Recently, a young man named Alex Novell emailed me saying: “I’m a graduate student at NYU working on a documentary film about the history of the Taglit-Birthright program.” He asked me for “an interview with you as it would provide expert commentary for the film.” I agreed first, because I like to encourage students who are doing interesting projects; second, I assumed, as he indeed led me to assume, that he was a current student New York University and that his project was part of his studies under the supervision of the school; and third, I care deeply about Birthright and its impact on American students and, having worked with the program, deeply respect it.

Novell began the interview by asking several relevant questions about Birthright. Then suddenly, as the interview was about to come to an end, he threw out the following accusatory question: How much did you pay the woman who accused you to change her story? …

I later learned that he was in fact making a “documentary” in which he tries to justify the use of fraudulent pretexts by journalists to “get” people with whose views they disagree. The only thing worse than using deception to create a story, is to try to justify such reprehensible tactics.

This is not Sacha Baron Cohen, a comic actor who uses pretext for humorous purposes. This is a person who claims to be a journalist, who is employing fraud to interview people he does not like. Apparently he plans to call other people as well, presumably those like me who support Israel. He apparently believes that because I defend Israel, he is justified in defrauding me.

[Assuming this is as Dersh represents it, fair warning, everyone. At the very least, it presents an opportunity to remind others to be careful about potentially being misled about any reporter’s intentions. Record the conversation yourself in such situations, and if they don’t agree to that, don’t do the interview. — Ed]