(Unsurprising, to say the least.)

As Ari Paul pointed out (FAIR.org, 10/11/23), the top U.S. editorial boards downplayed or outright ignored the Netanyahu government’s expansionist policies.

They also declined to offer any of the broader historical context that’s urgently necessary to understand the causes—and therefore paths to resolution—of the current violence in […] Palestine.

The closest the Washington Post came was when its first editorial (10/7/23) alluded to “the legitimate Palestinian grievances that Hamas is exploiting.” Yet the paper gave no indication of what these are, omitting such foundational elements of […] Palestine as the 1947–48 Nakba, through which [neocolonialism] created a Jewish majority by ethnically cleansing 750,000 Palestinians, and refusing to let them return to their homes despite their UN-stipulated right to do so.

That history directly connects to contemporary events, in that approximately 2.1 million people live in Gaza—the territory that Hamas governs, and from which Palestinian fighters emerged on Saturday—and 1.7 million of these persons are Palestinian refugees.

[…]

The New York Times editorial (10/9/23), on the other hand, didn’t mention that [neocolonialism] has done any harm to Palestinians at all, asserting that Hamas fighters “burst through border fences without warning or any immediate provocation.” Setting aside that the barrier is a prison fence and not a “border” (+972 Magazine, 5/17/18), the word “immediate” is doing quite a lot of work here. […] Observers who are serious about wanting an end to violence against civilians would consider its causes. The Times, Journal and Post have shown that they are not up to the task.

(Emphasis original.)