Author Uri Kaufman joins editor-at-large Sean Speer to talk about his book American Intifada: Israel, the Gaza War and the New Antisemitism, discussing how cognitive dissidence is to blame for today’s ideological revolt against the moral foundations of the West. And while elite institutions and protesting students are getting much of the blame for the anti-Israel sentiment sweeping across America, Uri argues that young people—though figures of ridicule—are not the danger. The real problem is serious people and serious institutions changing facts to suit their progressive narrative and giving rise to a new form of antisemitism paved with the best of intentions.
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The following is an excerpt from American Intifada: Israel, the Gaza War and the New Antisemitism, by Uri Kaufman.
Under international humanitarian law, an occupying power must assume responsibility for the health, safety, and well-being of the local population. But, as established in the 1907 Hague Convention, any responsibility to a local population disappears the moment the occupying army marches out of the territory.
Once Israel withdrew from Gaza, in 2005, its critics were thrown into turmoil. The whole thesis of their argument was that Israel was a racist-apartheid-colonizer because it was an occupier. The dog had finally caught the car. The Israelis were out of Gaza. What now?
One approach was to play the motives game. Yes, the Israelis pulled out—but they did it for the wrong reasons! Tom Friedman wrote that “[Sharon’s] aides have made it clear that he is getting out of Gaza in order to entrench Israel even more deeply in the West Bank and the Jewish settlements there.” Another was to attack “the way” the Israelis withdrew, as if peace would have broken out if only Israel had withdrawn more politely. But these poison darts aside, I never expected what, in fact, happened next.
Because what happened was nothing. The New York Times and others went right on saying that Gaza was under Israeli military occupation, as if Disengagement had never occurred. Here is what the paper of record published on September 20, 2007: “Under international law, Israel is considered an occupying power in Gaza, even though it has removed its troops and settlers from the territory.”
International law? Which international law is that? The Times doesn’t say. But it repeated this bizarre legal conclusion on a regular basis. On June 1, 2016, for example—over ten years after the pullout was completed—readers were told that Gaza is “a society long under the shadow of a military occupation.” An August 19, 2022 story accused Israel of “restricting and silencing criticism of its 55-year military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.” Note that I took these quotes from the news section. The op-eds and editorials in the Times are a whole other level of dysfunction and distortion. But at least they are just opinions. This is the news deemed fit to print. And these were not silly oversights that slipped through while the editor was on vacation—they reflect all the reporting of Gaza. Because even when the Times failed to say it outright, the unspoken assumption of every story was that Israel owed a duty of care to Palestinians because Gaza was under occupation.
A 2015 article described the plight of Palestinian women in Gaza who could not reach their betrothed in the West Bank because the heartless Israelis would not permit them to travel across their country. It is like criticizing the United States for not permitting people who lived in the Islamic State or the Taliban Afghanistan to travel across America. In the midst of the Covid crisis, the Times ran a story criticizing Israel for not sharing vaccines with Gaza and thus “not protecting Palestinians under its occupation.” Yet another article decried the “struggle” that Gazan athletes faced in reaching competitions because of “travel restrictions” placed by the Israelis. Those words appeared right on the front page.
This is what I like to call Groucho Marx Journalism. Picture Groucho with the nose, the glasses, and the wiggling cigar saying, “who are ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?” The editors of The New York Times ask a similar question with each story. Perhaps the Geneva Convention has its international law, but the editors have their own.
And that only tells half the story. The New York Times doesn’t just misstate the law. It also misstates the facts.
Ever since Disengagement, the Times has referred to Israel’s “blockade” of Gaza. In at least two articles by different reporters, it referred to it as a “draconian blockade.” In recent years, someone in the Times finally looked at a map and realized that Gaza also borders Egypt, so its reporters began referring to it as “a blockade enforced by Israel and Egypt.” Even so, in the words of the Times, the blockade “has undermined the living conditions of more than two million Palestinians, and led to a nearly 50 percent unemployment rate that is among the highest in the world.” Note that the “blockade” is the source of the suffering, not the refusal of Gazans to sign a peace treaty. The blame rests on Israel.
But why quibble over minor details like that? The whole story is false. Because the truth is, there was no blockade at all.
As of this writing, the most recent full year for which there is data was 2022. In that year, Israel supplied Gaza with 5.7 billion gallons of water. Without it, Gaza would have died of thirst. Israel sent over 67,000 supply trucks filled with supplies. Without it, Gaza would have starved. Israel supplied Gaza with two thirds of its electricity and all of its fuel. Gazans needed a means to pay for all this. So the IDF gave licenses to 17,000 of them to work inside Israel. These steps are unprecedented in world history. How many North Koreans were earning a living in the U.S. during that conflict (or, for that matter, today)? How many trucks of supplies were sent into Islamic State?
In truth, Israel is a light unto nations. It is the only country in the history of world that supplies its enemies in time of war, purely on humanitarian grounds. But The New York Times flips the script. In its telling, prior to the October 7 attack, Gaza was still under occupation, even though the Israelis withdrew. In its telling, Israel enforced a “draconian blockade,” despite the unprecedented humanitarian supply. And who are ya gonna to believe, me or your own eyes?
