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In the Wake of Kristof and the Times: What’s There to Say? Transcript
Note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a conversation, please excuse any errors.
Donniel: I must tell you Yossi, more than any other podcast, I’m coming with a profound sense of angst, confusion, even helplessness.
Yossi: My first response when I saw it, Donniel, was I wept. I wept because I felt that we are under such overwhelming assault to our legitimacy that I don’t know what to say anymore. I don’t know how to defend us. This was my first emotional reaction.
Donniel: Part of what’s so frustrating, Yossi, is I know that if we try to defend ourselves, nobody’s gonna listen. And so let’s talk, Yossi, and see if the two of us could offer any direction or any comfort.
Hi friends, this is Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi from the Shalom Hartman Institute. And this is our podcast, For Heaven’s Sake, in collaboration with Ark Media. Today’s Tuesday, May 12th, and today’s a hard day.
There’s been so many hard days, for years now, Yossi. We’re collecting them. There’s been so many challenges, and in this podcast, we talk, and today our people and Israel were assaulted. They were assaulted by an article in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof entitled, “Silence Meets the Rape of Palestinians.” A 5,000 word detailed report, ostensibly verified by external sources and interviews, telling a story about our people, the people, Yossi, that you and I love, telling a story that is our greatest nightmare.
And today we wanna talk about how do we feel? How do we respond? How do we think about this? I don’t even know how you defend yourself, should you defend yourself. You know, this article comes out on the same day that the Israel Civil Commission comes out with its report on systemic rape as a part of Hamas’s terror campaign. It’s just, you know, what do we do with this? I imagine all of our audience has read this. The Jewish world is all gonna talk about this.
I want to in the outset recommend Haviv Rettig Gur’s article on X, which will be linked in our show notes, which is an attempt to do something very, very thoughtful and complex at the same time. And I wanna give him a lot of credit for it.
You know, Yossi, last week we spoke about settler violence. We spoke about a phenomena that occurs in a small segment of Israeli society, but one in which there’s a large segment of Israeli society are complicit in silence. And we spoke about the moral challenge of Israel. Is this the next stage? What do we do? It’s like, I’m angry, I’m horrified. The truth is, I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel, Yossi. I know I love my people. Like that’s not, I’m an Israeli. Now, what do we do?
Part of what’s so frustrating, Yossi, is I know that if we try to defend ourselves, nobody’s gonna listen. It’s just such a deep frustration. What do you do? I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. And I’m sure all of our audience is feeling a similar feeling. And so, let’s talk Yossi and see if the two of us could offer any direction or any comfort.
And I must tell you, Yossi, more than any other podcast, from the outset, I’m coming with a profound sense of angst, confusion, even helplessness. And so, there’s a great advantage, Yossi, to you starting. I framed the question. Yossi, let’s do it in stages. And our first response doesn’t have to be our second or our third. You read it, what did you feel?
Yossi: My first response when I saw it, Daniil, was I wept. I wept not because I was overwhelmed with shame and grief for what Kristof accuses us of doing. I wept because I felt that we are under such overwhelming assault to our legitimacy that I don’t know what to say anymore. I don’t know how to defend us. This was my first emotional reaction. It’s not my second, but my first was, I have nothing to say, they won, they won. They’ve managed to turn us into the world’s Nazis. Just when we respond to one accusation, along comes five others.
And how do you fight against not just the big lie, but the succession of big lies? And every big lie always has a kernel of truth. We know that. That’s how the big lies work. And I don’t know, and you don’t know, what’s true here, what’s not true. And we’ll talk about that. We’ll talk about what we assume might be real in this report without really knowing the facts, what might not be real.
But my initial feeling was weeping and also weeping from rage. I felt that the New York Times in particular, but much of the liberal media is obsessed with us. An obsession is never healthy. Even an obsession of love isn’t healthy.
When I saw this piece, I immediately thought of another piece that the Times ran yesterday about the Eurovision, Israel’s place in the Eurovision. Did you see that, Donniel?
Donniel: Yes, how we are manipulating the Eurovision for our own public relations.
Yossi: Now, you read that, and it’s a very long piece, and it’s full of outrage. Israel is subverting European culture.
Donniel: Cheating. It’s like we’re cheating.
Yossi: Cheating.And yet, you read that.
Donniel: I would say, we’re Jewing the Eurovision.
Yossi: Donniel, I couldn’t have said it better myself. And then you read the piece, and you realize we didn’t break any laws. There was no accusation from Eurovision of bad faith.
And when I talk about obsession, that’s what I mean. And why did we do this? Why did we promote our position in Eurovision? Because we’re under assault there. Because there are these massive calls for boycotting. Because we know that many people vote against Israel for political reasons. And so who began subverting this cultural event? It wasn’t us. We were defending ourselves. And there’s a metaphor here, I think for the last two and a half years.
And so for the Times to run this piece, right after running the Eurovision piece, of course there’s no direct connection. But I felt that it was opening up a little window into what’s going on in the minds of these people. Israel, we dragged America into war. We are Trump’s allies. We are the biggest problem right now in the world. And the Times is treating us as the world’s greatest problem.
So that’s the background that I brought to this. And that’s why I wept. Because I felt overwhelmed and helpless to do.
Yossi: You know, Yossi, first of all, thank you for that. As I’m listening to you, I’m both appreciating what you’re saying and frustrated at the same time. When I read the article, I had a hole in my heart. Just a hole. Because I don’t know how I’m supposed to defend myself. What are we supposed to do? It’s like there’s so many fronts that we face, physical danger, people are attacked. It’s like now this, it’s just I had a hole. And a profound sadness.
The line that punched me the deepest was when Kristof said, well, we know that rape happens all over the world, In prison systems and in wars, it happens. It’s like, it’s not a big deal. And I would have no justification ostensibly to writing this article, but we’re funding Israel. And so we go back to the we’re funding Israel. And that’s why we, as distinct from everything else that happens in the world, we have to put a spotlight on this. Because we Americans are complicit in everything that Israel does. And so that by the way, Yossi is his justification for the obsession. And it’s again, the Jews.
You know, Yossi, we’re gonna get into the details of the articles. I know my people aren’t an evil people. I know my people. Do I think rape could happen? I have no doubt that in a prison system, with such a disparity of power, where abuse is tolerated, in the context of an enemy that you’re in an existential war with, of course abuse is gonna happen. But the question is, is my statement, that abuse is gonna happen, whitewashing?
Like, so I’m stuck on the one hand, I don’t know how to defend myself. I know this is not my people. I know we haven’t been systematically advocating training dogs to rape. Like, I know we’re not doing it. I also know that we could tell all the stories we wanna tell. And I don’t know who’s listening. So like part of the whole struggle is that we have answers only for those who don’t have questions.
But for somebody who reads this article and on the surface, Nicholas Kristof, he’s a serious man. You could disagree. He’s not a hater of Israel. He tries to present a moral voice across the globe at various moral crises.
Yossi: He’s a crusader.
Donniel: He is a crusader.
Yossi: And very emotional. And I suspect journalists who are crusaders.
Donniel: And I hear all that, but like, I know, the minute I start answering, nobody’s listening. The minute we try to answer it, the minute we say, like my gut instinct after the sense of a whole, think, I’m not talking about whether there has been rape. I wanna talk about that in a minute. Are my people sanctioning systemic rape? Have my people become a terrorist organization? I know we’re not, but here it is. It’s put up against us. And there’s a sense of how do we win? You know, it’s like, I know I’m not being very articulate, but my lack of articulation is expressive of this.
Yossi: It’s, Donniel, it is in itself a form of, of being articulate.
Donniel: It’s just, it’s talking from mourning. So Yossi, that’s our first response, but we know it’s not enough. And so let’s roll to the second. Do you have a second tiered response?
Yossi: Yes, the second is that Ben Gvir, who is in charge of the prisons, is capable of atrocities, is capable of encouraging an atmosphere in which atrocities can become part of the system. And when you don’t have a break at the top, and the opposite, when you have someone who winks at abuse of prisoners, we’ve seen that already happen, then my assumption is that there is some truth in this article.
And the question is, what does some truth mean? Do I believe that we are training dogs to rape Palestinians? I don’t believe that.
Donniel: That’s insane.
Yossi: And all I can say is what I believe, right? That’s all we can say at this moment. We don’t know. My instincts are Ben Gvir is capable of horrific actions and of nurturing an environment in which horrific actions can become the norm. Yes, yes. That’s my—we’re now on the second tier?
Donniel: Yeah.
Yossi: But, but, and this is a big “but”—
Donniel: Don’t go to the third yet. Stay on the second.
Yossi: Okay, okay.
Donniel: You know why, Yossi? I’m explaining to everyone. We have no—we’re just unfolding our emotions like an onion. So let the arguments unfold step by step. That’s all we can say.
Yossi: Ben Gvir has already brought a historic disgrace to the good name of the Jewish people, and we’re by no means finished with this guy. And it’s not only him. If it was only him, it would be easier.
The question though is when I talk about the possibility of creating an atmosphere in which horrific actions can become normalized, maybe even routine, what do I think those horrific actions can be? Do I believe that there is abuse of prisoners? Absolutely. Do I think that abuse of prisoners increased after October 7th? No question. Do I believe that that abuse, even the systemic abuse, includes systemic rape? Absolutely not.
Donniel: Absolutely not. So let me give you my second stage, Yossi.
Yossi: But I just wanna, I just wanna explain why. Just one—
Donniel: Go ahead, please.
Yossi: I once taught a semester, I won’t mention the name of the college in America. This was 20 years ago. And I opened the course by explaining something of my Israeli background, and I mentioned my military service. Young woman raises her hand and says, how do you justify the widespread rape of Palestinian women by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank?
I was floored. I didn’t know what to say. Finally, I said, you know, recently, there was a scandal in the Israeli media about a master’s thesis that was done at Hebrew University by someone who accused the IDF of racism because there are no examples of rape. And where do you find an army of occupation that doesn’t rape? And so the very absence of rape must prove that Israelis are so racist that Israeli men don’t even want to have sexual relations, coerced relations with Palestinian women. And so that was my response to her. No one has accused us, two and a half years of war. We’ve been accused of everything, genocide, starvation. No one has accused us of this.
Why are we being accused of systematic rape? That coincidentally or not, that’s the last argument that Israel still has in its corner. That Hamas started this war through an atrocity of mass rape. Now suddenly the whole accusation has shifted on us. Maybe it’s a coincidence, Donniel. Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t.
Donniel: You know, at the second stage, you speak about Benvir. I speak about October 7th. Because both of us know that Ben Gvir is not alone. You even said that, Yossi. Ben Gvir has moved from pre-October 7th where he didn’t even pass the threshold. And he can only get into the Knesset if he was linked with the religious Zionist party. That’s gonna go down in history as one of Netanyahu’s greatest sins. Greatest sins. The mainstreaming of this.
But now he polls eight, nine, 10 seats in the next election. Part of the impulse of October 7th was an eye for an eye. You know, when I read the Bible and it says, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, I always found it insane. Like, who would wanna take out somebody’s tooth because they took out your tooth? Or who’d wanna take out somebody’s eye because they took out your eye? How does that help you? And that’s why the rabbinic tradition throws it out and says an eye for an eye is the financial equivalent of it because that’ll help you, just vengeance.
After October 7th, all of us felt a desire for vengeance. Most of us and almost all of Israeli society within a few weeks weren’t talking that way anymore. And the war in Gaza was not a war of vengeance, it was a war of self-defense.
But there is a segment of Israeli society for whom the language of vengeance is the appropriate language. Like I heard it when people would say, why should we feed Palestinian Nuchba terrorists food? We will give them the same food that our hostages are getting. Or when the Supreme Court Justice wanted to know about whether they’re losing weight, Israeli society and all over called her a Hamas sympathizer.
So my second stage is to believe that some of those people who choose to be guards are subject to a impossible task of having absolute authority and because of the leadership, absolute immunity. And we know that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That I could see that this could be a phenomena. Is it a systematic policy?
And it’s so interesting when you read the Israel Civil Commission on Hamas rape, how this was done in every site. It’s a policy. And what Kristof is doing is he’s saying, ah, Israel and Hamas, there’s equivalency. So my second stage is to breathe deeply and to say, Houston, we have a problem. Is it the article? No.
But I also know, and this leads us to the third stage. I know the Israeli response is gonna be anti-Semitic tropes, everything. When we know in Israel, there were these nine jailers. The hospital called the authorities and said, we have a man whose rectum is severely ripped and his internal intestines are ripped. And that doesn’t happen when somebody is being restrained. It only happens when something significant is inserted in a person’s rectum.
And we know the outcry of silencing it. And Netanyahu called it a blood libel. And when the soldiers were exonerated on a technicality because the man was released to Gaza and you can’t accuse somebody if there’s nobody there to testify. But you saw the Israel defense. It’s like, they’re accusing us, they’re accusing us, they’re accusing us at the second stage, just like you. This is not my people. But are some of my people capable of this?
Yossi: Yes, of course, of course. And I think, Donniel, the key word is what you touched on before, which is systematic. Is there widespread abuse? Yes. Has there been systematic abuse? I wouldn’t rule that out. Systematic rape, that’s taking us to a whole different level which is not part, it’s not even part of the Israeli culture of vengeance.
Donniel: No, it’s not even, it goes further, it’s barbarism. There’s a level of barbarism. In many ways, rape is even worse than murder. It’s like, I’m sorry, continue.
Yossi: And again, Donniel, two and a half years of war in Gaza.
Donniel: Nothing.
Yossi: And there isn’t a single instance of accusation. And you know, vengeance does not work well with a systematic policy. Vengeance is an emotional expression. It’s almost a spontaneous outburst. And we’re being accused here of systematizing vengeance and doing so through a crime that has never been part of the Israeli culture of vengeance. We can be accused of many things and we’re being accused of absolutely everything.
But this, this to me, this is October 7th denialism at play. That’s what I feel. And especially, Danil, one last thing, especially when you look at the sources that Kristof depended on, how closely did he examine these sources? And the Times’ record on accuracy on these issues is very iffy. You know, the Times photographer just won the Pulitzer Prize and part of his work was documenting supposed starvation. And he used children who had pre-existing medical conditions as examples of widespread starvation. And the Times didn’t tell us that.
Donniel: So Yossi, here comes to the third stage and I want to challenge you. As I’m hearing you speak, you know, it could be you’re a hundred percent right. It’s not gonna be effective. You know, this type of argument against Kristof is a perfect argument for those who reject Kristof.
Yossi: Okay, you’re right.
Donniel: But I’m not saying you’re wrong. So now my question is, this is the third stage, our third and final stage, unless we think of a fourth. Our third stage, Yossi, is, so what do we do? Cause I got to tell you, Yossi, that last analysis is not gonna help. So it’s not gonna help us.
Yossi: So here’s—yeah. The question is, in terms of what we’re going to do, I think there are several stages. The first stage is what do I tell myself? How do I process this? And that’s what we’ve been trying to do. The second stage is what do we tell ourselves collectively as the Jewish people? Only then do we think about the third stage, is, what do we say to the world? We’re not there yet. I don’t feel we’re there yet.
Donniel: So tell me, tell me the stages, play them out a little bit, Yossi.
Yossi: The first stage is you and I talking and other Jews talking and trying to figure out among themselves, where does this hit me emotionally? And then what do I think might’ve happened and what do I think might not have happened? Because again, we don’t know anything definitive. And based on what we know from precedent, what we know about ourselves, good and bad. And I think we’ve tried to play that out. That’s the stage of really trying to work this out.
But that’s a very internal process before we really start thinking about, what do we have to say, either in defense or in confession, whatever mode we decide as a community to assume. And of course, different parts of the community will take different emotional positions on this.
Look, you know, I was talking to our friend, Jeremy Leibler, I don’t think Jeremy would mind by quoting him. Jeremy is really one of the, I think one of the best leaders that the diaspora has today. And he’s one of the heads of the Australian Jewish community, the Australian Zionist Federation. And he gave testimony recently to the Australian Commission on Anti-Semitism and he said to me, you know, I just feel so exhausted. And he says, you know, sometimes you just wake up in the morning and you say, I’m going to have to face a whole barrage of accusations. I’m going to have to sift through, this is false, this may be half true, and it’s endless.
And we’ve been dealing with this for almost three years. Just on that level, Donniel, we are an exhausted people. And we’re exhausted from dealing and having to sift through the lies from the truth. And what do we own? What do we atone for? What do we push back on? What do we enrage about? Who are we angry against? Are we angry at ourselves? Are we angry at the New York Times?
You know, I hate being angry at the New York Times. You know, I’m a journalist in my soul. I was a journalist for 30 years. And, you know, I used to make fun of the Jews who were boycotting the Times. I remember there was this one rabbi who called for a boycott of the Times. And then it turned out he was secretly buying the Times every day because he couldn’t be without it. But he wanted other Jews to boycott the Times. So I’m not a boycotter, certainly not of media. So I don’t know who to be angry at anymore. And it’s Jeremy’s exhaustion that I’m feeling today.
Donniel: You know, I like your distinction. It’s helpful to me. The distinction between the public, the first step is about ourselves. But I actually think they’re linked, Yossi. And in the first step, which is an internal conversation, there is a dance that we have to make. It’s like dancing between the raindrops and you’re never gonna get out unscathed.
I think the first stage is we have to reclaim a place for Israel amongst the moral nations of the world. And we have to ask ourselves, what have we done to undermine that? Now for the anti-Semites and the fools, and this I have no answer. No one’s gonna convince. They hated us before October 7th. They’ll just collect whatever they could and they’ll read Kristof’s article and just bank it as, oops, now I have more to speak about. More things to do. I could see Tucker Carlson, like when he accused, why did America bomb the school and kill 120 people? Because Israel gave them the coordinates. Okay, so he’s just gonna collect whatever crap somebody says verified, unverified it, assume it is a fact, that’s a given.
But the second stage, and this is now, we’re at the third stage of our own reflection. Very often in this environment of attacking, we just go too far. And we start by trying to factually deny the legitimacy of every attack instead of trying to start by a story of our own decency. And a story of your own decency is not just something you tell, it’s something you do. And paradoxically, by denying this completely, by attacking, calling them all anti-Semites in the New York Times, all of it, the libels, we’re actually further undermining our credibility as a moral people.
And this is where we’re stuck. Because I don’t wanna give credibility to the New York Times and I don’t wanna let the anti-Semitic false accusations define me. But right now, we are not telling a story about ourselves that’s demanding moral excellence.
Like last week, it was a lifetime ago, when I quoted the chief of staff of the Israeli army bringing a moral conversation into the discourse. These are the things we need to have, political leaders, religious leaders, not responding to Kristof, but responding to things that we know that we’re doing. We have to talk and demand a moral excellence from our people in the midst of a very troubling time. We need to start, Yossi, as you said, to do it for ourselves. Who are we? We can’t let the fact that there are accusations out there shut down our moral aspirations.
That’s the source of Ben Gvir’s strength. His popularity, those people are saying, no, you know, we get letters, don’t say that you’re siding with the anti-Semite. Don’t talk, don’t talk, don’t talk. It’s just, shh. It’s like everybody wants, shh, shh. Not now, not now. Jewish life is too precarious, shh. But the shying, the silencing, is what’s leading to the idealizing of the Ben Gvir position.
Yossi: Okay, Donniel, what you’re saying is an important part of this conversation, but it’s only one piece. The other piece is we need to give space to our rage and our grief. Fair enough.
Domniel: This is, this is—
Yossi: Donniel, we are in, I feel, personally, and I think many Jews feel this. We’re in a grieving process. And I don’t only, I don’t—yes, October 7th, but in specifically, in response to this level of accusation, you know, we forcibly starved Gaza, we committed genocide, and now we’re systematically raping. So the first stage of grief is acknowledging the grief, acknowledging that I just can’t take this anymore. I just can’t take the abuse to which the Jewish people is being subjected. I’m with you, you. Okay, that’s the first stage of grief, and that’s what we’ve actually been modeling in this conversation. We started there, and we’re ending with what you just said, that’s a really important progression.
But the first response is, my first response to Kristof is, what did we do to earn your disgust with us? No, that’s not my first response.
Donniel: I’m with you, Yossi, but I didn’t say that. Here—
Yossi: No, I know, I know.
Donniel: So you’re trying to protect me from the audience. I’m with you, but Yossi, I’m saying, I appreciate that, and I thank you, and we have each other’s back, but we have to stop it. We did this. Of course the first response is grief, but at some point, and here I wanna go one step beyond what you said beforehand, this internal reflection is not just what we have to do for ourselves. Of course we have to grieve. Of course we do, and we have a right to.
Yossi: And rage. And rage.
Donniel: But we have to recognize. And rage. And rage. But we have to understand that the grief and rage is not gonna help us when we come to people on the outside. It’s also not gonna help us if that’s where we stay for too long. Because I think we’ve been grieving and raging after October 7th now for three years, and stuff is happening. Forget, it’s not systematic, and forget things are happening under our watch that shouldn’t be happening, and we aren’t calling it out.
But even more than that, Yossi, not only do we have to do this for ourselves, we are not gonna be able to reclaim our friends in the world unless they see we doing this.
Yossi: Agreed.
Donniel: So many people say, so many people say, do it privately, don’t do it publicly. There’s no such thing as private and public. If we act this way with authenticity privately, not because of a PR schtick, but if we start really trying to root out abuse, saying this is, you know, I’m not gonna be the most perfect people, but this is not who we are. Just like our chief of staff tried to do, and which our government is not doing at all. All they’re doing is saying, because we were victimized, we’re the most moral people, you’re anti-Semites, shut up, I don’t wanna talk to you. That is causing moral decay amongst us and it’s destroying our credibility in the world. They have to see us doing private personal introspection.
Yossi, last words for today.
Yossi: Now I come back to something that I’ve said in our conversations in the past, which is that we need to develop two languages on Israel simultaneously. We need a language that pushes back against the outrageous accusations. And we need a language that reflects on, as you put it, how did we maneuver ourselves into this position where we’re so vulnerable to this campaign of lies. And that really requires a complicated linguistic maneuvering, which is very difficult when you’re under assault. But we have no choice.
And here I so much appreciate what you’ve said and so much appreciate being in conversation with you because you’ve helped me at least speak about this. I wasn’t sure when we decided literally 10 minutes before this podcast that this is the topic we should do. I wasn’t sure if I had the words for it. So thank you, Donniel.
Donniel: Yossi, that’s where we’re gonna end. I need to go back and mourn right now. I need to go back and mourn with our people. And I just wanna give a hug to the Jewish people right now. I just wanna hug us. I learned on this trip that there’s three stages. There’s hugging, helping and healing. We just need to hug each other. And unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury to stay in hugging too long.
And I hope for some of the audience, our words were both hugging. I don’t know if they’re healing, but maybe they’re helping. And maybe we could all find a way to begin to tell our story again. A story that we love and a story that has a place and that deserves to be respected. So Yoss, back to mourning and I love you. Thank you.
Yossi: Love you too. Hugging you.
