Netanyahu Says He May Sue The New York Times

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he might sue the New York Times.

He said in a press conference, “I’m looking right now into the possibility of a governmental suit against the New York Times because this is outrageous.”

Netanyahu said via Breitbart:

The third one is the most celebrated one. This is a New York Times cover photo, it’s on the front page, of Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub and his mother. Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub is suffering from a genetic illness which we’re familiar with. It’s called cerebral palsy. His mother is well-fed and his brother is healthy. I’m looking right now into the possibility of a governmental suit against the New York Times because this is outrageous. Of course, the correction was postage-size — I don’t know where it was buried — but this is outrageous. These are the three most celebrated photos and they’re all fake. It’s the kind of malignant lies that were leveled at the Jewish people in the Middle Ages. We won’t suffer. We won’t allow it to go unchallenged. And this is the purpose of this press conference. I hope that you open your eyes to a simple fact: Hamas lies.

The threat of a lawsuit comes after the New York Times was forced to issue a correction in an article titled “Young, Old and Sick Starve to Death in Gaza: ‘There Is Nothing.”

The New York Times issued a correction saying that a child pictured in the article had a preexisting medical condition.

The correction read, “Had The Times known the information before publication, it would have been included in the article and the picture caption.”

Fox News reported:

Netanyahu’s criticism stems from a photo used in a Times article headlined, “Young, Old and Sick Starve to Death in Gaza: ‘There Is Nothing.’” The photo showed a young boy being cradled by his mother. He is clearly emaciated with his spine poking through his skin. The article’s focus was meant to highlight the worsening humanitarian crisis in the war-torn region.

Days later, the Times issued a correction acknowledging that the child had a preexisting medical condition that contributed to his appearance. Neither the article nor the caption originally included this information.

“I mean, you put a picture of a child that’s supposed to then represent all these supposedly starving children, yet…” said Netanyahu, “they put in this picture of a child who has cerebral palsy.”

The Times correction noted that after the story was published, they were informed of the preexisting health condition by the boy’s doctor. The outlet wrote: “Had The Times known the information before publication, it would have been included in the article and the picture caption.”