On May 11, The New York Times published Nicholas Kristof’s astonishing compendium of charges that the State of Israel is deliberately raping Palestinian Arab prisoners not just by the usual means of such crimes but by training dogs to sexually assault them. In the week since then the question hanging over both the newspaper and its critics is what, if any, consequences would there be for publishing a 21st-century blood libel.

As far as the Times is concerned, the answer is none. And given the applause this piece of journalistic malpractice generated from its core readership, the unlikelihood of a threatened libel suit being successful, coupled with the dismal turnout for a demonstration outside of its offices in Midtown Manhattan, they have some reasons to believe that they are right.

Unrepentant and unembarrassed

The article sparked outrage from those who pointed out the lack of credible evidence to back up this astonishing charge, which the newspaper, as well as its liberal and leftist readers, largely ignored. It also prompted cheers from Israel-bashers and antisemites everywhere, who view it as something they could place alongside the false accusations about the Jewish state committing “genocide” and creating mass starvation in the Gaza Strip, as well as practicing “apartheid” at home.

During the days that followed the article’s publication, hopes that the paper’s management would issue some sort of clarification or correction about it proved vain as they stood by Kristof, without giving any more reasons for readers to trust them than he did. So, as far as the nation’s largest newspaper is concerned, those who are angry about its shoddy reporting and normalization of classic tropes of antisemitism should just move on.

And with the publication of all of three letters-to-the-editor on May 18—none of which even mentioned the dogs, which was the most shocking and offensive element—senior Times management is trying to tell us that the matter is closed.

Are they right?

Those in charge at the Times likely assume that journalism is now a business where stories rarely last more than a single news cycle. They also know that readers—even many in their audience, who are largely made up of credentialed elites steeped in leftist doctrines—have become so immersed in nonstop social-media feeds that their attention spans are short.

Under the circumstances, they have likely come to the conclusion that even if they are aware of how wrong their actions have been, they won’t have to answer for Kristof.

While those responsible for one of the worst moments in the Times’ long reportorial history may think that is so, that won’t happen. And it won’t happen for four reasons.

Legal jeopardy

The first is that Israel’s government is likely to follow up on its threat to sue the newspaper, even if most legal experts think that such an effort would be a waste of time. There is a genuine danger of embarrassing and damaging revelations for the newspaper in any legal proceeding, regardless of whether it would be successful.

On the face of it, the chances of Israel being able to sue and win a libel lawsuit are slim to none. Under the “actual malice” standard that governs U.S. law that stems from The New York Times v. Sullivan Supreme Court legal precedent, it is very difficult to win such cases. The three-part test that any public figure suing for libel must satisfy is to prove knowledge of falsity, reckless disregard for the truth and an intent to cause harm. That has proved nearly impossible to satisfy in most cases. And it’s unlikely that a foreign leader like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or an individual country could even get a U.S. court to consider such a lawsuit.

Nevertheless, some legal experts have pointed to reasons why the Times may still be in trouble.

George Washington University Law School Professor and Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley points out that while the Jewish state is unlikely to be able to sue the Times and Kristof for libel, soldiers who were implicated in the story may be able to do so.

Mark Goldfeder, CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center and a law professor at Touro Law School, writing in National Review, agrees. But he thinks Israelis need not sue in American courts. He believes that they can sue the Times in an Israeli court, though not for libel.

By holding them accountable under a civil-law charge of “injurious falsehood” and “negligent publication,” they can create a viable case. Doing so will mean an opening that will allow Israelis to go to the federal district court in New York City, and then “compel evidence production from a U.S. entity for use in foreign litigation.” As he notes, “A properly framed application does not ask the court to adjudicate the case; it simply asks the court to order the Times to produce the factual basis for one published allegation.” It stands a chance of forcing compliance.

In either instance, the result would mean that the Times and Kristof would have to produce the evidence it claims to hold, how it obtained that evidence, and other information and communications that might undermine its credibility. Even if that doesn’t lead to a win in court, the resulting revelations will likely be extremely damaging for the news outlet and possibly be of greater importance to its reputation than the ludicrous accusation of dog rape would be to Israel.

Even left-wing journalists remain unconvinced

The second reason why this isn’t going away has to do with questions being raised by journalists about what happened at the Times.

What we’re learning is that some liberal journalists who share the negative view of Israel, demonstrated by Kristof and the editors who enabled him, are asking questions about how this story was produced. To put it mildly, the way the paper handled it was fishy. Doubts about their decisions are being voiced not only by conservative critics but also reportedly by members of the paper’s notoriously woke news staff.

As veteran media reporter Dylan Byers writes in Puck, some Times reporters don’t understand why a charge of such magnitude and dubious provenance was only published in the paper’s opinion section and not on the news pages.

Many readers of the Times have pointed out with justice that there is no longer any real difference between opinion and news there, let alone the church-state divide that once existed between the two prior to the publication taking a hard-left turn in the last generation. Many who work at the newspaper think that there should be such a division, at least in principle. And if there is, the failure of management to allow its news staff to do their own investigation into Kristof’s tall tales of dog rape makes the whole thing even more suspicious.

Regardless of what you think of Israel—and few at the Times aren’t hostile to it—the failure of the paper to either break the claims as news or to advance the story with further reporting that doesn’t fall under the label of opinion calls into question its credibility. And that’s something, as Byers reports, that has not gone unnoticed in its offices on 42nd Street.

Even if lawsuits don’t create discovery that unravels the allegations, the ferment within the media organization could bode ill for the editor who must be deemed primarily responsible for this atrocity.

Kathleen Kingsbury became editor of the Times’ opinion section in 2020 in the wake of its scandalous retraction of an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). That retraction was forced by a newsroom mob that revolted against the publication of a view they didn’t favor. The result was the firing of veteran editor James Bennet for allowing a conservative opinion on its pages. He was replaced by Kingsbury, a woke writer who clearly sees no distinction between journalism and leftist activism.

By exposing the newspaper to the sort of unflattering scrutiny brought on by Kristof’s smears, Kingsbury may wind up paying the price for the paper’s dropping of traditional journalistic ethics and commonly accepted rules about publishing far-fetched claims. Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger—a member of the fifth generation of his family to serve in that capacity and two generations removed from anyone in it who was nominally Jewish—may believe that appealing to the hard left is good business. But once readers start learning more about how Kristof’s claims were published, Sulzberger might start looking for a scapegoat for this mess. And Kingsbury is first in line to walk the plank.

They’ve gone too far this time

There is a third reason why this controversy is far from dead. Despite the ineffectual nature of the public protests, the blood libel finally disillusioned many of those in the Jewish community who were still ready to continue to view the Times as “the paper of record,” despite its troubling record of bias against Jews and Israel.

The newspaper crossed a line with its absurd story about dogs being trained to rape human beings. That cannot be ignored or undone, and going forward will color the debate not only about this newspaper’s credibility but that of the mainstream liberal media that it exemplifies.

Until now, liberals who had not gone completely over into the anti-Zionism and open antisemitism that has become normalized by the Times could try to claim that its coverage was still fair, despite abundant evidence to the contrary.

But the dog-rape charge is so ridiculous and utterly without substantiation—animal trainer after animal trainer have attested to the improbability and impossibility of it happening—that only someone already drenched in both Jew-hatred and woke ideas about journalists not having to prove their allegations could believe it.

The fact that the only two mild criticisms of its story to be published as letters failed to mention the rape canard makes it obvious that any vestigial belief in minimal standards there is gone. Many on the left may cling to the Times, since it validates all of their pre-existing prejudices and opinions. That every news story reads more like opinion than what would have been considered news at the newspaper a generation ago may also appeal to them. But what Kristof and his editors have done is make it harder than ever to maintain the fiction that the Times is anything but a left-wing rag and undeserving of the respect it once earned.

As much, if not more than its sins of the past—like Walter Duranty’s 1932 Pulitzer Prize-winning denials of Joseph Stalin’s terror famine in Ukraine—Kristof’s rapist dogs will be thrown in the faces of its employees long after the columnist is forgotten.

‘Suicidal empathy’ exposed

The fourth reason why the discussion of this particular story won’t go away is that it has exposed a critical failing within the Jewish community about the way it responds to attacks.

The instinctual identification by many Jews with those locked in conflict against the State of Israel is nothing new. Yet some are still willing to think that the proper response to a dog-rape libel is to assume that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. All that does is help those who seek Israel’s destruction and Jewish genocide. Anger about this will at least (or at least, ought to) fuel a discussion that ought to change the way we discuss the information war against the Jews.

The newspaper was counting on not just cheers from those who are ready to believe any lie about Israel, no matter how despicable. They were also relying on responses from those labeling themselves as “liberal Zionists,” as well as other Jews whose ties to Israel are far more tenuous, who speak up to shift the attention from the paper’s misconduct or Palestinian crimes to investigations of the Israeli prison system. And that’s exactly what some writers at left-wing publications, like The Forward, JTA and Haaretz, essentially did.

By accepting the story as credible enough to justify treating its charges as plausible, such people are practicing what the Canadian psychologist Gad Saad calls “suicidal empathy.”

In this manner, they help to flip the script from the documented outrages committed by Palestinian Arabs, including the widespread and horrific acts of sexual violence and murderous brutality that happened on Oct. 7, 2023, to one about dubious allegations. And in so doing, they validate a false narrative about moral equivalence between the two sides.

Though some may be well-meaning, those who prioritize sympathy for the side that started the current war (and all those that preceded it between Jews and Arabs) and lost it—bringing great suffering to their people—aren’t so much being fair-minded or kind. Rather, they bolster terrorists and undermine efforts to defeat them and to defend Israelis, all while virtue-signaling their self-righteousness.

Some are also using the Times story as a cudgel with which to beat Netanyahu and Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, whom they oppose for other reasons, for their alleged indifference to prison abuses on their watch.

It’s true that Israeli military prisons may be no better than those in other countries. Maybe they’re worse. But also understand that the large number of Palestinian prisoners who were captured post-Oct. 7 after committing unspeakable atrocities, in addition to other terrorists caught in Gaza, are not only deserving of contempt from civilized persons. Their propensity for violence has made these facilities unsafe for themselves and those Israeli reservists who have been given the unpleasant job of guarding them. They are equally a great danger to each other, which is one more aspect of his story, among others, that Kristof chose to ignore in a quest to point a finger and demonize Israelis.

As for Ben-Gvir, he is popular on the far right and despised by centrists and the left. But he appealed to a far larger group than only his voters when he vowed that the Oct. 7 criminals weren’t going to be given privileges or anything more than the bare minimum required by law. To scapegoat him or treat his attempts to keep this problem under control as a reason to diminish outrage about Kristof’s lies is wrong. Nor should it divert any attention from his libelous charges or the documented use of rape by Palestinian Arabs, as the Times clearly intended.

By crossing over from debatable accusations to blood libels, Kristof has similarly exposed both the futility and the intellectual bankruptcy of those Jews who have internalized so much of the post-Oct. 7 surge in antisemitism around the globe. But they also expose themselves as failing to realize the implications of their foolish stands. Instead of validating these positions, the fallout from Kristof’s writing will further discredit them.

For all these reasons—and even if the Times never owns up to the betrayal of its obligation to report the truth—the controversy and the debate about Kristof and his mythical rapist dogs will linger in the public imagination in ways the writer never intended for many years to come.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him: @jonathans_tobin.

The Festival of Shavuot has often been described as the “orphan Annie” of all the Chagim.

In the Diaspora, its two-day observance often passes off without much fanfare and with services sometimes struggling to gather a minyan for communal prayers.

It was only after we made Aliyah that this Chag became more meaningful and assumed a much greater significance.

First of all, in Israel, it is a one-day observance.

One cannot escape Shavuot’s culinary connections. Every supermarket and food store is bursting with dairy products which are a feature of this day and newspapers and magazines abound with recipes from every ethnicity. Takeout shops temp customers with exotic dishes of every description.

A unique feature of Shavuot, which has become very popular in recent times, is all-night learning. These days it encompasses every conceivable subject and is structured for all age groups and backgrounds. The variety of these lectures and discussions is amazing. They usually commence late in the evening on the eve of the holiday and, in many cases, continue in stages until dawn the next day.

Vatikin services (i.e. prayers at sunrise) are popular. In Jerusalem, pilgrimages to the Kotel add a Biblical feel because Shavuot is one of the three pilgrimage festivals on which our ancestors travelled up to Jerusalem and the Temple.

In the early days of the State many non religious Kibbutzim adapted this Chag’s agricultural roots and turned the day into a collective celebration for all its members.

Shavuot has deep roots as an ancient agricultural and pilgrimage festival, marking the culmination of the seven-week grain harvest (beginning with barley on Passover and ending with wheat on Shavuot). It is biblically celebrated as Chag HaBikkurim (the Festival of First fruits), where farmers brought the first of their harvests—specifically the “Seven Species” of the Land of Israel—to the Temple in Jerusalem.

These days, most of the secular Kibbutzim have abandoned their antipathy to religious customs. The few that still cling to secular socialist ideology continue to mark Shavuot in some way.

Once Shavuot is over, the Israeli wedding scene takes off in earnest.

The period from Pesach, during the counting of the Omer, restricts wedding festivities. These are gradually eased after Lag B’Omer and following Shavuot there are no days (except Shabbat) when the sounds of wedding music and festivities cannot be heard up and down the length and breadth of the country.

This year in particular, there is an added sense of urgency surrounding wedding celebrations.

Chatanim (grooms), in many cases, are on reserve duty, and therefore marriages must take place when they are home on leave. At the same time, with a fragile ceasefire tottering and Trump blowing hot and cold, nobody has the faintest idea when or if the Iranian threats will go to another round. With Hezbollah ignoring any ceasefire and explosive drones causing deaths and casualties, planning celebrations of any description is an exercise fraught with uncertainty.

Another important part of Shavuot is the fact that it is the anniversary of the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. The Ten Commandments are recited during the morning reading of the Torah on this day.

The dramatic events at Mount Sinai when all the Tribes accepted the constitution and guide for future life in perpetuity is a pivotal point in the history of transitioning from a collection of Hebrew ex slaves to the People and then the nation of Israel.

Many tend to forget or deliberately overlook the fact that the final objective was the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Land which had been promised generations previously. This aspect of the Festival should be reinforced in the light of today’s delegitimisation campaigns.

Finally, but in my humble opinion, most importantly, Shavuot reminds us of one of the most renowned converts ever to join the Jewish People.

The story of Ruth (Megillat Ruth) is read in morning services every year at this time.

Her determination to join her mother-in-law, Naomi, as she travelled back to Judea is a story of grit, determination and complete loyalty.

Ruth, who was a childless non-Jewish widow, epitomises a sincere desire to throw her lot in with a small nation and a faith facing daily challenges and threats.

We know from the recorded events that eventually Ruth not only joined the Jewish nation but also became the great-grandmother of King David.

Shavuot is the perfect time to recall all those who have sincerely embraced Judaism over the millennia and willingly accepted its mitzvot but also did so despite knowing that being part of Jewish destiny carries with it a risk.

This risk has always been present, and it has resurfaced with a vengeance today.

Declaring one’s loyalty to a faith and national destiny historically targeted for persecution and vile attention takes a great amount of courage.

In the current toxic climate, all those who join us are indeed worthy of praise and support.

That is why it is so important to tell their story and to welcome their long, and often torturous, journey.

It was in this vein that many Israeli newspapers and media outlets used this occasion to recall and retell the stories of many converts from different countries who have joined the Jewish People and nation in recent times.

Many have rejoined us while defending Israel from the current scourge of hate and terror, and in some cases, they have fallen “Kiddush Hashem” defending the Jewish nation.

Many are returning to Judaism after millennia of exile and dispersion from far and distant lands. This ingathering of the dispersed is one of the miracles of modern Israel.

As the Hebrew prophets foretold, the exiled remnants of Israel and Judea would one day return to their homeland. Crusades, inquisitions and pogroms could not extinguish an eternal connection to their historical origins.

When UN official (Francesca Albanese) can have the chutzpah to tell Germany to free itself of the guilt of the Holocaust and casts aspersions on the “Chosen People,” this is the perfect time to reinforce our commitment.

When the New York Times can recycle ancient blood libels, now is the time to fight back.

“Your People shall be my People and your God will be my God.”

Geopolitical analyst and China expert Melissa Chen and PragerU CEO Marissa Streit break down how the Chinese Communist Party is waging a quiet war against the United States, not through armed invasion, but through influence, leverage, and sowing division through social media. They examine how China uses trade, technology, and cultural platforms like TikTok to shape American behavior, and why decades of U.S. policy helped empower the CCP. Melissa explains why failing to recognize the threat of the CCP could have lasting consequences for the future of the West.

Watch Video

Chapters

0:00
From Singapore to the West: Why Melissa Chen chose freedom

02:33
Why China and America can’t peacefully “share power”

04:34
The CCP’s fear of Western ideas and “spiritual pollution”

07:16
How China uses economics as a weapon against the U.S.

11:14
The truth about “free trade” and how the system was exploited

17:32
TikTok, “China-maxxing,” and modern propaganda

23:48
What China really means by a “shared future”

28:38
Why Americans misunderstand authoritarian regimes

35:06
Iran, global conflict, and China’s bigger strategy

52:16
Why America can’t openly confront China—and what happens next

Protesters Gather Outside New York Times Headquarters

Protesters gathered in New York City on Thursday outside The New York Times building to express their outrage over an opinion piece by columnist Nicholas Kristof. The article, which contained graphic allegations of sexual abuse by Israeli personnel against Palestinian detainees, has sparked intense backlash and calls for a full retraction.

The Controversy Behind the Article

The opinion piece featured testimony from individuals who alleged “brutal sexual abuse at the hands of Israel’s prison guards, soldiers, settlers, and interrogators.” Among the most controversial claims in the report were allegations that detainees had their genitals mutilated and that police dogs were coached to sexually assault prisoners. The publication prompted immediate condemnation from the Israeli government, which has threatened a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper.

Critics of the piece have questioned the credibility of the sources, noting that several individuals interviewed by Kristof allegedly have ties to Hamas or anti-Israel activism. Furthermore, experts, including canine behaviorist Michael S. Gould, have dismissed the claims regarding the use of dogs in sexual violence as “absurd,” citing both biological and anatomical realities.

Protesters Demand Accountability

The demonstration, organized rapidly via WhatsApp, saw protesters gathering behind NYPD barricades with signs reading “Shame on The New York Times for publishing anti-Zionist libels.” Participants argued that the timing of the article—published just one day before a report on sexual violence committed against October 7th victims—was a deliberate attempt to shift the narrative and minimize those atrocities.

Jayne Zirkle, Director of Communications and Outreach for The Lawfare Project, stated, “They published a slanderous article against Israel… They want to take away from the horrible sexual abuse that the October 7th victims endured, and we are demanding retraction. We’re demanding better journalism.”

The New York Times Responds

The New York Times has defended the publication of the piece, with spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander stating that Kristof’s reporting was “backed by independent studies.” The paper has officially rejected calls for a retraction, maintaining that the work relied on on-the-record accounts and existing reports documenting alleged misconduct within Israeli security forces.

Despite the newspaper’s defense, activists continue to demand that the publication hold itself accountable. Pro-Israel influencer Zach Sage Fox, who attended the rally, criticized the paper’s editorial oversight, suggesting that the normalization of such inflammatory claims is reminiscent of historical blood libels. Fox went as far as to call for the immediate firing of Kristof and the staff members who approved the piece for publication.

A History of Criticism

For some, this controversy is part of a larger, long-standing pattern. During the paper’s 150th anniversary in 2001, former Executive Editor Max Frankel famously described The Times’ historical handling of Holocaust reporting as “the century’s bitterest journalistic failure.” Critics at the protest argued that the current controversy suggests the organization has failed to learn from its past, with Zach Sage Fox remarking, “History repeats itself, and now, it’s reposting itself.”

Nicholas Kristof raped my dog. At least that is what I have heard, from an anonymous source—a source who is intensely hostile to the New York Times columnist. And that’s good enough for me. Now that I come to think of it, my pet pug has had a strange look on his face lately.

As it happens, the rumor that I have just attempted to spread is far less lurid and fanciful than the one that the New York Times chose to spread around the world this week.

In a piece that has already been widely debunked, Kristof claimed that Israeli prison guards routinely use rape as a method of torture on Palestinian prisoners. The piece portrayed Israeli prison guards and soldiers as rapists, sadists, and akin to Nazi prison camp guards—perhaps even worse.

The Grotesque Allegation

Kristof’s most grotesque claim is based on an anonymous source described as a “journalist” from Gaza. According to this source, while being held in an Israeli prison in 2024, the Gazan man was stripped naked, blindfolded, and handcuffed. Then, “a dog was summoned.” The dog’s handler—who we are helpfully told was speaking Hebrew—then encouraged the dog to “mount him.”

The “source” goes on to claim that he “tried to dislodge the dog, but it penetrated him.” During this time, the Israeli guards were allegedly taking photos and filming the assault while laughing and “giggling.”

Like a number of other journalists, I have spent far too much time this week reading up on the relevant literature about this claim. My computer’s search engine history is probably now as suspect as Kristof’s.

The Logic of the Lie

Normal people would note that the story does not pass the most basic smell test. It is the sort of claim that someone would only make if they wanted to portray their enemies as absolute monsters and enemies of humanity: Untermensch.

As it happens, if you scan the relevant literature, you will find there is absolutely no evidence that dogs can be trained to rape and penetrate human beings. There is not a case—not one—of a dog trainer turning a canine into a rape machine.

So, we arrive at the true question: Why would anyone make such a claim? And why would a purportedly serious newspaper publish it?

The reasons are several-fold. The first is that the New York Times story landed just a day before an anticipated report on Hamas’ use of sexual violence on October 7, 2023. The release of the commission of inquiry set out in remorseless detail the “systematic, widespread” use of rape by Hamas, demonstrating how sexual violence was “integral” to their attack. It laid out the calculated way in which Hamas terrorists raped men, women, and hostages in captivity. It is impossible to think of crimes worse than those committed that day.

Deflecting from Hamas’ Crimes

Unless you are Nicholas Kristof. Because if you know that a report is coming out regarding Hamas’ use of sexual violence, it becomes clearly important to invent a claim even more appalling than the real-life crimes of Hamas. For the New York Times, it seems to have been crucial to throw a lie into the system to overwhelm or block any sympathy or understanding for the Israelis.

The New York Times has leveled claims of antisemitism against a number of people in the past year, sometimes accurately, sometimes not. But none of the worst things that public figures have said even come close to the lie the New York Times has printed in its own pages. A paper that claims to be opposed to conspiracy theories has just mainstreamed the most disgusting conspiracy theory imaginable.

The Real-World Consequences

Consider the effects of this. The effect is to portray the soldiers and prison guards of the Jewish state as uniquely evil, uniquely disgusting, and uniquely inhuman. If Jews are the sort of people who can even turn dogs into rapists, why shouldn’t mobs assemble outside the synagogues of New York? Why wouldn’t masked “activists” demonstrate their outrage by hounding Jewish children on the streets of this city? After all, the people they are going up against are uniquely evil, right?

I have been in the prisons where the October 7 terrorists who were captured alive are being held. The conditions are sparse and unpleasant, but that is because the Israelis are holding prisoners who literally wanted to die as well as kill. In prison, they will use whatever they can find to harm their guards. These conditions are still a world away from the lies that Kristof and the New York Times decided to print without evidence.

Some people will expect the Times to retract its story. But I doubt they will. When it comes to correcting errors, the people meant to be in charge are often the very same people who wrote the falsehoods.

Meantime, I am sure we can all look forward to the Gray Lady’s next piece pondering the inexplicable rise of Jew-hatred in the United States. They might find the causes are closer to home than they know.

An Open Letter to David Bedein, Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research and Editor of Israel Behind the News.

A Word of Warning to the Anglo-Israeli Community: The China Hustle, the CCP, the Biden Connection, and the Erosion of Integrity in Global Business

Dear David,

I am writing to you from a place of deep personal hardship, but more importantly, out of a profound sense of duty to our community.

For decades, your journal, Israel Behind the News, has been an indispensable beacon of investigative truth, exposing corruption and lifting the veil on complex geopolitical realities that the mainstream media willfully ignores. It is in this spirit of unvarnished truth-telling that I ask you to share my story as a stark warning to the Jewish community, particularly to families in Israel with extended family and friends in the Diaspora especially the United States, Canada and the UK.

Many in our community—especially retirees who have worked a lifetime to build a legacy—frequently advise their grandchildren pursuing careers in law, business, or accounting. We teach them that a contract is a sacred bond and that financial systems are bound by the rule of law. But a massive, predatory threat has weaponized these exact assumptions against us. I learned this the hardest way imaginable.

My name is Joel Caplan. I am one of the primary victims of a multi-billion-dollar fraudulent stock scheme orchestrated by Chinese companies and the CCP in a systemic deception widely known as “The China Hustle.” as referred to in articles on Forbes and Bloomberg and the title of a documentary/expose available on Amazon and Netflix by the same name.

Through reverse mergers, fraudulent accounting, and outright fabrications, hundreds of Chinese entities listed themselves on Western stock exchanges, drew in hundreds of billions of dollars from trusting investors, and then systematically stripped the assets and vanished when these same companies were delisted by the NASDAQ and deregistered by the SEC.

When I attempted to seek justice through the American legal system, I discovered a terrifying reality. I successfully fought a grueling legal battle in the prestigious Delaware Court of Chancery (Case No. 9542-VCMR). The court ruled in my favor, granting me what should have been a $3 million judgment against the perpetrators. Yet, because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) protects these corporate thieves and refuses to recognize Western legal jurisdiction, that $3 million ruling was treated as little more than flowery wallpaper. In the end, out of a multi-million-dollar judgment, I received back a measly, insulting $7,000.

My tragic outcome is not unique; thousands of everyday Americans are currently holding completely worthless court judgments against Chinese oligarchs who flaunt their stolen wealth with absolute impunity.

Seeing the complete failure of our judicial system to hold these oligarchs accountable is what pushed me to a breaking point. On the last night of Hanukkah in 2019, sitting in the glow of the holiday lights by the Kottel, I decided I could no longer remain silent while our political establishment enabled this economic warfare. I took the extraordinary step of drafting and submitting a formal motion to intervene in Hunter Biden’s high-profile Arkansas child support case 32DR-19-187.

My 30-page court filing exposed the common questions of law and fact regarding how billions of dollars systematically vanished from Chinese reverse-merger companies like Advanced Battery Technologies, Sino Clean Energy Orient Paper and hundreds of others and directly challenged whether there was a nexus to the $1.5 billion that Hunter Biden’s firm received from high-level Chinese state officials and wealthy elites. The “elite capture” practiced by the CCP has effectively silenced institutional oversight. Our political class was compromised, and ordinary investors paid the price.

The impact of that Hanukkah filing was immediate and explosive. When I woke up on January 1, 2020, my story had broken across the global media landscape. It was being covered by Fox Business, National Review, The Epoch Times, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and Yahoo Finance. Most notably, it was featured prominently in The Daily Mail—the paper of England—where my photograph was published directly beneath the images of former President Biden and his son Hunter. It is a bitter irony that while ordinary citizens (and senior citizens) like myself were financially ruined by Chinese fraud, Hunter Biden received millions of dollars from foreign entities, failed to pay his taxes, and was ultimately granted a full presidential pardon by his father.

I later shared the intricate details of this financial warfare in an episode on Blaze TV’s Economic War Room, exposing how China utilizes these economic strategies to weaken our financial foundation.

Today, the truth of my battle is finally breaking through the censorship, heavily aided by modern technology. If anyone opens a search engine today and inputs the queries “Biden plus China Hustle” or “Biden + Joel Caplan,” the artificial intelligence models now actively synthesize and tell my story to the world. The digital footprint of this corruption can no longer be erased. I document all of the evidence, court filings, and media reports on my website, www.thechinahustle.us, which serves as a permanent archive of this global deception.

David, this is why I am urgently appealing to the readers of Israel Behind the News. Many of your readers have grandchildren currently sitting in Jewish and non-Jewish law schools or accounting programs in Israel, the United States, and across the Anglo-Diaspora. They are being trained in a Western tradition that assumes fundamental transparency, regulatory integrity, and the enforceability of contracts.

They must be warned. They must be taught that when dealing with mainland Chinese business structures and state-backed corporations, standard contracts are completely meaningless. There is no independent judiciary there, no authentic accounting oversight, and no ethical reciprocity. If a dispute arises, the system will pivot to protect the domestic Chinese National fraudster every single time.

We must equip the next generation of Jewish lawyers, accountants, and investment managers with absolute skepticism regarding Chinese financial markets. If my ruin can serve as a shield for the savings and inheritances of other Jewish families, then my struggle will not have been in vain.

I urge your readers to visit my site, study the anatomy of this scam, see the Documentary “The China Hustle” on Amazon Prime and pass this warning down to their children and grandchildren.

I am available for any inquiries. My legal fund is on the website. With utmost respect for your vital work,

Joel Caplan

Defrauded Investor & Whistleblower in the Biden cover-up, Victim of the China Hustle www.thechinahustle.us