The Yale Daily News, the 145-year-old publication that bills itself as “the nation’s oldest college daily newspaper,” made an editorial decision last week that is drawing criticism for engaging in the world’s oldest form of hate.
An “editor’s note” now appended to sophomore Sahar Tartak’s Oct. 12 column, titled “Is Yalies4Palestine a hate group?” now states: “This column has been edited to remove unsubstantiated claims that Hamas raped women and beheaded men.”
“This sort of barbarism went on throughout Israel this weekend, committed by Hamas terrorists from Gaza intent on killing as many Jews as possible. Yes, they raped women. Yes, they kidnapped children. Yes, they beheaded men. Yes, they cheered the whole time. It’s all on video,” Tartak wrote, per an archive of the original article.
The article now reads: “This sort of barbarism went on throughout Israel this weekend, committed by Hamas terrorists from Gaza who seemed intent on killing as many Jews as possible. Yes, they kidnapped children. Yes, they cheered the whole time. It’s all on video.”
The original article linked to an Atlantic article when it mentioned “they raped women,” and to a graphic and disturbing video of a man’s head being hacked with a hoe.
On Oct. 30, the family of Shani Louk announced that the 22-year-old, who had been thought to be a hostage in Gaza, was found dead. Israeli President Isaac Herzog told German media that Louk’s skull was found. “This means that these barbaric, sadistic animals simply chopped off her head as they attacked, tortured and killed Israelis,” he said.
“I’m still collecting my thoughts on the YDN’s egregious correction,” Tartak, who wrote the “corrected” article, posted on social media.
“Are the hostage-taking, murder of children in their beds, burning of people alive and parading of nude captive women in the street also ‘unsubstantiated’?” wrote Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a professor at Yale and a sociologist and physician.
“Yale’s student newspaper is running cover for Hamas,” wrote Zach Kessel, a political journalism fellow at National Review.
“Hey, Yale Daily News editor Anika Seth, these reports are not ‘unsubstantiated.’ Hundreds of journalists have watched the uncensored video of the attacks made available by the Israeli embassy,” wrote Marc Thiessen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former chief speechwriter to President George W. Bush.
Thiessen shared an account of the video footage from the New York Times, which included “two soldiers without heads” and “brutalized young women, one of them naked.”
“Go watch the video yourself,” he wrote. “Stop spreading Hamas propaganda.”
“This is Holocaust denial in real time at Yale Daily News,” wrote Bari Weiss, editor of The Free Press.
“Shame on Yale Daily News,” wrote Shana Goldberg, assistant publisher of Intermountain Jewish News in Colorado. “‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them.’”
John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine, added: “Who is the editor of the Yale Daily News? Joseph Goebbels?”
Yale Daily News did not respond to a query from JNS.
