The New York Times and the Shape of the Modern Blood Libel |
There is a pattern emerging in the coverage of Israel that should trouble anyone who still believes there is a moral difference between accusation and proof, between proportion and false equivalence.
Again and again, grotesque allegations, emotionally overwhelming imagery, and accusations of barbarism and genocide race across the globe before the underlying facts have settled into place. By the time corrections, qualifications, or deeper reporting arrive, the emotional conclusion has already hardened in the public imagination.
The New York Times has been central to this pattern. Let me show how.
On October 17, 2023, near the beginning of Israel’s military incursion into Gaza following the October 7 massacre, the world was told that Israel had bombed the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, reportedly killing hundreds of civilians. The claim went world-wide within hours.
But by then, the emotional conclusion had already hardened into place for millions of people: “Israel had bombed a hospital full of civilians.” Many of the people I discuss Israel with still believe it. Dozens of similar editorial errors followed, their corrections barely noticed.
Take as another example the photograph of a grieving mother holding her skeletal child, an image used as symbolic proof of genocidal starvation in Gaza, only for subsequent reporting to reveal that the child suffered from severe preexisting medical conditions unrelated to starvation itself. Again, the image remained. The emotional verdict remained. The subsequent clarifications drifted by like moths.
The reputational damage done to Israel and its supporters is impossible to fully measure.
I should add that the image itself is beautiful, though in the same unsettling way that much of the visual propaganda of Nazi Germany or the Stalin era was beautiful. Beauty, after all, has never been a guarantor of truth.
And now comes Nicholas Kristof’s recent article in The New York Times, describing allegations of sexualized abuse and humiliation involving Palestinian detainees. Among the more sensational details circulated through activist reporting and repeated in public discourse were allegations involving dogs allegedly used in acts of sexualized abuse.
But the more grotesque and emotionally explosive the allegation, the greater the journalistic obligation to verify it rigorously before presenting it in ways that invite moral conclusions of systemic barbarism.
The specific allegation involving so-called “rape-trained dogs” is especially difficult to evaluate seriously. There is no recognized military or scientific practice of systematically training dogs to commit sexual assault against human beings. Dogs have tragically been used throughout history for intimidation, attack, tracking, torture, and terror. That is well known. But this particular allegation belongs less to the realm of recognizable military practice than to the realm of atrocity mythology — imagery........