Two reasons Nicholas Kristof’s article on Israel is so significant

This is one of those days when I wish I could write three Daily Articles. One would respond to the massive prayer rally on the National Mall on Sunday, focused on reaffirming the United States as “One Nation Under God.” A second would reflect on the WHO declaration of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda as a global health emergency.

However, I feel a special urgency to think with you about Nicholas Kristof’s recent article in the New York Times. The transcendent issues it raises are crucial for the Jewish people and especially relevant to Christian cultural engagement.

Kristof’s May 11 column focuses on allegations of what he calls “widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, women, and even children—by soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency and, above all, prison guards.” I will not go into the details, not only because they are extremely graphic but also because they are not the focus of my article today.

Nor will I focus in depth on the vociferous response of his critics, except to note their observation that he relies significantly on a source that has a reported history of spreading libel against Israel and is designated by the Israeli government as a Hamas operative in Europe. Critics also impugn the credibility of many of Kristof’s other sources and a number of the abuse claims he reports.

The danger of the “fallacy of false equivalence”

Here’s why this issue is so significant for the Jewish people.

The “fallacy of false equivalence” occurs when “someone implies falsely (and usually indirectly) that the two sides on some issue have basically equivalent evidence.” Consider these statements in Kristof’s article:

• “The Israeli government rejects suggestions that it sexually abuses Palestinians, just as Hamas denied raping Israeli women” (my italics). 
• “Hamas has indeed brutally violated human rights. Israeli officials should look to their own violations as well.”
• “Think of it this way: The horrific abuse inflicted on Israeli women on Oct. 7 now happens to Palestinians day after day.”

My point is not that alleged violence against Palestinians should be ignored, a subject to which I’ll return shortly. It is that so many people are likely to read Kristof’s article and conclude that the sides in the Hamas–Israel conflict are morally equivalent.

A 298-page report by the Civil Commission on Oct 7^th Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children” was released the day after Kristof’s article was published. The Commission analyzed more than ten thousand photographs and video segments along with more than 430 testimonies, interviews, and meetings with survivors, witnesses, and others. The Israeli nonprofit’s methodology was conducted in accordance with internationally recognized standards.

Their analysis details at least thirteen recurring forms of abuse, including rape, sexual torture, and other horrific crimes committed by Hamas in its October 7 attack on Israeli civilians. The report noted that sexual and gender-based violence was “widespread and systematic” and constituted an “integral component” of both the Oct. 7 invasion and the subsequent treatment of captives by Hamas.

However, as I have written repeatedly since the invasion, many in the West are philosophically opposed to Israel’s existence, convinced that it stole its land as “colonizers” and continues to oppress the Palestinian people. This is an application of Critical Theory dominant in many elite universities and explains the shocking support for Hamas on many campuses in the months after the invasion.

If Israel’s enemies cannot dismiss or defend the atrocities committed by Hamas, many will allege that Israel is “just as bad.” This false equivalence will feed the continuing rise of antisemitism across the West. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported that in the three months following the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, antisemitic incidents in the US escalated by 360 percent. According to the ADL, 46 percent of adults worldwide now hold significant antisemitic beliefs, more than double compared to the ADL’s first worldwide survey a decade earlier.

This is the highest level on record since ADL began tracking these trends globally.

The lure of the “collective fallacy”

I’ll close by focusing on the relevance of this issue for Christian cultural engagement.

Here we need to consider a second logical fallacy, that of “collectivism” or the “collective fallacy.” This is the assumption that “if a group comprising moral agents can act intentionally, as a group, then the group itself can also be properly regarded as a moral agent with respect to that action.”

If we employ this fallacy, those who support Israel will see all Palestinians as terrorists, and those who support the Palestinians will see all Israelis as oppressors. Such thinking makes it easier to navigate a complex world. Nuances fade, and motivations can be simplified and affirmed or condemned.

But the Bible gives the lie to this fallacy.

In a day of tribal warfare, when a crime by an individual was punished against his entire tribe, the Old Testament declared, “The soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:20). In a culture where being Jewish was commonly thought to convey salvation, the New Testament declared, “There is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all. . . . everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:12–13).

You and I should therefore grieve for every Jew and every Palestinian who has been victimized in this ages-long conflict. Each is made by God in his image. Each is an immortal soul for whom Christ died.

Every Israeli and Palestinian I have known over my many trips to the Holy Land wishes the other well. We should join them.

And we should remember that God has no grandchildren. The apostles said of Jesus, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:13, my emphasis). We can give Jews and Muslims no greater gift than praying and working to give them the gospel of saving grace.

But it’s hard to give what we do not have. The more personally we experience the living Lord Jesus and his transforming love, the more passionately we will want to share it with our lost world.

This resolution by Jonathan Edwards is therefore relevant for us:

“Resolved, to examine carefully, and constantly, what that one thing in me is, which causes me in the least to doubt the love of God; and to direct all my forces against it.”

 Will you make his resolution yours today?

Quote for the day:

“God loved us not because we are lovable, but because he is love.” —C. S. Lewis

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