Why writers must boycott the New York Times

 

The New York Times is the paper of record and has played a key role in enabling the Gaza genocide. To hold the newspaper accountable, we must sever our ties —not only as subscribers or advertisers, but also as writers who lend the paper legitimacy.

In light of the current phase of ceasefire in Gaza — itself a misnomer given the many hundreds of Palestinians martyred since its formalization —  it is all the more important for those of us in the West to make sure institutions complicit in the genocide in Gaza cannot evade accountability for their actions. Such a holistic program of accountability, which includes countering denialism and the isolation of perpetrators, is not just an ethical obligation but a strategy for combating a culture of impunity that directly enables the Israeli state in its occupation and depopulation campaigns in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. A key enabler of the Zionist genocide is The New York Times. Hossam Shabat, one of at least 276 Palestinian journalists killed by Israel for exposing its crimes, put it best: “A reason we are still being bombed… is because of The New York Times and most Western media… The New York Times is complicit in this genocide.”

The so-called “paper of record” played a critical role in manufacturing consent for this genocide. Its coverage erased Palestinian resistance to decades of occupation and siege,  legimitated a debunked myth of systematic sexual violence on October 7th, sowed uncertainty around the Israeli military’s targeting of hospitals, bent syntax to avoid ascribing culpability for targeted assassinations, and helped establish the conditions for famine by undermining the Palestinian aid organization UNWRA and downplaying Israel’s continued siege of Gaza. Post-ceasefire, the paper is rushing to try to rehabilitate Israel’s image, just as it did back in 1982.

The Sabra and Shatila massacre damaged Israel’s reputation in the West much in the same way the intensified genocide of the last two years has. Israel slaughtered thousands of children and civilians in the Shatila refugee camp and the surrounding Sabra neighborhood of Beirut. The massacre threatened to break the Zionist narrative’s stronghold and expose Israel’s project of elimination. In its aftermath, Ronald Reagan called Sabra and Shatila “a holocaust” in a phone call with Menachem Begin, and demanded Israel end its campaign, echoing what Palestinians and Arabs had known for decades — that Zionism is Nazism. Terrified to lose their grip of their narrative in the West, Zionists rushed to establish media watchdog groups like the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA). Their mission was to paper over the truth of Israel’s crimes by pressuring outlets to issue “corrections” and adopt editorial standards that toe the Zionist line.

The current executive editor of The New York Times, Joseph Kahn, learned to read and analyze the news with his father, Leo, who sat on the board of CAMERA for at least 18 years. Leo was still on the board when his son was first hired at the Times in 1998. Kahn, the highest-ranking journalist in the paper’s newsroom, continues his father’s legacy of propping up Zionist lies under the banner of objectivity.  (more...)

Why writers must boycott the New York Times