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New York Times Guest Essayist Compared Israel to Nazi Germany Over 100 Times

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avatar by Akiva Van Koningsveld

Opinion

A taxi passes by in front of The New York Times head office, Feb. 7, 2013. Photo: Reuters / Carlo Allegri

In the last six months, two HonestReporting investigations brought to light shocking antisemitism espoused by journalists working for mainstream publications.

After our May 23 article on Tala Halawa, who tweeted that “#HitlerWasRight,” the reporter was promptly fired by the BBC. In August, our work on Mariam Barghouti, who contended that “Israel has been beating Hitler at his own game since 1948,” led to her effectively being blacklisted by the outlets that had previously disseminated her anti-Israel talking points.

Now, we expose a pundit whose sheer volume of vile Judeophobic tweets towers over Halawa’s and Barghouti’s.

On May 13, at the height of the 11-day Hamas-initiated conflict against the Jewish state, The New York Times published a guest essay by Refaat Alareer titled, “My Child Asks, ‘Can Israel Destroy Our Building if the Power Is Out?’

The article falsely alleged that the Israel Defense Forces hit targets in the Gaza Strip with “no strategic value,” while implying that Israelis “draw straws” or “roll a dice” to decide “which block to annihilate” — essentially promoting a modern-day blood libel.

Nevertheless, Alareer’s malicious propaganda piece was included in a lesson plan for high schools by the Times’ Learning Network.

The writer and literature professor has also been cited or interviewed by The Washington PostThe GuardianNBC NewsNPRPBS, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and Qatar’s Al Jazeera (see herehereherehere and here).

The New York Times simply identified Alareer as “the editor of ‘Gaza Writes Back,’ a collection of short stories.” However, a modicum of research reveals that he’s also a raging antisemite.

An analysis of Alareer’s Twitter profile shows that over the last two years, he posted at least 115 tweets comparing the Jewish state and Israelis to Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler.

Ironically, in January, Alareer denounced The New York Times for supporting “nazi Israel” — just months before the “newspaper of record” provided him with a platform to spew his venom.

Alareer has furthermore asserted that Israel is “nazi Germany on steriods [sic]” and that Zionism — the movement for Jewish self-determination — and Nazism “are two cheeks of the same dirty arse.”

He insisted that “Israel is following nazism to the letter” and that proponents of the nation are part of a “far more dangerous cult than nazism.”

According to Alareer, “Hitler is as peaceful as any Israeli leader” because the Jewish state is carrying out a “second Holocaust.”

He has moreover promoted the scandalous, baseless claim that Israel “starves Holocaust victims and steals their money to slaughter and occupy native Palestinians,” while simultaneously engaging in Holocaust revisionism.

Even Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, which saves both Israeli and Palestinian lives by preventing military escalations, is, in Alareer’s view, a “nazi-like Israeli killing machine.”

At the same time, he has expressed support for Palestinian terrorism, “no matter how the means.”

The day after his New York Times piece was published, Alareer boasted how he spent “half his childhood” throwing stones at Israeli military jeeps.

When writers espouse such grotesque antisemitism, their reporting on the Arab-Israeli conflict cannot be trusted. In fact, it should discount them from being published at all.

The New York Times and other outlets should stop relying on avid Jew-haters like Alareer to misinform their readerships.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article was first published.

The opinions presented by Algemeiner bloggers are solely theirs and do not represent those of The Algemeiner, its publishers or editors. If you would like to share your views with a blog post on The Algemeiner, please be in touch through our Contact page.

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