Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, accused The New York Times on Sunday of publishing a “blood libel” about Israeli military operations in Gaza. Speaking at a gathering in New Jersey, he suggested that accusations of genocide against Israel were helping prepare the ground for a future genocide against Jews.
Leiter addressed the closing ceremony of Chabad’s Kinus Hashluchim in Edison, an annual gathering attended by thousands of the Hasidic movement’s emissaries from around the world. He compared the treatment of Jews in the present with persecution in European ghettos 800 years earlier and urged his audience to identify and confront those he described as enemies.
Much of the speech focused on Leiter’s account of a meeting with 21 New York Times editors on November 10, 2025, including six who participated remotely. In footage published by the Orthodox news website Yeshiva World News, he said the editors confronted him with allegations of genocide and starvation in Gaza. He characterized their approach as combining the roles of judge, jury and firing squad.
According to Leiter, he responded by outlining humanitarian supplies Israel had allowed into Gaza and steps Israeli forces had taken to reduce civilian casualties, including measures that placed troops at risk. He said that roughly 45 minutes into the discussion, an editor suggested that everyone could be wrong, prompting him to challenge the idea that there was universal agreement that Israel was committing genocide.
Leiter cited West Point urban warfare expert John Spencer and conservative British journalist Douglas Murray as examples of commentators who disputed those allegations. Israeli officials frequently refer to both men, who defend the morality of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and argue that civilian deaths relative to combatant deaths have been historically low.
The ambassador also recounted challenging the editors over a prominent photograph of an emaciated baby boy published weeks before their meeting. The newspaper initially described the child as malnourished without mentioning his genetic diseases. Leiter said a senior editor questioned whether he was making too much of a misappropriation, a characterization he rejected in favor of “blood libel.”
Expanding on that accusation, Leiter argued that such coverage could cost lives. He invoked the decades of demonization of Jews preceding Hitler and alleged that efforts to delegitimize Israel were also attempts to strip Jews of legitimacy and rights.
The remarks followed earlier Israeli accusations of antisemitism against the newspaper. In May, Israel pledged to sue over a column by Nicholas Kristof alleging systematic sexual violence against Palestinian men, women and children in Israeli prisons. Leiter also called that column a blood libel and criticized its reliance on a nongovernmental organization report, saying the organization’s leaders had been photographed with Hamas leaders.
