Transcript:
Serious accusations demand serious evidence. Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times opinion piece makes an extremely serious accusation: that Israel employs “systematic” sexual violence against Palestinians.
But his case falls apart with the merest scrutiny, and in publishing it, the New York Times has debased its level of journalism from the self-proclaimed “paper of record” to tabloid.
Kristof’s gist is that Israeli authorities have a “standard operating procedure” of using sexual violence against Palestinians—not that some acts of sexual violence have occurred, but that it’s a matter of policy. But his “evidence” cannot be independently verified.
Take Kristof’s own interviews. Readers are given almost no details, and only three out of 14 alleged victims are named—so only three can be independently verified.
And at least some of those named have apparently changed their stories over time. There may be a justifiable reason why a victim’s story changed—but Kristof doesn’t give his readers that information to judge whether the story is reliable or not.
For the other 11 alleged victims, readers must trust Kristof conducted the interviews in a competent and credible manner. What was the interview environment? Who was in the room? What kind of questions were asked? Did the subject make any inconsistent or questionable statements? Did Kristof explore inconsistencies further?
Entire codes of rules and ethics have been written in the legal and humanitarian world on how to appropriately conduct interviews of alleged victims of human rights abuses. Readers must take on faith that Kristof, an opinion columnist, got it right.
They have reason for doubt. Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has already stated that Kristof misrepresented their conversation, saying that his “positioning of my quote after pages of such allegations misrepresents my views.”
Kirstof himself has a history of publishing grave allegations that turned out to be fabricated. In 2008, he apologized seven years after writing multiple articles trying to blame a former military scientist for an anthrax attack.
In 2014, he admitted he was “hoodwinked” by a source who concocted an elaborate story of being sex trafficked.
Beyond his own interviews, Kristof points to several “reports” by organizations accusing Israel of “systematic” sexual violence against Palestinians.
There’s the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) report. How credible is it?
The COI was established by the UN’s notoriously biased and scandal-ridden Human Rights Council. Its commissioners at the time of the report were well-known for their hostility toward the Jewish state. Miloon Kothari claimed that Jews control social media. Navi Pillay is perhaps best known for cheerleading the infamous 2001 Durban Conference, where the most popular flyer distributed lamented Hitler’s failure to exterminate the Jews. The third, Chris Sidoti, responded to criticism of his fellow commissioners by accusing Jews of throwing accusations of antisemitism around “like rice at a wedding.”
What little the COI shared about its investigative process raises serious alarm bells. The 2025 report stated that for its purposes, “verification for sexual violence may rely on a single primary source if deemed credible.”
What makes a source credible? The commissioners say so. In other words, all it takes for the COI to accuse an Israeli of rape is for the commissioners to believe it.
The other “report” Kristof relies on comes from Euro-Med.
The head of that organization’s board is Richard Falk, who was considered so pro-Hamas and extreme that even the Palestinian Authority sought to have him removed as UN special rapporteur on the Palestinians.
Ramy Abdu, who runs Euro-Med, once posted an image he claimed was a “map of registered sex offenders in Israel.” In fact, it was a map showing the location of rocket alert sirens.
If the man in charge of Euro-Med so brazenly lied on the very subject of Kristof’s column, why should readers trust them?
The evidence Kristof provides simply doesn’t support his thesis: that there is a “widespread,” systematic Israeli policy of sexual violence against Palestinians.
Consider his interviews. Even assuming all 14 cases are real, that hardly establishes the existence of a “standard operating procedure” of sexual violence. Kristof claims that Israel has “detained 20,000 people in the West Bank alone” since Oct. 7, 2023.
Using just that figure, which omits detainees from Gaza, that means Kristof could identify cases of sexual violence against fewer than 0.07 percent of detainees. Hardly widespread.
So what evidence does Kristof provide for his charge that sexual violence is Israeli policy?
He cites the COI and Euro-Med reports. What evidence do they provide? None. They just repeat the claim that sexual violence is official policy, as if repetition will make it a fact.
Among the nearly 53,000 words between Kristof’s column and the COI and Euro-Med reports, not one establishes the existence of a documented policy or statement evidencing a systematic policy of sexual violence.
Even if every alleged specific case of wrongdoing they identified is real, to conclude that that proves an official policy is the stuff of conspiracy theories—not respectable newspapers.
Instead of relying on credible organizations who employ credible investigators, Kristof platformed hardcore activists known for making outrageous and false accusations against Israel. Instead of rigorous verification, Kristof simply repeated their unsupported claims.
CAMERA has documented a lot of biased journalism from the New York Times over the years, but the egregiousness of Kristof’s column shocks even us.
It may be many things. But it’s certainly not journalism.
See also “An In-Depth Critique: Kristof’s ‘Sexual Violence’ Story Is the Nadir of Journalism“