The New York Times and ‘The Plight of the Palestinian Scientist’

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The New York Times wants you to care — care very much — about what it calls the “plight of the Palestinian scientist.” In an article on their presumed “plight,” the Times adduces exactly four examples of those “Palestinian” scientists in Gaza now suffering, because of the war, new difficulties in conducting their research. Apparently, in Gaza these scientists have difficulty obtaining the equipment and chemicals they need to conduct their work. It seems that the ever-malignant Israelis are for no good reason preventing chemicals from reaching Gaza, and preventing as well certain items from entering the Strip that are deemed to be “dual-use,” with a possible application in the production of weapons or in the construction of terror tunnels. Nothing is said in the Times article about the difficulties that Israeli scientists also have, ranging from year-long call-ups for scientists who are also reservists (almost all Israeli males up to the age of 40 serve in the reserves), a duty that the Palestinian scientists do not have to fulfill, the difficulty of conducting research when Hamas or Hezbollah missiles are landing nearby, the wounding and deaths in combat of promising graduate students and younger faculty, the diversion of Israeli government resources from the support of science to paying for the four-front war that Israel is now compelled to fight. Perhaps a future article will appear in The Times about “the plight of the Israeli scientist” during the Jewish state’s fighting what is now a five-front war. But I doubt it.

More on the Times’ tear-jerking coverage of four “Palestinian” scientists, and its complete inattention to the “plight of the Israeli scientist” can be found here: “New York Times Tackles ‘The Plight of the Palestinian Scientist,’” by Ira Stoll, Algemeiner, December 20, 2024:

An astounding feature of anti-Israel bias in the New York Times is the way it infects nearly every corner of the news organization—not only front-page foreign coverage or the opinion pages, but even the movie reviews, the food section, the dance criticism in the arts section. The latest department of the newspaper to join the anti-Israel chorus is the Times‘ Science section.

That section of the Times is usually a mixture of two main things. There’s rare-animal and outer-space photography destined for middle-school science class bulletin boards. And there’s exercise and wellness tips aimed at prolonging the longevity of, and subscription revenue from, the Times‘ aging readers.

Yet under the online headline “The Plight of the Palestinian Scientist,” a recent Times science section featured profiles of “four Palestinian researchers” who “describe how conflict in Gaza and the West Bank has hindered their careers in science and medicine.”

This is a fine example of how instead of writing a straight-down-the-middle, evenhanded article describing how the conflict has adversely affected both Israeli and Palestinian scientists, the Times is instead emphasizing articles that are designed to be clicked on and shared on social media by sympathizers to one side of the conflict or the other. The Times may argue that altogether its coverage presents a balanced and complete picture of the costs on both sides of the war. But because many people consume the coverage “off platform” — going directly to an individual story via social media or email sharing, rather than reading all Times coverage on a topic — the decision to highlight four Palestinians instead of, say, two Palestinian scientists and two Israeli scientists, gives readers only part of the story.

Israeli scientists, too, after all, have had their work disrupted by military obligations, by incoming rocket, drone, and missile attacks, by having students and family members kidnapped and killed in battle and called up for military service. The Times article mentions none of that, focusing only on the problems of the Palestinians.

For people whose careers have supposedly been “hindered,” some of the Times-interviewed scientists seem to be doing fairly well for themselves. One is a surgeon who the Times says studied and researched at Oxford and Harvard. Maybe without all the hindering he could have made it to train at some more genuinely impressive institution, like Yeshiva University?

The Times coverage is remarkably naive, and seems to think Times readers are, too. The paper writes that “experimental tools can be difficult to import into the West Bank and Gaza, because some equipment needed for research can also be used for military purposes. Israel classifies such goods as ‘dual use’ and requires special permission for civilians in the Palestinian territories to procure them.”

It’s not only Israel, though, that classifies goods as dual use. The United Kingdom, European Union, and United States all have similar systems. The Times doesn’t inform its readers of that, instead making it sound like Israel is uniquely cruel. And the Israeli concern is not merely theoretical, abstract, or imaginary. Israel has been attacked in deadly fashion and in recent years with rockets and through tunnels made from metal and concrete diverted from civilian purposes to military use.

The Times features a 50-year-old organic chemist at the Islamic University of Gaza complaining he’s had a hard time obtaining “chemicals with which to conduct sophisticated experiments.”…

Can you think of any reason why the Israeli authorities would be worried about certain chemicals being allowed into Gaza for use by a member of the staff at the Islamic University of Gaza, a site used as a training camp by Hamas?

The New York Times will no doubt continue with its anti-Israel coverage, infuriating many but gladdening the hearts of “Palestinians” and their supporters everywhere — from Gaza City to Ramallah, as well as all those young people, wrapped in their keffiyehs, on campuses across the land who chant “From the river to the sea/Palestine will be free,” which means, if properly parsed, let Israel be destroyed and replaced by a 23rd Arab state.

The Times could still redeem itself, in its coverage of how the Gaza war affects various members of the societies involved, by publishing an article on “The Plight of the Israeli Scientist,” showing all the difficulties — especially year-long reserve duty — that Israeli researchers now encounter. But don’t hold out hope. The New York Times long ago chose sides. And it’s not the side of Israel.