New York magazine on Friday published an article attacking three Democratic politicians who have broken with the “progressive” movement over their support for Israel, including black congressman Ritchie Torres (N.Y.). A graphic accompanying the piece that was meant to show the three lawmakers, however, mistakenly showed a different black politician not mentioned anywhere in the article.
The article tore into the three lawmakers—Torres, Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.), and former representative Mondaire Jones (N.Y.)—accusing them of siding with “power over the powerless” as Israel “carries out a genocidal campaign in Gaza.” The graphic at the top of the piece showed photos of Fetterman, Jones, and, oddly, New York lieutenant governor Antonio Delgado (D.), who was not a subject of the article.
Torres was quick to slam the magazine for apparently confusing him with Delgado. “If New York Magazine is going to publish an Anti-Israel hit piece by Sarah Jones, then at least do due diligence to get the photo right,” Torres said in a post on X. “Not all Black people look the same.”
If New York Magazine is going to publish an Anti-Israel hit piece by Sarah Jones, then at least do enough due diligence to get the photo right. I am not Antonio Delgado.
Not all Black people look the same. pic.twitter.com/iBLCUlWksI
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) June 14, 2024
New York magazine on Friday swapped out the graphic for a new one that replaced the photo of Delgado with one of Torres, acknowledging the mistake in an editor’s note.
Sarah Jones, the writer of the article, decried the lawmakers in the piece, accusing them of betraying progressives through their support for Israel following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre. “The left must employ litmus tests” to prevent such candidates from taking power under the progressive banner, she wrote.
“The [progressive] movement didn’t leave [Torres],” Sarah Jones wrote. “He left it, if indeed he was ever fully part of it, by making a series of deliberate choices. One such choice is to support Israel despite the unbelievable brutality it has inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza.”
New York magazine published the hit after the three lawmakers for months have vocally supported Israel, accusing fellow Democrats of taking the side of Hamas in its war with the Jewish state.
Mondaire Jones this month publicly condemned anti-Israel ‘Squad’ member Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.) as “god-awful” and endorsed his primary opponent. Progressive Democrats such as Rep. Cori Bush (Mo.) retaliated against Jones, calling the pro-Israel Democrat “disgusting.”
Jones, who is seeking reelection to Congress, had his own endorsement from the Congressional Progressive Caucus rescinded. “These people were never my actual friends,” Jones said of Bush and other former progressive allies in the House.
Similarly, Fetterman told HBO’s Bill Maher last week that the label of progressive “left me” following Hamas’s attacks. “After what happened on October 7,” Fetterman said, “I really knew that the whole progressive stack would be blasted apart and there would not be any kind of way how the Democrats are going to be able to reply to that kind of response.”
Torres, dubbed the “loudest House supporter” of Israel by Politico, took aim at the anti-Israel left when he denounced a pro-Palestinian rally organized by the Democratic Socialists of America in Times Square on Oct. 8, the day after Hamas’s attacks. Torres ripped the organization, whose members include Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), and Bush, as a “deep rot of anti-Semitism.”
