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| Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres |
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres recently
included Israeli entities on a UN blacklist related to conflict-linked sexual
violence.
The problem is that the allegations underlying that decision
are hardly verified. To date, no publicly available evidence has emerged that
conclusively establishes the horrific accusations made against Israeli
personnel. Yet those accusations continue to circulate as though they have
already been proven.
One of the most prominent figures to amplify these
allegations was Nicholas Kristof. In a lengthy New York Times opinion piece,
Kristof recounted allegations of sexual abuse against Palestinian detainees,
including some claims that many observers viewed as highly implausible if not
impossible.
And yet, Kristof appeared far more willing to accept these
allegations than to rigorously test them. Instead, he relied heavily on
anonymous sources and has abandoned traditional journalistic standards used to
distinguish fact from fiction.
I have addressed Kristof’s column before. But no one has
done a better job of exposing its weaknesses than Jonathan
Rosenblum.
As Jonathan notes, many of these allegations initially
gained little traction when they first surfaced because they were considered
difficult to believe and lacked corroborating evidence. But once Kristof
devoted a major New York Times opinion piece to them, they received worldwide
attention.
According to Jonathan:
“Only when New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof, a
two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, published a 4,000-word opinion piece in
which he recirculated Euro-Med’s most astounding charge about the degrading
abuse of Palestinian prisoners did that claim gain widespread attention. It
shouldn’t have.”
Jonathan argues that Kristof departed from basic
journalistic safeguards. The allegations relied heavily on anonymous testimony,
often lacking specific dates, locations, or other details that would allow
independent verification.
Moreover, the issue of motive cannot be ignored. Hamas has
devoted enormous resources - including blatant lies - toward winning the
propaganda war against Israel.
This would hardly be the first time that dramatic
accusations against Israel have received widespread media attention before
later being disproven. Numerous claims made during the Gaza war have become
subjects of intense controversy - later shown to be false. And yet continued to
be reported with great certainty by the media.
I am reminded of an interview not long ago conducted by PBS
NewsHour host Geoff Bennett with Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon. Bennett
cited accusations that Israel had deliberately targeted and killed journalists
in Gaza. Danon denied the allegation, while acknowledging that journalists had
at times been inadvertently killed in combat zones where Hamas operatives were
being targeted. And that some of those journalists were actually Hamas
operatives. Bennett rejected Dannon’s response. Doubling down on the accusation
that the innocent Palestinian journalists in Gaza were deliberately killed by
order of the IDF.
Fact is that accusations against Israel are frequently
treated as established fact by the media long before the evidence has been
fully examined.
It has also proven to be true that the world media is
predisposed to accept Palestinian claims at face value while applying a far
more skeptical standard to Israeli responses. Whether intentional or not, the
obvious result is a distorted picture of events.
Jonathan cites numerous examples in which sensational
accusations were widely reported by respected media organizations only to
collapse and proven false under scrutiny. Yet the corrections rarely receive
the same attention as the original allegations.
What makes the timing of Kristof’s column particularly ugly…
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