NY Times Is Not Willfully Ignorant But Willfully Misleading About The Arab-Israeli Conflict

If one were to be generous about the many flaws in journalism today, one could argue that the media model is so broken that the companies can no longer afford to hire enough or high quality reporters. As such, the papers simply do not do the homework required to properly educate today’s readership which already has access to tons of information online but may not be able to locate, assemble or analyze the copious volume of data.

FirstOneThrough has criticized the anti-Israel bias of The New York Times and its latest reporter on Israel, Patrick Kingsley (who is actually much better than past Times reporters), including just a few days ago regarding President Joe Biden’s visit to the Middle East. In his article “In First Visit As President, Biden Will Find Changed Middle East Political Scene.” Kingsley placed blame for the failure of peace between Israel and Palestinian Arabs squarely on the shoulders of Israeli action, absolving the Palestinian Authority of any criticism. One might assume that Kingsley was ignorant about the sentiments of Palestinian Arabs, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, the political-terrorist group which governs Gaza. It would be both pathetic and generous to consider that the journalist covering Israel and the PA didn’t know that Palestinian Arabs poll themselves every three months.

Alas, there is a reason that many Zionists shun the New York paper and describe it as a pro-Palestinian propaganda rag, as revealed on July 16, 2022.

*New York Times article on July 16, 2022, page A8, which highlights select data from Palestinian polls (five red boxes with associated questions from June 2022 PCPSR poll)*

Kingsley clearly read the results of the June 2022 poll, as he cited the findings of six responses about the unhappiness of Palestinian Arabs. However, Kingsley refused to mention Palestinians preference for war against Jewish civilians and the rejection of a two state solution proposed by Biden, in other responses found throughout the poll.

While The New York Times cited some responses from a Palestinian poll about Arab unhappiness (such as Q49), it neglected to mention the various responses supporting violence (including Q47, Q48/5, Q51 and Q52, above)

Poll question 64 asked people in the West Bank and Gaza “Concerning armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel, I….,” a question which should be labelled a war crime. Outrageously, 25% strongly support and 27% support the idea – a majority of those polled.

The response to Q52 had 56% of Palestinian Arabs supporting armed attacks by Arab lone wolves inside of Israel. The response to Q51 showed that 59% of Arabs think that the lone wolf attacks “contribute to the Palestinian Interest in ending the occupation.”

The responses to many questions show that a majority of Palestinian Arabs favor armed attacks against Jewish civilians and reject a two state solution (Q42 has 69% opposing two states and Q45 has 69% opposing negotiations with Israel). But Kingsley opted to not cite any of those findings.

Instead, the article titled “Biden Gives Palestinians Funding and Sympathy, But No Long-Term Plans” ended with a quote that Biden “empathized with Palestinian frustrations. ‘The Palestinian people are hurting now – you can just feel it, he said‘” echoing the statistics of Palestinian unhappiness but not their thirst for blood nor the destruction of Israel.

While Palestinians openly tell of their desire for the destruction of the Jewish State and the murder of Jews, the mainstream media and polite politicians only can see Arab “frustrations.” It’s absolution via calculated omission, and a lethal form of anti-Semitism.