Catherine Rampell@crampell
Because this is circulating again: Mr. Abu Toha is a gifted writer who has endured tremendous loss. But with all due respect, he lied extensively in our interview, specifically about his past comments on social media. And those lies have since gone viral because they have been excerpted and shared without context. Here is some of the context.
Most of our interview was about his personal story of grief and suffering, and his writings about this topic, which were honored with a Pulitzer. His award was controversial at the time, however, because of some of his social media posts excusing or rationalizing violence on Oct. 7. The controversy surrounding his honor was readily apparent from any basic Google News search about him at the time. Among other things, he said that the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, a recognized terrorist group, were not really “hostages,” and essentially had it coming. For example he mocked one specific hostage by name (Emily Damari), who was abducted from her home on a kibbutz on Oct. 7; shot; and subsequently starved and abused underground for 500 days. (She released an open letter to the Pulitzer Board after Mr. Abu Toha's prize was awarded.) In another post, Mr. Abu Toha criticized the BBC and CNN for “humaniz[ing]” Israeli Jews. I am including screen shots of examples of those posts. Mr. Abu Toha has since deleted these posts, which may tell you something about whether he thinks they were wise to publish.
In our interview, I asked Mr. Abu Toha if there was anything he would like to clarify about the Facebook posts he had deleted. He responded by lying about what he had said. “First of all, I did not question her status as a hostage, because she is a hostage,” he replied, adding that he had said only that Palestinians should be treated with compassion. This representation is false. If that anodyne statement had been entirety of his prior Facebook remarks, it indeed might look outrageous that a journalist would ask him about any “controversy.” But that is not the case.
Mr. Abu Toha is a poet awarded a prize specifically for his words; some of those words have attracted substantial criticism because they countenanced violence. To not ask about those words and the ongoing storm surrounding them would be a dereliction of our jobs as journalists.