{"id":316499,"date":"2026-08-08T01:28:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T01:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/316499\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T01:28:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T01:28:22","slug":"akunis-orders-nyt-subscriptions-canceled-over-israel-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/316499\/","title":{"rendered":"Akunis orders NYT subscriptions canceled over Israel coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Israeli Consul General in New York Ofir Akunis instructed his staff to cancel their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/tags\/the-new-york-times\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">New York Times<\/a> subscriptions in response to what he described as a series of &#8220;false blood libels&#8221; published by the newspaper, according to a statement released on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have ordered the Israeli Consulate in New York to cancel its subscription to The New York Times, a newspaper that consistently demonizes and delegitimizes the Jewish State,\u201d Akunis said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe New York Times is a newspaper that consistently publishes false blood libels against the State of Israel, often based on \u2018anonymous\u2019 sources. When citing named sources, the paper conveniently turns to anti-Israel activists, and even Hamas terrorists who seek Israel\u2019s destruction, to reinforce the narrative they want to promote,\u201d Akunis added.<\/p>\n<p>While Akunis didn&#8217;t name a specific article, the Times\u00a0published a piece Friday morning in which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/middle-east\/article-897235\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Gaza flotilla activists<\/a> claimed to have been abused at the hands of Israeli authorities following their latest attempt to breach Israel&#8217;s blockade of Gaza. In it, activists described being beaten, shot at with rubber bullets, and being verbally abused by Israeli soldiers and guards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">The article is the latest in a series of reports on Israel that have fueled accusations from critics that the newspaper displays an anti-Israel bias. Most notably, a May opinion piece by contributor Nick Kristof accused Israel of using dogs to rape Palestinian detainees, citing anonymous witnesses.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is false,&#8221; wrote the Times in a statement that same day, further claiming that it wasn&#8217;t informed in advance of the report&#8217;s completion or time of release.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Israel condemned the piece, dubbing it a &#8220;blood libel.&#8221; Soon after, the Times issued another statement of support for Kristof&#8217;s work.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In response to rumors that the NYT was readying to retract the piece, the newspaper defended Kristof as one of the world&#8217;s &#8220;best on-the-ground reporters documenting and bearing witness to sexual abuse&#8221; in combat zones.<\/p>\n<p>Within days of its publication, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-election-2026\/article-904842\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> said Israel was considering legal action against The New York Times over the accusations in the article. The newspaper said in response that any lawsuit aiming to &#8220;undermine independent reporting&#8221; would be &#8220;without merit.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israeli Consul General in New York Ofir Akunis instructed his staff to cancel their New York Times subscriptions&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3862,7173,3895,79,85336,9,24,55,54,980,56,58625,5474],"class_list":["post-316499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-antisemitism","tag-antizionism","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-diaspora","tag-flotilla","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-york-times","tag-ny","tag-ofir-akunis","tag-sexual-abuse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}