The headquarters of The New York Times. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

The New York Times food section is highlighting olive oil from a town the article’s dateline identifies as “RAMEH, Israel.” But the article’s sub-headline describes the town as “Palestinian,” and the article itself also describes the place as a “Palestinian mountain village.”

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis called on the Times to correct the error. A CAMERA blog post by Tamar Sternthal, the director of the watchdog group’s Israel office, said, “While some residents of Rameh might identify as Palestinian – (just 7 percent of Arabs living in Israel self-identify as Palestinian, according to a 2020 survey) – the geopolitical reality is that Rameh is located within Israel’s internationally-recognized pre-1967 armistice lines.”

The Times declined to issue a correction, telling CAMERA, “Rameh is both an Arab town and a Palestinian one, and either is correct. Arab citizens of Israel increasingly identify as Palestinian, a subject we’ve written much about. Calling it a Palestinian town refers to the character and inhabitants of the town and doesn’t imply Palestinian sovereignty or Israeli occupation. And the dateline on the article says Rameh is in Israel.”

CAMERA argued that by refusing to correct the mistake, the New York Times was “Demonstrating a total abandonment of the journalistic imperative mandating strict adherence to factual accuracy.”

The watchdog also faulted the article for advancing “the fallacious notion that Israel’s founding and the state’s subsequent policies are solely responsible for Rameh’s decreased olive oil output.” In fact, other factors are at play, including the decline of agriculture in favor of more lucrative work, a trend that has affected farming by Israeli Jews (and by American farmers in the United States) as well.

The Times food section has a history of anti-Israel bias, to the point of using the term “pearl couscous” instead of “Israeli couscous.”

The full headline and sub-headline of the article are, “The Best Olive Oil in the World? This Village Thinks So. Rameh, a Palestinian town surrounded by olive groves, has long had a reputation for producing especially good oil.”

The controversy kicked up a storm on Twitter. “Everything Israel-related at the New York Times gets a standard political spin, even olive oil,” commented the founder of NGO Monitor, Gerald Steinberg.

The author of the Times food section article, Reem Kassis, is also the author of a February 2020 Washington Post “perspective” article headlined, “Here’s why Palestinians object to the term ‘Israeli food’: It erases us from history.” The article said, “As it is for many Palestinians, the term ‘Israeli cuisine’ is hard for me to swallow. … presenting dishes of Palestinian provenance as ‘Israeli’ not only denies the Palestinian contribution to Israeli cuisine, but it erases our very history and existence.”

Kassis went on, “for Palestinians, whose national identity is constantly undermined without an independent state, constructs other than geography become vital to a sense of rootedness and identity. Food for Palestinians becomes a way to reclaim our country, if not geographically, at least psychologically and emotionally.” Looks like the New York Times food section headline writers gave Kassis a helping hand with her “reclaim our country … at least psychologically” agenda.

Ira Stoll was managing editor of the Forward and North American editor of the Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.