NY Times questions whether Iran will 'live up to its fiery rhetoric' and 'destroy Israel'
The New York Times is facing intense backlash for a report focusing on whether Iran will "live up to its fiery rhetoric" and follow through with its vow to "destroy Israel."
The Times suggested Iran was at a crossroads, running the headline, "After Years of Vowing to Destroy Israel, Iran Faces a Dilemma."
"With Israel bent on crushing Iran’s ally Hamas, Tehran must decide whether it and the proxy militias it arms and trains will live up to its fiery rhetoric," The Times report said Wednesday.
The report noted that despite "more than four decades" of deadly threats from Iranian rulers towards the Jewish State, "Iranian officials are publicly signaling they do not want a full-scale war" as Israel implements its response to the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Gaza.
"The military capabilities of its allies could be significantly diminished by a protracted battle with Israel, and even more so if the U.S. military enters the fray," the article said. "The Islamic Republic views the militias as its extended arms of influence, able to strike while affording Tehran a measure of deniability. They give Iran leverage in international negotiations and a means of tilting the balance of power in the Middle East away from archenemies like Israel and the United States, and rivals like Saudi Arabia."
The report continued, "But if Iran does nothing, its fiery leaders risk losing credibility among constituents and allies. Some Iranian hard-line conservatives have questioned why Iran’s actions are not matching its rhetoric to 'free Al Quds,' or Jerusalem, from Israel’s rule. Many supporters of Iran’s government have even symbolically signed up as volunteers to be deployed to Gaza and fight Israel. Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi militia in Yemen have launched recent attacks on Israel, but they have been limited in scope. The goal, for now, is not all-out war but to keep Israel’s military under pressure, possibly limiting its ability to wage war against Hamas, the people familiar with Iran’s strategy said."
Critics bashed The Times' report on social media, accusing the paper of attempting to goad Iran into finishing its goal to annihilate Israel.
"What in the name of all that’s holy is this??" National Review senior writer Noah Rothman reacted. "What’s the dilemma here exactly? Will its terrorist proxies ‘live up to' their ‘fiery rhetoric’ by killing many, many more Jews? Like they said they would? WTF?"
"Are… are y’all daring them?" The Lafayette Co. president Ellen Carmichael asked The Times.
"In case people haven't noticed, whatever little professional guardrails remained at The NY Times are gone. That was the whole point behind firing editors of the Cotton op Ed and the slack struggle sessions," Versus Media podcast host Stephen L. Miller wrote.
"NYT: poor beleaguered Iran faces their own heartbreaking Sophie's Choice," conservative commentator David Burge quipped.
The Times didn't immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.
The New York Times has been under fire for its coverage of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
On Oct. 7, as the murder of over 1,400 Israelis was being committed by the terrorists, the Times quickly shifted the victimhood with a story titled, "Gaza Has Suffered Under 16-Year Blockade," telling readers in its opening paragraph, "For some Gazans, Saturday morning’s surprise Palestinian attack into southern Israel seemed a justified response to a 16-year Israeli blockade," despite the fact that Israel withdrew its presence from Gaza in 2005 and Hamas began controlling its government two years later.
The Times was widely panned over its botched coverage of the explosion that occurred at Gaza's Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, running Hamas' narrative that Israel bombed the building through an airstrike killing over 500 civilians. Subsequent reporting and intelligence found it was an explosion in the hospital's parking lot stemming from a misfired rocket fired by Hamas ally Islamic Jihad, resulting in a death toll a fraction of what the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health had first alleged.
The following week, The Times published an editor's note admitting it relied "too heavily" on Hamas' word.
Also raising eyebrows was The Times' decision to rehire a freelance Palestinian videographer Soliman Hijjy, who has been contributing to the paper's coverage of the current war but was exposed last year for repeatedly praising Hitler on social media.
At the time, a spokesperson for The Times said it was looking into Hiijy's social media posts. But now the paper is defending its rehiring of Hijjy, telling Fox News Digital, "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. Mr. Hijjy followed those steps and has maintained high journalistic standards. He has delivered important and impartial work at great personal risk in Gaza during this conflict."
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