Tipsheet

What Was the New York Times Thinking Running This Op-Ed?

Spencer Brown
Spencer Brown  |  December 25, 2023 1:30 PM

In another tough break for the Gray Lady — one that's entirely self-inflicted — the New York Times found it "fit to print" an op-ed by the Hamas-appointed mayor of Gaza City. Unsurprisingly, the piece is as divorced from reality as one can expect from the Times' apparent attempt at pro bono public relations work for Hamas terrorists that killed more than 1,200 Israelis on October 7 and continue to shoot their own citizens when they try to access international aid deliveries. 

Beyond the obvious absurdity of the New York Times giving its platform over for use as a Hamas propaganda rag, several editorial choices make the op-ed by Mr. Hamas Mayor Yahya R. Sarraj even more glaringly horrendous. 

For example, the Times' editors chose to publish the claim that no "sane person" could do what Israel is doing. That is, working to stop the weeks-long barrage of rockets being launched by terrorists from Gaza and secure the return of Israeli hostages while preventing Hamas from ever launching another massacre. Apparently, the Times is fine promoting the idea that Israel should have watched as the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust unfolded and then...done nothing?

The only mention of the cause of the conflict comes with this absurd framing: "Israel began its war on Gaza in response to the deadly attack by Hamas," the mayor wrote. Ah yes, it was Israel that began a war, which is somehow not allowed, in response to merely a "deadly attack." That attack, of course, was the real start of the war — and it's an attack that remains ongoing as Hamas rockets fired from the mayor's neck of the woods target Israeli civilians. 

There's no mention of the barbarism of the Hamas attack, the war crimes, the horror, the abject evil of the terrorists' actions. As a mayor in Gaza, the mayor can't mention such vile actions. The New York Times could have, but they didn't either. 

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The Times also allowed the repetition of tropes claiming Israel is an occupying force despite not having a presence in Gaza for years since it unilaterally withdrew at the request of Gaza's terrorist government. In addition, the mayor cites data from the Gaza Health Ministry, another Hamas terrorist-run entity in the Strip — and the Times didn't add any note pointing out that such numbers are worthless and just another part of the Hamas propaganda playbook. 

The conclusion puts an exclamation point on the inanity of the op-ed's narrative. "Why can’t Palestinians be treated equally, like Israelis and all other peoples in the world?" the mayor wrote. "Why can’t we live in peace and have open borders and free trade?" he questioned. "Palestinians deserve to be free and have self-determination," he added. 

Does the mayor not know Israel — which has full equality, freedom, peace, and self-determination for its citizens when Hamas terrorists aren't threatening such values — has already achieved such things? Does he not realize that the Hamas terrorist government of which he's a part is the entire reason Gazans don't enjoy them? Of course he does, he's just hoping to pull another fast one on the fools who sympathize with Hamas barbarians instead of the Israeli women who were raped until their pelvises shattered or the Jewish babies who were slaughtered in their cribs. 

To seek "open borders" for Gaza would mean continued murder of Israelis. To have "free trade" would mean that Hamas would be fully armed to the teeth directly by Iran. If the mayor wants Palestinians to have better lives, he should be calling for and helping Israel end Hamas once and for all. But he's not doing that because he's on the terrorist take. 

It's worth noting that the same New York Times that is now running op-eds by government officials inside Hamas-controlled Gaza lost its ever-loving mind when U.S. Senator Tom Cotton was published in the paper. The staff uproar over the notion of publishing an American government official is apparently only reserved for Republicans and does not extend to the publication of screeds from Hamas propagandists.