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New York Times rejects Quaker ad for calling Israel’s actions “genocide”
PHILADELPHIA
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.”
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 more than 1.5 million 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.”
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American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker organization devoted to service, development, and peace programs throughout the world. Our work is based on the belief in the worth of every person, and faith in the power of love to overcome violence and injustice.
(215) 241-7000LATEST NEWS
'Surreal Moment for America': ICE Agents in Chicago Drag Children Out of Their Homes, Ransack Building
"We're under siege," said one witness. "We're being invaded by our own military."
Oct 02, 2025
Just hours after President Donald Trump said US soldiers should use Americans cities as "training grounds," federal law enforcement officials on Tuesday night descended upon an apartment complex in Chicago where witnesses say they broke down residents' doors, smashed furniture and belongings, and dragged dozens of them, including children, placed in U-Haul vans.
Local resident Rodrick Johnson, who lives in the building raided by Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) agents, told the Chicago Sun-Times that federal officials broke down his door, put him in zip ties, and kept him detained outside the building for three hours before letting him go.
"I asked [agents] why they were holding me if I was an American citizen, and they said I had to wait until they looked me up,” he explained to the paper. “I asked if they had a warrant, and I asked for a lawyer. They never brought one.”
Pertissue Fisher, who also lives in the building, backed up Johnson's account and said that agents forcibly removed all residents from their homes regardless of their legal status.
"They just treated us like we were nothing," she told local news station ABC 7 Chicago. "They, like, piling us all up in the back on the other side, and it wasn't no room to move nowhere."
Ebony Sweets Watson, who lives across the street from the raided building, told the Chicago Sun-Times that she saw children, some of whom weren't even wearing clothes, dragged out of the building by ICE agents and then placed into U-Haul vans.
“It was heartbreaking to watch,” she said. “Even if you’re not a mother, seeing kids coming out buck naked and taken from their mothers, it was horrible.”
Watson also said that it appeared the federal agents had ransacked the building during the raid.
“Stuff was everywhere,” she said. “You could see people’s birth certificates, and papers thrown all over. Water was leaking into the hallway. It was wicked crazy.”
Dan Jones, a resident at the building, told the Chicago Sun-Times that he returned from work on Wednesday to find that several of his belongings, including electronics and furniture, were missing from his apartment, and that all of his clothes had been strewn across the floor. He said that he asked the Chicago Police Department for any information about what happened to his belongings in the wake of the ICE raid, but has so far received no response.
“I’m pissed off,” Jones told the paper. “I feel defeated because the authorities aren’t doing anything.”
Kidnapping naked children and throwing them into vans is what you would do if you were a child sex trafficker, and unless proven otherwise, sure looks like ICE is doing that.
Let's be clear: there is no "gang" as criminal or as dangerous as ICE is. https://t.co/99ExX5sCMM
— Jonathan 'Boo and Vote' Cohn (@JonathanCohn) October 2, 2025
Darrell Ballard, who witnessed the raid, told ABC 7 Chicago that it felt more like a military operation than law enforcement.
"We're under siege," he said. "We're being invaded by our own military."
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that 37 people were arrested during the raid, and it claimed some of them "are believed to be involved in drug trafficking and distribution, weapons crimes, and immigration violators."
American Immigration Council fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick said in a Thursday social media post that the raid represented "a surreal moment for America" that was a clear violation of residents' civil liberties.
"Needless to say, if the normal police ever pulled something like this—pulling every single person out of an apartment building and handcuffing them to run warrant checks—they would be sued into oblivion," he observed. "Yet ICE is going to get away with it entirely."
Reichlin-Melnick also said that, even if the agents had a valid warrant to enter the apartment complex, it was highly unlikely that warrant would extend to removing every single resident there.
"I am... DEEPLY skeptical that the warrant permitted them to smash down every door and arrest every person in the building," he wrote. "My gut says they went far beyond the warrant."
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Attack on Flotilla Shows How Far Israel Will Go to Keep 'Deliberately Starving' Gaza: Amnesty
“By continuing to actively block vital aid to a population against whom Israel is committing genocide, including by inflicting famine, Israel is once again demonstrating its utter contempt for the legally binding orders of the International Court of Justice," says Amnesty International's secretary-general Agnès Callamard.
Oct 02, 2025
Amid international outrage and protest over the interdiction and detention of humanitarians aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla by Israeli military forces, Amnesty International on Thursday said the effort to block the approximately 40 vessels bound to Gaza with life-saving aid shows just how far the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will go to keep "deliberately starving" innocent Palestinians in the besieged enclave.
“Israel’s forceful interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla vessels and detention of its crew off the coast of Gaza is a brazen assault against solidarity activists carrying out an entirely peaceful humanitarian mission," said Amnesty's secretary-general Agnès Callamard in a statement. "This seizure comes after weeks of threats and incitement by Israeli officials against the flotilla and its participants and after several attempts to sabotage some of its ships."
“By continuing to actively block vital aid to a population against whom Israel is committing genocide, including by inflicting famine, Israel is once again demonstrating its utter contempt for the legally binding orders of the International Court of Justice and its own obligations as the occupying power to ensure Palestinians in Gaza have access to sufficient food and lifesaving humanitarian assistance.
Protests erupted in cities across Europe, the Middle East, and worldwide on Wednesday night after news of the interdiction spread. Though not unexpected, the military assault on the nonviolent flotilla occurred in international waters, eliciting accusations of piracy and lawlessness on the high seas by the Israeli military and its civilian leadership.
In a Thursday morning statement, the group detailed what happened to their flotilla and reminded people worldwide of their purpose:
At approximately 10:00 PM EEST on October 1st, the IOF launched their assault on the Global Sumud Flotilla.
The world bore witness as unarmed civilians carrying humanitarian aid were subjected to intimidation and interception in the final hours of their peaceful mission to Gaza.
As the sun rises, the actions taken under the cover of darkness could not be more clear: they are the desperate maneuvers of an oppressor.
Our spirits are not broken and our resolve is only strengthened.
"This interception is not just about blocking aid," said Callamard. "It is a calculated act of intimidation intended to punish and silence critics of Israel’s genocide and its unlawful blockade on Gaza. The incitement and threats that preceded it are also a shameless attempt to demonize peaceful solidarity initiatives seeking to end Israel’s genocide and the cruel blockade it has imposed on Gaza since 2007 and significantly tightened since October 2023."
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Wednesday announced that a documented 151 children have now died in Gaza of starvation imposed on them by Israel's blockade of humanitarian aid amid constant bombardment and evacuation orders which have displaced individuals and families without relent.
UNICEF stressed, according to the UN News Centre, "that Gaza’s malnutrition crisis has reached catastrophic levels with the entire child population under five—more than 320,000 children—at risk of acute malnutrition."
With at least 14,383 children acutely malnourished in August, acute malnutrition among young people is up 500% from the beginning of this calendar year, all while aid groups from across the world have sounded the alarm and called for international intervention and the end of the forced starvation.
“This war must end now. Aid must be allowed into the Gaza Strip, including food and nutrition supplies. Humanitarians must be allowed to do their jobs,” said UNICEF communication manager Tess Ingram.
“The children of Gaza," she said, "are being punished by these decisions and it's killing them.”
For her part, Callamard said the attack on the peaceful humanitarian flotilla means that time for rhetoric and simple rebuke has long passed.
"The time for mere condemnation is over. States worldwide must act now and now make clear that they will no longer tolerate Israel’s systematic starvation of Palestinians in Gaza nor its targeting of unarmed civilian humanitarian efforts," she said. "The decades-long impunity for Israel’s blatant violations of international law must end, nothing can justify genocide.
Callamard demanded the "immediate and safe return of all those detained and allow unhindered access to Gaza for the other ships. They must also press Israel to lift its suffocating 18-year blockade and allow humanitarian aid to be delivered through all crossings into and throughout Gaza now."
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Jane Fonda Leads Reboot of Father's McCarthy-Era Free Speech Initiative
“They’re betting on our fear and our silence,” Fonda said. “But our industry—and artists around the world—have a long history of refusing to be silenced, even in the darkest times.”
Oct 01, 2025
As the US descends into authoritarianism under President Donald Trump and Republicans, hundreds of celebrities led by actor and progressive activist Jane Fonda on Wednesday revived a free speech initiative originally launched by Hollywood stars including her father during the right-wing repression of the post-World War II McCarthy era.
Fonda and over 550 celebrities rebooted the Committee for the First Amendment, which was first formed in 1947 by a bevy of actors including Henry Fonda in response to hearings held by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and blacklisting of actual and suspected communists throughout US society, including Hollywood.
“The federal government is once again engaged in a coordinated campaign to silence critics in the government, the media, the judiciary, academia, and the entertainment industry,” the renewed committee said in a statement. “We refuse to stand by and let that happen.”
According to NPR:
Other members of the newly re-formed committee include filmmakers Spike Lee, Barry Jenkins, J.J. Abrams, Patty Jenkins, Aaron Sorkin, and Judd Apatow; TV show creator Quinta Brunson; musicians Barbra Streisand, John Legend, Janelle Monáe, Gracie Abrams, and Billie Eilish; comedians Tiffany Haddish and Nikki Glaser; as well as actors Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway, Kerry Washington, Pedro Pascal, Natalie Portman, Viola Davis, and Ben Stiller. Another signatory is actor Fran Drescher, who last month ended a term as the president of the SAG-AFTRA union.
"This committee was initially created during the McCarthy era, a dark time when the federal government repressed and persecuted American citizens for their political beliefs," the initiative's founders wrote. "They targeted elected officials, government employees, academics, and artists. They were blacklisted, harassed, silenced, and even imprisoned."
"The McCarthy era ended when Americans from across the political spectrum finally came together and stood up for the principles in the Constitution against the forces of repression," they added. "Those forces have returned. And it is our turn to stand together in defense of our constitutional rights."
Fonda’s committee revival comes after Jimmy Kimmel's late-night talk show was temporarily removed from ABC's airwaves earlier this month following pressure form Brendan Carr, Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chief, over a monologue by the comedian about far-right podcaster Charlie Kirk’s accused assassin. Kimmel's show returned amid massive public backlash.
Fonda has more than 60 years of political activism under her belt, starting with the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movemements and continuing through Fire Drill Fridays, #StopLine3, and the Jane Fonda Climate PAC in more recent years.
"I'm 87 years old. I've seen war, repression, protest, and backlash. I've been celebrated, and I've been branded an enemy of the state," Fonda said in a letter inviting people to join the committee.
"But I can tell you this: This is the most frightening moment of my life," she continued. "When I feel scared, I look to history. I wish there were a secret playbook with all the answers—but there never has been. The only thing that has ever worked—time and time again—is solidarity: binding together, finding bravery in numbers too big to ignore, and standing up for one another."
“They’re betting on our fear and our silence,” Fonda added without identifying anyone by name. “But our industry—and artists around the world—have a long history of refusing to be silenced, even in the darkest times.”
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