New York, United States

The New York Times, one of the major American daily newspapers with a vast readership, became subject to intense criticism and mockery after it published an article that critics claimed was intended to soften slain Hezbollah founder Hassan Nasrallah's image across the world. 

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In the article, which has come under debate, terror leader Nasrallah - who called for the annihilation of Israel - was claimed to be a person who wanted to achieve “equality” for all the religious groups in the conflicted region. 

The article, which had the headline “Protesters Mourn Nasrallah’s Death Around the World”, was printed on Saturday (Sep 28) and did not have a byline. 

In the article, Nasrallah was strangely praised and called a “gifted orator” who “maintained that there should be one Palestine with equality for Muslims, Jews and Christians.”

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Nasrallah was known to aim for destruction of the Jewish state and various attacks were carried out on Jews across the world by his organisation.

In the article, it is said the slain Hezbollah founder was “beloved” by Shiite Muslims because he provided “social services” in Lebanon.

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The 64-year-old Nasrallah was killed in Israel's targeted strike via massive aerial bombardment in Beirut on Friday (Sep 27). Nasrallah is known to have co-founded Hezbollah in 1982 and became the sole leader of the terror group by 1992.

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The Iran-backed Hezbollah has been accused of perpetrating various deadly terror attacks on Jewish people in the last 40 years. This included the bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in 1994, in which 85 people were killed, and also perpetrating the plane crash which happened the next day and killed 21 people, most of them being Jews.

In the 2000s, Hezbollah carried out various suicide bombings in Israel and targeted public places like restaurants and buses.

Here's how people reacted to NYT's article

Reacting to the NYT's article under debate, one X user wrote, “The Times readership is now down to liberal elites, politicians, Communists and Islamists."

“This is so embarrassing. How does anyone take the NYT seriously anymore?,” quizzed another user.

One user accused the newspaper of “Jihadsplaining” and “attempting to turn explicit calls for genocide into something positive.”

Nasrallah, who often claimed to be anti-Zionist and not antisemitic, was quoted in a Times article on May 23, 2004, “If Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”

While publishing this article, we reached out to The New York Times for their comment, which will be added later.

(With inputs from agencies)