On Saturday, two separate Palestinian terror strikes in Jerusalem killed seven people and wounded scores more. On Saturday, the New York Times published an article that suggested Israel’s new right-wing government was “fueling” assaults.
Former United Nations speechwriter Aviva Klompas put it best on Twitter, noting that the newspaper was “describing the slaughter of Jews as a spasm of violence” and that Israel had arrived because of the people it picked.
Recently, on a Friday night in Jerusalem’s Neve Ya’akov district, a terrorist opened fire on worshippers as they were exiting the synagogue. One of the seven victims was a youngster. On a day of worldwide Holocaust remembrance, this occurred.
The terrorist, subsequently identified as Alqam Khayri, a 21-year-old native of eastern Jerusalem, was killed by police gunfire.
A father and son were critically injured the next day when a teenage terrorist opened fire on a gathering of Israelis outside of Jerusalem’s Old City. A young man on leave from the military among the group fired and wounded the terrorist.
The Times, as is its customary practice, has already drawn countless moral equivalences between Israeli and Palestinian actions. A Palestinian gunman opened fire outside a Jerusalem synagogue on Friday night, killing seven people. There has not been a worse attack on civilians in the city since 2008. Israeli forces carried out its deadliest operation in the West Bank in at least half a decade on Thursday morning, killing nine Palestinians, according to a statement released by Israeli authorities.
Seven of the nine Palestinians who were killed were members of the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad who were plotting a large-scale bombing strike, which isn’t addressed specifically but is implied. It’s parred for the course to compare the seven Jewish worshippers in Israel to the Times.
In its coverage of the Palestinian Authority’s announcement that it was cutting security ties with Israel in the wake of Thursday’s counter-terrorism operation, The New York Times equated Palestinian terrorists with “violent settlers,” claiming that the decision would allow “armed Palestinian groups and violent Israeli settlers to act unimpeded.”
The recent spike in Jewish vandalism and harassment of Palestinians in the West Bank pales in comparison to the terror from “Palestinian armed groups,” which has included bombings, shootings, knife attacks, car rammings, and missile attacks, the most recent of which occurred on Thursday night when terror groups in Gaza fired a barrage of rockets into Israel in retaliation for the earlier IDF raid.
The New York Times writes, “Amid Spasm of Violence, Israel’s Far-Right Government Raises Risk of Escalation,” arguing that terrorist actions “are not unique to this government’s tenure,” but that the current administration would “further inflame the situation.”
Next, the author addresses the “extreme” forces inside the new Israeli cabinet, singling out National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for the crime of pressing “to take harder action against Palestinians he deems a terrorist risk.”
The present administration is filled with radicals who were elected on themes that incite violence against Palestinians. The anecdote suggests that the escalating tensions have helped to motivate them rather than make them fearful.
Surprisingly, the Times gives little coverage to the opposite side’s scathing arguments. Hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets in the hours after the event, handing out treats, setting off fireworks, and shouting “Allahu Akbar!” in unison in towns across the West Bank and Gaza.
The Times editorial board is worried that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government will endanger Israel’s future.
This editorial’s assertion that the Times “has been a persistent champion of Israel” was absurd given the paper’s long history of anti-Israel bias, which includes whitewashing Palestinian terrorism, wrongly accusing Israel of war crimes, and printing apparent lies.