Toronto Against Fascism

** “Reporters” for The New York Times and Wall Street Journal Who Authored Incendiary Stories Have Ties to Israeli Propaganda Efforts** The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have both published major stories making grave, incendiary allegations that aided and abetted Israel’s lie-filled justifications for the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza. The substance of these stories, rooted in unsubstantiated/unverified narratives, has been the focus of intense public scrutiny because of questions surrounding their veracity. But there are also significant ethical questions involving some of the authors of these stories and their previous ties to Israeli propaganda efforts. Both stories were co-authored by anti-Palestinian figures posing as objective journalists. The NYT story “Screams Without Words” asserted there was a systematic, widespread rape and sexual violence program conducted by Palestinians on October 7. Among the issues with this story, which relied heavily on innuendo rather than documentable facts, is the family of one of the alleged victims disputing the accuracy of the Times piece and stating they were interviewed under false pretense for the story. For more on the scrutiny of this story, see: mondoweiss.net/2024/01/famil… theintercept.com/2024/01/28/… The co-author of the Times story, Anat Schwartz, has “liked” multiple tweets supporting genocidal actions in Gaza (she has since deleted her X account). Among these was a statement cited by the ICJ as a statement of possible incitement to genocide. Along with another co-author, Adam Sella, Schwartz pressured an October 7 witness into cooperating with the Times story, saying it was “important… to Israeli hasbara” (propaganda). Schwartz appears to have only started working as a reporter in November 2023. See here: nitter.gq/zei_squirrel/status/17… nitter.gq/lailaalarian/status/17… nitter.gq/talulasha/status/17477… The WSJ story “Intelligence Reveals Details of U.N. Agency Staff’s Links to Oct. 7 Attack” laundered dubious Israeli propaganda painting UNRWA, the most vital humanitarian organization operating in Gaza, as a Hamas front organization whose members directly participated in the October 7 attacks. The WSJ story served as a delivery service for Israeli allegations that even the US government now says it cannot confirm. This story was a crucial piece of propaganda employed to justify the gutting of UNRWA funding by the US and other governments. The co-author of this story, Carrie Keller-Lynn, served in the Israeli military with her close friend whom she credits for developing social media strategy for the IDF during the 2009 Gaza war. Keller-Lynn was also an anti-BDS activist while in university in the US. After photos of her in IDF uniform began circulating, Keller-Lynn locked her X account and previous articles and podcasts detailing her history and views were scrubbed from the internet. See here: nitter.gq/jeremyscahill/status/1… lithub.com/journalism-as-a-f… These are serious ethical issues, on top of the mounting questions about the accuracy of the stories themselves, that both the NYT and WSJ should publicly address. These publications have great impact on both policy and public understanding of this war. How do they justify allowing such figures to operate as supposedly independent arbiters of the facts? Contrast this situation—allowing anti-Palestinian figures to write consequential “news” articles, not opinion pieces, for major US publications— with the cases of Palestinian and Arab journalists, and journalists in general who have expressed sympathy for the plight of Palestinians, being told they cannot cover the war because of concerns about their objectivity. For a broader examination of the way Israel has engaged in a systematic propaganda campaign about the events of October 7 and beyond, see my recent piece, “Israel’s Ruthless Propaganda Campaign to Dehumanize Palestinians:” theintercept.com/2024/02/07/…