Nicholas Kristof in the NYT has, shamefully, repeated the ridiculous libels circulated by the likes of Owen Jones about the Israelis training dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners. So the new blood libel now goes mainstream in the western media.
Worth reading the whole thread. Conclusions:
9/ By now, a pattern is hard to miss:
✓ Key sources whose public social‑media histories show open support for terrorist groups.
✓ Stories that grow steadily more lurid over time, with dramatic new details added years later.
✓ Heavy reliance on a Hamas‑linked NGO with a record of wild, uncorroborated allegations.
✓ The most sensational claims based on anonymous testimony, with no hard evidence presented.
This is not how you build a case for crimes as serious as systematic rape.
10/ Allegations of sexual violence are serious. Real victims – Israeli and Palestinian – deserve rigorous reporting that checks facts and filters out propaganda. When the @nytimes builds explosive claims on compromised sources, shifting stories and ideological NGOs, it does the opposite: it erodes trust in journalism and makes it harder for genuine victims to be believed.
See also Hen Massig’s substack piece.
Also:
“Utter depravity from Nick for parroting such cartoonishly evil Hamas propaganda that would make Goebbels blush,” Eitan Fischberger, a Middle East analyst, stated. He also noted that the dog conspiracy theory “is the handiwork of Ramy Abdu, head of the Hamas front group called Euro-Med.”
Gerald N. Steinberg, founder of NGO Monitor, wrote that the column was “perhaps the most toxic and idiotic pieces that Nick Kristof has put his name on.”
“A mix of lies sold by a Hamas-front propaganda NGO with zero credibility,” he said, pointing to Euro-Med, “and ‘eyewitness testimony’ from Hamas terrorists.”
Kristof says “it seems far fetched to suggest Palestinians fabricate claims to smear Israel”. That is, basically, the whole rationale behind his article – which betrays an astonishing naivete.
A case I’ve covered here a few times is worth revisiting. BBC journalist Lucy Williamson, in a report from December 2023 from the West Bank, breathlessly reported on the violence and abuse that Palestinians suffer at the hands of the wicked Israelis in their jails. A poor lad, eighteen-year-old Mohammed Nazzal, was interviewed and photographed surrounded by his loving family, with his hands bandaged up after the bones were broken by a vicious beating from the Israeli prison guards. Unfortunately for this story the Israeli Prison Service had a video of Nazzal being released from jail with hands unbandaged, looking fine. Never mind, Lucy is persuaded, and the report is featured as BBC headline news. How could this lovely family, in their humble but welcoming home “down a winding alley in the village of Qabatiya near Jenin, in the north of the occupied West Bank”, possibly lie to her?
Well they did, and she fell for it. Nicholas Kristof is just the latest in a long line of gullible western journalists.
Mick Hartley 
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