The Making of the Kristof Column — with Matti Friedman
5/14/202645 min
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Content warning: This episode includes discussion of sexual violence
How do unverified claims become a New York Times column?
On Monday, the New York Times published an opinion column by Nicholas Kristof titled "The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians" — an explicit attempt to draw a moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel by alleging that both equally engage in systematic sexual violence. The piece, based on interviews with 14 unnamed Palestinians, cited a Geneva-based NGO calling Israeli sexual abuse a "standard operating procedure" and described, among other things, trained dogs used to sexually assault prisoners. Kristof quoted former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appearing to validate the charges - but Olmert subsequently issued a statement clarifying that he did not, in fact, confirm the column's most serious claims, including that Israeli authorities directed the rape of children or that systematic sexual torture is state policy.
The morning after Kristof's column appeared, an Israeli civil commission released a 300-page report - built on more than 10,000 photographs, thousands of hours of video, and over 400 testimonies - concluding that Hamas's sexual violence on October 7th was systematic, widespread, and deliberate. The New York Times, which had been told the report was coming months in advance, published it nearly 24 hours after running Kristof's op-ed.
Reporters who spent the day going through Kristof's column claim by claim found it largely unverifiable - no dates, no locations, no names - recycled from dubious sources and in many cases almost certainly false. The deeper question this episode asks is not simply whether the column is fair, but how something like it gets published in the paper of record at all: what is the pipeline, from NGO to press release to Pulitzer Prize winner's byline, that turns unverified claims into fact? And why does that pipeline flow so reliably in one direction?
To answer that, Dan is joined by Matti Friedman, a former AP reporter and editor in Jerusalem, and author of the 2014 Atlantic essay "What the Media Gets Wrong About Israel" - who has spent years documenting the specific mechanisms by which NGOs hostile to Israel have shaped, and in some cases dictated, Western coverage of this conflict.
In this episode:
- What Kristof’s column alleged
- Which claims are documented, unverifiable, or implausible
- How NGO claims become mainstream coverage
- Euro-Med, activist sourcing, and the New York Times
- Matti Friedman’s warning about Western media
- The October 7th sexual violence report and the timing problem
- The moral equivalence at the heart of the piece
- The cost to Israel
This episode was sponsored by Birthright: Invest in the Jewish future today at onetripchangeseverything.com.
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Credits: Ilan Benatar, Brittany Cohen, Ava Weiner, Martin Huergo, Mariangeles Burgos, and Yuval Semo
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsDan Senor· Host0:00
[instrumental music] With a ceasefire in place, Israelis, tired but resilient, are turning their attention to rebuilding. Meanwhile, in the US, college-aged Jews are still facing peer pressure and a constant stream of anti-Israel misinformation on campus, online, and everywhere they turn. They can keep arguing about Israel from thousands of miles away, or they can do the one thing that actually works, go on a Birthright trip and experience Israel for themselves. They will come back more grounded, more confident, and more connected to who they are. So if your family member has been on the fence or if you've been waiting for the right moment, this is it, because Israel needs them and they need Israel. Go to onetripchangeseverything.com. Birthright, one trip changes everything.
Gabe Silverstein0:52
[instrumental music] You are listening to an Art Media podcast.
Matti Friedman· Guest1:01
We need to be able to have a discussion about our very real problems without playing into the hands of people trying to destroy the country. So I always try to ask when I'm looking at, you know, different kinds of discourse, is this person trying to make Israel better or is this person trying to make Israel go away? If the discussion is about how to make Israel go away, which it often is, and I think that's the discussion that underlies this essay in The New York Times, I'm not interested in that discussion, and I don't think I should be expected to have it. If the discussion is