The New York Times removed a sentence from an article about the anti-Israel documentary Naza after critics said the wording appeared to cast doubt on Israelis’ status as victims of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, massacre.
The article originally noted that Israelis remain deeply divided over the political, military and intelligence failures preceding the attack, as well as the conduct of the war. It then stated: “But the vast majority of Israelis still see themselves as the victims of October 7.”
Journalists and media watchdog groups criticized the sentence for framing Israeli victimhood as a subjective perception rather than an established fact.
Journalist Eitan Fischberger compared the wording to saying that Americans “still see themselves as victims of 9/11” or the attack on Pearl Harbor.
After Fox News Digital contacted the newspaper, the Times attributed the wording to an “editing error,” removed the sentence and added an editor’s note to the article.
The newspaper said the passage had been intended to address how Israelis view their government’s military response to the October 7 attack. Instead, it acknowledged, the wording “inadvertently suggested that their experience as victims of terrorism was a matter of perception.”
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