New York Times front-page photo-collage of dead children repackages anti-Semitic blood libel

Dear Friend of FLAME:

Though most New York Times readers would not likely have realized it, the dramatic, front-page, full-color photo collage of children killed in the recent Hamas-Israel war was a crudely repackaged version of a classic blood libel against the State of Israel and the Jewish people.

On May 28^th, after Israel ceased its defensive operations to stop Hamas rocket fire and ensure security for Israel’s citizens, the New York Times plastered a collage of 67 children’s faces who were killed in the recent conflict, under the title “They Were Only Children.”

A caption under each photo in the associated article described how each child died. The captions under 64 of the children perversely named Israel to be the cause of their deaths. The truth, of course, was quite the contrary.

Gaza’s terrorist-designated Hamas dictatorship, which started the fighting unprovoked by attacking Israeli citizens with thousands of rockets, determined the pace and intensity of the war, as well as the targets of Israeli retaliation.

While the Times insinuated that Israel chose to kill these children—and that Israel’s actions were unjustified at best and malicious at worst—in fact, every one of those 67 children died at Hamas’s hands.

Ever since the Middle Ages, Jews and Jewish communities around the world have been regularly accused of killing innocent non-Jewish children in a bloodlust or in the service of fantastical religious services. Over hundreds of years, such false accusations of murder have come to be known as anti-Semitic “Blood Libel.”

Unfortunately, these numerous ‘Blood Libels’—none of which were backed by a shred of evidence—resulted in oppression, mass murder and expulsion of Jews in various countries in Europe and the Middle East.

Such blood libels were used by the Nazis as propaganda for the genocide of the Jewish people. Even today, there are still many who hold this bizarre obsession with Jews lusting after the blood of non-Jewish children. According to historian Magda Teter, there are many websites and social media pages trumpeting these dangerous lies.

Despite the New York Times’ almost daily criticism of the Jewish state—and its decades-long tradition of siding with Israel’s enemies—the front-page photo-collage reinvigorated an anti-Semitic canard, and clearly crossed a line.

The Times’ editors no doubt justified this editorial attack on the morality of Israel and the Jewish people with the excuse that it “puts a human face on the conflict.”

Fair-minded people need to ask why, of all the bloody conflicts raging around the world, only the operation involving self-defense for the national homeland of the Jewish people was singled out for this graphically disturbing treatment.

Hundreds of thousands of people die in violent conflict and war around the world every year—19,444 died in Afghanistan and 19,044 in Yemen in 2020, to say nothing of tens of thousands more in Syria, Somalia and Iraq. Not one of these conflicts was deserving of a NYT front-page photo collage.

Moreover, the NYT collage project context deceptively hid the context of the children’s deaths. It did not mention the reason these children died.

According to Honestreporting, the context was buried: “Just minutes after the war between Israel and Hamas broke out, a 5-year-old boy named Baraa al-Gharabli was killed in Jabaliya, Gaza,” the opening sentence of “They Were Only Children” dramatically asserts. Only 20 paragraphs later do readers find out that Al-Gharabli’s tragic death “may have been” caused by a Hamas rocket that fell short.

IDF radar images show that some 15 percent of all rockets launched by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fell short inside Gaza, unquestionably killing and injuring many Palestinians inside the enclave. Initial research indicates that failed Palestinian rocket launches killed at least nine of the children pictured in Friday’s NYT. Still, the New York Times absolves Hamas of the responsibility for their deaths.

Furthermore, in an embarrassment to those who put the collage together, some of the photos were of children alive and well, while others were of those who Hamas claimed as part of their terrorist organization, even if they were only 17 years old. One of them, Khaled Qanou, was a member of the Hamas’ armed Mujahideen Brigades. This vital information was not mentioned anywhere in the Times’ disingenuous diatribe.

Finally, the images provide no clarification as to the remarkably low ratio of children’s and civilian’s deaths in Israel’s wars with Hamas. Colonel Richard Kemp, former Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, notes that a United Nations study showed “that the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in Gaza was by far the lowest in any asymmetric conflict in the history of warfare.”

Kamp states that this ratio was less than 1:1 and compared it favorably to the estimated ratios of NATO operations in Afghanistan (3:1), western campaigns in Iraq and Kosovo (believed to be 4:1), and the conflicts in Chechnya and Serbia (much higher than 4:1).

Kemp argues that the low ratio was achieved through unprecedented measures by the IDF to minimize civilian casualties, including warnings to the population via telephone calls, radio broadcasts and leaflets, as well as granting pilots the discretion to abort a strike if they perceived too great a risk of civilian casualties.

He also states that the civilian casualties that did occur could be seen in light of Hamas’ tactical use of Gazan civilians “as human shields, to hide behind, to stand between Israeli forces and their own fighters” and strategic use of them for exploitation of their deaths in the media.

None of this was mentioned in the New York Times front-page. It was a deliberate attempt to gain sympathy for the Palestinians and to tar Israel with the “child-killers” image. It met all “three Ds” of anti-Semitism: Delegitimization of Israel, Demonization of Israel and subjecting Israel to Double Standards.

I hope you’ll note to friends, family, colleagues and your elected representatives that so many of the modern accusations against the Jewish state are eerily reminiscent of ancient anti-Semitism, whether it is of secret Jewish power, global conspiracies about financial control or the age-old accusation of “child killers.” These medieval motifs are sadly alive and well, but must be called out for what they are. They are not criticism of Israel’s policies, they are simply old-fashioned, repackaged Jew-hatred.

I hope you’ll also take a minute, while you have this material front and center, to forward this message to friends, visit FLAME’s lively Facebook page and review the P.S. immediately below. It describes FLAME’s new hasbarah campaign—which exposes the dangerous folly of the U.S. trying to entice Iran back intro the failed “Iran Deal” of 2015.

Best regards,

Jim Sinkinson
President, Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME)