Ambassador to US suggests NY Times Gaza coverage preparing ‘next genocide’ of Jews

Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, on Sunday suggested The New York Times published a “blood libel” about IDF actions in Gaza “to prepare the next genocide” of Jews. “There is no difference between what is being done to us today and what was done to our grandparents in the ghettos of Europe 800 years ago,” Leiter said. Leiter made the comments at the closing ceremony of Chabad’s Kinus Hashluchim, the annual gathering of the Hasidic sect’s thousands of emissaries from around the world, in Edison, New Jersey.

In his speech, Leiter said he had met with 21 New York Times editors, six of whom tuned in remotely, on November 10 last year and was berated with accusations “of genocide, of starving people to death.” “They were the jury, they were the judge, they were the firing squad,” Leiter said in footage published by Orthodox news site Yeshiva World News. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Newsletter email address Get it By signing up, you agree to the terms He said he responded to the editorial team’s “feelings” with “facts” about the amount of humanitarian supplies Israel has let in to Gaza and measures the IDF has taken to mitigate civilian casualties even when that put troops in harm’s way. ????MUST WATCH: Dr. Yechiel (Michael) Leiter — Israel’s Ambassador to the United States – speaks at Kinus Hashluchim and tells an insane story about him meeting the vile anti-Semitic editorial board of the NY Times. pic.twitter.com/9OiRiExNXX — Moshe Schwartz (@YWNReporter) November 8, 2026 Advertisement “About 45 minutes into the conversation, one of the editors said, ‘Ambassador, everybody can be wrong’,” Leiter said.

“Very deep intellectual argument,” he quipped, to laughter. “I said, ‘No, not everybody is wrong. Not everybody thinks that we’re committing genocide.'” He gave as examples West Point urban warfare expert John Spencer and conservative British journalist Douglas Murray. Both commentators, whom Israeli officials regularly cite, insist on the morality of Israel’s actions in Gaza, and say the IDF in Gaza has killed historically few civilians relative to the number of combatants it killed.

“So it’s not everybody” who was wrong about Israel, Leiter said he told the Times editors. “But if you people think that it’s everybody, maybe it’s because of you.” Leiter said one of the editors asked what he meant. In response, Leiter said, the ambassador took the Times to task for publishing, weeks earlier, a large photo of an emaciated baby boy , whom the paper initially described as malnourished while neglecting to mention his genetic diseases.

The New York Times’s July 25, 2025, front page showing a picture captioned: ‘Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, about 18 months, with his mother, Hedaya al-Mutawaq, who said he was born healthy but recently diagnosed with severe malnutrition.’ On July 30, the paper acknowledged that he ‘had pre-existing health problems affecting his brain and his muscle development.’ “The senior editor of the New York Times said to me, ‘Ambassador, don’t you think you’re making too much of a misappropriation?’

I said, ‘No, that’s not a misappropriation — that’s a blood libel,'” Leiter said, to applause. Advertisement “A blood libel will cost lives. And the reason why they’re accusing us of genocide is to prepare the next genocide against us,” Leiter said. “Hitler didn’t just happen — it was decades of preparation of demonizing and delegitimizing Jews,” Leiter said. “And now, through the State of Israel, through the Jewish state, there is an attempt to delegitimize and disenfranchise Jews as Jews.”

“We have to identify the problem, and we have to fight it,” said Leiter. “We fight it by knowing who we are, we fight it by knowing who our friends are, and we fight it by knowing who the enemy is, and by identifying them as the enemy, and calling them out as the enemy.” Israel has repeatedly accused the Times of antisemitism for its coverage. In May, Israel vowed to sue the newspaper over a piece by columnist Nicholas Kristof that alleged systematic sexual violence against Palestinian men, women and children in Israeli prisons.

Leiter at the time also accused the Times of blood libel and criticized the column for relying on a report by an NGO whose leaders had been photographed alongside Hamas leaders. Your next read: ToI Editors' Picks LIMITED TIME OFFER: Join The Times of Israel Community today and you'll receive a physical book of your choice, carefully curated by our editors. Choose between two must-reads: When We See You Again by Rachel Goldberg-Polin, a searing portrait of a mother’s grief and strength following unthinkable tragedy; Or Out of the Sky: Heroism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe by Matti Friedman, the gripping and surprising tale of a forgotten moment during World War II.

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