The New York Times has never been reluctant to accuse Israel of the most dastardly deeds on its news pages.
Famously, the paper ran with the "Israel bombed Gaza hospital" story on its front page, reporting Hamas propaganda that turned out to be 100% lies on its front page, complete with a deceptive photograph. It turned out that the Israeli "bomb" was actually a Palestinian missile that misfired, that the hospital itself was not hit, and that the casualty figures were entirely false.
The Kristof “dog rape” libel is ultimately just laundered “Hamas told me so.” Euro-Med Monitor head Ramy Abdu, cited “journalist” Sami al-Sai, and the unnamed “Gaza journalist.” All three are Hamas mouthpieces. @nytimes once admitted Hamas lied to the world. They no longer care. pic.twitter.com/jvtOm5tjwu
— Aizenberg (@Aizenberg55) May 15, 2026
After leading a lynch mob against Israel, they even had to admit that they reported lies. That never stopped them from repeating Hamas lies, of course, but that is another matter.
Given the Times' obvious bias against Israel, many people have noted that while the Times' public relations account has now defended Kristof's opinion piece "reporting" three times so far, the news section of the Times has not said one word about these explosive allegations.
Puck media reporter Dylan Byers, for example, wondered in his latest newsletter “whether the paper even considered putting additional reporters on this Opinion piece and reframing it as a straight news story—and whether they’ve tasked reporters with fact-checking those claims…
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) May 15, 2026
The pressure on the Times over Kristof’s dog rape “bombshell” intensified on Thursday when Israel announced it will sue the newspaper and Kristof for defamation.
While the Times has already issued two separate statements defending the piece, media reporters are questioning what type of internal review was conducted prior to publication and why the Times newsroom hasn’t followed up with a news story on the sensational allegations, our @Kredo0 writes.
If the editors of the news division believed that the allegations were true or even plausible, they would have printed a series of stories on the supposed abuses every day on the front page, with 4-6 reporters bylined on the pieces. You often see multiple reporters assigned to much lower-profile stories that are, in principle, easier to report and far less explosive, yet not one actual reporter at the Times has come close to this story.
Another media newsletter, Status, noted that the Times newsroom “has yet to advance or incorporate any of the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner’s reporting or touch on any of the allegations made in the piece, maintaining radio silence despite the continuing scrutiny.
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) May 15, 2026
Kristof’s…
Another media newsletter, Status, noted that the Times newsroom “has yet to advance or incorporate any of the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner’s reporting or touch on any of the allegations made in the piece, maintaining radio silence despite the continuing scrutiny.
Kristof’s bombshell report has also not appeared on any of The Times’ podcasts, where the paper’s biggest stories are typically showcased.”
The Gaza war has been one of the hottest stories over the past several years, and allegations of this magnitude are so explosive that it is hard to quantify. There is already violence in the streets aimed at Jews for merely existing, and the Times has just tossed an incendiary bomb into an already burning fire.
And yet the only thing the Times has published is Nicholas Kristof's insanely poorly-sourced piece, and weak defenses of it from the Times' PR Department.
Few people seriously believe that the Times could be held liable for slander in a case like this. The barriers to that are immense, no matter how irresponsible the Times has been. But the legal gambit Israel is taking is a bid to get the internal documents related to the publishing of the story.
The Israeli government may need to deploy some creative legal maneuvering to reach that stage: The government itself is unlikely to be a plaintiff, and Kristof’s piece did not name any specific Israelis as responsible for the purported abuse, meaning Prime Minister Benjamin…
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) May 15, 2026
It is impossible to believe that a story so thinly sourced and incendiary did not get pushback, even from antisemitic editors. It is so implausible on its face, and its sourcing is so bad that somebody, and probably many somebodies, tried to stop its publication. Especially given the fact that Kristof has a history of publishing falsehoods sold to him by fabulists.
In 2014, Nicholas Kristof had to write a humiliating blog post titled “When Sources May Have Lied.”
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) May 11, 2026
He admitted he’d spent years promoting Somaly Mam’s graphic “trafficked-as-a-child” horror story, only to discover she had apparently fabricated much of it.
Kristof conceded he… pic.twitter.com/tN22eTgUiN
In 2014, Nicholas Kristof had to write a humiliating blog post titled “When Sources May Have Lied.”
He admitted he’d spent years promoting Somaly Mam’s graphic “trafficked-as-a-child” horror story, only to discover she had apparently fabricated much of it.
Kristof conceded he got played, added editor’s notes to his old columns, and said he wished he’d never written about her.
Fast-forward to today, and he’s publishing an article based on interviews with 14 Palestinians claiming Israeli guards raped them with batons, carrots, and even dogs. They offer no corroborating evidence.
Any chance they’re lying or exaggerating? Kristof responds that “To me that seems far-fetched.”
But back in 2014, he wrote “We journalists often rely to a considerable extent on people to tell the truth…. We’re less suspicious if someone claims something stigmatizing, like being trafficked into a brothel.”
Except this time, the alleged victims are claiming sexual abuse in Israeli prisons — the furthest thing from stigmatizing in elite media circles.
In fact, it’s a golden ticket to instant sympathetic coverage in the New York Times, global headlines, and virtually no risk of being called a liar.
The man got burned by unverified trauma porn once, and now he seems eager to do it again to satisfy his insatiable lust for fictitious Israeli atrocities.
Kristof, in defending the dog rape story, gives much the same explanation for why he believes the "victims."
"Some may wonder whether Palestinians fabricated accusations of sexual assaults to defame Israel," Kristof wrote. "To me that seems far-fetched, because none of those I interviewed sought me out or knew who else I was speaking to, and they were reluctant to speak."
Huh? Palestinians lie to hurt Israel? Definitely far-fetched.
Even with the Times' lower standards for accusations against Israel, it's no surprise that its news department has stayed as far away from this story as humanly possible.
🚨 BREAKING: The New York Times reveals that Israel has successfully trained a dog to take over Nakatomi Plaza and steal $640 million in negotiable bearer bonds pic.twitter.com/wfo9fW0f82
— Kyle Mann (@The_Kyle_Mann) May 15, 2026
Think about that: the journalists who would run with allegations from the Steele Dossier and make a two-year crusade out of proving it are too ashamed to touch Kristof's accusations.
That's how absurd this story is.
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