{"id":796480,"date":"2026-05-14T19:16:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T19:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/796480\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T19:16:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T19:16:13","slug":"israel-says-it-will-sue-new-york-times-over-article-on-sexual-abuse-of-palestinian-prisoners-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/796480\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel says it will sue New York Times over article on sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners | Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel<\/a>\u2019s prime minister, Benjamin Nethanyahu<\/a>, and foreign minister, Gideon Sa\u2019ar, have threatened to sue the New York Times for defamation over the publication of an essay by Nicholas Kristof detailing allegations that Palestinian women, men and children have been raped and sexually abused in Israeli military detention.<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing the publication by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times of one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press, which also received the backing of the newspaper, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar have instructed the initiation of a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times,\u201d Israel\u2019s ministry of foreign affairs wrote in a social media post<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey defamed the soldiers of Israel and perpetuated a blood libel \u200babout rape, trying to create a false symmetry between the genocidal terrorists of Hamas and \u200bIsrael\u2019s valiant soldiers,\u201d Netanyahu added in a statement<\/a> to Reuters. \u201cWe will fight these lies in the court of public opinion and in the court of law. Truth will prevail.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Times has not responded to Israel\u2019s legal threat but the paper has repeatedly defended Kristof\u2019s reporting over the last few days.<\/p>\n

Kristof\u2019s interviews with 14 men and women \u201cwere corroborated with other witnesses, whenever possible, and with people the victims confided in \u2013 that includes family members and lawyers\u201d, said Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the Times, in a statement<\/a> posted on Wednesday. \u201cDetails were extensively fact-checked, with accounts further cross-referenced with news reporting, independent research from human-rights groups, surveys and in one case, with U.N. testimony. Independent experts were consulted on the assertions in the piece throughout reporting and fact-checking.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is not clear in which jurisdiction Israeli officials would bring the lawsuit or whether defamation claims could even be filed by a government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no chance a US court would countenance such a case,\u201d said David A Logan, a professor emeritus at the Roger Williams School of Law and media law expert.<\/p>\n

There is a legal consensus, he added, that the first amendment bars lawsuits or prosecutions of critics of government brought by the government.<\/p>\n

Mark Stephens, an expert in international media law, called the idea of Israel suing the Times \u201cludicrous\u201d. \u201cLibel is about hurt feelings, being shunned and avoided and isolated as a human (sentient) being,\u201d he said in an email. \u201cThis is as much about politics as it is about law \u2013 and courts are alert to the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kristof\u2019s piece<\/a>, which was published in the Times\u2019 opinion section on Monday, details allegations of sexual abuse, including rape, at the hands of Israeli prison guards, soldiers, settlers and interrogators, and sometimes involving dogs.<\/p>\n

In the piece, Kristoff wrote that he found the victims he interviewed by asking around among lawyers, human rights groups, aid workers and \u201cordinary Palestinians\u201d. He noted that while he was able to corroborate many of their stories, in some cases \u201cit was not possible, perhaps because shame left people reluctant to acknowledge abuse even to loved ones\u201d. He notes that \u201cthere is no evidence that Israeli leaders order rapes\u201d and extensively quotes Israeli officials\u2019 rejection of the story\u2019s allegations.<\/p>\n

The Guardian has also published accounts<\/a> of sexual abuse of Palestinians in Israeli custody, and recently reported<\/a> that Israeli soldiers and settlers were using sexual assault as a tool to force Palestinians out of their homes in the occupied West Bank. Allegations of sexual assault of detainees in Israeli detention have also been documented by Israeli and international human rights groups such as B\u2019Tselem<\/a> and Save the Children<\/a>, among others.<\/p>\n

But Kristof\u2019s story prompted furious backlash against the Times from Israel supporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave they \u2013 the NY Times \u2013 no sense of decency and journalistic responsibility?\u201d wrote Deborah Lipstadt, a former envoy to combat antisemitism under the Biden administration.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Israel\u2019s foreign ministry accused<\/a> the Times of purposely having published Kristof\u2019s piece the night before the publication of an official Israeli report alleging systematic sexual violence by Hamas on and following 7 October 2023. The statement prompted the Times to issue a public response rejecting the allegations. The paper also publicly rejected<\/a> allegations of internal discussions at the Times about \u201csource credibility and lack of evidence\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no truth to this at all,\u201d Stadtlander said then.<\/p>\n

It is not the first time Israeli officials have threatened to sue the Times. Last year, Netanyahu said in an interview with Fox News that the Times \u201cshould be sued\u201d over its coverage of starvation in Gaza.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m actually looking at whether a country can sue the New York Times<\/a>,\u201d Netanyahu said at the time. \u201cAnd I\u2019m looking into it right now, because I think it\u2019s such a \u2013 it\u2019s such clear defamation. I mean, you put a picture of a child that\u2019s supposed to then represent all these supposedly starving children, yet they put in this picture of a child who has cerebral palsy.\u201d Israel did not follow through on that threat.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Times said at the time that \u201cattempts to threaten independent media providing vital information and accountability to the public are unfortunately an increasingly common playbook, but journalists continue to report from Gaza for the Times, bravely, sensitively, and at personal risk, so that readers can see firsthand the consequences of the war.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s prime minister, Benjamin Nethanyahu, and foreign minister, Gideon Sa\u2019ar, have threatened to sue the New York Times…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":775759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[99,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-796480","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-israel","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116574538220286554","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}