The New York Times is being criticized online after it published a guest essay by the Gaza City mayor Yahya R. Sarraj.
The New York Times caused uproar online after it published a guest essay by Gaza City’s mayor, Yahya R. Sarraj, on damage to buildings and civilian infrastructure.
The guest essay, released on Christmas Eve, listed examples of destruction in Gaza after Hamas terrorists killed and kidnapped Israeli, American and other civilians on Oct. 7.
“The unrelenting destruction of Gaza — its iconic symbols, its beautiful seafront, its libraries and archives and whatever economic prosperity it had — has broken my heart,” Sarraj wrote.
The guest essay quickly attracted criticism online from human rights activists and media commentators.
“Oh, nothing to see here,” International Legal Forum CEO Arsen Ostrovsky wrote in a post on Monday. “Just [The Times] publishing an op-ed by Hamas appointed mayor of Gaza, Yahya Sarraj. I wonder, would NYT also publish an op-ed from Al-Qaeda justifying 9-11? Of course not, but there is no red line to this paper’s Jew hatred.”
Kiryas Joel School District superintendent Joel Petlin argued that the guest essayist was appointed as mayor by Hamas, a terrorist organization.
“He [Sarraj] was appointed to be the mayor of Gaza City by the same terrorist organization that perpetrated the rape, kidnapping, & murder of innocent Israeli civilians on October 7th,” Petlin wrote.
