Nicholas Kristof | First One Through

Opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof writes about foreign and domestic affairs from a liberal and Arab point of view, honed by his Harvard and American University in Cairo education, and years at the anti-Israel New York Times.

His antipathy for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Jewish State is only matched by his ignorance.

*New York Times opinion by Nicholas Kristof on October 20, 2024*

Kristof wrote an opinion in the aftermath of Israel’s killing of Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the savage October 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel. He led with a call for the United States to pressure Netanyahu, and repeated the demand throughout his article.

Kristof said that Hamas will never surrender, so it’s up to the United States to apply significant pressure on Israel to declare victory against the unwavering foe. His ignorant view is not supported by polling data. Since the war started, Gazans have lowered their support for war to 36% from 51% right before October 7, 2023. Gazan support for negotiations has more than doubled from 19% in September 2023 to 40% in September 2024.

Similarly, Gazan support for the October 7 massacre dropped dramatically over the last six months from 71% to 39% as the war they initiated has become a dismal failure.

Kristof continues with the lie that Israel’s defensive war is creating a new “generational threat” from young Gazans seeing the destruction all around them. Yet the opposite is true, that the United Nations educational system has created the “generational threat” of teaching Palestinian Arabs that their future is inside Israel, while Israel’s decisive defensive war is convincing Arabs that violence is not an answer.

Pressure needs to be applied to the UNITED NATIONS, not on Israel, to declare unambiguously that the future for the UNRWA wards lies in Gaza and the West Bank, not Israel; specifically, that there is no ‘right of return’ to homes where grandparents once lived inside Israel. Similar pressure needs to be made on the media to stop platforming lies, particularly from jaundiced woke jihadists.

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Write to Kristof’s assistant spencer.cohen@nytimes.com as well as letters@nytimes.com that Kristof’s views of Israel are disconnected from reality.

Nicholas Kristof Whitewashes Hamas’s Antisemitism (June 2024)

The Only Way The Conflict Can End (November 2023)

Nicholas Kristof’s Crocodile Tears (September 2017)

Nicholas Kristof’s “Arab Land” (February 2015)

Nicholas Kristof is an opinion columnist for The New York Times. According to the paper, his beat is “Human rights, women’s rights, health, global affairs.”

Somehow, he is unable to comprehend blatant antisemitism.

In an opinion article called “Thinking Through The Moral Tangle in Gaza,” Kristof made himself sound like a well-read balanced observer of the conflict, seeing good and bad in both Palestinian Arabs and Israelis. He ticked through twenty points which he thought could lead to peace and a two-state solution and an end to the conflict.

Instead, he showed he lacks basic understanding of the situation to untangle the situation in Gaza.

In his fifth point he wrote “Hamas is an oppressive, misogynistic and homophobic organization whose misrule has hurt Palestinians and Israelis alike.” What an abysmal portrayal of the organization.

Yes, Hamas is oppressive, homophobic and misogynistic, but that doesn’t touch upon the crux of the conflict and the ongoing war. Hamas is an antisemitic genocidal group dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish State. It makes the point clearly in its foundational charter and in remarks by its leadership repeatedly.

How can Kristof talk about the situation in Gaza without clearly articulating that Hamas is built upon Jew hatred? Does he think that the “moral tangle in Gaza” is simply because Gaza leads the region in honor killings of women and beheads gay people?

Kristof places a red herring before readers in stating that Hamas is bad for Palestinians. The fact is that Hamas is extremely popular among Palestinian Arabs and those in Gaza in particular. A majority of Gazans support the Hamas massacre of 1,200 civilians and another 400 security personnel in Israel. Roughly two-thirds of Gazans have been in favor of slaughtering Jewish civilians inside of Israel since Hamas took over Gaza in 2007.

The moral failure of the NY Times did not start on October 7, but is increasingly painful to stomach since that date. The disgraceful articles and opinions continue to bury the rampant antisemitism in Hamas and among Gazans, as well as in the United States which emanates from jihadists and socialists.