Among the many qualities I so admire about Israelis is their remarkable capacity for happiness. One might expect that living in a country surrounded by 200 million people who would celebrate their obliteration could dampen the outlook of its citizens, but the evidence is overwhelming that this isn’t the case. Despite all the trauma Israelis have endured since October 7, 2023, they remain among the world’s happiest people.
Israel was ranked No. 8 in the recent survey of the world’s happiest countries. That’s understandably a decline from the 2023 survey, when it was ranked No. 4, and from the 2024 survey, when it ranked No. 5. But in the happiness department, Israel far outpaces America, which was ranked No. 24, just below the U.K.
One can always find flaws in surveys and their methodologies, but here’s an anecdotal observation I’ve noted about Israelis: they are seemingly always smiling, even after overcoming adversity or suffering great horrors.
A year ago, I became fascinated by a photograph posted on social media of a badly wounded Israeli soldier being released from the hospital, surrounded by his friends—some in military fatigues—and hospital staff. All of them had mile-wide smiles, the kind one expects to see in wedding photos or other festive occasions. Another photo that stuck with me showed a diverse group of Israeli soldiers in uniform posing with a bride and groom at a wedding—and, of course, they too sported big smiles.
The camaraderie among the soldiers was apparent. Two of them were Black, undermining the pro-Palestinian narrative that Israel is a country of white supremacists.
Another photo that struck me was of former Israeli hostage—and British and Israeli citizen—Emily Damari, being reunited with her mother after being released from captivity. Damari was understandably joyful about her release and reunion, but what I admired most was that she was smiling, not crying.
Happiness seems to be the default emotion for many Israelis.
The accompanying video tells her story: On October 7, 2023, Damari was at her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza when Hamas terrorists arrived and shot her, resulting in the loss of two fingers and a leg injury. The terrorists also shot and killed her beloved dog, Choocha, as she watched.
Damari was subsequently kidnapped and taken to Gaza, along with 250 others. On January 19 of this year, she was released after 471 days of Hamas captivity, along with two other hostages, Romi and Doron.
It takes a certain kind of person to not only be insensitive to what Damari endured but to argue that she essentially had it coming. There is no shortage of such people in the world, and one of them is Mosab Abu Toha, whom the corporate media typically describes as a Palestinian “poet.”
Referring to Damari, Abu Toha reportedly posted on Facebook:
“How on earth is this girl called a hostage? (And this is the case of most ‘hostages.’) This is Emily Damari, a 28[-year-old] UK-Israeli soldier that Hamas detailed [sic] on 10/7.”
The potty-mouthed poet continued:
“So this girl is called a ‘hostage’? This soldier who was close to the border with a city that she and her country have been occupying is called a ‘hostage’?”
In other social media posts, Abu Toha referred to Israeli soldiers as “killers who join the army and have family in the army,” while criticizing international media for “humaniz[ing]” them.
According to HonestReporting, an Israeli-based media watchdog group, Abu Toha’s online rhetoric fits the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism—spreading misinformation and perpetuating harmful antisemitic stereotypes. The organization highlighted posts in which Abu Toha referred to Israeli troops as “terror soldiers” and likened Israel’s military actions in Gaza to the Holocaust.
Might America’s corporate media be revulsed—or at least alarmed—by Abu Toha’s rhetoric?
Not a chance.
Last week, Abu Toha was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for commentary for essays published in The New Yorker, which judges claimed captured “the physical and emotional carnage in Gaza” and combined “deep reporting with the intimacy of memoir to convey the Palestinian experience of more than a year and a half of war with Israel.”
Damari, along with Israel’s Foreign Ministry and others, is understandably upset that Abu Toha was honored with what is still mistakenly referred to as the highest honor in American journalism. As I noted in a post I published on May 5, 2020 headlined, The PC-Correct Pulitzer Prizes, the awards have for some time been given to work that best promotes corporate media’s preferred narratives, not to the most exemplary or deserving journalism.
Meet the Pulitzer Prize Board
Let’s set aside the possible merits of Abu Toha’s Pulitzer-winning essays and instead examine the Board responsible for overseeing the award. Once you understand their backgrounds, it becomes readily apparent why they may have enthusiastically honored Abu Toha and his work.
The Pulitzer Board makes the final decision on all awards, supposedly based on the recommendations of three finalists determined by various juries.
David Remnick
Surprise, surprise! New Yorker editor David Remnick sits on the Pulitzer Prize Board. In this year’s awards, The New Yorker took home three Pulitzers—one for Abu Toha’s commentary, and others for feature photography and audio reporting.
While Remnick likely recused himself from voting on submissions from his own publication—as is standard practice—the optics are difficult to ignore.
I was once a loyal reader of The New Yorker, eagerly anticipating its arrival each Monday. But I canceled my subscription in 2016 after growing tired of the magazine’s intensely partisan coverage of Donald Trump, some of which has been credibly challenged or discredited.
Claire Shipman
Claire Shipman is the acting president of Columbia University, which has faced widespread criticism for how it has handled antisemitic demonstrations on campus—many of which have occurred with apparent faculty and administrative support. A Columbia grad, Shipman is a former journalist who worked for NBC and ABC. According to her Columbia bio, Shipman’s work on the economic argument for women in leadership and the confidence gap young girls and women often face has driven change in workplaces and schools across the nation.
Kevin Merida
Readers may recall Kevin Merida, whom I profiled in a post last year titled, R.I.P. Los Angeles Times. Merida was the editor of the L.A. Times during a period of sharp editorial decline. The paper, already struggling, became even more ideologically driven under his leadership.
Notably, 36 editorial staffers at the Times were among the 1,200 journalists worldwide who signed an open letter urging newsrooms to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza using terms like “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “genocide.”
When media watchdog CAMERA criticized the L.A. Times for bias and highlighted controversial social media activity by managing editor Sara Yasin—including posts allegedly sympathetic to Hamas—the paper stood by her. Yasin’s bio described her as a Palestinian-American “raised on a steady diet of hummus and fried chicken.”
Sewell Chan
Sewell Chan previously held senior editorial roles at the L.A. Times and later became editor of the Columbia Journalism Review. The publication is overseen by Columbia University’s journalism school. Chan was recently dismissed from that position, reportedly after complaints from underlings that he had created a difficult work environment.
Jelani Cobb
Jelani Cobb is the dean of Columbia’s journalism school, a position he was appointed to three years ago. Ready for this? He’s also been a staff writer at the New Yorker for the past 10 years and a political analyst at MSNBC, which I regard as a communications mouthpiece for the Democratic party.
As dean, Cobb is a non-voting member of the Pulitzer Board.
According to his bio, Cobb is the author of The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress and To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic. He is the editor or co-editor of several volumes including The Matter of Black Lives, a collection of The New Yorker’s writings on race and The Essential Kerner Commission Report. He is producer or co-producer of numerous documentaries including Lincoln’s Dilemma, Obama: A More Perfect Union, Policing the Police and THE RIOT REPORT.
Cobb last year issued a statement on behalf of Columbia’s journalism school faculty decrying Israel’s closing of the Al Jazeera office in Ramallah. Israel took the move after an Israeli court found there was a direct and causal connection between individuals who have carried out terror attacks inside Israel and the consumption of Al Jazeera content.
Egypt has issued multiple bans on Al Jazeera journalists and has included some on terrorist lists. I can find no record of Cobb or Columbia’s journalism school expressing concerns about those bans.
Cobb was the person reportedly responsible for firing Chan, just months after hiring him.
Ginger Thompson
Thompson is the managing editor of ProPublica, a publication I hold in high regard. I was pleased that ProPublica was awarded a Pulitzer this year, but my enthusiasm waned upon discovering that Thompson is a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board.
No doubt she, too, recused herself from voting on ProPublica’s submission.
Thompson previously spent more than a decade at the New York Times.
Other Pulitzer Board members include various academics, including Kelly Lytle Hernández, Professor of History, African American Studies, and Urban Planning at UCLA, and Natasha Trethewey, Professor of English at Northwestern University—two institutions that have faced criticism for campus climates perceived as hostile toward Israel. Northwestern, in particular, has documented financial and academic ties to Qatar.
The journalists on the Pulitzer Board are all affiliated with publications that have a clearly liberal editorial stance, including The New York Times and The Atlantic.
Emily Damari is mistaken if she believes the Pulitzer Board will give serious consideration to rescinding Abu Toha’s award. The Board did not revoke the Pulitzer it awarded to Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of The New York Times’ 1619 Project—a reinterpretation of American history that a dozen prominent historians publicly criticized as factually and conceptually flawed. Nor did it rescind the Pulitzers awarded to The New York Times and The Washington Post for their Trump–Russia collusion coverage, despite the core premise of that reporting being later significantly discredited.
Today, Pulitzers no longer carry the prestige they once did, as many winning works are increasingly entangled in scandal and controversy. Damari should take some comfort in knowing that much of the journalism now deemed Pulitzer-worthy comes from publications that most Americans no longer trust or find credible.
The Pulitzer Board has sullied both its reputation and the integrity of its profession.