New York Times Removes Controversial Sentence About October 7 Victims

The New York Times has issued a clarification and removed a sentence from a report concerning the Israeli reaction to the antisemitic documentary "Accidental Farmers," which defames IDF soldiers. The original phrasing, published on September 14 by the newspaper's Israel correspondent, Isabel Kershner, stated that "Israelis still largely see themselves as the victims of October 7," alongside figures of approximately 1,200 murdered and 250 hostages.

This wording sparked outrage on social media, renewing accusations of bias against Israel, as it implied that the perception of victims of the terror attack was a matter of opinion rather than fact. An editor's note appended to the article explained that due to an editorial error, the previous version included a sentence intended to describe Israelis' perception of the government's response. However, the note clarified, "It was unintentionally implied that the Israelis' experience as victims of terror is a matter of perception. The sentence has been removed from the article."

The problematic sentence appeared in a section attempting to explain the intensity of public and political opposition to the film by Yuval Avraham and Rachel Shor, ahead of the third anniversary of the massacre and amidst Israel's election campaigns.