Israeli legal group seeks criminal charges against NYT over ‘blood libel’ accusations of rape

Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center pushes for criminal charges to be brought against The New York Times over controversial article accusing Israel of systematically sexually abusing Palestinians.

By World Israel News Staff

An Israeli legal advocacy group has asked Israel’s attorney general and state prosecutor to pursue criminal defamation charges against The New York Times and columnist Nicholas Kristof, escalating a broader Israeli campaign against a column alleging sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces.

Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center sent the request Monday, accusing the newspaper and Kristof of publishing what it called a “modern blood libel” against Israel, IDF soldiers, prison personnel and other Israeli security officials.

The group said the May 11 column, titled “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians,” crossed the line from criticism into criminal defamation.

The demand follows Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement last week that he had instructed legal advisers “to consider the harshest legal action” against the Times and Kristof.

Netanyahu said the column had “defamed the soldiers of Israel” and created “a false symmetry between the genocidal terrorists of Hamas and Israel’s valiant soldiers.”

Kristof’s column alleged a pattern of sexual violence by Israeli soldiers, prison guards, and civilians against Palestinians.

The column included testimony from Palestinians who alleged abuse, including one man who said he was raped by a dog, an allegation Israel has rejected.

The New York Times has defended the piece. A spokesman told Reuters that the accounts of 14 men and women interviewed by Kristof were corroborated “with other witnesses, when possible,” including relatives and lawyers, and said details were “extensively fact-checked.”

New York Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha called Netanyahu’s threatened lawsuit “part of a well-worn political playbook” meant to undermine reporting that does not fit a government narrative and said any such legal claim would be “without merit.”

Shurat HaDin President Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said the column was “one of the most despicable blood libels published by The New York Times against the State of Israel.” She said the allegations were based on “Hamas propaganda” and argued that the state should not remain passive.

“When a major international media outlet publishes such monstrous distortions based on Hamas propaganda, this is no longer journalistic criticism but a campaign intended to endanger Israelis and Jews around the world,” Darshan-Leitner said.

“The State of Israel must stop standing by. We demand that indictments be filed against those responsible without delay.”

The dispute has also focused on Kristof’s use of material from Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a Geneva-based organization with ties to Hamas-linked networks.

Israel has noted that Euro-Med’s founder and chairman, Ramy Abdu, was the subject of a 2020 Israeli administrative seizure order under counterterrorism legislation over his role in iPalestine, which Israel designated as a Hamas-affiliated terrorist organization.

The Israel Prison Service said the claims in Kristof’s column were “false and entirely unfounded,” while the Foreign Ministry described the column as “one of the worst blood libels in modern media.”