What the papers repeated

58 patterns in how American newspapers wrote about Palestinians

Things no single clipping can show you, because they only appear when the same move repeats across decades and hundreds of papers. A word that arrives. A word that leaves. A sentence built the same way for fifty years.

Every count in the 58 patterns below is a count of the 3,517 clippings collected here, from 726 papers, and not of the American press. Each pattern opens on its own page, with the newspapers it was read out of. How this archive was built.

13 patterns

Land and place

What the papers recorded about who was there, what the place was called, and what happened to the houses.

01Who was already there757,182 people, counted by the government that ran the place1891 to 1932 · 3 clippingsRead →02Colonization, then settlementColonizing, in the New York Times headline1883 to 2023Read →03Even the word PalestineNinety years of marks around the name1919 to 2013 · 11 clippingsRead →04One town, four namesOne town, four names, and the word that left the dateline1917 to 1997 · 9 clippingsRead →05The number was in the paperThe official figure, printed all along1892 to 1975Read →0660,000 people, six verbsThree news agencies, ten papers, one Friday23 April 1948 · 4 clippingsRead →07Jaffa, from 70,000 to 2,000Seventy thousand people, then two thousand1948 to 1958 · 6 clippingsRead →08Three verbs for taking a Palestinian houseOne dispatch, three verbs for taking a house1949 to 1952 · 5 clippingsRead →09785,000, then under 100,000One dispatch, eight headlinesOctober 1949 · 1 clippingRead →10Houses for riflesOne house spared per rifle returned1937 to 2021Read →1134 years of plans to settle them in someone else’s countryThirty-four years of proposing a different country1949 to 1983 · 8 clippingsRead →12Jabalia, then and nowOne camp, photographed for 61 years1957 to 2018Read →13The olive harvest, and who the paper says owns the groundThe headmen said the land grew olives; the spokesman said it was state-owned1950 to 2023 · 10 clippingsRead →

9 patterns

Identity and language

The words for the people, and what happened to each one.

14When American papers started saying PalestinianThe word in a headline, 19241890 to 2023 · 7 clippingsRead →15The majority, named by subtractionThe same construction, every decade1918 to 1977 · 6 clippingsRead →16Before there was a PLOAn executive, a committee, a council1925 to 1958 · 5 clippingsRead →17Nakba, in quotation marks, for 38 yearsThe word in a headline, still in quotation marks1983 to 2021 · 9 clippingsRead →18Who was allowed to say genocideBare in 1969, when the victims were Israeli1948 to 2021 · 1 clippingRead →19The word for what they saidThe sentences were reprinted in order to dismiss them1919 to 2002 · 11 clippingsRead →20The day anti-Zionism was first compared to antisemitismThe comparison was made at a convention in 19441898 to 2015 · 11 clippingsRead →21Zionism as racism: the 1975 UN vote, the repeal, and the reversalThe inversion, stated at the UN in 19781968 to 2023 · 11 clippingsRead →22Her name was FalestineOne dispatch, three papers, one sister4 October 2000 · 3 clippingsRead →

8 patterns

Voice and visibility

Who got named, who got quoted, and who was allowed to answer.

23The letters page38 readers who wrote in, and were printed1930 to 2021 · 38 clippingsRead →24Rabbis and Jewish papers arguing against Zionism, and what happened to the argumentPrinted three weeks after Balfour1914 to 2008Read →25Only one headline called him an artistOnly one headline called him an artist1972 to 2014 · 6 clippingsRead →26Disabled Palestinians, and the warning that becomes the defenseNamed once, counted often1994 to 2022 · 12 clippingsRead →27Shireen Abu Akleh, and what it took to be namedOne name, six papers, ten weeksMay to September 2022 · 5 clippingsRead →28We shall overcome, in BeirutArafat quoted the anthem backSeptember to October 1979 · 7 clippingsRead →29What it costs to give birthA checkpoint, a delay, and a birth that came too early1993 to 2008 · 6 clippingsRead →30Two Americans killed in one week, and the papers that said soTwo Americans killed in one week, and three papers said so themselvesOctober 1985 to July 1986 · 9 clippingsRead →

6 patterns

Daily life and practice

What got into an American newspaper when nobody had died.

One of the hardest things about being Palestinian, especially from Gaza, is realizing that sometimes the world only notices us when we are dying.

@motaz_azaiza · 7 October 2026

31Palestinian women have been organizing since 1922The press counted the cars, not the women1922 to 2023 · 20 clippingsRead →32The dish, the thread, the woodFood, dress and craft, and what happens to the names1973 to 2023 · 20 clippingsRead →33The thing they were proudest ofA university closed as a punishment, reopened for an envoy1976 to 2000 · 10 clippingsRead →34Two runners, and what they trained onA beach for a track, and a pool with no permit1947 to 2018 · 12 clippingsRead →35What a wedding dress is forA dress that records which village she came from1993 to 2018 · 7 clippingsRead →36The Palestinians who are ChristiansA tenth of the population, and a surprise to Americans1912 to 2022 · 10 clippingsRead →

11 patterns

Violence and responsibility

Who is the subject of the sentence when somebody dies.

37The grammar of a death headline20 of 32 headlines name no killer1957 to 2022 · 2 clippingsRead →38Who did it, counted303 death headlines, 171 with an actor1927 to 2023Read →39A boy was killed, and nine papers called it crossfireCrossfire in nine of sixteen, an actor in three1 to 6 October 2000 · 16 clippingsRead →40Sabra and Shatila: from who fired to who knewFrom who fired to who knew, in five daysSeptember 1982 · 6 clippingsRead →41Five children, two accountsFrom an errant rocket to an airstrike, in nine days7 to 17 August 2022 · 3 clippingsRead →42Four counts of one morningFour counts, none matchingOctober 1990 · 5 clippingsRead →43When the killer was an earthquake670 dead, counted exactlyJuly 1927 · 3 clippingsRead →44How “human shields” changed sides in three yearsVolunteers in 2006, a tactic used on them by 20092003 to 2014 · 7 clippingsRead →45Held without charge, for eighty-four yearsA category that never required a charge1939 to 2023 · 13 clippingsRead →46Where the confirmation came fromAlmost every confirmation came from their own institutions1977 to 2020 · 11 clippingsRead →47The word that waited for a verdictMassacre arrives in 1958, after a court says murder1956 to 2001 · 12 clippingsRead →

5 patterns

The news machine

How the copy was made, moved and stopped.

48The copy was the sameOne story, four papers, four headlines1933 to 2013 · 3 clippingsRead →49What the censor left behindThe censor’s deletions, marked by hand on the clipping1948 to 2012 · 10 clippingsRead →50Press cards pulled, news agencies closedThe deletions were ordered, and the paper said so1948 to 2022 · 22 clippingsRead →51The complaint that got printedTwo headlines, one dispatch, one printed complaint20 to 26 August 2001 · 3 clippingsRead →52The commission, and the one paper that printed itFour papers, one dispatch, one that printed the commission1987 to 1999 · 10 clippingsRead →

6 patterns

The explanations

Not what was done, but the reasons given for it.

53The argument that Palestinians’ own leaders caused their expulsionPrinted in full in 1948, with its sources named1948 to 2016 · 7 clippingsRead →54Both cases, printed in the same year: 1958One year, taken whole, both arguments1958 · 4 clippingsRead →55Security reasons, and what they were given forIn quotation marks in 1985, bare in a headline by 19881985 to 2002 · 9 clippingsRead →56No partner for peace, and the answer printed beside itIn a headline three years before it entered common use2000 to 2009 · 7 clippingsRead →57One man, and the position he never changedNo Palestinian state, no withdrawal, nobody to negotiate with1984 to 1998 · 8 clippingsRead →58December 1987: the intifada begins, and Hamas is foundedThe intifada begins; Hamas is founded days laterDecember 1987Read →

One measurement from outside the archive

Whose dead are called civilians

Civilian is a legal category. The laws of war build their protections around it, and a paper that prints the word is saying the person who died was not a combatant. These two lines count how often the New York Times printed each phrase, one calendar year at a time, from 1987 to 2023.

Times each phrase appears in the New York Times, counted in the year it ran. “Israeli civilians” appears more often in 30 of the 37 years. The figures are counts of reported search matches, not of verified distinct articles: inspection of one year found the same opinion piece returned four times in a single sample, so an unknown number are duplicate records, and an audit of distinct articles is incomplete. News reporting, opinion and letters appear together in the results, and the counts include every use of each phrase rather than only reports of deaths. What this measures is which population the paper discusses as civilians, not how many of each were killed.

Unlike everything above, this is not a count of this archive. It is a count of one newspaper, made with that newspaper’s own search, and it is here because the pattern it shows is the same one the clippings keep showing. The full working is in Whose Word Was It.

Last updated 2 November 2026

The 7 groupings above are a way of finding things and nothing more. No group makes a claim, and no pattern is in two of them. All 58 are also in the archive itself, where each one can be opened beside the clippings: see them in place. The full text of every clipping, with no JavaScript, is at /clippings.