The New York Times Blood Libel

New York Times reporter, Nicholas Kristof (JI)

First off, it goes without saying that sexual abuse of Palestinians by prison personnel is condemnable in the extreme. It is among the most un-Jewish thing any Jew could ever do. If the allegation made by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times is anywhere near true, the proverbial “book” ought to be thrown at the perpetrators. Anyone worthy of being called Jewish ought to be disgusted by it. Those abusers should be ostracized and shunned by the Jewish world for the rest of their lives.

That being said, I have my doubts about Kristof’s assertion that it is widespread — or that it exists at all in any significant capacity. That it may have happened at all is a function of the reality that every society has its bad apples. There is no such thing as a nation totally free of miscreants. Such is the nature of humanity. The larger the population, the more likely it is that one will find just about every type of human aberration. The measure of a society is not whether such people exist. It is what that society does about them when it happens.

What is particularly galling is the “convenient” timing of this hit piece against the Jewish people. (And let’s not quibble about who is being accused here. Israel is a Jewish state. That is how it identifies itself, so when Israel is accused of systemic heinous crimes like this, it is the Jewish people being accused. The more one identifies as a Jew, the more it applies.)

Allegations of widespread prisoner sexual abuse have, to the best of my knowledge, never been made until now.

Why now? Never mind. I’ll tell you.

It is my firm belief that these allegations were generated in response to the clear and undeniable sexual abuse perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The day they massacred 1,200 Jews and took over 200 captives. Hamas’s denials to the contrary have been refuted by the many photos and videos taken that day, as well as testimony from victims and witnesses.

That, of course, made Hamas terrorists look far worse than merely a group of “militants” fighting for “justice in Palestine” - the preferred narrative of the New York Times. The fact that rape was added to their terrorist rampage stripped away any illusion that they were simply “freedom fighters” who had gone too far in pursuit of a “just” cause.

The Times was not about to allow that changed narrative to go unchallenged…

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