PASSIONATE INTENSITIES: "Bilateral slaughter," Kristof said!

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2023

Many Gazans, UN staffers killed: Nicholas Kristof could have been criticized right out of the gate.

Those in the grip of a certain passion could have said that he needed a sign—a sign just like the astonishing yard sign assigned to Barack Obama.

In yesterday morning's New York Times, Kristof offered his latest column about the Israel-Hamas war, and about the events which produced it. 

Kristof's columns on this topic have included in-person reporting from right there on the ground. That said, he could have been that he needed a sign as soon as he started his column this way, hard-copy headline included:

Three Myths of the Middle East

With the bilateral slaughter in the Middle East unleashing poisons that are worsening hatred worldwide, let me outline what I see as three myths inflaming the debate:

The first myth is that in the conflict in the Middle East there is right on one side and wrong on the other (even if people disagree about which is which).

Life isn’t that neat. The tragedy of the Middle East is that this is a clash of right versus right. That does not excuse Hamas’s massacre and savagery or Israel’s leveling of entire neighborhoods in Gaza, but underlying the conflict are certain legitimate aspirations that deserve to be fulfilled.

That's the way the column started. Just like that, right out of the gate, those in the grip of a certain passion might have said that Kristof should be issued a sign—the same sign Obama should have in his yard.

To people with one view of this matter, Kristof has perhaps engaged in disgraceful behavior. He has committed the sin known as "moral equivalency," and he's done so in several ways:

In his first few words, he refers to a "bilateral slaughter"—to a slaughter conducted by two different sides—and he quickly spells out what he means. 

In his third paragraph, he links Israel's military incursion into Gaza with the October 7 "massacre" committed by Hamas. Plainly, he's describing each of these events as "a slaughter." Our question:

If Obama was guilty of "moral equivalency" with his recent "absolutely disgusting" remarks, what might a passionate person say about this formulation?

Speaking for ourselves, a person might say that Kristof could perhaps have been more careful in the crafting of these opening comments. 

Does he mean to say that Israel's "leveling of entire neighborhoods" actually is a "massacre"—actually is a "slaughter" in the way the October 7 slaughter was? 

If that's what he means to say, we'd suggest that he should have said so more directly. For ourselves, we wouldn't have put it the way Kristof does—though we think that Kristof's writing from Israel and from the West Bank has been one of the most constructive bodies of work to emerge from this latest disaster.

Has Israel's response to October 7 really been a massacre—a slaughter? Kristof uses some highly evocative language in those opening paragraphs—the kind of language that could very easily get him issued a sign.

We refer, of course, to the kind of yard sign which was recently assigned to Barack Obama. For today, we won't repeat what that astonishing yard sign would have said. Over the past two weeks, we've repeated the words on that imaginary sign many times. 

We've repeated those words enough. 

In our view, the yard sign handed to Obama was the product of an extremely unhelpful type of intensity. Once again, we'll repeat the famous way the poet Yeats once limned it:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst   
Are full of passionate intensity.

Today, "the worst" are full of passionate intensity—or at least, we'd say that's true of certain people who seems to be (severely) mentally ill. 

Some of those people now speak about vermin. Others who aren't among "the worst" may issue Obama a sign, or they may say that the former president has been "lying through his teeth" about the current situation in Israel.

Personally, we wouldn't have started a column in the way Kristof did. At times like these, it seems to us that our most valuable observers should be extremely careful about the language they use—should speak as clearly and directly as they possibly can.

In our view, Kristof was perhaps a bit casual with some of his words at the start of this latest column. In fairness, he proceeded to offer a more upbeat type of equivalency—an equivalency which looks like this:

...The tragedy of the Middle East is that this is a clash of right versus right. That does not excuse Hamas’s massacre and savagery or Israel’s leveling of entire neighborhoods in Gaza, but underlying the conflict are certain legitimate aspirations that deserve to be fulfilled.

Israelis deserve their country, forged by refugees in the shadow of the Holocaust, and they have built a high-tech economy that largely empowers women and respects gay people, while giving its Palestinian citizens more rights than most Arab nations give their citizens. Israel’s courts, media freedom and civil society are models for the region, and there is something of a double standard: Critics pounce on Israeli abuses while often ignoring prolonged brutality against Muslims from Yemen to Syria, Western Sahara to Xinjiang.

Likewise, Palestinians deserve a country, freedom and dignity—and they shouldn’t be subjected to collective punishment...

Israelis deserve to have their country, and they deserve to be free of selective criticism. That said, Palestinians deserve a country too—and they deserve freedom and dignity.

Not everyone will agree with the assessments offered in those passages. Indeed, the most passionate among us will find plenty to disagree with in those passages too.

That said, Kristof provides a further service as his column continues. As he continues, he provides the type of information which might tend to get swept under the rug as these tragic events get discussed on our nation's TV shows or in our opinion columns:

Likewise, Palestinians deserve a country, freedom and dignity—and they shouldn’t be subjected to collective punishment. We’ve reached a searing milestone: In just five weeks of war, half of 1 percent of Gaza’s population has been killed. To put it in perspective, that’s more than the share of the American population that was killed in all of World War II—over the course of four years.

A great majority of those killed have been women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-controlled Health Ministry, and one gauge of the ferocity and indiscriminate nature of some airstrikes is that more than 100 United Nations staffers have been killed, which the U.N. says is more than in any conflict since its founding. Perhaps that’s because, as an Israeli military spokesman put it early in the conflict, “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.”

“We are normal people, trying to live,” an engineer in Gaza told me by phone. He despises Hamas and would like to see it removed from power, but he says that Hamas fighters are safe in tunnels while he and his children are the ones most at risk: “We’re the civilians paying the price.”

Whichever side you are more inclined toward, remember that the other includes desperate human beings merely hoping that their children can live freely and thrive in their own nation.

Depending on "which side you are more inclined toward," you can find a lot to challenge or criticize—or to disregard or disappear—in those highlighted passages. In the end, the question is this:

To what extent can you respond to statements with which you may disagree without letting your "passionate intensity" hand Obama a sign? To what extent can you respond to such statements without claiming that when Obama said the October 7 slaughter was "horrific," he was actually saying or suggesting that it was "not so bad?"

As every experienced person knows, passions can sweep observers away on all sides of every aisle. For reasons which are perfectly understandable, high-end journalists in this country are more likely to be "inclined toward" the Israeli side in the current disaster—but that may mean that information about Palestinian suffering, past and present, may tend to be go unstated.

In the passage we've just cited, Kristof offers somewhat unverifiable figures about the extent of death and destruction as the IDF engages in the "leveling of entire neighborhoods in Gaza."

Is that very formulation a fair account of Israel's current military actions? Many people may feel that it isn't—but can they say such things without going on Fox and loudly handing out signs?

In the past two weeks, we've discussed some comments which were made on a pair of Fox cable programs. On Monday, we may move on to discuss some presentations we've seen on MSNBC.

The passions have possibly been a bit less intense at that blue tribe site. But have the discussions made good sense, even over there? 

Public discussions rarely do! Our human brains aren't wired for that, despondent top experts have said.

"Bilateral slaughter," Kristof said. We think his work has been invaluable. Still, we leave you with a pair of questions:

Bilateral slaughter. In your carefully considered opinion, was that a good choice of words? Also, can you state your view, whatever it is, without handing Others a sign?