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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New York War Crimes

Palestine Coverage

How to Make a Genocide Disappear

The Times’ coverage of Israel’s most recent war on Gaza may be its darkest hour. Here, we break it down in detail.
March 14, 2024

Since October 7th, Israel has waged an indiscriminate war against the people of Gaza, murdering nearly 30,000 children and adults and destroying hospitals, schools, mosques, factories, and homes. This most recent assault on Gaza, which Israel had already been holding under siege for nearly two decades, has forced most of its surviving population to flee south to the city of Rafah, where they face mass starvation, the rapid spread of disease and a looming invasion. Israel's military and political leaders have openly and repeatedly declared that genocidal intent is driving the war.

If you’ve been reading The New York Times, you’ve heard a different story. According to this story, Israel has responded to an unexplainable attack by Hamas, a shadowy Islamist terror group, with proportional force. A story in which attacks on hospitals and schools are regrettable but necessary evils. In The Times’ surrealist account, the Israeli military stands on the front lines of feminism, queer rights and democracy. Hamas is to blame for the deaths of 30,000 Palestinians. The United States is a reproachful ally, not a calculating and enabling accomplice. A handful of Israeli hostages are worthy of dozens of tearful stories and op-eds, while thousands of Palestinians are kidnapped and tortured without fanfare. Even Israel’s widespread, targeted murder of at least 125 journalists — a horror that the newspaper, with its much-touted reverence for journalism, might be expected to take particular heed of — is rendered invisible.

Every choice The Times makes has serious consequences. What language does the paper use, and how does its language change when referring to different groups? What stories does it focus on, and what stories does it marginalize? How does it frame conflicts? What context does it provide — and what context does it obscure?

This section offers some answers to these questions through detailed analyses of The Times’ coverage of Israel’s most recent assault on Gaza. The close reading, data-driven investigation, and style guide in this section provide a line-by-line look at the way the Times has attempted to make a genocide palatable to the public.