“But Israelis still largely view themselves as the victims of Oct. 7,” the original article stated.
By Shula Rosen
The New York Times removed a sentence saying Israelis “view themselves” as victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack after readers objected that the wording suggested their victimhood was a matter of perception rather than fact.
The sentence appeared in a Monday article by New York Times correspondent Isabel Kershner about the backlash in Israel against NAZA, a documentary by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor focusing on Palestinian civilian deaths during the war in Gaza.
“But Israelis still largely view themselves as the victims of Oct. 7,” the original article stated.
That line followed a passage discussing divisions among Israelis over the failures that led to the attack, in which Kershner noted that around 1,200 people were killed in Israel and approximately 250 were taken hostage.
Following objections from readers, the Times deleted the sentence and added an editor’s note acknowledging that the wording had wrongly suggested Israelis being victims of terrorism was subjective.
“Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article included a statement that was intended to convey Israelis’ perception of the government’s military response to the Oct. 7 terror attack in relation to the attacks, but inadvertently suggested that Israelis’ experience as terror victims was a matter of perception. It has been removed from the article,” the note said.
The newspaper’s communications account also posted the correction on social media Wednesday.
Its revision comes as the Times continues to face criticism from Israel supporters who accuse the newspaper of biased or inaccurate reporting on Israel.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said this summer that it was considering legal action against the newspaper over an opinion piece that accused Israel of using dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners, an allegation the ministry said was entirely false.
Separately, a peer-reviewed study published this month examined 1,559 New York Times articles from the months following October 7.
The study argued that the newspaper’s coverage disproportionately presented Palestinians as victims while portraying Israel as the aggressor.
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