PHILADELPHIA (January 8, 2025) The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) – a Quaker organization that has worked for peace and justice for over a century – has cancelled planned advertising with the New York Times after the paper refused to allow an ad that referred to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The ad read: “Tell Congress to stop arming Israel’s genocide in Gaza now! As a Quaker organization, we work for peace. Join us. Tell the President and Congress to stop the killing and starvation in Gaza.”

“The refusal of The New York Times to run paid digital ads that call for an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza is an outrageous attempt to sidestep the truth,” said Joyce Ajlouny, General Secretary for AFSC. “Palestinians and allies have been silenced and marginalized in the media for decades as these institutions choose silence over accountability. It is only by challenging this reality that we can hope to forge a path toward a more just and equitable world.”

After receiving the text for the ad quoted above, a representative from the advertising team suggested AFSC use the word “war” instead of “genocide” – a word with an entirely different meaning both colloquially and under international law. When AFSC rejected this approach, the New York Times Ad Acceptability Team sent an email that read in part: “Various international bodies, human rights organizations, and governments have differing views on the situation. In line with our commitment to factual accuracy and adherence to legal standards, we must ensure that all advertising content complies with these widely applied definitions.”  

New York Times rejects Quaker ad for calling Israel’s actions “genocide” by Layne Mullett, American Friends Service Committee, Jan 8, 2025

Many human rights organizations, legal scholars, genocide and holocaust scholars, and UN bodies have determined that Israel is committing genocide or genocidal acts in Gaza. This includes U.S.-based organizations like the Center for Constitutional Rights and the University Network for Human Rights, international human rights organizations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and several Palestinian human rights groups. The New York Times regularly looks to several of these organizations as sources for its own reporting.

In January of 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a provisional ruling that Israel’s actions in Gaza were “plausibly genocidal.” The case was brought by South Africa, and now has the support of 14 countries. The same week that the New York Times rejected AFSC’s ad, the Washington Post ran an advertisement from Amnesty International that used the language of genocide.

“The suggestion that the New York Times couldn’t run an ad against Israel’s genocide in Gaza because there are ‘differing views’ is absurd,” said Layne Mullett, Director of Media Relations for AFSC. “The New York Times advertises a wide variety of products and advocacy messages on which there are differing views. Why is it not acceptable to publicize the meticulously documented atrocities committed by Israel and paid for by the United States?”                    

AFSC has been supporting humanitarian efforts in Gaza since 1948 and currently has staff in Gaza, Ramallah, and Jerusalem. Since October of 2023, AFSC staff in Gaza have provided 1.5 million meals, hygiene kits, and other units of humanitarian aid to internally displaced people. In the U.S., AFSC programs are working to put pressure on the Biden administration and Congress to call for a permanent cease-fire, full humanitarian access, release of all who are held captive, and an end to U.S. military funding for Israel. 

“Our courageous staff members in Gaza witness daily horrors and continue to provide vital support despite Israel’s relentless attacks on their homes and families,” said Joyce Ajlouny. “Our ad campaign aims to shed light on these atrocities while urging people in the U.S. to pressure the President and Congress to halt weapons shipments to Israel and advocate for an end to the genocide.”

New York Times rejects Quaker ad for calling Israel’s actions “genocide” by Layne Mullett, American Friends Service Committee, Jan 8, 2025

In the landmark report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, Amnesty International documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.

Israeli forces have caused unprecedented destruction, at a level and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21st century, leveling entire cities and destroying critical infrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religious sites, rendering large swathes of Gaza uninhabitable.

42,000 Palestinians have been killed, including over 13,300 children, and injured over 97,000 more, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families.

The government of Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created a deadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, and exposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death.

The government of Israel also subjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza to incommunicado detention, torture and other ill treatment.

“You Feel Like You Are Subhuman”: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, Amnesty International USA, Dec 4, 2024

The Genocide Convention states that genocide is “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”: 

• Killing members of the group, 
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, 
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, 
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and 
• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. 

To determine that certain conduct amounts to genocide, one or more of these five acts must be committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” 

In isolation, these are serious violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law. But looking at the broader picture of Israel’s military campaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts, the conclusion we came to is genocidal intent.

“You Feel Like You Are Subhuman”: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, Amnesty International USA, Dec 4, 2024

On January 26, 2024, Palestinians took the Biden administration to court, as they have repeatedly refused to use their influence to place limits on Israel’s massive bombing and total siege of Gaza. Instead, their actions to fund, arm, and endorse Israel constitute a failure to prevent genocide and complicity in genocide. This includes denying Israel’s atrocities, offering unconditional support, bypassing Congressional oversight to send funding and weapons to Israel, and vetoing resolutions proposed by the United Nations Security Council.

https://visualizingpalestine.org/visual/biden-administration-complicity/