New York Times sparks outrage by running op-ed by Hamas mayor

Media

Israel war 2023

By Ariel Zilber

The New York Times ran an op-ed Sunday by Hamas’ handpicked Gaza City mayor — prompting outrage on social media from Israel supporters who slammed the Gray Lady for amplifying “Jew hate.”

The essay by Yahya R. Sarraj published on Christmas Eve comes amid fury over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s social media post that denounced Israel as a violent occupying force and likened Jesus to Palestinians.

Sarraj’s op-ed — titled “I Am Gaza City’s Mayor. Our Lives and Culture Are in Rubble” — condemned Israel for “caus[ing] the deaths of more than 20,000 people” and for destroying or damaging “about half the buildings” in the Gaza Strip.

The Times’s decision to grant a platform to Sarraj, who was appointed mayor of Gaza City by Hamas in 2019 after a career in academia, sparked an immediate backlash from many on social media.

“I wonder, would NYT also publish an op-ed from Al-Qaeda justifying 9-11? Of course not, but there is no red line to this paper’s Jew-hatred,” tweeted Arsen Ostrovsky, an International Human Rights lawyer who describes himself on X as a Zionist.

“Unbelievable. This is a Hamas-appointed Mayor,” another X user wrote, adding: “They slaughtered and raped their neighbors and have the nerve to represent themselves as victims?”

Others slammed Sarraj for ignoring the Hamas massacre that led to Israel launching its assault on Gaza.

“Literally a member of Hamas, you have no shame or dignity NYT,” wrote an X user.

Some did defend the Times for giving voice to Sarraj.

“As much as I know so many ppl are angry and upset that the @nytimes published this letter from the Mayor of #Gaza, Yahya R. Sarraj, it is imperative that we listen — whether we like it or not — to other voices,” wrote an X user with handle Keep The Stroke.

“But let’s be clear, Yahya Sarraj, was intricately aware of the tunnels being build under #Gaza. As we all know, Sarraj probably would have been killed and/or family threatened, if he didn’t tow the line. Either way Sarraj was complicit in what has befallen Gaza.”

The Post has sought comment from The Times.

Israel launched a massive military campaign in Gaza following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas gunmen which left around 1,200 soldiers and civilians dead.

Scores of Israeli soldiers and civilians also were taken hostage and remain in captivity in the Gaza Strip.

Times critics also pointed out that former op-ed page editor James Bennet was forced out after the paper’s staffers were outraged over his decision to green-light a guest column by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).

Cotton used the op-ed in the summer of 2020 to call for a forceful military response to crack down on rioting by Black Lives Matter and Antifa demonstrators in the wake of the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Bennet published a column in The Economist earlier this month in which he acknowledged that his former employer has a “liberal bias” that has “metastasized…to illiberal bias.”

He also wrote that the Times went “from an inclination to favor one side of the national debate to an impulse to shut debate down altogether.”