Israel's Netanyahu suing New York Times over column on Palestinian rape

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar instructed their staff on Thursday to prepare a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times and one of its columnists, Nicholas Kristof, following a column in which Kristof accused Israeli authorities of systematic sexual abuse and violence against Palestinians in Israeli prisons.

Kristof — a New York Times columnist since 2001 — has won two Pulitzer Prizes: one for covering the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, and another for his reporting on the genocide in Darfur.

In a post published Thursday on X in English, Netanyahu described Kristof’s accusations as “one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press.” “They [The New York Times and Kristof] 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,” the post said. “Under my leadership, Israel will not remain silent. We will fight these lies in the court of public opinion and in the court of law. Truth will prevail,” Netanyahu wrote.

Kristof’s opinion piece was published Tuesday under the headline “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians.” In the column, Kristof wrote that “in wrenching interviews, Palestinians have recounted to me a pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, women and even children — by soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency and, above all, prison guards.”

Kristof cited a report published in April by the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which accuses Israel of employing systematic sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners. He also quoted detailed allegations by Palestinians describing rape involving dogs, metal rods and other forms of sexual abuse. The article further alleged that prison guards inserted objects into detainees’ rectums.

Last March, Israel’s military prosecution dropped charges against five reservists accused in 2024 of violently abusing and raping a Palestinian detainee from Gaza at the Sde Teiman detention facility. The military said prosecutors lacked key evidence after the alleged victim was returned to Gaza. At the time, Kan published footage purportedly showing the detainee being assaulted.

Shortly after the column’s publication, Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Ministry claimed that Ramy Abdu had ties to Hamas. According to the ministry, Abdu served on the board of iPalestine, a group designated by Israel as affiliated with Hamas, a claim that the group has repeatedly denied. The ministry also accused Abdu of publishing social media posts that allegedly justified the Hamas Oct. 7 attack. The Diaspora Affairs Ministry is headed by Amichai Chikli, one of the most hard-line ministers in Netanyahu’s government.

Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for The New York Times, rejected the Israeli accusations, saying, “There is no truth to this at all.” 

“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,” Stadtlander said in a statement on X.

The newspaper did not respond to Al-Monitor’s request for comment regarding Netanyahu’s decision to pursue legal action.

Adam Lucente in New York contributed to this article.