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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026

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We are now in the timeline where the journalistic integrity of the New York Times rests upon whether or not it is physically possible to train a dog to anally rape a human.

The New York Times ran an opinion article by Nicholas Kristof wherein a number of Palestinians report being raped or otherwise sexually assaulted in Israeli prisons. There’s not much in the way of physical evidence, but that is hardly unusual in rape crimes. Israel has strenuously denied the allegations, characterizing them as blood libel. It seems to be a he-said/she-said that comes down to whether you believe the Palestinian prisoners (who often have ties to Hamas or other extremist groups, hence why they ended up in Israeli prisons) or the IDF.

Certain enterprising young pro-Israel influencers think they can to better than appeal to untrustworthiness. They puport to have found a smoking gun that proves the NYT published a complete fabrication in order to libel the State of Israel, and by extension all Jews. One of the more salacious anecdotes regards a man from Gaza who alleges that he was raped by a dog.

On one occasion, he said, he was held down, stripped naked, and as he was blindfolded and handcuffed, a dog was summoned. With encouragement from a handler in Hebrew, he said, the dog mounted him.

”They were using cameras to take photos, and I heard their laughs and giggles,” he said. He tried to dislodge the dog, he said, but it penetrated him.

If, in fact, such a thing were impossible, then it would prove without doubt that the paper of record recklessly printed unverified falsehoods. We are now in the “doctors arguing with the author about the medical literature” stage of the discourse. See, even though we have documented evidence that dogs can cause rectal injury to humans, in none of those reports was the initial contact involuntary on the part of the human.

I am not well acquainted with dogs, but my understanding is that it is not particularly hard to get them to hump things. I guess the people making this argument are hoping that others won’t want to think too hard about the mechanics of dog rape.

Despite calls and rumors to the contrary, The Times so far has declined to retract the article.

Hamas livestream themselves via GoPro gang-raping Israeli women on October 7th, numerous Israeli women independently report rape at the hands of Hamas squaddies on October 7th, numerous doctors report injuries consistent with rape and sexual assault, photos are circulated of Israeli women bleeding from their groins, the UN believes Hamas squaddies committed gang rape on October 7th

Woke leftists: "Well we don't know for sure that Hamas raped anyone on October 7th!"

One Palestinian claims that he was penetrated by a dog while IDF soldiers watched and laughed. He presents no medical evidence nor corroborative testimony in support of this claim.

Woke leftists: "OMG can you believe how depraved Israel is???!"

Hard to avoid the conclusion that there's a double standard being applied here.

And these are the same woke leftists who think that Brett Kavanaugh's career should have been derailed on the basis of an allegation of sexual misconduct (completely devoid of direct or circumstantial evidence) being brought against him three decades after it allegedly occurred.

This is exactly what I would expect. Of course both sides do it. "Law and order is good, except jan 6th does not apply."