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When Is Terror Not Terror? When the Victims Are Jews

(Newsweek) Lilac Sigan - In the aftermath of the shooting of seven people near a synagogue in Jerusalem, one of the deadliest mass shootings in over a decade, many media outlets including the New York Times carefully avoided the word "terror." In 2022, the Times mentioned Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hizbullah in its headlines only eight times throughout the entire year. Only one mention of Hamas and Hizbullah was negative. Islamic Jihad was mentioned negatively twice. By comparison, 192 headlines mentioned Israel in a negative or critical tone. In total, 53% of New York Times' news coverage of Israel was negative in tone, compared with 11% that was positive. Between January and October 2022, before the new government was elected, 60% of op-eds were negative towards Israel. After the election, the negative tone became more extreme. According to the Israel Security Agency (ISA), there were 2,618 terror events in 2022, 204 of them significant (shootings, bombings, stabbings, or intentional car ramming). Another 472 significant attacks were thwarted. The Times has stressed that most of the Palestinians killed were not terrorists, whereas IDF data shows the exact opposite. The Times is obsessed with Israel but offers the world a monochromatic picture of the situation. Its journalistic failing contributes to the growing hatred of the world's only Jewish state, and the global rise in antisemitism that comes with it. The writer is an Israeli author and journalist who completed a year-long study of the coverage of Israel in the New York Times for Ma'ariv and Bar-Ilan University.
2023-02-16 00:00:00
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