Jewish leaders are calling for a boycott of The New York Times after it rejected rumors that it will be retracting a column accusing Israel of using dogs to sexually assault Palestinian prisoners, with the Israeli Foreign Ministry claiming that the paper deliberately timed the column to be published the day before a Civil Commission comprehensive report on Hamas’s use of sexual violence on Oct. 7, 2023.
“There is no truth to this at all,” Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the Times, said on Tuesday of the retraction rumor. “Nicholas Kristof is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has reported on sexual violence for decades and is widely regarded as one of the world’s best on-the-ground reporters documenting and bearing witness to sexual abuse experienced by women and men in war and conflict zones.”
He added that Kristof “traveled to the region to report firsthand on the stories of Palestinians who suffered abuse, and his article collects accounts in the victims’ own words, backed by independent studies.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry stated that the Civil Commission had approached the Times months ago with the Civil Commission report on Hamas’s use of sexual violence and that the paper said it was “not interested.”
“Aware of the report and its release date, the night before its release, The New York Times ran a shameful attack on Israel, belittling Hamas’s sexual crimes,” the ministry stated. “That tells you everything about The New York Times’s agenda.”
Oren Marmorstein, spokesperson for the ministry, said Kristof’s column was fabricated and lacked “even a single piece of evidence, while its primary source has known ties to Hamas.”
“More importantly, why did the Times publish this baseless blood libel when it knew that a verified report on Hamas’s sexual crimes was due to be released the very next day?” he asked.
Elliot Malin, an attorney and international law expert, called for Times subscribers to cancel their subscription. “His sourcing was from an entity tied to Hamas and a sexual predator who admitted that he didn’t have anything to verify what he spread,” Malin said of Kristof’s column.
Social-media users replied to Malin that they have heeded his call and canceled their subscriptions.
Rabbi Tzvi Pittinsky, director of educational technology at Yeshivat Frisch in New Jersey, said that while he has not subscribed to the paper for many years, he has occasionally read Times articles. “After this modern-day blood libel by the ‘paper of record,’ I will boycott the Times always,” he said. “This is indefensible and inexcusable.”
Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square, stated that the Times “ran a disinformation campaign using Nicholas Kristof as the front man.”
“Shut it down,” Ackman said.
The American Jewish Committee released a statement condemning the Times and the op‑ed, alleging that it is “a modern-day blood libel in the ‘paper of record.’”
“Allegations of abuse toward Palestinians deserve serious, rigorous investigation. Yet this piece, while opinion, appeared to be presented as an investigative report and fell alarmingly short of that standard while amplifying inflammatory narratives that have real-world consequences in a time of surging hatred toward Israelis and Jews worldwide,” the AJC stated.
