Nicholas Kristof, the Israeli-dog-rape fantasizing New York Times columnist whose father fought on the Nazi side in World War II and wrote a letter to the Times defending a Vichy war criminal, is back to his old tricks, with a new column that distorts reality about Judea and Samaria while also conceding that even getting rid of Prime Minister Netyanyahu won’t satisfy Kristof or other bitter critics of Israel.
The column comes as the dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, Jeremy Weinstein, is preparing to host Kristof on September 17 for what the Kennedy School calendar indicates is a reception and the Malcolm H. Weiner Lecture in International Political Economy. Kristof’s wife, Sheryl WuDunn, is vice chair of the executive committee of the Harvard Board of Overseers, one of the university’s two governing boards, and a 2018 Harvard Business School case study focused on the couple and "the power of writing to launch and sustain a movement."
A federal judge, Richard Stearns, who was Bill Clinton’s fall 1969 Oxford roommate and anti-war activism pal and whose anti-Israel activity was an issue in the 1972 presidential campaign, recently dismissed a federal antisemitism case against Harvard on the grounds that the outbreak of Jew-hate had been "too isolated and episodic" to violate the federal civil rights law.
The New York Times is not subject to the federal standards for antidiscrimination that universities are, notwithstanding that it runs a "school" at which boycott-Israel activist Zaina Arafat is a featured faculty member. Prime Minister Netanyahu, however, announced in May that he "instructed" his "legal advisers to consider the harshest legal action against The New York Times and Nicholas Kristof." And Israel’s consul general in New York, Ofir Akunis, earlier this month said he "ordered the Israeli Consulate in New York to cancel its subscription to The New York Times, a newspaper that consistently demonizes and delegitimizes the Jewish State and publishes false blood libels against the State of Israel." Akunis told the Washington Free Beacon that the trigger was a Times news article that, like the Kristof column, featured sources dedicated to Israel’s destruction making coordinated accusations of abuse, including one of rape, after being detained by Israel.
Whether Kristof’s column is legally actionable is a question for lawyers. What is certain is that it misleads readers about what the column calls "settler violence" in the West Bank, an area that includes Israeli residents and Arabs. The area was historically part of Israel and has recently been controlled by the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, the Kingdom of Jordan, and, since 1967, the modern state of Israel.
The column cites U.N. statistics that, as a recent report by Pesach Benson and Brett Goodman of The Press Service of Israel pointed out, lump self-defense killings of terrorists by Israelis in with "settler violence." As Benson and Goodman put it, "The database uses a broader definition than the phrase ‘settler violence’ may suggest." For example, "Qalandiya Refugee Camp, May 11: OCHA reported that Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man, held his body, confiscated his car and fired live ammunition and tear gas, injuring three people. It also reported that Israeli forces entered a training center in the refugee camp, photographing and measuring the structure. However, the Israeli Border Police said soldiers saw the man exit a vehicle and fire at them with an M-16 rifle equipped with a telescopic sight; security forces returned fire, killing him."
A June publication by Eugene Kontorovich and Avraham Shalev for the Kohelet Policy Forum found the U.N. group Kristof relied on uses a definition "so broad as to include cases in which Palestinians were injured or killed as a result of an attack they committed against Jews, as well as anti-terror operations by Israeli security forces." The incidents include alleged cases of Israelis "trespassing," "with no casualties or property damage." According to the Kohelet report, "Out of 1,704 incidents recorded in East Jerusalem, 1,361 involve Jews visiting the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, which Palestinians believe they should not be allowed to access. 1,613 incidents in Judea and Samaria involve Israelis hiking or touring land Palestinians claim Jews should be forbidden from." Kristof doesn’t mention that, offering only, lamely, that "the circumstances are often disputed."
The Kristof column makes it sound like the problem is "getting worse." He writes, "settler attacks causing damage or injury are at the highest level in two decades, with an average of five a day last year. That rose to six a day in the first half of this year, according to United Nations figures."
What he does not level with readers about is that, even on the basis of the U.N.’s questionable figures, deaths and injuries by Palestinians in the West Bank are down. Here are the statistics from the page that Kristof links to using the misleading language about "highest level in two decades." They show the injuries and fatalities both having declined.
Kristof didn’t immediately respond to my emails. A Harvard Kennedy School spokesperson said, "Nicholas Kristof is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and columnist whose decades of reporting and opinion writing have covered issues of poverty, conflict, humanitarian crisis, global health, and women’s rights — subjects at the core of what the Malcolm Wiener Lecture in International Political Economy is designed to explore. He was invited based on that substantial body of work and his standing as one of the country’s most widely read voices on international affairs." He added "The Wiener Lecture has a long track record of featuring speakers from across the ideological and professional spectrum, including central bank leaders, a Trump White House economic adviser, heads of state, Nobel laureates, and journalists. Harvard Kennedy School is committed to free and open inquiry, and to exposing students to the voices shaping today's most consequential debates, so that our students can engage with and critically evaluate their ideas. An invite to speak at HKS does not signal agreement with every view a speaker has espoused."
Harvard is also scheduled to host in September the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts.
One conclusion of the Kristof column is indeed inarguable: that even if Israeli voters replace Benjamin Netanyahu, Kristof and likeminded critics of Israel will not be satisfied. "I’m hoping that Netanyahu’s political end is coming," Kristof writes. "But even if that happens, let’s be honest: Gazans will still suffer unconscionably, and the West Bank will remain oppressed and unequal."
Let’s be honest that that suffering results less from Israeli actions and more from Palestinian terrorism, Islamist extremism, and refusal to accept the existence of Israel. One other statistic not in the Kristof column: a new Palestinian poll indicating that 79 percent of those in the West Bank oppose Hamas disarmament. "Opposition to Hamas disarming before a complete Israeli withdrawal stands at 62% in the Gaza Strip and 79% in the West Bank," the poll found. Thirty-two percent of the Palestinians polled said they support armed struggle against "the occupation." Polling in unfree societies such as the Palestinian Authority or the Hamas-controlled West Bank is notoriously unreliable, but even so, the idea that Israel can just withdraw from the West Bank the way it did from Gaza seems like a fantasy. Kristof will keep blaming Israel and American "complicity" and it will keep bringing him lots of honor and honoraria from Harvard.
If Kristof does come to Cambridge, I hope he makes it there and back safely. The Trump administration has warned that the safety and security situation in Boston’s South station is in need of addressing, hinting at a possible federal takeover. There was a fatal stabbing in the station August 12. It didn’t make the New York Times opinion pages because there was no way to blame Israel for it.
