Writers group accuses New York Times of being 'accomplice to the genocide in Gaza'

Middle East Eye

18-07-2025

A new dossier released by a coalition of media workers has accused The New York Times of systemic pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian bias, and alleged that nearly two dozen of its top journalists, editors and executives have extensive ties to pro-Israel lobbying groups.
"The New York Times is an accomplice to the genocide in Gaza, serving as a mouthpiece for American imperialism and shaping elite consensus around foreign policy," a statement from the group Writers Against the War on Gaza (Wawog) reads.
Like several mainstream news outlets, the NYT has come under intense scrutiny over its reporting of the war on Gaza, with several human rights activists and analysts accusing the publication of providing cover for Israeli war crimes.
The dossier, released on Wednesday, argues that the NYT's coverage could be explained by the extensive material, financial and ideological connections between several current and former employees at the paper and the Israeli state or the army.
The dossier also outlined other levels of ideological and material ties, including relationships with the pro-Israel lobbying groups and think tanks.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
The dossier alleged that news editors at the NYT had ordered reporters to avoid so-called "inflammatory terms" - including "genocide", "ethnic cleansing", and "occupied territory", and even to avoid saying "Palestine".
"Our dossier so far covers mostly material ties to occupation and apartheid, but we also include and discuss ideological ties, which we've updated the dossier to reflect," a spokesperson for Wawog told Middle East Eye.
The group said its findings, extracted from the archives of Mondoweiss and The Electronic Intifada, as well as through interviews with Palestinian journalists, demonstrate "how the Times' vaunted code of conduct amounts to a racist double standard".
'New York War Crimes
'
Wawog, a group made up of writers and creatives, emerged in the weeks following Israel's bombardment of Gaza after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023.
The group has routinely held protests outside and at times in the lobby of the NYT's building in the borough of Manhattan.
Western media enabling Gaza genocide and rewriting history, say experts Read More »
The group has routinely referred to the paper as "The New York War Crimes" as a means to communicate the NYT's complicity in war crimes in Gaza.
More than 58,000 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israel's war on Gaza, which several countries, as well as many international rights groups and experts, now qualify as an act of genocide.
In Wednesday's dossier, Wawog describes the deep entanglements between the NYT and Israel as fuelling the paper's biased coverage.
Wawog said the omission of the journalists' connections to Israel - be it through personal or immediate family ties - in the reporter profiles on the NYC website contradicted the basic tenets of journalistic ethics.
It said that the NYT "would offer bullhorns to people with clear allegiances to the Zionist project demonstrates its commitment to and support of Israel's fantasy of annihilation".
Media analysts and human rights groups have repeatedly accused mainstream media of contributing to both the erasure and distortion of Israel's war crimes in Gaza.
Several observers have argued that the reporting on Israel's war on Gaza, as well as the student movement for Palestine in the US, hasn't merely been inaccurate but has ventured close to journalistic malpractice.
'Palestinians and allies have been silenced and marginalised in the media for decades'
- Joyce Ajlouny, American Friends Service Committee
Western media in particular have come under fire for obfuscating in their headlines and for the explicit use of the passive voice in narrating the murder of Palestinians.
Advocates' concerns over the use of language and terminology have also been backed up by data.
An Intercept study published in January 2024 found that the NYT, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times' reporting of Israel's war on Gaza demonstrated consistent bias against Palestinians, offered disproportionate coverage of antisemitism in the US and downplayed anti-Muslim racism after the events of 7 October 2023.
Likewise, in October 2024, several journalists from the BBC and CNN told Al Jazeera's Listening Post that their newsrooms routinely failed to hold Israeli officials to account. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the journalists accused senior editorial staff of attempting to minimise Israeli excesses in news coverage.
Whereas the Wawog dossier details several members of staff who have either served in the Israeli army or have had children serve in the army, it also includes those who have consistently produced what Wawog describes as lies and justifications for war crimes.
War on Gaza: How western media favours Israel on Instagram Read More »
In January, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker organisation that advocates for peace, cancelled a planned advertisement in the paper after it refused to allow it to refer to Israel's actions in Gaza as genocide.
"The refusal of The New York Times to run paid digital ads that call for an end to Israel's genocide in Gaza is an outrageous attempt to sidestep the truth," said Joyce Ajlouny, general secretary for the AFSC.
"Palestinians and allies have been silenced and marginalised in the media for decades, as these institutions choose silence over accountability. It is only by challenging this reality that we can hope to forge a path toward a more just and equitable world," Ajlouny said.
A spokesperson for the NYT rejected the arguments raised in the dossier, telling MEE that the report was "a vile campaign aimed at intimidating journalists and media executives because of fair-minded reporting and news coverage.
"Rather than criticize the specifics of our journalism, this campaign is choosing to make personal attacks and innuendo based on a person's faith or ties to a group or country, all of which are public knowledge, and some of which are inaccurate. All to try to discredit our reporting. A group of writers should know better."