Dispatch #134 White Lesbian Age 71 Considers How New York Times Colludes with US and Israel to Promote War Propaganda Supporting the Genocide in Gaza

March 8th 2024   1143 Days Since Inauguration of First Woman Vice-President

252 Days Until 2024 Presidential Elections 11/5/2024

623 Days Since SCOTUS Ruled American Women Don’t Have Human Rights

154 Days Since Israel Began Genocidal Assault on Palestinians in Gaza

The New York Times, the preeminent new source in the US and among Western allies, continues to demonstrate violations of journalistic integrity in publishing war propaganda that support Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.  

Perhaps the most brazenly horrifying Israeli propaganda published by the New York Times emerged on December 29th at the moment when an international outcry was growing about the indiscriminate killing in Gaza and the brutality of Israel’s assault. Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.

A Times investigation uncovered new details showing a pattern of rape, mutilation and extreme brutality against women in the attacks on Israel. www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/middleeast/oct-7-attacks-hamas-israel-sexual-violence.html 

This pornographically incendiary article included detailed descriptions of men/Hamas butchering women while raping them and cutting off heads and breasts to toss around, and women screaming without words. Implicit narrative: Hamas/Palestinians are less- than-human monsters – unless they are all killed, no safety/security for Israelis is possible.

Almost immediately independent news outlets began to challenge the veracity of this story, most notably on January 3rd Ali Abunimah livestreamed his reporting on the Electric Intifada “NY Times Weaponized Hamas Rape Story Is a Fraud: We Debunk It.” Examining the article point by point, Abunimah shows how no evidence exists for the story’s allegations. He concludes: Since our livestream, even more information has come out exposing the extent of the fraud being perpetrated by the Times under the cover of its prestige as the world’s “newspaper of record. This includes the key admission by Israeli police that they have been unable to locate any survivors of the alleged mass rape campaign.   https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/watch-ny-times-investigation-mass-rape-hamas-falls-apart 

In their February 28^th article “Between the Hammer and the Anvil.” The Story Behind the New York Times October 7 Exposé, Intercept investigative journalists Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Grim and Daniel Boguslaw discuss how the NYT commissioned the article to confirm a predetermined narrative about Hamas weaponizing sexual violence. Anat Schwartz, a NYT stringer, Israeli filmmaker and former IDF air force intelligence official responsible for the article’s research, revealed in Israeli TV Channel 12 podcast interview that, despite her relentless efforts, she could not find any evidence for the narrative. Nonetheless, the NYT published the incindiary story. Scahill et al conclude:

The bigger scandal may be the reporting itself, the process that allowed it into print, and the life-altering impact the reporting had for thousands of Palestinians whose deaths were justified by the alleged systematic sexual violence orchestrated by Hamas the paper claimed to have exposed. https://theintercept.com/2024/02/28/new-york-times-anat-schwartz-october-7/  

Democracy Now! March 1^st program The Intercept: New York Times Exposé Lacks Evidence to Claim Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence Oct. 7 features Scahill and Grim recapping their findings and conclusions about the article. 

Its release in late December helped the Israeli government to justify the ongoing war on Gaza and to paint pro-Palestine supporters abroad as not caring about sexual violence. The New York Times has grave, grave mischaracterizations, sins of omission, reliance on people who have no forensic or criminology credentials to be asserting that there was a systematic rape campaign put in place. www.democracynow.org/2024/3/1/nyt_anat_schwartz  

On March 1^st Ali Abunimah returns to this story on Electric Intifada. Scandal Grows Around Fraudulent New York Times Mass Rapes Investigation. Abunimah, while noting that several independent media had already debunked the NYT article in early January, says the Intercept story reveals more specific details concluding: This total failure to find a single victim ought to have alerted the Times that the only story here was of a massive hoax intended to incite genocidal hatred and violence against Palestinians. But even to this day, the newspaper is defending its fraudulent reporting.  https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/ny-times-found-no-7-october-rape-victims-reporter-admits  

The NYT again promotes the discredited narratives about Hamas-directed sexual violence with UN Team Finds Grounds to Support Reports of Sexual Violence in Hamas Attack www.nytimes.com/2024/03/04/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-un-report-sexual-violence.html and Western media follow the NYT lead in war propaganda reporting by prominently promoting the UN report as proof of Hamas. E.g., UN report: ‘Convincing’ information Hamas raped, tortured hostages www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/04/hamas-rape-un-report-hostages/ 

The Grayzone, however, examines the UN reports and thoroughly debunks claims about the UN report’s findings: Western media promoted a UN report as proof Hamas sexually assaulted Israelis. Yet the report’s authors admitted they couldn’t locate a single victim, suggested Israeli officials staged a rape scene, and denounced “inaccurate forensic interpretations.”  https://thegrayzone.com/2024/03/07/media-concocts-un-hamas-rape-report/ See also Ali Abunimah & Asa Winstanley March 1^st UN report launders Israel’s fraudulent “mass rape” propaganda. https://electronicintifada.net/content/un-report-launders-israels-fraudulent-mass-rape-propaganda/45021 

Western media collaborated with Israel’s perfidious war propaganda to again seize the headlines just as the world is criticizing Israel for starving Palestinians and then killing Palestinians seeking food aid. Do understand that these media editors did read the UN report closely. The concluding paragraph from New York Times’ lengthy article is: Ms. Patten (the UN Team leader) said one challenge the U.N. experts had faced was sifting through the paucity of reliable information, and inaccurate accounts from untrained people. www.nytimes.com/2024/03/04/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-un-report-sexual-violence.html  And here is the concluding paragraph from Washington Post’s lengthy article: The mission team was unable to establish the prevalence of sexual violence and concludes that the overall magnitude, scope, and specific attribution of these violations would require a fully-fledged investigation,” the report said. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/04/hamas-rape-un-report-hostages/

On January 15^th, the New York Times published yet another audacious war propaganda article titled They Thought They Knew Death, but That Didn’t Prepare Them for Oct. 7.   Ostensibly a sympathetic portrait of volunteers with ZAKA, an Israeli group that recovers dead bodies, who were among the first to reach the victims of the Hamas-led attacks, this piece instead serves to repeat and report deliberately incendiary, dehumanizing and well-established lies about the behavior of Palestinian men.  This revolting and dehumanizing propaganda echoes the lurid white supremacist propaganda about black men savaging white women.  www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/world/middleeast/they-thought-they-knew-death-but-that-didnt-prepare-them-for-oct-7.html

ZAKA is one of the leading organizations alleging Hamas atrocities on October 7. But the organization’s volunteers have systematically given false testimonies, and continue repeating them to journalists on behalf of the Israeli government.

Since October 7, ZAKA has been playing a key role in Israel’s orchestrated propaganda campaign, spreading fake news and vague information in the service of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Looking closely into ZAKA reveals that the organization and its volunteers lack credibility. In fact, a significant part of their testimonies has been proven to be comprised of fabrications. 

ZAKA’s reputation for spreading fake news has been known since its early years of activity. As the Israeli Army Radio correspondent in Jerusalem stated back in 2002, “ZAKA sends everything: what happened, what they think happened, and what didn’t happen as well. We verify everything, but they fulfill our need to know as quickly as possible…in the past, they sent numerous pieces of news that turned out to be lies.” https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/zaka-is-not-a-trustworthy-source-for-allegations-of-sexual-violence-on-october-7/  

The NYT article fails to provide a more complete description of ZAKA, i.e.: 

ZAKA is a non-governmental religious Haredi organization specializing in collecting dead bodies and body parts from sites of “unnatural” deaths and transporting them to morgues according to strict Jewish religious laws. 

The organization was founded in the late 1990s by Yehuda Meshi-Zahav. Meshi-Zahav was previously the leader of “Keshet,” an ultra-Orthodox Jewish terrorist group that targeted forensic pathologists and used explosives against shops selling “secular newspapers.” Meshi-Zahav led ZAKA until 2021, when he attempted suicide after shocking revelations of dozens of rape and sexual assault cases committed by him. Since its inception, the organization — described as a “militia” by the highly esteemed Israeli journalist Yigal Sarna — has been subject to incessant criticism, investigations, and demands to dismantle it. https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/zaka-is-not-a-trustworthy-source-for-allegations-of-sexual-violence-on-october-7/ 

The NYT article excludes this significant contextual information about ZAKA:

ZAKA also closely collaborates with the National Hasbara Headquarters in the Prime Minister’s office. One of the employees in the headquarters told Ynet how the state “worked on cementing the narrative that Hamas equals ISIS and enhancing the state’s legitimacy for a very forceful response…ZAKA’s men’s testimonies have shocked and exposed, in front of the correspondents, the kind of human monsters we are dealing with.”

On November 23, 2023, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with the organization’s teams. The meeting revolved around their role in Israeli propaganda. The Prime Minister heard from the volunteers “about their public diplomacy activity in Israel and the world” and urged them to intensify their efforts, as they are important for legitimizing and extending the timeframe of the war:  “But we need to buy time, which we also buy by turning to world leaders and to public opinion. You have an important role in influencing public opinion, which also influences leaders. We are in a war; it will continue. The war is not only to take care of the 1,400 people…but also to give us the maneuvering room.” https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/zaka-is-not-a-trustworthy-source-for-allegations-of-sexual-violence-on-october-7/ 

The NYT article also excludes this significant reporting about ZAKA by Haaretz:

In early December, when an investigation by Haaretz uncovered several lies propagated by the organization’s men since October 7, ZAKA’s official response was: “ZAKA volunteers are not medical experts and do not have the professional means to identify the deceased, ascertain their age, or declare the manner in which they were killed…due to the difficult condition of the bodies, it’s possible that volunteers misinterpreted what they saw.” 

Among ZAKA’s lies, Haaretz listed falsehoods about the “bodies of twenty children with severed heads,” “piles of burned children,” and a “pregnant woman’s stomach ripped open, and her fetus stabbed.” It is hard to conceive of all these false testimonies as accidental “misinterpretations.” https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/zaka-is-not-a-trustworthy-source-for-allegations-of-sexual-violence-on-october-7/ 

Lastly, the NYT article features Yossi Landau, head of the Zaka division in the south, who made multiple international media appearances. 

On December 3, 2023, Haaretz published a report detailing several false testimonies disseminated by Israeli entities, confirming [Yossi] Landau’s personal responsibility for propagating some of these fake stories.

Among Landau’s lies was the myth of “dozens of beheaded children,” a claim that was refuted. Another reported lie was about the piles of children’s bodies burned together, a narrative that he repeated time and again, likening it to the Holocaust.

Landau also claimed, while crying in front of foreign reporters, to have seen “a pregnant woman, her abdomen ripped open, with the fetus outside her womb tied by the umbilical cord, and the fetus itself stabbed with a knife.” This has also proven to be a fabrication. Haaretz refuted any knowledge of a similar known case and interviewed the residents of the kibbutz, who denied the existence of such a case or even of a pregnant woman among their neighbors.

Landau’s lies shouldn’t come as a surprise. In a conversation with foreign journalists, he said, “When we go into a house, we use our imagination. The bodies were telling us stories that happened, that’s what happened.” 

Disturbingly, despite being proven to be a pathological liar, Landau’s testimonies are still cited in PHRI publications and are circulating in major international media networks, including The New York Times‘ latest report on “how Hamas weaponized sexual violence on Oct. 7.”  https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/zaka-is-not-a-trustworthy-source-for-allegations-of-sexual-violence-on-october-7/ 

The NYT reporter includes these observations about Yossi Landau, who apparently was her guide when she visited the kibbutz:

As Mr. Landau walks through the kibbutz, he stops frequently to speak with journalists, giving interviews to television networks from Japan, Germany and Italy. Like many other ZAKA volunteers, he has become an unofficial guide to the horrors that unfolded on Oct. 7, though he admits he is tired and worries about getting the details right.

He feels angry when he reads accounts online that deny the events of Oct 7. Hamas gunmen, he points out, released their own footage of the attacks. Israeli forensic authorities have published a list, including social security numbers, of those killed.

Still, Mr. Landau acknowledges that in the nearly three months that have passed since the terrorist attack, some stories have been exaggerated and misinformation has spread. At least one person has been caught impersonating a ZAKA paramedic and giving interviews to the foreign news media, Mr. Landau said.

Asked about reports, attributed to him, that children had been beheaded on Oct. 7, Mr. Landau denied making the claim, though he acknowledged sometimes misspeaking in the immediate aftermath of the attack. www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/world/middleeast/they-thought-they-knew-death-but-that-didnt-prepare-them-for-oct-7.html

A coincidence that this article is published the Monday after the International Court of Justice proceedings in The Hague? The New York Times, once again in service of Israel, sinks to the level of war propagandist…all the news that’s fit to print….as long as Israel is protected and promoted.

The March 4^th paper edition of the New York Times presents an above-the fold article with a large color picture of several young women. The headline: Lives Ended in Gaza. Since the war started, more than 30,000 people have been killed during Israel’s bombardment and invasion. Here are some of their stories. www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/03/02/world/middleeast/gaza-deaths.html 

The highlighted passive exonerative style of reporting, e.g., “lives ended” and “have been killed during,” intends to obfuscate the reality of how 30,000 people died. That is, Israel’s relentless and indiscriminate bombing of densely packed urban areas killed more than 30,000 people and left unaccounted for thousands buried under rubble. 

The article continues with these opening paragraphs, marked for obfuscation:

They served cappuccinos, repaired cars and acted onstage. They raised children and took care of older parents. They treated wounds, made pizza and put too much sugar in their tea. They loved living in Gaza or sought to leave it behind.

They represent a fraction of the more than 30,000 people the local authorities say have been killed¹ in Gaza in four and a half months of war. Their stories offer a snapshot of the vast human loss — one in every 73 of Gaza’s 2.2 million people.

More than two-thirds of the total deaths were women and children, the local authorities say². Often, they were killed with their families³ in Israeli airstrikes. Many thousands were fighters for Hamas, according to Israel⁴, which says it is trying to eliminate the group that led the Oct. 7 attacks while limiting civilian casualties.

Hamas ruled Gaza⁵ and ran a covert military organization⁶, the identity of its fighters unclear, even to other Gazans. Some residents supported it, some opposed it, everyone had to live with it. After decades of conflict, hatred of Israel was common⁷, and many Gazans, including some of those below, cheered the fighters who attacked Israel⁸.

WTF!! From language suggesting that anonymous local authorities are not reliable (1, 2) to using the passive exonerative style (3) to reporting Israeli propaganda as it is commonly understood that Israel has no evidence for how many Hamas fighters it has killed (4) to reporting another Israeli lie as Israel controls Gaza through its blockade (5) to using Israel’s view of Hamas instead of the more accurate Hamas as military wing of Palestinian resistance (6) to featuring gratuitous and context-less comments (7, 8).  The actual context is decades of Palestinian resistance against a brutally oppressive and illegal Israeli settler-colonial occupation and apartheid, and not the ambiguous “conflict.” Reporting that animosity of Gazans toward Israel can be found in some of the featured Palestinians whose “lives ended” suggests…what?! The implicit narrative is this: Hamas is to blame, lots of the dead are Hamas or Hamas sympathizers, and those Gazans who cheered the Hamas attack on Israel are enemies and deserve to be killed.

Another embedded narrative comment with misleading omissions is posted near pictures of young dead people: Gaza’s isolation and its school system gave it an uncommon mix: an educated population with high poverty and unemployment rates. Many Gazans with strong credentials struggled to find suitable employment.

Despite Israel’s brutally smothering blockade that destroyed the economy of Gaza and allowed very few Gazans to leave for educational advancement, Palestinians have the highest rate of literacy and education in the world. Israel’s blockade created and maintains the high poverty and unemployment rates in Gaza. But, New York Times editors chose meaningless terms such as “isolation” and “uncommon mix” to create misleading obfuscations. Really, who writes this crap?

“Deaths of Gazan Children Likely to ‘Rapidly’ Rise Amid Aid Snarls, U.N. Warns

Delivering supplies into Gaza, especially the north, has taken on increased urgency as the United Nations has warned that many Gazans are on the edge of famine.” www.nytimes.com/2024/03/03/world/middleeast/gaza-aid-un-child-deaths-famine.html 

Geez, somehow Gazan children are dying “amid aid snarls.” Are you fucking kidding me!? AID SNARLS?! UN warnings about famine is Gaza began in late November in response to Israel’s total blockade of food and aid trucks since October 7^th while this headline appears to suggest a sudden urgent concern about famine.  Yeah, really, who knew?  

The latest examples of the astonishingly dishonest ‘NYTimes’ coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza.  The New York Times continues to set new records for dishonesty in its coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, including blaming the Palestinian victims of Israel's "Flour Massacre" for their own deaths. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/03/here-are-the-latest-examples-of-the-astonishing-dishonest-nytimes-coverage-of-israels-war-on-gaza/ 

And so the it goes with all the news that’s fit to print….