Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro told attendees at a Toronto symposium on anti-Zionism that anti-Zionists cannot make their case without lying about Israel, its army, its enemies, and Jews themselves. Barbara Kay expands on this, noting that the lies fall along a spectrum.
Extreme examples of anti-Zionist propaganda
In 2005, Hebrew University student Tal Nitzan began a thesis on systemic rape of Palestinian women by the IDF. Finding no documented cases, she adjusted her theory: the lack of rape itself humiliated Palestinian women. More recently, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof compared sexual violence on October 7 to alleged abuses in Israeli prisons, relying on unverified sources and ignoring Israeli prison service comments.
Whataboutism as a tactic
Kristof's column, despite claiming to condemn all rape, deflects from the unique sadism of October 7 attacks. Kay argues this crosses from bias to propaganda, noting the New York Times did not follow up with a news report. Academic Naomi Klein similarly used whataboutism in a Guardian article titled 'How Israel has made trauma a weapon of war.'
Kay concludes that such tactics demonize Jews for remembering their own history, turning museums and memorials into alleged vectors of genocide.
