> What the New York Times did was bad. Why they did it was worse. > WCNSF – the most haunting acronym the world has produced > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75605?t=23&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF> > > Sen. Raphael Warnock took to the Senate floor Wednesday night > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75590?t=2&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF> > to address the ongoing slaughter in Gaza, saying that he would be speaking > more as a pastor than as a politician, more to the people in harm’s way > than about the geopolitics. He delivered a brutal sermon all the way > through, but the part that landed on me like a sack of bricks was about an > acronym now being used by relief agencies and the surviving hospitals in > Gaza. > > Warnock said a prayer for 13-year-old Donia Abu Mohsen > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75591?t=3&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF>, > whose entire family was killed in an Israeli bombing. She herself was > wounded and had her right leg amputated. > > "There's an acronym used in Gaza, WCNSF: ‘Wounded child with no surviving > family.’ According to media reports, an estimated 17,000 Palestinian > children fall under that category,” Warnock said. > > That WCNSF number is also in constant flux, with new children being added > daily, and children being removed. Donia is no longer on that list. Israel > struck her hospital and killed her. > > Today, I want to talk about the role the media, and in particular the New > York Times, have played as an accomplice to the world-historic crime we’re > watching unfold. > > These are dark times. Israeli civilians have set up bouncy castles outside > the Gaza Strip fence – deep into territory controlled by the IDF – where > they are protesting the delivery of humanitarian aid to the besieged > enclave. “Get ready, there will be inflatables, cotton candy, and popcorn > and slushies,” said one festival organizer > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75592?t=4&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF>. > “We are preparing for the people of Israel, come.” > > Those carnivals go hand in glove with Israeli restrictions on aid entering > Gaza. The IDF has set up byzantine obstacles that require trucks to be > loaded and unloaded multiple times, leaving hundreds idling. At least a > thousand are needed every day and often fewer than a hundred get through. > The goal is starvation and disease and it’s working. This week, hungry > Palestinians waiting for a flour convoy were fired on by the IDF.” At least > a hundred were killed, some of them run over by tanks in unforgettable, > gruesome fashion. Itamar Ben Givr, Israel’s minister of national security, > praised the gunmen, saying they were acting in self defense, and that the > massacre simply shows that it is a mistake for Israel to allow in any aid > at all. Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy initially claimed that > IDF forces fired on the crowd in self defense, but later claimed they never > opened fire. Human rights groups and media organizations have confirmed the > flour massacre, as it’s become known, was carried out by the IDF. It > happened again > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75593?t=5&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF> > Saturday morning. > > How is the world allowing this to happen? One answer to that question > goes back to the shock and horror we all felt on October 7, when Israeli > civilians holed up in safe rooms or fled from a rave as Hamas broke its way > past Israeli defenses. As Warnock noted in his speech, 787 civilians were > killed > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75594?t=6&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF> > that day, along with hundreds of soldiers and security personnel, while > hundreds more were taken hostage. A day of horror. > > Anat Schwartz, a filmmaker who was later commissioned by the Times to > report on Hamas’s atrocities, liked a social media post that argued that > Israel should discard the idea of proportionality in its response to the > attack. “One principle that needs to be abandoned today: proportionality. > Need a disproportionate response,” the post read. > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75595?t=7&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF> > “Turn the [Gaza] Strip into a slaughterhouse.” > > One of the more heinous and unforgettable crimes on October 7 became part > of a video Israeli officials screened around the world in private showings. > A father and two children run to an outdoor shelter, but a militant sees > them and throws a grenade into it. The father is killed. “Why am I alive?” > one child cries as he is dragged back to the house. The man then casually > drinks water in their kitchen. The two children are eventually able to > escape amid an exchange of gunfire, but the ordeal will have forever > changed them. They’ll grow up without a father. The callousness coupled > with the attack on innocent civilians rightly shocked the world. In all, 36 > Israeli children > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75596?t=8&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF> > were killed that day, and many more were left orphaned or without one of > their parents. > > As the days went on, and October turned to November, the number of > Palestinian children killed by Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza > climbed into the thousands. Proportionality may have been discarded by the > IDF, but it still mattered to the world. Israel’s ability to continue > prosecuting the war could no longer be justified as a proportional > response. Global opinion was turning. Israel came under intense pressure to > reach a ceasefire deal in exchange for the release of the hostages. > > In order to change the equation, the attack on October 7 needed to be > understood globally in much different terms, Israeli officials recognized. > The degree of suffering by innocent civilians was no longer a helpful > comparison. > > The attack and the attackers needed to be understood as different *in > kind.* They needed to be understood as animals, as beasts, as Prime > Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet routinely say. So those Israeli > officials shifted focus from the number of Israeli victims, which by then > paled in comparison to those killed in Gaza, and instead talked about the > nature of the attack – specifically, the claim that Hamas had used rape and > sexual violence as a weapon of war. Animals. > > It’s important to contextualize that moment in time. In a recent article, > my colleague Jeremy Scahill, who also co-reported a piece with me this > week, put it this way > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/74974?t=9&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF> > : > > In late November, as the civilian death toll in Gaza climbed, Israel was > struggling to retain its dominance of the narrative. Global demands for a > ceasefire were mounting, and even some of Israel’s allies were expressing > horror at the indiscriminate killing of women and children and the > worsening humanitarian catastrophe. > > A weeklong truce, during which captives were exchanged, raised hopes that > a more enduring peace deal could be on the horizon, despite Israeli > insistence that that was out of the question. “A prolonged ceasefire that > allows more hostages to be released, and that evolves towards a permanent > ceasefire linked to a political process, is something we have consensus > on,” said the EU’s top foreign policy official Josep Borrell. > > Days earlier, the prime ministers of Spain and Belgium traveled to the > Rafah border to push for such a deal and drew the fury of the Israeli > government when they publicly condemned the indiscriminate killing of > Palestinian civilians. Eli Cohen, then the Israeli foreign minister, > accused the leaders of offering “support [for] terrorism,” while Netanyahu > released a statement condemning them because they “did not place total > responsibility on Hamas for the crimes against humanity it perpetrated.” > > Anyone can look back at Israel’s four-month war against Gaza and trace a > pattern: Israel chooses an issue and demands global attention to its agenda > at the expense of any other matter. > > It was at this moment that the Israeli government decided it needed to > remind the world of Israel’s victimhood and launched a new phase of the > hasbara campaign. It began accusing the international community of standing > silent in the face of what Israeli officials described as a widespread > campaign of rape and sexual violence aimed at Jewish women and orchestrated > by Hamas on October 7. By early December, the issue had become a major > focus of conservative media and Israel’s allies. > > The problem, though, was that Western coverage largely included the caveat > that Israel had not presented evidence that such assaults had been part of > a Hamas campaign, or that such attacks had been carried out on a large > scale. > > But on December 4, 2023, Israel rolled out a coordinated global campaign > to take the charge that extra step further: that Hamas itself deliberately > deployed rape as a weapon of war against Israeli women. The Israeli > ambassador to the United Nations joined Sheryl Sandberg at the UN > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75597?t=10&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF> > for a press conference launching the campaign. Sandberg also appeared on > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75598?t=11&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF> > CNN and wrote an op-ed > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75599?t=12&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF> > for CNN. Her criticism, and that of the Israeli ambassador to the UN, was > aimed in a bankshot way at feminist organizations. New York Democratic > Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who spoke alongside Sandberg at the event, > blasted the silence. “When I saw the list of women’s rights organizations > who have said nothing, I nearly choked,” Gillibrand said. “Where is the > solidarity for women in this country and in this world to stand up for our > mothers, our sisters and our daughters?” > > Feminist organizations were caught flat-footed. They didn’t know there was > a systemic campaign of rape they were supposed to condemn. The charge was > ludicrous > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/73415?t=13&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF>. > What women’s rights organization would stay silent on mass rape? > > Also on December 4, the New York Times published multiple articles about > Sandberg’s UN event, but the most important, for our purposes, was bylined > by Jeffrey Gettleman, Adam Sella, and Anat Schwartz. The story they > published December 4, “What We Know About Sexual Violence During the Oct. > 7 Attacks on Israel > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75600?t=14&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF>,” > paired quotes pulled from Sandberg’s CNN op-ed with the claim that Israel > had collected reams of forensic evidence that would prove the case. The > case seemed like a slam dunk. The next day, Netanyahu condemned women’s > rights groups for their silence, and Biden joined in that evening. > > But four days later, The Times appended a revealing correction to its > article: “An earlier version of this article misstated the kind of evidence > Israeli police have gathered in investigating accusations of sexual > violence committed on Oct. 7 in the attack by Hamas against Israel. The > police are relying mainly on witness testimony, not on autopsies or > forensic evidence.” > > We now know that the trio had begun work on an investigation into sexual > assault not long after the attack of October 7. The Times published its > full, blockbuster article at the end of December, leaving the strong > impression that after months of reporting, they’d been able to confirm the > Israeli allegations. The story, called “Screams Without Words > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75601?t=15&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF>,” > took the allegations beyond the level of rumor and firmly implanted the > idea in the public consciousness that Hamas had used rape as a weapon of > war. These were animals. > > A story we published at The Intercept this week > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75477?t=16&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF> > calls into question the reporting behind that article. Our story is based > heavily on an interview Schwartz gave in Hebrew on a podcast produced by > Israel’s Channel 12. Because Schwartz was new to investigative journalism, > she may not have understood how much she was giving away in that interview. > > Schwartz and her partner’s nephew, Sella, began their investigation where > one would expect, by calling around to the designated “Room 4” facilities > in 11 Israeli hospitals that examine and treat potential victims of sexual > violence, including rape. “First thing I called them all, and they told me, > ‘No, no complaint of sexual assault was received,’” she recalled in the > podcast interview. “I had a lot of interviews which didn’t lead anywhere. > Like, I would go to all kinds of psychiatric hospitals, sit in front of the > staff, all of them are fully committed to the mission and no one had met a > victim of sexual assault.” > > The next step was to call the manager of the sexual assault hotline in > Israel’s south, which proved equally fruitless. The manager told her they > had no reports of sexual violence. Schwartz described the call as a “crazy > in-depth conversation” where she pressed for specific cases. “Did anyone > call you? Did you hear anything?” she recalled asking. “How could it be > that you didn’t?” > > As Schwartz began her own efforts to find evidence of sexual assault, the > first specific allegations of rape began to emerge. A person identified in > anonymous media interviews as a paramedic from the Israeli Air Force > medical unit 669 claimed he saw evidence that two teenage girls at Kibbutz > Nahal Oz had been raped and murdered in their bedroom. The man made other > outrageous claims, however, that called his report into question. He > claimed another rescuer “pulled out of the garbage” a baby who’d been > stabbed multiple times. He also said he had seen “Arabic sentences that > were written on entrances to houses … with the blood of the people that > were living in the houses.” No such messages exist, and the story of the > baby in the trashcan has been debunked. The bigger problem was that no two > girls at the kibbutz fit the source’s description. In future interviews, he > changed the location to Kibbutz Be’eri. But no victims killed there matched > the description either, as Mondoweiss reported. > > After seeing these interviews, Schwartz started calling people at Kibbutz > Be’eri and other kibbutzim that were targeted on October 7 in an effort to > track down the story. “Nothing. There was nothing,” she said. “No one saw > or heard anything.” > > I’d encourage you to read the full story > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75477?t=17&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF> > if you haven’t yet. What it shows is that when the reporters were unable to > find confirmation for their tips or suspicions, despite scouring the > country, the article then relies on anonymous Israeli officials and/or > dubious, discredited sources. The resulting article reads with certainty > that never existed. In the two months since, Israel has turned a desperate > situation into an apocalyptic one – relying, in large part, on the media’s > ability to dehumanize the Palestinians being put to death. > > In the first bit of not-completely-awful news in a very long time, the > flour massacre seems to have nudged the Biden administration into action. > The White House on Saturday joined Jordan in air dropping food into Gaza, > which gets around the Israeli blockade, just as the U.S. did when the > Soviet Union blockaded Western Germany. It is too late for many, but that’s > no reason to give up on the millions still struggling to survive. > > Six Democrats just returned from a trip to Israel, and put out a rather > remarkable joint statement > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75602?t=18&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF>. > Among them is Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations > Committee and a longtime AIPAC ally. “We are deeply worried that Prime > Minister Netanyahu is moving toward the total destruction of Gaza and has > demonstrated an utter disregard for Palestinian lives,” they write. If > that’s not effectively an endorsement of South Africa’s charge of genocide, > I don’t know what is. > > The cynical response of the New York Times to our reporting has been > dispiriting. The paper, instead of investigating its reporting process and > product, has launched > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75603?t=19&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF>a > leak investigation to find our sources. According to the Times union, the > leadership is disproportionately interrogating Middle Eastern and North > African staffers, and especially ones who used proper channels to critique > the coverage. > > The Times is making same bigoted mistake the Biden campaign made in > Michigan, assuming it is only Arabs who are horrified by the genocide. As > the “uncommitted” vote in Michigan showed > <https://join.theintercept.com/go/75604?t=20&utm_source=Ryan+Grim+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=8823%2E13502%2EKuENxF>, > the revulsion is universal. We are all in this together. >
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