Lara-Nour Walton
Mondoweisss / September 9, 2024
When a foreign government and its citizens kill American nationals, it usually raises media outrage in the U.S. But, Israel’s recent spate of violence against Americans, including the killing of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, has barely received coverage.
26-year-old American, Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, had arrived in Palestine just three days before Israeli forces shot her in the head. At the time of her September 6 death, she was peacefully protesting illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank village of Beita. The murder was business as usual.
Israel has a history of killing American citizens in cold blood; at the turn of the millennia, there was a steady trickle of killings every few years. In 2003, an IDF soldier operating a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer repeatedly ran over Rachel Corrie, a U.S. citizen who was attempting to block the demolition of a Palestinian home. She was crushed to death.
Then, in 2010, 19-year-old Furkan Doğan fell victim to Israeli fire aboard a ship in international waters. The American national was attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to a besieged Gaza Strip.
It was 2016 when Mahmoud Shaalan, wearing a North Face hoodie and blue jeans, set out to pay his aunt a visit. He never made it—an Israeli soldier fatally shot the Florida teenager at a West Bank checkpoint.
2022 was a lethal year—ushered in by the brutal arrest and subsequent death of dual Palestinian-American man Omar Abdulmajeed Asaad. The Palestinian Health Ministry said that the 80-year-old Asaad, who had been caught in an Israeli arrest operation in his hometown, suffered from a heart attack “caused most likely from the beating and aggravated by the long detention and then abandoning him handcuffed for several hours in a building…on a very cold night.”
Then, of course, there was Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022. The American Al Jazeera journalist was wearing a clearly labeled press vest when an IDF marksman assassinated her.
But, as Israel continues waging its war on Gaza, which has now claimed the lives of at least 40,000 Palestinians, that steady trickle of U.S.-citizen killings has suddenly become a cascade. Eygi’s death was preceded by the murders of two 17-year-old Americans Mohammad Khdour and Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, and World Central Kitchen worker Jacob Flickinger. In August, American school teacher Amado Sison was shot and injured at the same weekly anti-settlement protest that Eygi was murdered at.
When a foreign government and its citizens are caught murdering American nationals one after the other, it is reasonable to assume that this pattern would engender at least a modicum of U.S. media outrage. But, Israel’s recent spate of violence against Americans has received thin coverage.
The New York Times has not published a single story acknowledging Khdour or Sison, while Flickinger’s name was mentioned in six articles and Jabbar’s in two. By comparison, Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s name appeared in 26 articles in the first week since his killing in Gaza.
By September 6, the supposed newspaper of record, The New York Times, had not published a single story acknowledging Khdour or Sison. Combined, Jabbar and Flickinger’s names were mentioned in eight articles—Jabbar’s in two, Flickinger’s in six.
By comparison, the Hamas killing of the American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin garnered far more media attention. On September 6, Goldberg-Polin’s name had already appeared in 26 New York Times articles and newsletters since his September 1 execution.
While the under-reporting of Palestinian death is a trend that has long blighted the New York Times and corporate news media more generally, it now appears that the mere act of aligning oneself with the Palestinian cause saps one’s murder of newsworthiness—even if the victims of Israeli state violence are American.
It now appears that the mere act of aligning oneself with the Palestinian cause saps one’s murder of newsworthiness.
In its scant reporting of the murders preceding Eygi’s, The New York Times neglected to evoke, even once, Israel’s well-established history of assassinating American nationals. Without including that vital context, how could a newsreader possibly grasp the scope of this phenomenon?
In the wake of Eygi’s murder, The New York Times’ reporting did not improve. On September 6, the paper ran “American Woman Shot and Killed at West Bank Protest.” Evidently, The Times did not think it newsworthy enough to include Israel’s responsibility for the murder in the headline. In fact, a reader would have to get through three paragraphs before finding unambiguous phrasing suggesting Israeli military culpability. They would have to venture even further down—past Anthony Blinken’s quotes about the importance of “gathering facts” before jumping to conclusions—to find a damning eyewitness account of the murder.
Later in the day, the Times published “Aysenur Eygi, the American activist killed in the West Bank, had been a campus organizer,” still refusing to pin blame on Israeli fire in the title.
The New York Times’ exculpatory approach to reporting this tragedy is not unique. Other mainstream American outlets have similarly skirted around the perpetrator—keeping the word “Israel” far away from the headlines:
- American activist fatally shot in head in the West Bank (ABC, 9/6/24)
- American citizen killed in West Bank anti-settler protest (USA Today, 9/6/24)
- American activist shot dead in occupied West Bank (Politico, 9/6/24)
- American woman, 26, dies after getting shot in the head in West Bank (New York Post, 9/6/24)
However, given its reach and national reputation for trustworthiness, it is gravest when The New York Times fails in its duty to employ elucidatory language. This is especially true when, in the face of Israeli violence towards Americans, the U.S. government extends carte blanche time and time again.
Because, if the fourth estate, the ostensible watchdog of American government, cannot even hold Israel to account, then who will?
Lara-Nour Walton is an Egyptian-American journalist based in New York
