On Israel, Gaza, and the truth
A lot of you are angry at me. I wish you weren't. But the hunger crisis in Gaza is real, and I feel an obligation to comment on it, even if I may do so in a way I know many readers won't like.
Fair to say yesterday’s post on the hunger crisis in Gaza did not go over well.
The responses started at Please keep up your good work on COVID-19 and health care and stay out of complex foreign policy issues and went from there. A few of you were even mad enough to unsubscribe.
Obviously, I do not want to lose readers over articles - for reasons far past financial.
The bond I have with you here is far closer than the one I had with readers when I worked at New York Times. I don’t have an editor. You read what I and I alone choose to write, in unfiltered form.1 You aren’t supporting an institution, you are supporting me, personally. I joke Substack is OnlyFans for writers, but it’s not really a joke. I’ve written about my back surgery and being stopped at a police roadblock.
So I feel your anger, particularly from longtime readers. And it stings.
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(Please don’t unsubscribe! Subscribe instead. Seriously.)
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I wish I could write about the idiocy of Hollywood wokeness all the time. Those pieces are fun (and an excuse to go to the movies).
But it can’t always be dinosaurs. I have to give you what I think is the truth on crucial issues, even if I fear it’s going to upset you. Even if I know it will. Writing about Israel never will make everyone happy.
Further, a lot of Unreported Truths readers strongly believe the legacy media is hopelessly antisemitic and won’t give Israel a fair shake. They’re frequently right, particularly for British outlets like the BBC and Reuters,2
I understand why the United Nations has its own credibility problems, too. To take just one example, last September, the UN called Israel’s brilliantly targeted use of booby-trapped pagers to decimate Hezbollah — a Lebanese militia that had sworn to destroy Israel — “a terrifying violation of international law.”
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(Yep, that actually happened. Can’t make it up.)
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So. I get it.
I also know that sometimes even when I’m right on the facts, I can be fairly sharp-elbowed, particularly on X.
But this time I wasn’t. I was careful, because I understood the sensitivities around this issue. And I have strongly supported Israel’s right to defend itself after the Oct. 7 attacks.
But I also believe that right is not unlimited — not morally, not legally, and not strategically. And that’s what I tried to explain yesterday.
I will put out another piece soon to address the specific objections some of you had to yesterday’s article.
But even before I finish that, I want you to know I heard you and took your comments seriously. I hope you will take this response seriously too. I depend on your support to write Unreported Truths. And I hope I’ll always be able to write freely without fear of losing it if I present views you don’t like.
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(If you agree, you know what to do.)
James Lawrence, who represents Berenson v Biden, checks those pieces to be sure we aren’t giving the other side anything it can use, but otherwise I don’t have an editor reading my stuff before it comes out.
Reuters is now owned by Thomson Reuters, which is based in Canada, but Reuters itself is still based in London.
Alex, I sure wish people didn't feel the need to choose one article and complain to you about your writing. I follow you for exactly this reason, you seem to be a fair broker of information. I do not agree with you on all of your writings but I do appreciate the view points that help me frame my opinions in a more informed light. Please keep writing from your heart. We NEED your type of writing so we can escape the echo chambers the "algo" feeds us on other social media.
It seems fair to me to cite your sources of information on the starvation in Gaza. I simply don't trust photos or articles in The New York Times, BBC, or CNN. And really, given your excellent reporting on facts they miss or misstate, neither should you. So, independent of those highly suspect news sources, where did you get your information? (Please, please, don't say the United Nations.) Those who've suggested in the comments that you should go to Israel and Gaza and investigate have a solid point. I subscribe because I want to support and applaud your independent reporting. I don't want your opinion based on what you've read elsewhere.