Hamas supporters at a rally in Cologne, Germany, on Oct. 22. Photo: Reuters/Ying Tang

The New York Times has parted ways with two writers who signed a statement falsely accusing Israel of  “ethnic cleansing,” “apartheid and genocide,” and claiming that “specious charges of antisemitism are leveled against Zionism’s critics.”

The two Times writers who endorsed the statement are Jazmine Hughes and Jamie Lauren Keiles, according to a Times news story about the situation. The Times article soft-pedaled the content of the statement by summarizing it as saying that the letter “voiced support for Palestinians and protested Israel’s siege in Gaza.”

Both authors have written about Jewish topics for the New York Times magazine. Keiles profiled Adams Sandler, describing him as “a Jewish cultural influence more imposing than anyone I’d ever learned about in Hebrew school.” Hughes profiled Judge Judy Sheindlin: “She was born to a German-Russian Jewish family in Brooklyn in 1942.” Hughes also covered Whoopi Goldberg for the Times magazine: “She claimed that the Holocaust was not really about race because both Germans and Jews were white; she tried to apologize but ended up doubling down on the comments.”

Times editors Carolyn Ryan and Susan Wessling emailed the staff earlier this month to remind them that “when Times journalists, however well-meaning, join public pronouncements about the war, it risks creating the perception that we are joining a side or putting ourselves in the middle of the story.” A copy of the email was obtained by The Algemeiner.

Though Hughes and Keiles are out, it’s unclear how many of their former Times colleagues share their views and are conveying them though the newspaper’s news coverage and opinion columns, rather than via online petitions.

A careful reader of the paper’s war coverage can certainly detect some signs in the way the newspaper has emphasized the suffering of Gazans and reported on the US political consequences of the war.

One Times article claimed that “The Democratic Party’s yearslong unity behind President Biden is beginning to erode over his steadfast support of Israel in its escalating war with the Palestinians.” That’s comical on two levels.

First, Israel has made clear that it’s not at “war with the Palestinians” but with the Hamas terrorist group. That is one reason why it has warned civilians in northern Gaza to evacuate southward to relative safety.

Second, the “yearslong unity behind President Biden” is a retrospective figment of the Times‘ imagination. Here is a New York Times headline from June 2023, before the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and Israel’s self-defense operation in Gaza: “Why Do So Few Democrats Want Biden to Run in 2024?” A September 2023 Times news article — again, from before the war — reported, “Recent surveys found that majorities of Democrats do not want him to run again, are open to an alternative in the primary, and dread the idea of a Biden-Trump rematch.”

Occasionally the truth pokes through, perhaps unintentionally. A dispatch from Gaza on the damage wreaked by the Hamas-started war there reports, “Less than a month ago, the northern coastline of Gaza was a quiet seafront flecked here and there with beach resorts and hotels.” That’s funny because the Times usually describes Gaza as “densely populated” and an “open-air jail.”

Perhaps if the Times took more care and let the truth shine through more often, writers like Hughes and Keiles would be less likely to sign their names to false accusations against Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

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.