A portrait of jailed Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti painted on the security barrier near the Qalandiya crossing north of Jerusalem. Photo: Ben Siesta via Wikimedia Commons.

A New York Times article inaccurately portraying convicted terrorist Marwan Barghouti as a political prisoner is triggering outrage, concern, and dismay among the newspaper’s readers.

The managing director of the Israel Project, David Hazony, tweeted, “This is quite sick. NYT runs a romantic piece about Marwan Barghouti, who is in jail for multiple murders. Calls him ‘political prisoner.’”

Hazony carried on the criticism for a whole thread: “Of course, I did not even mention the headline, which calls him a ‘Jailed Palestinian Freedom Fighter.’ This is really over the cliff. Worth stating obvious: His wife’s line is essentially an admission that he ordered the murder of Israeli innocents. Yet NYT is cool w that. This, after NYT ran op-ed by Barghouti neglected 2 mention murder convictions. Seems like they’re now in business of mainstreaming terror? On the delicate subject of his being an actual terrorist, it quotes wife: ‘he never killed with his own hands.’ No other side presented.”

The senior vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the US Treasury, commented on Twitter by describing the New York Times as the “paper of broken record.”

The executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Robert Satloff, tweeted:

Editors on vacation? @nytimes calls M #Barghouti, convicted of multiple murders of civilians, a “political prisoner”

The Washington, DC bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Ron Kampeas, echoed Satloff’s comment attributing the article to an editing lapse: “Copy editors being bought out. I keep saying, this is not good.”

Palestinian Media Watch commented, also on Twitter, “Shame on @nytimes for romanticizing terrorist Barghouti.”

The opinions editor of the Jerusalem Post, Seth Frantzman, commented, “So NYT, which hid Barghouti’s conviction in his oped, now headlines him ‘freedom fighter’; I didn’t know murdering ppl is freedom #think”.

The journalist who wrote the Times article, Shaina Shealy, graduated from college in 2010, according to her web site, which also carries links to articles that she wrote for Al Jazeera and Haaretz.

The article is in a section of the online Times called “women in the world,” part of a live conference business that the financially stressed Times is trying to make money by expanding.

More of Ira Stoll’s media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.