Israel says it will sue New York Times over article on sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Nethanyahu, and foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, 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.

“Following 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’ar have instructed the initiation of a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times,” Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs wrote in a social media post on Thursday.

“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 added in a statement to Reuters. “We will fight these lies in the court of public opinion and in the court of law. Truth will prevail.”

The Times has not responded to Israel’s legal threat but the paper has repeatedly defended Kristof’s reporting over the last few days.

Kristof’s interviews with 14 men and women “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 Times, in a statement posted on Wednesday. “Details 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.”

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

“There is no chance a US court would countenance such a case,” said David A Logan, a professor emeritus at the Roger Williams School of Law and media law expert.

There is a legal consensus, he added, that the first amendment bars lawsuits or prosecutions of critics of government brought by the government.

Mark Stephens, an expert in international media law, called the idea of Israel suing the Times “ludicrous”. “Libel is about hurt feelings, being shunned and avoided and isolated as a human (sentient) being,” he said in an email. “This is as much about politics as it is about law – and courts are alert to the difference.”

Kristof’s piece, which was published in the Times’ 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.

In the piece, Kristoff wrote that he found the victims he interviewed by asking around among lawyers, human rights groups, aid workers and “ordinary Palestinians”. He noted that while he was able to corroborate many of their stories, in some cases “it was not possible, perhaps because shame left people reluctant to acknowledge abuse even to loved ones”. He notes that “there is no evidence that Israeli leaders order rapes” and extensively quotes Israeli officials’ rejection of the story’s allegations.

The Guardian has also published accounts of sexual abuse of Palestinians in Israeli custody, and recently reported 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’Tselem and Save the Children, among others.

But Kristof’s story prompted furious backlash against the Times from Israel supporters.

“Have they – the NY Times – no sense of decency and journalistic responsibility?” wrote Deborah Lipstadt, a former envoy to combat antisemitism under the Biden administration.

Earlier this week, Israel’s foreign ministry accused the Times of purposely having published Kristof’s 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 allegations of internal discussions at the Times about “source credibility and lack of evidence”.

“There is no truth to this at all,” Stadtlander said then.

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 “should be sued” over its coverage of starvation in Gaza.

“I’m actually looking at whether a country can sue the New York Times,” Netanyahu said at the time. “And I’m looking into it right now, because I think it’s such a – it’s such clear defamation. I mean, you put a picture of a child that’s supposed to then represent all these supposedly starving children, yet they put in this picture of a child who has cerebral palsy.” Israel did not follow through on that threat.

A spokesperson for the Times said at the time that “attempts 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.”