https://freebeacon.com/media/the-anti-israel-past-of-nyt-jerusalem-bureaus-latest-hire/
The latest hire in the New York Times‘s Jerusalem Bureau doesn’t exactly have a history of scrupulous objectivity when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hiba Yazbek, a former intern for Israeli-bashing Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), called herself a victim of Israel’s “mental occupation” and said Palestinians are a “minority in our own land” in a 2020 speech.
Yazbek, who joined the Times as a news assistant last week, deleted similar comments she had posted on Twitter, as well as posts in which she condemned Israel for killing terrorists, according to the media watchdog group Honest Reporting.
Although Yazbek deleted a number of her politically charged posts, she still has a photo of her sitting next to squad member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) as her Twitter background. Another photo posted on Twitter shows Yazbek posing with Tlaib. Yazbek interned in 2019 for Tlaib—one of the most vocal anti-Israel members of Congress who has accused the Jewish state of “apartheid.”
The hire is likely to fuel concerns about Times reporting on the Middle East conflict, which pro-Israel watchdog groups claim is deeply skewed against the Jewish state. In 2019, the Times was forced to apologize after publishing an anti-Semitic cartoon that depicted then-Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a dog with a Star of David on his collar, leading a blind President Donald Trump who was drawn wearing a yarmulke.
The outlet also caught flak for publishing a glowing portrayal of Louis Farrakhan and a lengthy interview with Alice Walker that failed to mention their anti-Semitism in 2020. That same year, Times opinion editor Bari Weiss stepped down and said she had faced harassment from colleagues over her support for Israel.