A veteran Israeli journalist is resigning from the Haaretz newspaper, after he was accused by seven women of sexual misconduct.
Dan Margalit, 80, began his career as a journalist with Haaretz in the 1960s, rising to prominence in 1977 when he revealed that then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s wife, Leah Rabin, had illegally maintained a foreign bank account in the US.
In recent weeks, five different women have publicized accusations against Margalit, alleging sexual assault and sexual harassment by the veteran journalist in the 1980s and 1990s.
On Thursday, two more women came forward with similar accusations.
Later on Thursday, Margalit announced that he had resigned from Haaretz, and that he would not be involved in any other “journalistic activities” for the time being.
“Amid the storm that has arisen,” Margalit wrote on his Twitter account Thursday, “I have decided to suspend myself from journalistic activities. Already on Tuesday morning I notified the editor of Haaretz, Aluf Benn, that I was resigning from the paper.”
Most of the seven women who accused Margalit of sexual misconduct were young journalists at the time of the alleged incidents, and say they told friends about the encounters at the time.
At Haaretz’s request, two of Margalit’s accusers underwent polygraph tests, both of which suggested the accusers were speaking honestly.