Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is considering suing The New York Times and one of its journalists over a column that alleged Israeli soldiers raped Palestinian prisoners.
Netanyahu wrote in a May 14 post on X that he had instructed his lawyers to look into taking action against The New York Times and the piece’s author, Nicholas Kristof, an opinion columnist at the newspaper.
“They defamed the soldiers of Israel and perpetuated a blood libel about rape, trying to create a false symmetry between the genocidal terrorists of Hamas and Israel’s valiant soldiers,” Netanyahu said.
“Under my leadership, Israel will not be silent. We will fight these lies in the court of public opinion and in the court of law. Truth will prevail.”
He did not say where or when the lawsuit would be filed.
Newspaper Defends Reporting
The New York Times defended the column and Kristof, saying in a May 13 statement posted from the newspaper’s PR account on X that Kristof’s reporting draws on on-the-record accounts and cites several analyses documenting the practice of sexual violence conducted by parts of Israeli security forces and settlers.“The accounts of the 14 men and women he interviewed were corroborated with other witnesses, whenever possible, and with people the victims confided in—that includes family members and lawyers,” said Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the newspaper.
Stadtlander continued that details were fact-checked and accounts cross-referenced with news reporting as well as “independent research from human-rights groups, surveys and in once case, with U.N. testimony.”
“Independent experts were consulted on the assertions in the piece throughout reporting and fact-checking.”
Israel Condemns Newspaper
In a May 14 post on X, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) criticized the piece as “one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press.”The MFA also recently accused the newspaper of deliberately publishing the piece the day before Israel’s Civil Commission published its findings on Hamas’s use of sexual violence during the deadly terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and afterwards.
In a May 12 post on X, the MFA said that months ago, the Civil Commission had approached The New York Times with the report, saying that the newspaper “said it was not interested.”
“This comprehensive and well-documented report was published this morning by CNN and other international outlets,” the MFA said.
“Aware of the report and its release date, the night before its release the NYT ran a shameful attack on Israel, belittling Hamas’ sexual crimes.”
Responding to the statement, Stadtlander said via the newspaper’s PR account that the accusations were false and that The New York Times “never passed on the Civil Commission report and wasn’t told about its completion or the timing of its release.”
Stadtlander said that once the report was published, the newspaper covered the findings, and said that the commission’s work “also had no bearing on Nicholas Kristof’s opinion column or its publication timing.”