Overview
- Netanyahu, who on Thursday directed advisers to pursue a defamation case against The New York Times and Nicholas Kristof, said the column defamed Israeli soldiers and spread a “blood libel” about rape.
- Israel has not filed court papers or named a jurisdiction, leaving where or whether a case proceeds unresolved.
- The Times says it corroborated 14 firsthand accounts through witnesses, family members, and lawyers and says the details were extensively fact-checked.
- Legal scholars say a U.S. case would likely fail because public officials must prove “actual malice” and U.S. law generally bars governments from suing over criticism.
- Israeli officials accuse the paper of timing the piece to blunt an Israeli civil commission’s report on Hamas sexual crimes, a charge that underscores the dispute’s broader information war.