The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization has taken center stage in recent weeks. The death of its prominent member Khader Adnan from a hunger strike, the over 100 rockets fired by the organization at Israel in response, and now Israel’s launching of Operation Shield and Arrow, have prompted the media to explain to their audiences what Islamic Jihad is.
Some have done a reasonable job. Unsurprisingly, The New York Times is not one of them.
On May 2, New York Times correspondent Raja Abdulrahim had already referred to Islamic Jihad as an “armed group” and Khader Adnan as “a prominent Palestinian prisoner,” sanitizing both a terrorist and his terror organization.
Following the targeted killings of three senior Islamic Jihad commanders in Operation Shield and Arrow, Abdulrahim had the opportunity to expand readers’ understanding in “What Is Islamic Jihad and Why Is Israel Targeting It?”
This “brief guide to the armed group,” however, merely continues Abdulrahim’s whitewashing of Islamic Jihad.
No, @nytimes. #IslamicJihad isn't simply an "armed group" founded to "fight Israeli occupation."
It's the most radical Palestinian terror org, whose ideological motivation is the complete destruction of Israel through holy war.@RajaAbdulrahim, stop whitewashing Islamic Jihad. https://t.co/7CjygEyqRa pic.twitter.com/yhCnsMcS6S
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 10, 2023
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It might be too much to expect The New York Times to call Islamic Jihad a US-designated terrorist organization. Perhaps “militant,” while not doing justice to Islamic Jihad’s extremism, would have been more appropriate than the neutral “armed group” used by Abdulrahim.
Stating simply that Islamic Jihad “was founded to fight the Israeli occupation” implies that the organization’s aims are primarily territorial and could even be reasoned with in exchange for territorial concessions or the creation of a Palestinian state.
The reality is quite different. Reuters’ “Factbox” on Islamic Jihad, which offers a useful source of comparison with The New York Times, states: “The group is sworn to destroying Israel and replacing it with an Islamic state spanning what was pre-1948 British Mandate Palestine, including the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.”
Indeed, the clue is in its name. Islamic Jihad’s raison d’etre is a holy war against not only Israel but also the Jews, who are seen as an eternal enemy of the Muslims.
When asked to explain Islamic Jihad during a TV segment, CBS News’ foreign correspondent gave some simple yet vital context: “Its core tenets are extreme. They’re the destruction of Israel and the rejection of the two-state solution… The organization doesn’t participate in politics unlike Hamas and it focuses solely on military confrontation with Israel.”
So if other media outlets were able to briefly contextualize Islamic Jihad in just a few words or soundbites, how come Raja Abdulrahim was unable to do the same in The New York Times?
It’s time to stop whitewashing Islamic Jihad.
Islamic Jihad's primary goal is the destruction of #Israel through #terrorism. So why are the media trying to whitewash what the #terrorist group and its militants stand for? #IslamicJihad pic.twitter.com/SKvlqCDLSV
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 9, 2023
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Image credit: THOMAS COEX/AFP via Getty Images; Osugi via Shutterstock
