Even with this story coming more than a year after a United Nations report called out Israel for “systematically” subjecting Palestinians to “sexualized torture,” it was met with apoplectic – though predictable – rage from the Israeli government and a bevy of prominent pro-Israel figures and writers.
By Justin Baragona, reposted from Zeteo, May 13, 2026
Something very interesting happened this week. A massive pro-Israel pressure campaign looking to shame the New York Times into retracting a well-sourced story critical of Israel’s violence against Palestinians, including sexual abuse, fell flat on its face.
Nick Kristof, a longtime and respected columnist for the Times, penned an absolutely harrowing account this week of Palestinians being subjected to unspeakably horrific sexual abuse and rape by Israeli soldiers, settlers, and prison guards, relying on the first-hand testimony of 14 victims – many of whom were on the record.
Kristof, who traveled to the occupied West Bank to interview his subjects, argued in the piece that “whatever our views of the Middle East conflict, we should be able to unite in condemning rape.” Noting that Israeli officials and American politicians decried the sexual violence allegedly committed by Hamas during the October 7 attacks, Kristof rightly pointed out that the abuse inflicted on Palestinian men and women by Israel “persists because of silence, indifference and the failure” of political leaders to condemn it.
Besides leaning on the personal stories of the victims he interviewed, many of which he corroborated with other witnesses and victims, Kristof also cited a number of surveys, reports, and studies on the sexual violence that has been inflicted on Palestinian prisoners during the Gaza war.
Still, even with this story coming more than a year after a United Nations report called out Israel for “systematically” subjecting Palestinians to “sexualized torture,” Kristof’s story was met with apoplectic – though predictable – rage from the Israeli government and a bevy of prominent pro-Israel figures and writers.
“Today, the @nytimes chose to publish one of the worst blood libels ever to appear in the modern press. In an unfathomable inversion of reality, and through an endless stream of baseless lies, propagandist Nicholas Kristof turns the victim into the accused,” the Israel Foreign Ministry tweeted.
Complaining that the story was “part of a false and well-orchestrated anti-Israel campaign,” the Foreign Ministry accused the Times of “deliberately” timing the publication of the piece to counter a new Israeli report detailing the “systematic” sexual violence during Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. (The lead author of that report, which has not been independently verified, has seen her credibility challenged multiple times on previous investigations into claims of systematic sexual violence by Hamas on October 7.)
Other pro-Israeli accounts, meanwhile, tried to discredit the report by dismissing Kristof’s sources as “Hamas-linked,” “anti-Israel,” or “anti-Zionist.” And former US special envoy for combating antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt went so far as to echo calls for the Times editors to face Nuremberg-style punishment.
Conservative commentator Michelle Tandler, in a moment that was beyond parody, insisted that there wasn’t a “single shred of evidence” in the piece, “other than the testimonies of 14 people.” Peter Savodnik – a senior editor at Bari Weiss’s right-wing pro-Israel blog The Free Press – fumed that the story’s sources “hate Israel” and that the piece is a “well laundered bit of Hamas propaganda that Kristof and the Times will ultimately regret.”
Additionally, many specifically took aim at a claim made by a Gaza journalist to Kristof – who cited other public reports and accounts of similar incidents – that Israeli guards used a dog to rape him, stating it was not only physically impossible but that it was “antisemitic” and amounted to “libel” against Israel.
Kristof, for his part, pointed out on Tuesday that skeptics “who say that canine rape is impossible, despite the many Palestinians who have described it, I’d note that at least three different medical journal articles discuss rectal injuries in humans from anal penetration by dogs.”
Amid the outcry from the pro-Israeli crowd at the New York Times – the same paper, mind you, that published the highly disputed “Screams Without Words” investigative piece about Hamas “weaponizing” sexual violence on October 7 – former MSNBC anchor David Shuster jumped into the fray with a bombshell claim.
“Hearing from longtime friends @nytimes there are already discussions, including up the masthead, about retracting @NickKristof column. Issues with source credibility and lack of evidence. No indications the Kristof sourcing mistakes were deliberate. Still problematic,” he tweeted on Monday night.
Shuster, who has made wild allegations before that were later debunked, added that there were “other sourcing/credibility issues as well” but that the “bigger debate, I’m told, is whether an op-ed should be retracted given the nature of opinion writing v. news reporting.”
Several sources I spoke to at the New York Times, however, told me they were completely unaware of any conversations among top editors about whether to take action on Kristof’s column, including a possible retraction. “It’s giving ‘hipster coffee shop,’” one NYT reporter snarked to me.
Kristof, who also explained online why his deeply reported piece ran in the paper’s opinion section, responded to Shuster’s claims by flatly stating they were “completely untrue.” A short time later on Tuesday afternoon, NYT spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander issued a statement rebutting Shuster while fully backing Kristof.
https://t.co/860eTKMugW pic.twitter.com/xsqFyP3ptS
— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) May 12, 2026
Shuster responded to a request for comment by sharing two tweets he sent on Tuesday evening that largely focused on the dog rape claims in the piece while sidestepping his allegations that editors had discussed retracting the story.
What really stands out more than anything, though, is the lack of impact the over-the-top cries of “blood libel” from the Israeli government and its acolytes is having on the NYT – the same paper which repeatedly stood by the highly problematic “Screams Without Words” piece, which Zeteo’s Fatima Bhutto called a “piece of unbridled Israeli propaganda.” More than 50 journalism professors raised several concerns over the “Screams Without Words” piece in a letter at the time and called on the paper to “immediately commission a group of journalism experts to conduct a thorough and full independent review of the reporting, editing and publishing processes for this story and release a report of the findings.”
Could we finally be seeing a shift in the legacy media landscape, where Israel doesn’t automatically get deferential treatment, and outlets don’t immediately shirk in the face of groundless accusations of antisemitism?
It’s likely too soon to tell with the Times, which has repeatedly dehumanized Palestinians, shown deferential treatment to Israeli sources and officials, and whitewashed Israeli crimes against Palestinian civilians. But the paper’s reaction to this latest outrage cycle is at least a good start.
Justin Baragona is Zeteo’s media columnist. He is a former senior media reporter for The Daily Beast & a correspondent for Mediaite.
RELATED:
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- As Evidence Mounts of Dogs Raping Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli Prisons, NYT’S Isabel Kershner Revives Unverified October 7 Rape Narrative
- Israel’s 7 October rape hoax gets a 300-page reboot
- The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians
- Palestinian journalist recounts rape and torture in Israeli prison
