoked by attacking Israeli citizens with thousands of rockets, determined the pace and intensity of the war, as well as the targets of Israeli retaliation.
While the Times insinuated that Israel chose to kill these children—and that Israel’s actions were unjustified at best and malicious at worst—in fact, every one of those 67 children died at Hamas’s hands.
Hamas was responsible for the deaths of Palestinian children whom the terror group deliberately put in harm’s way by placing its rockets, and launching them, from inside or near civilian structures – kindergartens, schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, and other places where children would naturally be found. Hamas wanted Palestinian children to die; they would then serve usefully for propaganda purposes – as they did when the photographs of dead Arab children appeared on the front page of the New York Times. Israel, of course, tries as hard as it can to avoid civilian casualties, including children, by telephoning, leafletting, emailing warnings about an impending attack on a target, practicing its “knock-on-the-roof” technique, all in order to get everyone in those buildings to flee. Israel has no desire to kill children or other civilians.
Ever since the Middle Ages, Jews and Jewish communities around the world have been regularly accused of killing innocent non-Jewish children, in bloodlust or in the service of fantastical religious services. Over hundreds of years, such false accusations of murder have come to be known as “blood libel.”…
Despite the Times’ almost daily criticism of the Jewish state—and its decades-long tradition of siding with Israel’s enemies—the front-page photo collage reinvigorated an antisemitic canard, and clearly crossed a line….
There is a straight line from the medieval blood libel of Jews killing Christian children to use their blood in making Passover wafers, and the New York Times blaming “Jews” (Zionists) for the presumably deliberate killing of more than 60 Palestinian children.
Fair-minded people need to ask why, of all the bloody conflicts raging around the world, only the operation involving self-defense for the national homeland of the Jewish people was singled out for this graphically disturbing treatment.
Hundreds of thousands of people die in violent conflict and war around the world every year — 19,444 died in Afghanistan and 19,044 in Yemen in 2020, to say nothing of tens of thousands more in Syria, Somalia and Iraq. Not one of these conflicts was deserving of a front-page photo collage in the Times.
There were many more children who were killed in the continuing wars in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Iraq, and, Ethiopia than in the recent Hamas-Israel war. Why was it that the Times has never seen fit to print a similar front-page collage of the dead children in any of those conflicts? Were those children less important than the Palestinian Arab children? Or were the Palestinian Arab children worthy of heightened attention only because Israel could be, and was, blamed by the Times for their deaths?
Moreover, the Times collage project deceptively hid the context of the children’s deaths. It did not mention the [real] reason these children died.
According to HonestReporting, the context was buried: “Just minutes after the war between Israel and Hamas broke out, a 5-year-old boy named Baraa al-Gharabli was killed in Jabaliya, Gaza,” the opening sentence of “They Were Only Children” dramatically asserts. Only 20 paragraphs later do readers find out that al-Gharabli’s tragic death “may have been” caused by a Hamas rocket that fell short.
Israel Defense Forces’ radar images show that some 15 percent of all rockets launched by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fell inside Gaza, unquestionably killing and injuring many Palestinians. Initial research indicates that failed Palestinian rocket launches killed at least nine of the children pictured in the Times piece. Still, the Times absolves Hamas of the responsibility for their deaths.
The IDF had made public radar images that showed nearly 680 Hamas rockets that had been launched against Israel, but fell instead inside Gaza, where they injured and killed Palestinians, including children. It appears that at least nine of the children who died in Gaza had been hit by Hamas’ own rockets. There is no mention of this under their photos, which attributes their deaths to Israel alone. Nor did the Times mention in the body of its article that accompanied the photos that 680 Hamas rockets fell short in Gaza itself, injuring and killing children and other civilians. Why not? Who at the Times decided that information should be left out?
Furthermore, in an embarrassment to those who put the collage together, some of the photos were of children alive and well, while others were of those who Hamas claimed as members, even if they were only 17 years old. One of them, Khaled Qanou, was a member of the Mujahideen Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement. This vital information was not mentioned anywhere in the Times’ disingenuous diatribe.
Of the 67 Palestinian children who were reported as killed by Israel, we know of at least nine who die from Hamas rockets, not because Hamas admitted it, but because Israeli photos show where a Hamas rocket fell short in Gaza exactly where those children were then reported to have died. Other Palestinian “children” turn out to have been in their late teens, and members of terrorist groups, including the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, and Hamas itself. But that information was kept from its readers by the New York Times; it would only muddy the tear-jerking message that “They Were Only Children.”
Finally, the images provide no clarification as to the remarkably low ratio of civilian deaths in Israel’s wars with Hamas. Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, notes that a United Nations study showed “that the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in Gaza was by far the lowest in any asymmetric conflict in the history of warfare.”
Kemp states that this ratio was less than 1:1 and compared it favorably to the estimated ratios of NATO operations in Afghanistan (3:1), western campaigns in Iraq and Kosovo (believed to be 4:1), and the conflicts in Chechnya and Serbia (much higher than 4:1).
Kemp argues that the low ratio was achieved through unprecedented measures taken by the IDF to minimize civilian casualties, including warnings to the population via telephone calls, radio broadcasts and leaflets, as well as granting pilots the discretion to abort a strike if they perceived too great a risk of civilian casualties.
And as we know, Israel invented the “knock-on-the-roof” technique, the practice of dropping non-explosive or low-yield devices on the roofs of targeted civilian homes as a prior warning of imminent bombing attacks to give the inhabitants time to flee the attack. The practice was first employed by the Israelis in the 2008-2009 Gaza war, and along with telephoning, radio broadcasts, and leafletting, was used again in this latest war with Hamas. We have also learned of Israeli pilots aborting a mission when they detected the presence of children at a targeted site. Here is one example.
The astonishingly low ratio – 1:3 — of civilian-to-fighter casualties in Gaza is based on figures from the IDF, which believes it killed 225 Hamas fighters, with about 75 civilians killed. That is an amazing figure; in modern warfare the ratio of civilians-to-fighters killed is ordinarily at least 3:1. But because of the enormous efforts Israel makes to warn civilians away from its targets, sometimes giving them as much as two hours warning to flee, civilian casualties were kept very low, despite Hamas’ deliberate efforts to increase them. That two-hours warning was what Israel provided to the residents of the media tower, the Al-Jalaa Building, that received so much attention because the AP offices were located there, along with the actual target of the IAF, Hamas weapons development and intelligence facilities.
He [Colonel Richard Kemp] also states that the civilian casualties that did occur could be seen in light of Hamas’s tactical use of Gazan civilians “as human shields, to hide behind, to stand between Israeli forces and their own fighters,” and strategic exploitation of their deaths in the media….
Questions for the Grey Lady:
Why have you never published a front-page collage, or even one on an inside page, of children killed in any of two dozen recent conflicts, such continuing wars as those in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Ethiopia?
Why, in your coverage of the children who died in the latest Gaza war, did you make no mention of Hamas’ deliberate use of human shields, including children, by hiding its rockets in, and launching them from, civilian buildings such as kindergartens, schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings?
Why, in your coverage of the children who died in the Gaza war, did you make no mention of the fact that some were known to have been killed by the 680 Hamas rockets aimed at Israel but fell short, and struck people inside Gaza?
Why, in your coverage of the children killed in Gaza, did you not subsequently let your readers know that several of those “children” whose photographs appeared were in their late teens, and were members of Hamas and the Palestinian Muhajideen Movement?
Why did The New York Times publish in its “They Were Only Children” collage a 2015 stock photo of a young girl, claiming Israeli forces killed her during the May 2021 war with Hamas? Why did it never apologize for that error?
Why did you not make any mention in the text that accompanies the photos of 67 dead children that Israeli pilots aborted missions when they detected children too close to the target?
Why do you nowhere mention, in the text accompanying the collage of photos of children killed in the war, Israel’s various methods to minimize civilian casualties? These include warning the inhabitants of impending targets through phone calls, leafletting, emails, and the “knock-on-the-roof technique,” giving them time – sometimes as much as two hours — to flee. Wasn’t all that worth mentioning?
Why do you trust the figures released by Hamas of “67 children” killed when, from the three previous Hamas-Israel wars, the numbers put out by Hamas proved, upon further investigation, to have been grossly inflated? Given that history, shouldn’t we be skeptical of Hamas this time?
Do we have any reason, on the other hand, to think that the figures about casualties provided by the IDF are to be trusted? Doesn’t the IDF have a long track record of putting out reliable figures?
That’s enough questions for now. I’m sure your continued skewed coverage of the Hamas-Israel conflict will prompt still others.
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
==QUOTE== The New York Time plastered on its front page a collage of 67 faces of children killed in the conflict, under the title, “They Were Only [sic] Children.” ==UNQUOTE==
I do not understand the insertion of “[sic]” here.
Fist of all, who made the insertion? The “[sic]” does not occur in James Sinkinson’s article at
https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/06/16/the-new-york-times-repackages-a-classic-blood-libel/
Did Hugh Fitzgerald insert the “[sic]”?
Second, why was the “[sic]” inserted? What point is the inserter trying to make?
Hugh Fitzgerald says
No, I didn’t insert the [sic].. I simply cut and pasted from Sinkinson’s article which, at that point, contained the [sic]. If it no longer appears in his article at http://www.algemeiner.com, he — or an algemeiner editor – may have chosen to remove it. I did wonder what it might have meant, and decided it was most likely a jab at the NY Times, for writing that those in the photo collage were “only children” when we know that several of the photos were not of children at all, but ofpeople in their late teens (is an 18- or 19-year-old a child?) and members of Hamas and other terror groups.If I were to post it again, to avoid confusion I’d simply omit the [sic].
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
Thank you H.G., for this clarification. The “only” is ambiguous too. I first took it to mean that the faces were those of people who were merely children (“pur wee bairns”), not yet mature. But “only” could also mean “solely” children, with no teenagers among them.
gravenimage says
Mark and Hugh–this is pretty straight-forward. The actual NYT headline reads “They Were Just Children”. So refering to this article as “They Were Only Children” is not a direct quote, and does indeed call for [sic] after the word “Only”. No editorial comments involved.
Tony Naim says
Were was that “ sense of justice” of the NYTimes in the 1970’s, 1980’s,1990’s when the PLO ( precursor of all Islamic terrorist organizations), the Assad regime, were killing Christians in Lebanon with impunity?
Tens of thousands perished for no reason, other than being Christians! Why Doesn’t the NYT report on the million Lebanese Christians who were forced to leave Lebanon, escaping the savagery of radical Islamist organizations ( Sunni, Shi’a and Alaouite) to seek refuge in the west?
If the Jews in Israel do not stand for themselves, no one will stand for them. All the while, western leftist media outlets will continue to distort the sad reality of war with a twisted sense of justice.
No one is more responsible for civilian deaths than a savage Islamic terrorist organization deliberately hiding behind civilian population, in each and every war it starts against the Jewish state, simply because it is Jewish.
gravenimage says
Good questions, Tony.
PRCS says
Robert Spencer’s “The Palestinian Delusion” (available on Kindle) is a VERY good read concerning this subject.
gravenimage says
Agreed, PRCS.
Elizabeth Lawson says
Let’s face it folks, the Times and other rags like it are vicious anti Semitic propaganda wings of and for all with any violent cause targeting Jews. Why would any decent, intelligent, person who subscribes to a just and peaceful world read that rag? My view is that if Almighty God himself came down from Heaven and announced to the world that Israel had always been Jewish and without question had the right to defend itself – He would be booed off the stage.The Times “ news” is appallingly irresponsible and dangerous – it incites the mentally unstable and the racist. We saw the consequences of this horror journey in WW2. Pay attention you barbarous scribes, we lost six million innocent Jews – but we ALSO lost sixty-four million others.
Keith O says
Elizabeth, Given the propensity of the New York Times for telling outright lies, they would twist the headline to read something like.
“64 million innocent people murdered by Jews during the war they started”.
And their readers would lap it up.
revereridesagain says
If you choose to attack other nations with intent to conquer, subjugate, and destroy them, and they fight back, you are responsible for the casualties in your own country. The allies were not to blame when “only children” were killed in fighting in Germany, Italy, or Japan — Hitler, Mussolini, and the rulers of Japan were, having chosen to declare war upon and attack peaceful nations. The same applies to the slaves of Allah who have chosen to seek the destruction of Israel by force. The Times is merely one of their tools.
Keys says
This has been going on far too long.
“We can forgive [the Arabs] for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with [the Arabs] when they love their children more than they hate us…”
Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel, 1969 – 1974
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Golda Meir is also the one responsible for one of the most brilliant and funniest takedowns in political history. To someone who was uriah-sheepishly engaged in a bit of false humility, she said: “Don’t be so humble. You’re not that great.”
gravenimage says
Agreed, Keys and Hugh.
James Lincoln says
If one reads the New York Times, realizing that it is filled with red-green alliance propaganda, that’s okay.
If one reads it thinking that they will obtain truthful, unbiased reporting, the reader has a *very* big problem…
Wellington says
Agreed, James. Those who have a high opinion of The New York Times, ditto for another rag, The Washington Post, have a very big problem indeed but chances are they will never realize they have a very big problem—and that’s part of the problem.
gravenimage says
Yes. Previously the NYT spent their time whitewashing Stalinism.
gravenimage says
Questions for the New York Times After Its Latest Blood Libel of Israel
…………..
Thank you, HUgh Fitzgerald. It is Hamas that put them in danger–assuming these are even all “Palestinian” children. So often with “Pallywood” they are not.
Westman says
It strikes me that the NYT is drunk with power it deems it posesses in the atmosphere of a weak President. It is no longer reporting the news – it is creating it in an effort to override government, manipulate the citizens, and become the major influencer. The NYT is current proof that power corrupts and that corruption seeks more power.
As children we were instructed that freedom of the press protected us from government overreach yet now, grimly, we see that the major watchers need watching as they become an undermining threat to the Republic.
Roha Waha says
O GIVE ME A BREAK ! , I have railed against this massive lie since it’s beggining. While some children were killed in this latest Jihad against Israel ” and that breaks my heart ” . If the Pali-Arabs had 60+ children killed you would be seeing the pictures of everyone of their mutilated naked bodies on CNN, MSNBC and every Arab TV station in the world 24/7 until the next American Presidential Election. I would venture to guess the death of any Arab children were caused either by Pali-Arabs leaving them as ” human shields ” or from the 20% ” or 600 rockets ” that were fired from Gaza by Hamas and fell short of Israel into Gaza neighborhoods. And WHERE were the 60 funerals of these children ? Pali-Arabs love to v9deo a good funeral.
Vito E says
Sadly the NY Times has become the Propagandist arm of the Left Wing & seemingly anything Anti-Israel including terrorist org Hamas.
NY Times should heed Golda Meir’s quote: “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have PEACE with the Arabs when THEY Love their Children more than they HATE US”.
gravenimage says
Spot on–and things have not changed in the past 50 years. I would only replace “Arab” with “Muslim”–Christian Arabs do not act this way, and this is not about ethnicity, but ideology.
Frank Anderson says
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: US law, 18 United States Code Section 2, says that anyone who aids, abets, counsels or acts in furtherance of a federal felony is equally guilty of the crime. Also, US conspiracy law, which is explained concisely in the case from the Southern District of Alabama, United States v. Gary Greenough, says “the acts of one are the acts of all; the knowledge of one is the knowledge of all.”
More than 1 person agreed, conspired and acted to launch more than 4,000 unguided rockets more or less randomly into Israel from Gaza. To me, that firing is the same display of legal “depraved indifference” or “universal malice” as shooting into a passing passenger vehicle. About 20 percent of those rockets fell into Gaza instead of Israel with understandable results of deaths and injuries. The rockets were armed with explosive bombs intended to injure or kill anyone, including US citizens and diplomats through a terrorist attack. Those who launched the rockets did not care who they injured or killed, as long as someone was injured or killed for their criminal purpose, almost certainly a war crime under international law.
That suggests to me the US law on “extraterritorial jurisdiction” should come into play. That also means that people and legal entities who are actually in US jurisdiction should be exposed to prosecution for “aiding, abetting and counseling” even if it cannot be shown they “acted” in furtherance of the crimes taking place against US citizens and diplomats in Israel, and even if for some reason “extraterritorial jurisdiction” is not invoked or does not apply..
The conclusion that appears to me is the organization New York Times and all persons acting to support the terrorist regime in control of Gaza should be prosecuted for their part in the crimes committed against Israel, its citizens and guests from the US. “Free speech and press” does not include advocacy for murder.