Nicholas Kristof makes multiple false arguments about Israel and Hamas.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/01/opinion/israel-gaza-antisemitism.html

In Saturday’s NYT op-ed, Kristof wrote that “All lives have equal value….”

No, they don’t! The life of a serial killer does NOT have equal value to the lives of his innocent victims.

Hitler’s life was not of equal value to the life of even one of the six million Jews he caused to be murdered.

If “all lives have equal value,” then the lives of Jonas Salk and of Jeffrey Dahmer were of equal value. Does anyone believe that – including Nicholas Kristof?

The lives of Hamas terrorists who raped and murdered Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023 do NOT have equal value to the lives of the innocents they violated and slaughtered that day. Does Kristof think the lives of rapists and murderers are of equal value to the lives of those they raped and murdered?

Kristof falsely claims that “there is a moral equivalence between Israeli civilians and Palestinian civilians.” But who is a civilian? According to Merriam-Webster, a civilian is “one not on active duty in the armed services or on a police or firefighting force.”

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/civilian

Most Hamas members do not serve full-time as fighters. So, are they civilians? What about a Palestinian who does not wear military garb, but who carries a Kalashnikov or a knife? Is he a civilian? If he murders Israelis in their homes, was that the act of a civilian?

If Kristof had claimed that there is a moral equivalence between Israeli non-combatants and Palestinian non-combatants, that might have been a claim worth dignifying. But Kristof fails to make the most fundamental of distinctions, i.e., between those who fight and those who don't. Unfortunately, Kristof’s moral compass appears to be broken.