1.
“The War Crimes in Plain Sight,” June 16-29, 2025
For the cover story of New York’s June 16–29 issue, Suzy Hansen wrote about the war in Gaza from a legal perspective. On Piers Morgan Uncensored, the host characterized the article as “very damning,” “extremely thorough and detailed and well researched.” He asked Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, about Hansen’s assertions of war crimes in Gaza. Danon replied, “I have to disagree with this language. I deal with this at the U.N. every day, when people spread lies so easily, blood libels, … and then we have to deal with the consequences, the incitement,” adding that “we are doing our best, even now when we are in the middle of a war with Iran,” to get Palestinians access to humanitarian aid. In a similar vein, Atlantic staff writer and former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum tweeted, “The moral standard here is bright and clear: If done BY Israel: war crime. If done TO Israel: not a war crime.” On the website Honest Reporting, Rachel O’Donoghue considered, “One wonders what the actual victims of genocide might say to [the accusations]—the Yazidis, perhaps, or the survivors of Darfur. But perhaps they don’t count in Hansen’s world. Because Israel wasn’t the one who hurt them.” The overwhelming response to the article, however, was agreement. Saying Hansen “stares into the abyss,” Wired features director Reyhan Harmanci called it “the reckoning we need.” New York Times columnist Lydia Polgreen said the author showed “total clarity of purpose,” while her colleague Times opinion writer David Wallace-Wells cited the report in his newsletter, calling it a “comprehensive and engrossing prosecutorial account.” On X, Bailey Carlin called the article “an absolutely phenomenal piece of reporting on Gaza and, essentially, the full-blown collapse of international humanitarian law.” Matt Duss of the Center for International Policy and a former adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, tweeted, “In addition to laying out how the Biden administration consistently refused to acknowledge clear Israeli war crimes, @suzyhans tracks how since 9/11 the US and Israel collaborated to collapse post-WWII norms of civilian protection.” Said reporter Lindsey Adler, “This is what Americans—liberals and conservatives alike—will wear on our consciences because of our morally rotten, intractable leaders.” On Bluesky, photographer and writer Victoria Scott said, “America has enabled a continual atrocity out of no real logic beyond a sickening devotion to ‘realpolitik’ and our own fetishization of the military-industrial complex. It makes me want to throw up.” Offered commenter pd816, “Most sane people have long ago realized this one-sided massacre has no justification—no matter how horrible Oct 7 was. That does not justify the massacre of 100X more innocent civilians. It is irrelevant if the reigning political faction does not want peace—it does not justify killing thousands of children.” Commenter Abeflysure agreed: “Never again means never again for anyone. Thank you NYMag for bravely reporting the truth here. It’s crazy that we have all the power, yet a victim complex about it here.” From Portugal, journalist Tiago Dias concluded, “Honestly felt like I had stopped breathing while reading this. One cannot begin to imagine what life
in Gaza is like. Absolutely cannot. And this will weigh on us all.”
2.
“Playing Secretary”
Kerry Howley reported on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Seyward Darby, author of Sisters in Hate: American Women and White Extremism, said on Longreads the article shows the Pentagon “is beset by utter chaos—leaks that constitute a veritable tsunami, backstabbing among wildly unqualified staffers, and a leader more adept at posting photos of his workouts than managing one of the largest bureaucracies in the world.” Commenter sunberry said Howley “nails the exact way the media should handle the whole administration. Totally thorough reporting … told in a way that the best satirical writers would envy,” while Maxwellscrossing compared the tale to “some sort of airport political thriller.” @susanmathai tweeted, “Hegseth and Trump better pray we have no national security needs while he sits in that office. This will not end well.” Economic historian Phil Magness said, “It’s sure starting to look as if Hegseth threw several loyal friends under the bus to save himself from Signalgate and/or Laura Loomer’s conspiracy theories.” And on Bluesky, Washington Post columnist Philip Bump reflected, “I’ll be honest: I enjoy reading articles about how unqualified ideologues selected for their loyalty to an authoritarian president are suffering at their jobs.”
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