The New York Times has re-enlisted a Hitler-praising Hamas propagandist as part of its team covering the war in Israel and Gaza.
When we last heard from Soliman Hijjy, it was back in 2022, when The Algemeiner reported under the headline “Unearthed: Another Hitler-Praising New York Times Gaza Journalist.” That article focused on the watchdog group HonestReporting’s disclosure of Hijjy’s social media posts from 2012, 2018, and 2020 with variants on the phrase, “How great are you, Hitler?” It also noted that a 2021 video that Hijjy created for the Times, titled “Gaza’s Deadly Night: How Israeli Airstrikes Killed 44 People,” was denounced when it came out as a “shocking” “hatchet job.”
After the 2022 disclosure, the Times told HonestReporting it reviewed the concerns and took “appropriate action.” Sure enough, Hijjy’s byline did not appear in the New York Times again afterward — until a few days ago, when it reappeared in the aftermath of the Iran-backed Hamas’ slaughter of more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, in Israel.
Ironically, the terrorist onslaught seems to have provided a career revival for Hamas’ Gaza-based, Hitler-appreciating propagandist — who has had eight bylines or contributor credits in the Times between Oct. 12, 2023 and Oct. 18, 2023. It sure looks like the Times has one standard for hiring Hitler-praising Gaza stringers in peacetime, and a different, more lenient standard for hiring Hitler-praising Gaza stringers in wartime.
If it were simply the reporter’s social media posts at issue, that would be one thing. But the coverage with Hijjy’s name on it displays all the worst traits of the Times‘ coverage of the Middle East, and none of the best. For example, the Times has at times displayed flashes of refreshing honesty in its post-slaughter coverage. A Times report from Washington, for example, referred to the “Hamas-run Gazan health ministry.” Other Times coverage from outside Gaza has referred to the Oct. 7 slaughter as a “terrorist attack” and the people who committed it as “Hamas terrorists.”
Hijjy’s reporting from Gaza, on the other hand, refers simply to a “Hamas attack,” not a terrorist attack. It also refers to “the Gaza health ministry,” not to the Hamas-terrorist-controlled Gaza health ministry.
A story with Hijjy’s name on it describes a “chaotic scene” outside Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital following the explosion there on Tuesday, without providing the context that in 2014, the Washington Post described that hospital as “a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.”
Years earlier in 2009, PBS reported, “Israeli intelligence officials say that Hamas leaders are operating out of a bunker underneath Shifa Hospital — Gaza’s largest … ‘Shifa Hospital has long ago ceased to be just a hospital,’ Israeli Public Security Minister and former intelligence chief Avi Dichter said on Monday. ‘It is somewhat of an open secret that Hamas commanders walk around the hospital, in some instances wearing doctor’s robes,’ Dichter said.”
But in any case, both US and Israeli intelligence have concluded the hospital explosion was due to a misfired rocket launched against Israel by the Gaza-based Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group — not an Israeli air strike, as Hamas has claimed and several prominent media outlets were quick to echo.
The Times places these articles from Gaza on its front page and prominently on its website without disclosing to readers how the Hamas terrorist group that controls Gaza threatens to torture or kill journalists who deviate from their party line.
Russ Roberts, the president of Shalem College in Jerusalem, noted on Thursday that “not everyone has changed their lens. For many, the narrative of Israel as oppressor and the Palestinians as oppressed remains intact … That is why the [Times] unhesitatingly quotes Hamas blaming Israel for 500 hospital deaths.”
Roberts continued: “That’s why the Times even while now saying there are uncertain claims on both sides still has a video on their home page about the suffering caused by the blast and interviewing Palestinian doctors saying that there was a playground next to the hospital. And then showing the colorful backpacks of children scattered haphazardly on the ground as if children had been killed in a blast that everyone agrees took place in the middle of the night when no children were present.”
That image of the backpacks is credited by the Times to the apparently one-time suspended freelancer, Soliman Hijjy.
“It’s a good day to cancel your subscription to the New York Times,” Roberts added.