Three days after the third anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 massacre, The New York Times devoted its dominant front-page photograph and two full inside pages to the “hopes” and aspirations of Gazans. There were weddings, swimming, barbershops, reopened businesses and families trying to rebuild their lives amid the rubble.
It was a touching portrait of ordinary dreams – at least for normal people in the western world. But what about the extraordinary support among Gazans for killing Israeli civilians that preceded the war?
In June 2022, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 73% of Gazans supported armed attacks inside Israel similar to those had been recently carried out. Fifteen months later, Hamas invaded Israel, slaughtered civilians, kidnapped families and celebrated the massacre. By March 2024, five months into the war and amid Gaza’s devastation, 71% of Gazans still considered Hamas’s decision to launch October 7 correct, according to the same polling organization.
These were majority attitudes, measured before the massacre and after its consequences became devastatingly clear.
Hamas is Gaza’s government, controlling the territory since 2007. It operated ministries, schools, police and security forces alongside its military apparatus. It is Gaza’s political life. Before October 7, PCPSR polling showed Hamas leading Fatah in hypothetical Palestinian parliamentary voting and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh defeating Mahmoud Abbas in a two-candidate presidential contest. Hamas continues to lead Fatah, which is why PA President Mahmoud Abbas continues to delay elections.
Yet the Times’ sprawling photographic treatment of Gaza’s aspirations ignored the genocidal ideology that permeates Gaza and helped produce October 7. The newspaper deliberately failed to show what Gazans truly hope for: dead Jews and the destruction of the Jewish State.
Imagine the same treatment of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces. Three days after the anniversary of an RSF massacre, would the Times devote its front page and two inside pages to swimming, weddings and employment in communities governed by the militia, with little examination of the violence and political support behind it?
The Times showed readers Gazans dreaming of a swim. Its own society’s polling shows overwhelming support for killing Jewish civilians both before and after the October 7 massacre.
The Times has whitewashed the genocidal ideology of Gazans and portrayed them as victims of the jihadi war they launched. Doing so is not just anti-Israel, it is a promotion of radical Islam deployed against Jews.
