Rudoren Archives - The Jerusalem Fund

A Pattern of Nakba Passivity at the New York Times

July 27, 2021May 21, 2014 by Nicholas Astier-Ibrahim

By Yousef Munayyer

Last week I wrote about the use of the passive voice in describing the Nakba in the New York Times. This device allows for a sense of ambiguity as to who did what and specifically, who destroyed Palestinian villages. However, on May 16th this is how Jodi Rudoren described it: After two young Palestinian men were killed Thursday by Israeli security forces during a demonstration commemorating the Nakba — Arabic for “catastrophe,” and the word used to describe Israel’s destruction of Palestinian villages as it became a state in 1948 — two Israeli journalists said they were nearly “lynched” by a Palestinian mob.

Israel, Passive Aggression & the New York Times

July 27, 2021May 16, 2014 by Nicholas Astier-Ibrahim

By Yousef Munayyer

Arab villages were destroyed. The state of Israel destroyed Arab villages.

Do you see the difference there? The first sentence is in the passive voice and absent of any agency. Who destroyed the villages? We are not told in the first sentence. All we are told is that the villages “were destroyed.” The second sentence does not suffer from this ambiguity. It makes clear who the active agent is, in this case, the state of Israel, and that it “destroyed Arab villages.”

The New York Times and the Peace Process Blame Game

July 27, 2021April 29, 2014 by Nicholas Astier-Ibrahim

By Yousef Munayyer

Well folks, April 29th is finally here and you know that must mean two things 1) The deadline for the 9-month US-mediated peace talks convened last summer has arrived and 2) The New York Times has published its definitive write-up of why the talks failed.