Israel’s Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the New York Times on Sunday after the paper’s editorial board warned his administration would undermine democracy and cater to extremists.
The opinion piece published Saturday feared that Netanyahu was “catering to the demands of the most extreme elements of Israeli politics” with a coalition of “radical” and “far-right” cabinet picks.
Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime minister of Israel, the world’s sole Jewish state. He was elected for the third time in November.
Netanyahu’s incoming government would be “a significant threat to the future of Israel — its direction, its security and even the idea of a Jewish homeland,” the board predicted.
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Netanyahu responded to the editorial on Twitter the following day.
He criticized the paper’s fraught history of covering Israel and the Holocaust, before accusing the board itself of trying to delegitimize democracy.
“After burying the Holocaust for years on its back pages and demonizing Israel for decades on its front pages, the New York Times now shamefully calls for undermining Israel’s elected incoming government,” he wrote.
Netanyahu said he would “ignore” the paper’s “ill-founded advice” in follow-up tweets.
“While the NYT continues to delegitimize the one true democracy in the Middle East and America’s best ally in the region, I will continue to ignore its ill-founded advice and instead focus on building a stronger and more prosperous country, strengthening ties with America, expanding peace with our neighbors, and securing the future of the one and only Jewish state,” he wrote.
The Times did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
In 2019, the paper apologized after publishing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Netanyahu as a guide dog for a blind President Trump.
New York Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote at the time, “The Times has a longstanding Jewish problem, dating back to World War II, when it mostly buried news about the Holocaust, and continuing into the present day in the form of intensely adversarial coverage of Israel.”
The paper found itself in hot water again this weekend after many people noticed the Sunday crossword puzzle resembled a swastika.
