JERUSALEM: Israel on Thursday threatened to take The New York Times to court over a piece it published denouncing allegedly widespread sexual abuse against Palestinian detainees.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar have ordered the initiation of a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, according to a joint statement issued by their offices.
The offices described the article by Nicholas Kristof, a prominent opinion columnist, as “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.”
Kristof’s investigation is based on testimonies gathered in the Israeli-occupied West Bank from 14 men and women who said they had been sexually assaulted by Israeli settlers or members of the security forces.
The report described what it called “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.”
The New York Times responded that any legal claim over the deeply reported opinion column lacked merit.
A spokesperson for the newspaper, Danielle Rhoades Ha, said in a statement that the threat was similar to one made last year and was part of a “well-worn political playbook” aimed at undermining independent reporting and stifling journalism that does not fit a particular narrative.
Kristof’s piece noted that there was no evidence suggesting Israeli leaders ordered rapes.
The Israeli foreign ministry alleged that Kristof had based his reporting on unverified sources tied to what it called Hamas-linked networks.
It also accused the newspaper of deliberately timing the publication to undermine an independent Israeli report on Hamas sexual violence during its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which was released on the same day.
Israeli forces have detained thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank since Hamas’s 2023 attack.
The United States has strong protections for journalistic expression, where libel cases require proof that information was knowingly false and published with malicious intent.
President Donald Trump and his allies have nonetheless filed several lawsuits against media outlets, some of which were settled rather than risk further legal or political consequences.