Nicholas Kristof, "Seeking Balance on the Mideast": No Balance in Kristof's Column

Choosing to ignore Assad's tank onslaught upon the citizens of the Syrian city of Hama and divert the attention of the readership of The New York Times to – you guessed it – Israel, Nicholas Kristof, in his latest op-ed entitled "Seeking Balance on the Mideast" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/opinion/seeking-balance-on-the-mideast.html?_r=1&hp), would excuse himself by writing:

"Whenever I write about Israel, I get accused of double standards because I don’t spill as much ink denouncing worse abuses by, say, Syria. I plead guilty. I demand more of Israel partly because my tax dollars supply arms and aid to Israel. I hold democratic allies like Israel to a higher standard — just as I do the U.S."

Actually, no one is accusing Nicholas of double standards, but rather something far worse.

Kristof writes:

"Similarly, when Israel stormed into Gaza in 2008 to halt rocket attacks, more than 1,300 Gazans were killed, according to B’Tselem, a respected Israeli human rights group."

Peculiar how Kristof fails to state the number of mortar shells, rockets and missiles that had been fired from Gaza at civilian targets in southern Israel prior to Operation Cast Lead: over 10,000. And by the way, two more rockets were fired from Gaza at Israeli cities yesterday (see: http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=232392).

More odious, however, is how Kristof fails to mention that B'Tselem's casualties figures are hotly disputed (see, for example: http://maurice-ostroff.tripod.com/id328.html). Kristof also chooses to ignore the casualties figures carefully researched by the Israel Defense Forces: 1,166 Palestinians died, of whom only 295 were non-combatants (see: http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=137286). The Israel Defense Forces numbers were recently confirmed in large part by Hamas (see: http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=193521), but there is no acknowledgement of this by Kristof.

Kristof also praises J Street and would have us believe that support of Israel is a "conservative" phenomenon:

"That’s because those Jews who vote and donate based on Israel are disproportionately conservative (the same is true of Christians who are most passionate about Israel issues)."

Kristof ignores the most recent Gallup poll concerning the support of the US public for Israel (http://www.gallup.com/poll/146408/americans-maintain-broad-support-israel.aspx):

"Americans' views toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict held fairly steady over the past year, with a near record-high 63% continuing to say their sympathies lie more with the Israelis. Seventeen percent sympathize more with the Palestinians."

Question for Kristof: Are all of these supporters of Israel "conservatives" and/or "extremists"?

According to section 17 of The New York Times Company Policy on Ethics in Journalism (http://www.nytco.com/press/ethics.html):

"As journalists we treat our readers, viewers, listeners and online users as fairly and openly as possible. Whatever the medium, we tell our audiences the complete, unvarnished truth as best we can learn it."

Did Kristof report the "complete, unvarnished truth" in his latest column, in which he apparently seeks to have his readers compare Israel's 2008 operation in Gaza to curtail rocket fire against civilians with current Syrian atrocities in Hama? You decide.