NEW YORK — Protesters gathered outside The New York Times offices in Manhattan on Thursday to demonstrate against a widely-criticized column that alleged systemic sexual abuse of Palestinian inmates in Israel.

Around 200 demonstrators, mostly Jewish, gathered on the sidewalk, chanting, “New York Times, shame on you,” “We will not be silent,” and “New York Times, get it straight, stop the libels, stop the hate.”

“Hamas abuse covered up! Nick Kristof made stuff up!” one man shouted, referring to the column’s author, Nicholas Kristof.

The demonstrators held signs that said, “Antizionism gets Jews killed,” and “J’accuse” next to The New York Times logo, a reference to the Dreyfus affair, in which a Jewish French military officer was falsely charged with espionage based on trumped-up evidence in the late 1800s.

Critics have decried the column’s reliance on sources with a history of anti-Zionist extremism and fabrication — experts have said the article’s most extreme claim, that Israelis use dogs to rape Palestinians, is not plausible — and its timing, coming out immediately before a major report on Hamas rape was released. Former prime minister Ehud Olmert also said the report had misrepresented a statement he made to the reporter.

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The activist groups Stop Antizionism, the Movement Against Antizionism, Hineni and End Jew Hatred organized the rally. Besides End Jew Hatred, the other three groups are relatively new advocacy organizations that started since the October 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel, and reflect a growing movement in the US Jewish community that sees anti-Zionism as a form of hatred against Jews, and not as a political position.


Protesters outside The New York Times offices in New York City, May 14, 2026. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)

End Jew Hatred organizes periodic rallies in the US, but for the other groups, it was one of their first organized protests.

“We feel that the Kristof libel is a turning point in that we’ve seen the most lurid possible libel, the most bestializing depiction of Israelis yet,” said Adam Louis-Klein of the Movement Against Antizionism. “You can see that the problem is systemic anti-Zionist libel, that society is in denial about the problem. The problem is systemic anti-Zionism.”

Protester Eve Oster said she hoped that the protest would encourage sympathetic staffers within The New York Times to speak up.

“It is libel against Jews, Israel, and it only causes more harm to Jews worldwide,” she said. “People think they are alone. They are not alone. We are not alone. Jews, our allies, we are not alone.”


Protesters outside The New York Times offices in New York City, May 14, 2026. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)

Protesters repeatedly referred to past New York Times Gaza coverage that turned out to be false, such as the Al Ahli hospital explosion in October 2023, which The New York Times and other outlets reported as an Israeli strike but was actually a misfired Palestinian rocket, and a UN official’s claim that 14,000 babies in Gaza were going to die of starvation, reported by The New York Times and other outlets, which was also false.

Several pointed out that the “14,000 babies” claim came out shortly before the murders of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC.

Ramon Maislen, an organizer with the Brooklyn Bridgebuilders activist group, said Kristof’s column stood out because, in previous instances, such as the Al Ahli hospital explosion, the situation on the ground in Gaza was more complicated and murky when the incident occurred.

“There’s a general level of exhaustion and frustration, and we’ve been dealing with this for quite some time, and I think this is maybe the straw that broke the camel’s back,” he said.

Attendees said they felt outrage at the coverage and feared the allegations could foment violence against Jews.

Naya Lekht, founder of Stop Antizionism, compared the coverage to propaganda in Nazi Germany between Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 and the mass killings that began in 1941.

“What was happening for those eight years? A cycle of libels. We are in the cycle of libels. Blood libels right now that dress themselves up as politics, like apartheid, genocide, Israel steals organs,” she said.

“If we were in 1929, standing in front of Der Stürmer, they also would think that they’re the good guys. Do we really need another catastrophe for them to go and build another shrine to the era of anti-Zionism?” she said. “We are here to warn them. We are here to warn them that what they are doing is they’re commissioning violence. They don’t understand this.”

The New York Times has defended the column in a series of statements. On Thursday, the newspaper dismissed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s threat to sue.

“This threat, similar to one made last year, is part of a well-worn political playbook that ism to undermine independent reporting and stifle journalism that does not fit a specific narrative. Any such legal claim would be without merit,” a spokesperson said.

Some passersby heckled the protesters, shouting “fuck Israel” and “stop fucking kids,” but there was no organized counter-demonstration.

The rally wrapped up after about an hour with the protesters singing Israel’s anthem, “Hatikvah,” Hebrew for “The Hope.”


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