Buried Then and Now: The New York Times’ Enduring Disdain for the Jewish State

By: Fern Sidman

In May 2024, The New York Times quietly appended an editors’ note to a widely shared story on malnutrition in Gaza. The note disclosed that the emaciated toddler profiled in the article, whose image had sparked a viral campaign to condemn Israel’s blockade, was in fact suffering from serious pre-existing health conditions. The clarification came too late for critics who accused the newspaper of stoking anti-Israel sentiment through incomplete and emotionally manipulative reporting.

The Algemeiner quickly spotlighted the discrepancy and labeled the initial portrayal as a “distortion crafted for propaganda.” Israeli officials were even blunter. “A lie went viral,” posted Israel’s Foreign Ministry. “A child’s illness was twisted into a blood libel.”

For many observers, however, the problem wasn’t just the Gaza report. It was the culmination of an institutional pattern that spans generations — one that critics argue has defined The New York Times’ approach to Jews and the Jewish state since the 1930s. From its neglect of the Holocaust to its persistent editorial hostility toward modern-day Israel, the Times has long faced accusations of marginalizing Jewish suffering, erasing Jewish identity, and vilifying Jewish self-defense.

In her landmark 2005 book “Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper,” Northeastern University professor Laurel Leff cataloged, with forensic precision, The New York Times’ profound failure to inform the American public about the Nazi genocide of the Jews.

Despite access to early and credible information from Jewish organizations, diplomats, and war correspondents, the Times relegated coverage of the Holocaust to its interior pages. Leff documented that of the 24,000 stories published on World War II between 1939 and 1945, fewer than 1,200 mentioned Jews as victims of Nazi persecution — and of those, only 26 made the front page.

Even the Times’ coverage of the “Final Solution” — the systematic annihilation of Europe’s Jews — buried the specifics. A 1942 dispatch about mass killings in Poland appeared on page 10 and referred obliquely to “deportations and mistreatment,” without emphasizing the explicitly Jewish identity of the victims. As Leff concluded: “The Times did not so much suppress news of the Holocaust as it did bury it — under garden parties, sports scores, and war bulletins stripped of moral urgency.”

At the heart of the editorial policy was Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the paper’s publisher and a Reform Jew staunchly opposed to Zionism. Sulzberger believed that emphasizing Jewish identity — even in the face of unprecedented catastrophe — would compromise Jewish assimilation in America. His ideological convictions shaped the Times’ editorial tone, diminishing Jewish distinctiveness in a period when visibility might have galvanized public action.

The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 marked a turning point for world Jewry — but not for the Times. While the paper recognized Israel’s independence and reported on its early struggles, its editorial tone was frequently skeptical and, at times, adversarial.

In the 1950s and 1960s, The Times often portrayed Israel as a geopolitical irritant — an agitator whose military posture endangered regional peace. During the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel fought off the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, The Times cast doubt on the existential threat facing the Jewish state and warned against “Zionist overreach” in its editorial pages.

This tendency persisted through subsequent wars. In 1973, as Israeli forces suffered surprise attacks on Yom Kippur, The Times’ coverage largely omitted the coordinated Arab war plan and emphasized calls for Israeli restraint. Critics argue that the tone increasingly detached Jewish history from Jewish sovereignty — as if Israel were simply another occupying power, indistinct from any colonial regime.

Perhaps no individual columnist has shaped The New York Times’ coverage of Israel more than Thomas L. Friedman, the paper’s long-serving foreign affairs writer and former Jerusalem bureau chief. A three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Friedman is admired in elite media circles for his lucid style and global insights. But to critics, Friedman exemplifies the paper’s contemptuous posture toward Israel.

Friedman’s columns routinely cast Israeli leaders — both conservative and centrist — as obstructionist, corrupt, or driven by “messianic” delusions. He has accused Israel of acting as a “spoiled child” and suggested that American politicians applaud Israeli leaders only due to pressure from the “Israel lobby.” In a particularly controversial 2011 column, he wrote: “I hope that Israel’s Prime Minister understands that standing ovations in Congress are bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”

Jewish commentators denounced the remark as a modern antisemitic trope — the insinuation that Jewish money controls American politics. According to an editorial, such language “could have come from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” and that its appearance in America’s most influential newspaper lent it an air of credibility.

Friedman’s insistence on linking Israeli policy to American Jewish power — without applying similar logic to any other foreign ally — has drawn sustained rebuke. Despite mounting criticism, the Times has stood by him, further deepening the perception of institutional hostility.

Over the decades, The New York Times has developed a reputation for applying double standards to its reporting on Israel and its neighbors. The most glaring example, critics say, lies in the paper’s repeated treatment of Israeli claims with skepticism, while accepting Palestinian or Hamas-sourced allegations at face value.

This pattern was evident during the 2002 “Jenin Massacre” hoax, in which Palestinian officials falsely claimed that Israel had killed hundreds of civilians in the city located in Judea and Samaria. The Times echoed the claims in early reports, later issuing quiet corrections when the United Nations found that the death toll was fewer than 60 — nearly all of them combatants.

In 2014 and 2021, during escalations in Gaza, The Times led its coverage with images of Palestinian casualties — particularly children — while burying details about Hamas rocket fire, use of human shields, and weapons stored in schools and hospitals. There are numerous examples of how the paper’s Gaza coverage omits Hamas’ internal repression and focuses disproportionately on Israeli airstrikes, often without clarifying whether targets were military or civilian.

Even the paper’s terminology has drawn scrutiny. In its style guide, The Times avoids referring to Hamas as a “terrorist” group — despite the designation by the United States and European Union. In contrast, Israeli defensive actions are often described with words like “retaliation,” “aggression,” or “assault,” while Palestinian attacks are couched in euphemisms such as “clashes,” “militants,” or “uprisings.”

The 2024 article about Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, a malnourished child in Gaza, was widely cited as proof of famine in the enclave — and implicitly, as evidence of Israeli culpability. The story was accompanied by a harrowing photograph of the emaciated child and used by advocacy groups to press for sanctions and diplomatic pressure against Israel.

Yet just days later, The New York Times issued a correction: the child had pre-existing medical conditions that contributed to his condition. No mention was made of Hamas’ control of aid distribution, or Israel’s claim — supported by video footage — that thousands of trucks laden with food and medicine had been blocked by the Iranian-backed terrorists or diverted to fighters.

As The Algemeiner reported, the damage had already been done. The image circulated widely across social media and was used by politicians and influencers to vilify Israel. For those who had studied The Times’ editorial history, the pattern was all too familiar: sensationalism on page one, followed by quiet retractions in the margins.

It is not simply that The New York Times has failed Jews at critical moments in history — though that argument is compelling. It is that the paper has repeatedly framed Jewish sovereignty, survival, and self-defense as suspect motives. From the Holocaust years through modern Gaza conflicts, critics say, the Times has treated Jewish suffering as marginal and Jewish assertiveness as dangerous.

Why does this matter? Because The New York Times is not just a newspaper — it is America’s media arbiter. Its reporting sets the tone for other outlets, influences policymakers, and shapes public opinion. When it misrepresents the causes of conflict, or omits critical context, it doesn’t just distort the news. It distorts history.

As was stated in a recent editorial: “The damage wrought by the Times’ bias isn’t limited to the Jews. It is a disservice to truth, and a betrayal of journalism itself.”

Today, the stakes could not be higher. With antisemitism rising globally, misinformation about Israel proliferating, and social media accelerating the reach of every headline, the responsibility of major news institutions is enormous. And yet, critics argue, The New York Times has shown little appetite for institutional self-examination.

There have been moments of introspection. The editors’ note on the Gaza child story, while late, was a tacit acknowledgment that context had been sacrificed. But for many, it was too little — and far too late.

The question remains: Will The New York Times confront its legacy of distortion and double standards? Or will it continue to bury not just the truth about Israel, but the very principles of fairness and accountability upon which journalism claims to stand?

Until then, the legacy of “buried by the Times” lives on — not as history, but as headline.