What took the ‘New York Times’ so long to figure it out and why print it now?
11 July, 2025; minor amendments 12 July – including a brief note upon the Special Rapporteur Francesca Albana and her 11th July Report on the “Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories occupied since 1967”; At Human Rights Council
Introduction
While we often use the bourgeois press to extract relevant data for analyses, it is unusual to dwell on one particular article in this publication.
However we refer readers to one extremely interesting, long article in the ‘New York Times’ (NYT) magazine published today (July 11, 2025) on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s deliberate provocations, prolongations and manipulations of the genocidal war. The featured image above – shows this article as it appears on the NYT magazine cover.
This is by three co-authors: Patrick Kingsley, Ronen Bergman, Natan Odenheimer and is entitled:“How Netanyahu Prolonged the War in Gaza to Stay in Power”; July 11, 2025; at: July 11, 2025 All quotes noted hereafter unless indicated otherwise – are from this article.
It seems to us – rather an unusually frank article. At least for a paper that has striven so hard to be silent without passing any blame on Israel or indeed, on Netanyahu.
Why print now?
After all it is an extraordinary step. A capitalist newspaper has suddenly – after almost 2 years of prevarications – put a report blaming Netanyahu for prolonging a genocidal war. When this happens, sensible people must ask a minimum of two questions.
The first is why did take so long for the newspaper to print materials that were long known – and which many observers had long remarked on?
The second is why print it now?
We will return to these questions at the end. But to get there we wish to take two steps.
First we show the main points of interest in the article.
Secondly we will comment on some of the article’s extreme – shall we say “delicacy”? – in its’ words and its’ use of the numbers of deaths. Their language here betrays the lingering trace of the NYT’s initial 2 year reluctance to clearly finger Netanyahu and lay out the magnitude of what Israel has done. And what the world has watched and allowed to happen. This will entail a brief examination of reputable medical sources that count the toll.
Lastly – we will return to these questions – Why the delay and Why now?
What does the report show?
First the reader is reminded that before the Hamas attack in October 2023, Netanyahu was a vulnerable political figure:
“Out of office, Netanyahu was vulnerable. Since 2020, he had been standing trial for corruption; the charges, which he denied, mostly related to granting favors to businessmen in exchange for gifts and favorable media coverage. Shorn of power, Netanyahu would lose the ability to force out the attorney general who oversaw his prosecution — as indeed his government would later attempt to do.”
Patrick Kingsley, Ronen Bergman, Natan Odenheimer “How Netanyahu Prolonged the War in Gaza to Stay in Power”; July 11, 2025; Ibid.
Then the report makes a few caveats, but the central point that it states, is that there are three “unavoidable conclusions”:
“Yet for all these caveats, our reporting has led us to three unavoidable conclusions. In the years preceding the war, Netanyahu’s approach to Hamas helped to strengthen the group, giving it space to secretly prepare for war. In the months before that war, Netanyahu’s push to undermine Israel’s judiciary widened already-deep rifts within Israeli society and weakened its military, making Israel appear vulnerable and encouraging Hamas to ready its attack. And once the war began, Netanyahu’s decisions were at times colored predominantly by political and personal need instead of only military or national necessity. . .
We found that at key stages in the war, Netanyahu’s decisions extended the fighting in Gaza longer than even Israel’s senior military leadership deemed necessary. This was partly a result of Netanyahu’s refusal — years before Oct. 7 — to resign when charged with corruption,”
Kingsley et al: Ibid.
Of these the first is still not even now well enough appreciated, including by the left. We previously drew attention to the marked and suspicious lapses of Israeli military intelligence (MLRG.online at October 2024). In light of the remarkable ability and penetration of Israeli intelligence, we believe this points firmly to such a “lapse” being deliberate. Nothing better can be imagined for Israeli goals to “eliminate” Palestinians, than such a “casus belli’ as the terrorist action of Hamas in October 2023.
The third “unavoidable conclusion” that these lately-suddenly-brave reporters of the NYT observed was that “Netanyahu’s decisions were at times colored predominantly by political and personal need instead of only military or national necessity”.
Well – what a thunder-bolt this must have been for these intrepid reporters. Still – we must thank the reporters for going on to say:
“Under political pressure from those coalition allies, Netanyahu slowed down cease-fire negotiations at crucial moments, missing windows in which Hamas was less opposed to a deal. He avoided planning for a postwar power transition, making it harder to direct the war toward an endgame. He pressed ahead with the war in April and July 2024, even as top generals told him that there was no further military advantage to continuing. When momentum toward a cease-fire seemed to grow, Netanyahu ascribed sudden significance to military objectives that he previously seemed less interested in pursuing, such as the capture of the southern city Rafah and later the occupation of the Gaza-Egypt border. And when an extended cease-fire was finally forged in January, he broke the truce in March in part to keep his coalition intact.”
Patrick Kingsley, Ronen Bergman, Natan Odenheimer “How Netanyahu Prolonged the War in Gaza to Stay in Power”; July 11, 2025;Ibid.
True the reporters point out that “all this came at a cost.” Well apart from the Palestinian dead – of whom more anon – the reports note that these costs included that:
“It delayed the Saudi deal and sullied Israel’s image abroad. And it led prosecutors at the International Criminal Court to call for Netanyahu’s arrest.”
Patrick Kingsley, Ronen Bergman, Natan Odenheimer “How Netanyahu Prolonged the War in Gaza to Stay in Power”; July 11, 2025; Ibid
But rightly, the reporters note the gains nonetheless – to Netanyahu himself:
“But for Netanyahu, the immediate rewards have been rich. He has amassed more control over the Israeli state than at any other point in his 18-year tenure as prime minister. He has successfully prevented a state inquiry that would investigate his own culpability, saying that the fallout must wait until the Gaza war ends, even as the defense minister, army chief, domestic spymaster and several top generals all either have been fired or have resigned. As he attends court up to three times a week for his corruption trial, his government is now moving to fire the attorney general who oversees that prosecution. The war’s continuation has also shored up his coalition. It gave him time to plan and enact his attack on Iran. Above all, as even his strongest supporters note, it kept him in office. “Netanyahu pulled off a political resurrection that no one — not even his closest allies — thought possible,” said Srulik Einhorn, a political strategist who is part of Netanyahu’s inner circle. “
Patrick Kingsley, Ronen Bergman, Natan Odenheimer “How Netanyahu Prolonged the War in Gaza to Stay in Power”; July 11, 2025; Ibid
The delicacy of language and of the picking of numbers
While the bravery of the reporters astounds one – their language continues to be somewhat discreet:
“It is of course impossible to say that Netanyahu made key wartime decisions entirely in the service of his own political survival.”
And even while acknowledging the “cost of delay” – the language is somewhat – shall we say “diplomatic”?
“The cost of delay has been high: With each passing week, the delay has meant death to hundreds of Palestinians and horror to thousands more. It also meant that at least eight more hostages died in captivity, deepening the divisions in Israel between those who sought a hostage-release deal above all else and those who thought the war should run until Hamas was destroyed.”
Patrick Kingsley, Ronen Bergman, Natan Odenheimer “How Netanyahu Prolonged the War in Gaza to Stay in Power”; July 11, 2025; Ibid
Hence the NYT article firstly minimises the death toll of Palestinians;
and secondly uses the rather attenuated term “horror”.
Does either the minimisation of numbers killed; or the somewhat bland term “horror” – begin to express adequately the phenomena seen on countless TV news, videos, social media?
And those TV news, videos and social media – truly came at a “cost”. They came despite the Israeli state policy of killing of those who were disseminating this news. This conscious Israeli policy has been well described in many reports. For example, by “Intercept“. For only one illustration see – Neha Madhira; “The Israeli plot to extinguish the journalists documenting genocide.”; The Intercept’; July 3 at Neha Madhira
Gingerly. . . carefully. . . the intrepid reporters at the NYT avoid terms such as ‘targeted genocide’ and ‘deliberately inflicted starvation’ and ‘murder of those on the edge of famine seeking food aid.’
It is true that little truthful corrections pop up throughout the text, such as :
“The conflict has flattened much of the territory, killing at least 55,000 people, including Hamas combatants but also many civilians, nearly 10,000 of them children under the age of 11.”
Ibid.
But – let us pause a moment: What is the actual number to date that have been killed directly in the war – not including the famine deaths – and those still uncounted in the rubbles created by Israel?
The death toll and medical reports
In March 23, 2025 – Al Jazeera reported to that point there had been over 50,000 deaths:
“Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Sunday that at least 50,021 Palestinians have been killed and 113,274 wounded since Israel began attacking the besieged territory following an attack led by the Palestinian group Hamas on October 7, 2023. An estimated 1,139 people were killed and some 250 were taken captive in the attack in southern Israel.”
“Israel’s war on Gaza has killed 50,000 Palestinians since October 2023”; in Al Jazeera at 23 March 2025; at Al Jazeera 23 March
But the “numbers” game, since the start of the war, has involved severe under-estimates.
Firstly, acknowledging bias means we – and the world of observers – need to exclude under-estimations of Israeli based government sponsored agencies.
Secondly, most figures cited have been derived from the Gazan Ministry of Health (GMoH). But the latter has been at pains to avoid being accused of inflating estimates. Moreover they have suffered very real constraints from the Israeli attacks targeting the entire health services and their personnel in Gaza. As a report in the prestigious journal “Nature” puts it:
“Since the start of the war, the Palestinian Ministry of Health — Gaza has been the main institution counting mortality in the region: it regularly publishes detailed lists of people who have died. The most recent count, on 25 June, reported 56,200 deaths. But some people have questioned the reliability of the ministry’s figures — and studies based on them — particularly as the conflict has progressed and medical centres, which the ministry relies on for its mortality data, have come under attack.”
Rachel Fieldhouse; “First independent survey of deaths in Gaza reports more than 80,000 fatalities“; Nature 27 June 2025; 643, 311-312 (2025)
In January 2025, independent researchers from the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, had already issued a novel methodology (capture-recapture) in assessing the death rate. They used this to align several differing sources of information. Their report estimated up to “64,260 violent deaths up to the end of June 2024”; (See Jamaluddine, Z., Abukmail, H., Aly, S., Campbell, O. M. R. & Checchi, F. Lancet 405, 469–477 (2025).
They – like all other medical reporters on this question, faced a very hostile and concerted campaign of rebuttals issuing from Israel based academics. This is not the place to review these papers. But the degree of complicity within the Israeli medical academic disciplines was revealed to be very chilling.
Now, very recently the journal ‘Nature’ (Fieldhouse Ibid) gives a summary of another independent study – the Gaza Mortality Survey – led by Michael Spagat. (Michael Spagat, Jon Pedersen, Khalil Shikaki, Michael Robbins, Eran Bendavid, Håvard Hegre, Debarati Guha-Sapir; “Violent and Nonviolent Death Tolls for the Gaza War: New Primary Evidence”; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.06.19.25329797 – Preprint at medRxiv (2025) here. )
This essentially supports the Jamaluddine et al findings. The summary in “Nature” allows the broader public, to understand the results of a carefully conducted survey. We must acknowledge that this is – as yet, not a peer-reviewed final publication. The fact however that ‘Nature’ prints a summary of this study – is reassuring that the data are valid.
The original “pre-print” states:
“results from a large-scale household survey, the Gaza Mortality Survey (GMS), which provides independent estimates of war-related deaths between October 7, 2023 and January 5, 2025. Our findings suggest that violent mortality has significantly exceeded official figures. Our central estimate for the extent of GMoH undercount closely matches a separate estimate made using capture-recapture methods. We also find that nonviolent excess deaths, often overlooked in conflict assessments, also represent a substantial burden. . . “
Spagat et al; Ibid;
It estimates more than 80,000 fatalities up to January 5, 2025 – in line with the earlier disputed study by Jamaluddine et al. The authors Spagat et al point out that:
“the violent death toll of the war resulted in the deaths of around 3.6% of Gaza’s population, exceeding the official figures of the Gaza Ministry of Health; around 56% of the violent deaths were among women, children, and the elderly – a percentage similar to that endorsed by the GmoH.”
Why did the NYT delay, and why now does it print this condemnation of Netanyahu?
Despite all this “diplomacy”, we acknowledge that the NYT – finally – has found the courage to ventilate this news. Old hat though it is to many observers, it strengthens the factual base upon which Palestine supporters can continue to make their case for Palestine. For sceptics willing to re-consider the case against Israel, it may be easier to swallow when coming from the NYT than from the left.
But we should return to our two questions.
What took the NYT and these reporters so long?
We pointed out in October 2024 – quite late in the war actually – that :
“Attacks by forces led by Hamas and 3 other smaller groups, were planned for several months. These were Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Gaza’s second largest armed faction, the Mujahideen Brigades and Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades. The groups had four full-scale practice drills. These were publicly announced as a ‘success”. They were very well known to Israeli personnel. Moreover the training was “realistic” and involved building mock-ups of the Israeli defence structures. They were collectively known as ‘Strong Pillar’. The exercises were close to Israeli observation towers, and easily locatable on commercial GPS locating services. The Israel Defence Force (IDF) were obviously monitoring activity near the border carefully, as usual. . .
Robert Dover (Professor of Intelligence and National Security, University Hull UK) says that a document called “The Jericho Wall Document” outlined the attack and was with Israeli intelligence “about a year prior” to the attack:
“… It is becoming clear that Israeli military intelligence had collected specific information on how Hamas could invade. Additionally, they had evidence of what assets and techniques Hamas were likely to use, and what Israeli facilities and possessions would be targeted. From, observing rehearsals, they also had information about the level of violence Hamas terrorists were willing to inflict. Evidence suggests that about a year ago Israeli analysts had a copy of the Hamas attack playbook, the Jericho Wall document. . . An intelligence unit had also observed a rehearsal exercise in Gaza City, and drawn the document and exercise together to correctly assess the relevance of both. The analyst had shown remarkable insight when she suggested to her superiors that the rehearsal was not for a raid, but an invasion, according to evidence collected by the New York Times.” (Added emphasis on 11 July 2025 – added for obvious reasons -Ed)
Robert Dover; “Why Israel’s intelligence chiefs failed to listen to October 7 warnings – and the lessons to be learned”; ‘The Conversation’; Dec 7 2023; Accessed 10 October, 2024.”
Cited in MLRG.online “From October 7, 2023 to October, 2024 – and the Aftermath”; October 12, 204; at October 12 2024
Even with our limited resources we could say – even though it was relatively late as October 2024:
“(In the light of the developing new world war – Ed) It is in this overall context that Israel’s “overlooked” Hamas practice drills must be viewed. Bluntly put, it may well have been allowed to occur to claim the necessary ‘moral high ground’ by which to perpetrate the most vicious war conducted in real-time in the news – without an iota of world attempts to stop the barbarity. The International Court of Justice is in the end toothless, as is the UN.”
Cited in MLRG.online “From October 7, 2023 to October, 2024 – and the Aftermath”; October 12, 204; at October 12 2024
Why with all their resources, ‘investigative” and fearless, brave reporting – did the NYT not figure this out? Well they likely did. In the quote from Robert Dover (Professor of Intelligence and National Security, University Hull UK – See above quote) he makes it clear the NYT had been aware of key evidence.
The answer as to why the NYT did not publish this type of information and data – lies in the slavish role that the NYT has played in supporting both USA imperialism and its mission in the Middle East.
Why then has the NYT now taken their new position? Maybe, just maybe – it is related to the timing of a major report by the truly brave Francesca Albanese – “the Special Rapporteur on the Situation in the Palestinian Territories occupied since 1967”; Human Rights Council 59th Session 16 June-11 July 2025.
We believe this article in the NYT argues for the obvious swing upwards in the support for Palestine.
Finally – the pro-Palestinian voice of the most progressive sections of the people is being heard.
Or at least – it is starting to be heard.
People everywhere are disgusted with the actions of the Netanyahu government, and the support for genocide being articulated by many people in Israel.
Even the NYT finally has to “accommodate” and acknowledge what is becoming a loud voice.
Hands Off Palestine!
Stop the Zionist attacks on the Palestinian people!
Bring Netanyahu to the International Court at the Hague!
