This week’s Word on the Street Live was one of those conversations I really want people to sit with and share in their own circles.
I spoke with Sari Bashi – an old friend, a human rights lawyer, and someone whose work I trust deeply – about a very difficult New York Times piece by Nick Kristof into allegations of sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody. Sari was one of Kristof’s sources, and she brought her professional experience leading some of Israel’s and the world’s most critical human rights groups into a conversation that was painful, necessary, and not easy.
From the start, I tried to set a clear frame for how I think we have to approach this:
Take allegations of sexual violence seriously, wherever they occur
Avoid “whataboutism” that shuts down real accountability
Hold space for all victims – Israeli victims of Hamas atrocities and Palestinian victims of abuse in custody
Sari walked us through what she and her colleagues have documented over years of work, how patterns of abuse in detention systems can emerge and persist, and why independent investigation is so difficult, but so necessary. We also talked about how Israeli society, American Jews, and the broader public are reacting to Kristof’s reporting, and why those reactions are often so charged.
This is not an easy conversation. It’s not meant to be. But I do think it’s an important one to engage directly rather than avoid.
