On Nicholas Kristof

Over four decades, Nicholas Kristof has been a highly respected, humanitarian and compassionate journalist for the New York Times. However, he has totally sullied his reputation by crafting a highly libelous story entitled “The Silence that Meets the Rape of Palestinians”. With this story, Kristoff has left the world of effective journalism and has entrenched himself in anti-Zionist activism.

I am also a former journalist, who has been published in JNS, Newsweek, The Washington Times, The Hill, The Jerusalem Post, Israel HaYom, The American Thinker and the New Republic. I made a public decision to dedicate my life to the struggles of Israel and the Jewish people long before I founded EMET in 2005. Prior to that, I was the Executive Director of foreign policy and governmental relations for the American Jewish Congress, and prior to that I was the National Policy Coordinator of the ZOA.

Like all of us, I realize that I have my own biases, but unlike Kristof, I recognize that I would never put aside my objective and journalistic integrity to recycle blood libels or lies about any people, not the Palestinians, not the Jews, about absolutely no-one.

This story is as if one member of the Mafia talks to another and yet another to describe how the police force and the F.B.I are “in a systematic campaign of betraying us.”

Did it ever occur to them that perhaps they are?

None of Kristof’s sources have a shred of evidence to prove their allegations. Where is this man’s journalistic integrity?  I would like to begin by defining “libelous”.  This is no different from when William Norwich accused Jews of murdering a young boy in 12^th Century England. No different from the blood libel campaign that the Nazis had used to demonize Jews. No different from the KGB and their hateful smears against Jews. No different from the murder of 10-month old Shalhevet Pass in 2001, or 9 month old Kfir Bibas and his 4-year-old brother Ariel, in 2023.

How does Kristoff dismiss the fact that exactly one day after his smear story was released, a painstaking study was to be revealed, after almost three years from the October 7^t, 2023 barbaric, brutal attacks? The study was authored by Dr. Cochav Elkayam Levy, and her team of experts in international law and historic documentation; appropriately entitled “Silenced No More.”

Dr. Cochav Elkayam Levy stated, “Very early when we saw the denial happening. We understood that this historical archive must be documented in the most rigorous, legal way.”  They were looking at over 10,000 videos. They conducted over 430 interviews, and they realized that this had happened in a cynical, criminal way. They were all experts in international law and historic documentation.

To be able to tolerate the strategic weapon of sexual violence that was used by Hamas against women, men and children required amazing resilience.

What is happening in that depraved society, where a child can call his mother on October 7th and say, “Mom ..I killed 10 Jews today with my own bare hands”.

And the mother responds with “Allah be praised.”

It is a known fact that 14 of the witnesses interviewed by Kristoff have well known ties to Hamas.  It is also a known fact that the Euro Human Rights Monitor is chaired by Ramy Abdu, who was the media coordinator for the “Freedom Flotilla”, and is the Palestinian coordinator of a highly biased Palestinian policy paper, Al- Shabaka.  It is also co-chaired by Richard Falk, who has authored the highly controversial  UN Commission of Inquiry into the Palestinian Territories in 2001, consistently accusing Israel of “war crimes” of “crimes against humanity”, of “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing.”

What has happened to a people that have been bred on one-sided propaganda to despise the Jew, the Zionist, the Israeli and the “apostate Christian”, to such an extent that they will stop nowhere in fabricating such outrageous stories?  These people who are capable of such vile atrocities as burning children in ovens in front of their parents, or murdering and raping parents in front of their children, will not hesitate to humiliate themselves if it helps them to win global sympathy.

To allege that dogs raped Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons is such an obvious fabrication that it is beyond repute. All the scientific literature denies that this can ever be possible. For example, “Science Direct” states that “Sexual assault of a human by a canine has never been described in the human or veterinary medical literature, nor is such a thing likely. “

It is a well-known fact that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, (as well as the Palestinian Authority), have all been dedicated to the sole objective of the eradication of the state of Israel. Hamas was founded in 1987, with the one, fundamental goal of eliminating the state of Israel and replacing it with an Islamist, Palestinian state.

The Hamas Charter of 1988 is dripping with antisemitism, in each one of their 36 Articles. For example, Article VIII states the slogan of Hamas: “Allah is its target; the Prophet is its model; the Koran is its constitution; Jihad is its path. And death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.”

Yet, when it fits their purposes, Nicholas Kristof portrays these people as vulnerable, hapless, innocent children.  A line in the sand was crossed almost three years ago, and we will never condone such atrocities to ever occur again, regardless of how they try to transfer their atrocities onto our people.

Sarah N. Stern is Founder and President of EMET, a 21-year-old think tank and policy institute that specializes in the Middle East. Her team meets with legislators on a weekly basis.