Last night I read Nicholas Kristof’s latest opinion piece on alleged abuse of Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli detention facilities. And then I read Haviv Rettig Gur’s response. Both left me angry. But for very different reasons.

Before going further, a brief note on the two writers at the center of this debate.

Nicholas Kristof is a longtime New York Times columnist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner known for his reporting on war, poverty, human rights, and humanitarian crises around the world.

Haviv Rettig Gur is an Israeli journalist and senior analyst at The Times of Israel known for his fair and balanced reporting and commentary on Israeli politics, Jewish history, and the Israeli-Arab conflict.

For readers who want to engage more directly with the issues discussed in these essays, here are the links to do so:

— Kristof’s New York Times opinion essay

— Haviv Rettig Gur’s response essay

Let me start here: if Israeli soldiers or prison guards are abusing prisoners, Israel has an obligation to investigate it, stop it, punish it, and confront it honestly. Full stop.

Not because the UN demands it. Not because campus activists demand it. Not because the New York Times demands it.

Because Jews should demand it.

Because democracies fighting existential wars do not survive by surrendering discipline, morality, and accountability. They survive by preserving them under impossible conditions. That distinction matters. Especially now.

One of the most exhausting features of the period since October 7 has been the constant pressure to flatten reality into slogans. Either Israel is a uniquely evil state committing cartoon atrocities at industrial scale. Or every accusation is automatically propaganda and nothing morally troubling could possibly be happening.

Serious people know reality is not that........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)