2023 photo of Gaza war damage via Wikimedia Commons
Poynter media columnist Tom Jones has a thorough roundup of how news organizations covered Israel’s killing on Sunday of six Al Jazeera journalists, observing that Anas al-Sharif, who was apparently the target, had predicted his death.
As Jones writes, Israel claims that al-Sharif had been actively involved in Hamas’ terrorist attacks. Al-Sharif had denied the allegation, and the killings were condemned by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which issued a statement saying, “Israel is murdering the messengers.”
Al Jazeera called the killings a “targeted assassination,” as they surely were. The right-wing Jerusalem Post ran a headline that said “Israeli military kills Hamas terrorist doubling as Al Jazeera reporter near Shifa Hospital,” claiming: “Documents shared by the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] included personnel rosters, lists of terror training courses, phone directories, and salary documents for Al-Sharif.”
Ironically, the Post’s story is attributed to its own staff and to Reuters, the international wire service for which al-Sharif shared in a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography in 2024.
The liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz runs a straightforward account of the killings. The Times of Israel’s live blog currently leads with a story about media organizations that have condemned the attacks as well as a statement by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer that he is “gravely concerned.”
CPJ reports: “With Sunday’s killing of six journalists, 192 journalists have been killed since the start of the Israeli-Gaza war on October 7, 2023. At least 184 of those journalists were Palestinians killed by Israel.”
I rarely write about the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza because I would be speaking mainly out of ignorance. Other than following news coverage, I have no more insight than anyone else. As with everyone, though, recent reports of mass starvation have left me horrified and appalled. The fighting between Israel and Hamas has to end. Israel must uphold international law by allowing aid to get through. Hamas must release the remaining hostages.
What moves me to write this morning is that I learned over the weekend that the International Rescue Committee continues to prove assistance to people on the ground. Mohammed Mansour writes in The New York Times (gift link):
I am a senior nutrition manager with the International Rescue Committee, one of the few organizations that is still able to deliver aid in Gaza. On a typical day, my colleagues and I screen hundreds of children for malnutrition at mobile clinics across the territory. We provide therapeutic food for kids who are at risk of starvation and counsel parents who are doing their best to care for their daughters and sons under unimaginable conditions.
More than 100 organizations have warned that “mass starvation” is spreading in Gaza. Not that journalists have any special claim to be exempt from that suffering, but it’s notable that hunger among reporters in Gaza has become so widespread that the Committee to Protect Journalists has issued an alert.
But this is about what we can do to help. To donate to the International Rescue Committee, just click here. I’m going to do it as soon as I publish this item.
The 1915 International Congress of Women in The Hague. Rosika Schwimmer is fourth from left. Photo via Wikipedia.
What is the First Amendment for? Quite simply, it is for protecting our right to express views that are unpopular or even offensive. There’s more to it than that, of course, and it’s not unlimited. But it surely is there to act as a shield for Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist who Donald Trump’s jackbooted thugs have arrested and who the administration is now trying to deport to — well, somewhere.
Khalil was involved pro-Palestinian activism at Columbia University last spring. As Philip Marcelo of The Associated Press reports, “The White House … claimed Khalil organized protests where pro-Hamas propaganda was distributed.” But Khalil also holds a green card, making him a permanent resident of the United States. Moreover, the First Amendment extends to anyone in the U.S., citizen or non-citizen, legal resident or undocumented immigrant.
Nearly a century ago, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. had a few things to say about another non-U.S. citizen with unpopular views. Rosika Schwimmer was a Hungarian immigrant, feminist and pacifist who sought to become a U.S. citizen. She was turned down because she refused to take the oath of citizenship, believing that it obliged her to take up arms if ordered to do so — notwithstanding the reality that, as a woman, she would have been exempt from military service.
Her case ended up before the Supreme Court, which, in 1929, on a 6-3 vote, overturned an appeals court ruling in her favor. Justice Holmes wrote an eloquent dissent that is still invoked as a defense of the First Amendment’s true meaning. He said in part:
Some of her answers might excite popular prejudice, but, if there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought — not free thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought that we hate. I think that we should adhere to that principle with regard to admission into, as well as to life within, this country.
“Freedom for the thought that we hate” is a concise and compelling explanation of why the First Amendment matters, and it’s a phrase that we’ve all heard over and over again. Anthony Lewis even made it the title of one of his books.
And it’s why Trump is acting illegally and unconstitutionally in holding Mahmoud Khalil for deportation. Khalil has not been charged with a crime. He has not been accused of providing material assistance to Hamas. Rather, he is being singled out for his political views. And let’s be honest — Trump is doing this in a deliberate attempt to rekindle left-wing activism on behalf of the Palestinians in order to harm Democrats, universities and anyone else who stands in the way of his authoritarian project.
New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg has called Khalil’s arrest the most significant threat to free speech since the Red Scare of the 1940s and ’50s. “If someone legally in the United States can be grabbed from his home for engaging in constitutionally protected political activity, we are in a drastically different country from the one we inhabited before Trump’s inauguration,” she wrote. And indeed, Trump has boasted that more arrests will follow.
Schwimmer, at least, was allowed to remain in the U.S. as a non-citizen. She eventually moved to New York City and died in 1948. Khalil’s fate has yet to be determined.
Writing in the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz, my Northeastern journalism colleague Laurel Leff raises some questions about a recent open letter signed by more than 50 journalism and communication studies professors calling on The New York Times to conduct an independent review of a December story on Hamas’ use of sexual assault as a weapon of war.
The story, “Screams Without Words: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7,” came under scrutiny after The Intercept reported that the Times had relied in part on a freelancer who had liked tweets advocating extreme violence in the Gaza Strip and that some of the harrowing details in the Times story couldn’t be corroborated. Leff, though, observes that a United Nations investigation found “clear and convincing information” that Hamas had raped and tortured Israelis on Oct. 7 as well as some of the more than 200 hostages it took, a few of whom it is still holding. She writes:
In this case, the gist of the story has held up; no clear evidence of journalistic wrongdoing has emerged, and the Times has exhibited some willingness to respond to criticisms. The professors calling for an investigation therefore seem more interested in joining an ongoing propaganda war, than in righting a journalistic wrong. That’s no place for a journalism professor to be.
Leff’s column is not behind Haaretz’s paywall, but you may need to register in order to read it. The Washington Post recently reported on the letter (free link), which you can read in full here. This is a fraught issue, obviously, and I urge you to read all the relevant documents, including the Times’ original story (free link) and The Intercept article.
Al Jazeera logo, with its code of ethics in English and Arabic. Photo (cc) 2009 by Joi Ito.
BBC News reports that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has followed though on longstanding threats to shut down Al Jazeera, accusing the Arab news service of acting as a propaganda arm for the terrorist group Hamas. As the story notes, though Al Jazeera is now off the air in Israel, it is still available through Facebook and other social media outlets. The Committee to Protect Journalists has denounced the action, quoting a statement from CJP Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna:
CPJ condemns the closure of Al-Jazeera’s office in Israel and the blocking of the channel’s websites. This move sets an extremely alarming precedent for restricting international media outlets working in Israel. The Israeli cabinet must allow Al-Jazeera and all international media outlets to operate freely in Israel, especially during wartime.
Al Jazeera has called the action a “criminal act” that “stands in contravention of international and humanitarian law.”
Shutting down Al Jazeera strikes me as an ill-considered move, not least because it will have little more than a symbolic effect. Al Jazeera is based in Qatar, and both it and Hamas receive some funding from the Qatari government. But Al Jazeera also enjoys a reputation for reliable journalism. Certainly it’s sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but that’s not a reason to ban it in Israel or anywhere else.
This commentary by Zvi Bar’el of Haaretz, a liberal Israel newspaper, notes that Arab governments, too, have closed Al Jazeera from time to time, adding that Israel should have held itself apart from that repressive attitude toward freedom of the press. He writes that “closing its offices cannot prevent or frustrate the network’s operations, which are aired in more than 90 countries and reach 350 million potential Arabic-speaking viewers and millions of English speakers worldwide,” and adds:
Al Jazeera may not be able to broadcast from its offices in Israel, but it doesn’t need offices in Tel Aviv or Ramallah in order to continue showing the world the destruction, death, and hunger in Gaza. It broadcasts this reality directly from the Strip, as it did when it reported from the field during the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or when it reported on the authoritarian regimes of Egyptian presidents Hosni Mubarak and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Saudi kings, and the draconian regime of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, before and after the Arab Spring revolutions. It did so even after these states shuttered its offices.
In the U.S., the National Press Club came out against the move as well. Here’s part of a statement by Emily Wilkins, the club president, and Gil Klein, president of the club’s Journalism Institute:
The decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to shut down Al Jazeera operations in Israel is the wrong one. It is wrong for the people of Israel, for the people of Gaza, for people in the West Bank, and for the rest of the international news network’s millions of viewers around the region and world who rely on Al Jazeera’s reporting of the nearly seven-month Israel-Hamas war. We fully support Al Jazeera’s decision to fight this in court.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who’s been an indispensable voice of reason since Oct. 7, has another must-read column (free link), this one urging Israel to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia rather than proceed with an all-out assault against the Gazan city of Rafah.
Protest in Tel Aviv against the Netanyahu government last June. Photo (cc) 2023 by RG TLV.
CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy wrote an important analysis last week about journalists who have been killed by Israeli forces in the the Gaza war. Citing figures from the Committee to Protect Journalists, Darcy observes that at least 95 journalists have been killed since Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel last Oct. 7, and that all but five of those journalists are Palestinian — the highest death toll for members of the press since CPJ began tracking such casualties in 1992.
In addition to deaths that might be attributed to the fog of war, there have also been killings that Israel carried out despite what appear to be clear indications that it was targeting media workers. Darcy writes that the United Nations recently finished a report showing that Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah had been killed in southern Lebanon after a tank fired at a group of “clearly identified journalists.” Israeli officials responded to the U.N. that it “does not deliberately shoot at civilians, including journalists.”
In addition, The Washington Post last week found that a Jan. 7 missile attack resulting in the deaths of two Al Jazeera journalists and two freelancers in southern Gaza may have lacked any military justification. The Israeli military claimed it had “identified and struck a terrorist who operated an aircraft that posed a threat to IDF troops” — but the Post found that the “aircraft” was a drone apparently being used for reporting purposes.
Darcy includes accounts of Palestinian journalists who have alleged been abused by Israeli forces as well — a topic that is the subject of a new report from CPJ, which “found multiple kinds of incidents of journalists being targeted while carrying out their work in Israel and the two Palestinian territories, Gaza and the West Bank” as well as the deaths of journalists’ families.
CPJ has posted an open letter signed by 36 leaders of top U.S. and international news organizations calling Israel to end its attacks on journalists. Among the Americans the letter are Julie Pace, the executive editor of The Associated Press; Mark Thompson, the chair and CEO of CNN; A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times; Sally Buzbee, the executive editor of The Washington Post; Kim Godwin, the president of ABC News; and Rebecca Blumenstein, the president of editorial at NBC News. Significantly, the international news leaders signing the letter include Aluf Benn, the editor-in-chief of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The letter includes this:
Journalists are civilians and Israeli authorities must protect journalists as noncombatants according to international law. Those responsible for any violations of that longstanding protection should be held accountable. Attacks on journalists are also attacks on truth. We commit to championing the safety of journalists in Gaza, which is fundamental for the protection of press freedom everywhere.
This weekend, as NPR reports, tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netananyu, calling for a deal with Hamas to release the more than 100 hostages the terrorist group is still believed to be holding.
The horrendous situation in the Middle East began with Hamas’ attacks, claiming some 1,200 lives and leading to Israel’s invasion of Gaza, which have killed more than 30,000 people, mostly civilians. Starvation looms. President Biden has been ever-so-slowly been backing away from the Netanyahu government, allowing a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire and the release of the hostages to take effect.
Israel’s targeting of media workers is a small part of a much larger picture — a horrendous problem that would seem to have no good solution. But let’s start with this: Journalists are the world’s eyes and ears. They need to be able to tell us what is taking place on the ground without fear of being killed.
Like many of you have no doubt been doing, I’ve been tracking a story about a possible massive failure on the part of The New York Times. It’s about a story the paper published in December headlined “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.” It is a harrowing and horrifying report on how Hamas terrorists sexually assaulted women in the most violent ways imaginable during their Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which claimed some 1,200 lives.
Parts of the story came under serious scrutiny on Feb. 28 in an investigative report published by The Intercept. It’s a complicated critique, because no one, including The Intercept, doubts that the terrorists engaged in sexual brutality. But the Times relied in part on a freelancer whose social media activity suggests that she is anti-Palestinian and who has little in the way of journalism experience. The Intercept has also called into question some key details in the Times story. The Times, it should be noted, stands behind its reporting.
The Intercept has also reported that the Times canceled an episode of “The Daily” concerning the sexual violence story after internal and external critics raised questions about its veracity. That, in turn, has led to an investigation inside the Times to determine who may have leaked that news. The NewsGuild of New York has accused the Times of targeting employees whose backgrounds are Middle Eastern or North African, which the Times denies.
This is a developing story. For now, I highly recommend this overview at Semafor by Ben Smith, which not only lays out the details but offers some valuable background and analysis.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, whose clear-eyed analysis of the widening Middle East war have been so valuable since Oct. 7, sat down with Ezra Klein for an hour-long podcast last week. Highly recommended.
I want to call your attention to what strikes me as a very odd poll that’s in today’s Boston Globe. A Suffolk University/Boston Globe/USA Today poll surveyed 1,000 New Hampshire voters and asked them about the war between Israel and Hamas. Support for Israel was high — 48.6%, with 15.8% supporting the Palestinians and 14.7% sympathizing equally with both sides.
But here’s the question that has me flummoxed: “When it comes to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, what do you think the US goal should be right now?” Take a look at the responses:
Respondents only got to pick one answer. Yet if a pollster had asked me this question, I would have answered “yes” to all four, with one caveat: I’d support a cease-fire only if it were accompanied by a demand that the hostages being held by Hamas be released simultaneously. Otherwise, provide military aid to Israel? Push for a cease-fire (and the release of the hostages)? Advocate for a two-state solution? Insist that Netanyahu step down? Yes, yes, yes and yes. I suppose the first two questions, calling for Israel to “eliminate Hamas” versus pushing for a cease-fire, are binary. But I’d have answered “yes” to both anyway because I support military aid to Israel and peace and justice.
I can’t imagine I’m alone in my thinking. Given that, I’m not sure that these polls results have any value. And I guess I’d have been with the 2.1% who refused to answer.
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