The just-published New York Times piece by Nicholas Kristof, accusing Israel of horrific crimes, including the sexual abuse of “Palestinians” in Israeli prisons, with victims said to include men, women, and children, and of “training dogs” to rape “Palestinians” as well, has quite properly enraged the government and the people of Israel. The Office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced in a Thursday, May 14 statement that Israel will take legal action against the Times over Kristof’s column.
More on this welcome news can be found here: “Israel to take legal action against ‘New York Times’ over claims of ‘dog rape’ of Palestinians,” by Shir Perets, Jerusalem Post, May 14, 2026:
Israel will take legal action against The New York Times over a column penned by Nicholas Kristof, which included allegations of serious sexual abuse of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a Thursday statement.
The PMO, which referred to the accusation as “one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar instructed officials to begin preparing a defamation lawsuit against the publication.
“They defamed the soldiers of Israel and perpetuated a blood libel about rape, trying to create a false symmetry between the genocidal terrorists of Hamas and Israel’s valiant soldiers,” Netanyahu wrote on X/Twitter….
The planned lawsuit would focus on whether statements in the article crossed the legal threshold from opinion or criticism into actionable defamation. It was not immediately clear where the lawsuit would be filed, what damages would be sought, or whether Israeli state institutions or individual officials would be listed as plaintiffs.
On Wednesday, the New York Times issued a statement affirming its support for Kristof’s controversial op-ed, saying he “draws together on-the-record accounts and cites several analyses documenting the practice of sexual violence and abuse conducted by various parts of Israel’s security forces and settlers.”
His “deeply reported piece of opinion journalism starts with a proposition to readers: ‘Whatever our views of the Middle East conflict, we should be able to unite in condemning rape,'” the news outlet stated.
“The accounts of the 14 men and women he interviewed were corroborated with other witnesses, whenever possible, and with people the victims confided in – that includes family members and lawyers,” the outlet said.
Kristof’s sensationalist charges, including the charge that the IDF deliberately has trained dogs to “rape” “Palestinian” prisoners, has spread around the world, causing untold harm to Israel’s image. Kristof relied on “Palestinians” for this malignant misinformation, apparently unaware that “Palestinians” have a long history of lying, and he never bothered, prior to publication, to obtain a comment, and rebuttal, from Israel that he might at least have included in his piece; he might even have checked with canine trainers who, to a man, have now publicly spoken about the impossibility of training dogs to rape humans.
This isn’t the only part of Kristof’s hit piece that is blatantly false, but it is the most outrageous and unbelievable of his many outrageous and unbelievable claims. When Israel did respond to the piece, and denounced its wild fabrications, the NYT doubled down, claiming that it stood by Kristof’s piece, and by the “Palestinians” upon whose testimony he relied.
This was too much for the government of Israel to let pass with just a denunciation of the New York Times and Kristof. It knew his piece damages Israel’s reputation around the world, and not just among those who are always prepared to believe the worst of the Jewish state. That preposterous charge about that canine corps of doggy rapists, and other bizarre charges, too, which Kristof made, will now become the stuff of approving comments from Hamas, CAIR, the Iranian government, and of course wsuch people as Francesca Albanese, Roger Waters, Susan Sarandon, Rashida Tlaib, Wally Shawn, Zohran Mamdani, and others of that silly-sinister ilk, whose name, alas, is legion, will pick them up and repeat them.
Now the New York Times will be sued for defamation by the State of Israel. How much will it ask for? Let it be Trumpian in size — a billion dollars, or two, or more. How do you measure the cost of such lies being made and disseminated across the globe, to the reputation of the Jewish state? How many more attacks on Israelis or Jews will be the result of those baseless kristovian charges?
Israel thinks that the New York Times will rue the day it published Kristof’s hit piece, not because it will have come to its senses, morally — the New York Times long ago lost that sense when it comes to its reporting on Israel — but because having to pay a billion or two for having published Kristof’s calumny, which is a kind of updated version, applied to the Jewish state, of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, will be painful. Does anyone doubt that the State of Israel will be able to call on the best defamation lawyers in the world, no matter where the suit is brought?
But here is another question. Why should Israel limit itself to suing the Grey Lady? Shouldn’t the onlie begetter of this defamation, the egregious Nicholas Kristof, with his long history of anti-Israel animus, also be sued? Let his days be full of exhausting testimony, both his own and that of others, and of withering cross-examinations, as lawyers for the plaintiff make mincemeat of him, and when the verdict comes down, he who is morally bankrupt will now be personally bankrupt as well.
Kosh's Shadow says
Der MY Shturmer
If the jackboots fit, if it steps like a goose…
Wellington says
Just one more example of how simply horrible the NYT is. It is a promoter of lies aplenty.
What another example? Here it is: It received a Pulitzer for its coverage of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia back in the 2016 election. We now know this alleged collusion was completely false, 100% false, made up by the 2016 Clinton campaign via the totally phony Steele Dossier, and yet the NYT has not returned this Pulitzer. Yes, this is how phony and irresponsible the NYT is. Anyone giving it any credence is a fool at best.
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Don’t read it. Encourage other people not to read it. I haven’t looked at it in years, except when duty forces me to read and comment on some idiocy.
ploome says
Can Israel sue the UN?
https://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2026/05/part-5-of-jewish-question-question-has.html
“On November 10, 1975, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 declaring Zionism to be a form of racism.
It wasn’t the only UN resolution passed that day.
The General Assembly also passed Resolution 3376, establishing the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.
One resolution declared Jewish national identity illegitimate. The other created the permanent United Nations apparatus that would, from that day forward, operate the framework whose demands the first resolution had articulated.”
a must read
Falsafa says
The entire sane, rational world not yet brainwashed by the colonial settler apartheid Zionist regime and their mouthpiece motley crew of supporters and followers including the anti-Muslim bigots commenting on this blog should read this NYT article. The NYT has finally stood up to the Zionist lobbies and published not propaganda but the truth for once. We are so used to consuming the anti Muslim propaganda ad nauseam from the mainstream press serving corporate interests and the Zionist lobbyists that is NYT article is sign that the veil of 1984 style Zionist propaganda can not last forever.
Hugh Fitzgerald says
You forgot “genocidal,” as in “colonial settler apartheid genocidal Zionist regime.”
Falsafa says
thank you for pointing this out dear Hugh. I did indeed forget..
somehistory says
Motely Crew has your *number.*
It’s better to be a bigot….if pointing out the evils of muzzie ways and means. makes one a bigot ..and better to be racist….if pointing out the slime of islam makes one a racist….than to adhere to the demonic vomit coming from the infamous book of demon evil.
Wellington says
Falsafa: Anti-Muslim propaganda? Might as well speak of anti-Nazi propaganda since both Islam and Nazism preach a master nonsense: Islam a master faith and Nazism a master race.
Anyone who prizes freedom knows that Israel is the only free polity in the Middle East and where some two million Israeli-Arabs have far more freedoms than do Arabs in the 22 Arab countries that exist (bet you won’t address this). Moreover, the IDF goes out of its way to spare civilians while various Islamic terrorist organizations go out of their way to kill civilians. Fitting since Islam was founded by a woeful man who stated “I have been made victorious with terror.” Bukhari Hadith 4.52.220
Now, get lost. You will make no headway with your lies here at JW. Eff off.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Isn’t there a Mamdani rally in NYC that you need to attend?
gravenimage says
The original story did not even make this claim–it just noted that Isael uses security dogs in dealhing with Jihad terrorists. This is not ‘dog rape”.
Edmund Carey says
I am not a regular reader of the New York Times but I have always thought that it must have the reputation it does for good reasons. This shocking story suggests that it is in reality managed and written by hate-mongering maniacs. “Incompetent” doesn’t begin to cover this case.
Whatever else it may be, this one is a revealing instance of just how deranged people can become due to irrational hatred of a Jewish phenomenon – which is, admittedly, not a new development in human history. The Israeli government’s response to this is admirable and right. I hope and pray that it is successful. This is the October 7th of journalistic felonies.
gravenimage says
Israel to Sue New York Times for Defamation
…………………………………………..
Good for Israel. But even if they win, how many will already have read this calumny?
somehistory says
The Times of Israel
“Ben Gvir waves Israeli flag on Temple Mount with far-right MK who calls to get rid of all the mosques, construct the Temple”
“Far right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Otzma Yehudit lawmaker Yitzhak Kroizer wave an Israeli flag on the Temple Mount ahead of this year’s Jerusalem Day march through the Old City of Jerusalem.
“We restored governance on the Temple Mount thanks to determination and deterrence. This year, Ramadan was the quietest, thanks to deterrence. The Temple Mount is in our hands,” he declares.
The ultranationalist lawmakers then dance and sing with the flag next to the Dome of the Rock.
This morning, Kroizer visited the site alongside his children and father, a prominent Kahanist rabbi, to mark Jerusalem Day. He was photographed prostrating on the ground at the flashpoint holy site, facing towards the Dome of the Rock.
“The time has come to get rid of all the mosques and work to construct the Temple!” he later wrote on Facebook.
On Wednesday, Negev, Galilee, and National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf, also of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, urged the public to visit the Temple Mount to see the “revolution” led there by Ben Gvir.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ben-gvir-waves-israeli-flag-on-temple-mount-with-far-right-mk-who-calls-to-get-rid-of-all-the-mosques-construct-the-temple/ar-AA23bvEA?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=6a06acaa497f46dd9aeba61f31d34492&ei=7
jerry glenn says
The New York Times surges in the national Islamopandering derby.
Daniel Bielak says
“SUE Them & Investigate Kristoff!” Alan Dershowitz UNLEASHED On NYT IDF Dog Libel! [JNS TV]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzyLKq494lA&t=1455s
In the excellent interview of Alan Dershowitz by Dan Diker and Khaled Abu Toameh that I have listed and linked-to above, Alan Dershowitz explains that Israel, in being a country and not an individual or corporation, cannot sue the New York Times in the USA according to US Law, but that Israel can sue the New York TImes in other countries. There is more in the interview.
Daniel Bielak says
Correction: The link to the interview from the beinning of the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzyLKq494lA