The NYT’s Dog-Rape Rumor Spreader Is a Charlatan

Every day on the internet is a blessing, albeit rarely in disguise. Especially if you’re using X. Especially if you’re talking about Israel. And especially if you use the “Z” word, i.e. Zionism.

So imagine the “pleasure” I had when I accidentally crossed paths with… Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, who in his own words is “a son of the land of Palestine, a refugee and son of refugees fleeing an oppressive regime run in the name of an occupying imperial power.”

I have very little idea why Ben-Ephraim was following me on X given my strong Zionist beliefs — a circumstance that has now been corrected — but our interaction was so prolific and so illustrative that it simply cannot go unshared, because Ben-Ephraim informed me in response to my pro-Israel tweet that my Jewish heritage is non-existent because of… my surname.

Now, this could have remained a personal feud. But the fact that Ben-Ephraim appears not to understand how Jewish ancestry is passed down — or Israel’s own repatriation laws that I qualify for — suggests that he is either very intellectually limited, is some ‘Jewish purity’ fascist, or, more likely, simply an aggressive liar.

Which of the two it is becomes rather obvious when you consider that his own parents made aliyah in the 1970s with surnames nowhere near as Holy Land-iconic as “Ben-Ephraim,” and that he was once a UCLA professor.

And that brings us directly to The New York Times, a once reputable publication that has now turned into a sewer of bias, fraud, and despicable rhetoric.

For several years now, the NYT has carried out  a one-sided campaign against Israel, platforming some of the most self-loathing Jewish voices imaginable. Figures like Masha Gessen, the Russian-born émigré who received a Pulitzer Prize after years of relentless anti-Israel commentary that ultimately paid off — much like the transition into whatever gender identity happens to be fashionable in certain Manhattan circles today.

Recently, the paper escalated things further with the article that reportedly prompted many readers to unsubscribe entirely: the despicable ‘opinion’ piece by Nicholas Kristof, alleging that Israelis trained dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners.

And who was apparently one of the sources behind that article, which doesn’t even qualify to be an opinion piece by editorial standards, according to investigative journalist Serge Milshtein?

Correct: Shaiel Ben-Ephraim — a man with a documented history of sexual misconduct allegations and aggressive online behavior toward women, which is also why he was reportedly dismissed from UCLA. But we should have all learned by now that when it comes to sex offenses and the perpetrators it is only the Epstein files that the NYT is interested in, rejecting everything that would even a tad undermine its preferred narratives.

Which may also explain why the NYT reportedly declined to publish the Israeli Civil Commission’s report on Hamas’s systematic sexual violence before and after Oct. 7.

After all, why bother with such material when you have exclusive testimony from Shaiel Ben-Ephraim himself — a deeply controversial academic with a tendency toward inflammatory claims, who later told Piers Morgan that he was no longer entirely sure the alleged dog rape had happened after all because someone told him that he “has heard but not seen and maybe penetration didn’t take place?

Sarcasm aside, none of this is remotely funny given the scale of antisemitism worldwide, now conveniently repackaged as “anti-Zionism,” because apparently the aspiration to have a state in one’s historical homeland is acceptable for every group except Jews.

But it also demonstrates how far some media institutions have sunk in their attempt to pander to ideologically intoxicated audiences living inside ready-made slogans like “Free Palestine” without understanding what Palestine historically was, free from whom exactly, or even the names of the river and sea they so confidently invoke.

Because if they actually studied the subject — including how territories become states, the principles of internationally recognized borders, the realities and consequences of war, and the burden of initiating conflict — there is a decent chance they might arrive at a very different conclusion and stop asking questions like:

“Which law originally granted Israel the land?” The same law that granted the English the country of England: their historical roots to it.

As for Ben-Ephraim himself, I hope he soon establishes that surnames may not be the greatest indicator of ethnic and religious lineage, especially in mixed families. Good luck.