Chronic Israel-basher Thrall won a Pulitzer Prize in 2024 for A Day in the Life of Abed Salama. The book recounts a genuinely tragic school bus accident in which Abed Salama’s young son, Milad, was among six children killed. Inevitably, Thrall seeks to put all blame on Israel, even though he admits that Palestinian teachers allowed the trip to go ahead in heavy rain and wind, against the driver’s wishes. Despite that, it must all be Israel’s fault.
The author approvingly quotes Palestinians who attribute “supposed” difficulties in rescue efforts to Israeli checkpoints and claim that Israeli first responders arrived inexcusably late to the scene, elaborating on these allegations at great length. In contrast, senior Israeli officials who convincingly rebut the Palestinian claims are ignored.
Thrall’s aim goes beyond describing the accident to delegitimizing Israel. For example, in his malicious and selective retelling of U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181—the plan that in 1947 divided Mandatory Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state—he writes that it “triggered a civil war that culminated in the Nakba, the mass expulsion and flight” of the Palestinians. Thrall’s passive construction obscures a central fact: that Jews accepted the U.N. compromise, while Palestinians and their Arab allies rejected it. Only one side initiated what he inaccurately calls a “civil war.” Thrall also obscures that had the Arabs accepted Resolution 181, there would have been a Palestinian state in 1948 and no war, no Palestinian refugee problem, and no Nakba.
In another example, Thrall falsely alleges that Israel expelled Haifa’s Arabs. In fact, after Israeli forces conquered the city, Israeli, Arab, and British representatives held a meeting in Haifa’s town hall on April 22, 1948. Jewish leaders, together with a British commander, Major-General Hugh Stockwell, pleaded with the Arabs to stay. Believing that Arab forces would win the war and fearing being labeled collaborators, the Arab delegation announced that their community would leave the city. A few days later, the mainly Jewish labor union Histadrut and the Haifa Workers’ Council repeated the appeal, which the Arab leaders again rejected. To include even a hint of this history would undermine Thrall’s thesis, so he ignores it.
Disregarding Thrall’s malicious propaganda would improve the chances for Palestinian-Israeli peace. It might seem surprising that Thrall was awarded a Pulitzer for what is frankly rubbish, except that in 2022, The Netanyahus, an idiotic, salacious and profoundly unfunny “satirical novel,” also won a Pulitzer. Might it be that bashing Israel has become a good journalistic strategy?
Alex Safian, PhD, is the former associate and research director of CAMERA
