We know the truth. “Israel,” for a year, has been committing an accelerated genocide of the Palestinian people. Israel now is expanding its genocidal war to Lebanon. “Israel” is a death cult. But death is profitable. The so-called United States of America — a nation fatally empowered by accumulation, exploitation, and conquest — has backed this cadaverous entity to the fullest extent. It is the U.S. government that supplies the missiles raining down on Rafah and Deir al-Balah, incinerating whole families in their tents, turning safe zones into mass graves. It is the U.S. president who signs off on the use of 2,000-pound bombs in the suburbs of Beirut. And it is the U.S. media that endorses and seeks to normalize these unearthly horrors.

In the pages of The New York Times, Zionist massacres are presented as “targeted assassinations,” cold-blooded slaughter is presented as “counter-terrorism,” and ethnic cleansing is presented as “self-defense.” (Massacre, slaughter, and ethnic cleansing are just three of the terms that The Times’s style guide prevents reporters from using to describe the genocidal conditions in which over two million Palestinians exist. Apparently, it is only when Palestinians dare to resist their annihilation that words like slaughter are appropriate.) The so-called ‘paper of record’ is a mouthpiece for empire, amplifying lies and distorting reality in order to shore up America’s psychic and material investments in colonialism and occupation.

Divestment begins with an accounting of what we owe. “I claim responsibility for the Israeli crimes against humanity,” June Jordan wrote in 1982, “because I am an American and American monies made these atrocities possible.”

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“All the Consent That’s Fit to Manufacture”

New York War Crimes

New York War Crimes

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Introducing The New York War Crimes website and a call to action
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Photo by Mohammed Zaanoun.
March 14, 2024

Every issue of The New York Times starts with a promise: “All the News That’s Fit To Print.”

That is a lie twice over. First, far from “all,” the paper hardly prints any of the news that’s fit to print, electing instead to spread disinformation by omission. Second, their “news” is often not news, but barefaced propaganda for imperial barbarism. We say that The Times is a weapon of U.S. imperialism. We say that by propagating Israel’s lies about that imperialism, The Times is waging war on the people of Gaza.

The weapons they use are manifold.

There are the systematic, willful, pernicious omissions. The failure to situate events within their historical context. The failure to criticize — or even scrutinize — claims put forward by the American and Israeli governments, however obviously dubious they may be. The failure even to name the place they are covering: Palestine.

Then there are the lies they do tell — the fabrications, the half-truths, the thinly veiled propaganda put forward as hard-hitting reporting. Fabricated stories of systematic mass rapes are used to justify the current Zionist genocide against Gaza, just as lies about yellowcake uranium and aluminum tubes paved the way for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The Times is not unique among media in manufacturing consent for war, for exploitation, for genocide. It is, rather, exemplary. Indeed, perhaps the deadliest weapon of all is The Times’ sense of its own importance, its self-appointed role as the arbiter of what counts as good journalism. If The Times says it, it must be true; if they print it, it must be fit to print. The Times’ reputation for liberalism, for rigor, for non-partisan independence is precisely what makes it so dangerous, because it hides what it really is: media that serves the interests of U.S. imperialism.

The material on this site presents a comprehensive dossier on The Times’ malfeasance. We focus, of course, on its present role in fomenting genocide against the Palestinian people, whether through its selective coverage, its abuses of language, or its outright fabrications.

But now is not the first time that The Times has played such a role and nor, if they are not stopped, will it be the last. Some of these histories, like its hand in starting the Iraq War, may be familiar. Others will perhaps be less well-known, but are equally egregious: Libya, Guatemala, Brazil, Iran . . .

We are not the first to indict The Times. Others have come before us, and some have agreed to contribute their singular voices to this project. The Times has marched in lockstep with empire for decades, creating formidable enemies, from Ghassan Kanafani to ACT UP, along the way.

Now is the time to act.

Boycott. Those who believe in a free Palestine have long refused to buy products from American companies that make weapons for Israel. For exactly the same reason, we boycott all the offerings of The New York Times. We do not share their articles or listen to their podcasts. We do not cook their recipes or read their newsletters. We do not play their games.

Divest. Those of us who write refuse to contribute to the The Times. When The Times asks for quotes, we turn them down. We divest ourselves of the notion that they either deserve or bestow merit.

Unsubscribe. If you read The Times, stop. If you still subscribe to The Times, cancel your subscription. Write the editors an email telling them why you’re boycotting, divesting, and unsubscribing. Use one of our templates or get creative.



P.S. If you work for The Times, we urge you to quit your job. It will feel great. If you can’t quit, help us from the inside by leaking us information, anonymity guaranteed: wawog@proton.me.