NEW YORK — Protesters gathered outside The New York Times offices in Manhattan on Thursday to demonstrate against a widely-criticized column that alleged systemic sexual abuse of Palestinian inmates in Israel.

Around 200 demonstrators, mostly Jewish, gathered on the sidewalk, chanting, “New York Times, shame on you,” “We will not be silent,” and “New York Times, get it straight, stop the libels, stop the hate.”

“Hamas abuse covered up! Nick Kristof made stuff up!” one man shouted, referring to the column’s author, Nicholas Kristof.

The demonstrators held signs that said, “Antizionism gets Jews killed,” and “J’accuse” next to The New York Times logo, a reference to the Dreyfus affair, in which a Jewish French military officer was falsely charged with espionage based on trumped-up evidence in the late 1800s.

Critics have decried the column’s reliance on sources with a history of anti-Zionist extremism and fabrication — experts have said the article’s most extreme claim, that Israelis use dogs to rape Palestinians, is not plausible — and its timing, coming out immediately before a major report on Hamas rape was released. Former prime minister Ehud Olmert also said the report had misrepresented a statement he made to the reporter.

The activist groups Stop Antizionism, the Movement Against Antizionism, Hineni and End Jew Hatred organized the rally. Besides End Jew Hatred, the other three groups are relatively new advocacy organizations that started since the October 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel, and reflect a growing movement in the US Jewish community that sees anti-Zionism as a form of hatred against Jews, and not as a political position.

End Jew Hatred organizes periodic rallies in the US, but for the other groups, it was one of their first organized protests.

“We feel that the Kristof libel is a turning point in that........

© The Times of Israel