New York Times Can’t Help Shilling For Terrorists in Poorly-Researched Piece on Hostage Deal

Following the news that Israel had struck a deal with Hamas that would see at least 50 hostages released in exchange for 150 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, The New York Times asked, “Who Are the Palestinian Prisoners Who Could Be Released in a Hostage Deal?”

However, if any readers thought they might actually find out who these Palestinian prisoners are, they would be mistaken — because the piece is extremely light on facts and heavy on conjecture.

The bulk of the article comprises quotes and information provided by a Palestinian NGO called Addameer, which the Times describes as a “Palestinian prisoners’ rights group.”

Perhaps not wishing to undermine the credibility of Addameer, the Times doesn’t bother mentioning that the group was proscribed by Israel in 2021 as a terrorist group due to its links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

And when we say ties to the PFLP, we mean a longstanding relationship that involves the two organizations sharing “staff,” such as infamous terrorist Khalida Jarrar, who was deputy director of Addameer’s board of directors until 2017 and served time in jail for terrorism offenses, and Mahmoud Jaddah, also on the board of directors, who perpetrated numerous terror attacks in Jerusalem, Hebron, and Tel Aviv.

.@nytimes extensively quotes the Palestinian NGO Addameer throughout an article on the Palestinian prisoners who might be released as part of a deal for Israeli hostages.

But it “forgot” to mention that Addameer is affiliated with the PFLP terror org.https://t.co/wqKRRMwTMQ

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 22, 2023

Because it’s Addameer and because the Times clearly couldn’t be bothered to even attempt a semblance of balance, the piece takes a conspiratorial tone.

For example, readers are told there are “700 people missing from Gaza who are believed to be in Israeli prisons, but information on their whereabouts is murky,” according to Addameer spokeswoman Tala Nasir.

Sadly, we have to take Nasir’s word for it on both the number of “missing” Gazans and the lack of information on where they’re being held because the Times  evidently has not checked the veracity of Addameer’s claim.

Indeed, the only bit of fact-checking the Times did, it seems, was to call IDF officials who said they had arrested 300 individuals connected to terror groups in Gaza, all of whom were taken to Israel for further questioning.

The paper doesn’t even attempt to explain the 400-person discrepancy between the two figures.

Furthermore, the Times is only too willing to swallow wholesale Addameer’s offensive assertion that Israel is currently holding 7,000 “Palestinian political prisoners,” including 2,000 being held in administrative detention, which Nasir claims are people “arrested for offenses that are related to political activity and free speech rather than crimes like drugs or violence.”

First, describing Palestinians who stab, shoot, and bomb Israeli civilians as “political” prisoners requires a complete redefinition of the word.

Second, it is a bald-faced lie that those held in administrative detention are there because of their online postings. Israel mainly uses administrative detention to hold individuals where there is clear-cut evidence they assisted, planned, or carried out terror attacks, or represent a clear and immediate terror threat.

Toward the end of the piece, the Times does reveal the identity of one of the Palestinian prisoners it promised to tell readers about in the headline:

The women in Israeli detention include Ahed Tamimi, 22, a high-profile figure in the West Bank who was sentenced to prison in 2018 for slapping an Israeli soldier. Israeli officials accused her of her posting hate speech online; her family said the post was not hers.”

Trust the paper to not mention the “hate speech” of which Tamimi was accused. If it had, readers would know that shortly after Hamas terrorists raped and murdered their way through southern Israel, Tamimi vowed to slaughter Jews, drink their blood and eat their skulls. This, she promised, would make Jews “say that what Hitler did to [them] was a joke.”

Lastly, Addameer’s documented links to the PFLP are not the only thing the Times failed to note.

A quick online search for the woman quoted extensively throughout the piece, Tala Nasir, reveals she also seems to have a bit of a soft spot for the PFLP, having posted messages in support of the terrorist group on her personal social media account.

But alas, it’s The New York Times, where shilling for terrorists is less of a shock than it should be.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

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