Can Israel seek justice against defamation by Nicholas Kristof and the New York Times in a US court? You better believe they'll try. Whether they succeed depends on a number of factors, but just the effort may make the point.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has had enough of the Paper of Wreckard's coverage of Israel, and Kristof's allegations are the last straw. Netanyahu announced this morning on X/Twitter that he would sue the paper and Kristof for defamation over the "blood libel" of training dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners:
Today I instructed my legal advisers to consider the harshest legal action against The New York Times and Nicholas Kristof.
— Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) May 14, 2026
They 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’s valiant soldiers.
Under my leadership, Israel will not be silent.
We will fight these lies in the court of public opinion and in the court of law.
Truth will prevail.
Israel will take legal action against The New York Times over a column penned by Nicholas Kristof, which included allegations of serious sexual abuse of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, the Prime Minister's Office said in a Thursday statement.
The PMO, which referred to the accusation as "one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar instructed officials to begin preparing a defamation lawsuit against the publication. ...
The planned lawsuit would focus on whether statements in the article crossed the legal threshold from opinion or criticism into actionable defamation. It was not immediately clear where the lawsuit would be filed, what damages would be sought, or whether Israeli state institutions or individual officials would be listed as plaintiffs.
One thing's for sure – it won't be difficult to establish general malice on behalf of the Gray Lady. Remember their breathless coverage of Israel's supposed strike on and destruction of the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza? The one that was still standing when the sun rose, and where a Palestinian rocket had misfired and hit the parking lot? And how it took a week for the NYT to begrudgingly retract its claims, based on the same kind of sourcing that Kristof used in his "dog rape" fetish piece in the Times' opinion section. Namely, Hamas propagandists, whence most of the absurd claims of civilian deaths and supposed Israeli atrocities sprang, only to be exposed as continuing hoaxes.
Well, you'd better believe Bibi remembers it. And now he wants to shift from defense to offense, imposing real consequences and costs for amplifying terrorist propaganda and calling it news, or even opinion.
Interestingly, the NYT seems to have given up the latter defense against defamation. The paper ran Kristof's essay in its op-ed section rather than the news section, and might have considered a defense that leaned heavily on that status. However, the paper doubled down on Kristof's status as a reporter in its public defense of the piece:
On Wednesday, the New York Times issued a statement affirming its support for Kristof's controversial op-ed, saying he "draws together on-the-record accounts and cites several analyses documenting the practice of sexual violence and abuse conducted by various parts of Israel's security forces and settlers."
His "deeply reported piece of opinion journalism starts with a proposition to readers: 'Whatever our views of the Middle East conflict, we should be able to unite in condemning rape,'" the news outlet stated.
The 'opinion' defense would likely have been thin anyway, given the way that Kristof wrote these as factual claims rather than his opinion. Calling it "deeply reported" means that the NYT is endorsing the essay as statements of fact. That all but negates this kind of defense, where I can write something like "John Smith is a corruptocrat clogging up the bowels of DC" without worrying about defamation. Were I to write "John Smith accepted bribes from green-energy lobbyists" without evidence, however, my status as an "opinion journalist" would mean squat if that turned out to be false and I had good reason to know it, or recklessly published it without any due diligence as to its veracity.
That is what actual malice means under the Sullivan standard for defamation claims by "public persons," under which the State of Israel clearly falls. It's a higher standard of proof that allows for more freedom to criticize people and entities in public positions (which the Supreme Court may be rethinking when they get the next opportunity). Private individuals who are defamed have an easier time in court; the defamation itself is sufficient to establish liability, which CNN and other media orgs found out a little late in the Nick Sandmann debacle. Public persons/entities have to show not only defamation but an intent to defame, either explicit or by reckless disregard for truth, usually in demonstrating the reliance on obviously bad sources and a lack of standard and reasonable vetting before publication. It's not an impossible task, but it's more difficult than it probably should be, which is why Justice Clarence Thomas has repeatedly urged the court to eliminate the Sullivan standard, or at least narrow it to elected officials only.
So does Israel have a chance with a defamation suit? It seems to be a novel claim by a sovereign government, but there is a close parallel at the moment: Brigitte Macron's defamation suit against Candace Owens. As First Lady of France, Mme. Macron is at least a quasi-governmental official, and courts have at least recognized her standing so far in her attempt to recover damages from Owens' repeated claims that she is a biological male. Netanyahu's government can claim to represent the soldiers in its forces who were allegedly defamed as a class, as well as the government itself.
Assuming that such a lawsuit could survive a challenge on standing, the next question would likely be venue. I'd assume that the suit would get filed in either the Southern District of New York, given the location of the NYT, or in the DC area, where the Israeli embassy would be located. Jury pools in either area may not be particularly sympathetic to Israel these days, although perhaps the Hamasnik-led pogroms taking place in New York City these days might make that more of a wild card. Maybe Israel can forum-shop this suit to a friendlier location, such as Florida, but I suspect that might be tricky.
Under Sullivan, prospects are tough in any venue. Of course, that raises the stakes for the NYT too, especially given Thomas' continued pressure to vacate the precedent, which would spell disaster for the mainstream media in the US. Israel has deep pockets as a plaintiff, and Netanyahu in particular will spend whatever it takes to make Kristof and the NYT pay, one way or another. The NYT may feel a lot of pressure to settle this case before Thomas gets a chance to convince at least four other Supreme Court justices to scuttle Sullivan and force the NYT to defend Kristof's reporting without the 'public person' thumb on the scale. Thomas may get that chance in Macron v Owens beforehand, at which point the NYT and Kristof will have its best shield already stripped away.
Just how confident is the NYT and its attorneys in Kristof's "deeply reported" claims of "rape dogs," anyway?
Even if Israel doesn't win the suit, though, they can force the NYT and Kristof into discovery that will prove expensive and likely embarrassing. That's true in reverse as well, but Netanyahu seems confident that discovery on their end won't reveal "rape dogs," and they have much deeper pockets than the NYT has. Even if a jury won't deliver for them, the process would be punishment enough, and a clear signal to other Protection Racket Media outlets that regurgitating Hamas propaganda will carry a lot more costs than it has in the past.
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