{"id":72693,"date":"2026-05-15T17:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T17:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/72693\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T17:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T17:40:11","slug":"benjamin-netanyahu-threatens-legal-action-over-ny-times-kristof-column","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/72693\/","title":{"rendered":"Benjamin Netanyahu threatens legal action over NY Times Kristof column"},"content":{"rendered":"

As backlash over a recent column published by the New York Times<\/a> alleging that Israeli guards sexually abused Palestinian detainees reached a fever pitch on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke his silence by threatening legal action against the paper.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday I instructed my legal advisers to consider the harshest legal action against The New York Times and Nicholas Kristof,\u201d Netanyahu wrote in a post on X\/twitter Thursday morning. \u201cThey 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\u2019s valiant soldiers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netanyahu<\/a>\u2019s legal warning, which followed a similar allegation of defamation over the paper\u2019s coverage of starvation in Gaza last year, was dismissed by the Times in a statement distributed during a rally against the newspaper outside its Times Square headquarters late Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

New York Times defends Kristof column<\/p>\n

\u201cThis threat, similar to one made last year, is part of a well-worn political playbook that aims to undermine independent reporting and stifle journalism that does not fit a specific narrative,\u201d said Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokesperson for the paper. \u201cAny such legal claim would be without merit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement went on to defend Kristof\u2019s column, titled \u201cThe Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians,\u201d calling it \u201cdeeply reported\u201d and describing him as \u201cwidely regarded as one of the world\u2019s best on-the-ground journalists in documenting and bearing witness to sexual abuse experienced by women and men in war and conflict zones.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PrimePrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at a press conference in Tel Aviv on the current Israel-Hamas war November 11, 2023. (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM\/THE JERUSALEM POST)<\/p>\n

A Jewish legal scholar, Jed Rubenfeld, said in an essay in The Free Press that Netanyahu\u2019s threatened lawsuit, if filed, would be \u201cdead in the water\u201d based on legal precedent.<\/p>\n

Despite the New York Times\u2019 repeated defense of the column, which chronicled detailed accounts of sexual abuse by Israeli guards, many Jewish groups and leaders have said it relied on biased sourcing to advance claims made by Palestinian detainees, including that guards trained dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners.<\/p>\n

Protesters rally outside Times headquarters<\/p>\n

The backlash spilled onto the streets of Manhattan Thursday evening, when more than 100 protesters waving Israeli flags and carrying signs reading \u201c#End Jew Hatred\u201d gathered outside the New York Times headquarters to demand the paper retract the column.<\/p>\n

While the Times has previously faced blowback from pro-Israel voices for its reports alleging widespread starvation in Gaza, recent demonstrations at its headquarters have more often come from pro-Palestinian activists who accused the paper of having a bias toward Israel.<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s protest, organized by pro-Israel groups including EndJewHatred, Stop Antizionism, Hineni, and the Movement Against Antizionism, featured impassioned chants of \u201cshame on Kristof\u201d and \u201cwe demand action\u201d amid steady drumbeats.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to say that we are saying no to this,\u201d Adam Louis-Klein, the founder of the Movement Against Antizionism, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. \u201cWe are saying no to anti-Zionist libels, and we are making the connection that is inherent between anti-Zionist libels and the violence and hatred that Jews are being subjected to every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many attendees carried signs that read \u201cJ\u2019accuse\u201d next to the Times\u2019 logo, a reference to the Dreyfus affair, as well as others that read \u201cWhen did the New York Times become Der Sturmer?\u201d a reference to the notorious Nazi<\/a> newspaper.<\/p>\n

Ellis Shrem, a 30-year-old rally participant, said Kristof\u2019s column was enough to make him cancel his Times subscription altogether.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been a New York Times subscriber for a long time, and I know they\u2019re left-leaning, fine, but when you print blood libel, like, that\u2019s just another, I just canceled the subscription,\u201d Shrem said. \u201cIt just threw me over the edge, and that they refuse to retract, refuse to give an inch on something that they know they printed is evil. I just couldn\u2019t take it anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Protesters warn of rising antisemitism<\/p>\n

Anya Levitov, a 52-year-old participant, said that she had been \u201cenraged\u201d not just by Kristof\u2019s column, but also by the many comments supporting the piece in its comments section. She said that the experience had felt \u201cworse than it was in my childhood in the Soviet Union,\u201d when anti-Zionist propaganda reigned, fueling local antisemitism.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just so absurd and so beyond the pale that it was hard for me to imagine that so many people would print it in the first place, but so many people would buy it,\u201d Levitov said.<\/p>\n

The protest drew heckles from some passersby, including a child who yelled into the crowd, \u201cF\u2013ck the Jews,\u201d and a taxi driver who shouted from his vehicle, \u201cZionist pigs.\u201d One woman who passed the group shouted, \u201cYou guys are depending on US taxes<\/a>, losers.\u201d<\/p>\n

For many at the rally, the underlying call for the paper to retract Kristof\u2019s piece was rooted in a fear that it would further inflame antisemitism online and beyond, a sentiment echoed in signs reading, \u201cAntizionism gets Jews killed!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a watershed moment for The Times, New York, and for the culture to do the right thing and correct the record on the story, because it\u2019s not just The Times\u2019 reputation that\u2019s at risk, but Jewish safety,\u201d attendee Michael Wigotsk said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As backlash over a recent column published by the New York Times alleging that Israeli guards sexually abused…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16469],"tags":[8072,244,19423,243,1850,13800],"class_list":{"0":"post-72693","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-benjamin-netanyahu","8":"tag-antisemitism","9":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","10":"tag-hate-speech","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-lawsuit","13":"tag-new-york-times"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116579822744511695","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}