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On Double Standards and Deafening Silence Bari Weiss
When I was at The New York Times, an op-ed by a Republican senator led to a crisis at the paper, and the longest editor’s note that I could remember. At least until the one that was published yesterday about the Gaza hospital bombing (more about that in a moment).
Let’s stick, for a minute, to the brouhaha of June 2020. Perhaps you’ll remember some of the details, like the fact that hundreds of colleagues signed on to a statement saying that Tom Cotton’s op-ed “put the lives of black NYT staffers in danger.” My boss—and the paper’s former Jerusalem bureau chief, James Bennet—was pushed out after being humiliated in front of the paper’s entire staff. His deputy, Jim Dao, was reassigned and ultimately left the paper. Adam Rubenstein, the talented young editor (and loyal friend of The Free Press) who had a hand in working on the offending piece, was scapegoated and resigned. And you know what happened to me.
I mention all of this because on October 17, The New York Times sent a false report to all of its readers that presented, as fact, Hamas talking points. It claimed that Israel had bombed a hospital, killing 500 people: “Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say.”
The headline was untrue on every level. The bomb was not Israeli, but a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket aimed at Israel that misfired. The bomb didn’t hit the hospital, but the hospital parking lot. Hamas claimed that 500 people were killed, but a senior European intelligence source told AFP he thought the death toll was under 50; U.S. intelligence estimates that the number stands between 100 and 300. And it wasn’t Palestinians that said as much to the Times, but the Gaza Health Ministry—which is run by Hamas.
There was no uproar at the Times in response to this journalistic malpractice—at least not in public. Perhaps some expressed their concerns privately, for fear of reprisal.
In the meantime, riots broke out across the world accusing Israel of genocide. Members of Congress, including Rashida Tlaib, broadcast this misinformation.
On Monday, six days after the fact, the Times finally published an editor’s note, saying “Times editors should have taken more care with the initial presentation, and been more explicit about what information could be verified.” I doubt that message reached the rioters in Tunisia who burned the Al Hammah synagogue to the ground.
Rep. Tlaib still hasn’t taken down her X post, which has 37.6 million views as of press time. Indeed, she is standing by it: the congresswoman said in an interview on Monday that “I cannot uncritically accept Israel’s denials of responsibility as fact.” (Astonishing that a sitting congresswoman takes the word of Hamas over the White House and Israel.)
Go back to Cotton. In the case of Cotton, there was not a single correctable error in the piece. Yet in the course of 48 hours, jobs were lost, and people were smeared and demoted simply for doing their jobs. (In fact, the piece, which argued for the legality of the deployment of national guardsmen to restore order in American cities, held up better than I would have thought—especially in light of the use of national guardsmen to quell the violent rioting in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.) In this case—publishing Hamas PR—has led the paper to issue a soft non-apology, lamenting that the story should have been presented more carefully.
How about maybe not at all until the facts are clear? How about not relying on Hamas propaganda? We think this story is so important because it’s become so familiar. The real question, as the war continues, is if news organizations like the Times will continue to take the word of Hamas uncritically.
Voices from Gaza
One of the biggest challenges for journalists covering this war is Hamas’s media blockade on Gaza. The regime controls on speech, and intolerance of dissenting voices, make it hard to get a proper sense of what ordinary Palestinians in Gaza really think. That’s why we’ve partnered with the Center for Peace Communications, an organization that has built a human network inside Gaza that can deliver honest testimony from ordinary Palestinians while protecting their identities.
In the first video in the series, we asked Gazan civilians what happens to international aid once it arrives in Gaza.
In the latest release, we ask Gazans for their opinions on the hospital blast last week that Hamas blamed on Israel but that subsequent evidence has shown was caused by a rocket fired from within Gaza.
Watch the video here:
In Other News. . .
→ More fun at The New York Times: Perhaps you’ve noticed the byline Soliman Hijjy in recent days connected to stories out of Gaza. Soliman Hijjy, it turns out, is a fan of Hitler.
“In a state of harmony as Hitler was during the Holocaust” he captioned a photo of himself from 2018. In 2012 he wrote “How great you are, Hitler” in Arabic alongside an image of Hitler.
The Times said in a statement: “We reviewed problematic social media posts by Mr. Hijjy when they first came to light in 2022 and took a variety of actions to ensure he understood our concerns and could adhere to our standards if he wished to do freelance work for us in the future.” We believe that people can change their minds, though we might draw the line at explicit adoration of Hitler.
→ WGA can’t condemn Hamas: The Writers Guild of America has decided to stay silent on Hamas’s October 7 atrocities while acknowledging that that decision would strike some of its members as “inadequate.” You bet it will.
WGA East says the decision follows a recent referendum in which members decided that leadership should “move away from public statements” that do not “direct involve our Guild, our industries, or the labor movement.”
Right. A “move away from public statements” from an organization that has weighed in on Asian-American hate and Roe v. Wade and “the cold-blooded murder of George Floyd” . . . and so on and so forth.
There have been some breathtaking examples of moral cowardice in recent weeks, but the WGA stands out for its ability to muster more outrage over AI-generated articles—they are “an existential threat”—than the mass murder of Jews.
→ Hogan dumps Harvard: Moderate Republican and former Maryland governor Larry Hogan has taken a stand against campus intolerance by announcing that he will not take up the fellowships he was due to start at Harvard next month. “I cannot condone the dangerous antisemitism that has taken root on your campus,” said Hogan in a statement Monday, adding that he hoped the move “may help further spur you to take meaningful action to address antisemitism and restore the values that Harvard should represent to the world.”
→ Mike Collins for Speaker! It’s hard to keep up with House Republicans’ attempts to pick a new Speaker after the defenestration of Kevin McCarthy a few weeks ago. Amid all the nihilistic ineptitude, we want to give Rep. Mike Collins a shout-out for lightening the mood with his tongue-in-cheek bid for the top job. Fed up with the impasse, he has announced a trollish run with a policy platform that includes: “Carmine’s for dinner at every conference,” “press releases out/memes in,” “no secret side deals,” and “no more having to listen to Frank Luntz at retreats.” We LOL’d.
→ Shaun King, Hostage Negotiator: Remember Shaun King, the identity politics grifter? Well, he’s back. And this time he’s single-handedly de-escalating the Hamas hostage taking. Or so he claims. In a very strange post on Instagram last Friday, King appeared to take credit for the release of two American hostages in Gaza, contending that he had “worked frantically behind the scenes” to make it happen. This, it seems, is a total fabrication. In a statement, the freed hostages’ family said: “Our family does not and did not have anything to do with him, neither directly nor indirectly. Not to him and not to anything he claims to represent.”
→ Samantha Woll, RIP: On Saturday morning, the 40-year-old Jewish woman and synagogue president was found stabbed to death outside her home. On Monday, the Detroit police chief said that the police did not think the killing was motivated by antisemitism. It is still under investigation.
→ Cashing in on the AI gold rush: While some of us are busy debating whether AI is going to lead to the annihilation of the human race, college kids are more interested in cashing in. The Wall Street Journal reports that more and more students are dropping out to follow their AI dreams. “It’s hard to focus on your homework when you’re thinking about how you could run all the factories in America,” says David Zhi LuoZhang, 20.
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Yesterday, U.S. officials arrested Ismael Zambada García, or “El Mayo,” cofounder of the violent and powerful drug trafficking organization the Sinaloa Cartel, and Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of its other cofounder. That other cofounder, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, or “El Chapo,” is already incarcerated in the U.S., as are another of El Chapo’s sons, alleged cartel leader Ovidio Guzmán López, and the cartel’s alleged lead hitman, Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, or “El Nini.”
In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland said: “Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.” El Mayo has been charged with drug trafficking and money laundering.
U.S. officials exploited rifts in the cartel to get Guzmán López to bring El Mayo in. The successful and peaceful capture of the two Sinaloa Cartel leaders contrasts with Trump’s insistence that the U.S. must bomb or invade Mexico to damage the cartels, a position echoed by Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance and increasingly popular in the Republican Party. Mexico, which is America’s biggest trade partner, staunchly opposes such an intervention. Opponents note that such military action would do nothing to decrease demand for illegal drugs in the U.S. and would increase the numbers of asylum-seekers at the border as their land became a battleground.
Trump seems to think that governance is about dominance, but that approach often runs afoul of the law. Today the Justice Department reached a $2 million settlement with former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who became the butt of Trump’s attacks after their work on the FBI investigation into the ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives. Trump’s Department of Justice released text messages between the two journalists. Today’s settlement appears to reflect that the release likely violated the Privacy Act, which bars the government from disclosing personal information.
Tonight, speaking to Christians at the Turning Point Action Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump made his plans to become a strongman clear: “Get out and vote. Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what: it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians…. Get out, you’ve got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again, we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”
This chilling statement comes after Trump praised autocratic Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán in his speech at the Republican National Convention last week and then publicly praised China’s president Xi Jinping for being “brilliant” because he “controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist.” It should also be read against the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s decision in Donald J. Trump v. United States that a president cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his “official duties.”
The Harris campaign reacted to Trump’s dark statements by ridiculing them, and him: “Tonight, Donald Trump couldn’t pronounce words [he mispronounced “landslide” as “land slade], insulted the faith of Jewish and Catholic Americans, lied about the election (again), lied about other stuff, bragged about repealing Roe, proposed cutting billions in education funding, announced he would appoint more extremist judges, revealed he planned to fill a second Trump term with more criminals like himself, attacked lawful voting, went on and on and on, and generally sounded like someone you wouldn’t want to sit near at a restaurant—let alone be President of the United States.
“America can do better than the bitter, bizarre, and backward looking delusions of criminal Donald Trump. Vice President Kamala Harris offers a vision for America’s future focused on freedom, opportunity, and security.”
Harris continually refers to Trump as a criminal in her speeches, but her campaign has taken the approach of referring to him and J.D. Vance as weirdos. On Tuesday, Minnesota governor Tim Walz said, “These guys are just weird.” Senators Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Brian Schatz of Hawaii recorded a video together about Vance’s “super weird,” “bananas,” and “offensive” idea that people with children should be assigned additional votes for each child, making their wishes count more than people without children.
As J.D. Vance continues to step on rakes, the “weird” label seems correctly to label the MAGAs as outside the mainstream of American thought. Today, Vance doubled down on his denigration of women who have not given birth as “childless cat ladies” but assured voters he has nothing against cats. In addition, a video surfaced of Vance calling for the federal government to stop women in Republican-dominated states from crossing state lines to obtain abortions.
Mychael Schnell of The Hill reported today that while MAGA Republican lawmakers like Vance, a number of House Republicans are bashing his selection as the vice presidential candidate. “He was the worst choice of all the options,” one said. “It was so bad I didn’t even think it was possible.”
“The prevailing sentiment is if Trump loses, [it’s] because of this pick,” another said, a sentiment that suggests Vance will be a scapegoat if Trump loses. Considering what happened to Trump’s last vice president after Trump blamed him for an election loss, Vance might have reason to be concerned.
Last night’s “Answer the Call” Zoom has now raised more than $8.5 million for Harris; the organizers thanked Win With Black Women “for showing us how it’s done.” Today the Future Forward PAC, which had threatened to hold back $90 million in spending if Biden stayed at the head of the ticket, began large advertising purchases in swing states for Harris.
Carl Quintanilla of CNBC reported that a week ago, those on a phone call of more than 400 people from Bank of America’s Federal Government Relations Team believed that a Trump victory was a “foregone conclusion.” Now that conviction is gone. “[T]here’s been a palpable sentiment reversal.”
The Harris campaign announced that it will launch 2,600 more volunteers into its ground game in Florida, a state where abortion rights will be on the ballot this fall, likely turning out voters for the Democratic ticket. The volunteers will write postcards, make phone calls, and knock on doors.
Today, Vice President Kamala Harris filled out the paperwork officially declaring her candidacy for president of the United States.
Notes:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/25/us/sinaloa-cartel-ismael-zambada-custody-report/index.html
https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/mexico-surpasses-china-us-biggest-trading-partner-exports/
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/10/gop-bomb-mexico-fentanyl-00091132
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/26/peter-strzok-lawsuit-settlement-00171498
https://www.vox.com/culture/363230/jd-vance-couch-sex-hillbilly-elegy-rumor-false
https://thehill.com/homenews/4793818-vance-vp-trump-house-republicans/
https://ballotpedia.org/Florida_Amendment_4,_Right_to_Abortion_Initiative_(2024)
X:
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Oh, no, it’s the sister again, for another slow news week. Let’s get to it.
→ Biden dropped out: Six years ago emotionally, but technically this past Sunday, Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. He did it via X and promptly threw his support (and cash) behind Vice President Kamala Harris. Then he got Covid and hunkered down in Delaware—or depending on what hooch you’ve been drinking, died and was reanimated so he could appear before the cameras on Wednesday to address the nation. Joe’s family, including Hunter, sat along the wall of the Oval Office as he spoke. The president talked about the cancer moonshot, ending the war in Gaza, putting the party over himself, and Kamala’s tenacity, as Kamala’s pistol dug ever-so-slightly harder into his back. Right after, Jill, the First Lady of passive aggression, who apparently wanted to outdo her heart emoji, tweeted a handwritten note “to those who never wavered, to those who refused to doubt, to those who always believed.” I respect a First Lady who stands by her man and her energetic stepson. A First Lady who sees the high road way up there and says to herself, “If they want us out of here so bad, they can clean out the fridge and strip the beds themselves!”
→ Kamala is brat, Biden is boots, please God send the asteroid today: I’ve learned the hard way—and by that I mean my parents once asked me what “WAP” meant—that certain things should never be explained with words. It’s not that it’s impossible, it’s just that it embarrasses everyone.
That’s how I feel about the whole Kamala-is-brat thing. Brat is a good album about partying and getting older and having anxiety that was released earlier this summer by Charli XCX. But it’s since been adopted by too-online and very young people as a personality, and by Kamala Harris’s campaign as a mode to relate to those very young people. Her campaign is leaning into the whole green look of the album to try and win over Gen Z, and generally recasting her many viral moments—“You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” “I love Venn diagrams” “What can be, unburdened but what has been”—as calling cards. It’s like when Hillary went on Broad City, only this time more cringe.
And now we have Jake Tapper and Greg Gutfeld grappling with the “essence” and the “aesthetic” and overall vibe of brat girl summer. We used to be a serious country. We used to make things.
Here’s the thing about Kamla: she is hilarious and campy, but unintentionally so. Any goodwill that her goofy dances or weird turns of phrase garner should be considered bonus points, not game play. Was there ever any doubt that Fire Island would go blue? We’ve been debating whether Kamala’s meme campaign is a good move for her prospects in the Free Press Slack, and here I’ll borrow from my older and wiser colleague Peter Savodnik: “There is nothing more pathetic than an older person who cares what a younger person thinks is cool.”
→ Boomer behavior: While Kamala’s campaign is being run by a 24-year-old twink with an Adderall prescription, J.D. Vance’s speechwriter seems to be a drunk Boomer who just got kicked out of a 7-11. Vance, appearing this week at a rally in Middletown, Ohio, riffed, “Democrats say that it is racist to believe. . . well, they say it’s racist to do anything. I had a Diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today, and I’m sure they’re going to call that racist too.” Crickets. Horror. Major “Thanks, Obama” energy. There was also a bit on fried bologna sandwiches and a lot of “lemme tell you another story.” The guy is 39 but sounds older than Biden.
Fresher, 35-to-60-year-old blood is exactly what we’ve been begging for. Let the Boomers boom, let the Zoomers zoom. Kamala and J.D.: act your age.
July 26, 2024 Heather Cox Richardson
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