The Israeli government announced that it would file a lawsuit against the New York Times following the publication this week of a column by Nicholas Kristof accusing Israel of the mass rape of Arab prisoners, including by allegedly training dogs to rape prisoners.
The Foreign Ministry stated: "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."
Prime Minister Netanyahu stated: "Today I instructed my legal advisers to consider the harshest legal action against The New York Times and Nicholas Kristof.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."
"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," Netanyahu said.
On Monday, Kristof published an opinion piece in the Times claiming that there is widespread sexual abuse of Arab prisoners in Israeli prisons. Kristof's piece has been criticized for a lack of evidence, relying on anonymous testimony, and for using non-credible sources, such as an NGO that is known to spread fake conspiracy theories about Israeli crimes, including the false claim that Israel has trained dogs to rape prisoners, a claim that is made in Kristof's piece.
Israel's Foreign Ministry previously accused Kristof and the newspaper of deliberately timing the piece to counter the publication of a 300-page report detailing the mass rapes committed by Hamas terrorists during the October 7 massacre and against hostages in the years following the massacre.
"The New York Times, in service of a Hamas-driven narrative, deliberately timed its piece to undermine today’s horrific Civil Commission report documenting Hamas’ preplanned, systematic sexual atrocities on Oct. 7 and against hostages thereafter - attempting to create false equivalence and belittle documented crimes," the ministry stated.
It stated that the New York Times piece was "built on unverified claims and Hamas-linked sources like EMHRM. No evidence. No verified complaints. A politically driven smear campaign by a biased paper designed to support efforts to blacklist Israel. The ministry demanded that "this disgusting shameful piece must be removed immediately."